by Mo Yan
The Magistrate jumped to his feet, pounded the table with his fist, and cursed, “The bastard!” Whether the curse was directed at Yuan Shikai or the German engineer was unclear, but he saw his assistant’s goatee quiver and noticed a phosphorescent glimmer in the man’s tiny eyes. He had never been fond of this secretary, but he relied heavily on him, for he was skilled at preparing indictments and appeals, was experienced and astute, knew all the ins and outs of official circles, and just happened to be the brother of the legal secretary at the Prefect’s yamen. If the County Magistrate wanted to ensure that the document he had written would not be sent back by the Prefect, the secretary was indispensable.
“Have them prepare my horse,” he said.
“May I ask where you are going?”
“To Laizhou Prefecture.”
“May I ask the purpose of the trip?”
“I want to see Excellency Cao and demand justice for the people of Gaomi County!”
With no attempt to maintain decorum, the secretary reached down, picked up the document, and scanned it quickly.
“Is this telegram intended for the eyes of Excellency Yuan?”
“Yes, and I’d like you to put a final touch to it.”
“Eminence, my eyesight and hearing are beginning to fail me. My mind is not as sharp as it once was, and at this rate I am afraid I will do you a disservice. I beg you to release me from my duties so I can return to my native home to live in retirement.” With an awkward little laugh, he reached into his sleeve and extracted a letter, which he laid on the table. “My letter of resignation.”
The Magistrate merely glanced at the letter and, with a sarcastic laugh, said:
“It seems the monkeys are abandoning the tree even before it falls.”
Rather than lose his temper, the secretary laughed politely.
“Tying two people together does not make them husband and wife,” the Magistrate said. “Since you desire to leave, trying to stop you would be meaningless. Do as you please.”
“I thank you for your generosity.”
“After I return from Laizhou, I shall see you off with a banquet.”
“I thank you for your kindness.”
“You may go,” the Magistrate said with a wave of his hand.
The secretary made it only to the door before turning to say:
“Eminence, I am only an advisor, but if you want my opinion, you must not go to Laizhou and you must not send this telegram.”
“And why is that?”
“I humbly submit, Your Eminence, that you are in the service of your superiors, not the people. A conscience has no place in the life of an official. You must choose one over the other.”
With a snide grin, the Magistrate replied:
“Well spoken and very incisive. If you have anything else to say, now is the time.”
“Arresting Sun Bing and quickly bringing him to justice is Your Eminence’s only path to survival.” The secretary’s eyes flashed as he went on, “But I know you cannot do it.”
“And so you are leaving,” the Magistrate said, “not to return home to live in retirement, but to steer clear of trouble.”
“Your Eminence is very perceptive,” the secretary remarked. “In truth, if you could abandon your personal feelings for Sun Bing’s daughter, capturing him would be as easy as turning over your hand. And if you did not want to do so yourself, I, your humble servant, would gladly render his services.”
“Do not trouble yourself!” the Magistrate said coldly. “You may leave.”
Grasping his hands in a salute, the secretary said:
“Very well, then, farewell, Your Eminence. I wish you well.”
“Take care of yourself, Yamen Secretary,” the Magistrate said before shouting out the door: “Chunsheng, ready my horse!”
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2
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At high noon the County Magistrate, in full official regalia, rode his young stallion out of town through the north gate, accompanied by his trusted personal attendant Chunsheng and his messenger, Liu Pu. Chunsheng, astride a powerful black mule, and Liu Pu, on his black mare, fell in close behind the County Magistrate’s white horse. After being stabled through a long winter, the animals were energized by the broad expanse of fields and the scent of spring in the air. They kicked their hind legs in frisky abandon and whinnied excitedly. Liu Pu’s mare nipped at the rump of the Magistrate’s horse, which bolted forward. The rough road surface had begun to thaw and was now coated with a layer of black, gummy mud that made for tough going. The Magistrate leaned forward in the saddle and held tightly to the horse’s untidy mane.
After heading northeast for an hour, they crossed the fast-flowing Masang River and entered the broad expanse of Northeast Township. Gentle golden early afternoon rays of sunlight fell on dry, withered grass and on the downy green sprouts just now breaking through the surface. Startled jackrabbits and foxes leaped and bounded out of the path of the horses’ hooves. As they rode along, the travelers could see the raised roadbed of the Jiaozhou-Jinan rail line and the railroad workers laying track. Steel rails snaking across the landscape, a sight that sullied the vista of open fields under a towering blue sky, destroyed the Magistrate’s cheerful mood. Disturbed by scenes from the recent bloody massacre at Masang Township that flashed through his mind, he was having trouble breathing, so he dug in the heels of his boots to speed up the pace. His horse reacted to the pain in its sides by breaking into a gallop, causing its rider to bounce around in the saddle, which seemed to lessen his melancholy.
