taking place in Balou—or in the rest of the country, for that matter. Apart from a Party Assembly being held in Beijing, everything was the same as before. On television and in newspapers, however, that assembly was subsequently compared to Mao Zedong’s founding of the People’s Republic of China thirty-one years earlier. The event lasted for five days, and on the last day Jumei went into labor. Her belly was swollen tight as a drum, and she cried in agony as she delivered three daughters—this being the triple phoenix birth that everyone in Balou had heard about but never before witnessed. Although the babies were no larger than kittens, each was nevertheless a tiny person, able to wail and nurse. As Jumei lay there, her blood flowing down the legs of the bed and her forehead bathed in sweat, Mao Zhi elatedly brought the midwife one bucket of boiling water after another. The midwife washed her hands and placed a hot towel on Jumei’s forehead, asking, Is your belly livening yet? Jumei replied, It hurts, and feels like I’m still having contractions. The midwife was eating a bowl of bean noodles that Mao Zhi had prepared for her, and asked in surprise, You’re still having contractions? I’ve been delivering babies my entire life, but this is the first triple phoenix birth I’ve ever seen. How could there possibly still be a fourth or fifth child in there?
After finishing her noodles, the midwife got ready to leave. Before she left, however, she again felt inside Jumei, then cried out in astonishment: Heavens, there really is another baby in her belly!
Jumei proceeded to give birth to a fourth child.
This was Balou’s legendary surtwin birth. All four of the infants were girls. The eldest was called Tonghua, or “Tung-Oil Tree Blossom”; the second was called Huaihua, or “Pagoda Tree Blossom”; the third was called Yuhua, or “Elm Blossom”; and because there happened to be a moth flying around the room when the fourth was born, she was called Si’e, or “Fourth Moth,” and was nicknamed Mothlet.
3) Little nin . A girl whose growth is stunted. Because Jumei gave birth to quadruplets, each of them was born small, and therefore everyone called them little nins.
5) Wholer . A term of respect used in Liven to refer to healthy people. The term is used to designate those of us who are normal and are neither blind, deaf, mute, nor missing any limbs.
7) Cold dead . D IAL . This was originally used to refer to cold weather, but here it is used to suggest that someone’s heart is as cold and hard as that of a dead man.
There was a reason why Mao Zhi cursed the new county chief like this. The chief’s name was Liu Yingque, and he was once just an ordinary person like us. Prior to the dingji year, he had been a soc-school babe 1 in the county seat,and it was from there that he ended up as a temporary worker in the township of Boshuzi. Every day he would sweep the courtyard of the town hall and fill the boilers in the canteen, for which work he was paid twenty-four and a half yuan a month.
During that era, people throughout the land were deeply engrossed in the dance of Revolution, though in remote Balou they were concerned primarily with trying to fill their bellies. The people of Balou eventually came to realize that they needed knowledge and enlightenment, just as the nation needed to develop a socialist education movement, promote soc-ed, 3 and emphasize rationality and pedagogy. Personnel were needed to promote soc-ed, so Liu Yingque was summoned. Given that he was young and fit, and was regarded as the soc-school babe, he was sent to Liven a hundred li away to help promote soc-ed and lead the people.
In Liven, Liu asked the villagers if they had ever heard of Wang, Zhang, Jiang, and Yao.
The villagers stared at him blankly.
Liu explained that Wang, Zhang, Jiang, and Yao were the infamous Gang of Four, and asked how it was possible that the villagers didn’t know about them.
The villagers continued