The Explosion Chronicles

by Yan Lianke

  Mingliang stared silently at Minghui.

  Mingguang, however, wiped away his tears, then smiled as he walked forward. He said, “Today, you received twice as many votes as Zhu Ying.”

  Shifting his gaze from his fourth brother to his eldest brother, Mingliang suddenly blurted out,

  “Zhu Ying and I are going to get married.”

  Kong Mingguang stared at Kong Mingliang in surprise, as though he no longer recognized his own brother.

  “Has our father agreed?”

  “I have agreed.”

  There was another pause, whereupon Minghui, as though trying to break the silence, announced happily, “Today we received a letter from Third Brother that he has received a commendation in the army, and he’ll be promoted.”

  Mingliang was pleasantly surprised. With a smile, he stared at Minghui for a while, then brushed off the dirt on his knees and his butt and began walking toward the grave. His two brothers followed behind. There was a long silence, as though a curtain had been draped over their heads. By this point the sunlight had completely disappeared, and the mountain path became dark and quiet, and their footsteps resonated as though they were drumsticks tapping on the earth’s crust. But in the blink of an eye, the moon emerged from behind a cloud. You could see that in Explosion there were many villagers who had come out of their houses, and they were all going to weep at their families’ graves. They didn’t really want to weep, but rather they were merely following tradition. Every year, on one day in the month following the Qingming grave-sweeping festival, all families would return to their ancestors’ graves to weep and to tell their ancestors what was on their minds. In this way, their hearts could be at ease for the rest of the year. It was also said that on this day when the village chief went to his ancestors’ graves to weep and tell them what was on his mind, he also visited the graves of the ancestors of the other villagers as well. There were the sounds of countless footsteps, and there were many lights and voices emerging out of the stillness. He heard a family crying beside a grave and mumbling something. Lights appeared wherever there were graves—appearing in all directions, along the hillside and in the ravine. There was the sound of crying everywhere, as though each family had suffered a boundless injustice.

  The three brothers proceeded through that cascade of tears back to the village.

  They initially assumed that since the villagers had gone to weep at the grave sites, the village itself would therefore be empty and quiet; but when they arrived in the village square they discovered that there were some villagers who had not gone to the graves in the mountain but rather had come to these new graves in the square—to weep and burn incense and paper money, filling the village streets with dense clouds of smoke. As the brothers approached, they saw that one of the mourners was Zhu Ying. She was kneeling at her father’s grave and was burning three incense sticks, and she had laid out three bowls of offerings. In a loud, clear voice, she announced to her father,

  “I’m about to get married. You can rest in peace. In the future, Explosion will continue to belong to our Zhu family.

  “… I’m about to get married. In the future, Explosion will continue to belong to our Zhu family!”

  The Kong brothers immediately stopped to listen to what she was saying, as though watching her perform a scene in a play. Next, Cheng Qing came out. She and her mother were carrying a basket full of funeral money and sacrificial offerings. They were also each carrying a flashlight, whose beam shone back and forth under the moonlight, like a big round piece of yellow silk fabric being dragged along the ground. As Cheng Qing and her mother passed in front of the Kong brothers, the mother stopped and exchanged some warm words with them, then stroked Minghui’s face and asked how could he have grown up so quickly? However, Cheng Qing, who as the village board secretary would have been expected to say something upon seeing the newly elected village chief, merely nodded her head. Since the announcement that Mingliang had been elected village chief, she had not appeared in his presence. Even now, she did not address him as Brother Mingliang—as village custom would have dictated—and neither did she address him more formally as Chief Kong. Instead, she tried to avoid his gaze as she walked toward her ancestors’ graves to weep.

  Mingliang stared at her in surprise. She proceeded a few paces, then turned around, and their gazes met under the moonlight. Only then did she ask somewhat awkwardly,

  “Will I still serve as the village board secretary?”

  “Of course,” he said, coming up to her. “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “Are you definitely going to marry Sister Zhu Ying?” She looked over toward Zhu Ying and saw that Zhu Ying was looking over at her.

  “We’ll get married right away,” Mingliang said. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  “Of course it’s a good thing … I just want to go weep at my ancestors’ graves.” As Cheng Qing was speaking, her eyes filled with tears, and she urged her mother to hurry. The two of them disappeared into the moonlight, like a couple of yellow leaves on an autumn day. At that moment, Zhu Ying walked over from her father’s grave, held Minghui’s hand, then gazed at Mingguang and addressed him familiarly as Eldest Brother, as though she and Mingliang were already married and she were already a member of the Kong family.

  2. WEDDING INVITATION

  When Mingliang’s father Kong Dongde heard that Mingliang and Zhu Ying were going to get married, he immediately dropped the birdcage he was holding. The cage door opened and the container of birdseed spilled out. A pair of parrots, which had been pets their entire lives, squawked in surprise and flew away.

  The parrots were never seen again.

