by Yan Lianke
I began to wonder whether or not I myself would dreamwalk. And if I were to begin dreamwalking, what would I do? What, indeed, would I do while dreaming?
3. (18:31–19:30)
Unfortunately, I had always slept very little, and never became so exhausted that I fell into a deep slumber. Neither did I have any pressing concerns engraved in my bones. I was as incapable of dreamwalking as a man is incapable of getting pregnant, or a peach tree is incapable of producing apricot blossoms. But I saw people dreamwalking, and was surprised at how quickly it all started. I had never expected that they would begin in rapid succession, as though they were being summoned—much less that tens and even hundreds of residents of the village, the town, the Funiu Mountains, and even the entire world would begin dreamwalking overnight.
Family after family began dreamwalking.
Thousands and thousands of people began dreamwalking.
The entire world began dreamwalking.
I was still reading Kissing Lenin’s Years of Sun. The novel was as odd as a peach tree full of apricot blossoms, or an apricot tree full of pears. Even if you don’t like the story, it will still lead you by the hand and draw you in.
Gao Aijun picked up a cent in the street, and wanted to go to the store to buy some candy. One piece of candy costs two cents, but he didn’t have enough money. He decided to sell his straw hat. He sold the hat for fifty cents, with which he wanted to buy half a jin of stewed pork. Although the pork was very fragrant, half a jin of stewed pork costs ten yuan, and he still didn’t have enough money. He decided to sell his clothes, leaving himself only a pair of underpants to cover his private parts. He was able to sell his clothes for a lot of money: fifty yuan. With these fifty yuan, he decided he didn’t want merely half a jin of stewed pork, but rather he wanted actual meat. Full of energy, he went to the hair salon on the other side of the village, and paced in front of it. The young women in the salon were also sex workers, and the salon was no different from a brothel. Everyone said that the salon’s new girls from Suzhou and Hangzhou were very good, with tender skin and bodies like water. But to go to the brothel and fondle these girls with bodies like water was not something he could do with only fifty yuan. To get a room and a bed, he would need a hundred fifty yuan. And if he didn’t want to leave promptly when he was done and instead wanted to stay for the night, then the price would increase to five hundred yuan. He thought and thought, and ultimately decided he had no choice but to make a significant sacrifice if he wanted to realize his plan. He gritted his teeth, took a step forward, and resolved to go home and sell his own wife, Xia Hongmei.
This story, this novel—why does it seem as though it were actually true? Why does it seem as though it were true? I thought about this, and wanted to laugh. Just as I was about to laugh out loud, something even more ludicrous appeared before me. There was the sound of footsteps in the street, like several hands beating a drum at the same time. I turned around and saw a crowd of children—some were seven or eight years old, while others were ten or more—who were all following a man in his thirties. The man was shirtless, and was holding a wooden shovel used to thresh wheat. He was mumbling to himself. “After a while it will start to drizzle. Yes, it will definitely start to drizzle. You’re not like the others, in that you don’t do business. You farm, and if you don’t harvest the wheat, it will grow moldy, and an entire season’s crop will go to waste. An entire season’s work would have been for nothing!” The man’s eyes were half-closed, as though he were falling asleep. He walked so fast that wind blew out from under his feet with every step. As he walked, it was as though someone were pushing him from behind. It was very stuffy outside, and there wasn’t a trace of dampness or coolness in the air.
That man was coming from the west, and he crossed the street as though crossing a narrow ribbon. The streetlamps were the color of mud, as though there were ashes floating overhead. It was as if that man were walking through ashes. Of the children chasing him, there was one who was completely naked, his cock flapping between his legs like a wild bird. “He’s dreamwalking . . . He’s dreamwalking,” the children whispered curiously—as if they were afraid that if they said this out loud, they might wake him up, but if they didn’t, they would be unable to keep this miraculous occurrence to themselves.
The dreamwalker walked so fast, it was as if he were devouring the road in front of him.
The children jogged behind him. They stayed a few steps behind, so as not to wake him, so as not to bring an abrupt end to the spectacle.
The entourage appeared before me.
The man turned out to be Uncle Zhang, who used to live in the old house across from ours. In our town, Uncle Zhang was an infamous wastrel. He couldn’t earn money, nor could he hold a job. Because of this, his wife would slap him, and would even go to the eastern side of the river with a man who could earn money, and would sleep with him in plain sight. She left home with that other man, and they went together into the city—to Luoyang or Zhengzhou. The other man eventually tired of sleeping with her, and no longer wanted her. After she was cast aside, she returned home, and as soon as she entered the courtyard, Uncle Zhang said to her, “You’ve returned. Quick, wash your face and go inside to eat something.” He even cooked her some food and steamed her some buns. Uncle Zhang was truly a cuckold, but now he was dreamwalking. I stood up where I was sitting in the doorway of New World, and exclaimed, “Uncle Zhang . . .” My shouts sounded like popcorn popping, and the stuffy air was pushed forward by the sound. “Father . . . Uncle Zhang from across the street is dreamwalking . . . he’s crossing in front of our house!” I shouted into the shop, then put down my book, hopped down from the doorstep, and headed toward Uncle Zhang and the children who were following him. When I caught up with them, I made my way through the crowd of children, as though cutting through a small forest. I made my way over until I was under another streetlamp, and there I tugged Uncle Zhang’s arm and shouted, “Wake up, wake up! . . . Uncle Zhang, you’re dreamwalking!
“Wake up, wake up! Uncle Zhang, you’re dreamwalking!”
Uncle Zhang ignored me. He pushed my arm aside, and said, “After the rain, the grain will grow moldy out in the fields, but what can be done? What can be done?” I again rushed up and tugged at him, but once again he merely pushed my arm aside, and said, “The grain has gone bad, and when my wife and children return, they will be hungry. If my wife goes hungry, she’ll run off again with another man.” As Uncle Zhang said this, his voice softened, as though he were whispering to me and was afraid others might hear.
I stood behind him and stared in amazement, as my legs grew weak. After pausing for a moment, I quickly walked up to him, and I saw that his face resembled an old gray brick, and his body was as stiff as an old elm tree. His footsteps were as loud as a pair of hammers. His eyes were wide open, as though he were wide awake, but when he spoke, he didn’t look anyone in the eye, and his brick-like expression demonstrated that he was sleeping.
Gazing out from Town Street, I saw that the sky was as hazy as though there were a cloud of fog floating overhead. When I looked more closely, I noticed a tiny light or two hovering in the haze, like summer fireflies. There was a hair salon and the grocery store—selling daily items, dishes, and cooking utensils. There was also a privately owned clothing store and a publicly owned electronics store. All of the stores along the eastern side of the town’s main street had their windows open—regardless of whether or not there was anyone inside, or whether or not there were any lights on. Some of the store owners had closed shop and returned home to harvest their wheat, while others were sitting or lying down in their stores and cooling off with an electric fan. The street was very quiet, the night was impatient, and everyone was feeling lazy. When I passed in front of Uncle Zhang’s store across the street, some people turned to look at me, while others didn’t turn and merely continued what they were doing.
The children shouted, “He’s dreamwalking! . . . He’s dreamwalking! Quick, look at the drea
mwalker!” The night was dark and murky. Perhaps someone heard them, or perhaps not. Perhaps several people heard them, but acted as though they hadn’t. Those who did hear them would come out and take a look, stand by the side of the road and smile. After Uncle Zhang had walked away, those people would then go to the children and ask, “What are you doing? What are you doing?” Dreamwalking was a significant occurrence, but at the same time it wasn’t really significant at all. For the past several hundreds or thousands of years, this sort of thing has occurred nearly every summer, and sometimes even several times in the same summer. When other people dreamwalk, it actually doesn’t have an iota of significance. Who wouldn’t end up dreamwalking once in their lives, or even several times—even just by rolling over and kicking the blanket off the bed? It’s like how people talk in their sleep hundreds of times. Talking in one’s sleep is a kind of light dreamwalking, and if one gets out of bed and starts doing things, that would be a kind of deep dreamwalking. Everyone who lives and works on this earth will inevitably have several instances of either light or deep dreamwalking.
The night was so hazy.
The sky was so stuffy.
People who were busy went to do what they had to do, and people who were idle remained idle. Meanwhile, people who were neither busy nor idle continued being neither busy nor idle.
Uncle Zhang, from across the street, headed out of town, to the edge of his family’s field. He then went to a small threshing area in his family’s field, in front of the ripe wheat. The landscape outside town was completely different from the landscape in town. In the fields, there was always at least some wind. There were small fields that were each shared by a pair of households, and medium-sized fields measuring half a mu, which were collectively threshed by several households. There were also some large fields measuring more than a mu each, which had been left behind by the production brigades. These fields lined both sides of the road, and at night the road resembled a sparkling river, and the wheat fields resembled lakes. In the distant large fields, there was the rumbling of threshing machines, while in the nearby small fields there was the creaking sound of horses and cattle pulling millstones. There was also the popping sound of people pounding the wheat as they lifted bale after bale onto the iron frame. Mixed together, all of these sounds resembled a boat—or several boats, or even several dozen boats—sailing across a lake.
The night sky was vast, the wheat fields were minute, and the sounds from the fields were swallowed by the night. In the end, there was a kind of stillness. The lamplights in the wheat fields were muddy yellow, and Uncle Zhang walked through this muddy yellow light as he left the town and headed north. After a while, the children stopped following him, and simply stood at the entrance to town. I, however, continued following him. I wanted to watch as he bumped into a tree or an electrical pole, because when he did, his nose would start bleeding and he would wake up with a shout. I wanted to see what his first response would be upon waking up from his dreamwalking. I wanted to see what he would say, and what he would do.
Fortunately, Uncle Zhang’s family’s field was not very far, and he reached it after proceeding north for about half a li. To get from the road to the edge of the field, he had to cross a rain-filled ditch. As he was doing so, he slipped and fell in. I thought for sure he would wake up, but he merely climbed right back out. “A man can’t let his wife and children go hungry. A man can’t let his wife and children go hungry.” Without waking up, he kept repeating this phrase to himself over and over. In this way, he crossed the ditch and reached the edge of the field. Everything appeared very familiar, and he reached the field without any difficulty. He turned on an electric lamp hanging from a poplar tree next to the field. As soon as the light came on, he put down his wooden shovel and continued looking around. He pushed an iron threshing frame into the middle of the field, then carried over a bale of wheat. He untied the bale and, grasping a bundle of wheat stems with both hands, pressed the wheat flat and threshed it on the metal frame.
I stood next to him, and although he could see the entire field, he couldn’t see me. As far as he was concerned, it was as if I didn’t even exist. When people are dreamwalking, they see only the people and things they care about, and it is as if nothing else exists. The kernels flew off the iron frame as though from an explosion, and there was a faint whishing sound. The smell of ripe wheat was as fragrant as if it were coming from a hot wok. It seemed as if there were even more stars in the sky, and in the distance there was the sound of people arguing over the order in which they would use the threshing machine. Nearby, a nightingale could occasionally be heard singing in a tree. Apart from this, however, everything was silent. Everything was still and pure. Everything was murky grayish black. As sweat dripped down his face, he grabbed a handful of wheat kernels that had fallen to the ground. There was nothing else; everything was still and pure. After he finished threshing the wheat, he brought over another couple of bales. There was nothing else; everything was still and pure. I didn’t want to keep watching—I didn’t want to watch what he would do next.
