Chapter 30: Chapter 29: Prelude: ’An Old Dog
Date: September 2, 1988
Summer
Prologue:
[’Flesh Processing Plant’]
The sun hung high in the sky, scorching the great earth. Waves of heat shimmered, rising from the ground with clouds of dust.
The land was baked hard, the rivers ran dry, and the farmland cracked. People were turning into human jerky.
RIP!
A dense cluster of roots was yanked forcefully from the ground, shaking loose a shower of dirt.
Clods of dry earth tumbled down, striking a foot clad in a work boot.
It hurt. The clods were no different from rocks. But the man was used to it; the soles and tops of his feet had long been covered in a thick layer of calluses.
These were peanuts. Late August and early September was the right time for pulling them.
"Tell me, why do those city folk always say farming is good, but they never come help us do it?"
Under the shade of a tree, two or three men squatted together, towels draped around their necks.
Their withered, dark skin was etched with wrinkles. They squinted at their hand-rolled cigarettes, their cloudy eyes gazing out at the land before them, which blurred in the rising heat waves.
"Because it’s tiring. Because it’s dirty. It’s dirty and tiring."
Someone spoke up.
"If it’s so dirty and tiring, how can it be a good life?"
"Mmm... it’s not."
"Heh, we’ve come full circle, goddammit. So why do they say farming is good?"
The men chatted idly, bored out of their minds. Their words drifted away on the wind like cigarette smoke.
In the fields were several dark figures, backs bent, toiling under the sun. It was impossible to tell who they were, man or woman.
But the men knew whose plot of land that was, and so they knew who the figures were.
"Don’t know. But I know... farming is good."
"How is it good?"
The old man who was smoking turned to the other, grinning to reveal a set of yellow teeth.
"Old Li, you’ve been a farmer your whole life. What for?"
Old Li thought for a moment, then said, "So my son won’t have to."
"Heh, so farming is good, but you farm so your son won’t have to."
The old man chuckled, but not for long.
He finished his cigarette, put on his hat, and plunged back into the heatwave. Before long, he became just another of the bent, dark figures in the distance.
He was doing it for the same reason.
Under the tree, a young man who hadn’t spoken took two sips of water from an old eight-treasure porridge can, glanced at the harvest, then turned and pedaled away on his tricycle.
His name was Sun Jian. He’d never been to school. Though only in his twenties, he had been farming for ten years.
The tricycle was loaded with peanuts from his family’s plot. This son-of-a-bitch weather had made the soil hard as a rock, making the harvest difficult. Luckily, his family’s soil was looser, so pulling the peanuts was easier. He finished earlier than the others.
Sun Jian didn’t have any grand ambitions. ’Farming is actually pretty good,’ he thought.
’It’s just a little tiring, a little hot, a little bitter, a little painful. If you can stand it, it’s really not so bad.’
At least he didn’t have to worry about food or drink. He could survive.
He still remembered the hard days of his childhood. No father, no mother, not enough to eat. He and his grandparents had depended on this little plot of land to survive.
In times like these, having land to farm was a good thing.
But...
Sun Jian got home. He had just wiped his forehead with a towel when he saw his wife and his childhood friend.
His friend was startled to see him, but then quickly came forward with a smile.
"Brother, Brother, come on, let’s go! If we don’t leave now, we’ll be late!"
Hearing his voice, Sun Jian broke into a smile.
This was his buddy, his childhood friend. They had played together as kids. He was the village chief’s son and had always looked out for him. Knowing how poor Sun Jian’s family was, he’d even found him a job.
A miner. Going down into the earth to dig.
The pay was 150 yuan a month, much better than farming at home.
"Alright. Let me just wash my face, and we’ll go."
Sun Jian grinned, a simple, honest smile on his face.
"What are you washing your face for!"
His friend, who was thin with gaunt cheeks, slapped his thigh in exasperation.
"Let’s go! If we don’t leave now, we’ll miss the ride. You can wash your face when we get off. But if the job is gone, it’s gone."
His friend pleaded earnestly, pushing him toward the door.
Sun Jian didn’t even change his shoes. He just grabbed some travel money and left, still covered in mud.
The vehicle was a tractor that would take them to the city to catch a train. Two wiry-looking men were already on it; these were the other two miners.
Sun Jian, wearing cloth shoes, lifted his leg and climbed onto the tractor.
"I’ll be waiting for you at home," his wife called from a distance, waving goodbye.
Besides her, the surrounding villagers watched him go with faces full of envy.
His family’s dog ran after him. When it couldn’t keep up, it spun around in anxious circles, barking at his retreating figure.
Sun Jian didn’t say anything, just grinned and waved.
...
The mining area was a coal mountain.
Only after arriving did Sun Jian realize what a so-called "mine" was really like.
