Old Land, New Tales: Twenty Short Stories by Writers of the Shaanxi Region in China

by Chen Zhongshi

  Mu Du said, “She probably went to the school to invite Lai Shun, who is all alone tonight.” They waited a long time, but Darky did not return. Mu Du sent the girl to the school to look for his wife. When the girl returned, she reported that the school gate was locked. There was not a single soul there.

  Meanwhile, in a small hamlet fifty miles deep in the mountains, something extraordinary happened. A child shouted shrilly at the hamlet’s entrance, “Hurry up and have a look! The village head has tied them up with a rope!” Those enjoying moon cakes in their homes thought somebody from beyond the mountain might be putting on a monkey show to liven things up for the holiday, or maybe a village hunter had caught a rare and precious bird or beast from the mountain deeps. They rushed out to see the fun. As they crossed the old single-log bridge across the mountain stream at the village entrance, they saw an abandoned thatched shed in a melon patch. Inside it, a naked man and woman were bound with rope. Only a bedsheet covered their bodies.

  The village head questioned them. “Where are you from?”

  “From Western Plain Village.”

  “Why do you come here?”

  “We were on our way home, but it’s hard to walk at night, so we stayed here overnight.”

  “What’s your relationship?”

  “We’re husband and wife.”

  “Any proof? Did you bring your marriage license? You’re not a couple of eloping sluts? Or are you human traffickers?”

  “No, no. Look, we brought a luggage roll along with us. We went out to do manual labor and wanted to make a dash home for the family reunion, but . . .”

  Their story seemed plausible, so the village head untied them, berated those who’d gathered to watch the scene, and gave back their clothes. However, some villagers thought that even though they were a couple, their actions, outdoors on such a beautiful night at the entrance to their village, despoiled the festival atmosphere. So the villagers brought a pail of cold water and poured it over the couple from head to toe as a punishment.

  The man and woman stifled their reactions and rushed down the road, the woman stumbling and crying out repeatedly. The man helped her up and urged, “Run, run until you are sweating all over. Otherwise the chilly air will sink into your bones!”

  Raising her head, the woman was encouraged to run, although she did not know how long the road ahead was or what awaited them at its end: bitterness or sweetness, sorrow or happiness?

  Translated by Hu Zongfeng and Liu Xiaofeng

  Zou Zhian

  Zou Zhian, born in Liquan County, Shaanxi Province, graduated from the Normal School in 1966. He served as a teacher of the Liquan Primary School; a staff member of Liquan County’s cultural center; and director of the Chinese Writers Association, Shaanxi Branch. He made his literary debut in 1972, and his works include the novel Psychological Exploration of Love, short story collections Nostalgia and Oh, Little Stallion, and the collection of novellas Why My Heart Is Fluttering. Both “Oh, Little Stallion” and “Village Branch Secretary Falling from Office” won the National Award for Best Story in consecutive years, marking Zou Zhian’s place in the literary canon. His style reflects the emotions and ideals of Chinese farmers as well as the changes in rural China. His work records the development and spiritual journey of Chinese farmers during the reform period, keeping an agrarian focus in the ever-urbanizing culture.

  4

  ZHOU ZHIAN

  Oh, a Colt!

  1

  Feeling tired and fretful, and knowing he was on the verge of making careless mistakes in his work, he walked out of the county Party Committee compound and strolled into the fields on the edge of town, where the lush green expanse of wheat and the yellow fields of rapeseed flowers were radiant and beautiful. The cold, clear air had grown mild and moist shortly after sunrise. The remote mountain range to the north had been enveloped in a thin mist all month. Butterflies and swallows, so vital, so full of life and energy, foretold the coming spring.

  Zheng Quanzhang—nothing special about his name—was, at twenty-nine years old, now in charge of the personnel affairs of the whole county. He used to be secretary of the County Youth League, after training for three years in the cadre school. When the reforms started across China, he was appointed director of personnel for the county. To qualify for an appointment or promotion in the county Party Committee, each local candidate had been examined with a stiff test. Zheng was now on the examination board himself.

