by Yan Lianke
Everything proceeded smoothly.
Everything was formed naturally.
If heaven decides that people must die, it also decides whether they will have an earth burial, an ocean burial, a river burial, or a mountaintop burial. After these various forms of burial had been practiced for years, people were eventually forced to abandon their burial customs and begin practicing cremation. After switching to cremation, my uncle, as though embezzling gold, let the human oil flow, whereupon my parents began to buy it and store it here—barrel after barrel, year after year. From the beginning, my parents wanted to store the oil underground in order to keep it safe. It was only after my father went up to the ridge in the middle of the night to look for a pond, a hole, or a gully that he realized that the population of the Funiu Mountains was as dense as a field of grass, and there wasn’t any remote spot where he could store the oil for a long time without others—including spirits and demons—potentially finding it. Accordingly, he had no choice but to store the barrels one after another in this cave, and wait for the day when the oil could achieve its maximum potential. What potential? This would be a truly astonishing use, because otherwise Father would not have continued storing this oil for so many years. He would not have filled this five-hundred-meter-deep cave with oil. The lamp’s electrical cord extended from one end of the cave to the other, and if you stood at one end, the cave appeared as deep as the night sky. Barrel upon barrel of corpse oil was stored there, as though it were a village about to hold a ten-thousand-person meeting, or as though it were a ten-thousand-li-long road full of people wearing black clothes. There was barrel after barrel, and if all of the oil had been poured out, it would be enough to form a river, a lake, or even a vast ocean.
However, I had never seen the ocean.
Yan Lianke’s novels rarely mention the ocean, but he often writes about fields and wilderness, mountains and plateaus. His settings are typically cold and desolate, stretching endlessly in all directions. Even after walking for three days and three nights, you still would not be able to reach the end of his wilderness. His novels are each very long, and when placed together they resemble a vast wilderness. They could also be said to resemble a simple yet messy grave. Pines, cypresses, and wild pagoda trees would grow out of the body buried in this grave. Beneath the trees there would be a plot of dry grass and wildflowers, and locusts and crickets living between the grass and the flowers. Grasshoppers and crickets would sing there every day. This person—this Uncle Yan—I don’t know why all of his novels are like messy graves, or an expanse of wilderness. More concretely, if you want to say something good about his novels, then the best thing you could say is that his novels are about a village. The people, soil, and houses all sing a song of everlasting sorrow. Or, if you want to be more precise, you could say that it is a funeral song involving a tree, a plant, and a person. Or someone blowing a suona horn to sell goods from our New World funerary shop. You could say that the funerary shop our family opened was simply waiting for Uncle Yan’s works to be completed. All of our family’s business—including that of my father, my mother, and myself—everything we say and do should be recounted in those books. Unfortunately, my father cannot read, and neither can my mother, while I myself can’t write or tell stories. At the end of the day, even if I felt that Uncle Yan did not write well, I would have no choice but to accept him, and would have no alternative but to read his books—the same way that even if you don’t like sweet potatoes, you still have no choice but to eat them if that is all you have. Or you might want to live in Luoyang, Zhengzhou, Guangzhou, Beijing, or Shanghai, but all you can do is go from Gaotian up to this cave, and then from the cave back down to Gaotian. Gaotian is simply Gaotian, and this cave is simply this cold cave. The barrels of corpse oil stored in this cave are as endless as Uncle Yan’s novels. Desolate and lonely. Even if you were to spend three days and three nights—or a hundred days and a hundred nights—hauling the barrels out of the cave, you would still never finish. I stacked one barrel next to a row of others. With the back of the cart facing a row of barrels, I would hoist the barrel up, whereupon it would slide down off the back of the cart and land with a thud next to the others. It was as though someone had jumped into the ranks of his army regiment. It was as if when a new story was added to one of Uncle Yan’s books, that regiment suddenly gained an extra member. In this way, the troops became more numerous, and the regiment gradually became larger, stronger, and more imposing.
