The Four Books (29 page)

For the sake of these forty-eight wheat plants, I sliced myself forty-eight times on my fingers, palms, wrists, arms, and legs. I don’t know how much blood I ended up giving those wheat plants, but by the time I was tending to the final dozen or so, the blood wouldn’t flow from my arm on its own, and instead I needed to squeeze it out with my other hand. I had layer upon layer of bandages on my hands, wrists, calves, and thighs. In the end, when I couldn’t squeeze another drop of blood from my arms or legs, I had no choice but to use my left hand to cut open the vein in my right wrist, allowing the blood to flow into a tea cup, a rice bowl, and a small basin. Eventually, when I became incredibly dizzy and felt as though I were about to float away, I used a string as a tourniquet to tie my wrist, then used the blood to fill the holes around the remaining wheat plants. I didn’t feel any pain in those forty-eight wounds, and instead only felt that my entire body was so numb I could barely support myself, and so weak that I didn’t have an ounce of energy. When I was refilling the last several holes, I didn’t use a hoe, and instead sat down and kicked the soil with my feet.

The sun went down, and apart from a reddish glow in the western horizon, there wasn’t any light left. In the cultivated area of the sandy plateau, the silence was broken by a mysterious sound of footsteps heading toward the dune. Under the final rays of sunlight before nightfall, the only sound was the buzzing of mosquitoes. As the daytime heat was beginning to dissipate and the steam trapped underground was being released, bringing with it the scent of the blood I had buried at the roots of each plant, the entire area became full of that thick smell of blood and wheat. Crickets jumped out of the wheat plants, and even landed chirping on my feet. I felt extremely dizzy and weak, and could barely stand up. In order to minimize my dizziness and weakness, I rolled over to a sand dune and positioned myself so that my head was at the bottom of the dune and my legs were elevated, and the blood in my lower body flowed back to my head.

The moon came up and I was attacked by a wave of hunger, but I simply couldn’t move. Instead, I wanted to sleep right here. I did in fact doze off, and when I awoke the moonlight was raining down on my face like water. In the depths of night I could hear the ears of wheat sucking the blood right out of the ground. Every wheat plant was sucking it up like a straw. I no longer felt gladdened by the sound of plants feeding, and in fact I had become rather annoyed. I rolled over and stared resentfully at those tall wheat plants, then crawled toward my shack. It occurred to me that if I stood up I should be able to walk back, but I didn’t want to. Instead I wanted to crawl back, and in the process show all of the wheat plants how much I had sacrificed for them, like parents who exaggerate their illness in order to get their children’s sympathy.

When I returned to my shack, I drank several gulps of water, ate half a bowl of leftover rice, and then went to sleep. The next morning, I was awakened by a flock of sparrows. The sound of those wild sparrows was initially indistinct, but then became clearer and clearer, until eventually it poured into the hut like a thunderstorm. I sat in bed staring blankly for a while, then rubbed my eyes, grabbed a branch, and ran screaming toward the fields. When I arrived, those hundred or so sparrows flew away, but there were thirty wheat ears that had either fallen to the ground or were hanging, broken, from the stalk, like someone’s head that had gotten cut off and was now hanging by a thread.

Of the forty-eight plants, now I had only eighteen left.

Stunned and inconsolable, I stood next to the field. I remained there until the sun was high in the sky, and only then did I pick up two of the ears of corn that had fed on my blood. I cut one of them open and squeezed out a grain of wheat—and discovered that after only a single night the grain had become much fatter and firmer. In fact, the grains were bright red and larger than any wheat grains I had ever seen. They were approximately the size of ripe peas. I put the grain in my mouth and chewed it, and my mouth was immediately filled with the taste of wheat and blood—a taste that lingered for the rest of the day.

