Yan Lianke - Dream of Ding Village

There was no point in breaking the lock or forcing open the door. Lingling’s husband was coming through the school gate. Ding Xiaoming, my uncle’s cousin, was walking into the schoolyard.

Unlike his wife, Ding Xiaoming didn’t have the fever. He didn’t get the fever because he hadn’t ever sold his blood. His own father had sold blood, but the fever had killed him years ago, putting an early end to his suffering. Ding Xiaoming was still young, strong and healthy, and now he was bounding through the schoolyard, heading straight for the storeroom.

Someone shouted: ‘Look! Isn’t that Lingling’s husband?’

Of course, everyone turned their heads to look.

It was Lingling’s husband, and he was bounding towards them like a panther. Taking huge leaps like a tiger on the hunt. Grandpa saw him, too, and the colour drained from his face. Grandpa, of course, knew Ding Xiaoming well: the man was his nephew. Xiaoming’s father had been Grandpa’s brother, younger by just two years. After the blood-selling started, the two families had become estranged by wealth: my father had built a two-storey house with a white-tiled exterior and my uncle had built a house with a tiled roof. Xiaoming’s family, on the other hand, was still living in a mud-brick house with a thatched roof. After Xiaoming’s father suddenly passed away, things got even worse. One day, his mother had pointed to my uncle’s house and said: ‘That’s not a tile-roofed house. It’s the village blood bank!’ Then, pointing to our house: ‘Those walls aren’t white tiles. They’re made with our bones!’ Once these words reached my father and uncle’s ears, the families kept their distance, meeting only at the gravesides of their common ancestors.

After the fever hit and I was poisoned, word of my death spread quickly throughout the village. When Xiaoming’s mother heard the news, she said: ‘It’s retribution, that’s what it is, divine retribution.’ Of course, this got back to my mother, who rushed over to their house and caused such a scene that our families broke off all contact.

After that, our two families were as strangers. Not like relatives at all. And now, because of my uncle’s illicit affair with Lingling, Ding Xiaoming was rushing into the school like a tiger. Before he even reached the crowd, the villagers had cleared a path for him, scurrying to get out of his way. It was hard to see his face in the moonlight, but he was obviously enraged. As he marched towards the storeroom, the villagers edged away from him. In the dim light coming through the kitchen door, their faces seemed drained of colour. Even the dark spots that were the mark of their disease seemed to have faded into nothingness, their faces bloodless and pale.

Before the door, Grandpa stood frozen. Everyone stood frozen. Even the insect sounds on the plain seemed to have died out; everyone was silent.

The crowd stared as Ding Xiaoming advanced towards the storeroom. What no one had expected, what no one had anticipated, was that Xiaoming would have the key to the padlock. But he was the one who had had it all along. Taking up a stance before the door, Xiaoming produced a small silver key and tried to insert it into the lock. But the padlock wouldn’t open, because he’d got the key in upside down.

Then he turned the key the other way around. The padlock sprang open.

The door opening was like the cruel onslaught of a storm on a summer’s day. There was a burst of noise — a clash and clang, as the door burst open — but it only lasted for a second. The moment the door was open, Xiaoming grabbed his wife by the hand and pulled her out. It was as if she’d been waiting on the other side of the door for him to reach in and grab her.

Xiaoming was a strong man. He was not what you would call tall, but he was stocky, a few stone overweight. He seized his wife by the collar and began dragging her away like a tiger carrying off its prey. Lingling’s face was frightened and pale, her hair dishevelled. Her feet barely touched the ground, as if she were being lifted up and dragged along by her hair. Xiaoming was silent, his face livid. He brushed past Grandpa without a word, and retraced his steps through the crowd. As the villagers edged away to give him room, they caught a glimpse of Lingling — her face a ghastly shade of white, flashing by like lightning. Grandpa said nothing when Xiaoming passed him; he was still in shock. But as he turned to watch Xiaoming stalking through the crowd, dragging his wife behind him, Grandpa took a few steps forward, as if to follow him.

‘Xiaoming!’ Grandpa shouted.

Lingling’s husband stopped and turned around.

‘Lingling is very sick,’ Grandpa pleaded. ‘Can’t you show her some mercy?’

Xiaoming did not reply straight away, but nor did he stay silent for long. He squinted into the light, trying to see Grandpa’s face, then spat on the ground. Taking a few steps forward, he spat again, this time at Grandpa’s feet.

‘Mind your own business,’ he said coldly. ‘And control that son of yours!’

With that, Xiaoming turned and left, dragging his wife behind him.

It wasn’t right. All the residents milling about the schoolyard were in agreement. It wasn’t right that things had turned out this way. Such a promising drama really deserved a better ending. Disappointed, they gazed after Xiaoming as he dragged his wife across the schoolyard and out through the front gate. Long after he had disappeared, they remained motionless, as if unsure about what had just happened.

Maybe they were confused. Or maybe they simply didn’t want to leave the schoolyard and the site of the drama. So they just stood blankly and stared. Stupidly. People with nothing better to do.

Then they remembered my uncle. It took two to commit adultery, and although the woman had gone, the man was still there. The villagers turned around to look, but discovered that while they had been watching Xiaoming drag away his wife, my uncle had slipped out unnoticed. They saw him sitting on the threshold of the storeroom, with his head hung low and his hands on his knees, like a guilty child who couldn’t bear to go into the house and face his parents, a naughty boy who was starting to get hungry, but was too afraid to go in for dinner. To their disappointment, he was fully dressed. He was even wearing his padded coat, the buttons done up neatly to the neck.

The villagers looked eagerly from Grandpa to Uncle, from father to son, wondering what would happen next.

Grandpa made the first move. Taking a step forward, he lifted his leg and aimed a good swift kick at his son. ‘Go to your room! Haven’t you humiliated yourself enough for one day?’

Uncle stood up and began walking back to Grandpa’s rooms. As he passed the crowd of villagers, they saw that he was smiling, a little smirk he couldn’t manage to hide. ‘All right, you’ve had your fun, your little joke,’ he told them. ‘But whatever you do, please don’t tell my wife. I know I’m going to die soon anyway, but I’m afraid of what she’d do if she found out.’

Uncle was almost halfway across the schoolyard when he turned back and shouted: ‘Seriously, everyone, I’m begging you. . don’t let my wife find out about this!’

The next day, Ding Yuejin and Jia Genzhu paid a visit to Grandpa. They had plotted their visit well in advance. .

The day began the same as any other. The sun came up over the plain, banishing the last dregs of winter and flooding the schoolyard with warmth. The first signs of spring had appeared. The cottonwoods and paulownia were tinged with green: dark, furry buds and bell-shaped blossoms that couldn’t have been there the day before. They seemed to have appeared overnight, as if Uncle and Lingling’s night of stolen passion had ushered in the spring.