by Yan Lianke
We had no choice but to continue on through the gaps in the crowd and the night. But as we were walking away, Ma Huzi ran over and pulled Father aside. “What time is it? Why hasn’t the sun come up yet?” . . . “I don’t know what time it is, but I think it must be about time for the sun to come up.” As Father said this, he took my hand and, with Mother behind us holding on to our clothing, we made our way through the crowd by following those wearing yellow ribbons around their foreheads. We walked through someone else’s dream as though following a small path from one side of the thornbush to the other. I was able to see the color of other people’s dreams—they were a mixture of black and white, as though black ink had gotten spilled into some white paint, and then gotten mixed with it. There was a circle of black and a circle of white, together with a swirl of black and white mixed together. Intermixed with the murmurings of people talking in their sleep, there was the smell of sweaty sleep and the pungent odor of morning breath. The sound of their breathing resembled the gasps of someone on the verge of death being oppressed by a nightmare. Awake, we circled the outer margins of the crowd, trying to sneak around under the light of the lamps. Under this lamplight, I could vaguely make out other people, but they didn’t look at us, and instead merely focused on tiptoeing toward that square in the center of town, their necks extended like rubber bands.
We arrived at the square.
We arrived at the center of the town battle.
There were masses and masses of people.
On the outer edges of the crowd, there were the people who were half-awake, while inside there were those who were half-asleep, and even farther inside there were those who were sound asleep, as well as the dreamwalkers who could talk and act as though they were awake. After the dreamwalkers began to rebel, they took their knives and their clubs and, staring intently with their sleepy eyes, they gathered below the stage. The stage was constructed from a dozen or so tables that had been pushed together, and on either side there were some wooden poles. Hanging from the poles were oil lamps that were neither particularly bright nor particularly dim. Below the oil lamps there were more than a dozen police from the town police station, together with some of the town youth who had been most fond of fighting. Regardless of whether someone was wearing a police uniform, a white gown, or was simply topless, they would nevertheless have a yellow ribbon tied around their foreheads. The only exception was the man standing at the very center of the stage. This was King Li Chuang—formerly known as Deputy Director Li Chuang from the department of armed forces—who was still wearing the military governor’s uniform that he had been wearing during the first half of the night, when the town mayor was wearing his imperial robes. The front and back of his uniform were splattered in blood, as if he had just killed someone. The wooden rings that had been hanging from General Li Chuang’s costume were missing, and on the stage in front of him countless beads had fallen and scattered around. The embroidery on his sleeves had come undone, and countless white pearls were hanging from his gown by a thread. Not only was Li Chuang wearing a yellow ribbon around his forehead, like everyone else: he had also tied another ribbon to the front of his uniform. His complexion was the color of coagulated blood, and under the lamplight his hair appeared to be standing on end. He had a handsome face and a complexion that was as resplendent as marble. His eyes were wide open, but nevertheless still retained a look of confusion. His eyes did not appear at all gentle, but rather seemed to project a cold light. It was at this point that someone came and whispered something in his ear, and someone else placed a battery-powered megaphone in his hand. The person whispering into his ear seemed to have mistaken my father for Li Chuang’s enemy, Yang Guangzhu—whose father and grandmother had previously passed away, and whose mother had died that same night. After the man finished whispering to Li Chuang and handed him his things, he retreated to stand behind him. Then, dressed in his official robes and holding his megaphone, Li Chuang proceeded to the front of the stage and gazed out at the assembled crowd, and at their eyes glimmering in the lamplight. He cleared his throat, and the crowd standing directly in front of the stage fell silent. He cleared his throat again, and that silence immediately spread through the entire crowd. After waiting for everyone in the square to become silent, he placed his megaphone on a table. “I hereby announce that we will have an uprising. This is our Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. We have already returned to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of the era of King Chuang.” After a pause, he raised his voice. “Now, the righteous army of the Shun dynasty has been assembled, and we have occupied the town government. Our final battle before the sun comes up will determine the fate of our Heavenly Kingdom. It will determine whether or not we can return to the great Ming dynasty. I know . . .” His voice grew even louder, and even without a megaphone it still sounded as if he were using one. “People from other villages, like Wu Sangui, have already gathered outside town to steal from Gaotian. They want to occupy the houses, roads, and all of the property and livestock of our Heavenly Kingdom’s future capital. But they . . .” The deputy director lifted the lower hem of his military gown and laughed a cold laugh. “Those losers with their homemade weapons number only a few dozen, while we have several hundred or even several thousand troops, and if we make a move, we can easily kill them, annihilate them, chop off their hands and feet and hang them from the town’s trees and electrical poles. As soon as the sun comes up and they see this, they will retreat, acknowledge defeat, and surrender to us, whereupon we will transition from the Ming dynasty to the Shun dynasty. At that point, our Shun dynasty will finally attain what it deserves, and I, King Li Chuang, decree that anyone who succeeds in killing an outsider will be granted the status of a category seven officer in the Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Shun. Anyone who succeeds in killing two outsiders will be granted the status of a category six officer; anyone who succeeds in killing three or four will be granted the status of a category four or five officer; and anyone who succeeds in killing eight or ten outsiders will be treated like those who have achieved a top score in the Great Shun’s military examinations. As for those of you who don’t kill anyone, and merely succeed in breaking one of the enemy’s arms or legs, or slicing off an enemy’s ears or nose, the Great Shun will award you houses, land, and silk based on the number of arms and legs you break, and the number of noses and ears you slice off. The reward for breaking one enemy leg will be one-point-two mu of