The Corpse Reader

6

Cí was woken by a crack of thunder. He rubbed his eyes and tried to get his bearings, then heard shouting toward the north. He turned and saw a plume of smoke coming from his family’s home. Panicking, he ran to the road and joined the large number of villagers also rushing to see what was happening.

Near his house, the smoke grew so thick that Cí could hardly see. Although he was surrounded by screams and cries, he could only vaguely make out some ghostly figures. Suddenly he stumbled into a boy whose terrified eyes stared out from a bloody face. It was his neighbor Chun. Cí went to take him by the arm to ask what had happened, but the limb was only a stump, and before he knew it, Chun had collapsed.

Cí leaped over Chun’s body, going deeper into the mess of rubble and logs scattered on the path. He couldn’t see his own house, and Chun’s had disappeared, too. Everything was in ruins. Panic surged through him again. What suffocated him more than the dense smoke was the certainty that all this rubble could only signify death.

He ran up the mound of beams and debris and heaved aside stone and wood, calling out for his parents and Third.

They must be alive! Dear gods, please!

Pushing on a joist and shifting the remains of a chair, he slipped on a piece of glazed slate but barely noticed when it cut his foot. He scrabbled through the rubble. Suddenly he saw a hand—one of his family’s? Then he realized there were others groping in the same spot, and he assumed villagers had come to loot the place. He was about to drive them off when someone began shouting that he’d found something. Cí realized the villagers were only trying to help.

He ran over, pushing people aside, and immediately wished he hadn’t. There, in a gap in the wreckage, were the burned corpses of his parents. He lost his footing, falling and striking his head. All became smoke and darkness.

When Cí came to, he was lying in the middle of the street surrounded by strangers. He tried to get up, but someone stopped him. Instead of his worker’s rags, he was dressed in white—the color of death and mourning. The taste of smoke was in his throat, its smell in his nose. He tried to remember what had happened, but his mind whirled, and he had no idea what was dream and what was reality.

“What happened?”

“You hit your head,” a voice said.

“But what happened?”

“Lightning, probably.”

“Lightning?”

He tried to remember. Suddenly, a crack—the same sound that had woken him at Cherry’s. His family…

It can’t be real. I must have dreamed it.

He leaped up and ran down the street. Though it wasn’t yet dawn, he could make out the remains of the destroyed house. He screamed until he was hoarse, but for all he implored the gods, the nightmare didn’t end.

People were crouched in a circle outside another house, across from the ruins. As Cí approached, they let him through. The smell of death was mixed with the gloomy, bitter aroma of charred wood. He moved forward slowly as his eyes became accustomed to the low light filtering through the ruins. Then he came to a group of corpses on the ground. He recognized Chun and a number of other neighbors. And his parents. Upon seeing their scorched and bloody bodies again, he let out a cry.

He wept for them, but his tears gave him no relief.

Drained, he left the remains. Neighbors told him what had happened: Lightning had struck the hillside behind the village, causing a landslide, and this had been followed by fire. Four houses had been damaged or destroyed, six people dead—but his sister wasn’t one of them. Third had been found curled up under some joists, and she had suffered only a sprained ankle.

Cí felt guilty that his last conversation with his father had been in anger, and he wondered whether, if he had returned home from Cherry’s, he might have saved his parents. But maybe he had been spared so that he could look after his sister.

Third had been taken in by old No Teeth and his wife. He ran all the way to No Teeth’s house and, bursting in, found Third peacefully sleeping under a blanket, far away from all the pain and sadness. He thanked the couple and asked if they would look after Third while he attended to his parents. No Teeth’s wife muttered something, but they didn’t protest, and Cí went back to the ruins.

He accompanied his parents’ bodies to the shelter that Bao-Pao had erected, and he stayed there praying until midday. Then he hurried back to the ruined house to remove anything valuable before the place was looted.

