Yan Lianke - The Four Books

At the base of the wall there was that old bloodstained cleaver, lying there like a helpless old man. The half bag of soybeans that had been hidden under the bed was now on top, and the mouth of the bag was open, as though inviting anyone to help themselves to a handful. I had already eaten some more and drunk some water from the pot in which I was cooking the flesh, and therefore was no longer as famished as before. Upon seeing the sunlight mix with the firelight in the room, I felt a desire for that calm and warmth, which slowly rose from my heart and filled the entire room, and even the entire courtyard of the ninety-ninth. After lifting the lid to look inside the pot, I saw the two chunks of my flesh floating in the water, like an enemy crying out for mercy. Overwhelmed by a sense of lightness and exhaustion, I put the lid back on, wiped the sweat from my brow, then lay down. I felt that I could finally face the world.

It was as if I had made amends for those pages from my Criminal Records that had ended up in the Musician’s possession.

As I attempted to stand up, there was a piercing pain in my calves. Grinding my teeth, I leaned against the wall, then extinguished the fire and proceeded to the cot.

I sat down and took a deep breath. The Scholar and the others would be coming back soon, since the sun had already begun to dip below the horizon. I waited for the Scholar to return, as though waiting for someone to come join me for a performance. I kept staring into the courtyard. I first saw one person leaning on a cane, then the Scholar himself returned, as I had expected. He had his hand on his stomach as he slowly made his way across the courtyard. Just like everyone else who passed through that courtyard, the Scholar turned to look at the Child’s door. Then he continued forward while still staring at the ground. At one point he picked up something and stuffed it into his mouth, chewed it a few times, then spit it out again. The empty bag he carried for collecting seeds and roots was dangling from his wrist, banging against his thigh each time he took a step.

When I saw the Scholar, I stood up and slowly walked over to the pot and used a bowl to ladle out a piece of cooked flesh and some broth, then placed the bowl on the table. I even placed my chopsticks over the mouth of the bowl. At this point, I noticed that, in the process of being cooked, that fist-sized piece of flesh had shrunk to half its original size and turned dark red, as though a red tile had been placed in the bowl. There were a few drops of oil floating on the surface of the broth, and as I stared at that piece of cooked flesh and those drops of oil, I felt shivers down my spine. I was grateful for the fact that today the Jurist had not returned early. I suppose the Scholar must have come back quickly because he was anxious about something, just as it was my own anxiety that led me to leave the Musician’s corpse and return to her dormitory. As the Scholar was about to reach the door, his pace quickened. As I had expected, when he entered the room he suddenly stood straight, took a deep breath, then approached me and that bowl of cooked flesh. When his gaze came to rest on that half bag of fried soybeans, he paused and a look of excitement flickered across his face, before he again became very calm.

“Did the Musician give you this?” he asked in a cold and flat voice.

I looked at the steaming bowl on the table, and said, “Eat quickly, while it’s hot.”

He allowed his gaze to stray a moment from that bowl, as he sat down on the Theologian’s cot. He was silent, then suddenly slapped his own face. He said, “I told her I would marry her, and therefore I will, unless she is no longer willing to marry me.” Upon saying this, the Scholar stuffed a handful of soybeans into his mouth. He chewed them, then grabbed the bowl of broth and, without looking at it, proceeded to take a gulp. He immediately stood up and stared at me, and after he swallowed the soybeans he exclaimed,

“My God, this is meat broth! With salt!”

I laughed drily, as shivers ran down my spine. He didn’t say anything else, and didn’t even look at me. Instead he squatted next to his bed with his chopsticks in hand and, like a criminal who had just escaped from prison, he grabbed another handful of soybeans and took another gulp of broth. But before he finished eating the soybeans, he put the remainder back into the bag and instead focused on eating that piece of meat with dark red streaks. He bit into it and chewed, concentrating so hard that the veins in his temples pulsed. My palms were covered in sweat and my fists were tightly clenched. The sound of the Scholar eating and drinking was like boiling water coursing through my body. When he chewed the meat, I felt as though the pain from that thorn in my heart was being gradually relieved, as every bone in my body slowly returned to normal.

I stared intently at the Scholar, and noticed that although his hair was disheveled, it was still jet black and formed a fresh swirl like a treeless plain. He ate the meat and drank the broth, then placed another handful of soybeans into the bowl to soak. Focusing intently on his food, he no longer even looked like himself. I watched his mouth, and saw that he had picked the strips of my flesh out from between his teeth. The sight of his chewing lips made the corners of my eyes hurt. Beginning from those corners, this pain spread to my legs, leaving them feeling as cold as ice, and once again I felt an agonizing pain in my back.

I waited for the Scholar to put down his chopsticks and look up at me. A single word from him would have relieved the unbearable tension in my face, ears, and my whole body. But he kept squatting there, as though there wasn’t anyone standing in front of him.

I couldn’t resist asking him,

“Is it okay?”

Is wasn’t until I said this that I realized I had been biting my lower lip the entire time, and it was in fact this pain that finally made me speak.

When the Scholar heard my question, he reacted as though I had suddenly reminded him of something. He abruptly got up and sat on the side of the bed. Then he looked up and, making an effort to regain his former cultured appearance, he asked with an embarrassed laugh,

“Are you mocking me?”

I asked again, “Is it okay?”

He nodded, then said, “What kind of meat is this? It has a bit of a stench.”

“It’s pork. Perhaps I didn’t add enough salt.”

He laughed again, then said, “These days, as long as you can eat meat, it doesn’t really matter how salted it is.”

Returning to his food, he chewed more slowly, and the sound of him drinking the broth was softer than before. The circulation of the sunlight through the room was as though someone were lifting the sheet from a bed. The fire under the window had completely burned out, though there remained a layer of embers in that thick pile of ashes. Just as the Scholar was about to finish eating, the spasms running through my body began to subside, as did the shivers down my spine. I felt as though I had just taken a bath. At this point, I knew that the thorn embedded in my heart had finally been dislodged. I understood that I had not done this for the sake of the Scholar or the Musician, but rather I had been using them to extract this thorn from my heart. I began to feel grateful to them, as though they had helped save me. I placed my hand on my pants, and once again saw that bloodred rain. The sight was so beautiful it made me tremble, to the point that I felt as though I was about to collapse. I had to close my eyes, and when I opened them I saw that the Scholar had already finished eating. He wiped his mouth with his hand, and I asked,

“Do you want any more?”

He shook his head, and asked in return, “You aren’t having any?”