Hard Like Water

by Yan Lianke

  For the past several days, my enemies and I have been circling around the mountain range

  I transferred to Chenggang, like a fish entering the sea

  The insidious enemy is still wildly arrogant

  Causing me to suffer trauma and false charges

  I heard my relatives in the village sleeping soundly

  I yearned to see them—I yearned to see them but was afraid I might wake up my mother and son

  at that instant, the People’s safety and well-being were of my greatest concern

  but all I saw was the moon-filled sky over my head.

  As I headed to Cheng Temple, I wanted to sing out loud but didn’t dare to, so instead I thought about how I would alter the lyrics of the song. When I began thinking about these lyrics, however, my mind kept going in different directions, and when I finally came up with the line I transferred to Chenggang, like a fish entering the sea, my pounding heart came to a halt on the words I wanted to change, and my turbulent emotions slowly began to calm down. It came as a surprise that these lines could calm down even someone whose jacket was stuffed with explosives, and I was therefore grateful to the literary warriors who penned them. I wanted to salute them, and I thought how wonderful it would be if only they could see how calmly I was carrying the explosives to the temple, and how excellent it would be if they could watch with their own eyes as I demolished Cheng Temple. That would surely be such a moving, spectacular climax to the play.

  The process of planting explosives, installing detonators, and connecting the fuses was all very simple for an exemplary military engineer like myself. I was able to complete all of these tasks in under an hour. I installed explosives and detonators in the rear wall of Cheng Temple, and in the corners of all the other walls. I inserted a double-packet of gunpowder in each corner, then placed single packets at several points along each courtyard wall. Then I stuffed the remaining explosives and detonators into my shirt and climbed from a scholar tree over onto the inner courtyard wall and back down a cypress tree. I proceeded toward the Spring Breeze Arbor and Standing Snow Pavilion in the temple’s front courtyard and installed explosives under the pillars there. Several minutes later, I headed to the center courtyard’s Taoist Hall, and placed explosives below the front pillars and under the rear walls of the Gentle Wind and Sweet Rain Room and the Scorching Sun and Autumn Frost Room. As I was placing explosives under the pillars of the temple’s main audience hall, a mouse ran out from under one of the walls and stepped on one of the detonators I had left there. My heart began pounding like a grenade, and sweat poured down my face. Upon determining that this was a false alarm, I nonetheless placed an explosive in the mouse hole as well. At this point, it was extremely quiet in the temple. The white moonlight was fluttering back and forth, the shadows of the trees were dancing in the breeze, and everything felt mysterious. In Cheng Temple, I placed a total of twenty-eight explosives in twenty-two different locations, and as I was putting the last few explosives and detonators back in my pocket, it occurred to me that Hongmei should have returned by now. By that point she had been gone for longer than it takes a fuse wire to burn, and if she didn’t return soon it might undermine our plan. Carefully opening the doors to the center courtyard and the front courtyard, I walked out and saw her standing in the shadow of the temple.

  I asked, “Why didn’t you clap when you got back?”

  “I heard you moving around inside,” she replied, “so I decided to stand guard for you out here.”

  “What is the current situation?”

  She bowed her head. In the moonlight, her face appeared deathly white.

  “The situation remains as it was.”

  After saying this, she paused, then looked up at me, as if looking at someone who could make her cry her heart out and make her confess and beg for forgiveness. Softly, she said, “Aijun, the situation is just as you predicted. Tao’er is with her aunt, and when I returned home I first went to my room, and although the door was locked the window swung open when I pushed it. Startled, I reached in and unlocked the door, then entered. When I turned on the light, I saw that it looked as if someone had moved the blanket on the bed, and the pillows seemed to be out of place. The door to the bureau was open, and although all of my clothing was still there, the quilt that had been lying over the opening to the tunnel had been moved. I always made sure that the peony blossom on the quilt was oriented toward the bureau door, but this time it was oriented away from it.”

