Yan Lianke - The Four Books

The Musician’s cot was positioned next to the wall behind the door, such that the sunlight shining in through the window covered the front of her bunk like mud — shining directly onto those dozen or so pages of my Criminal Records . Staring at those pages I realized why the Musician had suddenly become so heavy that I couldn’t lift her, why she always regarded me with that cold gaze, and why she had tugged at my hand with her fingers. I glanced over the red grid of the composition paper the Child had issued me, looking at my neat and meticulous handwriting. That writing, which had originally been in dark blue, had already turned dark green. Every character on that sheet of paper was like my fingerprints on an official document. As I stared at the sheets, my thoughts were in disarray. This meant that the Musician must have known all along that I was an informant for the ninety-ninth! And if she knew, then the Scholar must have known as well. Upon realizing that the Musician and the Scholar knew full well what I was doing, and yet still continued sending each other their secret signals, I suddenly felt as though I had been stripped naked by them. And at the thought that I would need to face the Scholar later that evening, I felt a sharp thorn in my heart. My God!. Remembering how I had sliced my fingers, my wrists, my arms, and my legs to irrigate the wheat with my own blood, it occurred to me that I should slice two pieces of flesh from my body — from my thighs — boil them, and present them to the Musician’s grave, inviting everyone to eat them while I watched.

I knew that if I did this, it would bring me a tremendous feeling of relief.

At that moment, it also occurred to me that I should kneel down before those dozen or so manuscript pages on the Musician’s bed, and I wished that in doing so everything could thereby be resolved. But the idea of slicing two slabs of my flesh and boiling them pricked my soul like a thorn, and the desire to kneel down could in no way substitute for it. I knew that I should kneel before the Musician’s possessions and offer some sort of explanation. In the end I didn’t, nor did I say anything. Instead, I was possessed with that idea of slicing my own flesh and I simply stared in shock, experiencing that agony of cutting myself, which would be immediately followed by an ineffable feeling of relief coursing through my body. I knew I was under no obligation to act on this notion that had suddenly popped into my head. Although the idea was enough to make my legs tremble in agony, the sense of relief and ecstasy I would feel afterward pierced my heart like a ray of sunshine in the middle of a cold winter. It gave me an intense sense of desire and longing, leaving me with a bloodlust that led me in a bitter direction. In the end, I took those dozen or so pages from my Criminal Records and left the Musician’s room. Because my head was pounding and my legs were shaking, I had no choice but to lean against the door frame as I headed out. However, the strange feeling of comfort that I had after the arrival of this bloodlust also gave me a spring in my step as though I had just filled my belly with food.

As the light from the setting sun shone across the compound, mixing with the dirt and sand on the ground, it was difficult to distinguish the sunlight from the dirt and sand. There was a young person — perhaps it was that associate professor from the institute of physical culture who savagely beat me that night on the riverbank, and then was the first to piss on my head and slap my face with his penis — exiting the first row of buildings, but he soon headed out of the courtyard with another instructor. The two of them walked so quickly, it seemed as though they had just eaten a full meal. After they left, the courtyard once again reverted to its former stillness, to the point that you could hear the sunlight coursing through the sand and dust. I walked through that stillness back to my room. When I remembered that feeling of bloodlust that initially had come over me at the thought of confronting the Musician and the Scholar, it felt like a dagger impaled in my skull that I was unable to extract, and which kept twisting and turning, not only giving me a splitting headache but also making my legs tremble uncontrollably, making me walk as though I were floating on air. My calves trembled and convulsed, to the point that I couldn’t continue forward without leaning against the walls. However, that thought also gave me a tremendous feeling of lightness and urgency, and left my palms completely covered in sweat.

When I entered the room, I sat down on the empty cot that had belonged to the Theologian and immediately noticed the odor of the soybeans hidden underneath. This time I didn’t have the faintest desire to eat them. My mind kept returning to that urgent need to slice off two chunks of my own flesh. The room was very quiet, and apart from the faint scent of soybeans, there was virtually no difference between this room and the one that was now being used as a morgue. Facing that cot where I had slept with the Scholar, I gazed at those two piles of unfolded bedding and the Scholar’s shoes under the bed, together with the remnants of the desk chair that had been taken apart and burned. The black porcelain basin that had been used for boiling leather shoes and belts was hanging from the wall, and below it there was some kindling, together with the old kitchen knife that the Jurist had found in the canteen. My legs trembled again at the thought that I should slice off two pieces of my own flesh and feed them to the Musician and the Scholar, and a feeling of warmth coursed through my body. Sitting there motionless, I reflexively stuck my hands into my pants and stroked my thighs, which began to warm up even more. As this warmth was transferred to my hands, it began to float in front of my eyes like rosy sunlight.

Like that time half a year earlier while growing wheat on that sand dune, I could see the distant sun was shining, though where I was standing it was raining. This sunny rain poured over the dried-up sand dunes, and under that gentle drizzle, I sliced open my fingers and wrists, opening my arteries and veins and letting the blood pour out. At the time, the distant sun was bright yellow, but the rain overhead was pearly white, like a cloud of jade dust falling from the sky. When the sunlight shone down on that grain of wheat, I could see ripples from a drop of liquid inside the transparent grain. But as I walked along my plots of land distributing my blood, my arms fed several dozen rows, like a pair of fountains spurting bloodred liquid in all directions and leaving behind countless droplets of jadelike blood. Some of these drops of blood mixed with the raindrops, forming a sheet of red water. Others hung in the air between the raindrops, searching for space through which to fall. That entire field was filled with red grains, which sparkled in the sunlight like flames. As I stood under that red rain, I saw the bloody raindrops dancing in the sky, one transparent strand after another twisting and falling to the ground. When I looked out through that rainy curtain, I saw that the sun was still shining brightly, like a huge fire burning in the distance. But when I lowered my head, I saw that the wheat leaves were covered with a combination of beads of blood and drops of water, and the fields were flowing with a mixture of blood and rain that alternated between light and dark red, as though it were a dyeing mill. I saw the uppermost grain of wheat sucking the blood rain like an infant sucking milk, and the wheat leaves sprinkling drops of blood-water in all directions. After the thick smell of blood dissipated and mixed with the scent of wheat, I became surrounded by a fresh new aroma.

I resolved to slice my own flesh.

I also decided to allow my blood to fully bleed out, to the point that I could no longer remain upright. I collapsed limply to the ground and closed my eyes for a while. When I opened them again, light from the setting sun was shining in through the lower part of the window, like red rain flowing into the room. Sitting on the bricks under the windowsill, the basin used for boiling leather shoes and leather belts was gurgling, as my flesh stewed inside. Because in the summer salt has a tendency to dissolve inside the urns where it is stored, I had gone to the canteen and brought back several empty salt urns. After smashing them, I placed the bottom of each salt urn inside the basin. When the basin began to boil, it produced a pungent smell of salty flesh. Sitting limply next to the fire, I kept adding wood, until I was completely covered in sweat, which poured down my face and neck. Using the light of the sun and the fire, I looked around the room again, but now I no longer felt that it resembled a grave. By this point I felt I had almost succeeded in extracting that thorn from my heart and placing it into the boiling pot. The room no longer seemed as cold as a cave, though my exhausted body continued to be drenched in sweat. This was all because I was about to extract that thorn from my heart, leaving my body feeling free and relaxed.