land, and the reward for breaking an enemy arm will be one-point-three mu. For those of you who slice off enemy noses or ears, the reward will be ten bolts of silk or five silver ingots for those who offer one nose or ear, and a hundred bolts of silk, eight hundred horses, ten gold bars or five small gold bricks for those who offer ten.” When King Chuang reached this point in his speech, his voice became even deeper and even more powerful, as though he were shouting through a crack in a door. “Regardless of whether we return to the Great Shun or remain in the present, this battle will mark a decisive moment . . . Everyone and everything, be they heroes or random weeds, will observe the town’s predawn battle . . . Now, everyone listen to me. We must all extinguish our lamps. Everyone must stay silent, and hide in this town’s streets and alleys, behind walls and in outhouses, and in funerary shops, restaurants, hair salons, Chinese pharmacies, and in neighboring houses and courtyards. We must make the enemy believe that the entire town is asleep, so that they will boldly enter the town’s shops and homes, and steal from them. Then, everyone must continue hiding, and watch for the large gas lamp in the square.” King Chuang removed the lamp from the column where it was hanging, and lifted it up. “We will use this light as a signal. When you see that this lamp is illuminated and hanging from the top of the column, you should emerge from your hiding places. And when you see outsiders not wearing yellow ribbons around their heads, you should kill them with impunity. Anyone who kills one outsider will be granted the status of a category seven officer in the Heavenly Kingdom of the Great Shun; and anyone who kills ten outsiders will be recognized f
or outstanding service . . . Now all should prepare to extinguish their lamps . . . Everyone should help transmit my orders from the front to the back of the crowd . . . Everyone should go and quietly begin looking for somewhere to hide. When you see me extinguish this lamp, you should all extinguish your lanterns, lamps, flashlights, and candles. After the outsiders have entered the town and begun stealing from our houses and our shops, you must be careful not to move . . . But when you see the lamp in the square come on again, and when you hear a deadly commotion in the streets, you should emerge from your hiding places . . . You should kill anyone who is not wearing a yellow band around the head . . . You should kill anyone not from this town . . . You should kill anyone who does not want to return to the Great Ming and help establish the Great Shun . . . Do you hear me? . . . Will you remember what I’ve said? . . . Have you relayed everything I’ve said to the people in the back of the crowd?”
Deputy Director Li Chuang shouted while standing at the front of the stage. His voice swirled through the night and through the crowd like a gust of wind. The people in the crowd standing below the stage were buffeted like a clump of grass in that wind, as they turned around to relay to those standing behind them what King Chuang had said. The night looked as though it had been painted black, and the dawn was like a pool of black mud. There was the sound of chirping, as though tens of thousands of feet were jogging over the sandy ground. Then, the lights were extinguished, as though a lake was slowly flowing over the shore in all directions. Our family was standing at an intersection a few dozen paces from the stage. As we watched, we saw the crowd disperse and head toward even darker alleys. “Shunzi, do you want to be a category six or a category seven officer? If you are going to kill someone, why don’t you go ahead and kill a high-level provincial official?” . . . “Ma Zhuang, do you want to be county mayor or provincial governor?” . . . “I don’t want to be an official. I just want to have a few hundred mu of land, and a handful of concubines.” . . . “What about you, Wang Yili?” . . . “I don’t want to be an official or a landlord. I’ve spent my entire life as a butcher, slaughtering cattle and pigs, but I don’t know what it feels like to kill a person. I want to go back to the Great Ming and the Great Shun, and see what it feels like to kill someone and slice off his nose and ears.” The sound of whispering accompanied the rustling sound of footsteps. There was also the sound of people sharpening their blades, as well as the sound of people exchanging their cleavers for larger knives. It sounded like rain. It sounded like feet dashing forward. There was also the sound of people in the middle of the street relaying the message: “King Chuang wants you to speak more softly. King Chuang orders you to be silent.” The sounds were mere whispers, but at the same time their strength was something you would encounter only once in a hundred years. These whispers were like rain falling on a hot pavement, or like midday showers on a field. A mist was swirling over the streets, and there was a heat wave rolling over the entire land. Father initially felt calm and composed, but this heat quickly left him confused. When Mother first saw Father’s composure, she herself remained outwardly calm except for the fact that her hands and face became wet with sweat, but after she saw his composure change to confusion, her own face turned pale and her hands began to tremble. “Why doesn’t someone go wake up Director Li Chuang? If he doesn’t wake up when you tap his shoulder, you can hit him or dump a basin of cold water over his head.” Before Father had a chance to say anything, Yang Guangzhu and Zhang Mutou, over in the square, suddenly chopped off someone’s head for some reason, and before that person had a chance to finish shouting “Ah!” his head dropped like a melon. “Motherfucker! Those who want to inform, will meet this end. They’ll meet this end.” Yang Guangzhu and Mutou said this angrily. As they were doing so, they kicked aside the head, which was still spurting blood like a fountain, after which the body collapsed like a wooden stake. Father and Mother both screamed softly, then covered their mouths and eyes with their hands. After this, the world became very quiet. The extinguished lamps shrouded the town in darkness. The streets, meanwhile, were full of movement, disquiet, and the stench of blood. In the disquiet, there was suddenly the scream of someone being killed. “Aiya! . . . Mother!” After this scream, however, the town streets and the entire world became as still as death. All of the lights had been extinguished, and all of the sounds had been silenced. In this deathly still, dark night, there was again the clear sound of Yang Guangzhu mumbling as he dragged something. “Motherfucker! To think that someone would dare inform on us! To think that someone would dare say that our uprising is not an insurrection but merely a mass dreamwalking. Those who dare to say that we are dreamwalking, I’ll give them a knife and wake them up.” Then, there was only deathly silence. Everything returned to silence, which was broken by the stench of blood and the urgent footsteps of people running and hiding in the night.
