My brother untied the Mongol ox and led her off to the side, where she stood as if she’d been spared from something horrible. She was still quaking, but a look of calm was in her eyes.
And still you lay there, Ximen Ox, like a sandbar, as the plowmen stood back and, one after the other, as if it were a competition, expertly swirled their whips in the air and brought them down on your hide, filling the air with a tattoo of loud cracks. The ox’s back was crisscrossed with lash marks. Before long, there were traces of blood, and now that the tips of the whips were bloodied, the cracks were louder and crisper. Harder and harder they came, until your back and your belly looked like cutting boards covered with chunks of bloody flesh.
My tears started to flow as soon as they began beating you. I wailed, I begged, I wanted to throw myself on top of you to share your suffering, but my arms were pinned to my sides by the mob that had gathered to watch the spectacle. I kicked and I bit, but the pain I caused had no effect on the people, who refused to let go. How could such decent villagers, young and old, get any enjoyment out of such a bloody tragedy, as if their hearts had turned to stone?
Eventually, they tired. Rubbing their sore arms, they walked up to see if you were dead. You weren’t. But your eyes were tightly shut; there were open wounds on the side of your face, staining the ground around your head with blood. You were gasping for breath, and there were violent spasms in your belly, like a female in labor.
The men who had used their whips on you were sighing over a stubborn streak the likes of which they’d never seen before. The looks on their faces were awkward, almost remorseful. They’d have felt better if you’d been a defiant animal, but you weren’t, you submitted meekly to their cruelty, and that they found perplexing. So many ancient ethical standards and supernatural legends stirred in their hearts and minds. Is this an ox or some sort of god? Maybe it’s a Buddha who has borne all this suffering to lead people who have gone astray to enlightenment. People are not to tyrannize other people, or oxen; they must not force other people, or oxen, to do things they do not want to do.
As feelings of compassion rose up in the whip-wielding men, they urged Jinlong to bring things to a halt. But he refused. The traits he shared with that ox burned in him like sinister flames, turning his eyes red and changing the features on his face: his twisted mouth reeked, his whole frame trembled, and he seemed to be walking on air, like a common drunk. By then he had lost his grip on reality and was under the control of a demonic being. In the same way that the ox displayed its iron will and preserved its dignity by refusing to stand up, even in the face of death, my brother Jinlong was prepared to do whatever it took, at whatever cost, to make the animal stand in order to display
My brother smacked the rump of the Mongol ox hard, and she lurched forward, still quaking. The rope grew taut, pulling the nose ring with it. Oh, no, Ximen Ox! Jinlong, you monster, let my ox go! I fought to break free, but the people holding me seemed to have turned to stone. Ximen Ox’s nose was pulled out of shape, like a piece of rubber. But the Mongol Ox, the heartless beast, charged ahead with all her strength every time my brother hit her, jerking Ximen Ox’s head up off the ground. Yet the rest of him stayed put. It seemed to me that his front legs bent inward, but I was just seeing things. You had no intention of getting to your feet. Sounds like a bawling infant emerged from your nostrils. It was heartbreaking. Oh, Ximen Ox, a crisp sound, a pop, marked the splitting of your nose, followed by the thud of your raised head hitting the ground again. The female ox’s front legs gave out on her, but she immediately stood up again.
Ximen Jinlong, now you can stop. But he didn’t. He was a madman. Howling like an injured wolf, he ran over to a furrow, scooped up a handful of cornstalks, and piled them behind you. Was that evil bastard planning to set the ox on fire? Yes, that’s exactly what he had in mind. He lit the stalks, and white smoke carrying a subtle fragrance rose into the air, the unique smell of cornstalks. Everyone held their breath and stared wide-eyed, but not one of them tried to put an end to my brother’s brutal behavior. Oh, no, Ximen Ox, oh, no, Ximen Ox, who would rather die than stand up and pull a plow for the People’s Commune. I saw my dad throw down his hoe and sprawl on the ground, facedown, as he dug his hands deep into the soil. He was quaking like a malaria sufferer, and I knew that he was sharing the ox’s agonies.
The ox’s hide was burning, giving off a foul, nauseating odor. No one threw up, but everyone felt like it. Ximen Ox, your face was burrowing into the ground, your back was like a trapped snake, writhing and popping from the heat. The leather halter caught fire. Belonging to the collective, it mustn’t be lost. Someone ran up, released the catch, and flung it to the ground, then stomped out the flames that were consuming the rope, releasing a stench that even drove away birds in the sky. Oh, no, Ximen Ox, the charred rear half of your body was too horrible to look at.
“Burn, damn you…,” Jinlong was screaming. He ran over to a pile of cornstalks, and no one made a move to stop him. They wanted to see how perversely evil he could be. Even Hong Taiyue, whose job it was to teach people to cherish property belonging to the collective, looked on dispassionately.
Jinlong came back with an armload of cornstalks, stumbling as he walked. My half brother was out of his mind. Jinlong, how would you have felt if you’d known that the ox was actually the reincarnation of your real father? And you, Ximen Ox, how did you feel knowing that it was your son who punished you so savagely? Countless forms of gratitude and resentment, of love and enmity, exist among people all over the world, but something occurred at that moment that stupefied everyone who witnessed it. Ximen Ox, you stood up on shaky legs, minus your harness, your nose ring, and your tether, a free ox, totally liberated from all human control. You began to walk, how hard that must have been, weak in the legs, swaying uncontrollably from side to side; dark blood dripped from your torn nose, slid down to your belly, and from there dripped to the ground like tar. The people gaped silently, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Step by agonizing step, you walked toward my dad, leaving the land belonging to the People’s Commune and entering the one-point-six acres of land belonging to the last independent farmer in the nation, Lan Lian; once there, you collapsed in a heap.
Ximen Ox died on my dad’s land. What he did went a long way toward clearing the minds of people who had become confused and disoriented during the Cultural Revolution. Ah, Ximen Ox, you became the stuff of legend, a mythical being. After your death, there were those who wanted to butcher and eat you, but when they ran up with their knives and saw the bloody tears mixed with mud on my dad’s face, they turned and went away quietly.
Dad buried you in the middle of his land, under a prominent grave mound, known today as Righteous Ox Tomb, one of Northeast Gaomi Township’s noted sights.
As an ox, you will likely gain immortality.
Book Three: Pig Frolics
21
With More Cries of Injustice, a Return to Yama’s Hall
Deceived Again to Be Reborn as a Lowly Pig
After shedding my ox skin, my indomitable spirit hovered above Lan Lian’s one-point-six acres of land. Life as an ox had been a tragic existence. After my incarnation as a donkey, Lord Yama had pronounced judgment that I’d be sent back as a human, but I wound up sliding out through the birth canal of an ox. Anxious to complain he’d made a fool of me, I nonetheless continued to hover above Lan Lian, reluctant to leave. I looked down on the bloody carcass of the ox; and the gray head of Lan Lian as he sprawled across the ox’s head and wailed piteously; and the obtuse expression on the face of my grown son Jinlong; and the young lad with the blue face, born to my concubine