The riders did not enter Pingdu County until the sun was low in the western sky. In a little village called Qianqiu, they stopped at the home of a wealthy family to feed the horses and rest up. Their host, a white-haired old county-level scholar, displayed his respect for his superior, the County Magistrate, by offering tobacco and tea and ordering a welcoming banquet that included braised wild rabbit and carrots, stewed cabbage with bean curd, and, from his own cask, rice wine. The old scholar’s obsequious and generous welcome restored the Magistrate’s sense of well being. A nobility of spirit swelled in his breast; his veins felt the rush of hot blood. The old scholar invited them to spend the night in his house, but the Magistrate was determined to get back on the road. With tears in his eyes, the old scholar took the Magistrate’s hand and said:
“Eminence Qian, an upright official who unstintingly pleads on behalf of his people is as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns. The residents of Gaomi County are truly blessed.”
“Elderly squire,” the County Magistrate replied emotionally, “as an official whose livelihood is in the hands of the Imperial Court, I am entrusted with service to the masses and am obliged to spare no effort in carrying out my duties.”
He mounted his horse as a blood-red sunset spread in the west. After bidding farewell to the elderly scholar, who saw him to the edge of the village, he whipped the flank of his white charger, which reared up, a mighty steed, and shot forward with a burst of power, like an arrow leaving the bow. Though the Magistrate did not turn to cast a backward glance, a host of phrases from classic poems of parting rose up in his mind: the setting sun, a dazzling sunset, wilderness, ancient roads, a withered tree, winter ravens . . . all encapsulating a sense of solemn tragedy, yet filling his heart with boldness.
As they left the village behind, they rode out onto a landscape that was bleaker and more extensive than anywhere in Northeast Gaomi Township, with few signs of humanity on the low-lying land. The animals raced proudly, heads high, on a gray serpentine path that was mostly hidden in dry waist-high grass that brushed noisily against the riders’ legs. As the evening deepened, a new moon sent its silvery beams through the purple canopy of a starry sky. The Magistrate looked heavenward, where he saw the outline of the Big Dipper, the glittering Milky Way, and a shooting star ripping open the darkening curtain. Damp, heavy air chilled the riders as the night wore on. The horses’ gait slackened, from a gallop to a canter, then to
a trot, and finally to a lazy walk. When the Magistrate used his whip, the horse reared its head and ran a few yards before slowing again, weary and sluggish. The Magistrate’s agitation was waning; his feverish body was beginning to cool down. Moisture-laden air on that windless night attacked exposed skin like razor blades, so he hung his whip on the pommel, buried his hands in his wide sleeves, and draped the reins over his wrist before hunkering down and letting the horse go where it wanted. In the surrounding wilderness, the animals’ snorts and the sound of dry grass brushing against the men’s pants were almost deafening. The occasional muted bark of a dog in a distant village deepened the cryptic sense of mystery and struck the Magistrate’s nerves like pangs of sorrow. He had been in such a hurry to leave, he’d forgotten to put on the fox fur vest his father-in-law had given him. That had been one of the more solemn moments in his life, for the item, a relic by any standard, had been given to his father-in-law’s father-in-law, the great Zeng Guofan, by the Empress Dowager Herself. Although time, the elements, and insects had eaten away at the fur, wearing it imparted an indescribable sense of warmth. Thoughts of his missing fox fur vest took the Magistrate back in time, to recollections of the life he’d lived.