  Hongmei’s tears once again began to pour out, and remorse was draped across her face like a gray cloth. Her regretful tears splashed loudly onto the floor. By this point, the moon had already descended to the southern end of the sky, and the stars had begun to fade. In one of the village’s streets an old ox was lowing and chewing its cud. At that moment, seeing Hongmei’s tear-soaked face, I could barely restrain myself from slapping and biting her. This was not only because she had inadvertently revealed our secret, but more importantly, it was because in only two or three days—or perhaps even in just a single day—they would have announced my appointment as county head and her appointment as director of the women’s federation. But now all of our efforts had been for nothing. It was as if we had sweated blood to build a giant levee, only to have it collapse due to ant holes or mouse burrows. The current situation would not only make it impossible for me to be appointed county head and for Hongmei to be appointed director of the women’s federation, but she and I would remain peasants, despite having devoted ourselves to the revolution for so many years! Our residency permits were still assigned to the village of Chenggang in the Balou Mountains. Upon my realizing that we were still peasants, my hands began to tremble, and a sharp, bitter odor mixed with the dark smell of brown sugar began to emanate from them. I knew that this odor was from the residual gunpowder stuck to my hands. When I smelled it, I belatedly realized that my hands were clenched into fists, and sweat mixed with gunpowder was seeping out through my fingers. I wiped my hands on my pants, then patted the detonators and packets of gunpowder I had left in my pockets. I looked up at the sky, where the morning star was already visible overhead, and there was also the red star that was always visible over the Balou Mountains in late summer. Distant and bright, it generated a gentle and beautiful light, like a lamp wrapped in blue silk cloth. Whenever this red star appeared, it indicated that the night was already more than half over. Hongmei wiped away her tears and pulled back the hair that had fallen over her ears and forehead, and sighed: “Aijun, if only I had sealed off the tunnel opening, like you did.”

  I replied, “Did you check under the quilt, to see whether anyone had moved the wooden planks at the base of the bureau?”

  She said, “I did, but I couldn’t remember how they had been arranged before.”

  I said, “Did you check to see whether Cheng Tianmin’s prints were on the table or windowsill?”

  She stared in surprise. “No, should I go back and check?”

  I said, “It doesn’t matter. He’s a crafty old scoundrel, and he probably wiped away any prints before leaving.”

  She said, “Does that mean it was all for nothing that you and I participated in the revolution?”

  Her question struck me like a wooden board. It stuck in my throat. I stared at her face and saw that she no longer seemed as grief-stricken as before, and instead showed a look of remorse that our pursuit of revolution had failed due to her carelessness. This expression made her face appear as milky white as the moon in the night sky. Her face dissolved into the moonlight, and if it hadn’t been for her pink shirt and black hair, she might have become pure beautiful moonlight herself. The revolution didn’t permit revolutionaries to simultaneously look forward and backward, nor did it permit its participants to become discouraged by setbacks. A valuable asset of the revolution lies in its ability to let people learn from their mistakes, which is why struggle and battle are the best medicine. I said, “I obviously cannot let our future plans, or the revolution itself, be ruined like th
is. Why do I want to demolish Cheng Temple and the memorial arch? This is not only my childhood ideal and long-cherished wish, it is also a key step in my efforts to carry out the revolution. It is my final gift to the revolution. Yes, it looks like your father-in-law sent us to prison and ruined our future appointments as county head and director of the women’s federation. Do you think it would be sufficient for us to merely blow up Cheng Temple? Wouldn’t that be going too easy on him?”

  She said, “So, what do you propose we do?”

  I said, “If others don’t bother me, I won’t bother them. However, if they do attack me, I’ll definitely attack them. Do unto others as you’d have them do unto you. Didn’t Cheng Tianmin report us as adulterers? Didn’t he recommend that we be hacked to pieces? Well, it’s true, we are adulterers, so let them try to come hack us to pieces. Let’s place the final two packets of explosives under the memorial arch columns. We can then go back and enter through Cheng Temple’s rear courtyard and do that thing right in front of Cheng Tianmin. Let’s make him watch our adultery with his own eyes. Let’s make him watch how I, Gao Aijun, love you, Xia Hongmei, and how you, Xia Hongmei, love me, Gao Aijun. Let’s make him understand that we are not just a couple of revolutionaries, we are a revolutionary couple—a couple who will love each other until death parts us. Let’s show him the true power and true love of two revolutionaries and make him appreciate how thoroughly we have committed ourselves. We’ll make him understand that we are a couple of crazed revolutionaries. Let’s make him regret he ever reported us. Let’s make him regret it to his grave!”