The sound of barrels knocking against others was low and resonant. The cave swallowed that sound like a famished wolf devouring its food, and the sound abruptly disappeared. In this way, the cave once again became perfectly still, and the barrels of oil once again became countless columns of death. As I was about to leave, a dragonfly landed next to my foot. There were bats flying in the light of the cave’s lamp. There were spiders climbing in the spaces between the walls and the oil barrels. They all seemed to be hoping I wouldn’t leave, or at least that I wouldn’t turn off the light when I did. They seemed to be hoping I wouldn’t leave them in the darkness, in the dampness, in the oily stench. I had no choice but to turn off the light and leave. Outside, everyone had begun to dreamwalk, and if I didn’t turn off the light and leave, then what would I do if my parents started dreamwalking?
I turned off the light and closed the door. The pitch-black sound resonated through the cave. It resonated through the world of the embankment. The moonlight was as soft as water, and the night was as still as a cave. After I walked outside, I stood there facing in the direction of Yan Lianke’s house, then used the light from his window to follow the path down the hill and into town.
BOOK FOUR
Geng 3: Birds Lay an Egg
1. (23:00–23:41)
It was a hot, stuffy night.
Heat emanated out through every door and window crack, from every house in every village.
I left the embankment and returned to the road below. Entering the town streets, I felt as though I were stepping into a steamer basket. There was the sound of restless movement everywhere. The night birds cried plaintively, as though they had just woken from a dream. In their cries, there was the stench of sweat and the smell of fear and confusion. The crickets were still singing and dancing outside town, but when they reached the main street they suddenly fell quiet. There were beams from lanterns and flashlights, which blew in front of me. There was the sound of footsteps running, and it seemed as though something were happening in town. After the light and the sound of footsteps receded, the deep silence appeared as distant as winter is from summer, and as the Qing dynasty was from the Ming dynasty.
It was only upon reaching the street that I once again saw the light of the lamp and the shadowy figures of people rushing around. The figures were emerging from my family’s store, having come to report recent deaths and order funerary wreaths. Father looked up when he saw me enter, and muttered to himself, “How could someone jump into the well and drown while dreamwalking? Someone else also jumped into a well while dreamwalking. It’s the strangest thing—how can people kill themselves while dreamwalking?” With the knife, he cut a bamboo stem in half, then into quarters, and finally into eighths. In this way the stem, which was originally as thick as a person’s wrist, was reduced to a bundle of sticks as thin as chopsticks or noodles. Father tied an old shoe sole against his leg, then placed the bamboo and the knife against the sole. Mother was silent. She was quietly making papercuts, and carefully folding paper blossoms. Using glue to stick them together, she worked until a blossom appeared in her palm. The room was filled with the familiar odor of flower paste, the crisp smell of bamboo, and the sweaty smell of my parents’ bodies as they worked. There was also the odor of newly made wreaths and funerary objects. The entire room was full of these odors. The entire world was full of these odors.
“Today, five people died.” I stood in the entranceway watching my father.
“Six people,” my mother said to my father.
“We’
re insanely busy. Insanely busy.” My father’s voice grew louder. “It is the peak dying season, combined with the somnambulism. I’m concerned that tomorrow there may be ten or twenty families coming here to buy wreaths.”
My mother reacted with surprise. Her hand resting on her knee, she turned to look at the clock on the wall. She saw that the clock had stopped, with the hour and minute hands frozen at two o’clock in the afternoon, which is the hottest time of day. I closed the door to the shop. “The empty barrels in the cave have almost been used up, so we’ll have to purchase more.” As I was saying this, I went to gulp down a glass of cold water, like a cow. “Juanzi, from the furnace room, has started dreamwalking. A three-person family out harvesting wheat have all started dreamwalking.” As I was saying this, I sat down next to my father, and in the process pushed aside a pile of bamboo sticks. Father turned to look at me. “Aren’t you sleepy? If not, you should go fold some more gold foil. Two more families have had a relative die, and will want to buy some funerary objects. Before, people wouldn’t buy wreaths and paper ornaments until two days after a relative’s death, but these days they come the very next night. They want things immediately. It is as though people want to be buried the day after they die.” As Father was saying this, he went to open the door. He wanted to let in a breeze, but outside the air was still.
