by Yan Lianke
After voting, many people headed back toward the village. The sun was high in the sky and it was already lunchtime, so the citizens needed to return home to prepare meals. Watching as the villagers departed, Kong Mingliang stood under the tree, as a patchwork of light fell on his face and body. He felt alternately hot and cold. The question of whether Zhu Ying had slept with the county and town mayors kept pricking his mind, making it impossible for him to settle down. In theory this should not have been any of his business, since after all Zhu Yu was neither his wife nor his girlfriend, but at that moment it occurred to him that if Zhu Ying and the mayors had indeed slept together, it would mean that the election for village chief would be forfeit. And if the election were forfeited, then the building he had been constructing in his dreams would collapse. His life would come to an end, like bubbles by the riverside that suddenly get popped. Life would lose all meaning and would no longer give him any pleasure. He didn’t know if he could continue living. He had come back to Explosion in order to transform it from a village into a town, and then from a town into a city. When he was stealing goods from passing trains, there were several times he had almost fallen to his death. Explosion had become rich because of him. By this point, everyone else in the village lived in a new tile-roofed house, and only the Kong family still lived in their original thatched-roof house.
Even if everything he had done had merely been a performance, he had nevertheless done it all for the sake of Explosion and in order to become village chief. But now, that slut … just because she was attractive and dissolute—combined with the fact that after the trains sped up, he could no longer take the villagers to unload goods—thought she could waltz in with her cash-covered clothing and contest him for the position of village chief.
Fuck! Kicking the tree trunk, Kong Mingliang saw that as the last citizens—villagers—were leaving the riverbank and heading back to their homes, Zhu Ying was also leading the county and town mayors back to the village.
They were going to have lunch.
At that point, Kong Mingliang also walked toward the village, alone.
III.
Before going home, Kong Mingliang first went to the village board.
The village board building was completely deserted, and apart from himself and his secretary, Cheng Qing, the only thing present was that particular kind of sunlight that you see only in the fourth lunar month, together with a flock of sparrows that had returned for the spring. Mingliang sat in his large, empty office, where the exceptionally high ceiling made the couch and the plants feel unusually small. Cheng Qing was wearing a red sweater, straight-legged pants, and low-heeled leather shoes and appeared incredibly pure and beautiful, but Kong Mingliang felt that her face was not quite as seductive as Zhu Ying’s. He didn’t return home for lunch, but Cheng Qing brought him from somewhere a bowl of noodles, which he ate at his desk. As he was about to begin eating, he suddenly stared at Cheng Qing and asked,
“If I were to ask you to marry me, would you be pleased?”
Cheng Qing replied, “The county and town mayors each had a meal in every house in the village; they said that this was a good way for them to get to know the common people.”
Mingliang asked again, “Tell me the truth, do you think that the county mayor and the town mayor have slept with Zhu Ying?”
“The vote counters went to the stage on the riverbank,” she said. “After lunch, the votes will all be counted, and when the villagers return to the assembly area they will announce which candidate—you or Zhu Ying—received the most votes.”
Kong Mingliang suddenly froze, with the bowl of noodles held up to his mouth. Without saying a word, he stared out into the empty, silent room. Cheng Qing was standing in front of him, her face registering an expression of concern and disappointment over his having lost the election. She looked at him as though she had done something wrong. “Run over to the riverbank to assess the situation, then report back to me.” After Mingliang placed his bowl on the table, he gave Cheng Qing this order, and she nodded and hurried off.
The first time Cheng Qing returned from the riverbank, she said, “Chief Kong, you and Zhu Ying are virtually tied, but you are leading by a few votes.”
The second time she returned, she said, “Zhu Ying’s count is increasing, and now she is leading by fifty votes.”
The third time she returned, she said, “Half of the ballots have now been counted, and you have 201 votes, while she has 409.”