  Kong Dongde had been sitting under the house awning and using a piece of bamboo to clean up the bird droppings in the cage, as Mingliang stood next to him and told him about the marriage.

  “Zhu Ying and I are now engaged.”

  His father had frozen, and after a long pause he slowly turned and asked,

  “Doesn’t Cheng Qing treat you well?”

  “I promised Zhu Ying we would immediately get married.”

  It was at that point that Kong Dongde had dropped the birdcage.

  The swallows that had flown back for the spring were busy building nests under the awnings, and their cries seeped into the cracks of the silence between father and son. The old elm tree in the courtyard was full of pear blossoms, and a strong smell of Chinese toon wafted over. Watching his parrots fly away, Kong Dongde knew that they were going far away and would never return. He was heartbroken and regretted his reaction. He looked at his son, who had appeared unusually somber ever since being elected village chief, and said,

  “Did Zhu Ying give you the position of village chief?”

  Mingliang replied, “We are ready to get the marriage certificate.”

  “She will be the death of me,” his father said. “It is on account of her dead father that she wants to marry into our Kong family.”

  “Send her a wedding invitation,” Mingliang said. “Can’t several hundred votes for village chief be exchanged for a wedding invitation?”

  Everyone knows you can’t have a wedding without a wedding invitation, which should be printed on red paper and should say something propitious like “Together for a hundred years” or “Auspicious marriage.” Several hundred yuan should be placed in a red envelope, to serve as engagement money. A banquet should be arranged, at which the groom’s father or mother should hand the bride the wedding invitation, thereby signaling that the groom’s family approves of the marriage. After this formal engagement, the couple can then get married.

  One morning in the fourth lunar month, Zhu Ying came over to the Kong family home to receive her wedding invitation. The sky was clear, and it was market day along the river in front of the village. All of the villagers had gone to the market to buy and sell their goods and were busy doing their own things. Zhu Ying was also in a hurry to return to the county seat to get on with her business, so she picked this date to meet wi
th her fiancé’s mother and decide on a day for the wedding. After going to the city to make a reservation at Pleasure World, she would return for the wedding and then spend the remainder of her days helping Mingliang with Explosion’s business. It was also on this day that Zhu Ying, wearing the money-covered dress she had brought with her from the city, went to the Kong family home bearing countless wedding gifts.

  “What if my father doesn’t agree to the marriage?” Mingliang asked.

  “As soon as he sees me, he’ll definitely agree,” Zhu Ying replied confidently. “In this world, there isn’t anything I can’t do.” Then she turned and asked Mingliang, “Is there anything you can’t do?”

  “No, there isn’t anything I can’t do,” Mingliang replied.

  They rushed to the Kong family home to fetch the wedding invitation. As they passed through the village streets, side by side, they saw a middle-aged man taking some vegetables to market and stopped to talk to him. Zhu Ying asked how old the man’s daughter was and suggested that he let his daughter go into the city with her—saying that in a single day in the city his daughter could earn as much as he himself could earn in an entire year from selling vegetables. The man looked at her, whereupon Mingliang glanced at the new tile-roofed house the man had built, and added, “Let her go—if you have some more money, then when the village becomes a town you’ll be able to open a grocery store selling fresh vegetables. And after Explosion becomes a city, your daughter will have seen the world and could return to serve as a manager and open a department store or something. After she becomes a boss, you won’t even need to button your own clothes, since there will always be people to help you get dressed and put on your shoes.” Then they proceeded down the street and saw a child with a book bag on his way to school. Zhu Ying patted the child’s head, and Mingliang asked her,

  “Shall we have a child next year?”

  “Sure,” Zhu Ying replied. “Next year, when the village becomes a town, my child will be born into the town’s new prosperity.”

  “Study hard,” Mingliang said with a smile as he patted that child’s head. “Work hard, and after you finish school you can become an engineer in Explosion City’s Bureau for Urban Planning.”

  The two of them proceeded along. The conjugal affection they had felt for each other in Zhu Ying’s home—a feeling of love that surged up to their heads—hadn’t yet subsided. Love, like fire, was burning them up, making them feel that the entire world was full of promise. When they reached a street corner, Kong Mingliang said that in the future he wanted to build a one-star hotel on this street corner, for the people who would come to Explosion on business trips. Zhu Ying smiled at him mockingly and replied that he was being shortsighted. She said that if they were going to build a hotel, they should build a five-star one. That way, they wouldn’t risk opening it and feeling that it was already out of date.

  “We should build a ten-star hotel!” Mingliang kissed her and said, “That way, when people from all around the fucking world come to this hotel, they’ll be left speechless.”

  Zhu Ying smiled even more mockingly and said, “Five stars is as high as it goes!”

  “Do you not believe that I can build a ten-star hotel with walls that are made entirely of gems?” Mingliang asked seriously. “Do you think that there is anything in this world that I can’t do? If you don’t believe in me, then why did you agree to marry me?”