“Father, what would it be like if I were to start dreamwalking?”
“Whatever you are thinking about, that is what you’ll do when you dreamwalk.”
“I’m thinking about reading books.”
“Then, while dreamwalking you’ll open a book.”
“I think that some day I definitely want to leave this village and this town.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know. I just want to leave.”
“Then you certainly mustn’t dreamwalk. If you were to start, you might leave home and head out in an unknown direction.”
“I want to be like Yan Lianke, and earn fortune and fame from writing and telling stories.”
Father stared at me. “Fold some more gold foil. If the Yan family can produce an author, that is a product of their family’s fate. It is because several generations ago a literary root was buried in their ancestral grave. In our ancestral grave, however, there is no such literary root, and instead our family has no choice but to devote ourselves to the funerary shop. Even though we aren’t able to do very much for the living, we do decently for the dead.”
Father’s voice sounded as remote as though it were floating in midair. Mother had finished folding a colorful paper ornament. She had cut out a basketful of birds and butterflies, which would fly around the paper blossoms and wreaths. When she placed the basket next to her leg, it resembled a pile of auspicious clouds and cranes. Without saying a word, she continued cutting and pasting, pinching and folding. When she finished, she extended her legs, stretched her back, and lifted her arms into the air. Then she lowered them and let out a long sigh.
I noticed that her expression resembled an old newspaper.
Surprised, I turned to look at Father’s face.
“Let her sleep. If she wakes up, there’s no telling what she’ll do. People keep dying and dying, and there’s no telling how many people will have died by tomorrow.”
As he was speaking, Father’s face appeared warm and gentle. He rarely looked at Mother with that sort of expression, but he began looking at her like this after I was born and turned out to be a boy. Later, when I was two and still hadn’t learned to speak, some villagers speculated that I might be an idiot, whereupon Father stopped having this expression. One day, Father ripped up all of the shop’s wreaths and paper ornaments and stamped them underfoot, then hurled all of the bowls, plates, and spoons against the wall. Mother shouted at him, “Retribution! This is retribution.” My father furiously slapped her, and then my mother hugged me and sat there weeping. My father bashed his own head against the wall. He wailed and bashed his head; then bashed his head again and wailed some more. Eventually, he once again looked at Mother with this same expression, as he was looking now. His expression was as gentle as a wildflower blooming in a clump of dried trees in autumn. He even went over and gathered the hair that had fallen over Mother’s face, and carefully put it back in place. “When your mother dreamwalks, it is not ugly.” He said this and smiled. “There is still time for me and your mother to give you a younger brother or younger sister. No matter how evil God might be, he wouldn’t be so evil as to condemn all of our family’s children to be idiots.” Father said this to me, and also to all of the funerary objects in the room. At that moment, Father and I heard someone shouting in the square. The shouts sounded as anxious as though a sluice had suddenly been opened, or as though a pot were boiling over.
“Wang Ergou, where the fuck did you go? Our father has started dreamwalking, you know? After you discussed the situation with those somnambulant old men, they all went to the West Canal and jumped in. Did you know?
“Wang Ergou, our father has died, yet you are still at someone’s house gambling. Why didn’t God arrange for you to gamble yourself to death, while letting our father live?”
The person shouting was a woman, and although her voice was hoarse, her exclamations nevertheless erupted as if a bamboo pole as thick as a man’s arm was being split in half in the middle of the street. As she shouted, she also seemed to be stomping her feet. It was as if the street were burning hot, to the point that she didn’t dare keep her feet on the ground. “Wang Ergou, I’m going to call you one last time, and if you still don’t appear, that will mean you must have died in someone’s house. You will have died at a card table, using your life as an exchange for that of our father. If you are able to bring him back, you will have fulfilled your filial obligations.
“Wang Ergou, go quick to the West Canal! Go rescue our father!
“Wang Ergou, our father and several other old men jumped into the canal and drowned. Did you know?
“Wang Ergou, our father has already died, but you can’t die as well.”