Recalling the poverty of his youth and the hardships of endless studies, he was reminded of the joys of passing the Imperial Civil Service Examination and the marriage alliance formed between him and Zeng Guofan’s maternal granddaughter, for which he received the good wishes of his fellow candidates, including those of his classmate Liu Guangdi, known then as Liu Peicun. Even at that age, Liu was a fine calligrapher, his writing as bold and sturdy as he himself. Having also mastered the art of poetry in its many forms, he inscribed a pair of scrolls for the wedding: “Strings of pearls, girdles of jade” on one, “Talented scholar and beautiful girl” on the other. At the time, a bright road of unlimited potential seemed to open up before him. But as they say, “Better a live rat than a dead prefect.” He spent six years in the Board of Public Works, mired in such debilitating poverty that he had no choice but to take advantage of his wife’s family connections to secure an assignment in the provinces, where he moved around for several years before landing on the relatively fertile ground of Gaomi County. Soon after his arrival, he vowed to put his talents in the service of notable achievements, which would ensure his slow climb up the official ladder. But he soon learned that Gaomi, a place coveted by foreigners, was a fancy title but a poor launching site for official promotion. Managing to survive in office until his term ended was the best he could hope for. Sigh! The last days of the Imperial House were approaching; the death knell for sage men had sounded; the earthly doings of base men resounded like thunder. He could only follow the currents and try to maintain his integrity . . .
The Magistrate was startled out of his reveries by a series of frantic equine snorts, and when he looked, he saw four emerald-green eyes glimmering in the bushes close ahead. “Wolves!” he shouted as he dug his stiff legs into the horse’s sides and pulled back on the reins. With a whinny that shattered the silence, the horse reared up and threw its rider out of the saddle.
It all happened so fast that Chunsheng and Liu Pu, who had been riding close behind the Magistrate, their teeth chattering from the freezing cold, were dumbstruck. They remained in a sort of daze until they saw two wolves moving to run down the Magistrate’s white stallion, and their dulled brains began to work again. Shouting to their horses, they drew their swords, awkwardly, and drove off the predators, sending them scurrying into the underbrush, where they vanished from view.
“Laoye!” both Chunsheng and Liu Pu shouted as they jumped off their horses and half ran, half stumbled over to the County Magistrate. “Laoye!”
The Magistrate was hanging upside down, his foot caught in the stirrup. Spooked by Chunsheng and Liu Pu’s shouts, the stallion bolted and began dragging the shrieking Magistrate after him; had it not been for the dry grass, the hard ground would have turned his head into a bloody gourd. The more experienced Liu Pu told Chunsheng to stop yelling and, like him, call out to the horse gently: “Good horse, be good, white horse, don’t be afraid . . .” Aided by the bright starlight, they cautiously approached the animal, and when he was near enough, Liu Pu rushed up and threw his arms around its neck. Chunsheng seemed to have fallen into a trance. “Idiot!” Liu Pu shouted, “get over here and free the Magistrate’s foot!”
Chunsheng tried, but made a mess of his rescue effort, causing the Magistrate even worse discomfort. “Can’t you do anything right?” Liu Pu complained. “Come up here and keep the horse from moving.”
Liu Pu managed to free the stiff leg from the stirrup and then wrapped his arms around the Magistrate’s waist to right him. His leg buckled the minute it touched the ground, wrenching a painful scream from him as he sat down hard on the ground.
Feeling numb all over, the Magistrate could not get his body to do his bidding. His head and foot throbbed unbearably; he was nearly bursting with indignation, but did not know how to vent it.
“Are you all right, Laoye?” Chunsheng and Liu Pu asked tentatively as they bent down close to him.
The men’s faces were blurred; the Magistrate could only sigh.
“It’s damned hard trying to be an upright official,” he said.
“Someone up there is always watching, Laoye,” Liu Pu said. “Your good deeds are not going unnoticed by the old man in the sky.”
“The old man in the sky will see to it that Laoye receives the promotions and riches he deserves,” Chunsheng added.
“Is there really an old man in the sky?” the Magistrate wondered aloud. “I guess the fact that my horse did not pull me to my death proves something. Don’t you agree? Now, take a look at my leg and see if it’s broken.”
Liu Pu untied the band around the Magistrate’s leg, reached up inside, and felt around.
“You can breathe easy, Laoye,” he said, “it’s not broken.”
“Are you sure?”
“My father taught me the basics of therapeutic massage and bone-setting when I was a boy.”
“Who’d have thought that Peicun could be a bone expert, too?” the Magistrate said with a sigh. “While we were riding a while ago, I was recalling the days when your father and I passed the examination. We were filled with such youthful energy and high spirits, eager to shoulder heavy responsibilities and help the country be strong and prosperous. But now . . .” Momentarily overcome with emotion, he said, “I guess there must be someone up there, since my leg is not broken. Help me to my feet, men.”
The two aides picked him up by his arms and supported him as he tried to walk. But his legs failed him—they had a mind of their own, or no mind at all—and produced stabbing pains that shot from the soles of his feet all the way up to the top of his head.
