The Day the Sun Died

by Yan Lianke

  Father stood up, as though he wanted to retrieve me from Daming’s grasp. But Sun Daming pulled me to his chest. He laughed coldly.

  “Don’t you despise the boy’s uncle? The entire town knows that you and your wife bear a grudge against her elder brother, but that neither you nor your wife can take any action against him. Tonight, my cousins and I will help you get your revenge.” He let his gaze come to rest on my mother’s face, and seeing that she appeared pale and scared, he softened his tone and said, “Sister, don’t worry. We won’t do anything to your brother. For the past ten or more years, he has been profiting off other people’s deaths. You know that this is true. Don’t you often say, ‘He is my elder brother, so what can I do? What can I do?’ If there’s nothing you can do, we can do it for you. We’ll take advantage of tonight’s somnambulism to go to his house and claim his dirty money. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to steal a lot of it, and use it to build a public bridge over the river above the town; and if we aren’t, at the very least we’ll be able to reclaim the cremation fees that our relatives have unjustly had to pay over the years.”

  Then, they pushed me out the door.

  My parents stood there, astonished, and watched us leave.

  I followed them out.

  Out in the street, everything was as dark and murky as before. It was as if the nighttime had remained stuck there and hadn’t moved. Compared with inside the room, it was much cooler outside, so everyone took a deep breath. We didn’t know what time of night it was. Everyone stood in the doorway of the funerary shop and looked around. At this point, my parents finally came to their senses and rushed outside. “Daming . . . Niannian is still a child. Regardless of what I, Li Tianbao, may have done wrong in this life, I’ve never done anything to your family. I’m begging you not to let anything happen to Niannian. I’m begging you to let him return soon, since he is our only child.”

  Daming turned and looked back at the funerary shop, and at my parents. “Why don’t you clean up your house? As long as we don’t start dreamwalking, we won’t let anything happen to Niannian.” Then they walked away. Their voices resonated down the street like water rushing down a river.

  2. (4:30–4:50)

  It turned out that they were riding a motorized three-wheeled cart.

  It turned out that the cart had been hidden in a dark corner of the street.

  It turned out that the cart was empty except for some cloth sacks, iron rods, and scythes.

  It turned out that they had no intention of robbing the crematorium, and instead they planned to rob the home of my uncle, the crematorium director. They pushed me into the cart, making me sit in front. They told me to hold on tight to the railing, so that I wouldn’t fall off. Looking after me as though I were their own brother, they made me feel as though my heart were being warmed in an oven on a cold winter day, or as though it were being cooled by a breeze on a hot summer day. The motorized cart backed out of the shadows, and then with a puttering sound it rumbled out of town. On the road, we saw others driving the same sort of cart, as people stood on the other side of the street and shouted, “You’ve struck it rich!”

  “The fuck we have! Other townspeople have already robbed the stores bare.”

  “Then rob their houses.”

  “But they’ve fucking drunk tea and shit-piss coffee ice crystals and are no longer sleepy, and are no longer dreamwalking. So, how do you expect us to steal from them?”

  A motorized cart heading into town suddenly stopped by the side of the road.

  Daming and his cousins, meanwhile, continued heading out of town, into the dark night.

  “Where are you going?”

  “We’re going home to rest. We’re no longer interested in trying to strike it rich.”

  As Daming and his cousins shouted this response, they saw the other cart pause on the side of the road, hesitating about whether to continue into town or proceed to another village, but in the end it turned around and left.

  Then they saw another cart heading toward them.

  “How are things in town? It is possible to strike it rich there?”

  “Go quickly. The entire town is dreamwalking, and the doors to every house and store are wide open.”

  “Then why is your cart empty?”

  “Our cart? We didn’t want those large items, but rather only what we could fit in our pockets.”

  As Daming said this, he stood up in his cart and heroically patted his pockets. The other cart rushed even more quickly toward town, with its occupants shouting and hollering as though they were enjoying a New Year’s Eve party.

