The Explosion Chronicles (23 page)

“If you don’t tell me, I’ll kneel down before you.

“Mayor Hu, don’t you believe I’m willing to kneel down in front of you?

“… Not only will I kneel down in front of you, I’ll continue kneeling here until I die.”

Just as Kong Mingliang was preparing to kneel down, both the hour and the minute hands of the clock on the wall of Mayor Hu’s living room reached 12:00, and inside that oval mahogany frame, the clock struck twelve. The sound was bright and brittle, like that of clocks and wooden fish in temples and monasteries. Seeming to realize something, Kong Mingliang looked at the clock, as if searching for the origin of that sound, his expression resembling a ray of sunlight shining through the clouds. Mayor Hu put on some slippers and came over. Staring at Mingliang, he laughed coldly and said,
“Don’t worry. The clocks in my house will keep running for at least another hundred years.” Mingliang looked at Mayor Hu, then back at that clock, as his rigid expression began to relax. With an expression of regret, he watched as Mayor Hu walked over and sat on the sofa beneath the clock, then lightly slapped his own face.

“I’ve figured it out,” Mingliang told Mayor Hu. He slapped his face again, this time more forcefully. “The batteries of the city mayor’s clock are dead, but I actually shouldn’t have reminded him that he should change them so that the clock could keep running uninterrupted.” As Mingliang was saying this, he plopped himself down in a seat across from Mayor Hu, as though he were about to throw himself out of there. “If the mayor’s clock stops running, he will probably get sick and have to go to the hospital. And if he goes to the hospital, that will mean his illness will be difficult to cure—and if he develops an incurable illness, then his position would become available.”

Upon saying this, Kong Mingliang looked at Mayor Hu regretfully. “I really do have a pig brain!” He lightly tapped his foot on the ground, then continued. “If the city mayor dies from his illness, won’t it be your turn to be mayor? And if you are mayor, won’t it be entirely your decision whether or not Explosion is elevated from a county to a city?!” He didn’t say anything more and instead just watched Mayor Hu sigh, as though he had succeeded in bringing an enemy’s dead horse back to life, only to have that same horse kick him in the leg and kill him. Mingliang sat several meters away from Mayor Hu, as though waiting for the mayor to forgive him.

But Mayor Hu didn’t say anything. He was like a character in a film, sipping his freshly steeped tea and using the lid of the cup to push aside the tea leaves that were floating on top. After blowing the hot tea a couple of times, he suddenly put the cup down and said softly,

“You were originally one of the city mayor’s people. It is only natural that you would be loyal to him.”

Mingliang knelt down and said, “Mayor Hu, even if you beat me, I’d still be your man.”

Mayor Hu asked, “Can you offer any proof?”

Mingliang pondered for a long time and finally said, “How about this? Mayor Hu, I know that the entire country is currently undergoing a major reform in funeral practices, and demands that after people die they should be cremated and have their ashes stored in an urn. I also know you recently constructed a new funeral home and crematorium for the whole county, but so far there hasn’t been anyone willing to be cremated there. Beginning with me, which is to say beginning with my Kong family, in order to prove that I am yours, and that I will follow you in life and in death, I will bring over my father’s body for cremation—making him the first person in the entire county to be voluntarily cremated.”

Mayor Hu stared at Mingliang.

“If a town mayor sends his own father to be cremated,” Mingliang said, “then surely the crematorium’s business will gradually improve.”

Mayor Hu continued staring at Mingliang. The clock on the wall chimed again, like the sound of a wooden fish in an old temple or monastery. The sound drifted over from a distance, but as soon as people heard it they would quickly understand everything that was happening in the world.

2. AGONY

I.

When Kong Mingyao rushed back from the military barracks to handle his father’s funeral arrangements, he took a car down from the mountain ridge. Standing on the ridge, he was astounded by
the change Explosion had undergone. Believing that he must have gotten off at the wrong stop, he turned to the car, which was driving away, and shouted, “Stop, come back!” But the car had already disappeared in a cloud of smoke. He stood there and stared, until he finally noticed the enormous stele that had been erected in the middle of the square in his sister-in-law’s honor, and it was only then he realized that the thriving metropolis in front of him was in fact Explosion. Because he had been focusing on his regiment, he almost couldn’t remember how many years it had been since he last returned home. The last time had been in order to help elect his brother as village chief, while now not only was his brother town mayor, he was about to become county mayor. Mingyao stood in an open area on the mountain ridge, gazing at the town’s houses, bridges, alleys, and factories, and the crowds of people along both sides of the river. Just as he was standing there at a loss as to what to do, his sister-in-law Zhu Ying, with a combination of happiness and sadness, walked onto one of the old roads to meet him. It was dusk, and in the light of the setting sun, the clouds became gold nuggets, gold bars, and shiny gold coins, though the elm and pagoda trees lining the road were all blooming with enormous black flowers that had blossomed after his father’s death. In the light of the setting sun, those black blossoms shone with a doleful glow. Zhu Ying approached Mingyao, and when she was in front of him she asked him balefully,

“Third Brother, you’ve returned?”

Mingyao stared in surprise at the town of Explosion at the base of the mountain and eventually asked in surprise,

“Sister, is this really Explosion?”

“Father died from a heart attack,” Zhu Ying said. “He died while in bed with a girl.”

Mingyao looked up at black flowers blooming on the elm and Chinese toon trees lining the road, then stared at his sister-in-law and asked, “What about Second Brother?”

“In a few days, each of you will receive an inheritance from your father. I’ve discussed this with your elder brother, and as long as you don’t interfere with your father’s cremation, our hundreds of thousands of yuan will go to you.”

Mingyao was even more astonished that his sister-in-law would refer so casually to hundreds of thousands of yuan, and that she would offer to give him all of that money. As he was following Zhu Ying back to the village, he asked slowly, “Do each of the four brothers get several hundred thousand yuan?”

Zhu Ying said, “Your elder brother is about to become county mayor. Now that your father has died, all of the county’s residents should take the opportunity to bring the Kong family gifts.”

Mingyao therefore began to look forward to the funeral arrangements.

During the process, Kong Dongde’s corpse sat out for seven days, as the arrangements were conducted in a frenzied manner. There were twenty tons of ice just to keep the corpse fresh. In Explosion’s main square, the family erected an enormous mourning shed and an accountant’s room. Everyone knew that the mayor’s father had died saving a girl working in Explosion. A truck carrying ore had been driving down from the mountain ridge, and it ran over a girl who had just gotten off work. The mayor’s father rescued her, but in the excitement he had a heart attack. Before he died, however, his final words were that he wanted to be sent to the newly constructed crematorium and be cremated according to the new custom. Furthermore, after he died, his son, the mayor, was in the city and was so busy helping make the town more prosperous that he completely lost track
of time. This incident was written up by Yang Baoqing, who at the time worked in the town’s news processing plant but now served as the town cadre in charge of propaganda. The article was published in the newspapers and broadcast on television, and everyone who read or heard it was profoundly moved. People delivering wreaths were as numerous as butterflies and dragonflies around a pond in the summer. All of Explosion’s stores, restaurants, and department stores, and all sorts of other shops, closed for three days and hung enormous wreaths on their front doors. The wreaths, in turn, attracted dense clouds of butterflies, which filled the streets and alleys of Explosion for seven days. People traveling from hundreds of
li
away to offer gifts, those people working in the mines and the factories, and those who were doing different jobs in Explosion all donated offerings ranging from hundreds of thousands of yuan to small gifts such as eggs, pillowcases, sheets, and rugs—so that the funeral accountant had to work through the night recording and tabulating everything. In order to give the mayor’s father a funerary gift, people lined up over three days from the streets of Explosion all the way to the top of the mountain ridge. Even those Japanese, Koreans, Americans, and Europeans working in Explosion’s mines and factories followed its customs and offered the family of the deceased a red envelope stuffed with cash.

In accordance with contemporary practice, after sending the old man’s body to the county seat to be cremated, the family placed the urn containing his ashes inside a coffin and then buried it, after which Explosion regained its former order and liveliness. The Kong family also regained a sense of peace that it had not had for years. After the funeral, it was customary to hold a family meeting, but because Mingliang was so busy with work, he made only a brief appearance at the memorial service itself and then disappeared again, having rushed back to the county seat to see the county mayor. Zhu
Ying similarly disappeared after the funeral and didn’t even attend the family meeting to discuss how to distribute the hundreds of thousands of yuan they received in funerary gifts.

In this way, the family fell apart.

After everyone left, only Kong Mingguang, Kong Mingyao, and Kong Minghui remained in the Kong household. Kong Mingyao, apart from having a dozen pimples and wearing a crisp military uniform, looked exhausted and depleted. In the army, he was always as busy as a mule pulling a millstone round and round but in the end never managed to produce any flour. He could not serve as a military official or as a hero. Instead, empty-handed, he sat in the family meeting like an ordinary person in a crowd of ordinary people. The mother sat next to her three sons, boiling them water and bringing them peanuts and walnuts. To encourage them to eat, she even shelled the peanuts and placed them in a bowl. She also cracked open the walnuts and placed them in another bowl. After each bowl was full of nuts, she placed them on the table in front of her sons. On the table were also the accounts and receipts for all of the presents that Kong Dongde received after his death. In the account book there were precisely two million yuan, meaning that each of the four sons would receive five hundred thousand. There were also several storerooms full of condolence gifts people had sent, so many that each of the four sons could have one roomful. Kong Dongde’s funeral portrait was sitting on a table in the room. The image appeared warm and kind, and smiled as it gazed out at everyone. The room, meanwhile, was warm and quiet, like Kong Dongde’s face in the funeral portrait. A fly landed on the portrait and left some droppings, then flew to where the three brothers were sitting. At that point, Mingyao looked at his two brothers and said,

“Let’s split up the family.”

