Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

ran. Huang Hezuo’s screams were shriller than all the others as she tripped and fell; Split Ear took a bite out of her rear end, turning her into a half-assed cripple for the rest of her life. The boars were on the offensive, and though they did not escape being struck by an assortment of weapons, nothing could penetrate their armor-protected hides. You showed your mettle by taking Hezuo out of harm’s way, earning you a reputation for bravery and a measure of my esteem.
    The maverick Split Ear and his troops had to be considered the victors of this battle, to which the scattered shoes, hats, and abandoned weapons on the field of battle bore clear witness. They became the spoils of war, and that made him more arrogant than ever.
    “Now what, Old Diao,” I asked him one moonlit night after sneaking into his cave following the battle. “Should I abdicate and let Split Ear be the new king?”
    With his chin resting on his front hooves, faint light emanating from his blind eyes, he was sprawled in the cave, the sounds of running water and rustling trees coming from outside.
    “What do you think, Old Diao? I’ll do whatever you say.”
    He exhaled loudly, the faint light in his eyes now gone. I nudged him. His body was soft; there was no reaction. “Old Diao!” I shouted out of a sense of alarm. “Are you okay? You can’t die on me!”
    But he did. Tears sprang from my eyes. I was grief-stricken.
    I emerged from the cave and was met by a line of glinting green eyes. A savage glare shot from the eyes of Split Ear, who was crouched in front of the others. I wasn’t afraid. I actually felt totally at ease. With a look of indifference in my eyes, I walked up to him.
    “My dear friend Diao Xiaosan is dead,” I said. “I feel just terrible, and I’m willing to abdicate as king.”
    That was probably the last thing Split Ear expected to hear, since he had backed up, thinking I was coming for him.
    “Of course if you will only be happy by fighting me for it, I’ll happily oblige,” I said.
    He just stared at me, trying to figure out what he should do. I weighed over five hundred jin and had a hard head and fearsome teeth. From his point of view, the outcome of a fight with me was anything but certain.
    “We’ll do it your way,” he said finally. “But you must leave the shoal immediately and never return.”
    I nodded in agreement, waved my hoof at the crowd behind him, turned, and walked off. When I reached the southern edge of the shoal, I stepped into the water, knowing that fifty or more pairs of pig eyes were watching my departure, eyes filled with tears. But I didn’t look back. I started to swim, closing my eyes to let the river wash away my own tears.

35

Flamethrowers Take the Life of Split Ear
Soaring onto a Boat, Pig Sixteen Wreaks Vengeance
    About half a month later, the boars living on the shoal were massacred. Mo Yan wrote about the incident in detail in “Tales of Pig-Raising”:
    On the third day of January, 1982, a squad of ten men under the command of Zhao Yonggang, an ex-soldier who had distinguished himself in the War with Vietnam, and the highly experienced hunter Qiao Feipeng as an adviser, sailed to the shoal in motorboats. Most hunters stalk their prey by moving stealthily in order to take them by surprise. But not this group; they marched in with clear intentions armed with automatic rifles and armor-piercing bullets that could easily penetrate the hide of a wild boar, armored or not. But the most powerful weapons in their arsenal were three flame throwers, which looked like converted pesticide sprayers once used by farmers on commune fields. They were operated by three battle-tested ex-soldiers in asbestos suits.
    Mo Yan continued:
    The landing by this squad of hunters was immediately noted by boar scouts. The eyes of Split Ear, newly crowned king, who was eager to go to war with humans to establish his authority, turned red when the report reached him. He immediately called his troops together, two hundred and more of them.
    Mo Yan continued with a grisly account of the battle, which was almost more than I, a pig myself, could bear to read: . . . The battle progressed much like the early encounter, with Split Ear crouching at the head of his force, an echelon of a hundred boars lined up behind him; two additional groups of fifty boars raced to the two flanks to complete the encirclement, with the river as the fourth side. Victory was assured. And yet the humans seemed not to