  It turned out that there were countless people from the countryside riding tractors and motorized carts, and driving cars and trucks. Tonight, they were all either rushing into town or heading toward the county seat. They were heading anywhere they could find valuables. They were all trying to strike it rich. I saw someone sleeping, and his head periodically slipped down, appearing as though it would have fallen off had it not been held up by his neck. Some people were dreamwalking, but they looked as though they were still awake. They were staring straight ahead with faces that resembled the boards of a coffin. But there were even more people whose faces didn’t seem to have a trace of drowsiness. They were wide awake, but were taking advantage of the great somnambulism to steal things. I didn’t know what time it was. Perhaps it was already four or five in the morning—either the yin period or the mao period—when most people are asleep. The fat man riding on our cart had fallen asleep, and in his dreams he was saying, “I want to go home and sleep, I want to go home and sleep. What is there to steal?” The man’s brother patted him on the shoulder, whereupon the other man woke up and began saying something different. “My entire life I’ve never had a chance like tonight. After one succeeds in making a fortune, it will always be possible to earn additional money.” However, it was at this point that Daming told his short cousin, who was driving the cart, to pull over to the side of a road outside town. Daming then led me to the center of the cart bed, which was as large as a tatami mat, and told me to sit or squat there. The dark night surrounded me and the cart was like a cool lake, making it a perfect time to go to sleep. There were no dreamwalkers harvesting or threshing wheat in the fields by the roadside. Instead, the world was quiet and asleep, but it was also in tumult. Everyone was dreamwalking, and everywhere there were faint sounds and movement. Daming gazed up at the sky and down the road. When he finally looked back at me, his eyes were as bright as tiny black specks of light. “Niannian.” He rested his hand with the mask on my shoulder.

  “Your uncle is not a good man, is he?

  “Your uncle got rich on our death money, isn’t that right?

  “Even today, if the relatives of the deceased don’t offer your uncle gifts, he won’t completely reduce the corpse to ashes, and instead will smash its bones with a hammer right in front of them. Isn’t that right?

  “Your uncle always makes customers pay for a marble cinerary urn, but then gives them only an ordinary stone one. Isn’t that right? He always makes them fork over money for the price of a casket made of real mahogany, but then gives them only one made of ordinary wood. You know this to be true, right?

  “Your father hates your uncle, and your father is kind and gentle, but given that Shao Dacheng is your uncle, your father has no choice but to have your mother add several paper blossoms to the wreaths she sells to the families of the deceased, and to use high-quality cloth and tight stitching for their burial shrouds, and to make sure that the embroidery is strong and beautiful, and all the villagers and townspeople know this and have seen it with their own eyes, and they all say that your parents are good people but that your uncle would be better off dead, and they say that your mother married your father precisely in order to be able to escape your uncle, and that your parents have spent their entire lives attempting to absolve your uncle’s sins and repay his moral debts, and everyone from the town and the village knows, and you yourself know, that yo
ur parents and your uncle are positioned at opposite ends of the heavenly scale of justice, and even as your uncle is at one end earning soiled money, your parents are at the other end trying to do good deeds and repay your uncle’s moral debts, and the more money your uncle earns, the more he sins, and the more your parents have to do good deeds on this side of the scale to compensate for his actions, such as by making their wreaths and paper ornaments better than usual, and selling them cheaper than usual, and although your family’s store may appear to be doing good business, in reality it is not making very much money at all, which is why we weren’t able to find anything at your house tonight, nor did we take any of your things, and this is all because your parents are good people, which made it impossible for us to take action, and it was on behalf of your father, your mother, and your entire family that we decided to leave your home empty-handed and accept your recommendation that we rob not your house but rather the crematorium, though now, looking back, we have decided that on behalf of your father, your mother, your entire family, and everyone in and outside the town, we have decided not to rob the crematorium, but rather to go directly to your uncle’s home and rob it, and in this way we can help resolve the enmity that your father, your mother, and you yourself bear toward your uncle, as well as everyone who bears enmity toward the crematorium, so now you won’t need to accompany us to the crematorium or to your uncle’s villa, given that it would be awkward for you to see your uncle, which is why at this point we just need for you to tell us the specific address of your uncle’s residence in that scenic residential compound up on the embankment, and tell us where your uncle normally hides his money and his valuables, and where he hides the jewelry belonging to his wife, which is to say, your aunt, and given that I know that your father doesn’t often go to visit your uncle, and neither does your mother, since she has a hard time walking, that means that in your family, you are the only one who often goes, and if you tell us what we need to know, you are welcome to get off the cart and return home, where your parents are waiting for you, and furthermore we can’t bear to drag you with us as we continue robbing until dawn, because in the event you were to have an accident, we would be letting you down, and also letting down your parents, so you should just tell us the specific address of your uncle’s villa and where he hides his valuables, and you will then be free to return home, where you and your parents can close the door to your funerary shop and go to sleep, and at daybreak tomorrow, regardless of what happens, I won’t blame you or call you out, but rather we will feel extremely grateful to you and your parents, and tomorrow we will purchase many things and go visit you at your home, and will even give your family a portion of the valuables that we take from your uncle’s villa, so that you won’t have told us this information for nothing, and so that your parents won’t have paid and suffered for your uncle’s sins over the past decade for nothing.

  “Niannian, tell us! We just need you to say a few things.

  “That’s right. If you tell us these things, you will accumulate considerable virtue on your family’s behalf.

  “Niannian, you should get off the cart and go home to sleep. If you run into people who are awake or dreamwalking on the way, you mustn’t speak to them, and you definitely mustn’t tell them what we are doing.”

  After he finished, I got down from the cart.

  I watched as Daming and his cousins turned at the three-way intersection and disappeared into the night. In the distance, there was a light where my uncle lived, as though the sun were about to rise. In the villages closer by, there were also lights and sounds, as though everyone had already woken up and was preparing to get out of bed.

  Standing at the three-way intersection, I remained in the pit I had dug, where I felt cold and chilly. I didn’t feel at all sleepy, and I felt as awake as though someone had thrown open doors and windows after the sun came up.

  3. (4:51–5:10)

  I walked toward my uncle’s house.

  I ran toward my uncle’s house.

  I sprinted toward my uncle’s house.

  My uncle was a pig, but he was still my uncle. My uncle was a dog, but he was still my uncle. I wanted to warn him that bandits were going to rob his house, and therefore he absolutely mustn’t go to sleep, mustn’t dreamwalk, and mustn’t open his door. To reach my uncle’s scenic villa, the motorized cart would have to circle around the crematorium on the embankment. It would have to circle around the road to the west of the embankment. It would have to cross over the top of the embankment. It would have to proceed to the eastern end of the embankment before coming down and circling around a forest and a pond at its base. I, however, proceeded from the opening of the path directly to my uncle’s house, and in this way was able to shorten the distance by two or three li. I knew that if I ran, I’d be able to make it to my uncle’s house before the others, and I did. On the way, I encountered wind and trees. I ran into a couple who were completely naked under a tree doing couple things. It was unclear whether they were awake or dreamwalking, but their cries of pleasure were loud enough to shake the trees along the side of the road. As I observed them from a distance, I felt the blood rush to my head, and the thing between my legs became as stiff as an iron bar. I very much wanted to approach them to see more clearly, but for the sake of my uncle I had no choice but to continue forward. A lantern the couple had placed under a tree produced a faint, yellow light, like a star that was about to fade from the sky.

  I moved farther and farther from that light.

  Of the couple’s cries of pleasure, I couldn’t understand a single word.

