As luck would have it, a publishing friend of mine dropped by, and I showed him ‘Liquorville.’ When he finished, he pounded the table and shouted, This has real potential. He said that if you can expand the story to seventy or eighty thousand words and add some graphics and photographs, you can publish it as a book. His house will assign it a number and assume editorial responsibility. All your city has to do is come up with a subvention and guarantee the purchase of ten thousand copies. He said that since you’ll have to prepare promotional materials for attendees to the first annual Ape Liquor Festival, why not include copies of an illustrated book? It will provide everyone with an accessible, readable history of Liquorland that they can keep for a long time. I think it’s a terrific idea. Talk it over with your mayor. You’ll probably have to give the publisher about 50,000 yuan, a trifling amount for Liquorland, wouldn’t you say? Please let me know as soon as possible, whatever you decide. That friend of mine was so interested in the concept that I gave him your address before he left. He may contact you directly.
As for naming your new brew and participating in the liquor-laws drafting group, since the potential benefits are apparent, I see no reason for false modesty. I accept your invitation. As soon as I put the finishing touches on my novel, I’ll leave for Liquorland. We can work out the details of all these matters then.
Best wishes for success in your writing,
Mo Yan
IV
… wah wah wah! When Ding Gou’er’s thoughts turned to Diamond Jin and all those baby boys who were eaten then excreted into toilets, feelings of personal responsibility and a sense of right and wrong, like the brilliant stars of the Big Dipper, lit up his consciousness, which had been flitting and fleeing in the darkness. At such times, he experienced sharp pains in the helixes of his ears and the tip of his nose, as if they had been pierced by poison darts. Instinctively he sat up – the sky spun, the earth tumbled, his head was as big as a willow basket – and forced his puffy eyelids open; four or five large gray shadows leaped away from his body and landed with dull, meaty thuds. At the same time he heard a high-pitched chirping. A strange bird? Some wild beast? The investigator imagined a grouse or a wild rabbit, even a flying dragon or a flying squirrel. A pair of flashing green eyes poked through the blurry background in front of him. He strained to roll his glassy, crusted eyes and moisten them with the secretions of his tear glands; the tears that glistened across his eyeballs carried the smell of cheap booze. After rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, the scene grew clearer. The first thing he could make out was a clutch of seven or eight large gray house rats glaring angrily and disgustingly at him through pitch-black eyes. The investigator’s stomach lurched at the sight of their pointy snouts, stiff whiskers, sagging bellies, and long, thin tails; his mouth opened, and out spewed a noxious stew of exotic foods, good liquor, and something very near to excrement. His throat felt as if it had been slit by a sharp knife, his nose ached, and his nostrils were stopped up by slimy objects that hadn’t quite made it out. Then a shiny, black fowling piece hanging on the wall caught his eye, and it was just the right image to bring him out of his dark funk. His thoughts turned immediately to his panicky flight from danger so long ago, and to the spectral old man engaged in the illegal sale of wonton, and to the old revolutionary caretaker of the Martyrs’ Cemetery, and to the dancing spirit of Maotai liquor, a red sash across its chest, and to the fiercely intimidating golden-coated dog… his mind was working full-speed, but his thoughts were a hopeless tangle, as if all the flowers were blooming at once. Like a dream, but not entirely; lifelike and fantastic at the same time. Thoughts of the voluptuous lady trucker thudded into the investigator’s mind, just as a large rat jumped onto his shoulder and, with incredible agility, took a bite out of his neck, forcing him to wipe his mind clean of all those random thoughts and concentrate on the here and now. With a shake of his body, he sent the rat flying, as a shriek came of its own accord up out of his throat, but was driven back where it came from by the bizarre scene in front of him. His mouth fell slack, his eyes had a dazed look. There, on his back on the brick bed lay the old revolutionary, blanketed by a dozen or more large rats. His nose and ears had already been gnawed off by the hungry rats – maybe it wasn’t really hunger that drove them on – and his lips had been chewed away, exposing his discolored gums. The mouth, which had once launched strings of witty remarks, was ugly beyond imagining, and the old man’s skull, shorn of its extraneous protrusions, presented a hideous sight. The rats, meanwhile, were working themselves into a frenzy as they attacked the old revolutionary’s hands. The white bones of hands that had once been so adept at wielding a rifle or a club looked like stripped willow branches, absent the skin that had once covered them. The investigator harbored good feelings toward the hardened old revolutionary, who had come to his aid when he needed it most. Rousing his weary body, he rushed up to drive away the rats, but was so startled to see their eyes change color as he bore down on them, from pitch black to a soft pink, then to a dark green, that he stopped in his tracks and backed off, all the way to the wall, where he watched as the rats bared their teeth, frothed at the mouth, and glared with rage, closing ranks to form an attack unit ready to charge. Feeling the fowling piece against his back, the investigator had a sudden inspiration. He spun around, grabbed the gun, took aim, and wrapped his finger around the trigger, standing at the ready, as if facing a menacing horde.