In the light of day he could see that the landslide had damaged six of the twenty or so houses nestled into the hillside; the four in the middle had been completely destroyed. Several of his neighbors were clearing the rubble of their ruined homes. As he approached, a number of them pointed angrily at Cí and accused him of bringing ill fortune upon them.

He gritted his teeth and set to work. He spent hours in the mud and ash, sorting through the jumble of broken furniture, tattered clothing, chunks of wood, and tile. He stopped at times, flooded with tears as he excavated prized family possessions: his mother’s porcelain dishes, which had been smashed to pieces; iron pots and pans, battered and dented; and his father’s paintbrushes, which, miraculously, were still intact. Cí remembered learning to write with them. He set a few things aside and kept going.

Suddenly he heard laughter behind him. He turned and saw a shadow poking out from behind a wall. Cí went over and found Peng, his neighbors’ six-year-old son, known for being a rascal and brighter than most. Cí offered the boy some nuts from a package he’d found in the wreckage, but Peng refused, smiling wickedly. Cí repeated the offer and Peng inched closer.

“You can have some if you tell me what happened.” Peng glanced around as though frightened of someone catching him eating treats—no doubt because of his bad teeth.

“There was lightning and the mountain fell down,” he said as he tried to snatch some nuts. But Cí held them high so he couldn’t get any.

“Are you sure?”

“And I saw men…”

“Men?”

The boy was about to answer when a shout stopped him. It was his mother, and he hurried off in her direction. He was about to disappear around the corner when Cí called out and threw the package of nuts to him. Peng caught them and turned, his mother already beside him. She gave the little boy a smack and led him away.

Cí shook his head and went back to his task.

By midafternoon, Cí had moved everything but the largest rocks. He was looking for the chest containing the money his father had saved to return to Lin’an so he could use it to pay the magistrate’s blackmail. He was beginning to lose hope that he would be able to move the very largest rocks, or that he would find the chest, when suddenly he glimpsed the chest poking out from under a large pillar.

I’ll get you out from under there if it’s the last thing I do.

He positioned a beam between a rock and the pillar for leverage and pushed down on it as hard as he could. He tried a few more times before making a higher ridge with another rock and then yanking on the makeshift lever. Finally the pillar gave way; as it did, Cí fell on his back. When the dust settled, he saw that the lock on the chest had been broken, and inside he found no money, just clothes and rags. He couldn’t believe it.

Then he heard a voice behind him. “I’m sorry. My wife says we can’t look after her any longer.”

It was No Teeth, with Third beside him. His sister was frowning, looking confused, and clinging to a cloth doll.

“My daughter has another one that’s the same,” said No Teeth, pointing to the doll. “She can keep it if she wants.”

Cí bit his lip. He was beginning to feel it was him against the world, but he brought his fists together and bowed, thanking No Teeth. No Teeth didn’t return the bow but instead left as stealthily as he’d come.

Third looked at Cí as if he might have some kind of explanation. Expectant, quiet, obedient—she was always lovely, Cí thought, even though she was so ill. He looked at the ruins and at her again. What could he do with her? He found a thick branch and put her astride it, playing giddyap horsey for a minute. In spite of her cough, she laughed. He laughed, too, though he was gripped by sadness.

Cí managed to get them some boiled rice before nightfall, and he fed Third, saving only a few grains for himself. That and a drink of water would have to do. Next to the ruins, Cí used dry branches to construct a bed with a little roof over it, and as he put Third to bed, he explained that their parents had gone on a long journey to heaven. He told her he’d be looking after her from now on, and that she’d need to be good and listen to him. Then he said he’d build them a new house, a big one, with a garden full of flowers and a swing.

Once Third was asleep, Cí went back to work in the failing light, sifting through the rubble in search of the red chest. Eventually he gave up, exhausted. Someone must have stolen it.

He collapsed next to his sister with the impossible problem of money on his mind: If it had taken his father six years to save up 100,000 qián, how on earth would he get together the 400,000 that the magistrate was demanding?