The fourth time Cheng Qing returned, she was soaked in sweat. Her face was pale and her hair was matted on her forehead. She stood in front of Kong Mingliang and was about to speak, but he waved her away, indicating that she should remain quiet. There was a silence as he chewed his lip, almost making it bleed. Then he sent Cheng Qing next door to bring Zhu Ying to the village board. In inviting her over, it was as though he were making a monumental decision, after which he seemed exhausted. He sat back, his body so limp it seemed as though he were about to slide out of his chair. But after Cheng Qing left, she immediately reappeared and reported, “Zhu Ying says for you to go to her house. She says that if you want to ask her something, you should do so in person.” Kong Mingliang sat there in a daze. After a long pause, he finally sighed and slowly got up. He rubbed Cheng Qing’s head, releasing an intoxicating scent of hair and shampoo, then kissed her forehead and walked limply toward the door. He turned around and gazed nostalgically at his three-room office, like an emperor who is being forced out of the imperial palace but cannot bear to leave. An aura of loss enveloped his face, and the room itself.
He left the village board building, each step bringing him anguish.
“What about me?” Cheng Qing asked, as she followed him into the courtyard. “After Zhu Ying becomes village chief, will she still want me to be her secretary?”
Kong Mingliang paused and considered for a moment, then he said softly, “How can I not serve as village chief? What do you mean, you crow’s mouth? How could I possibly not be reelected as village chief?” Then he turned away and headed toward Zhu Ying’s house. Their buildings were several dozen steps from each other, but he proceeded extremely slowly. At times, he was tempted to stop and turn around, but in the end he didn’t and instead permitted the history of Explosion to continue moving forward.
The sunlight poured down on his head like a gush of water, and sweat from his head ran down his neck. Cheng Qing followed behind, watching him carefully. She suddenly regretted that, several times when he had grabbed at her in the village board building, she had slipped away, unwilling to give herself to him. But, seeing him about to step down from his position as village chief, and seeing him hobbling along like a seventy- or eighty-year-old man, she rejoiced that she had not done so. Yet on the other hand, she also felt she should have given herself to him, since after all it would not have been a big deal, given that it would have merely been a physical encounter. If she were to give herself to him now that he was about to step down, she wouldn’t in fact be giving herself to the village chief. She stood there and reflected, until he turned into that courtyard, but Cheng Qing still couldn’t decide whether she should give herself to him or not.
The light in the Zhu family courtyard was hot and bright, leaving everyone covered in sticky sweat. Kong Mingliang would have preferred to first wash his face with cold water and cool himself off before going to see Zhu Ying. After stepping through the gate, he looked around the courtyard and saw that, under the wall, Zhu Ying was washing her dishes with water from a faucet that had been placed there to irrigate the plants. “Why don’t you wash your dishes in the kitchen?” he asked. When Zhu Ying didn’t turn around, he suspected that maybe he had just thought this question to himself and hadn’t actually uttered it out loud. So he mustered the courage to ask in a louder voice, “Why don’t you wash your dishes in the kitchen?”
Zhu Ying still didn’t turn around, acting as though she hadn’t heard a thing.
In reality, of course, Zhu Ying knew perfectly well
that he was standing there. When the gate opened, she knew he had arrived. But she ignored him, acting as if she were completely unaware that someone had come in. It was only after he had asked three times in a row that she finally finished washing her dishes and turned around and looked at him, as though looking at a mule that had gotten run over. She saw that he appeared pale and that his brow was covered in beads of sweat. The loudspeaker by the riverbank began blaring, announcing that the citizens of Explosion Village should finish eating and hurry back to the assembly site, because the vote-counting had almost concluded, and the officials would soon announce the first democratically elected village chief since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The sound from the loudspeaker was loud and coarse, and the voice stuttered, with every syllable spat out like a string of pebbles. After the announcement, Mingliang and Zhu Ying both took a moment to recover. They stood in the courtyard looking at each other for a long time, but in the end it was Zhu Ying who could no longer restrain her mockery, and as she pursed her lips traces of a smirk remained visible around the corners of her mouth.
