by Yan Lianke
“It’s getting late.” She looked at me hesitantly, then glanced down at Cheng Tianmin. As if begging me, she added, “You should get undressed first.”
I knew that at this point her feminine modesty was presenting itself. She had apparently forgotten that we were engaged in a struggle and that our every word and action was made in response to the enemy’s attacks—everything was undertaken for the sake of the revolution’s smooth deployment and to ensure revolutionary achievements.
I began to unfasten my buttons.
I said, “Are you also going to strip?”
She began removing her clothes, fumbling about as though she were harvesting wheat.
As we were stripping, Cheng Tianmin finally realized what we were about to do. As he rocked his body back and forth, such that his chair began banging on the floor, I finished removing my clothes and hung them on the end of the bed. Hongmei stood naked next to the end of the bed that was farthest from Cheng Tianmin, and with her bare foot she stepped on a page from the New Understanding of Cheng Neo-Confucianism manuscript that had fallen to the floor. Although she had endured a hellish assault in prison, her body was nevertheless as bright and translucent as ever, and her skin still as soft and white as the moon overhead. After her whiteness, her softness, and her nakedness caused a strange, coarse, delayed but prolonged cry to erupt from Cheng Tianmin’s throat, he abruptly fell silent again, and his chair stopped moving. It was as if, after issuing a curse, he was able to begin to calm down again and swallow his fury. Even as he was calming down, however, his face remained green, and the veins in his neck continued throbbing. As he stared at Hongmei, his eyes opened so wide it looked as if his eyeballs were about to fall out.
His fury, it seemed, had reached its apex.
I shouldered a bag full of bullets and bravely went to the front. I stepped over hand grenades, and wanted to exterminate that Nationalist bandit gang. I pulled my bayonet out of its sheath as it gleamed in the light. However … however, just at that moment, just as Hongmei was removing her final items of clothing, I discovered that despite being filled with revolutionary passion and desire for revenge, my body seemed to have no drive or energy to do that thing. I knew that my embarrassing hang-up had returned. That damned thing was now hanging between my thighs like a soundly sleeping bird. I noticed this just as I was about to remove my underwear, and realized that I had been thinking too much about revolution and Cheng Temple and not enough about Hongmei.
Hongmei noticed that my hands were hanging motionless next to my hips, and she immediately realized what had happened. A look of dismay and embarrassment flashed across her face as she sat down on the edge of the bed, with her back to her father-in-law. (My soul and my flesh, my spirit and my marrow!) She sat on the edge of the bed, then abruptly stood up again and proceeded to pull down my underwear and then, like a lightning bolt, slap my member twice. Those slaps were bright and clear—like snowy chunks of ice flying toward the temple from all directions, sounding like shattered glass striking the moonlight or a wooden club striking the walls. I cried out in surprise and took a step backward, and before I realized what was happening, Hongmei lunged toward me and, half-squatting and half-kneeling, repeatedly slapped and tugged at my member. She hit and tugged, pinched and gouged, while cursing, “I want you to report us! I want you to report us! You reported us as adulterous anti-revolutionaries, yet you are the true anti-revolutionary! The true vicious and sinister executioner! The conspirator who can kill without blinking an eye!” At that moment, a fiery pain and a boiling bulge appeared between my legs. My member became engorged like leavened dough, as all the blood in my body surged screaming in that direction.
In that moment of agony, my member grew hard.
I immediately embraced Hongmei on the bed.
As I was embracing her, Hongmei continued mumbling, “I told you to report us! I told you to report us! You yourself are a counterrevolutionary, yet you reported us as counterrevolutionaries!”
The divinely stimulating moment had finally arrived.