I wanted to go back, but just as I was about to turn around, something happened. This something was like a glass bottle shattering, producing a loud sound. Uncle Zhang finished threshing another bale, then went to fetch a third. But as he was about to grab the new bale, for some reason he went to an area behind a pile of bales. As he was heading there, a night cat jumped out from behind the pile and stepped onto his shoulder as it ran across his back. Afraid that the cat’s claws might scratch him, he instinctively covered his face with his hands. He stood there frozen in shock, appearing as dead as a post. After a moment, he began blaming himself. Sounding surprised and confused, he asked, “What am I doing here? What am I doing here?” He looked around, and added, “This is my family’s field, but why am I here threshing grain? Why am I threshing grain?”
He woke up. At least it appeared as though he had woken up. “I was clearly asleep, so how did I end up here threshing grain? How could I be here threshing grain?” It appeared that he had woken up. He looked at the sky, with an expression of surprise and confusion that he himself was unable to see. He twisted his body as though looking for something, but when his gaze came to rest on the wooden shovel he had brought, he seemed to suddenly remember something. He squatted down and began slapping his face. “You are truly fucking debased! You are truly fucking debased! Your wife ran away with someone else while you were busy working, yet you still come out here to thresh grain for her. She is sleeping with someone else, yet you are still here threshing grain for her.”
He slapped his face, as though he were repeatedly punching a wall. “You are truly fucking debased! You are truly fucking debased!”
After hitting himself repeatedly, he began making excuses for himself.
“I wasn’t doing this for her. I was doing it for my baby.
“I certainly wasn’t doing it for her. I was doing it for my baby.”
Eventually, he stopped hitting himself, and he also stopped talking to himself. Instead, he collapsed like a sack of flour. After a while, he fell back asleep while leaning against a bale of hay. It was as if he had briefly woken up and then fallen back asleep. It seemed as though the period he had been awake had been but a musical intermission within a larger dream, and after the intermission concluded he returned to his original dream. I was surprised. Extraordinarily surprised. I stood in front of him, feeling as if he had been putting on a performance for my benefit. I couldn’t tell whether to trust him when he said whether or not he was sleeping. When I stepped forward and pushed him, it was as though I were pushing a stone pillar, and when I shook him, it was as though I were shaking a water pouch. His body swayed, but then quickly returned to resembling a water pouch. I shouted, “Uncle Zhang, Uncle Zhang!” It was as if I were shouting at a corpse, even though he was still breathing and continued to snore softly. “Your wife has returned. Your wife has returned.” I stopped shaking him, because I didn’t think he would wake up. He
was already sleeping soundly. Like a corpse. So I shouted at his corpse-like body, “Your wife has returned. She has returned with that man. While you were sleeping, she was with that man.”
Then the situation was no longer like what came before.
It was completely different.
It was as though the sun had come out in the middle of the night.
It was as though there were a fire burning on Uncle Zhang’s skin. His sleeping face, which resembled a dirty cheek or dusty brick, started moving in response to my shouts. He sat up, his cheeks trembled, and his entire face appeared ashen. He made an effort to open his eyes and stare at me, but it seemed he was merely peering at the road behind me. The road was like a river flowing over from afar—flowing in from far away, and then flowing away again. It flowed from north to south, and all sorts of sounds floated up onto the shore and mixed with the sound of flowing water. Uncle Zhang stared at the northern end of the street. His wife had taken this road on her way out of town. She had gone to Luoyang or Zhengzhou. Perhaps she had gone to Beijing or Guangzhou. In any event, she left with a man from some village, who was able to earn money.
She went out into the world.
He stared at this road leading toward the outside world. Under the light of the lamp, he chewed his lip. There was a grinding sound as his upper and lower teeth rubbed against one another, like two pieces of dark-green granite pressing against each other. The sound was dark green, like the night. It was also very humid, and there was an occasional breeze blowing in from the fields. The scent of wheat pounded people’s nostrils, went down their throats, and became embedded in their lungs and stomachs. Some cars drove along the road from south to north, their lights slicing forward like a knife, then slicing away again. Uncle Zhang watched the lights recede. As the cars drove into the distance, the sound of his grinding teeth was replaced with a biting sound. A dark-green sound emerged from between the cracks in his teeth, like leaves that are covered in frost but have not fallen to the ground.