“Have you come to ask me to withdraw?” she asked, still facing the interior of the courtyard.
He asked, “Why didn’t you dine with the town and county mayors?”
“I didn’t have time. I’ve decided to be the village chief.”
“Tell me the truth—Zhu Ying, did you sleep with the county and town mayors?”
“The kitchen faucet is broken.” She put the newly washed electric rice cooker and dishes in the kitchen. “You’ve already missed your chance.”
“I know you received more votes,” Kong Mingliang said, following behind. “I just want to know what your relationship is with the county and town mayors.”
“The loudspeaker is urging everyone to convene,” Zhu Ying said. “You and I should also return to the assembly site.”
He then stood in front of her and said, “Give me the position of village chief, and I’ll do anything you ask.”
She looked at him, and said, “What can you do for me?”
“You just need to tell me one thing.” His lips were trembling slightly. “Did you or did you not sleep with the county and the town mayors?”
She asked again, “What can you do for me?”
“I’ll marry you.”
“Will you kneel down and swear?”
He looked at her.
“Kneel down and swear!”
He finally knelt down and said, “If you let me be village chief, I’ll marry you immediately. After the marriage, I’ll take responsibility for everything outside the household and you can take responsibility for everything inside, and in this way all of Explosion will be ours. In the village, you’ll be able to do whatever you want.” When he finished speaking, he looked up at her. He felt that the tile floor of her house was as hard as iron, as though he were kneeling on a bed of nails. Outside, the loudspeaker continued to blare, calling out his and Zhu Ying’s names and urging them to quickly report to the assembly site. At forty-five minutes past the hour there would be an announcement of who had been elected the new village chief. Mingliang ignored the loudspeaker and continued to kneel there, gazing at Zhu Ying’s tantalizingly attractive appearance with a pleading expression. Zhu Ying, however, listened carefully to the loudspeakers, then looked down at him. Slowly pulling him to his feet, she said, “I knew that this day would come sooner or later… . Let’s go, or we’ll be late for the announcement.”
CHAPTER 6
Traditional Customs
1. WEEPING AT THE TOMB
I.
After the announcement that Kong Mingliang had been elected village chief, it occurred to him that it had been more than a year since the villagers last went to weep at their families’ grave sites in the mountain ridge cemetery. This custom of weeping at the family grave site had been almost forgotten. It wasn’t even necessary to really cry; rather, one would just go and kneel to one’s ancestors. Kong Mingliang, however, suddenly wanted to go to the grave site and weep. Initially, Zhu Ying had received 820 votes, while he had received only 410—which is to say, he received precisely half the number of votes that she did. Moreover, those who voted for Zhu Ying were all young people, most of them under forty, while those who voted for him were all older people in their fifties and sixties who wanted to spit in disgust whenever they heard about prostitution. Among the village’s young people, there was not one who wasn’t entranced by Zhu Ying’s money, which flowed like water. Nearly everyone had daughters who claimed their money came from working in the south, but virtually all of them had in fact followed Zhu Ying and were earning their money doing sex work. This is something every family tacitly recognized but wasn’t willing to acknowledge out loud. As new houses sprouted everywhere like mushrooms, the village became increasingly wealthy, and even though the villagers were not willing to say nice things about Zhu Ying, they thought well of her. As a result, she received twice as many votes as Kong Mingliang.
The announcer, however, stated that Kong Mingliang had been elected village chief, with 820 votes, while Zhu Ying received only 410. Upon hearing this, the audience first reacted with a stunned silence but then broke into wild applause. Amid the applause, the county and town mayors came to congratulate Kong Mingliang on his election. Music began playing over the loudspeakers, and there were fireworks outside the assembly hall. Kong Mingliang walked to the front of the stage and took a bow, thanking everyone who had elected him and promising that within two or three years Explosion would become as prosperous as a major metropolis. Zhu Ying also congratulated him and shook his hand the way that city people do. While doing so, however, she whispered, “In a few days, we’ll get married!” He shook her hand as though accepting her congratulations and felt that her hand was light and soft, without a single callus. It felt as though he were shaking hands with a wad of cotton. Responding to that hand’s warmth and softness, he nodded in agreement.