  Zheng’s thin lips were always tightly shut, as if he knew too many secrets. He looked like a man in his forties, with sunken eyes and a sallow face resulting from his overtaxed mind. Sauntering along the country roads in his shabby and inappropriate clothes, fording the ditches and ridges between fields, he might be mistaken for an unhappy middle-aged farmer with a throng of children to raise and the threat of fines for exceeding the birth quota. Only his flashing eyes—bright, tough, and stubborn—showed his youth. His eyes still radiated vigor even after a whole night of meetings where yawns were frequent.

  He had no appetite for breakfast; he forced down some bites of steaming bread and then walked to the fields in search of temporary peace and rest, refreshing himself. Then he returned quickly to his office, walking along the wall to avoid people, oblivious to the calls behind his back.

  Back at the office, Secretary Bai of the county Party Committee came over. In contrast to the shabbily attired personnel director, the newly transferred, fair-complexioned Secretary Bai, gentle and cultivated, was always dressed well. He was still making up his mind about Zheng Quanzhang. To his eye, Zheng was an unconventional and uninhibited young man, proud and unyielding.

  Smiling, Secretary Bai gave Zheng an exploring look. “Vice-Secretary Tang of the Party Committee has just arrived,” he said.

  Zheng Quanzhang said nothing, but looked into Secretary Bai’s friendly, thoughtful eyes.

  “He is concerned about Ma Zhankui . . .”

  “Why is he only concerned with Ma Zhankui?” asked Zheng Quanzhang scornfully. “Tang and Ma are relatives by marriage! A vice-secretary of the Party Committee should understand the importance of avoiding suspicion and unfairness. What kind of a model nominates close relatives to key positions?”

  “He said that Ma Zhankui lodged a complaint with the Party Committee, claiming that the restructuring group failed its duty by leaving him half-examined. He’s demanding a conclusion.”

  “He has no right to demand that,” Zheng Quanzhang said. “During the violent crash in the great Cultural Revolution, Ma Zhankui stayed in a fortified area for half a year. He was witnessed carrying a rifle, even though we had no evidence to prove it. And then there’s the construction project: the four mu of land he purchased for the Fertilizer Bureau. The Bureau paid forty grand, but the seller, Nanguan II Village, only received twenty grand. Where did the rest of the money go? A villager testified that he overheard Ma Zhankui—the mayor of the village!—discussing with his accountant how to divide the twenty grand. We’ve got the written proof.” Zheng Quanzhang pointed to his safe.

  “And moreover,” he continued, “he is not a good candidate because his work for the Fertilizer Bureau was a complete mess. Think also about his old age and his lack of education. We’re short on time for this restructuring; we can’t offer him an evaluation right now.”

  “But Vice-Secretary Tang said—”

  Zheng Quanzhang interrupted with a smile. “Drop it!” he ordered. “No matter what anyone says, we followed the clear instructions of the central government.” He spoke with an unyielding tone, a youth’s firmness and indignation, unsympathetic to Vice-Secretary Tang’s defense of Ma Zhankui.

  “Secretary,” he said, looking at Bai with a smile, “do you want a party that’s effective and powerful, or one that’s out of date, good for nothing, and full of flaws?”

  Secretary Bai laughed, but his long, thin eyebrows remained creased.

  Zheng Quanzhang thought for a moment. “Look,” he said, “trust me with this, and let
me handle it. If Vice-Secretary Tang asks you again, tell him that you’ve handed it over to me and he can consult me directly.”

  Secretary Bai gratefully threw him a you-are-clever look—but out loud he insisted, “Still, you’d better reconsider Ma’s case. I don’t think it’s proper for you to ignore the vice-secretary’s orders.”

  Zheng Quanzhang knew well what Bai meant. If Zheng didn’t follow the vice-secretary’s instructions and do as he was told, he’d find himself in some other kind of trouble. Since Vice-Secretary Tang had come there to deliver the message in person, who knew what else he was capable of? Reexamining Ma Zhankui’s case would be no problem—but was that all Tang wanted? No, it was Tang’s hidden unreasonable demands that Zheng Quanzhang objected to.