The mineshaft wasn’t like a cellar entrance, but a tunnel-like opening that led to a downward passage inside.
It wasn’t hot in the mine. On the contrary, it was cold.
Even though it was summer outside, it was so cold you had to wear a padded jacket and waterproof boots. The ground was covered in water.
The work was exhausting, not just physically but mentally. Down in the earth, the only companions were rats. Of course, Sun Jian was like a rat himself, so it was only natural that rats were his only company.
He worked there with the other miners for a month and a half.
In that month and a half, he had earned over two hundred yuan—far more than he could make from farming.
How would he spend these two hundred yuan?
Sun Jian had it all planned out.
He planned to buy some things from the city: some vanishing cream, some hand lotion, some pastries, and—most importantly—pork.
Oh, and clothes. All good things.
Sun Jian remembered his wife toiling at home, her hands covered in calluses and her skin rough. He had also seen the young women in the city with their fair, tender skin. He felt he should buy some of these things for her.
Besides that, he also wanted to buy a cradle.
Sun Jian wanted a child. He planned to go home during the holiday and try for one. Then, just like people in the city, he would go to work while his wife rocked the cradle to soothe their baby. When he came home, his wife and child would be there to greet him.
The thought always made Sun Jian dig with more vigor, feeling a surge of energy.
He tensed his muscles and put his back into it.
WHIRRR!
A sharp sound rang out.
But it wasn’t the sound of the electric drill boring into coal.
Sun Jian froze. He dropped the drill and turned to look at the person behind him.
It was one of the two men who had brought him to the mine.
The man held a lump of coal high, his face expressionless. With a sudden burst of force, he smashed it down on Sun Jian’s helmeted head.
CRACK!
Dazed, Sun Jian touched his head.
Streams of liquid trickled down from his forehead.
The next second, Sun Jian collapsed to the ground.
...
There was an accident in the mine.
During a demolition blast set by the technicians, two men were missed. They were buried in the mine and crushed to death.
Sun Jian survived. He had hidden all his money in a compartment inside his safety helmet, so his injuries weren’t severe.
He pretended to be unconscious. When one of them came to check on him, he used the electric drill to bore through the man’s head, then picked up a lump of coal and bashed the other one to death.
He managed to escape before the blast.
The money had saved his life.
Sun Jian didn’t understand why they had tried to kill him until the mine boss, who was from the same hometown, demanded his silence and stuffed five thousand yuan into his hand. Then, Sun Jian understood.
Five thousand yuan. The value of a life was five thousand yuan.
It was more money than he had ever earned in his entire life—an amount that would have taken him 32 months of digging in the mines to make.
Sun Jian fell silent. He clutched the money, boarded the train, and told no one of his experience.
Before he left, an old miner told him that if he had been tougher, he could have gotten ten thousand. After all, with people dead, the mine boss wouldn’t have dared to argue.
Sun Jian returned to his hometown.
It was night when he arrived. Sun Jian had bought many things and was carrying them in bags big and small.
As he stepped into the courtyard, the family dog caught his scent. It didn’t bark, but circled him, wagging its tail.
Sun Jian stopped in his tracks. He looked at the window.
He saw the silhouettes of a man and a woman, tumbling together like a stormy sea.
...
...
Sun Jian had been sold. He had been sold for the price of two thousand yuan.
The miners were to kill him, and the compensation payment was said to be three thousand yuan. They had been promised two thousand of it to give to his childhood friend and his wife.
His childhood friend had taken his land and his house.
The authorities were planning a demolition and relocation project. His house was worth a lot—it would be exchanged for a house in the city and a large sum of money.
His friend had planned to take it all.
But Sun Jian took the demolition money and the blood money that was rightfully his.
He found it in his friend’s home and on his wife.
In one day, a single day, he had obtained more money than he could have earned in a lifetime.
He stood at the village entrance, looking back at the farmland he had worked for half his life, and glanced at his old house, now reeking of blood.
He clenched the banknotes in his hand.
In a daze, Sun Jian seemed to understand something.
Sun Jian smiled. He turned and strode away without looking back.
He didn’t take much with him. Only one thing that could truly be called a possession.
He took his dog.
...
...
September 5, 2003.
8:00 PM.
Sun Jian, now dressed in a suit and leather shoes, received a piece of news. A squad of police officers had raided hospitals and other locations, searching crematoriums and investigating cemeteries.
Sun Jian knew what this meant. He didn’t panic.
Nor did he run. Instead, he drove a car that others couldn’t even dream of affording back to his factory.
Sun Jian used the last of his time to chase away an old dog that could barely walk anymore.
He said,
"Dogs are more loyal than people."
Then he said,
"Some people say I opened a Flesh Processing Plant, but the truth is..."
"This world itself is a Flesh Processing Plant."
...
...
Case File: ’Flesh Processing Plant’.
(Case Closed)