Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

unfamiliar, taxing, humiliating journey. Another step; I wobbled, and the skin on my belly tightened. I saw a great big sun, a beautiful blue sky in which white doves flew. I watched Lan Lian help Yingchun back into the house, and I saw two children, a boy and a girl, both in new jackets, with cloth tiger-head shoes on their feet and rabbit-fur caps on their heads, come running in through the gate. Stepping over the door lintel was not easy for such short legs. They looked to be three or four years old. They called Lan Lian Daddy and Yingchun Mommy. Hee-haw, hee-haw — I did not have to be told that they were my children, the boy named Jinlong and the girl called Baofeng. My children, you cannot know how your daddy misses you! Your daddy had high hopes for you, expecting you to honor your ancestors as a dragon and a phoenix, but now you have become someone else’s children, and your daddy has been changed into a donkey. My heart was breaking, my head was spinning, it was all a blur, I couldn’t keep my legs straight... I fell over. I don’t want to be a donkey, I want my original body back, I want to be Ximen Nao again, and get even with you people! At the very moment I fell, the female donkey that had given birth to me crashed to the ground like a toppled wall.
    She was dead, her legs stiff as clubs, her unseeing eyes still open, as if she had died tormented by all sorts of injustices. Maybe so, but it didn’t bother me, since I was only using her body to make my entrance. It was all a plot by Lord Yama, either that or an unfortunate error. I hadn’t drunk an ounce of her milk; the very sight of those teats poking out between her legs made me sick.
    I grew into a mature donkey by eating sorghum porridge. Yingchun made it for me; she’s the one I can thank for growing up. She fed me with a big wooden spoon, and by the time I’d grown up, it was useless from being bitten so often. I could see her bulging breasts when she fed me; they were filled with light blue milk. I knew the taste of that milk, because I’d drunk it. It was delicious, and her breasts were wonderful. She’d nursed two children, and there was more milk than they could drink. There are women whose milk is toxic enough to kill good little babies. While she fed me she said, You poor little thing, losing your mother right after you’re born. I saw that her eyes were moist with tears, and could tell that she felt sorry for me. Her curious children, Jinlong and Baofeng, asked her, Mommy, why did the baby donkey’s mommy die? Her time was up, she said. Lord Yama sent for her. Mommy, they said, don’t let Lord Yama send for you. If he did, then we’d be motherless, just like the little donkey. So would Jiefang. She said, Mommy will always be here, because Lord Yama owes our family a favor. He wouldn’t dare disturb us.
    The cries of newborn Lan Jiefang emerged from the house.
    Do you know who Lan Jiefang — Liberation Lan — is? This Lan Qiansui, the teller of this tale, small but endowed with an air of sophistication, three feet tall yet the most voluble person you could find, asked me out of the blue.
    Of course I know. Because it’s me. Lan Lian is my father, Yingchun is my mother. Well, if that’s the case, then you must have been one of our donkeys.
    That’s right, I was one of your donkeys. I was born on the morning of the first day of 1950, while you, Lan Jiefang, were born in the evening of the first day of 1950. We are both children of a new era.

3

Hong Taiyue Rails at a Stubborn Old Man
Ximen Lu Courts Disaster and Chews on Bark
    Much as I hated being an animal, I was stuck with a donkey’s body. Ximen Nao’s aggrieved soul was like hot lava running wild in a donkey shell. There was no subduing the flourishing of a donkey’s habits and preferences, so I vacillated between the human and donkey realms. The awareness of a donkey and the memory of a human were jumbled together, and though I often strove to cleave them apart, such intentions invariably ended in an even tighter meshing. I had just suffered over my human memory and now delighted in my donkey life. Hee-haw, hee-haw — Lan Jiefang, son of Lan Lian, do you understand what I’m saying? What I’m saying is, when, for example, I see your father, Lan Lian, and your mother, Yingchun, in the throes of marital bliss, I, Ximen Nao, am witness to sexual congress between my own hired hand and my concubine, throwing me into such agony that I ram my head into the gate of the