  The moment Zheng had been appointed director, he’d resolved to seize the opportunity for institutional reform and make it fair and square at its roots. Previously, they could do nothing about the unfair power structure but curse and complain. But now the central government was giving them a great chance, a strategic chance, to wipe out corruption and repair the flaws. Ignoring that opportunity would be a sin—a sin more serious than any that ten evil cadres could commit.

  “All right,” Zheng relented, “I’ll muster the manpower to have the case reexamined. But we must respect the facts.”

  “That’s for sure,” said Secretary Bai.

  “But we’re short of hands—almost everyone’s on assignment. I don’t know how we can spare anyone.”

  “Try to think of a way, fellow comrade. Think of a way.”

  Secretary Bai left with the awkward relief that comes from completing a thorny task.

  Zheng Quanzhang thought to himself, a good guy, but a little soft. He shouldn’t accept these unreasonable orders; he should’ve silenced Tang by bringing up Ma Zhankui’s obvious problems. His softness might cause trouble in the future. Why is it that the longer they’re in government positions, the weaker people become in front of their superiors?

  Before lunch, in search of the proper staff to reexamine Ma Zhankui’s case, he was surprised to run into Ma Zhankui himself coming out of the men’s restroom. It was odd for Ma to come here to relieve himself; the Fertilizer Bureau was not in the county Party compound. Ma Zhankui hurried out of the restroom with his pants half-belted to catch Zheng Quanzhang by his hand. Apparently he had heard Zheng passing by.

  Ma Zhankui, director of the Fertilizer Bureau, was short, stout, and swarthy. He loved to wear sunglasses and had short but strong fat fingers. No one knew how he’d managed to marry off his daughter, who worked in the county medicine plant, to the son of Vice-Secretary Tang. The valuable marriage connection now presented itself to Zheng Quanzhang.

  “Hello, Director!” Ma Zhankui grasped Zheng’s hand tightly, as a policeman would an escaped criminal, and pulled him aside. “It has been hard to get to see you!”

  Zheng Quanzhang paid special attention to the thick eyebrows over the shades and the watery eyes behind them.

  “You really ought to get something decent to wear,” Ma continued, his tone warm and casual, as if he’d come just for this chat. “You’re losing weight,” he added, pulling Zheng’s hand firmly downward and inward, toward his embrace. “Take care of your health! Joking is joking, but one thing is serious: be healthy. You should pour some boiling hot milk over two eggs—otherwise your wife will not be satisfied.”

  “Rest assured,” said Zheng Quanzhang, also in a mock-serious tone, “she is quite satisfied with me!”

  Suddenly Ma Zhankui’s tone changed, and he implored, “Please don’t be too hard on me. Let me off!”

  Zheng Quanzhang forced a smile and continued to hold Ma Zhankui’s hand tightly, to assure him and put his mind at rest—and, more importantly, to get away from Ma Zhankui.

  The rumors about Ma Zhankui’s sunglasses went like this: He wore them not according to the weather, but according to the political climate. At the very beginning of the reforms, when candidates from the mass recommendation were preferred, he took off his shades. When he was being examined for a position, he wore them. When the investigation was over, he took the shades off again, and when he learned that his evaluation was complete, he put them back on.

  Strangely, he isn’t even embarrassed about it! Zheng Quanzhang thought to himself, amused.

  2

  Reporting and listening to reports; reading material and writing material; listening to and giving instructions; being surrounded by and breaking up a crowd; telling the truth, lies, half-truths, or half lies; neither eating nor sleeping in peace—these were all now part of Zheng Quanzhang’s life. At this kind of crucial moment, a person’s soul might reveal itself through all kinds of faces: happy, flattering, pathetically smiling, forced smiling, bitter, furious, indignant, stupefied . . . It was very difficult, but inspiring, to stick to truth and principles.