‘Don’t move!’ the investigator shouted. ‘One step closer and I’ll blow you away!’
The rats exchanged glances and gestures, mocking the investigator, who all but exploded in anger:
‘You nicking rats!’ he swore. ‘Now you’ll find out who you’re dealing with!’
The words were barely out of his mouth when an explosion tore through the room, like a thunderclap. A flash of fiery light sent clouds of gunsmoke rolling in the air. When the smoke cleared, the investigator was relieved to see that a single shot had decimated the rat ranks; those that survived the blast cursed their parents for not giving them four more legs, as they scurried across roofbeams, clung to cross beams, flew on eaves and walked on walls, until, in a matter of seconds, they were gone without a trace. The investigator was alarmed to note that, while the blast from his fowling piece had killed or scattered the rats, it had also blown holes in the old revolutionary’s face, which now looked like a sieve. Hugging the shotgun to his chest, he fell back against the wall and slid to the floor on rubbery legs, his heart screaming out in agony. The old revolutionary obviously died under an assault by those rats, he reasoned, but who would believe him after seeing the man’s face all pitted with buckshot? People would jump to the conclusion that he had died from a shotgun blast to the face, which had then been further disfigured by rats. Ding Gou’er Ding Gou’er, this time you could jump into the Yangtze and not come out clean. The Yangtze is muddier even than the Yellow River. ‘When a sage appears, the Yellow River turns clean. Families everywhere gather to sail lanterns made of gourds and melons. What kind? White gourds, watermelons, and pumpkins. What kind of lanterns, what kind? Cucumber, squash, and brain gourd lanterns.’ This childhood folk song crisply and mysteriously pounded the eardrums of the distraught special investigator, distant at first, then nearer and nearer, getting clearer and clearer, louder and louder, until it expanded into a full-blown chorus of brilliant juvenile voices, like floating clouds and flowing water. And there, standing in the conductor’s spot in front of the boys’ chorus, more than a hundred members strong, was the son from whom he had been parted for so long. The boy was wearing a snow-white shirt and sky-blue shorts, like a cottony cloud floating in the sky, or a single gull soaring through the sea-blue heavens. Two rivulets of murky fluid, like warm liquor, flowed from the investigator’s eyes, soaking his cheeks and the corners of his mouth. He stood up and reached out to his son, but the blue and white little fellow drifted slowly away from him, the boy’s image in his eyes replaced by the ghastly scene he and the rats had created, a false yet indescribable scene of murder that was destined to rock Liquorland.
Drawn by the enchanting expression on his son’s face, the investigator walked to the gate of the Martyrs’ Cemetery and saw the big dog with the tiger-like demeanor, which had once caused his hair to stand on end; it lay on its side under a dark green poplar tree, its legs thrust out stiffly, blood trickling from its mouth. Startled out of his wits, the investigator bent down and squeezed through the dog door. There wasn’t another soul on the ancient, pitted asphalt road, in the center of which a solitary concrete utility pole cast a lengthy shadow down the road. Blood-red rays of the setting sun fell on the investigator’s face as he stood up dejectedly. He stood there for a long while deep in thought, yet thinking about nothing tangible.
The rumble of a train passing through the center of Liquorland gave him an idea. Walking down the road, he dimly sensed that he was heading in the direction of the railway station. But a river turned golden by the sun’s late-afternoon rays blocked his way. It was a gorgeous river scene, with colorful, creaky boats slipping across the surface into the sun. The men and women on one of the boats appeared to be lovers, since only lovers would have their arms around each other as they gazed straight ahead in silent infatuation. A burly woman in an old-style dress stood on the stern, straining and stretching as she worked the scull back and forth, shattering the golden glaze of the river and stirring up the stench of decaying bodies and the smell of heated distillery grains that permeated the
