by Yan Lianke
My father extinguished his lamp.
My family huddled under a tree at the corner of the street. After we watched Yang Guangzhu, Zhang Mutou, and the rest of the crowd retreat into the distance, Father headed in the direction of the person who was still shouting as he lay dying. Father immediately hurried back, covering his nose and mouth. He didn’t say a word, nor did he look around. Instead, he pulled me and Mother by the hand, and we ran for our lives. Even though there was no one behind us, we fled as though we were being pursued by thousands of people wielding knives.
3. (6:00–6:00)
The center of town was only five hundred meters from the bustling area on the eastern side of town. My parents and I covered those five hundred meters as though they were five hundred li. We used a tiny amount of time as though it were an entire day, or an entire year. It was as if we were running continuously for an entire day or an entire year. It was as if we were running, sprinting, even flying. Sometimes I would be in front; at other times it would be Father who would be in front. Mother, however, was always following behind us, struggling along like a belly-up fish on the verge of death. The night gave Mother nightmares. The night gave all of us nightmares. I ran to the front, but then went back to support Mother. Father ran to the front, but then also went back to help Mother. In the end, Father and I placed Mother’s arms over our shoulders, and continued running. As Father ran, he cursed Mother’s leg. “This crippled leg has tormented me my entire life. It has tormented me and Niannian our entire lives!” Mother also cursed her own leg. “It has also tormented me my entire life. If it hadn’t been for this leg, there’s no way I would have ever married you, Li Tianbao!” Cursing angrily, our entire family ran out of the dream.
We then ran into a new dream.
In the end, no one noticed us and no one pursued us as we escaped into a new dream.
We noticed all of the townspeople hiding in corners, in alleyways, in the shadows, and under trees, as well as in those shops that had been robbed. Everyone was hiding, to the point that the streets were left empty and silent, as though our family were the only ones left. “Who’s there?” . . . “It’s us, we’re wearing yellow ribbons around our heads.” . . . “Quick, come hide over here. Do you want to continue on, to martyr yourself as the founding father of the Great Shun and the Heavenly Kingdom?” . . . “If we continue on, we will reach our home. Everything there is familiar to us, and therefore it will be convenient to fight and kill.” Just as Father was speaking to the people hiding on the side of the road, someone recognized our family. The darkness was broken by an ear-piercing scream. “Li Tianbao, you ass. Your wife is crippled, yet you still expect her to fight and kill? Is it that you, too, are dreamwalking, and want to return to the Great Shun of King Li Chuang?” Father responded, or perhaps he didn’t. He focused only on supporting Mother, as though dragging a sack full of grain. Panting like coarse sand, he attempted to make his way to the house. Mother continued to walk and stop, walk and stop, and she kept wiping the sweat from her face and repeating, “I can’t take another step! I can’t take another step!” Father continued pushing her, and repeating, “Another few steps and we’ll be home. Will it really kill you to take another few steps?” In the end, she walked halfway down East Street, until finally there were no more voices and no more people hiding by the side of the road. It was as if we had left King Chuang’s Great Shun on this night on this day of this year.
We once again enjoyed peace and quiet.
There was no longer anyone trying to hunt us down.
The voices of the people hiding by the side of the road gradually faded, but just as we were slowing down to catch our breath, we saw that someone had been killed in the entrance to the Heavenly Fragrance noodle shop. The deceased was an outsider in his thirties or forties, with a square face and jet-black hair. His intestines were leaking out of his abdomen, and his naked torso was perforated with four or five stab wounds. Next to his corpse, there was a cleaver he had been holding, its blade splattered with blood and pieces of flesh. Needless to say, it looked as if he had died fighting someone at close quarters. Farther ahead, in front of the tailor’s shop from which even the wardrobes and clothes hangers had been stolen, there was a corpse lying in a drainage ditch. The body was facedown, with the head in the ditch and the feet sticking straight up in the air. Holding his lantern out, Father approached and tried to pull the body out of the ditch, but found he couldn’t budge it. “He’s dead,” Father told us, as though describing a withered branch that had broken off from a tree. “The corpse doesn’t even have a trace of breath. It appears there was a battle here, and this resembles a cleaned-up battlefield. It doesn’t look like the site of a robbery, but rather the site of a town battle.” Shocked into silence, we proceeded eastward. In the deathly quiet, our footsteps resonated hollowly. Every few steps, Father would mutter to himself. Mother didn’t say anything, but began walking faster than us. It suddenly appeared that she was not as crippled as before, and was now able to walk like a normal person. Eventually, the entrance to our family’s New World funerary shop appeared before us. When Mother saw the shop entrance, she increased her pace even more, as though she were finally returning home after having been away for countless days, or even years. But when she was about to reach the entranceway to our home, Mother came to an abrupt halt in the middle of the street, as though she had just noticed that she had taken a wrong turn and was standing in front of the wrong house. The entrance to our shop was wide open. One of the doors had fallen to the ground, with half lying inside the shop and the other half lying outside. The shop’s wreaths had been torn apart and were scattered over the floor and in the entranceway. Even in this pitch-black night that should have been daytime, I could tell that those paper blossoms and leaves were splattered in blood, as though countless white leaves had fallen into a pool and gotten stained by the foul water. The red blood on the white blossoms appeared alluring, thick, and purplish-black. The blood on the green leaves appeared dark, black, and purplish-blue. The sharp stench of blood lingered on the ground and in the entrance to our house. There had been a violent struggle here, a battle. Mixed with the blood and the paper, there was a cooking knife and an ax. There was also a wooden club that had been used as a weapon, and had been left in a pool of blood like a long leg bone. Everything was very still. It seemed as though hidden in the stillness, in the night, in the still night, there was a faint sound. Father shone his light in front of him, deciding he might as well stop covering the light. In front of him, he saw a hoe, some clothing, and several shoes that had been left there. The batteries of his flashlight were about to run out, and the light was as weak as a thin layer of yellow cloth. He could hear a noisy ruckus two hundred meters away, near the town’s east entrance, as if the sound of a mountain being moved was being transmitted from the other side of the world. “The sun is about to come up?” This question was from Mother, who was standing in the doorway to her house, staring in shock. “The sun won’t come up.” This response was from Father, who was staring at the bloody mess in the entranceway. Then, everything became quiet again. In the stillness, it almost seemed as if you could hear the corpses breathing. This tiny, frigid sound resonated through my brain and through my joints. My entire family stood in front of that pool of blood and in front of those paper blossoms. We saw that in the doorway to our shop there were bloodstained paper blossoms, a bloodstained shirt, and a new pair of those “liberation shoes” worn by PLA soldiers. We didn’t shout in surprise, and instead merely stared impassively at the scene before us.
Along this stretch of street, there had been a battle and a deadly beating.
“You should go back. Now that we are awake, I have no choice but to go to East Street to have a look.”
Father’s voice seemed to have little relation to the scene before me. He handed Mother the flashlight he was holding, and looked at her as though looking at something he had long wanted to throw away but had never been able to. “You should go back. Did you
hear me? You should go back. If you don’t want to live, then don’t go back. Otherwise, you should go back, and don’t come out even under threat of death. You must close and lock your door, and even if you hear a sound as loud as heaven, you mustn’t come out.” Mother didn’t accept the flashlight, acting as if it wasn’t worth it.
“You have to go. Even under threat of death, you still have to go and take a look, and then you can return.”
This was said in a very loud voice. Mother said this in a very loud voice, but it also sounded as though she were simply telling Father goodbye on an ordinary day as he went down to hoe the fields. No one thought of me. No one mentioned what I should do. A feeling of loss descended over the night, and over my heart. It was as if I were superfluous to the night, and superfluous to my own family. I watched as Father headed toward the town’s eastern entrance. I watched as Mother made her way home through the paper blossoms and the bloodstains, but when she reached the door, she turned around and said something very intimate and recriminatory.
“Niannian, why aren’t you coming with me and your father? Why are you just standing there?”
When I caught up with Father, Father also said something very recriminatory.
“Niannian, why are you following me, and not staying home to look after your mother?”
But Father still pulled my hand. I followed him as though following an eagle capable of lifting its legs and flying away. The road was filled with objects left behind after deadly fights, including sickles, axes, hoes, shovels, and carrying poles. There were also red flags and scythes, as well as cloth shoes, sneakers, leather shoes, and cheap plastic sandals. Originally, there had been only a few lamps in the town’s eastern entrance, but by the time we arrived there were many. An entire world of lamps was illuminated, and the town’s entrance was so brightly lit that it seemed as though it were daytime. Meanwhile, the people scurrying beneath these lamps each had a white cloth tied around the left arm. A large truck was parked at the entrance to the village, and was loaded with bundle after bundle of red flags and red silk fabric. An oil lamp was hanging from each of the truck’s banner rods, and there were two banners as large as bedsheets on either side of the truck’s hood. They both had writing on them, but neither Father nor I could read it. All we could see was that in the truck there were a couple of young people who not only had white cloths tied around their left arms but also had white bloodstained bandages wrapped around their heads. One of them was wearing glasses, and the other was wearing a short-sleeved shirt. They were taking turns holding up the loudspeaker and shouting.
