The Explosion Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page B

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 twistedinto 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 aroundit 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