Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

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