Mingguang and Minghui looked at Mingyao without saying a word.

“Second Brother and Second Sister-in-Law said that they wanted to give me their portion of the inheritance.” As Mingyao said this, he took out a sheet of paper, explaining that Zhu Ying had written that she was afraid he would prevent their father from being cremated, which is why she had decided to give Mingyao her portion. Mingyao took several sips of water, then added, “Also, when Second Brother was about to be elected village chief, I brought a gun back from the army and gave him a military salute. If at that time he hadn’t been elected village chief, how would he have been later appointed town mayor? And if he hadn’t been appointed town mayor, how would he have later been promoted to county mayor?” The implication was that Mingliang’s current position was entirely thanks to Mingyao’s initial assistance, and in giving Mingyao everything he owned, Mingliang was also thanking him. Finally, Mingyao fixed his gaze on Mingguang and asked with a smile,

“Brother, do you also want your portion?”

Mingguang replied, “Is this how the family is going to be split up?”

Mingyao then turned to Minghui and asked, “Fourth Brother, do you want yours?”

“Where did Second Sister-in-Law go?” Minghui quietly asked Mingyao, then looked to their mother. He noticed that she was no longer shelling peanuts and walnuts but rather simply sitting there staring into space, as though she didn’t even know these sons of hers. Her face was pale and her lips were dry and cracked. “Is the family going to split up?” When she asked her sons, they stared at her in surprise. Mingyao abruptly smiled in recognition, as he shifted his gaze from his mother’s body to his elder brother’s face. He then looked at his younger brother and announced loudly,

“That’s right. Our family is going to split up. After all, there has never been a family that did not ultimately break up.”

Upon saying this, he looked at his brothers, then turned back to his mother and saw that she was crying. He then turned to the picture of his father, and in a moment of deathly silence, he heard his father shouting inside the portrait,

“Don’t split up the family … I’m begging you!

“… Don’t split up the family … I’m begging you!”

II.

At the end of the third seven-day mourning period following their father’s death, the Kong brothers originally should have gone to his grave to burn paper money and incense. But on this particular day, when the sun was in the western sky, Minghui walked out of the town government building and, not wanting to see or speak to anyone, he looped around beyond the town’s streets, the village, and the river. Avoiding the stream of workers leaving the factories along the two mountain ranges, he proceeded to a remote location in the back of the mountain ridge. The sound of explosions from the distant mines reverberated through the evening, and then there was a deathly silence. The setting sun burst into a pool of bloodred water. An enormous ball of red exploded out of the sky. The trees turned red, as though they were full of blood flowers. The songs of the birds also turned red, and the path back to their nests was covered in their feathers. A wild hare looked fearfully at the clouds of dust and exclaimed, “Heavens!” and then began running back to the village. The grass seeds were frightened by the explosions and entered the birds’ stomachs, while the flowers and leaves were shaken down by the explosions and hid in the mouths of the cattle and sheep. Minghui stood in that silence following the explosion, then began walking toward the grave. On the way, he encountered red air, filthy spring water, terrified moths, and sick ants foaming at the mouth. There was also a homeless dog that was so parched that it seemed to be on the verge of death. The dog
followed after him. He gave it some water, and after he found it some food, he proceeded to the grave, while the dog waited for him on the mountain ridge. By this point it was already mid-autumn, and many plants and flowers had already begun to dry up and turn yellow. The Kong family’s hundreds of graves were covered in gray thatch and wormwood. Minghui saw his father’s grave from far away—a pile of fresh dirt and a paper wreath lying on the ground. He saw his father sitting inside that wreath waiting for him, his face sallow and sickly. “I’m in pain … I’m in pain!” Minghui heard these soft cries coming from his father’s grave. In the end, however, he didn’t walk over to the grave. He suddenly had a strange sense of terror and anxiety. In principle, on this day of the sacrificial offerings at the end of the third seven-day mourning period, the brothers and their wives should have taken their firecrackers and offerings, laid them out in front of the grave, burned incense, then kowtowed and wept loudly and exclaimed that the dead had left the living in a state of loneliness, longing, and agony. Those who couldn’t cry simply knelt there and kowtowed toward the grave, silently opening their hearts to the yellow earth. At this point, the ones who were weeping may have stopped, or perhaps they may have begun weeping even more fervently at the urging of others. Minghui was about to go weep at his father’s grave. There was a lot he wanted to tell his father, including how he and his three brothers had decided to split up the family, and how his eldest brother was now using his portion of the money to buy a set of new houses in the town’s development zone. Mingyao received both his portion and that of Mingliang, and decided to use it to start a business, so that he would become an influential personage like Mingliang. As for why Mingliang and his wife didn’t want their portion of the inheritance, and instead gave it all to Mingyao—for that he had no explanation.