Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

just because I’m a pig I don’t know what a high-speed camera is. Hell, these days anyone can be a film director! All you need is a light-filtering lens and a high-speed camera that you use to get a full shot or a closeup. The tile broke into pieces when it hit Yingchun’s forehead and flew in all directions, followed immediately by drops of blood. Onlookers looked on in jaw-dropping astonishment. . . . Yingchun lay on the ground. Mom! Ximen Baofeng was shouting. She kneeled by her mother and laid her medical kit on the ground. With her right arm around Yingchun’s neck, she studied the wound on her forehead. What happened, Mom? . . . Who did this? Hong Taiyue bellowed as he ran over to the spot where the tile had been launched. I didn’t even try to hide, knowing I could disappear any time I wanted to. I had really messed up this time, no matter how good my intentions were, and I deserved to be punished. Hong Taiyue was the first to go looking for the rotten individual who had injured one of the villagers with a piece of tile, but he wasn’t the one who discovered me standing behind the apricot tree. Getting on in years, he wasn’t as sprightly as he’d once been. No, the first to come around the tree and find me was Mo Yan, whose stealthy movements perfectly matched his almost pathological curiosity. Here’s who did it! he gleefully announced to the swarm of people behind him. I sat there stiffly, a low guttural sound in my throat declaring my remorse and my readiness to receive the punishment I deserved. The puzzled looks on the people’s faces showed up clear in the moonlight. He’s the one, I guarantee it! Mo Yan said to the crowd. With my own eyes I once saw him write on the ground with a twig. Hong Taiyue thumped him on the shoulder.
    “Old man,” he mocked Mo Yan, “have you also seen him take a knife in his hoof and carve a seal for your dad, using the plum-blossom style of calligraphy?”
    As someone who didn’t know what was good for him, Mo Yan continued shooting off his mouth, so the third brother of the Sun family ran up and, like the bully he was, grabbed Mo Yan by the ear and kneed him in the rear end.
    “Buddy,” he said as he dragged him away from the scene, “keep that beak of yours shut!”
    “Who let this boar out of its pen?” Hong Taiyue asked angrily. “Who’s responsible for taking care of the pigs? Somebody has a terrible work ethic and ought to be docked some work points!”
    Moving as fast as possible on her tiny, bound feet, Ximen Bai tottered up from the roadway, which was paved in moonlight, scattering apricot blossoms that looked like snowflakes as she came. Memories that had lain deep in the sediment of my mind were once again stirred up, like mud on a riverbed, and began squeezing my heart.
    “Get that pig back in his pen!” Hong Taiyue growled. “This is ridiculous! Totally ridiculous!” With a phlegmatic cough he walked over to the generator room.
    I think it must have been concern for her son that made it possible for Yingchun to come around so quickly; she struggled to stand. “Mom . . . ,” Baofeng cried out as she put her arm under Yingchun’s neck and opened her medical kit. Huang Huzhu, a look of detachment on her face, knew what to do: she picked up an alcohol-soaked cotton ball with a pair of tweezers and handed it to Baofeng. “My Jinlong . . .” Yingchun pushed Baofeng’s arm away and propped herself up. Her movements were jerky, her balance precarious; clearly she was still lightheaded. But she stood and, with an agonizing cry on her lips, staggered off toward the generator room.
    She was not the first to enter the room, nor was Hong Taiyue. Huang Huzhu beat them both. Next in was neither Yingchun nor Hong; it was Mo Yan, who had already been badly treated by Sun Three and mocked by Hong Taiyue. None of that appeared to bother him, for after breaking free from Sun’s grip, he slipped back into the generator room, no more than a step behind Huang Huzhu, who threw herself on Jinlong’s body, like a mother protecting her offspring, the moment she spotted him lying there, bathed in moonlight, his forehead bloodied. Powerful feelings and sadness at what had befallen him drove all thoughts of modesty and decorum out of her mind.
    At about the same time, Ximen Bai staggered up to me. As I looked into her sweaty face, I heard her gasp:
    “Pig Sixteen, how did you get out of your pen?”
    She patted me on the head. “Be good now and come back