The moonlight was still, the stars were flickering, the trees stood tall, the great hall bowed its head, the wind chimes fell quiet, the cypresses bent over, the grapes stared intently, the courtyard walls puffed out their chests, the roof tiles stretched out their arms, the shadows stopped moving, the village grew quiet, the mountains stopped breathing, the oxen stretched out their necks, the birds opened their eyes wide, mosquitoes halted in midflight, and the air itself stopped moving. As I was about to enter Hongmei, her body began trembling like it used to, and under her breath she emitted a fiery-red scream. It was as if this was the first time in her life she was doing this. I knew her scream was partially an irrepressible expression of pleasure, and partially it was also for her father-in-law’s benefit.
Her fiery-red scream energized me and, oblivious to everything around me, I proceeded to do that thing. I didn’t look at Cheng Tianmin. I once again heard him muttering and grinding his teeth, and I noticed the thumping sound of the chair legs against the brick floor as he attempted to turn away from us. But what was particularly energizing was not the sounds that Cheng Tianmin made but the woofing sound of the bed as I thrust up and down. This was the heartrending wailing of the pages and papers that were plastered beneath my and Hongmei’s bodies. A milky-white pungent odor filled the air, bright drops of sweat flew in all directions, and the purplish-red smell of flesh enveloped us. The noise flew up and down, the moonlight was blue and white, and the stars were red and green. I stopped thinking about Cheng Temple and Cheng Tianmin and instead focused only on hardness and revolution. I thought about happiness and ecstasy. I thought about naked Hongmei and about how long I’d be able to maintain this hardness. When I started wondering how long I’d be able to maintain this hardness, I immediately began to fear the mountain would collapse and the earth would give way. At this moment, when I saw that the shadow of the wall projected from behind me was still in its original position, and that the edge of the bed’s shadow was still positioned along the same line on the brick floor, I knew that my hardness would last only as long as half of an incense stick, or the time it took to inhale and exhale a lungful of cigarette smoke. In fact, I was afraid I wouldn’t last even that long, and after ejaculating would collapse again. After all, in prison I had had to squat for an entire night and day, and it was only in the first half of that night that I had finally been able to eat half a dry bun. And that same night, Hongmei and I had already had to walk more than ten li. My entire body began to tense up, my throat became dry, my skin became covered in sweat, and I was afraid I couldn’t hold out any longer. I knew that if I collapsed now, not only would it mean that I wouldn’t finish doing that thing with Hongmei, it would also mean I would leave the revolution incomplete, running out of food and ammunition after initiating a counterattack—like stepping aside to let the enemy escape just after routing them.
I was afraid that after ejaculating I would immediately collapse.
Yet I couldn’t resist the seductive lure of ejaculation.
I began thrusting even more frantically.
Beneath me, Hongmei clearly felt something more intense. We were connected by heart and soul, and although technically we were not husband and wife, in reality we were even more than that. She knew me like the palm of her hand, and when she felt my movements begin to fade, she suddenly stopped screaming and instead grasped my shoulders with both hands and shouted, “Aijun, listen! You must listen!”
I shuddered in surprise. “What?”
She said, “I think I hear someone singing.”
I again began to move.
She pounded my back with her fist. “Listen again! I think I hear the sound of ‘Revolutionary Guards Raise Their Weapons’ coming from the mountaintop.”
I listened more carefully.
It seemed as though I could, in fact, hear a faint trace of music in the sound drifting down the mountain, and it seemed as though in that music I could hear the lyrics:
Osmanthus fragrance in the ninth month
Military songs all around
The poor fighting for emancipation
Workers and soldiers lifting their weapons.