  This question left Zhu Ying speechless—and immediately reminded her of their urgent post-wedding plans. She did not say anything about believing in him but merely told him that he must have someone immediately write an announcement about Explosion being redesignated as a town and send it to the town government. One copy of the announcement should be sent directly to the county seat, and another should be taken to the city, to be placed on the mayor’s desk. In this way, they returned to reality, and to the things at hand that urgently needed to be done. They continued chatting until they arrived at the door of the Kong family home. All of the houses in the village now had tile-covered roofs, and only the Kong family was still living in their original thatched-roof house. The old building abutting the courtyard wall was made of mud and crushed tiles, and under the wind and rain it was on the verge of collapse. There was a strong smell of dirt and dust around the gate. Zhu Ying walked up to the gate and looked at it and at the old house inside the courtyard.

  “We should build a new house… . Wait until I am town mayor!”

  “Reporters from the newspapers and the television stations are no longer interested in your affairs.” She replied coldly, “I don’t want to get married and live in this old house.” At this point, Mingliang’s mother walked out of the house. When she saw Zhu Ying, she stared in shock at her dress, then broke into a smile and accepted the clothing and gifts Zhu Ying was carrying. Smiling brightly, she led her son and Zhu Ying into the house.

  In the morning air, there was the green scent of spring combined with the smell of wheat from the fields outside the village. Mingliang’s mother went into the kitchen to help Mingguang’s wife with the cooking, while Mingliang’s father and eldest brother sat in the living room. There were already five or six dishes on the dining table in the middle of the room, including chicken, beef, and fish. The aroma seeped out from under the dishes’ lids and filled the room. Several village cats had come over, attracted by the aroma, and were wandering around the table legs and Zhu Ying’s pants legs, their mewling sounding like music. A flock of magpies and orioles flew over and were circling the courtyard, then they flew inside and even circled around Zhu Ying’s head. When they began to tire, they alighted on the tree in the courtyard to rest. Zhu Ying’s body was covered in perfume, which smelled like fragrant osmanthus blossoms. A couple of canaries landed on her shoulders, and were followed by a flock of sparrows that also flew up to her in search of that aroma. As a result, the entire house was filled with the sound of birds chirping and the smell of dirt. Only after Kong Dongde shouted at them did those birds begin to settle down.

  No matter where Zhu Ying went, the canaries always landed on her shoulder, pecking at the coins printed on her clothes. She had to keep waving her arm to shoo them away, but it was not until she picked up a bowl of bitter melon that they finally scattered. Then, Kong Dongde led everyone into one of the interior rooms, where the family all sat around the table. There were more than a dozen dishes, all artfully arranged. The wineglasses and chopsticks were waiting impatiently in front of them. The father sat at the head of the table and his daughter-in-law Cai Qinfang sat with Zhu Ying. Cai Qinfang leaned over and smelled Zhu Ying’s clothes and said that it was no wonder the sparrows and butterflies were circling around. She also told Mingliang that he had a good eye, and that in finding Zhu Ying he had ensured that he would be able to spend the rest of his life in a honeypot.

  Mingliang smiled, but after looking over at his father he immediately wiped the smile from his face.

  Mingliang’s elder brother Mingguang didn’t say a word. Instead, with an expression of disappointment, he gazed first at Zhu Ying and then at his wife, Cai Qinfang.

  The warmth in the room was unevenly distributed and alternated between warm and cold. Zhu Ying had considerable experience and had hosted guests from all over of the world, including rich and poor, high officials and lowly fishmongers—but everyone knew that today she had come to the Kong household to receive the wedding invitation, and that she would be subjected to a sort of vengeance banquet. Zhu Ying, however, was neither anxious nor angry. Before sitting down she brought out the wedding gifts and distributed them to everyone. Zhu Ying gave her future mother-in-law a pair of flannel shoes like the ones people wear in the city, and gave Elder Brother a Western suit he could wear when he went to teach. She gave her sister-in-law a half-wool dress and two bottles of perfume and face cream covered in foreign writing—assuring Qinfang that this perfume and face cream were better than what she was currently using, and if she used them for a few days she would look a lot younger. Her sister-in-
law’s hand trembled as she happily accepted these gifts. Then, Zhu Ying took out the jeans she had brought for Fourth Brother but set them aside, saying that the family should give them to him as soon as he returned from the city.

  In the end, she would present a gift to her future father-in-law, Kong Dongde. When she gave him the gift, Kong Dongde naturally would take out the wedding invitation he had prepared and give it to his prospective daughter-in-law. After this ceremonial gift exchange, Zhu Ying would open the wedding invitation and read aloud the auspicious words written on it (while someone else would take the money in the envelope and count it out aloud in front of everyone). Finally, there would be a celebration, and the wedding invitation would conclude with a banquet.