  Every Saturday after dark, his wife—a strong, good-looking peasant woman who managed their farmlands—would leave their child at his parents’ house and ride her bike to join him. Only then could he escape all the complexities and be forced to enjoy a temporary quiet and rest. She alone brought him real warmth, with her intelligence and her understanding of his career; she was like a frontline supplier in a tough battle.

  “That’s enough,” she’d say. “Let’s go home. You’re dead tired every day and still you earn only forty-five yuan a month. You are not a premier, are you?”

  “Right, let’s got home,” he’d agree. “We won’t drink such dirty water.”

  But they could grab only occasional sweet nights, or sometimes only a few sweet hours, for he often came back to work at two o’clock in the morning.

  In their brief refuge, his wife always warmed him with her hot breasts, for his whole body was as cold as ice; his long, skinny fingers trembled, and his socks stuck to his feet.

  “Don’t value power too much,” she’d say gently.

  “I know.”

  “Meng, the last county magistrate—when he retired and came back to his hometown, he walked with a stick and wet his pants. His daughter-in-law had to take care of him.”

  “The Party and the people trust me,” he said. “I’m such a humble man, and they entrust me with such an important task. I have to do something good for them. Every man has his moment when he emits light and heat, and my moment is now.”

  “All lights have to turn off sometimes.”

  “Yes, or walk with a stick and wet one’s pants without being cared for.”

  After some silence, in the soothing, bright moonlight of the spring night, his wife updated him on the health of his parents and their child, and then caught him up on the main family affairs.

  “Altogether twelve people came to visit our house: seven strangers, three colleagues, and two relatives, all with presents, which included nine packs of cigarettes, two articles of clothing, twelve boxes of snacks, a pair of chairs, and five bottles of alcohol. As you requested, I kept an account book and put away the things that could be stored. I brought the perishables to sell in the cooperative, and I kept the money and food coupons.”

  “How much did we get?”

  “Well, I had to take my clothes out of the suitcase to make room for so many presents. I left my clothes out on the kang.”

  “And beginning tomorrow, you send them back, one by one.”

  “Why? Didn’t we come to an agreement that you would send them back after the structural reform?”

  “No! Whoever receives them should send them back!”

  “You can’t eat your words,” his wife protested. “I tried everything I could to turn the visitors away—raising a racket, pushing and pulling, trying to ward them off. But they were too strenuous. They left the gifts on the kang and dashed away, hardly finishing their words. How could I possibly catch up with them?”

  “All right, you go to Brother San Bao’s and ask him to send them back for us. Tell him to hush things up—he should just send the presents back and say nothing.”


  “San Bao can’t be counted on. He smokes like a chimney. What if he sneaks a pack of cigarettes?”

  “Fine, then you keep the presents and I’ll send them back later.”

  “You’ve got a stubbly beard growing! And I can feel your bones now . . .”

  “If you’re not satisfied with me, you shouldn’t come here.”

  “You call this dissatisfied?”

  They often got up at dawn when the whole courtyard was still in slumber. After they washed and dressed, Zheng escorted her to the outskirts of town. In the cold late-spring dawn, a chill arose from the glittering dewdrops on the wheat stalks, small flowers, and grass. The damp fields were fresh, peaceful, and misty in the morning. They held a sense of solemn purity.

  Beyond an outcropping, the red sun was trying its best to rise over the green horizon, making the dew sparkle brilliantly.

  3

  Zheng Quanzhang grabbed a clerk to help him reexamine Ma Zhankui’s case. It was true, the decision should have been handed down much earlier. Ma didn’t grasp the problems of his own limited knowledge, abilities, and attitude, not to mention his old age—he was nearly fifty. All those liabilities indicated that he was no longer suitable to be the director of the Fertilizer Bureau. The committee had already warned Ma several times, refusing to consider his credentials for the post, because he overindulged in games of majiang, playing all night and sleeping all day after he had built his two-story, eight-room house. There was nothing wrong with reexamining him, Zheng realized, for the second examination guaranteed an even more solid conclusion.

  Wearing a tired and cold expression, Zheng Quanzhang, too modest to put on new clothes, went with the clerk to find their witness, the villager on the Nan Guan production team.