Hongmei asked, “Do you hear it?” I nodded. Hongmei said, “Listen more carefully. The sound is getting louder, it’s flowing like water.” I leaned my hands on her breasts and lifted my ears into the air. But this time I didn’t hear the sound of “Revolutionary Guards Raise Their Weapons” drifting down from the top of the Balou Mountains; rather now it was the faint sound of “March toward a New Victory” coming from the south. The source of that song seemed to be very far from us, perhaps 108,000 li away, and furthermore the loudspeakers playing the song didn’t seem to have a good connection, and consequently the sound would start and stop intermittently. I wanted to continue listening, but the song suddenly changed to “Liuyang River,” and now it was much louder. There was a woman with a voice like water flowing from a mountain spring, and it seemed as if she were singing while standing on the banks of the river to the south of Chenggang. It was as if the musical instruments—a xianzi fiddle and a shengxiao flute—were set up on that willow-covered embankment on the riverbank. Ordinarily, I liked the song “Liuyang River,” and every time I heard it I would immediately think of a beautiful village girl walking down a path with a sickle and a bamboo basket, singing as she cut the grass, and finally, when her basket was full, and she was hot, she would strip and bathe naked in the river, splashing her fair skin with water. She sings, asking how many twists and turns there are along the Liuyang River? How many dozens of li is it to Xiangjiang River? What counties are located next to it? What kind of hero do we need to achieve liberation? At this point, that scene with the village girl once again appeared in my mind’s eye. The girl was only seventeen or eighteen years old, and even after stripping naked and singing the first verse, she continued laughing and beckoning for me to come and join her. I had no choice but to go over to her, so I stepped into the water while keeping my gaze riveted on her nubile body. When I approached her, I reached out and very carefully caressed her purple, goose-bumped nipples, while at the same time joining her in song. What I sang was:
Liuyang River passes through nine turns,
after fifty li it reaches the Balou Mountains,
at the base of the mountains there is the town of Chenggang,
where there is a Gao Aijun,
who leads the people to emancipation.
When the girl heard me, she leaned her head on my shoulder, caressed my chest, and sang an adaptation of the third verse of “Liuyang River”:
Liuyang River passes through nine turns,
After fifty li it reaches Chenggang,
the river continues rushing forward,
but it can’t compete with the kindness
with which Gao Aijun treats the People.
I was utterly moved by her song and conquered by her smooth, tender, and fair body. In her singing I could hear the sound of running water following the summer and autumn heat, together with the tender green smell and milky fragrance of budding vegetation in early spring. She was young and didn’t have a single wrinkle on her entire body. The tiny white hairs over her upper lip were covered in a soft glow—as though there were some steam suspended there, and it might condense into a water droplet and fall off at the slightest touch. And she also appeared mature, and when she sang or laughed her face became covered in autumn splendor. She had ample breasts and hips, a thin waist, and long legs, and when she stood in the water, she resembled a willow or poplar tree. Apart from these enchanting parts of her appearance, the most extraordinary aspect of her was the way in which she worshiped me, her loyalty to me and flattery of me. I kissed her hair, her lips, and the bridge of her nose, and I nibbled the tip of her tongue.
Hongmei said, “Aijun, what is the melody that the accordion is playing so vigorously?” I replied, “Don’t you recognize it? That’s ‘The Guerilla March.’” Hongmei said, “Can you tell what the erhu fiddle over there is playing?” I replied, “Isn’t that the melody from Tunnel Warfare, from when the Japanese devils enter the village?” Hongmei said, “And how about that one, coming from the southeast?” When I climbed onto her and angled my ear in that direction, I heard an erhu fiddle and a shengxiao flute, as well as a piano and a Western-style flute, playing a piece that combined local and foreign sounds, Chinese and Western elements. At times the piece sounded like a small creek, and at others it resembled a roaring river; at times it was as high as the mountains and the clouds, and at others it surged forth as fiercely as a flood. I asked, “What is this melody?” Hongmei replied, “It’s a revolutionary march,” and I said, “I’ve never heard this one.” She said, “Your sweat is dripping onto me.” I said, “What time is it? How is it that we haven’t heard the cocks crow yet?” She said, “Tonight, after we do that thing, we might as well just die in bed.” I said, “I feel like I’m about to collapse,” to which she replied, “Why don’t you lie beneath me for a while, so you can rest?”
