Authors: Yan Lianke
“Come quickly, there’s been a horrible accident. The county chief has been run over by a car.
. . .
”
“Come quick, the county chief’s own car has shattered both of his legs.
. . .
”
Those shouts rained down from the sky like blood, splattering the government building courtyard, and the entire world.
Book 15: Seeds
C
HAPTER 1:
A
S FOR WHAT COMES LATER, IT WILL COME LATER
Grandma Mao Zhi departed.
1
By that point the new lunar year had arrived, and the weather had gotten somewhat warmer. The willows, poplars, and wild grass were all green and budding. Spring had indeed come early, in the first lunar month, and in the Balou mountain range, there was the fragrantly foul smell of grass everywhere. In this transition from winter to spring, someone showed up from Boshuzi township. He was on his way to a relative’s house deep in the Balou mountains, and when he passed Liven, he stood in front of the village and began shouting,
“Hey
. . .
people of Liven
. . .
people of Liven
. . .
“Do you hear me?
. . .
This is a letter for your village.
. . .
It is a document.
. . .
”
Although it was warm on this day, the winter chill had not yet fully gone away. The villagers were all sunning themselves around the old honey locust tree in the center of the village. Grandma Mao Zhi had aged so much she didn’t have a single black hair left, and instead her entire head had turned as gray and brittle as a patch of dried grass. When she returned from Spirit Mountain after having led the villagers on their performance tour, she didn’t remove her burial clothes. In fact, she wore them all day to cook, eat, and even sunbathe, and at night she wore them to bed.
She rarely spoke anymore, her lips being so tightly sealed that it seemed as though she were already dead. But when she did open her mouth, she always repeated the same thing:
“I’m about to depart for a cause. If I’m going to die, so be it. When you die, your body becomes stiff. When I was alive I wasn’t able to help the villagers withdraw from society, and I let down the entire village. When it comes time to dress me in my burial clothes after I die, they will take the opportunity to tear me apart limb by limb.”
She added, “That is why I won’t remove my burial clothes, and neither will I give the villagers an opportunity to tear me apart limb by limb.”
Therefore, she wore her burial clothes all day long—and regardless of whether she was resting at home or walking through the village, she always had those sixteen or seventeen blind, crippled, or half-paralyzed dogs following her around.
The side of Deafman Ma’s face was completely disfigured as a result of the six months he spent performing his firecracker routine. He actually didn’t have any problems while he was still performing every day, but as soon as he stopped, that half of his face became covered with pus, and while he was idle that winter he frequently went to the center of the village to sun himself, orienting the injured side of his face toward the light. It is said that the sun can cure many illnesses, and after Deafman Ma sunned himself the entire winter his face did in fact gradually heal. Paraplegic Woman no longer embroidered anything on paper or leaves, but rather spent her time sunning herself and mending shoes. While she worked, she kept muttering about her children, saying that they must have grown teeth on their feet, because otherwise how could their shoes fall apart so quickly?
When One-Legged Monkey returned to Liven, he didn’t have a cent to his name, but he did have a large pouch of gold strips that would last him his entire life. Even though he couldn’t eat or drink the strips, he often said that he wanted to build a two-room house at the top of the ridge and open a store and a restaurant. He said that he wanted to be the boss, and before turning thirty he hoped to transform the gold deposit into a substantial investment. At this point, he borrowed all his tools from the carpenter, and worked at home every day building shelves for his store, until the entire village and the hillside were full of the sound of his hammering.
Huaihua was pregnant, and even though her belly was growing larger by the day, she still always wore her red wool shirt. Given her slender figure, as her belly grew she came to resemble a carrying pole with a round willow basket tied to it. Because she was pregnant, and particularly because she was pregnant with a bastard child as a result of what happened on Spirit Mountain, her mother Jumei felt humiliated and didn’t want to see anyone, and stayed at home day after day. Just as everyone who saw Huaihua’s belly knew what had happened to her, they also knew that Blind Tonghua and her nin sisters Yuhua and Mothlet had also been violated by that group of wholers and, consequently, had dropped out of sight.
The fearless Huaihua, however, began walking through the village every day, since she had been told that it was good to keep active while pregnant. She would stroll around like a ball rolling back and forth, with a bright smile on her face and always eating a snack of some sort. As she strolled back and forth, she looked proud of the baby in her belly.
People would ask her, “Huaihua, how many months along are you?”
She ate her melon seeds and replied, “Not very long.”
They would ask again, “When are you due?”
She replied, “It’s still early.”
They asked, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
She said, “I don’t know, but at least I know it will be a wholer.”
Little Polio Boy wanted to learn to become a carpenter, and he spent every day at One-Legged Monkey’s house, running errands for him and helping out with other tasks.
No one knew what One-Eye was doing all winter, and when the other villagers were hanging out in the streets he was nowhere to be found. When the villagers were not around, however, he could be seen strolling aimlessly about. He would occasionally ask someone, “Where is everyone? Where did everyone go? Did they all sneak out to perform?”
In this way, everything went back to the way it had been. But though it appeared as though nothing had changed, in reality everything was different from the way it had been before.
