Yan Lianke - The Four Books

They said, “They’ve already taken away our books. Every night we just sit around and play cards.”

The mule driver said, “The Child is a good person. He didn’t burn our books.”

They said, “We hear. we hear that several days ago a professor from Re-Ed tried to run away, but was caught — they removed his pants and placed them on his head, and made him go out into the field with his pants like that and count the stars.”

From the time that the sun was directly overhead, shining down on the plowed fields, to when it set in the west, everyone became as exhausted as withered grass. They stopped to rest, sitting in the middle of the field and emptying their shoes of dirt and bugs that had crawled in and gotten ground into paste. Others had blisters on their shoulders from pulling the rope, and used thorns to pop them — letting the blood and pus flow out, as their cries of pain echoed brightly over the horizon.

The youngster who went in search of books on behalf of the Child was a technician and he had worked in the laboratory of some university. After the Technician’s advisor was designated as a target of re-education, he asked the Technician to attend on his behalf as he was too old to go to Re-Ed. Accordingly, the Technician tearfully went to speak to the higher-up, who asked, “Are you really willing to go in his place?” The Technician nodded and said, “A student must be loyal to his teacher just as a son must be loyal to his father, and this is the only way I can repay my teacher.” Therefore, he went to the ninety-ninth himself, and was assigned to our brigade. During the rest period, the Technician frequently retreated behind some thornbushes on the edge of the field to take a piss. He had to walk quite a distance to get there. This time, when he arrived, he froze in his tracks.

He abruptly hid inside another thornbush.

Just as suddenly, he popped back out, panting, running around the field like a deer. He returned and dragged me back to that thornbush about eight hundred meters away. I asked, “What’s wrong?” He explained, “There’s an interesting show to watch.” His face was as red as the setting sun. In order to run faster, he took off his shoes and carried them in his hands. When he stumbled and dropped one shoe, he then threw the other one into the field as well and continued hurtling forward, like the shoe he had just thrown away.

Without realizing what exactly was happening, the people working the fields ran after him as though they were chasing a thief. The Technician suddenly stopped, as though he had suddenly thought of something, then he turned to me and asked,

“If I inform on someone, wouldn’t my reward be that I can return home for a month?”

I nodded and said, “Did someone run away?”

He laughed and said, “Even more serious than that.” Then he looked to everyone else and announced, “Aiya. This is something that I noticed and reported. No one should compete with me.”

He gestured for everyone to quiet down, then carefully proceeded forward. By this point it was already late summer or early fall, and the locust and elm trees, together with the wild thornbushes growing around them, rose from the riverbank like a cloud of smoke. The bushes were originally black, but because the tree leaves had started to turn color and fall to the ground, the dense shrubs appeared lighter than before. There was a thick smell of vegetation, combined with a scent of decaying autumn leaves. Each thornbush stood as tall as one or two men, and together they resembled a crowd of people attending a meeting. Everyone followed the Technician. When he moved quickly they also moved quickly, and when he moved slowly they did as well. When they were finally standing near that clump of thornbushes, the Technician stopped and lifted his foot, indicating that he wanted everyone to take off their shoes as he had done. They removed their shoes and, holding them in their hands, followed him barefoot.

Then they approached closer.

Catlike, they circled around the thornbush that was as big as several rooms. But when they entered it, they didn’t see anything at all — there was only a patch of flattened grass in the middle, including a spot that looked like a bed where someone had slept and left an impression. The Technician stood in front of that bed of straw and, with a look of keen disappointment, kicked at it and cursed, “Damn!”

All of the professors, instructors, and other scholars cursed with him.

They gazed into the distance, and saw that two plows and two groups of people from the second and third brigades, who were sowing wheat in the setting sun, were trudging back and forth like a couple herds of mules or oxen.

5. Old Course , pp. 29–32 (excerpt)

The Technician remained uneasy until nightfall, his frustration at not having seized the adulterers in the thornbush etched clearly on his face, like a brick suspended in midair. For the longest time, he kept his head bowed as he pulled the rope. The plow shook, as though it were trying to leap out of the field.

The next day, when he was still plowing the same field, he would periodically run over to the thornbush to pee. He would always sneak up to the bush and carefully reach in, hoping that he would once again encounter the scene he had witnessed the previous day.

Each time, however, he returned empty-handed.

A middle-aged professor asked him, “What in the world was it that you saw?”

He didn’t respond.

The professor became agitated. “Do you think I don’t know? Wasn’t it a couple fornicating?”

The Technician opened his eyes wide and said, “I saw it first.”

“Where did you see it? Did you catch them? Do you have any evidence?” The professor laughed coldly and said, “If you discovered a couple fornicating in the bushes, others can surely find other couples in other bushes.” As he was saying this, he strode deliberately toward a clump of bushes, but after walking a few steps he turned and called out, “I want to make a discovery and report it, so that I’ll be able to return home for New Year’s!”

Everyone suddenly dispersed, heading in search of bushes and leaving their plows and wheat seeds behind. No one worked anymore, and instead they all spread out toward bushes, ditches, and ravines — as though they were looking for somewhere to pee or take a shit, while in reality they were trying to catch adulterers. They were hoping to find a Re-Ed couple rolling around on the ground naked or embracing each other. At this point, the Technician appeared as expected, suddenly standing in front of that couple, and exclaimed in surprise, “Heavens — we came here for labor reform, yet the two of you have the balls to engage in this sort of lascivious behavior!” He then ordered the couple to put their clothes back on and go with him. He scared them so badly they both turned pale, whereupon he led them to the Child.

In this way, he achieved merit in the eyes of the Child.

A few days before the Spring Festival, he was permitted to return home to spend the Lunar New Year with his wife.

Everyone searched the bushes and ravines, or the fields around the other brigades, looking for adulterers. They were gone for a long time, until the sun was high in the sky. Eventually they returned, and when they saw one another no one asked what the others had discovered. Instead, they laughed with embarrassment and disappointment.

One professor, for the sake of saying something, asked, “Did you take a shit?”

Another laughed and replied, “I had a little diarrhea.”

Yet another remarked, “I drank too much water today, and keep having to take a leak.”

Then they began silently pulling the plow again without getting distracted and looking around in all directions.