“Fellow elders.” . . . “Brothers and sisters, the predawn general offensive has begun.” . . . “We must cross over the dark night and enter tomorrow, to seize Gaotian Town.” . . . “From this point on, we will no longer be villagers. From this point on, we will no longer be left-behind peasants. Instead, we will become future masters and modern urbanites. We will begin enjoying luxurious lives, in which we can have whatever our hearts desire. We will be able to go to the market and get whatever we need, without having to get up in the middle of the night to come into town. We will send the townspeople to the countryside and into the mountains, where they will have to live the kind of bitter lives we ourselves have lived, growing crops and raising livestock, and when they want to go to the market, it will be they who will need to wake up in the middle of the night to come into town.” . . . “To come to our city.” . . . “Fellow countrymen.” . . . “Fellow comrades.” . . . “For the sake of tomorrow, and for the sake of the future, we must charge!” . . . “Fellow countrymen.” . . . “Uncles and aunts and brothers and sisters.” . . . “For the sake of tomorrow and for the sake of the future, we must kill!” . . . “Whoever succeeds in seizing a restaurant will get to keep it.” . . . “Whoever succeeds in seizing a store will get to keep it.” . . . “Whoever attacks anyone who is attempting to resist us, or attacks anyone who doesn’t have a white cloth around the left arm, tomorrow you will be rewarded with a house in town. And if you attack resisters with a hammer, then in the future, when the town becomes a city, you will be rewarded with a building in a busy intersection. Anyone who is attacked to the point of being covered in blood or dead, you will be viewed not as criminals but rather as heroes, and tomorrow this town will be our town, these streets will be our streets, and everything under heaven will be ours. These streets, and all of these houses, stores, train stations, post offices, banks, markets, and so forth and so on, they will all belong to us. At that point, all will get what they deserve, and will take what they need, and if they want prosperity, they can have prosperity, and if they want liveliness, they can have liveliness.” . . . “We must attack for the sake of tomorrow!” . . . “We must bleed for the sake of our grandchildren!” . . . “Fellow countrymen.” . . . “Brothers.” . . . “Charge!” . . . “Charge!” . . . “For the sake of tomorrow, for the sake of the future, and for the sake of our grandchildren, take down Gaotian, kill Gaotian, and charge!”
Those two youths hopped down from the truck and charged forward while holding up the oil lamp and the red flag. The crowd similarly grabbed red flags, swords and spears, lamps and clubs, and followed them toward town. There were maybe several hundred people, or even over a thousand, or perhaps even over ten thousand. They all surged down the streets, waving their clubs and farming tools in the air. “Our family wants that grocery store.” . . . “Our family wants that hardware store on the side the road.” . . . “For years, our family has long had its eye on that butcher shop.” Shouting and pillaging, they all ran toward town. They sprinted through the shops on either side of the street. It was unclear whether they were awake or asleep, or whether they were dreaming or dreamwalking. In the lamplight, the white cloths they were wearing around their arms resembled white flowers blooming in the dark night—white flowers that were surging through the air. The sound of everyone running resembled countless war hammers pounding on countless leather war drums. It sounded as though a hailstorm were pounding down on the drums. “Here are some people who don’t have white cloths around their arms . . . Here are some people who don’t have white cloths around their arms . . .” The shouts rang out as though the crowd had just found a bank vault, or as though they were standing in front of a locked door and had just found the key. Father grabbed my hand and pulled me into an outhouse on the side of the road. I didn’t know whether this was for men or women, but the open-air portion of the outhouse was only half the size of a typical room. I had never been inside this particular outhouse, which had been constructed by one of the town’s old men, who would come by every evening to collect the night soil left behind each day by people on their way to the market. But now, the outhouse became a fortress that would save our lives. The walls of the structure were made of stone and mud, the wall was lumpy and uneven like the town’s swollen and bruised face. Father pulled me against the wall, then ripped the yellow bands from our heads and tossed them into the latrine. “Niannian, don’t be afraid. If someone comes, say that we are outsiders. You mustn’t say that we are from this town.” Seeing that I was trembling from head to toe, Father hugged me close, as though hugging a bunny. I grasped his arms with both hands, fingernails digging into his skin. As I grabbed him, I also calmed down and began to listen to what was happening outside. The footsteps of people running past the outhouse sounded like an army or cavalry. Like a thousand-man army or a ten-thousand-man cavalry. Wave after wave of horses and people ran by, kicking up a cloud of dust that smelled even stronger than the inside of the outhouse. The smell of the dust covered the stench of the outhouse, and also covered the dark scent of the predawn sky. “If only we had white cloths tied around our arms right now, we would be fine. We would be safe, and nothing would happen.” Father was talking to himself, and also seemed to be thinking about something. He reflexively patted his pockets, and as he did so, he turned on the light in the outhouse. The light came on explosively, making it appear as though a sun were suspended over West Street. On West Stre