On that day, as Grandma Mao Zhi was sunning herself under the honey locust tree in her burial clothes, surrounded by those sixteen or seventeen dogs that she treated like her own grandchildren. Paraplegic Woman was sitting on a wooden stool on the western edge of the village, mending shoes, and Deafman Ma had set up a door plank in a location where he could get direct sunlight while being shaded from the wind on the pus-covered side of his face. Some people were off to the side playing poker and chess to while away the winter boredom, when a loud shout was heard from the mountain ridge,
“
. . .
Residents of Liven
. . .
did you hear me? I have an official document from the township for you.
. . .
”
Little Polio Boy had gone to the mountain ridge to cut down a dead locust tree that he planned to have One-Legged Monkey make into a cabinet leg, and he brought the letter down with him. He hobbled along with the trunk of the locust tree resting on his shoulder and the rest dragging on the ground, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake and a long trail. When he arrived at the center of the village, he stood in front of Grandma Mao Zhi, who was still sitting beneath the honey locust tree, and said,
“Granny, this letter is for you.”
Grandma Mao Zhi seemed surprised.
The boy said, “The person said that this is an official document from the county seat.”
Grandma Mao Zhi’s surprise became open astonishment.
As she was reaching out to accept the leather envelope, the movement of her arm made her satin burial clothes rustle loudly. Once she had taken the letter from Polio Boy, her hand was trembling so hard she had a difficult time opening it, but finally she ripped open the envelope and was able to remove the thick, folded letter inside. When she unfolded it, she saw the black characters and the two round seals from the county committee and the county government at the bottom of the page. Grandma Mao Zhi suddenly began to cry. She abruptly stood up and began sobbing, as her gray tears rolled down her sallow face like pearls.
The sun was warm. It was almost noon, and the stillness of the village was shining everywhere like sunlight. At this point, Grandma Mao Zhi suddenly cried out, as though she were an old person who had already died and surprised everyone by suddenly coming back to life. An “
Ah, ah!”
sound erupted from her throat, like burning kindling inside a woodstove. The disabled dogs lying beside her all suddenly opened their eyes and looked up, gazing at her in confusion.
Little Polio Boy took a step back.
Paraplegic Woman stabbed her shoe needle into her own palm.
Deafman Man sat on the door threshold, the pus released by the heat of the sun flowing down his neck.
The villagers who were playing cards held their cards in midair, as though their hands had died.
The pregnant Huaihua walked over from the other side of the village. From a distance she heard her grandmother cry out, and she rushed over, holding her belly. Before she reached the honey locust tree, her shouts rolled over:
“Grandma! Grandma!
. . .
What’s wrong?
“Grandma, Grandma, what’s wrong?”
Paraplegic Woman, Deafman Ma, and the idle people playing cards all cried out together,
“What’s wrong?
. . .
What’s wrong?”
Grandma Mao Zhi instantly stopped crying. Her tears, however, continued streaming down her face. Despite the tears, her face was gradually covered in a flush of excitement. She looked at the surprised villagers, and then bent over and carried her bamboo chair to the bell hanging from the honey locust tree. As she was walking, she muttered hoarsely to herself,
“Withdraw from society; we’re going to withdraw from society.
“This time we’re really going to withdraw from society. The documents were sent down more than a month ago. They must have arrived at the township at the end of last year, but didn’t reach the village until now.”
Grandma Mao Zhi continued muttering as she walked, not looking at anyone as she moved forward. It was as though no one was around. Still muttering to herself, she arrived at the bell. She placed her chair beneath it, then picked up a round stone. She climbed onto the chair and began striking the oxcart wheel bell, making a crisp
dang, dang, dang, dang
sound. Under the midday sun of this day at the end of the first month of the
jimao
year, the village and the hillside were filled with the bright tolling of the bell, the entire Balou region was fllled with the pink ringing of the bell, and even the entire world seemed to be filled with this
dang, dang, dang
sound.
The residents of Liven all emerged from their homes. Men and women, young and old, the blind, crippled, deaf, and mute, together with those missing arms or legs, were all summoned by the tolling of the bell. One-Legged Monkey emerged with the canvas apron still tied around his waist and a wood plane in his hand. Jumei was inside cooking, her hands covered in flour. Tonghua, Yuhua, and Mothlet were busy doing something or other, but they all came over and joined the other villagers. The entire village stood like a dark mass beneath the honey locust tree.
“What is she doing?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why is she ringing the bell now?”
“You’re only supposed to ring it in the event of an emergency.”
In the hubbub, Grandma Mao Zhi gazed at One-Legged Monkey, who was standing in front of the crowd. She handed him the letter she was holding, saying, “Read this to the other villagers—in a loud voice!” One-Legged Monkey asked what exactly it was he’d be reading, and Grandma Mao Zhi replied that once he read it he would know. One-Legged Monkey took the letter, unfolded it, and then gasped in astonishment. He stared in shock for a moment, then, like Grandma Mao Zhi’s, his face erupted in delight. He hobbled over to the stone riser beneath the tree, jumped up onto it, cleared his throat, waved his arms, and then cried out as though he were an important personage, “Quiet please, quiet please. Fuck your grandmother, the documentation for Liven’s withdrawal from society has arrived. Now I am going to read this motherfucking document aloud to everyone!
. . .
This will be a presentation!”
Under the honey locust tree, everything became absolutely silent—so silent that it seemed as though no one was even there.
Standing on the stone riser, One-Legged Monkey read aloud in a shrill voice this document that had been sent down by Shuanghuai’s county committee and county government:
To the Party committees from every department, office, and township: