Life and Death are Wearing Me Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

and sent forward to the Township Government a judgment that the tyrannical landlord Ximen Nao is to be dragged up to the stone bridge on the outskirts of the village and shot!”
    An explosion, a burst of light, and Ximen Nao’s brains were splattered over the gourd-sized stones beneath the bridge, polluting the air around it with a disagreeable stench. These were painful thoughts. I could say nothing in my defense; they refused to let me. Struggle against landlords, smash their dog heads, cut the tall grass, pluck out the thickest hairs. If you want to accuse someone, you’ll never run out of words. We’ll make sure you die convinced of your crimes, is what Hong Taiyue said, but they gave me no chance to argue in my defense. Hong Taiyue, your words meant nothing, you did not make good on your promise.
    He stood in the doorway, hands on his hips, face to face with Lan Lian, an intimidating presence. Even though I was able only moments before to conjure up an image of him bending over obsequiously in front of me, ox bone in hand, he instilled fear in this wounded donkey. About eight feet separated my master and Hong Taiyue. My master was born to poverty, a member of the proletariat, red as could be. But he’d once claimed a foster relationship — father and son — with me, Ximen Nao, a dubious relationship, to say the least, and though he later raised his level of class consciousness and was in the vanguard of the struggle against me, thus recapturing his good name as a poor peasant and acquiring living quarters, land, and a wife, the authorities viewed him with suspicion, owing to his special relationship with Ximen Nao.
    The two men faced off for a long moment. My master was the first to speak:
    “What gave you the right to injure my donkey?”
    “If he gnaws on the bark of my tree again, I’ll shoot him!” Hong Taiyue roundly rebuffed him, patting the holster on his hip for emphasis.
    “There’s no need for you to be so damned vicious with an animal!”
    “As I see it, people who drink from a well without considering the source or forget where they came from when they stand tall are worse than an animal!”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “Lan Lian, listen carefully to what I’m about to say.” Hong took a step closer and pointed to Lan Lian’s chest as if his finger were the muzzle of a gun. “After the success of land reform, I advised you not to marry Yingchun. I realize she had no choice in giving herself to Ximen Nao, and I support the government’s position that it’s a good thing for a widow to remarry. But as a member of the impoverished class, you should have married someone like Widow Su from West Village. Left without a room to live in or a strip of land to till after her husband died, she was forced to beg to survive. She may have a face full of pockmarks, but she’s a member of the proletariat, one of us, and she could have helped you maintain your integrity as a committed revolutionary. But you ignored my advice and were set on marrying Yingchun. Since our marriage policy stresses freedom of choice, I did not stand in your way. As I predicted, over the past three years your revolutionary zeal has evaporated. You are selfish, your thinking is backward, and you want to live in a style more dissipated than even your former landlord, Ximen Nao. You have turned into a degenerate, and if you don’t wake up soon, you’ll find yourself wearing the label of an enemy of the people!”
    My master stared blankly at Hong Taiyue, without moving. Finally, after catching his breath, he said weakly:
    “Old Hong, since Widow Su has those fine attributes, why don’t you marry her?”
    Hong reacted to this seemingly inoffensive question as if he’d lost the power of speech. He looked hopelessly flustered before finding his voice. Without responding to the question, he said authoritatively:
    “Don’t get cute with me, Lan Lian. I represent the Party, the government, and the impoverished residents of