At that moment, he suddenly remembered that for two years the village had not maintained its practice of weeping at the grave site. So, after Mingliang had taken the county and town mayors out to lunch and had let the reporters from the city take some photographs, the mayors both said that they needed to go take care of some business and Mingliang escorted them to their cars. He watched as they drove out of the Balou Mountains, and the citizens who had gathered in the assembly site returned to their homes. The sun exhaustedly made its way west, as the entire world transitioned from tumult to quiet. As stillness unfolded, the riverbank was empty apart from a handful of people dismantling the stage. The broken stools had been simply tossed aside, and discarded shoes and ballots were scattered all over the ground. Kong Mingliang stood in the road seeing off the mayors, until their cars faded from sight, like horses galloping into the sunset. Only then did Zhu Ying turn around and repeat very solemnly,
“I want to get married right away.”
Mingling replied with a wan smile, “It appears that you and the mayors really didn’t have any kind of relationship.”
“Don’t you want to get married?” Zhu Ying asked. “Marriage is good.”
“What I want is to go to my ancestors’ grave and weep in their memory,” Mingliang said. “I haven’t wept for them in a long time, and I have to tell them what has happened in the village.”
Some people called out something from onstage, and they both headed toward the stage. Mingliang went first, and Zhu Ying followed behind. When Zhu Ying caught up to him she grabbed his arm like a city girl, at which point Mingliang felt so dizzy he almost collapsed. Her arm, however, held him up, like a rope, while also making it impossible for him to walk away.
Even more than before, he wanted to go to his ancestors’ grave site and weep.
II.
The Kong family grave site was located several li outside the village. It was oriented from south to north, so that the sun shone down on the graves all day long. The cemetery contained more than ten generations of ancestors, including dozen
s of graves. Each one had a willow or a cypress growing over it, making the scene look as if a forest had suddenly sprouted in the middle of the mountains.
As the sun was setting in the west, there was a tiny sound of something moving. The field of wheat had turned green. Everything appeared very peaceful, but there was a sense of emptiness. For some reason, after Kong Mingliang was reappointed village chief, he wanted to cry. He proceeded alone to visit his family’s grave site, and before he even got there his face was covered in tears. When he arrived, a breeze blew over from the graves and caressed his face, and only then did he begin to wail like a small child. He collapsed in front of the grave of one of his ancestors, as though he had suffered an unfathomable indignity. Because the grain in front of the graves had already begun to transition from its winter state and to sprout new spring growth, each stalk straightened its back, then turned to watch him cry. No one could understand why he was crying like this. Even Mingliang himself didn’t know; he simply cried and cried. Some wild hares that had just come out of hibernation were watching him, and several crows landed on the grave. His hoarse sobbing was like a river of mud, covering the entire mountain ridge in yellow sludge. His shoulders shuddered as his tears poured out from between his fingers as he held his hands up to his face. As he wailed, however, he resembled a child performing in front of its parents. He continued until he didn’t feel like crying anymore. By this point the sun had almost set in the west, and he heard a voice in his head say, Stop crying! Therefore, he stopped. He wiped away his tears and the snot on his hands, and felt that the crying spell had left him refreshed, as though there were a bright light shining in his heart. He wanted to use that light to see something, and after resolving to do something, he got up, but then saw his brothers Mingguang and Minghui half-squatting and half-kneeling behind him. There were tears behind Mingguang’s eyes, though in the end he did not cry them out. Minghui, meanwhile, did not appear particularly sorrowful but rather was very quiet. When the sun finally set, the last rays of light shone down onto Minghui’s face. He appeared simple and pure, as though he were artificial—as though he were a jade statue with a square face, broad shoulders, and thick red lips. He was quite tall, but had it not been for his clothing and short hair, he might have been mistaken for a girl.