Yingchun; and the face of the youngster’s friend Mo Yan, smeared with snot and tears; and the faces of all those other people that seemed so familiar. As my spirit left the body of the ox, the ox memories began to fade, replaced by those of Ximen Nao. I was a good man who hadn’t deserved to die, but had been shot anyway. Lord Yama knows a mistake was made, one that was hard to make good on.
“Yes,” Lord Yama said coldly, “a mistake was made. So what do you think I should do about it? I am not authorized to send you back as Ximen Nao. Having undergone two reincarnations already, you know as well as I that Ximen Nao’s time has ended. His children are grown, his corpse has rotted away in the ground, and nothing but ashes remain from his dossier. Old accounts have been settled. Why can you not put those sad recollections out of your mind and seek happiness instead?”
I knelt on the cold marble floor of Lord Yama’s Hall. “Great Lord,” I said, a note of agony creeping into my voice, “I want more than anything to do that, but I cannot. Those painful memories are like parasites that cling stubbornly to me. When I was reborn as a donkey, I was reminded of Ximen Nao’s grievances, and when I was reborn as an ox, I was reminded of the injustice he suffered. These old memories torment me relentlessly, Great Lord.”
“Do you mean to say that Granny Meng’s amnesia elixir, which is a thousand times more potent than knockout drops, does not work on you?” Lord Yama asked doubtfully. “Did you go straight to Homeward Terrace without drinking it?”
“Great Lord, I tell you the truth, I did not drink the tonic when I was sent back as a donkey. But before I was reborn as an ox, your two attendants pinched my nose shut and poured a bowl of it down my throat. They even gagged me to keep me from throwing it up.”
“Now that is strange.” Lord Yama turned to the judge sitting beside him. “Could Madame Meng have produced a counterfeit tonic?
The judges shook their heads.
“Ximen Nao, I’ve had all I can take from you. If every ghost was as much trouble as you, chaos would reign in this hall. Given your charitable acts as a human and the suffering you underwent as a donkey and an ox, I will bestow a special mercy on you by sending you to be reborn in a distant, stable country whose citizens are rich, a place of natural beauty where it is springtime year-round. Your father to be is thirty-six years old, the country’s youngest mayor. Your mother is a gentle and beautiful professional singer whose voice has won for her many international prizes. You will be their only son, a jewel dropped into their hands. Your father has a brilliant future ahead of him: at forty-eight he will rise to the position of governor. When she reaches middle age, your mother will give up her professional career and go into business as the owner of a famous cosmetic company. Your father drives an Audi, your mother a BMW; you will drive a Mercedes. Fame and fortune beyond your imagining will be yours, and you will be lucky in love – many times. You will be richly compensated for the suffering and injustice you have experienced on the Wheel of Life so far.” Lord Yama tapped the table with his fingertip and paused briefly. He gazed up into the darkness of the hall canopy and said pointedly, “What I have just said should make you very happy.”
But wouldn’t you know it, Lord Yama fooled me yet again.
Prior to this rebirth, they covered my eyes with a black blindfold.
On Homeward Terrace, I was assaulted with a hellishly cold wind and a horrible stench. In a hoarse voice, the old woman cursed me bitterly for laying false accusations. She banged me over the head with a wooden spoon, then grabbed me by the ear and ladled her broth into my mouth. What a strange taste it had, like peppered guano. “I hope you drown, you stupid pig, for saying my broth was faked. I want to submerge your memories, submerge your previous lives, leaving you only with a memory of swill and dung!” The demonic attendants who had brought me there were holding my arms the whole time this evil old woman was torturing me; their gloating laughter filled my ears.
I stumbled down off the platform, still in the grip of the attendants, who ran me so fast I don’t think my feet touched the ground; I felt like I was flying. Finally my feet touched something soft, almost cloudlike. Each time I wanted to ask where I was going, a hairy claw stuffed something foul-smelling in my mouth before I could speak and a sour taste filled my mouth, like the dregs of aged liquor or a fermented bean cake; it was, I knew, the smell of the Ximen Village Production Brigade feeding shed. My god, the ox memory is still with me. Am I still an ox? Was all that other stuff a dream? I put up a fight, struggling as if trying to break free of a nightmare. I squealed and scared myself. So I fixed my eyes on my surroundings, and discovered that there were a dozen or more squirming lumps of flesh all around me. Black ones, white ones, yellow ones, even some black-and-white ones. Lying on the ground in front of all those lumps of flesh was a white sow. I heard the familiar voice of a pleasantly surprised woman say:
“Number sixteen! My god! Our old sow has produced a litter of sixteen piglets!”
I blinked to clear the mucus out of my eyes. I didn’t need to look at myself to know that I’d come back as a pig this time, and that all those squirming, squealing lumps of flesh were my brothers and sisters. I knew what I must look like, and I was furious over how back-stabbing Lord Yama had fooled me again. How I loathed pigs, those filthy beasts. I’d have been fine with coming back as another donkey or an ox, but not a pig, condemned to roll around in the muck and mud. I’ll starve myself, that’s what I’ll do, so I can get back down to the underworld and settle accounts with that damned Lord Yama.
It was a sweltering summer day, by my calculations – the sunflowers beyond the pigpen wall hadn’t yet bloomed, though the leaves were big and plump – sometime during the sixth lunar month. There were flies everywhere and dragonflies circling the air high above me. I felt my legs growing strong and my eyesight improving fast. I saw the two people who had been standing by when the sow had her litter: one was Huang Tong’s older daughter, Huzhu, the other my son, Ximen Jinlong. My skin tightened at the sight of my son’s familiar face, and my head began to ache; it was almost as if a huge human form, or a crazed spirit, were confined in my tiny piglet body. Suffocating, I’m suffocating! Misery, oh, such misery! Let me go, let me spread out, let me slough off this filthy, abominable pig shell, to grow and regain the manly form of Ximen Nao! But of course, none of that was possible. I fought like mad, but still wound up in the palm of Huang Huzhu. She tweaked my ear with her finger and said:
“Jinlong, this one seems to be having convulsions.”
“Who cares? The old sow doesn’t have enough teats as it is, so let’s hope a few die,” he said venomously.
“No, they’re all going to live.” Huzhu put me down and wiped me clean with a soft red cloth. She was so gentle. It felt wonderful. Without meaning to, I squealed, that damned pig sound.
“Did she have her litter? How many?” That voice was outside the pigpen, loud and very familiar. I shut my eyes in total despair. I not only recognized Hong Taiyue’s voice I could even tell he’d regained his official post. Lord Yama, oh, Lord Yama, all those fine words about being reborn as the pampered son of a high official in a foreign country, when all along you meant to fling me into a Ximen Village pigpen. You tricked me, you shameless, backbiting liar! I fought to free myself from Huzhu’s hands and landed on the ground with a thud. A single squeal, and I passed out.
When I came to, I was lying in a bed of leaves, bright sunlight filtering down through the branches of an apricot tree. The smell of iodine was in the air; shiny ampoules were strewn on the ground around me. My ears were sore, so was my rump, and I knew they’d brought me back from the verge of death. All of a sudden, a lovely face materialized in my head, and I knew she was the one who’d given me the shots; yes, it was her, my daughter, Ximen Baofeng. Trained as a people doctor, she often treated sick animals as well. Dressed in a blue-checked, short-sleeved shirt, she seemed worried about something. But she always looked like that. She tweaked my ear with her cold finger and said to the person next to her:
“He’s okay now, you can take him back to the pen to suckle.”
Hong Taiyue rushed up and rubbed my silky skin with his coarse hand.
“Baofeng,” he said, “don’t think that treating a pig is unworthy of your talent!”
“The thought never occurred to me, Party secretary,” Baofeng replied matter-of-factly as she picked up her medical kit. “As far as I’m concerned, there’s no difference between animals and humans.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” Hong said. “Chairman Mao has called upon people to raise pigs. Raising pigs is a political act, and by doing a good job at it you’re showing your loyalty to Chairman Mao. Do you understand what I’m saying, Jinlong and Huzhu?”
Huzhu said yes, but Jinlong leaned against the apricot tree, smoking a cheap cigarette.
“I asked you a question, Jinlong,” Hong said, obviously displeased.
Jinlong cocked his head. “I’m listening, aren’t I?” he said. “Would you like me to recite the entirety of Chairman
