Yan Lianke - The Four Books

A week later, my eight plots of land were covered in a thick layer of black and green.

I didn’t erect my shack on the southeast side of the hill, because the last thing I wanted was for the residents of the ninety-ninth, when they were out working their fields, to notice that I was living and growing wheat on this dune. Therefore, I erected the shack on the northwestern side, facing the endless wasteland.

With this, the loneliest period of my life began. I worked those eight plots of land, hoeing and irrigating them. I would sit at the top of the first plot looking at the invisible growth and transformation of the wheat sprouts. During my breaks, I would walk around the sand dune. In the morning I would stand on the hill and out at the rising sun, and in the evening I would stand on the hillside and gaze at the setting sun. Sometimes I would lie down on the front of the hill and sun myself until my head was covered in sweat, whereupon I would go around to the back of the hill and lie down, enjoying the cool breeze as I stared up intently at the changing shapes of the clouds in the sky and listened to the sound of the moon and stars approaching. I yearned to write. Lying next to those eight plots of land, I would get so anxious to write that my hands would become covered in sweat. In order to quell that urge, I had no choice but to grasp a handful of cool sand and dirt, so that my feverish and trembling hands could calm down, like a pair of trapped rabbits.

I didn’t know what I wanted to write, but I knew that if I didn’t write something I would never be able to get to sleep. When I left the ninety-ninth, the Child gave me half a bottle of ink and a notebook-full of red graph paper and directed me to write in this notebook every day. Every seven days when I went back, I was to give him what I had written, so that he could then pass it on to the higher-ups. I didn’t want to use that precious ink to simply record when I ate, slept, and worked in the fields. In fact, I didn’t want to write anything else for the Child and the higher-ups — not half a page, or even a few lines. Instead, I wanted to use this ink and paper to write what I really wanted to write. During this solitary period, I wanted to write a true book. I didn’t know what that book would be, but I was determined to write it nevertheless.

After I had spent half a month farming this dune several li from the ninety-ninth, the Child suddenly showed up one day. At the time I was hoeing those eight plots of land, pulling up tiny weeds as soon as they appeared. The Child staggered over. He was the only person in the ninety-ninth who knew why I was really here. Everyone else believed that the reason the Child had permitted me to leave was that he didn’t want the others to continue peeing and shitting in my bed. They were convinced that I had agreed to give the Child ears of wheat that were even bigger than ears of corn merely in order to secure his permission to get away from the others, and as for the question of whether or not I could actually do as I had promised, that would be more difficult than making steamed buns out of sand. No one but the Child believed in me. The first time he staggered over to those eight plots of land, walking to the side of the sand dune where I was working, I quickly went to greet him. He merely looked around, squatted down at the front of the field, and peered at the wheat sprouts that were just beginning to peek out of the soil. He gently stroked the sprout leaves, then stood up and stared at me skeptically.

“We agreed that if you don’t succeed in producing wheat with ears as big as ears of corn, you should shoot me dead and bury me right here.” He turned away and then, his voice trembling with excitement, added, “You should just bury me in this wheat field, such that my grave is facing east.”

I looked toward the east. The sun was high in the eastern sky, and was full of light. “Don’t worry, I can do it,” I said. Then I examined the Child’s face, and noticed that, as he was bathed in the white light, his skin seemed to have a peculiar hardness, as though a hard shell had formed over his soft flesh. Above his upper lip there was a layer of downy white hair, but there were several very prominent wrinkles on his forehead, like ripples in boiling water. Although he was still young, his aged appearance seemed to be from working in the fields all day. But, in the end, he turned to me with those limpid eyes. He gazed first at me, and then at that wheat field that looked as though it had been planted with melon beans, with a full five inches between each wheat sprout. After remaining silent for a long time, he asked,

“Aren’t these sprouts planted too sparsely?”

“If we want large ears, we can’t plant the sprouts too close together.”

“Can you really get the wheat ears to grow larger than ears of corn?”

“At harvest time you’ll see. I assure you that after the wheat has ripened, you will be able to take it to the higher-ups to see the provincial governor, and the provincial governor can escort you to the capital to present your wheat. You will be able to tour Beijing, see the sights, stay in Zhongnanhai, and have your picture taken with the nation’s highest higher-ups.”

The Child looked at me under the light of the midday sun, and gradually his face started to shimmer with a translucent golden glow, as though he were a gilded Buddhist statue that had been brought out of the temple and into the sunlight. In order to reinforce what I had said, I bit my lip and added in a low voice, “If I don’t succeed, you can make me wear a dunce cap and a placard for years, and have everyone piss and shit on my head every day. But if I do succeed, you should issue me five more large stars and secretly arrange for me to leave — to leave this den of criminals and return home.” The Child looked as though he simply couldn’t believe his ears. He knelt down to peer at the wheat sprouts, and when he stood up again he still appeared skeptical. But at least my remarks had given him hope. The Child had to approach the others with the tray and the gun, and only then would they agree, saying “As long as others say it is possible to produce ten thousand jin per mu , I believe we can plant an experimental field to achieve it.” I, however, was the only one who had approached the Child on my own accord and offered to raise ears of wheat that were even larger than ears of corn, and furthermore had sworn repeatedly that I could do so. I didn’t permit the Child to question me, though I could see he harbored some doubts. The Child continued to gaze at me half skeptically. As he was about to leave, he remarked, “If you don’t succeed, you must shoot me in the chest, so that I’ll fall forward when I die. And when I die, you must bury me here, such that the head of my grave faces east. Also, given that you are an author, you should write a book about my life after I die.”

3. Old Course, pp. 392–400

After that, the Child rarely came to the sand dune. A round trip from the ninety-ninth was about thirty li . The beginning of spring arrived quickly, and would pass just as quickly. At first I felt that the wheat sprouts had just a hint of green and the salt flats had just a trace of odor, but only two days later and without any warning, I woke up one night and found my shack was full of spring fragrance. The air was very humid, and everything smelled green. Because my nose was suddenly assaulted by this odor, I began sneezing violently. I lay in bed for a while, then got up and, naked, peed onto the sandy ground next to the shack. I immediately noticed that the sand dune, which had previously been completely bare, was now covered in green, interspersed with many yellow, white, blue, and purple flowers. When I looked farther out, I saw that the salt flats were no longer gray and white, but rather were now covered in green as well. Although the wasteland had no trees, many of the stumps had new growth.