The Four Books (16 page)

The Theologian turned around in surprise.

“At least forty or fifty of them will be free to return home,” the Child said. “In that book of yours, it says,
God said, let there be light, and there was light. God said, let there be water, and there was water.”

Like a mule, the Theologian pulled the cart. The sun shone down upon his head. The earth was full of light.

C
HAPTER
8

The Upheaval

1.
Old Course
, pp. 300–309

On the fifth day, the Child led back to the riverbank the people who had gone into town to donate their steel. The situation turned out to be just as had been reported, and as long as one group of people after another sent their black sand steel to Beijing, a group from the ninety-ninth would be pardoned and allowed to return home. But who would be pardoned? Naturally, it would be those people who had been on good behavior and who had received the most red blossoms. Accordingly, everyone proceeded to frantically collect black sand, chop down trees, and smelt steel. The most important thing was that it was not merely a question of the ninety-ninth collecting black sand and smelting steel, but rather that by this point the steel-smelting technology had already spread throughout the entire Re-Ed region, and within half a month the riverbank was full of people collecting black sand. As the New Year’s festival was approaching, not only were there thousands of people throughout Re-Ed collecting black sand and smelting steel, but for several hundred
li
in either direction you could see peasants walking up and down the riverbank pulling ropes tied to magnets. On the other bank, you could see someone swaying back and forth, after which you could see furnaces light up. The flames and smoke rose up to the sky, illuminating both sides of the river.

In the blink of an eye, the black sand steel-smelting technology had spread not only to both sides of the river but also throughout the country, and even the entire world. As New Year’s approached, the number of steel-smelting furnaces on the riverbank increased steadily. During the day there was the continuous sound of trees being felled, as the water from the river continued to wash up onto the bank. At nighttime, the flames from thousands of furnaces illuminated the riverbank, making the river look like a headless flaming dragon.

The certificate commending the Child was circulated to every corner of the country, with the red seal from the capital’s steel-smelting committee affixed to the top, like a red sun shining in the hearts of everyone in the ninety-ninth. Everyone felt that their own name should appear on the first list of people who had been pardoned and permitted to return home, and they all struggled every day to earn even more red blossoms.

The Child also obsessed day and night over his blossoms and certificates.

One day, the Child discovered that the certificates and large red blossoms he had brought back from the headquarters were as abundant as flowers in a spring field. He posted those certificates on the eastern wall of his tent, and posted the large red blossoms on tent poles and tree trunks. Also, in order to prevent everyone else’s red blossoms and pentagonal stars from getting damaged or lost, he collected all of their blossoms himself. He drew more than a hundred squares on the western side of his tent. Inside each square he wrote someone’s name, below which he posted that person’s red blossoms. The Child told everyone to come to his tent once every three days to check to see how many blossoms appeared below their name, and to compare them with those below other people’s names.

The walls of the Child’s tent were completely filled with red blossoms, red stars, and certificates—becoming so red that it seemed as though the tent were on fire. As a result, everyone in the ninety-ninth became highly motivated. The fifty people with the most blossoms were concerned that those lagging behind would overtake them, and therefore continued collecting black sand and smelting steel like madmen. The next group of fifty people saw that they only needed a handful more blossoms to catch up with the leaders, and therefore proceeded to smelt steel with such enthusiasm that they almost threw themselves into the furnaces as well. As for the people who had only a few blossoms, when they realized they would never be able to catch the leaders they still didn’t want to be left further behind, and therefore struggled to make a good impression so that they might be included in the second or third round to be sent home.

On the eve of the Lunar New Year, the Yellow River had already been turned upside down, with the riverbank full of holes and ditches where people had been digging up black sand. That day, the Child didn’t go down to the riverbank, but rather stayed in his tent, not leaving even to get food. Alone in his room, the Child was in a fantastic mood. The previous day he had taken a group to deliver steel, thereby earning himself five certificates and ten large blossoms. With these new blossoms, the wall in his room became completely filled, to the point that he couldn’t possibly post any more. The Child had no choice but to remove those certificates and blossoms and rearrange them. He re-posted the certificates on the eastern wall, one next to the other, and posted the blossoms on the tent post and in the empty spaces between the certificates, such that the entire room was now completely full of certificates and blossoms, like a general’s trophy room.

By that point he had collected seventy certificates and a hundred and forty large red blossoms. Once he succeeded in producing another thirty tons of steel, he would have a hundred certificates and two hundred red blossoms, whereupon he would be able to proceed to the provincial seat. The Child stared at his room full of certificates and blossoms, then turned around and looked at the boxes of people’s names and full with red blossoms. He noticed that for those people who already had eighty or ninety blossoms, there was no longer enough room in the book-sized red squares below their names to post any more, and instead the blossoms spilled over into other people’s red squares, like one family’s flowers spilling out into another family’s yard. As a result, this end of the tent became as red as the other one, filling the Child with delight, as though his heart were being warmed by a furnace.

The Child stood in the center of his tent and looked around in all directions. He proceeded to assign names to all of the blossoms—which included silk blossoms, paper blossoms, large red blossoms, pink blossoms, brown blossoms, and glossy blossoms, all of which he found very appealing. A red silk blossom that was as large as a bowl was dubbed a tree peony, and a small silk blossom was called a golden peony. He named a dark red basket-sized blossom a rose, and named several different kinds of red blossoms with yellow pistils large chrysanthemums, small chrysanthemums, and wampee blossoms, respectively. But as the Child was looking around, he suddenly noticed that to his right there was an empty square with someone’s name but without any blossoms, like a stone in the middle of a garden.

