The Four Books (14 page)

As everyone watched, the Child walked into his building.

The Author followed him in.

They spoke for a long time.

After a while, the Child emerged alone, his expression softened. In the doorway, he blew his bronze whistle, summoning everyone back to the courtyard. The Child looked at the Musician, who this entire time had been standing by a wall, head bowed, and said, “Come with me. Do as I say, and I’ll award you a red blossom.” The Child then headed over to the third dormitory of the second brigade. The Musician hesitated, but in the end she followed the Child.

There was a red light in the East. The Musician followed the Child to the dormitory. The Child stood in the entranceway, and shouted inside,

“There is no need for you to slice me up—I know it would be hard for you to do. And there is also no need for you to follow everyone to the riverbank to smelt steel. I’ve thought it over, and decided that there is no need for you to say anything. Instead, I’ll have the Musician do everything that you originally should have done. After all, given that you two were a couple, if you don’t go then she must go instead. And if she goes, she’ll need to do the work of two people—yours in addition to her own.”

The Child walked away.

He left his words in the entranceway, like a hostage. When he reached the main district entrance, he looked at the sky and the troops, he whistled again and waved, then led them northward.

In fact, as the troops departed, they proceeded around the wall to the east of the courtyard. The Scholar hurried to catch up with them. He was limping, like a dog with a broken leg that was nevertheless determined to catch up with its master.

4.
Old Course
, pp. 199–210 (excerpt)

The ninety-ninth was located eight
li
from the river.

This region between the ninety-ninth and the river was a marsh in the summer, and frozen salt flats in the winter. If you got up before dawn, you could reach the salt flats by sunrise. The sun was suspended above the eastern horizon—a beautiful golden orb linking the earth and the sky. Along the riverbank there was the frosty sound of birds singing. At first, it was only one or two calls, but by the time the winter sky was filled with blinding light, the air was filled with a solid wave of sound.

The sun was very bright.

The flat riverbank was covered with white salt.

Everyone’s face and body was drenched in sweat.

As the professors headed out toward the river, they each carried a bundle of bedding, a travel bag, and a set of pots and pans. They were also hauling several carts full of grain, oil, and salt. The Child flitted ahead like a bird, following the path that he and the Technician had previously taken. He proceeded due north, through the area that was a marsh in the summer and salt flats in the winter. The region was completely bare except for a few clumps of towerhead grass, out of which some sparrows and other birds would occasionally emerge, their sharp cries sounding like women crying out after accidentally biting a hot chili pepper.

The troops marched through the distant wasteland, like a solitary flock of geese in the vast sky. The putrid odor of the towerhead grass, the acerbic smell of salt, and the wooden smell of the thornbushes, together with the bright smell of morning sun and the cold scent of the air itself—all mixed together to produce a distinctive alkaline smell. Even though you couldn’t see it, the odor hung thickly.

Up in front, a red flag mounted on the cart was fluttering in the wind, as though the troops were sailing down a river. They walked in single file, forming a wiggly line as commands like “forward, march” and “whoever lags behind will forfeit a blossom” were passed down from the front to the rear of the procession. At the rear were the Scholar and the Theologian. The Scholar was on crutches, and since each step was as arduous as if he were dragging a sandbag, the Theologian had been sent to assist him and make sure that he didn’t fall behind.

“You are more learned than I. In fact, I hear you even attended a reform session on Marx’s
Capital
,” the Theologian said. “But you know how much the Israelites suffered when they followed Moses out of Egypt?”

The Scholar didn’t reply, and instead merely continued walking forward.

“Who knows how many people starved to death on the road, or how many died from exhaustion. Even after marching through the autumn and the winter, they still couldn’t make it out of Egypt and reach Canaan. We,” the Theologian said, shifting his bag from his left shoulder to his right and taking the Scholar’s green canvas bag, “still have eighty more
li
to go, but if we hurry we should be able to reach the river by nightfall.”

In the end, no one dropped from the procession. By noon, they saw a pond ahead, in the middle of that desolate wasteland. The pond was frozen solid, and the water plants that flourish in the summer lay withered on the surface of the ice, like an uncombed mop of hair. They sat around the pond, and after they had rested, cracked the ice to boil some water, and having eaten some dried provisions, they continued their journey. When someone reached the point where they simply couldn’t take another step, they would sit on the cart up in front, and would compensate the person pulling the cart one or two of their own red blossoms.

They hurried along like this all day, but along the way some people developed blisters on their feet while others removed unnecessary items from their bags and threw them away. The middle-aged Physician removed the stethoscope and blood pressure cuffs she had hidden in her bag and hung them on a thornbush on the side of the road—deciding that even if she saw someone on the verge of death, she wouldn’t try to help them.

By dusk, the road was littered with shoes and socks, and torn hats, together with discarded shovel and hoe handles. There was even a new pair of women’s pants. When it was clear that the procession couldn’t proceed any farther, the Child called out from up front, asking, “Do you see that gray elevated area where the sun is setting over the river embankment?” As his remark was relayed to the back of the procession, he added,

“I will award five red blossoms to whoever gets there first, and will penalize whoever gets there last by making them forfeit five blossoms, and making them cook for everyone.”

