Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

followed us step for step. The glinting blade of his tool was so sharp he could sever an ox’s hoof with one swing if he felt like it. His attitude of forsaking friends and family disgusted me, and I took every opportunity to let him know how I felt. I called him Hong Taiyue’s running dog and an ungrateful swine. He ignored me, but each time I blocked his way, he threw dirt in my face. When I tried to retaliate, Dad stopped me with an angry curse. He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head and invariably knew what I was up to. I reached down and picked up a dirt clod.
    “Jiefang, what do you think you’re doing?” he roared.
    “I want to teach this swine a lesson!” I said angrily.
    “Shut up!” he railed. “If you don’t, I’ll tan your hide. He’s your older brother and he’s acting in an official capacity, so don’t get in his way.”
    After two rounds of tilling, the production brigade oxen were panting from exhaustion, especially the female Mongol. Even from far away, we could hear what sounded like a confused hen trying to imitate a crowing rooster emerge from deep down in her throat, and I recalled what the youngster had whispered to me back when we were buying the young ox. He had called its mother a “hot turtle” that was ill equipped for hard work and useless during the hot summer months. Now I knew he was telling the truth. Not only was she gasping for breath, she was foaming at the mouth; it was not a pretty sight. Eventually, she collapsed and lay on the ground, her eyes rolling back into her head, like a dead cow. All the other oxen stopped working, and the plowmen ran up to her. Opinions flew back and forth. The term “hot turtle” had been the brainchild of an old farmer. One of the men recommended going for the veterinarian, but that suggestion was met with cold disdain. The comment, She’s beyond help, was heard.
    When Dad reached the end of our plot, he stopped and said to my brother:
    “Jinlong, there’s no need for you to follow behind me. I said we won’t leave a single hoofprint on public land, so you’re just tiring yourself out for nothing.”
    Jinlong responded with a snort, and that’s all.
    “My ox will not step on public land,” he repeated. “But the agreement was that your oxen and people would not step on my land either. By following me, you’re walking on my land. You’re standing on it right now, as a matter of fact.”
    That stopped Jinlong in his tracks. Like a frightened kangaroo, he jumped off our land all the way to the riverbank road.
    “I ought to lop off those hooves of yours!” I shouted.
    His face bright red, he was too embarrassed to say a word.
    “Jinlong,” Dad said, “how about you and me, father and son, tolerating each other’s position? Your heart is set on being progressive, and I’m not going to stand in your way. In fact, you have my full support. Your biological father was a landlord, but he was also my benefactor. Criticizing and attacking him was what the situation demanded, something I did for the benefit of others. But I’ll always be grateful to him. As for you, well, I’ve always treated you like my own flesh and blood, and I won’t try to stop you from going your own way My only hope is that there’ll always be a spot of warmth in your heart and that you won’t let it become cold and hard like a chunk of iron.”
    “I stepped on your land, that I can’t deny,” Jinlong said grimly, “and you have every right to chop off my leg!” He flung his hoe toward us; it stuck in the ground between Dad and me. “If you don’t want to do it, that’s your problem. But if your ox, or either one of you, so much as steps foot on commune land, whether you mean to or not, don’t expect any favors from me!”
    The expression on his face and the green flames that seemed to be shooting from his eyes sent chills down my spine and raised goose-flesh on my arms. My half brother was no ordinary young man; if he said he’d do something, he’d do it. If one of our feet or our ox’s hooves crossed that line, he’d come at us with his hoe without blinking an eye. What a shame for a man like him to be born during peacetime. If he’d been born only a few decades earlier, he’d have worn the mantle of hero, no matter whom he fought for, and if banditry had been his calling, he’d have been a king of slaughter. But this was, after all, peacetime, and there was little call for such ruthlessness, such daring and tenacity, and