  Even as the first half of my statement was coming out as planned, the second half was already forcing itself though my clenched teeth, driven by sheer fury. I had assumed Hongmei wouldn’t approve of my plan, given that she wasn’t a through-and-through revolutionary like me, and furthermore, when we did that thing, she would be facing her own father-in-law—Cheng Qingdong’s father. However, upon hearing my suggestion she didn’t immediately express any opposition and instead merely gazed at me, as though trying to determine from my expression whether what I was proposing was a well-conceived plan or simply a blind expression of anger. After staring at my moonlit face for a few seconds, she said something that only the most extraordinary woman in the world could possibly say: “Aijun, given that we have already reached this point, we have no choice but to continue forward—for the sake of the revolution and for the sake of the struggle.”

  In this way, an earth-shattering plan was conceived and put into action. (In fact, we had to move quickly to implement all of our plans, for we might not have any other opportunity.) This is how things stood, with the revolutionaries wanting to be giants in action and not just in speech. For the revolution and for the struggle, we resolved to use our last weapon and do that earth-shaking thing right in front of Cheng Tianmin, after which we would demolish Cheng Temple and the memorial arch.

  We quickly planted the remaining explosives under the arch.

  We strode triumphantly out of the temple. I went first and Hongmei followed behind me, holding the remaining half roll of fuse wire. As we walked through the door of Cheng Temple, the severity and solemnity of the revolutionary struggle immediately enveloped us. We felt a sense of nervousness immediately preceding the arrival of this, our greatest moment. At the realization that we had seized victory from the jaws of defeat, our blood became like a gushing river, and our hearts began pounding like war drums. The dark and thick shadow of the cypress tree in the front courtyard resembled an enormous corpse. Hongmei closed the door behind me. The courtyard was full of a white, rotting odor that made me feel very anxious. When I remembered we were revolutionaries, however, my anxiety was transformed into energy and excitement, which simultaneously calmed and aroused me. We entered the middle courtyard, where the grape trellis enveloped us like a tent. Like white lime powder, moonlight streamed into the courtyard at the four corners, where there were openings in the vines. I saw the explosives I had placed under the Taoist Hall, and noticed that one end was visible. The fuse snaked along the base of the wall like a rope. I had carefully calculated the length of those fuses and had planted the explosives so that they would proceed from the center courtyard to the front courtyard, and then from the inside of the temple to the outside, continuing on to the outer periphery of the rear courtyard’s main hall, and finally reaching the base of the memorial arch’s two columns. After all of these had exploded, and after the fuses of all thirty packets of gunpowder had been lit, there would still be almost a half meter of fuse left—and in the time it took for that remaining half meter of fuse to burn, Hongmei and I would be able to climb to the mountaintop, and from there watch the magnificent scene of an endless string of explosions. The only problem was that one detonator hadn’t been placed deeply enough, so I wanted to go and bury it. After Hongmei closed the door to the center courtyard, and as we were heading toward the Taoist Hall, the door to the rear courtyard opened with a clatter.

  “Who is it?”

  Cheng Tianmin emerged wearing white undershorts and an unbuttoned white silk undershirt (it seems that before the founding of New China, landlords and rich peasants all wore this sort of silk). He stood in the doorway, and when he saw Hongmei, he quickly moved to button his shirt. He asked with alarm, “Is that you, Hongmei? Why are you here? And who is that with you?”

  Hongmei stood frozen beneath the grape trellis, not daring to utter a word. Needless to say, we had to take action immediately, because if we waited for Cheng Tianmin to cry out and summon the other villagers, our success would once again turn to failure. I saw Hongmei turn around to look at me, whereupon I began walking toward Cheng Tianmin—Chenggang’s decrepit former mayor and our enemy.

  “This isn’t your daughter-in-law, Xia Hongmei,” I said coldly. “She is an exemplary revolutionary worker. She is a peasant revolutionary, politician, and leader. She is also my wife and dearest friend. Through thick and thin, she has been my comrade and my trusty battle companion.” As I said this, I walked up to Cheng Tianmin. His face was hidden in the shadows from where the courtyard doorway blocked the moonlight. As a result, I couldn’t see whether there was any change in his expression, and all I could see were his hands, which had been rushing to fasten his shirt buttons but were now frozen in place. At that moment, I leapt forward like an arrow and seized him in the crook of my arm. With my left hand I covered his mouth, muffling his cry.

  To my surprise, I discovered that he was as light as a bundle of kindling. I hadn’t expected that the techniques I had learned while in the army would come back so easily to my hands, legs, and feet. I felt as though I were grasping a bundle of cotton, and as I was pushing Cheng Tianmin toward the doorway of the rear courtyard’s east lecture hall, Hongmei was still standing, stunned, under the center courtyard’s grape trellis, the half roll of fuse wire at her feet.

  I said, “Hongmei, quick, hand me the wire.”

  She continued standing there, motionless.

  I shouted, “The struggle has reached a point of life and death. Why are you still staring into space?”

  Roused by my shouts, Hongmei bent over and picked up the roll of wire, ran over and handed it to me, then immediately rushed to the west side of the Qixian Great Hall. In the blink of an eye, she retrieved a chair and a pillowcase from a room in the rear courtyard’s west lecture hall and ran back. She placed the chair in the center of the rear courtyard, then handed me the pillowcase. She said, “Use this,” then she retraced her steps to the same room in the west lecture hall. I had no idea what she planned to do. As I accepted the pillowcase, I smelled its dark odor of hair oil and realized that the room in the west lecture hall must be Cheng Tianmin’s bedroom. I watched as she ran back into that room. Light from a lamp inside the room shone out through a window, creating a perfect square, as though the courtyard were a white wooden board.

  I snapped my gaze back and quickly stuffed the pillowcase into Cheng Tianmin’s mouth, then tied his hands to the back of the ch
air. I proceeded as smoothly and naturally as a mother nursing her child. Cheng Tianmin was over sixty, and although his mind was still functioning, his body was already feeble. At this age, he should have been taking care of himself, but instead he was determined to attack us and send us to prison. We therefore had no choice. Things had been determined by Cheng Tianmin’s ideology and his class position. Consciousness is a product that develops from the material world until it reaches a certain level. It is a necessary result of the social struggle that has come before it. Cheng Tianmin’s brain was an unteachable and unchangeable bourgeois headquarters that had been formed during his long-term engagement in social activities. This headquarters was now declaring war on us, envisioning a victory it had never anticipated. However, we wouldn’t passively await our fate; instead, we had to make sure that Cheng Tianmin encountered failure and regret. I tied his hands, his torso, and his ankles to the chair.

  The Cheng Brothers’ prized student, the reactionary Song dynasty philosopher Zhu Xi, was the one who first developed and peddled the Cheng Brothers’ putrid teachings. He wrote countless books and said countless things, but now everyone has forgotten all about them. However, there is one phrase we could never forget: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is how we were taught, and this is also how we behaved. This is all that we could do. While the nature of a revolutionary dictatorship and an anti-revolutionary dictatorship are mutually opposed, the former nevertheless may still learn from the latter. This learning process is very tense, but if revolutionary people are unable to understand the anti-revolutionary class-based ruling method, they won’t be able to hold onto power, and instead their power will be overturned by reactionary elements. These reactionary elements will first reestablish themselves in rural China, whereupon the revolutionaries will suffer disaster—this is a lesson that has been proven by historical experience. Today, in the rear courtyard of Cheng Temple, we will once again begin implementing this kind of learning. I don’t know why, but when I was tying up Cheng Tianmin, he didn’t move, resist, or struggle, though some sounds could still be heard from behind the pillowcase wedged in his throat. Perhaps he always knew this day would come. Perhaps at his age he knew that the more he resisted, the worse the result would be. Resist … be defeated . . . resist again … be defeated again. He knew he would be unable to escape the logic of this rule. He was someone who had been singing behind the scenes of the revolution his entire life. He may be good at conspiracy and intrigue, but once you ask him to fight us face-to-face, he’ll find himself at a loss. This is the predicament in which many members of the landlord and feudal classes find themselves, and it is the condition that allows us to subjugate and destroy them. Cheng Tianmin was sitting in that chair with his hands bound but was neither struggling nor resisting. Instead, he was staring at me as though it were he who had tied me up and not the other way around. He was looking at me as though he were watching a performance, and his thin, sallow face appeared preternaturally calm in the moonlight. His eyes were neither warm nor fiery and revealed no hint of struggle or anger. Instead, they were wide open, and the whites of his eyes were unusually visible. The wrinkles in his forehead appeared particularly deep, and his neck was stretched long. What other changes were there in him? Oh, his white silk shirt had gotten tangled up in the fuse wire I had used to tie up his wrists, so it resembled an old dishrag. Also, one of his shoes had fallen off in the doorway to the third courtyard, and he resembled a revolutionary captive sitting there with one bare foot.