After she finished shouting, the woman turned and walked away, leaving the other onlookers standing in the street. At least she had stood there and hollered, and had reported this death to the world. She had no idea whether or not the men heard her, and couldn’t care less whether or not they returned home. She herself anxiously hurried home, heading south. She needed to take care of her father-in-law’s funeral. She left behind a crowd of people in the square, all staring in shock and discussing what they had seen. They were commenting on how hot it was, and how several more dreamwalkers had headed over to the West Canal and drowned themselves. They discussed how they shouldn’t go home and sleep—because if they did, they might very well start dreamwalking, and then they, too, might try to commit suicide. When I emerged from the store with my father, I stood in the street and watched the woman who walked away, as though watching a dream. Just as I was about to make my way over to the square to talk to the people standing there, a middle-aged man emerged from that group and headed toward us. He came to a stop right in front of my father. “Heavens, you’re here! Has your family succeeded in selling all of your wreaths? Our neighbor, Old Hao, is not yet seventy, but he went with those old men who liked to gather at the West Hill and gossip. He, too, jumped into the canal, but was rescued. After being rescued, he woke up, but then went back to sleep. And after falling back asleep, he started dreamwalking again, and while sleeping he confessed that he had a terminal disease such that, if he lived, he would only become a burden to his children, and therefore decided he might as well kill himself. In fact, he proceeded to drink dichlorvos while asleep. This was insecticide he had been hiding for several years. For years, he hadn’t dared to drink it, but he ended up ingesting it while dreamwalking, for the sake of his children. He drank it as though it were water, and afterward he began to have convulsions, collapsed, and fell unconscious. In no time, he was dead. On behalf of my neighbors, I have come to order three large wreaths
, two small ones, and a set of paper ornaments and funerary objects.” Under the lamplight, the middle-aged person’s face resembled an old tabletop. His eyes were mere slits, like rotten melon seeds. He looked as though he had been woken up just after falling asleep. He looked as though he had not yet fully woken, but was nevertheless impelled by an urgent matter. He looked as though he had come to visit my father while dreamwalking, to report the death and to relate those various matters. “As for my neighbors, I must help them take care of their funeral arrangements. I also need to notify the crematorium. I need to ask your son’s uncle whether, when he is performing cremations tomorrow or the next day, he could also cremate my neighbor. Old Hao was a good man, and we should treat him well. We should prepare a particularly hot fire for him, and pulverize his bones.” As the man was saying this, he stepped forward. Upon seeing my father standing in the light in front of the store, he stared in shock, then slowly turned back. “You must remember the funerary objects I mentioned to you. We mustn’t let our neighbor be buried in a coffin that is completely bare. If we do, we’ll truly be letting him down.” As the man was exhorting us, he suddenly seemed to remember something. He took a couple of steps back. His voice was so low that it was barely audible. “Tianbao, I hear that when your brother-in-law is cremating corpses, the bodies secrete human oil. That’s incredible, but what does he need human oil for? Currently, a jin of soy oil costs only ten yuan. One jin of sesame oil costs less than twenty yuan. Does he dare take this human oil to the marketplace and sell it as cooking oil? Given that he is obviously not lacking in money, how could he be so lacking in morality? This is not the Three Years of Natural Disaster, when it was not unusual for people to consume others. In the current world, it would be extraordinary for people to consume human oil. If the villagers and townspeople were to learn about this, I’d be surprised if they didn’t beat him to death. And if they didn’t do so openly, someone would surely do so in secret. I heard others discussing this possibility, but I definitely don’t believe your brother-in-law would dare to do it. If he did have the guts to do this, he would have died long ago. Isn’t that right? No one would go so far as to sell corpse oil for money. Although others are gossiping about this, I still don’t believe it. When I was young, I was in the same class as your brother-in-law, and when I later went to see him to give him some funerary gifts on behalf of my neighbor, I asked him about it directly. Brother Tianbao, you mustn’t look at me that way. I’m not dreamwalking or sleeptalking. I simply spent all day harvesting wheat, and am now so exhausted I feel I could die. After I fell asleep, I was woken up by my neighbor to help him take care of the funeral arrangements.