Mo Yan - Sandalwood Death

My beloved! Knowing the path of righteousness, you have taken poison for the sake of our land. You have set a glorious example for me~~I have chosen to take the same route, for I too cannot live ignobly~~my death has long been planned. But my work is not yet finished, and I cannot die before the end of the story is told. Wait for me at Wangxiang tai~~once I have done what I set out to do, I shall join you and the emperors of old~~

The parade ground was overlaid with a solemn stillness; the moon soundlessly spilled its beams on the ground. Owls and bats cast gliding shadows from above; the eyes of feral dogs flashed on the edges. You pilferers of putrid flesh, are you waiting to feast on the bodies of those who lie where they died? No one has come to collect my subjects’ bodies, which lie in the moonlight waiting for the sun’s rays. Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler are engaged in revelry, drinking good wine and enjoying fine food brought to them from sizzling woks in the yamen kitchen. Are you not worried that I will put Sun Bing out of his misery? You must know that if I want to go on living, Sun Bing will not die. What you do not know is that I have no desire to go on living. I want to follow my wife’s lead and sacrifice myself for the Great Qing Nation after ending Sun Bing’s life. I want it to be his dead body that is the focus of your rail line ceremony, to let your train pass by a Chinese corpse as it rumbles down the track.

I staggered up to the Ascension Platform. Sun Bing’s Ascension Platform; Zhao Jia’s Ascension Platform; Qian Ding’s Ascension Platform. A lantern hung high above the platform, identified as belonging to the Main Hall of the county yamen. My gaze took in the listless yayi standing like marionettes at the platform’s edge, red-and-black batons gripped tightly in their hands. An earthenware pot in which herbal medicine stewed sat atop a small wood-burning stove directly beneath the lantern, sending steam into the air and spraying ginseng fragrance in all directions. Zhao Jia was sitting beside the stove, his narrow, dark face lit up by the fire’s light, his arms wrapped around his knees, on which he was resting his chin. He was staring intently at the flames licking out of the stove’s belly, like a youngster lost in dreams. Xiaojia was leaning against a post behind his father, legs spread apart to accommodate a container of sheep’s intestines, which he was stuffing into steaming cakes before cramming them into his mouth as if he were alone up there. Sun Meiniang was leaning against another post across from Xiaojia, her head lolled to the side, her face hidden behind a mass of uncombed hair. Looking more dead than alive, she had lost every vestige of her once-graceful bearing. I was able to distinguish the hazy outline of Sun Bing’s face behind the gauzy curtain. His low moans told me that he was barely hanging on. The stench of his body was drawing hordes of owls to the site, where they soared in the sky directly above, the silence broken by their frequent chilling screeches. Sun Bing, you should be dead by now, meow meow , that Maoqiang opera of yours is a fount of myriad feelings, and now the sound that has such complex implications—that meow —has actually made a wild dash out of my mouth, meow meow . Sun Bing, it all happened because I was so muddleheaded, blessed or cursed with a soft heart, always cautious and indecisive, a mind too cluttered to see through their cunning scheme. Keeping you alive cost the lives of too many of Northeast Gaomi Township’s residents and cut Maoqiang opera off from its future. Meow meow …

I woke the club-wielding yayi out of their stupor and told them to go home to sleep, that I would take care of things up on the platform. I’d just taken a heavy load from their shoulders, and they scooted down the plank, dragging their clubs behind them, as if they feared I’d change my mind; they vanished into the moonlight.

My arrival sparked no reaction from the two men up there, almost as if I were nothing but an empty shadow, or a minor accomplice. Well, they’d have been right, because that’s exactly what I was, one of their accomplices. I was trying to decide which of them to stab first when Zhao Jia picked up the medicine pot by its handle and poured its contents into a black bowl.

“Son,” he said with authority, “are you done eating? If not, finish later. I want you to help me pour this down his throat.”

Xiaojia, ever the obedient son, got to his feet. His monkey-like clownish airs had largely receded after what had happened earlier that day. He smiled at me, then parted the gauzy curtain of the enclosure, exposing Sun Bing’s body, which had shriveled considerably. His face had gotten smaller, his eyes bigger; I could count his ribs, and was reminded of a dead frog I’d seen down in the countryside, nailed to a tree by mischievous children.

Sun Bing moved his head when Xiaojia opened the curtain and began to mumble:

“Hmm… hmm… let me die… just let me die…”

It was a stirring snippet of speech, and it gave my plan even more cause and meaning, for now Sun Bing no longer wanted to live, having finally comprehended the sinful nature of trying to stay alive. Plunging my knife into his chest would grant him his wish.

Xiaojia willfully thrust an ox-horn funnel designed for medicating domestic animals into Sun Bing’s mouth, then gripped his head to hold it steady and let Zhao Jia slowly pour in the ginseng. A gurgling sound emerged from that mouth, emanating from deep down in his throat, as the mixture slid into his stomach.

“What do you say, Old Zhao,” I said in a mocking tone from where I stood behind him. “Think he’ll live till tomorrow morning?”

Suddenly on his guard, he turned and said, a bright, piercing light in his eyes:

“I guarantee it.”

“Granny Zhao is the author of a true wonder in the world of humans!”

“I could not have reached the pinnacle of my profession without the support of my betters,” Zhao Jia said humbly. “I cannot lay claim to achievements made possible by others.”

“Zhao Jia,” I said with a chill to my voice, “don’t be too quick to claim success. I do not think he will survive the night—”

“I will stake my life on it. If Your Eminence will grant me another half jin of ginseng, I can keep him alive another three days!”

I laughed out loud before reaching down and extracting a razor-tipped dagger from inside my boot. Knife in hand, I leaped forward to plunge it into Sun Bing’s chest. But the chest it penetrated was not Sun Bing’s. Seeing what was about to happen, Xiaojia had thrown himself between Sun and me. He slumped to the ground at Sun Bing’s feet when I pulled my knife out. Blood spurting from the wound seared my hand. Zhao Jia released a plaintive cry:

“My son…” He was disconsolate.

He flung the bowl in his hand at my head; I too let out a plaintive cry when the hot, fragrant liquid splashed on my face. The sound still hung in the air as Zhao Jia crouched down, like a panther about to pounce, and flung himself headfirst at me. His skull struck me flush in the abdomen, sending me flying, arms flailing, to the platform floor, face-up. He wasted no time in straddling me and digging his seemingly soft, delicate hands into my throat, like the talons of a bird of prey, at the same time gnawing on my forehead. Everything went dark as I struggled, but my arms were like dead branches.

Zhao Jia’s fingers loosened their grip at the very moment I saw my wife’s face above Wangxiang tai, and he stopped gnawing on my forehead. I rolled him off me with my knee and struggled to my feet. He lay on the platform floor, a knife in his back, his gaunt face twitching pitifully. Sun Meiniang stood over him, a dazed look in her eyes. The muscles in her pale face were quivering, and her features had shifted; she looked less human than demonic. The moonbeams were like water, like liquid silver; they were ice, they were frost. I would not see such brilliant moonbeams ever again. Looking past them, I believed I could see the worthy nephew of the Liu family suddenly appear in front of Yuan Shikai and, in the name of his father, and of the Six Gentlemen, and of the Great Qing Nation, draw a pair of shiny golden pistols, just as my brother had done…