The person’s name was that of the Scholar.

The Scholar’s square resembled a spot where someone had dumped water in the middle of a fire. Everywhere else there were hot flames, but here in a corner of the western wall was the Scholar’s empty and silent square.

The Child was surprised by this bare space. How had he not noticed that, in all these days, the Scholar had not received a single blossom, and as a result the square assigned to him remained as empty as an open well? Upon seeing this, the Child’s heart, which had been pounding from excitement, gradually began to calm down.

2.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 261–62 (excerpt)

The room’s redness was like a rainbow in the sky.

In this redness, the Child’s face was bright and his heart was transparent. The Scholar stood in the middle of the room, startled by this red glow. His face was hard, as hard as though it were a red stone.

The Child said, “You should listen to me, I’m acting on your behalf. If you agree to wear a dunce cap and be subjected to a public struggle session, I promise I’ll award you a small red blossom.”

The Child said, “If you let them criticize you and write all of your crimes on the dunce cap, then everyone who sees you will be astonished and will proceed to collect black sand and smelt steel around the clock.

“I will definitely award you many, many blossoms—so many that they will completely fill up that red square, and even spill over into the empty space around it. Everyone will envy you, to the point that they will work nonstop smelting steel.” As the Child was entreating the Scholar, he noticed that the Scholar had a sorrowful expression. The Scholar stood in that red glow, his face as pale as frost. He didn’t look at the Child, and instead just stared at the room’s red ceiling and red floor.

After a while, he asked, “Who cares if I don’t have any blossoms?”

“If you don’t, you will simply labor here for the rest of your life, and then you will die here.”

“In that case, let me just die here.”

The Scholar laughed coldly as he said this, proud and defiant, and he proceeded to leave that completely red room. It was dark outside, and the furnaces along the river produced a string of dazzlingly red lights. The sky was as bright red as though it were the middle of the day, and the river was also bright red. The Scholar stood silently on the riverbank, listening to the sound of steel smelting.

After a long pause, the Scholar walked back into the Child’s room. The Scholar looked at the Child, whose face was blank and expressionless.

The Scholar took a step toward the Child, and asked in a flat voice,

“If someone smelts a ton of steel, will they really be allowed to go free?”

The Child nodded, his face lighting up.

The Scholar said, “I’ll cooperate with you, but if only one person is allowed to go free, you must give the Musician five pentagonal stars, and permit her to leave.”

The Child’s face lit up more, and he nodded emphatically,

“I’ll definitely issue you so many blossoms that you’ll reach a hundred in no time at all.”

The Scholar was silent again, then asked, “Really?”

So it came to pass. The Yellow River reversed course and began flowing westward. After the Scholar left again, he disappeared into the cold winter night. The Child escorted him out, with a look of gratitude in his eyes. The Scholar disappeared into the darkness, and the Child stood on the riverbank, gazing at the river that looked like a dragon leaping over a flame. The Child’s face contained a warmth and a glow that were invisible to the human eye, like the river water that had been baked in thousands upon thousands of furnaces.

3.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 263–69 (excerpt)

The Scholar and the Musician were struggled against every day, and the pace of the steel-smelting increased.

A hundred tons of steel were finally almost ready.

In the beginning of the twelfth lunar month, the days began rushing past. As for certificates and red blossoms, the Child by this point had eighty or ninety of the former, and a hundred and ninety-six of the latter. A hundred tons of steel were virtually ready. As soon as this final batch was removed from the furnaces, they would have more than a hundred tons. When they dumped the black sand into the furnace, the Child added an extra three to five buckets.

With this new batch of steel, they would have a ton more than the previous record.

The fires were lit.

The furnaces began burning.

Three days later, when the fires were extinguished, there were snow flurries in the sky. The entire world was a white lake. The sound of the river was muffled by the fog, and in the resulting silence there was just the soft sound of snowflakes striking the ground and of fog swirling quietly over the river.

In order to deliver the newly smelted steel as quickly as possible, everyone was called upon to stop chopping wood and collecting black sand, and instead help put out the fires, unload the furnaces, and load the steel onto trucks. They rushed to deliver the steel before snowfall.

When this final batch was still in the furnace, they had cut a tree trunk into two- or three-foot-long sections, then placed the individual sections upright and chopped them into smaller pieces. The fire had burned for three days and three nights, or seventy-two hours in all. Then, the fire would be extinguished and the flues opened to let in cool air. Once the furnace had cooled off for a day, they would pour cold water through the flues, and after waiting for the white steam to dissipate, they would brace themselves against the heat and reached into the furnace to roll out the clump of newly smelted steel.

This second ingot was removed from the furnaces that morning before dawn, and according to protocol it should have been left to cool completely until the next day, whereupon water would again be poured into the furnace. Early that morning, however, the Child had whistled and shouted, “It’s snowing . . . we are going to miss our chance . . . the ninety-ninth has finally succeeded in smelting a hundred tons of steel, and if we don’t quickly remove this last batch from the furnace and send it all to the higher-ups, we might end up being . . . beaten by someone else. . . .”

The Child stood in the doorway of his tent and shouted, “If someone else beats you . . . then you shouldn’t even think about earning five stars . . . and you shouldn’t expect to be permitted to return home for New Year’s. . . .”