“Gather some dry grass, men, and light a fire to warm us. I can’t ride a horse like this.”
The Magistrate sat on the ground rubbing his hands and watching Chunsheng and Liu Pu gather grass by the side of the path. Up and down their bodies moved, a bit of a blur in the starlight, like large creatures building a nest on the ground. The sound of their labored breathing and the snapping of broken stalks of grass were heavy in the surrounding darkness; the Milky Way shimmered in a shower of shooting stars that lit up the faces—dark and purple from the cold—of his trusted aides and the overgrown gray wilderness behind them. Those faces gave him an indication of what he must look like: in the cold air, weariness had erased the self-assured looks they had started out with. He was suddenly reminded of his hat, the official symbol of his position and status.
“Chunsheng,” he called out anxiously, “forget that for now. I’ve lost my hat.”
“Wait till we get a fire going,” Chunsheng replied. “We’ll need the light to find it.”
With this simple statement, Chunsheng not only had disobeyed an order but, for the first time, had actually offered an opinion of his own, which the Magistrate found quite touching. On that dark night out in the
wilds, all standards and norms were subject to modification.
They piled up layers of grass until they had a small stack. The Magistrate reached out to feel the grass, which was damp with dew.
“Chunsheng, did you bring something to start a fire?”
“Damn!” Chunsheng replied. “I forgot.”
“I have what we need in my pack,” Liu Pu volunteered.
The Magistrate breathed a sigh of relief.
“You think of everything, Liu Pu. Start a fire, I’m freezing.”
The young man took a steel, a flint, and a tinder from his backpack, crouched down beside the pile of grass, and began striking steel and flint together. Weak polygonal sparks flew from his hands onto the grass, making faint sizzles as they landed. He blew on the tinder with each spark, and as it slowly turned red, a tiny popping sound produced the first actual flames. The County Magistrate’s mood lightened considerably, the flames temporarily driving away the physical aches and pains and the mental anguish. Liu Pu touched the tinder to the grass, which reluctantly caught fire, the weak flames barely able to stay burning. So he picked up a handful of grass and twirled it in the air to make the fire burn stronger and brighter, until it was a blazing torch, which he then touched to the stack. White smoke began to rise skyward, filling the air with an acrid fragrance and the County Magistrate’s heart with emotion. The smoke was soon so thick that a man could almost reach out and grab a handful; and then, seemingly without warning, golden flames licked through the darkness with a roar. The smoke thinned out as dazzling bursts of light turned a swath of wilderness into daytime. The three animals snorted, swished their tails, and edged closer to the warmth of the fire. What looked like smiles adorned their long faces; their eyes shone like crystal, and their heads seemed unnaturally large. The County Magistrate spotted his hat nestling in the grass like a black hen hatching an egg. He had Chunsheng retrieve the hat, which was mud-spotted and grass-stained. The crystal ornament that represented his rank hung to one side, and one of the pheasant feathers, which had the same significance, had snapped in two. All inauspicious signs, he was thinking. But so what, damn it! How lucky would I have been if I’d been dragged to my death a moment ago? So he put on his hat, not to reclaim his dignity, but to help ward off the cold. The bonfire quickly heated up his chest, but his back felt like a slab of cold steel. As it warmed up, his nearly frozen skin turned prickly and painful. He scooted backward, and the heat moved with him, so he stood up and turned his back to the fire; but that no sooner warmed up than the front had cooled off. He turned back to face the fire. And so it went, front and back, over and over, until his body could once more move freely, although his leg still hurt. Knowing that he had not sustained a serious injury helped his mood, so he turned his attention to the three animals, which, as he saw by the light of the fire, were hungrily grazing, the bits in their mouths making crisp metallic sounds. The white horse’s tail seemed made of silvery threads as it swished back and forth. The flames got shorter as the crackle of dried grass being consumed was less frequent and not nearly as loud. The flames moved outward in all directions, much as water seeks lower ground, and spread with great speed. The wind began to pick up. Furry things were visible in the light from the fire, jumping and leaping—rabbits or foxes, probably. Birds flew into the dark sky with shrill cries, skylarks or turtledoves. The fire directly in front of the three men slowly died out, leaving only scattered red cinders. The wildfire, on the other hand, was rapidly gaining in intensity. The Magistrate, excited by the sight, his eyes lighting up, called out happily:
