The Explosion Chronicles (3 page)

“Kong Mingliang, it was truly my misfortune to run into you today.

“… Now that I’ve run into you, I have no choice but to marry you.

“… I must marry you, and embrace your Kong family for the rest of my life.”

As Zhu Ying’s shout bolted like lightning, Kong Mingliang turned in the direction of her voice and saw that the Cheng family’s daughter Cheng Qing was walking out of a small alleyway, carrying a red lantern. Her neighbor Yang Baoqing walked out of another alleyway, using a lighter to illuminate her path, while a villager named Second Dog also walked out, shining a flashlight on the ground.

Suddenly, the village was illuminated on all sides, as the sound of footsteps accelerated like a torrent of water. Everyone walked forward under the light of his or her lamp, as though searching for something. By this point quite a few people had congregated at the intersection and were discussing how something significant seemed to have occurred at the national level—something as momentous as the death of an emperor. Otherwise, how could the officials have ordered that the communes, which had been in place for several decades, be converted back into countryside, that the production brigades be renamed villages, that the production teams be renamed villager groups, or that the land that had been reclaimed by the state now be reassigned to individual peasants? The officials even encouraged people to start their own businesses. Previously, if you went into private business, you would be arrested and paraded in the streets, but now everyone was encouraged to do precisely that.

There was a dynastic shift and an attendant process of geographic transformation, as place-names were all changed. The entire world was turned upside down, with black becoming white and white becoming black.

Because of this dynastic shift that overturned heaven and earth, the people of Explosion reported that while they were sleeping that night, they dreamed the same dream: that there was a skeletal man in his sixties or seventies who had just been released from prison and came over their beds to shake their shoulders and tug at their hands,
urging them to quickly go out into the streets. He urged them to go straight ahead without looking back, and whatever they encountered first would determine their fate. Some people didn’t believe him, and when they woke up they simply rolled over and continued sleeping, but then they proceeded to dream the same dream. This process was repeated over and over, and each time it was that skeletal man who had been released from prison urging them to go out into the streets and proceed straight ahead. If they found a coin or a feather, this meant they would earn a lot of money, and if they encountered a woman’s item that had fallen to the ground, it meant they would have a good marriage or an endless string of affairs. The villagers struggled to wake up; then they put on their shoes, grabbed a lamp, and went outside. There, they all discussed their dream and related what strange things they had seen or encountered on their way over. One person excitedly held up a coin or a bill and said that he had found money immediately after stepping outside, while someone else held up a red rope or a girl’s plastic hair clip and asked what it prophesied.

There was also that girl named Cheng Qing, who was not much more than ten, and who had also dreamed the same dream. She had grabbed a lantern and proceeded outside, where she found a white finger-shaped condom in the middle of the street. She didn’t know what this was or what it foretold, so she rushed over to the crowd and asked if anyone knew what it could be. The more experienced men all laughed and said this was something that men and women use when they go to bed together. Cheng Qing became excited and curious, and wanted to ask why men and women need to use this, but at that moment her mother reached through the crowd and slapped her face, then dragged her away.

The crowd exploded with laughter.

Kong Mingliang did not join this crowd full of light and laughter. He didn’t know what his encounter with his enemy’s daughter
Zhu Ying—who was the first person he encountered as he proceeded west—prophesied. What Zhu Ying had shouted to him remained engraved on his heart, but he couldn’t quite figure out what it meant—as though he had walked up to a door and had a bunch of keys but didn’t know which was the correct one. He stood hesitantly at the westward side of the intersection, feeling as though something hard was digging into the sole of his foot. He wanted to pick it up but at the same time suspected it was merely a pebble. As he was standing there unwilling to bend down, that object bore into the sole of his foot like a drill. Eventually, he leaned over to get it but then held it tightly in his fist and couldn’t bring himself to look. Instead, he gazed at the crowd gathered in the intersection.

In the crowd all sorts of lights and lamps jostled together, like two sheets of iron rubbing against each other. At that point, Mingliang saw his elder brother Mingguang returning, accompanied by their two younger brothers, Mingyao and Minghui. The three brothers were smiling brightly, as though each had found his heart’s desire.