  I proceeded through the wilderness, along the river down the embankment. The Yi River was like a broad and tangled silk ribbon dangling down from the sky. The water sounded like a song, a ghost’s wail, or the couple’s cries of pleasure. Later, it occurred to me that the couple must have been taking advantage of the great somnambulism to enjoy themselves. But at the time, I asked myself why the couple couldn’t do their thing in the privacy of their own home? Why weren’t they in their own bed? As I walked along, I saw a dark shadow and felt very frightened, but when I remembered that couple, my fear dissipated. When I heard the night bird’s calls of alarm, I felt a chill run down my spine and, like the man lying on the woman, I cried out, “Ah . . . Ah . . .” and frightened away the night bird. As a result, I was no longer afraid, and felt like a young hero.

  I could see my uncle’s villa. He lived in what was known not as a village, but rather as a small compound. His neighbors were all very rich, including one who had opened a mine and was selling and shipping coal long distances, another who had opened several chain stores in town and in the county seat, and several bureau directors and department heads from the county seat. I heard that there was even a county mayor living there. That was our town’s wealthy compound, our aristocratic compound. It was a compound that ordinary people were not allowed to enter, and furthermore ordinary people wouldn’t even have any business going in there. It was a sunny area surrounded by water flowing out through the dam. The trunks of the pine trees were as wide as cypresses, and the cypresses were as wide as pines. The trunks of the cypresses, pines, and pagoda trees were as wide as buckets. Each tree was surrounded by a small pool lined with stones, and in front of every house there was a pair of flower ponds. In front of every house there were four stone steps, at the top of which there was a pair of ceramic dogs, one lying down and the other standing up. The dogs always had their tongues hanging out, as though they didn’t have anything to drink. The compound’s doors were always closed and locked, as though someone might come by at any time and try to rob the houses.

  But in more than ten years, no houses in that compound had ever been robbed.

  No one had ever tried to steal from them.

  Tonight, however, someone was going to rob and steal from this compound. Daming’s cart was loaded with cleavers and iron bars, and he and his cousins were prepared for a fight. If there was a slaughter, someone would die, and if someone
died, someone else would need to be killed to exact vengeance—and not just one or two people, but rather three or five, or even seven or eight. I ran over from the old bridge, and headed up the hill. Light was radiating out from a grove of trees, as though the tree leaves had shattered the moonlight into tiny shards. As I followed a path to a concrete walkway leading to one of the compound’s back entrances, I found my body and clothing completely covered in sweat. Each of my hair follicles seemed to be wide open, and inside each of my canvas shoes there was a small pool of liquid. My breathing was as loud and urgent as if someone had opened a sluice and released the water in the reservoir, but when I finally reached the residential compound and witnessed the situation there, I felt it wasn’t worth it.

  I shouldn’t have done it.

  It appeared to have been a huge mistake for me to come to notify Uncle and the other residents of this compound. When I reached the compound, I found that the back gate had been left open. Normally, Uncle would lock it every night, but on this particular night the gate had been left wide open. Light was streaming out through the entrance, as though an enormous pane of glass had fallen to the ground, like a golden stream flowing along the ground. Inside, no one was sleeping, and instead the people were all gathered in the center of the compound. The streetlights were on, and the lights in every house were burning bright. On that night, this residential villa was as brightly illuminated as though it were midday. It was as if the villa had never entered that year’s or that month’s or that night’s darkness. The pine trees that pierced the sky were adorned with lights as though their branches were full of diamonds, and the cypresses were standing as though covered in glowing mercury. The flower ponds were illuminated as though they were under the midday sun, and the flowers were emitting a fragrant scent. People were rushing back and forth along the cement, asphalt, and brick roads and paths, and were carrying either cooked vegetables or cups or bottles of wine. They were drinking, walking, and eating as though it were New Year’s Day or a wedding banquet being attended by dozens or hundreds of families. However, the residents wandered around the courtyard with stupid smiles and faces looking like shiny bricks that had just been painted red, white, and yellow.