Yan Lianke - The Four Books

Thank you, comrades. We are leaving these red blossoms and pentagonal stars for you.

Upon his seeing this letter left behind by these two higher-ups who had once managed others, the greenish tinge quickly faded from the Scholar’s face. He stood there quietly, and the Theologian asked him what the letter said. The Scholar handed the letter to the Theologian, who read it and then passed it to the others. In this way, the letter passed from hand to hand to the people waiting outside the room, until eventually someone exclaimed, “Let them down!” They proceeded to lower the bodies of these two people who, before dying, had consumed the flesh of one of their comrades.

As we were about to go bury the bodies, I turned to the Scholar and said, “We should ask the Child to come and take a look. Otherwise, he will think that the reason they disappeared is because they ran away.” After a brief hesitation, the Scholar placed these two corpses back into their own beds, and then went to the Child’s room to tell him what happened. By this point the sun had already gone down, and the last rays of sunlight were staining the ground like blood. As the Scholar stepped over these bloodlike stains, he resembled a hungry moth gliding across the stained surface. He heard his stomach rumbling with hunger, as though the water gurgling in his belly was about to wash away his innards. Not only was he hungry, but the hunger was making his intestines throb in agony. He put his hand on his belly and pressed down firmly, and in this way was able to force all of his body’s remaining energy down into his legs and feet.

A sparrow landed in the Child’s doorway looking for food, and when the Scholar saw it he felt an urge to devour it himself. After swallowing his saliva, he picked up a rock and hurled it at the sparrow. It turned out that he didn’t even have the strength to throw a walnut-sized stone, as it landed far short of its target. The sparrow looked at the Scholar, then made a mocking sound and flew away. The Scholar slowly walked to where the sparrow had been digging. He noticed that, mixed in with the dirt and sand, there were two rice-sized clumps of bird poop, and without hesitating he immediately popped them into his mouth. It’s unclear whether he chewed them or not, but after making a peculiar expression, he stretched his neck and swallowed them.

“Can you really eat that?” The Theologian, the Musician, and the Physician came up behind him.

“Yes,” the Scholar answered. “Sparrows survive the winter by eating grass seeds, which are not dirty.”

They went up to the Child’s building. First they crawled to his window to listen, but didn’t hear any movement, so they knocked on his door. They heard a faint sound from inside, and the Scholar pushed the door open. Upon entering, the Scholar, the Theologian, and the Musician all stared in shock, just as they had when they opened the door of the two researchers who hanged themselves. This time they were not staring at a cold, dead corpse, but rather at a scene of fiery heat. Unlike everyone else, the Child was not frail with hunger, his eyes bulging, but rather his face was radiant with light. The entire room was full of light. The last rays of the setting sun shone into his room, and everyone saw that he was lying on his bed. His bed and the adjacent walls were all covered with the certificates and blossoms that the higher-ups had issued him to replace the ones that had been burned. Row upon row of certificates were posted on the wall above his bed, while those large and small blossoms — including silk ones, paper ones, crimson ones, and pink ones — were hanging from a thread. The thread was strung from the window to the bedside, and the red blossoms completely covered the head, side, and foot of the bed. In fact, the Child’s entire bed was covered with these bright red blossoms, and combined with his red sheets and red comforter, the Child was enveloped in redness, as though everything were on fire.

The Child resembled an infant being reborn from the flames. He lay in that fiery red light, with a sheet draped over his body. There was a chair next to the head of his bed, on which there was half a bowl of fried soybeans and half a bowl of boiled water. The scent of the fried soybeans — which seemed especially strong, since everyone was already famished — swirled around the room. The Child was half lying and half sitting in his bed reading a children’s book, and he would periodically reach out for some soybeans from the bowl, and then would take a sip of water. The Scholar, the Theologian, and the others came just as the Child was reading his book, eating his soybeans, and drinking his water. They first stared at the bright red room, then shifted their gaze to that bowl of fried beans.

“Two more people starved to death,” the Scholar said. “They were so hungry they resorted to cannibalism before they died.”

After putting his children’s book down, the Child sat up and said, “I went to see the higher-up yesterday, and he said that our ninety-ninth had the lowest number of deaths from starvation of any district in the region, and therefore proposed to award us several jin of fried soybeans. You are welcome to have some as well.” As he said this, he shifted his gaze to that half bowl of fried beans.

“There has been a case of secret cannibalism,” the Scholar continued.

“The higher-up said”—the Child gazed at the Theologian’s face—“that the most important thing is that we mustn’t let people run away.”

“If they don’t distribute more grain, everyone is going to starve to death.”

“I know. if people are hungry enough they’ll try to run away. But where would they go? The higher-up says that there is famine throughout the land, and this is one of the few places that is sparsely populated, so we should figure out a way to make it through the winter.”

The Scholar stared at the Child and said, “But at the very least we can’t permit people to eat each other, right?”

The Child opened the picture book he was holding to a page near the end, and said, “Early on, there was a devastating famine, and people died throughout the land. There was also an enormous flood in which nearly everyone drowned, and only Noah’s family survived.”

The Scholar wanted to say something else, but in the end he just stood there, then woodenly walked out. As he was leaving, he glanced back, signaling for the Theologian, the Musician, and myself to follow him.

So, we all left together.

But, as we were filing through the doorway, the Theologian pushed the Musician ahead and he turned back. He closed the door and stood next to the stool in front of the Child’s bed, peering at the half bowl of fried soybeans. He took a deep whiff, then looked down at the children’s book the Child was holding. He saw that the Child was still reading that illustrated Collection of Bible Stories . He laughed drily, then reached into his breast pocket and felt around, eventually pulling out a thick envelope. From the envelope he took out a sheet of colored paper that had been folded into a square. When he unfolded it, a portrait of Mother Mary illuminated the redness of the Child’s room. “This is my last copy.” The Theologian laughed again. “It really is my last copy. If you give me a handful of beans, not only will I stomp on this portrait of Mother Mary, but I’ll also dig out her eyes and tear out her mouth and nose, and eat them. In this way, I’ll have Mary turn into shit in my belly. In addition, I’ll even do as you originally ordered, and piss on her face.” As he said this, the Theologian gazed at the Child’s face, and with his right hand he gouged out one of Mary’s eyes and threw the scrap of paper to the ground, leaving in its place a gaping hole. But as the Theologian was about to tear out Mary’s other eye, the Child’s red face suddenly turned black. He grabbed a fistful of beans from the bowl and hurled them at the Theologian. Before the Theologian had a chance to gouge out Mary’s other eye, the beans struck him and fell to the floor.