et there was a loud rumble, after which there was the sound of a shout and a counterattack. “For the sake of the Great Shun, everyone must kill!” . . . “For the sake of the Great Shun, everyone must attack and kill!” Meanwhile, there were also shouts coming from East Street. “For the sake of tomorrow, for the sake of the future, for the sake of our sons and grandsons, let’s go kill!” . . . “To ensure that tomorrow’s Gaotian is still our Gaotian, let’s go kill!” The odd thing was that no one was speaking about the present. No one wanted the present. This was a war over the past and the future. More specifically, this future was the future that was written about in books, and the past was that of the town battle. This great war had erupted over the future and the past. As for the present of this night of this month of this year, it either had been completely forgotten, or had been transformed into a nightmare. There was no present. The present had disappeared. It was as Yan Lianke had written in one of his novels: What arrived was the time and history of the future and the past. And now we were going to die in this nightmare. The lamps in the sky were flickering and swaying, like a sword dancing in midair. The footsteps in the street were running, as the sound piled up until it was over our heads and extended into the air. The sound became a mountain. It became an ocean. It became a mountain range, an ocean, and an entire world. Someone was cursing, “Grandma, grandma, fuck your grandma!” Someone else was screaming at the top of his lungs. “Ma . . . Ma . . . My head is bleeding! . . . My head is bleeding!” It was as though all of the townspeople and the peasants had gathered outside the outhouse to fight. It was as though they had gathered to have a deadly fight. A knife fell from the sky and landed next to our feet. A shoe also fell from the sky and landed on my head. Father hugged me close, the way one might embrace a lamb. I grasped him tightly, digging my fingers into his waist. This way, even as people outside were fighting and yelling, we were hiding inside the outhouse, trembling and holding our breath. The outhouse walls swayed precariously, as though they were about to collapse. Similarly, the street and ground also swayed and cracked as though they were about to collapse. The flashlight’s batteries finally ran out and its light was extinguished. As the outside descended into darkness, it came to resemble a pool of ink, while the outhouse, which remained illuminated, resembled a pool of light. The light in the outhouse was so bright that you could make out the latrine pit down below, as well as the thousands of maggots that were thriving in the heat of this night of the sixth lunar month. White larvae crawled up the latrine walls, heading toward Gaotian. As they crawled along, the vibrations from the deadly fight that was raging outside knocked them back down, back down into the latrine. This is how things went. In this way, it seemed as if the sound of the deadly fight moved west. It appeared that the outsiders had fallen into a trap set by the townspeople. The lights from both sides shone onto the square, and the sound of fighting shifted west, even as the sound of footsteps and shouting also shifted east. It appeared as though the outsiders were being driven out by the townspeople, who were chasing, killing, and expelling them. But after a while—after a short while—the outsiders once again surged into town until they reached the square. The townspeople and the outsiders then proceeded to attack and retreat, attack and retreat—repeatedly moving back and forth outside the outhouse, like a handsaw. Shouts and screams rained down like hail onto the outhouse and the entire town. In my father’s embrace, I began to breathe quickly as I struggled to move. I felt there was something on the ground sticking to my feet and shoes, making it feel as though I were trying to walk through a vat of rubber. Blood was flowing into the outhouse along the cracks between the floor stones, as though it were rainwater. First there were several streams, and then there was a large pool. A pool of blood half the size of a standard tatami mat, or as large as a door. Blackish-reddish-purple, the blood flowed into the outhouse, and in the process it had picked up and carried away dirt and weeds that had been lying on the ground. The smell of blood overpowered the stench of the outhouse. Black, thick, sticky blood flowed in toward the latrine pit.
