Yu Hua - Chronicle of a Blood Merchant

When Xu Sanguan heard them say they would take him to an inn, he fell silent and simply let them convey him to the nearest available place. They set him down in a dormitory room with four beds and piled all four of the quilts on top of him. Despite being smothered under four quilts, Xu Sanguan’s body continued to tremble. They stood over him and asked, “Feeling any warmer?”

Xu Sanguan shook his head. His head, protruding from underneath the quilts, seemed very far away.

When they saw his head shake, they said, “If you still feel cold even under four quilts, it must be the hot-and-colds. Once you get a case of the hot-and-colds, you feel cold whether you have four quilts or ten, because the cold is on the inside and not on the outside. You’ll feel better if you have something to eat.”

They looked on as the quilts themselves began to quiver. After a little while Xu Sanguan extended one hand from underneath the quilts, clasping a ten- fen note. “I’d like to eat some noodles.”

They went to buy him a bowl of noodles and then propped him up in bed to eat. Having swallowed the noodles, Xu Sanguan felt his body regain a little of its warmth. And after a moment he was able to speak more clearly, so he told them he didn’t really need to use all four of the quilts. “I’m begging you. Take two of them away. I can hardly breathe.”

That night Xu Sanguan shared the room with a man who arrived after dark. Well into his sixties, he was wearing a tattered cotton-padded jacket, and his dark, ruddy face was cracked and seamed by the winter wind. He walked into the room cradling two little piglets in his hands. Xu Sanguan watched as he laid the piglets out on top of the bed. The piglets began to cry. The sound was sharp and thin at the same time. The piglets lay draped across the bed, their feet bound together with string.

The man said to them, “Sleep, sleep now, it’s time to go to sleep.” As he spoke, he covered their little bodies with a quilt, then borrowed under the covers at the other end of the bed.

After he had lain down, he noticed Xu Sanguan looking at him. “It gets awfully cold in the middle of the night. I’d rather let them sleep with me than risk that they freeze to death during the night.”

He saw Xu Sanguan nod in reply and let out a friendly chuckle. He told Xu Sanguan that he was from the country outside of North Marsh, that he had two daughters who were already married and three sons who were still single. He had two grandsons too. He had come to Hundred-Mile to sell the piglets. “Prices are higher here in Hundred-Mile, so I can make a little more money.” Finally he added, “I’m sixty-four years old this year.”

“I would never have guessed it,” Xu Sanguan said. “Sixty-four and still going strong.”

With this, the other man chuckled again. “My eyes are still good, I can still hear pretty well, and there’s nothing in particular the matter with me. It’s just that I’m not as strong as I once was. I still work in the fields every day, and I can do just as much work as any of my three sons, but I’m not as strong as I once was. When I get tired, my back starts to hurt.”

When he noticed that Xu Sanguan was lying underneath two quilts, he asked, “Are you sick or something? You’ve got two quilts, but you’re still shivering like a leaf.”

Xu Sanguan said, “I’m not sick, I’m just cold, that’s all.”

“There’s another quilt over there. Want me to put it on top of you?”

Xu Sanguan shook his head, “No, I’m already feeling much better. I was really cold after I sold blood this afternoon, but I’m much better now.”

“You sold blood today?” he continued. “I sold blood once too. When my youngest was ten, he had an operation and needed to have a blood transfusion, so I sold my own blood to the hospital, and they gave it to my youngest. After I sold the blood, I felt really weak.”

Xu Sanguan nodded. “If you sell just once or twice, you feel weak. If you keep on selling blood, all the warmth in your body escapes, and you just can’t get warm.”

As he spoke, he poked his hand out from under the quilts and pointed his finger toward the other man.

“I’ve sold blood three times in three months, two bowls each time. That’s four hundred milliliters, as they would say in the hospital. I already sold all my strength. All I had left was my warmth. But the other day I sold blood in Lin’s Pier, and today I sold two bowls here in Hundred-Mile, so now even the little warmth that I had left is gone.”

When he finished speaking, he breathed heavily from the exertion.

The old man from the countryside around North Marsh said, “If you keep on selling blood like this, won’t you end up selling them your life along with it?”

Xu Sanguan said, “In a few more days I’m going to sell some more in Pine Grove.”

The old man said, “First you sold your strength. Now you’ve sold your warmth. What’s left but your life?”

“If that’s what it takes, I’m willing.” Xu Sanguan explained, “My son has hepatitis. He’s in a hospital in Shanghai. I have to find enough money to pay for his treatment. If I stopped selling blood for even a few months, there would be no way to pay his hospital bill.”

He paused to catch his breath.

“I’m almost fifty now, and I’ve had a taste of pretty much everything life has to offer. Even if I were to go, it wouldn’t really be much of a loss. But my son’s only twenty-one, and he hasn’t really lived yet. He hasn’t gotten himself a woman, hasn’t known what it is to be a man. If he were to go now, it would be too unfair.”

The old man nodded repeatedly as he listened to Xu Sanguan’s speech. “You’re right, you know. When you’ve lived to be our age, you’ve pretty much learned all there is to know about what it is to be a man.” The two pigs began to squeal. The old man said, “I bumped them just now when I moved my feet.”

Xu Sanguan was still shivering under the covers.

The old man continued, “You look like a city person. I know you city people like to keep clean, but we don’t care as much about all that down in the country. What I’m trying to say is. .” He paused for a moment. “What I’m trying to say is that if you don’t mind too much, I’ll put the pigs in bed with you. They’ll help keep you warm.”

“Why should I mind? That’s awfully kind of you. Why don’t you put one of them over here? One should be enough.”

The old man stood, hoisted one of the piglets, and set it down by Xu Sanguan’s feet. The piglet had already fallen asleep and seemed not to notice its passage from one bed to the other. But when Xu Sanguan pressed his icy feet against its side, the piglet suddenly squealed and curled itself into a quivering ball under the quilts.

The old man asked apologetically, “Think you’ll still be able to sleep?”

“My feet are too cold. Woke the little creature up.”

The old man said, “Pigs are just animals after all. It’d be better if you had someone to share the bed with you.”

“I can feel his warmth. I’m feeling a lot warmer already.”

FOUR DAYS LATER Xu Sanguan arrived in Pine Grove. By this time his face was gaunt and yellow with fatigue, his limbs were weak, his head felt dizzy, his vision was blurred, and his ears had begun to ring. His bones ached, and when he swung his legs forward to walk, they seemed to flutter underneath him.

When the blood chief at the Pine Grove Hospital saw Xu Sanguan standing in front of him, he waved him away before Xu Sanguan had even finished a sentence. “Go take a piss. Your face is so yellow, it looks gray, you can hardly get out a word before you start to pant, and you expect me to buy some of your blood? I’d say you better go get yourself a blood transfusion instead.”