I lay down beneath her, so that she was now liberated on top of me. When I lay down, I felt my sweat soaking the pages from The Cheng Brothers’ Complete Works and Cheng Tianmin’s New Understanding of Cheng Neo-Confucianism manuscript. Under my back, those pages resembled soggy tree leaves, as the stench of ink and the scent of Hongmei’s body assaulted my nostrils. The moonlight was dim, and there were fewer stars overhead than before, and in the temple, the smell of predawn dew was growing stronger. We forgot about time, forgot about our surroundings, forgot about revolution and the world and even about our enemies and our struggle. We didn’t hear cocks starting to crow and dogs starting to bark in the villages; we didn’t notice that half the stars had faded and that the moonlight was now dimmer and moister. We didn’t wonder whether Cheng Tianmin had been watching us this whole time, or whether he had instead ground his teeth and turned away. Was he still cursing us under his breath? Was the chair to which we had tied him still clattering about?
Songs flew through the air, and love covered the earth. The mattress squeaked, and the manuscript pages were soaked as if in mud. Hongmei lay on me. She sat on me. I entered her from the front. I entered her from the rear. I placed her feet so they were facing the sky, then stood in front of the bed. I had her lie facedown on the bed, with her butt in the air, then I stood behind her. I had her lie sideways, while I lay next to her. I had her bend her knee and place one leg beneath the other. Hongmei had me sit on the edge of the bed so that she could straddle my member. She had me lie supine on the edge of the bed while she stood at the base of the bed. She used her hands, she used her mouth, she used a combination of her hands, her mouth, and her body to pleasure me, and also had me use my hands, mouth, and body to pleasure her. We were indefatigable and insatiable. We racked our brains to come up with new positions, taking inspiration from around the world. We were like pigs and dogs; we were like chickens and phoenixes. We were as gentle as willow catkins and as crazy as wild beasts. Life is like water flowing east, and we saw death as a return to revolution. We were in fact pigs and dogs. But we weren’t chickens, and how could we compare to phoenixes? We were more like a pair of donkeys, oxen, horses, or mules. Wolves are kinder, lions are more bashful, tigers are gentler, and jackals are softer than we were. We were completely naked and completely tireless. We had just begun and would never stop. Nudity is the best weapon for struggle, and so there was no need to cover up or be coy. For the sake of revolution, we could even let the enemy dump a toilet bowl over our head. Revolution is love, because both revolution and love originate from the same deep well. Women are lovely because of the revolution, and men are heroic because of the revolution. There is no weapon more powerful than nudity, and there is no revolution more glorious than a naked revolution. Pursue revolution and face the dark night; go to battle and greet the dawn. If you say we are pigs, then we are pigs; if you say we are dogs, then we are dogs. If you call us livestock, we’ll just laugh at you, and if you say tha
t we’re not even worth being called livestock, we’ll nod in agreement. No one is more broad-minded than a revolutionary, and there is nothing stronger than the will of a revolutionary. We pursued revolution and went to battle. Life goes on, and the battle persists. We hoisted standards on our shoulders and followed in the footsteps of heroes, as the perpetual revolution continued to advance. We bravely went to battle and never left the battlefield. We looked around, and saw storms everywhere. The prairie was ablaze, and workers and peasants were armed. We swore to bury all the world’s reactionaries, and what illuminated us were the eternal rays of the red sun. The Big Dipper was visible in the sky, the bright moonlight shone on the ground; in the still night of the Balou Mountains, everyone was fast asleep; Chenggang sighed, and the memorial arch stared straight ahead; the explosives had already been planted; Cheng Temple was restless; when would dawn arrive?
As I gazed at Xia Hongmei, my passion surged, and I remembered my revolutionary sentiment and comradely love. Beyond the clouds, I could hear the sound of military songs, and in the night sky I could see revolutionary flags fluttering in the wind. The Balou Mountains were brilliantly illuminated, and the road was broad and majestic, as a love song opens a new chapter for humanity. Hongmei’s pretty face and beautiful body made my pulse race, but more importantly, we cherished the same ideals and followed the same path, and we were both willing to lay down our lives for the sake of revolution. Time passed, and the moonlight gradually faded; the morning dew was falling and the dawn’s rays rising. It seemed as though a song was returning from afar, and all we could hear was our heavy breathing.