The pace of the procession quickened, as the younger people surged forward, sprinting in the direction of where the sun was setting behind the embankment. The grass and sticks under their feet rustled and snapped loudly. Those who were running and shouting slogans held their red banners above their heads as though they were a flaming torch. In the end, even the Theologian left the Scholar and surged forward to catch up with the people in front of him, saying “I’m sorry” as he dropped the Scholar’s bag on the ground. Those running included men and women, young and old, professors and teachers, like a herd of horses galloping toward victory. They were laughing and shouting, as wave after wave surged toward the riverbank, shattering the thousand-year solitude they found there. The banks of the river boiled with activity. The young teachers were the first to arrive, as people stood on top of the furnace that the Child and the Technician had built, hoisting the red flag into the air, their bright red shouts making the setting sun appear dim and lifeless by comparison, like a distant lighthouse enveloped in a cloud of dust. Meanwhile, lagging behind everyone was the Scholar with his broken leg, who went to pick up his canvas bag and paused to watch everyone running ahead and shouting slogans, with cheers and red flags. He stood there for a moment, then bit his lower lip, as a look of confusion covered his face, like the winter fog that blankets the desolate landscape.

I had intentionally remained at the back of the procession, and now finally took the opportunity to walk over. Grabbing the Scholar’s bag, I said, “We’re almost there. Don’t worry.”

The Scholar smiled, then said gratefully, “Thank you!” I didn’t hear a trace of sadness or irony in his voice. He and the Musician apparently still didn’t know that it was on account of what I had written about them in my
Criminal Records
that they had been seized.

5.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 200–205 (excerpt)

So it came to pass.

In the beginning, God created heaven and earth. He divided day and night. The Child said, “The men should live over here—and the women should live over there.” The men and women were thereby separated. Below the Yellow River embankment, everyone cleared the underbrush and built some thatched huts, giving them somewhere to sleep. They also pitched the tent they had dragged over, giving the Child somewhere to live. They piled up some stones and lit a fire, and in this way had somewhere to cook their food. They used the magnets to gather the black sand, and in this way they had iron to smelt.

If it was stipulated that five people were needed to dig a small furnace, then you would call for five people, and if it was agreed that ten people were needed to build a large furnace, then you would call for ten.

Everyone walked on the ground, and the great earth supported their feet as they searched for black sand. They looked for places where water had flowed and left behind a dark line in the sand, then placed the bar and horseshoe magnets over the area and walked forward in small steps, using their clothes and their cloth bundles to carry the black sand to the furnace. After three to five days, they would remove a steel ingot from the furnace.

God said, There is a sign for the covenant I made with all of you and with every living creature on earth, which is a rainbow I placed in the clouds. Light is like the rainbow, and fire is like light. The fire in the furnace burns continuously day after day and night after night, warming this cold and desolate land and illuminating the dark and cold night. The Child made a stack of these ingots, which were black and green, round and pie-shaped. He piled them up, one on another. During the day, the steel had a light red smell, and at night the scent of the moon and the stars hovered over the river surrounding the Child’s home, like mist over a lake.

The Child was living in a marshland a fair distance from the furnaces.

There were trees in this marshland. The Child’s tent was supported by poles, and the four corners were anchored to trees or stones. Rocks and sticks were used to hold down the sides of the tent, and the inside was full of straw. In this way, the inside of the tent was warm and shielded from the wind. There was a lantern suspended from the ceiling, and when the wind blew there was a whistling sound as the lantern swung back and forth. The light looked as though it were flowing like water. The Author walked into the tent and handed over his
Criminal Records
, which was written neatly in blue ink on red graph paper. He placed all the pages on the wooden stand next to the Child, who said, “Please sit.” The Author sat down under the lamp, his shadow like a chunk of black steel in the moonlight. “Let’s see,” the Child said, leafing through the manuscript, eventually stopping at a certain point in the text.

“The day we first arrived,” the Author said, “I noticed the Musician and the Scholar walking together, and furthermore noticed that she was carrying his bag for him.”

“I also noticed,” he added, “that the Musician somehow managed to find some pickled vegetables and chili peppers, which she gave to the Scholar.”

“Can you believe it?” The Author looked at the Child. “On the surface, the Theologian appears to be good, but the book he was reading—no one would believe this even if they were beaten to death—wasn’t actually a copy of
Capital
, which he had helped translate and had even revised in accordance with the higher-ups’ instructions. The volume was this big, and this thick.” The Author gestured with his hands, as his voice rose. “The Theologian had carved a small hole inside that copy of
Capital
, where he hid his small copy of the Bible. Everyone thought that every night, when the Theologian didn’t have anything to do, he would pretend to read Marx’s canonical text, while in reality he was actually leafing through the Bible ensconced inside.”

A look of shock passed over the Child’s face.

“He hid the book in his pile of bedding.”

Another look of shock passed over the Child’s face.

“Also, the Physician was a thief. Whenever she saw no one near where they stored the black sand, she would go and take a fistful and dump it into her flour sack.”

Another look of shock passed over the Child’s face.

The Author said, “I already wrote about all of this in my
Criminal Records
.”

The Child stared for a moment, then said, “How many blossoms do you want me to award you today?”

The Author replied modestly, “That is up to you.”

The Child went to the head of his bed and removed a wooden box from his chest, from which he produced three small blossoms. The Author reached out to accept them, and the Child handed them to him, together with a notebook and a bottle of ink.

The Author accepted them and left the tent.

The Child also left the tent. So it came to pass. The Child had reached an agreement with the criminals collecting the black sand, specifying that each person must contribute ten bowls of black sand every day. They must smelt the iron once every five days, producing a steel ingot no smaller than a wicker basket and weighing at least three hundred
jin
. Those responsible for providing firewood must not let the furnaces go out. Now the Child emerged and stood next to the tent. The winter wind blew, and the furnaces burned bright. The sound of the river, which the embankment could not muffle, resonated loudly. Everyone stopped to rest, returning to their huts to sleep. These furnaces that were dug out of the river embankment burned brightly, illuminating the earth and half the sky. The Child stood on a lump of steel, gazing out at a distant hut. After a moment of silence, the Theologian walked over and stood in the light next to the smelted steel. He heard the Child say,