Yan Lianke - The Four Books

The Author asked, “What did you lose?”

Several people looked up and said, “Our red stars.”

The Author was silent. Everyone cursed the thieves, then proceeded on their way. They traveled by day and rested at night, leaning on crutches, boiling wild vegetables when they were hungry, and sleeping in a sheltered area in the middle of a field when they were tired. Now when they stopped for the night, no one sang, and instead they immediately fell asleep as soon as they lay down. Traveling by day and resting at night — this is not only how things came to pass, but also how they fell apart, like flowers blooming and wilting. After five days, the group wove their way through five Re-Ed districts, four villages, and seven inspection stations, but the town still seemed to be several li ahead of them. That road in the distance was like a rope tied to the entrance to the town. The Author and the rest of the group all knew that as long as they could make it past this town, they would have made it out of the jurisdiction of the Re-Ed headquarters. Once they arrived at the county seat, they would be able to board a bus to the district seat, where they could then catch a train home, where they could finally be reunited with their families.

As they saw the town, everyone slowed down. The houses resembled a pile of weeds, a gray mass above the ground. There was a deathly silence, and everyone in the town seemed to have vanished like a cloud of smoke. It was noon when they arrived, and the sun was so bright they could barely keep their eyes open. They came to a halt, and it was suggested that they send someone ahead to investigate. Two young people ended up going — they snuck forward like thieves, but then came running back, their faces as pale as death. Everyone asked what was wrong, and they replied that the teacher and the associate professor — who had stolen everyone’s pentagonal stars five days earlier — were lying dead on the side of the road leading to town. Moreover, they said that the two corpses were surrounded by the small blossoms and pentagonal stars that the Child had issued. They also reported that at the end of that road there were two thatched houses, with a rifle leaning against the door frame and a wooden sign that read: “National Inspection Station.”

“We should divide up, and after it gets dark we can sneak past the town on either side,” the Author suggested.

They divided into two groups, and when the moon came out, they tried to pass the town on either side. They continued along a small road, including places where there wasn’t even a road. At times they were hunched over, and at times they were literally crawling forward. As they got farther away, they straightened up and walked faster. No one said a word. Some of them threw away their bedding and pots and pans so as not to be left behind. Eventually the sky began to grow dark, as clouds covered the moon, and it eventually became so dark that they couldn’t even see the road under their own feet. When the sun came up the next day, the two groups reunited in a ditch beyond the road. They had thought that all they needed to do was make it past that national inspection station. They discovered, however, that the place where everyone reunited was actually the same location where they had separated the night before. The clothes that some people had tossed to the side of the road were still lying there, and the leather belts and strips of cloth they had hung from a pagoda tree were also still there.

After a full day of frustration, the following night the Author had everyone divide into two groups again and set off toward the town from different directions. When the sun came up, the two groups again reunited in a sheltered ravine beyond the main road, but it turned out that this was still the same place they had bid each other farewell the previous two days. The clothes they had left on the side of the road were still lying there, and the leather belts and strips of cloth they had hung from the pagoda tree were still hanging there. Everyone was bewildered by why they couldn’t manage to make it past these two fields on either side of the town. For the next day, they sent someone to scout out a path through the field and plant sticks to serve as signs. That night they would follow these signs to their destination on the other side of the town. They sent several young people ahead, who snuck through the undergrowth and saw that on either side of the town there lay the banks of the Yellow River. By this point it was spring, and the Yellow River was full of water from all the melted snow, and the low-lying areas on either side of the river were flooded for hundreds of li .

The town was surrounded by graves and mounds of earth that had sprouted up recently, like mushrooms after a storm. There were thousands upon thousands of them extending forever in every direction, connecting the earth to the sky. The graves belonged to criminals who had either starved to death in their Re-Ed district, or else had managed to escape only to die in the town. The graves were so fresh that no grass had yet begun to grow on them, and they were surrounded by unburied corpses lying out in the open. Some people had not even been wrapped in grass mats when they died, and instead their bodies were simply left to be eaten by wolves and vultures. Piles upon piles of bones could be seen lying there rotting.

They were all emitting a nauseating smell.

One of the criminals who had been sent to scout ahead wandered among those graves for a long time until, terrified, he wiped the sweat from his brow and followed the trail of sticks back to the group. Another criminal who had set out in the opposite direction also returned. Wiping his sweat in terror, he squatted down in the group. “It is full of graves,” the first criminal said, “and bodies that were never buried lie rotting in the fields.” The second added, “There are as many graves as grains of sand. It turns out that we’ve spent the past two nights wandering through an endless graveyard.”

Everyone just looked at each other.

They all turned to the Author.

“We must proceed past these graves,” he said. “We must pass through these graves and piles of dead bodies in order to get home.” They ate some wild vegetables and also found a mouse burrow, from which they dug up a field mouse and ate it. That night, they planned to go around the town and through the endless field of graves. The clouds receded and the moon came out. When the moon was shining brightest across the land, everyone gathered together and walked out in two different directions. Hand in hand, they headed into the field of graves, following the path they had staked out during the day. The Author and the person who had planted the sticks led the way, and the others followed. The moonlight and the glow from the water illuminated the ground under everyone’s feet, allowing them to see the graves and the corpses, together with the sticks lining the path. When they reached the two fields on either side of the town, they assumed they had made it through. Everyone let go of each other’s hands, and someone shouted and rushed forward. He fell down, got back up, and continued forward, shouting, “Motherfucker, motherfucker!” over and over again. Up in front, the Author turned around and shouted, “Lower your voices. lower your voices. you must keep holding each other’s hands.” But no one listened to him, and instead they continued rushing forward. After they made it across the field, however, the people suddenly stopped. They saw that in front of them there was another field full of graves and corpses, piled high in the moonlight. As far as the eye could see, graves sprouted up like mushrooms. Everyone gathered together, and then again began following the Author. He stood on the largest grave and looked around in all directions, and in the distance he could see the town and the headquarters. After confirming the direction, he told everyone to hold hands again and walk through the swamp, past the graves, and toward that road in front of the town.