At that point, Kong Mingliang took advantage of the light of the lamps and opened his right hand, which was clenched tightly into a fist. His palm was covered in sweat, which had soaked the object he was holding. It turned out to be a square seal wrapped in a sheet of white paper. Its owner had apparently lost it before having had a chance to inscribe anything, and now that Mingliang had found it, it became his destiny.

1. A RECORD OF TEN-THOUSAND-YUAN HOUSEHOLDS

Everything happened suddenly, like a torrent gushing out of a dream. People began farming their own parcels of land, picking fruits and vegetables in their own fields, and after they had eaten their fill they would take the remainder to sell at the market.

In this way, the market, which had been discontinued for many years, once again regained its vitality.

Because the riverbank in front of Explosion Village was wide open, it was used as a marketplace. On the first day of each lunar month, the riverbank would be lined with people selling chickens, ducks, and pork, as well as lumber, local specialties, and new clothes and shoes from the city. The most important thing was that the government issued a statement saying that it wanted to establish
and cultivate a group of “ten-thousand-yuan households.”
*
In other words, it wanted to let a minority “get rich first.”

Everyone went crazy. Pig farmers, goatherds, cow and horse breeders, weavers, furniture sellers, and house builders—all aspired to be among the small minority who would get rich first, and to be the first to get a no-interest loan from the government, which would allow them to brag and let them live a dream life.

That spring, Third Brother Kong Mingyao ended up joining the army. On the night when the villagers were following their dream paths, Mingyao had proceeded south. When he left the village he saw an army truck pulling a cannon, and therefore he knew he was fated to join the army and leave Explosion. In fact, during the next recruitment that spring, the army was no longer concerned with recruits’ family or political history, and as long as recruits talked about protecting the nation and physically there was nothing wrong with them, they were welcome to apply.

So, Mingyao joined the army.

Eldest Brother Kong Mingguang went on to become an elementary school teacher. He himself had completed only middle school and didn’t know many Chinese characters, but the most notable thing he saw when he left the intersection that night was a piece of chalk sitting in the moonlight. He didn’t think that a piece of chalk could be his fate, so he continued walking east until he reached a mountain range. Apart from the chalk he had picked up in the moonlight, however, he didn’t find anything else on the road, and therefore his fate was that piece of chalk. This was also an excellent omen. By this point he was twenty-eight years old,
but because his father was in prison he was considered the relative of a criminal and consequently had not yet succeeded in finding a spouse. Afterward, however, he became the village intellectual and in no time found a local girl who liked him. They quickly married and established a family, and went on to enjoy a calm and pleasant life.

Soon, it was time to think about Second Brother Kong Mingliang’s wedding.

Their father said, “You should get married.”

“Will marriage help put ten thousand yuan in my bank account?” Mingliang asked his father with a mocking look, then walked out the door. He didn’t farm, sell goods, or weave fabric. Instead, every day he just left the house after each meal and returned when it was time to eat again. Whenever his parents asked him to do anything, he would grin and snort, then disappear from the house and the village.

In turns out that Kong Mingliang was very ambitious. While everyone else was farming and engaging in small trade, he left the village every day as though nothing were happening and went to a nearby gully to retrieve a couple of baskets and some hemp sacks. Then he would proceed to the railroad tracks at the base of the mountains several
li
away, where he would wait for a train bringing coal and coke from Shanxi. When the train arrived, he would reach up and pull down coal and coke from the railroad car. The sky was blue and wide open, and the crops in the mountains had all awoken, blanketing the mountainside in green. Mingliang sat alone on the hillside, watching the train as it came up the mountain. The train was emitting thick smoke, as though it were a smoldering pile of wet firewood or an enormous stove laboriously climbing the mountain. When the train finally slowed to walking speed, Kong Mingliang would emerge from the field on the side of the road, lift the long-handled hoe he had prepared, and proceed to pull down
some coal and coke from the top of the passing railcar, like picking feathers from passing geese. He was able to get about a basket or half a sack of Shanxi coke from every car. As soon as he had enough coal and coke to fill his cart, he would take it all to the county seat and sell it for two or three hundred yuan. By summer, the grass along the train tracks was completely black from coal dust, but Kong Mingliang had become the first person in Explosion to save up ten thousand yuan, thereby making himself a nationally acclaimed model ten-thousand-yuan household.

He went to the county seat and held a three-day conference on how to get rich.

The day he returned to the village, he was accompanied by the town mayor. The mayor’s name was Hu Dajun, and he arranged for the residents of Explosion to gather in the village’s main intersection, which functioned as the village square. There were more than six hundred residents in all, including four villager groups. Everyone—including men and women, young and old—was called upon to assemble in the open area in the square. After the people filled that open area, the mayor pinned a bowl-size red blossom to Kong Mingliang’s chest, then held up a door-size copy of his bankbook, so that everyone could see the name
Kong Mingliang
—printed in characters as a big as a man’s head—followed by a 1 and four 0s: 10,000.

The villagers were speechless.

They were as silent as a mountain.

At a time when even the most industrious households had not managed to save a thousand yuan, Kong Mingliang had somehow saved ten thousand. As the rays of the setting sun shone over from the westward mountains, the villagers all stared at that enormous bankbook, and at Kong Mingliang’s sunlit face. They saw the look of excitement in his eyes, while the corners of his mouth were twisted
into a smirk. When the mayor asked Kong Mingliang to come forward and discuss how he had earned his wealth, Mingliang gazed at the villagers and said simply,

“There is really nothing to say. Just one word: Diligence!”

The mayor proceeded to reflect on the word, saying that
diligence
was the spirit of humanity’s wealth and the warehouse of its silver and gold—and as long as individuals had a diligent pair of hands, then even if they were blind or crippled, they could still gallop along the road to wealth. As the sparrows were preparing to return to their nests, and as the chickens, pigs, dogs, and cats were preparing to return home and go to sleep, the mayor gazed out over the heads of the assembled villagers and found the old village chief Zhu Qingfang, who was crouched at the back of the crowd.

“Can you earn ten thousand yuan in a year?”

Zhu Qingfang bowed his head.

The town mayor asked, “Are you determined for your village to have not one but
ten
ten-thousand-yuan households by the end of the year?”

Zhu Qingfang glanced up at the mayor’s face, then bowed his head even lower, to the point that it was virtually tucked between his legs. The mayor turned to Kong Mingliang standing next to him and asked, “Brother, how many ten-thousand-yuan households can you have the village produce by the end of the year?” After taking a step forward, Kong Mingliang looked at the mayor, then out at the crowd of villagers. He pounded his chest three times with his fist, hopped onto a boulder that people sat on while eating, and announced to the villagers that if he were village chief, he would ensure that at least half of the village’s 126 households, which is to say 63 households, would become ten-thousand-yuan households—and if he failed, he would go to the field, walk around
it three times, then distribute his own savings to the other villagers and leave Explosion, never to return.

The villagers all went crazy. They wanted to jump for joy, and their applause sounded like the tide rushing in. The chickens that had already returned home had no idea what was going on, so they came out and began clucking excitedly around the courtyard. The sparrows and pigeons that had been tucked under the eaves of the houses alighted on the courtyard walls and the rooftops, to watch this unprecedented performance that was unfolding in the square. The mayor announced that he was relieving the old village chief Zhu Qingfang of his responsibilities and was instead appointing Kong Mingliang to serve as Explosion’s new village chief for the first year of the revolution. Because it was already late in the day, the major added a few more words after his announcement and then rushed back to the town center about twenty
li
away.

After the mayor left, the new village chief did three things. First, he repeated his governing objectives and guaranteed that everyone in the village would get rich, and that by the end of the year half of the village’s households would be ten-thousand-yuan households, by the following year all of them would be ten-thousand-yuan households, and by the third year they all would be able to bid farewell to their thatched-roof houses and move into new tile-roof houses. Second, he asked each family to stay and watch his father Kong Dongde spit in the face of his enemy, Zhu Qingfang. Third, he said he would give ten yuan to anyone else who spat at Zhu Qingfang, twenty yuan to anyone who spat at him twice, and a hundred yuan to anyone who spat at him ten times.

Zhu Qingfang sat stiffly under the final rays of the setting sun, his face pale and his eyes dull. He removed the village committee’s official seal from his pocket and handed it to the new village
chief, Kong Mingliang. Then he pushed the stool on which he was sitting over to his daughter Zhu Ying and, without saying a word, he lowered his gaze and squatted there and waited for the torrent of saliva.

Standing next to him, his daughter Zhu Ying cried out, “Father!”

Without looking up, Zhu Qingfang shouted back, “Let him spit! Let him spit!”

As he was shouting, Zhu Qingfang closed his eyes, and the villagers watched as Kong Dongde—who had barely left the house since returning home after being released from prison—walked up to Zhu Qingfang and stopped in front of him, with a smirk. With a loud
ptui,
he spat at Zhu Qingfang’s forehead.

Kong Mingliang pulled a wad of ten-yuan bills from his pocket and, hopping onto a boulder, announced, “I will give one bill to whoever spits once, and two bills to whoever spits twice!” He then riffled through the bills, waiting for someone to accept his offer.

No one moved. The setting sun covered the village in pink light, like a sheet of silk lying on the water’s surface.

“Will anyone spit? I’ll give twenty yuan to anyone who does.”

The young man known as Second Dog asked Kong Mingliang with a smile, “Will you really give twenty yuan for one spit?”

Kong Mingliang hopped down from the boulder and handed Second Dog twenty yuan. The man accepted the money and proceeded to spit in Zhu Qingfang’s face. Kong Mingliang gave him another twenty yuan, and he spat again. Second Dog kept spitting, and Mingliang kept giving him money. Upon seeing this, the other villagers happily went up to Zhu Qingfang and spat at him as well. The sound of spitting filled the evening air like a thunderstorm, and in the blink of an eye Zhu Qingfang’s head, face, and body were completely covered in spittle. This continued until everyone’s throat
was dry and no one could spit another drop, but even then Zhu Qingfang continued squatting there without moving.

He looked like a statue made out of spittle.

2. STELE OF THE REVOLUTION

Zhu Qingfang was drowned in spit.

When his family were changing him into his funeral clothes, they had to wash his body five times just to get rid of all the spittle. The responsibility for taking care of this fell to his only daughter, Zhu Ying. She scrubbed his body, washed his face, changed his clothes, built his coffin, and found someone to dig his grave and bury his corpse.

That night, when the villagers were spitting at her father, Zhu Ying had heard him say, “Don’t mind me, let them spit away!” So she stood motionless as the villagers spat at her father’s head and face. She silently counted how many times each of them spat and remembered which of them spat hundreds and even thousands of times. It was not until everyone had finally dispersed, and her father had toppled over like a chopped-down tree, that Zhu Ying went over and pulled his body out of the pool of spittle and carried it home. When she arrived at the entranceway to their courtyard, and as she was about to carry the corpse across the threshold, she noticed that the youngest of the Kong family sons, Kong Minghui, was helping her carry the body. Someone turned on the entrance light, and Zhu Ying saw that Minghui’s face appeared pure and ashamed, as soft and delicate as a piece of paper that had been scrubbed with water. “It’s you! I don’t need any help!” With this cold remark, she pushed Minghui’s hand away, then struggled to carry her father’s body across the threshold on her own. Minghui was left standing outside under
the lamplight and continued standing there until the door to Zhu Ying’s house was closed.

Zhu Ying buried her father in the same location where he had drowned in a pool of spit—in the center of the village square. This was a public area where the villagers often ate, so naturally there shouldn’t be a funeral mound there. Everyone discussed this development and reported to the new village chief, Kong Mingliang. When Mingliang came to intervene, however, Zhu Ying said,

“Mr. Kong, you forget that on the night when you came out to follow your dream west, the first person you encountered was me!”

Mingliang stood there and remembered that Zhu Ying had called out to him that night. She now told him in a mocking yet painful tone, “After I bury my father I’m going to leave the village, and I won’t return until you have knelt down before me.”

Kong Mingliang stopped trying to prevent her from burying her father in the middle of the village and explained to the other villagers that the reason he didn’t want to stop her was that her father was a former village official. So they buried Zhu Qingfang on the third day after his death. The people who attended the burial were the same ones who had drowned him in their spittle, and the person who had spat the most was also the same person who worked up the biggest sweat digging his grave. Second Dog had spat at him 106 times, but when it came to digging the grave, laying out the body, lifting and lowering the coffin, and then refilling the grave again, there wasn’t any task to which he didn’t contribute diligently. Furthermore, after Zhu Qingfang was buried, he stood in front of the grave and said,