After cooking and eating the unripe grains from those thirty ears of wheat, I moved my cot from my shack to the thatched hut right next to the field, and then proceeded to guard my remaining eighteen wheat plants around the clock. After seven days of blazing sun, those eighteen wheat plants were finally ripe. Two-thirds of the leaves were still green, and there were some ears that were as firm as a wooden pole. Standing under those eighteen wheat trees with their enormous heads of wheat, I knew that the Child would be so pleased when I gave him these wheat ears, the smallest of which was larger than an ear of corn. When I felt the first of these ears, my heart started to pound with excitement, as the grains of wheat dug into my palm like so many pebbles. When I pinched the second and third ones, the hardness of the grains left me delirious with joy. By the time I brought over a stool and used it to peer at the ears of the two tallest plants, which had drunk the most of my blood, my eyes were welling up with tears.

The two tallest and sturdiest wheat plants from this third plot were completely dry, their stems as firm as bamboo poles and their ears tied to a three-legged frame. In just seven days, the ears had gone from the size of typical ears of wheat to that of ears of corn. The grains of wheat visible from outside the shell were as large as peas or peanuts, and even more firm. They emitted a dark red glow and were lined up like so many troops standing at attention. Because the weight of the ear pulled the top of the wheat plant down, it was therefore hanging on the stand, dangling in the air like a deformed gourd.

Gazing at those ears of wheat that were each as hard as a stick, my eyes poured out tears.

After I had finished crying, I climbed down from the stool, then suddenly squatted on the ground and began sobbing again, though this time without any tears. Initially I was just sniffling quietly, but soon I was openly wailing. After I finished, I was completely hoarse, and excitedly climbed to the top of the sand dune and peed into the air. Then I shouted in the direction of the ninety-ninth,

“I want to go home! . . . I want to go home! . . .”

“I want to return home! . . . I want to claim my freedom! . . .”

I don’t know how many times I shouted these words, but eventually I went to the shack and dug up all of the flour, in order to treat myself to a heaping bowl of noodles. I added a lot of garlic oil, and ate until my belly was completely swollen. Then, as I considered calling the Child to present him with these ears of wheat, I began to worry about what the sparrows might do if no one were watching the field. Another possibility would be to sun the ears for another couple of days, and then cut them down and take them to the Child. Then he would surely award me the hundred and twenty-five red blossoms that would leave all of my comrades from the ninety-ninth utterly speechless, or perhaps he might simply give me five pentagonal stars. But I also wanted to invite the Child to come see them for himself, and also invite my comrades to come as well, so that they, too, could see these ears of wheat that were even larger than ears of corn.

I wanted them to see for themselves how I had earned those five stars, and how I was able to return home—openly and before their very eyes. That afternoon, I began using newspapers to wrap up those ears of wheat, to prevent the sparrows from eating them after I left. When I ran out of newspapers, I used my own clothing and bedsheets. Only after all eighteen ears were tightly wrapped, with each stalk looking like a wounded arm wrapped in bandages, did I dare return to the ninety-ninth. As I was leaving, I didn’t forget to collect those several dozen pea-sized wheat grains with which I intended to give the Child an enormous shock and leave my comrades speechless, so that they would have no choice but to come back with me to the sand dune to see the plants for themselves.

After first having a bite to eat shortly after noon, I hurried back to the district, holding the pea-sized and peanut-sized grains of wheat tightly in my hands. At that point the entire region was still taking a midafternoon nap, and apart from a handful of birds and locusts, I didn’t see a single living thing. Because the soil in the river’s old course was alkaline and wet, the wheat plants here had only just begun to ear, and would need at least half a month before they were able to start producing grain. In all directions as far as the eye could see, there was an endless expanse of green and knee-high wild grass. The tree stumps from the year before had begun to produce new growth that was already as tall and healthy as my wheat stalks.

When I got back to the district courtyard, I happened to come upon the Theologian tying his pants as he emerged from the toilet. I deliberately stood there and waited for him to come over. When he saw me, he exclaimed,

“My God, what has happened to you? You’re as pale as a ghost.”

I smiled. “I have grown ears of wheat that are even larger than ears of corn.”

He continued staring at me, then asked, “What’s wrong with your hands and arms? You don’t even seem human.”

“Look at the wheat I’ve grown.” I walked over and reached out to him. My hands holding the pea-sized and peanut-sized grains of wheat were moist with sweat, and when I opened my fingers several of the grains were stuck together. The Theologian stared at the grains in my hand, and he opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something, but nothing came out.

“I want to go home.” I pulled back my hand and said, “I want to take my five stars and post them onto that wooden board and leave this place, just like the Technician last year.” When I mentioned wanting to leave, the Theologian walked over to the Child’s room and, without knocking, pushed the door open. The Child was in the middle of his nap, and the fan he had been using had fallen off his bed. The sweat was pouring down his face and onto the stone he was using as a pillow. When he heard the door open, the Child sat up in bed, and before he even had a chance to fully wake up I held out the enormous wheat grains in my hands and shouted, “The wheat I planted is now ripe, and every ear is larger than an ear of corn! Quick, come with me and have a look!”

The Child rubbed his eyes, then touched the wheat grains I was holding in my hands. He repeatedly looked up at me, then back down at the grains. All traces of sleep were immediately wiped from his face and, beaming, he turned to get his clothes in order to go with me to see those wheat plants with the ears that were even bigger than ears of corn. As we were emerging from his tent, the Theologian, as I had anticipated, called over his roommates, together with the Musician, the Physician, and several other women who had been woken up by the commotion. A group of more than a dozen people followed me and the Child back to the sand dune. Everyone was carrying one of the light red pea-sized or even peanut-sized grains of wheat in their hand, and they chatted as they hurried along. We arrived at that four-level terrace field just as the sun was going down.

But when we arrived, I stopped in my tracks, then shot like an arrow into the field. The ears of wheat that I had carefully wrapped in newspapers and clothing before I left were all gone, having been cut down and taken away. Only the newspapers and clothing were left behind, scattered between the wheat stalks and draped over the wooden frames. Some of the now-earless wheat stalks were still standing in the middle of the field, like small trees, while others had been trampled and were lying on the ground in disarray. Screaming, I rushed around the field and grabbed at the decapitated wheat stalks. I went to each of them, finally reaching what had been the tallest, and found that someone had left a note on the wooden frame. With trembling hands, I took the note down and read it, and saw that it contained a short message:

“I’m sorry. This year these blood ears will be donated to the higher-ups, and to the capital, and next year the entire country will be using blood to raise wheat, the same way they began using black sand to smelt steel.”

That was all the note said. The florid characters were written on a page that had been torn out of a notebook, but it was impossible to tell whose notebook it had come from. Looking first at that note and then at those decapitated wheat stalks, I collapsed helplessly in the middle of the field. I saw the Child and the others, who looked like a couple of dozen figures in a woodblock print, standing under the setting sun with astonished expressions. I began wailing inconsolably.

C
HAPTER
13

The Great Famine (I)

1.
Heaven’s Child
, pp. 340–50

This is how things fell apart.

The Child smashed bowls and plates, and crushed the pots in the canteen. He shouted, “I’ll award five pentagonal stars to whoever can give me these missing ears of wheat!” When no one came forward, the Child pulled out his gun and held it up to his forehead, saying, “If no one hands over the wheat, I simply don’t want to live anymore. And you will have been responsible for taking my life!”

Still no one came forward.

The Child began wailing in front of the crowd. For several days, there was no light in the sky, and the Child’s face grew dark. After the wheat ripened and was harvested, he returned to the headquarters in town for a meeting, but was not awarded any red blossoms or certificates. He also did not manage to produce the fifteen thousand
jin
of grain per
mu
that he had promised the year before. In their experimental field, they had sowed more than a thousand
jin
of wheat seeds, and if you calculate that each seed would produce an ear of wheat, and each ear would have thirty grains, then the field should have yielded more than thirty thousand
jin
of wheat. Even if each ear produced only twenty grains, the field should still have yielded twenty thousand
jin
. If each ear produced ten grains, that would still have yielded ten thousand
jin
. But when has there ever been an ear with only ten grains? Even if the grains are all dried up, twenty grains per ear would yield more than ten thousand
jin
of grain. He had always assumed that it would be very straightforward to produce ten thousand
jin
per
mu
. When the wheat plants sprouted, however, one crowded another, but by the time they were knee-high a thunderstorm knocked them all down, and they never again straightened up enough to grow taller than a man’s waist.