Red Sorghum

Gaomi County, he was arrested for gambling in a graveyard, given two hundred lashes with a shoe sole, forced to wear a pair of pants with one red leg and one black one, and sentenced to sweeping the streets of the county town for two months. When he’d completed his sentence he wandered into Northeast Gaomi Township, where he hired out to the service company. Upon learning that, after the death of the monk, his mother had hanged herself from the door frame, he went back one night to take a last look around. Some time later, the incident with my grandma occurred.
    After walking outside, Yu Zhan’ao went into the sorghum field. He could see the dim lantern light in the tavern as he waited, following the progress of the new moon across the sky lit up with bright stars. Cool dew dripped from the sorghum stalks; cold air rose from the ground beneath him. Late that night he heard the tavern door creak open, flooding the night with lantern light. A fat figure hopped into the halo of light, looked around, then went back inside. Yu Zhan’ao could tell it was the dog butcher. After the man had gone back inside, the bandit Spotted Neck darted out of the door and was quickly swallowed up by shadows. The fat old man closed the door and blew out the lantern, leaving the tattered flag above his tavern to flutter in the starlight as though calling to lost spirits.
    As the bandit walked down the road, Yu Zhan’ao held his breath and didn’t move a muscle. Spotted Neck chose a place right in front of him to take a piss; the foul odour hit Yu Zhan’ao full in the face. With his hand on his sword, he was thinking it would be so easy to put an end to this famous bandit chief. His muscles tensed. But then he had second thoughts. He had no grudge against Spotted Neck, who was a thorn in the side of County Magistrate Nine Dreams Cao, the man who had given Yu Zhan’ao two hundred lashes with a shoe sole. That was reason enough to spare Spotted Neck. But he was pleased to think I could have killed the famous bandit chief Spotted Neck if I’d wanted to.
    Spotted Neck never learned of this brush with death, nor did he imagine that within two years he would die stark-naked in the Black Water River at the hands of this same young fellow. After relieving himself, he hitched up his pants and walked off.
    Yu Zhan’ao jumped to his feet and walked into the sleeping village, stepping lightly so as not to awaken the dogs. When he reached the Shans’ gate, he held his breath as he familiarised himself with his surroundings. The Shan family lived in a row of twenty buildings, divided into two compounds by an interior wall and surrounded by an outer wall with two gates. The distillery was in the eastern compound, while the family lived in the western compound, in which there were three side rooms on the far edge. There were also three side rooms on the edge of the eastern compound, which served as bunkhouses for the distillery workers. In addition, a tent in the eastern compound accommodated a large millstone and the two big black mules that turned it. Finally, there were three connecting rooms at the southern edge of the eastern compound with a single door facing south. That was where the wine was sold.
    Yu Zhan’ao couldn’t see over the wall, so he quickly scaled it, making scraping noises that woke the dogs on the other side, who began to bark loudly. After retreating about half the distance an arrow flies, he hunkered down in the square where the Shans dried their sorghum. He needed a plan. The pleasant aroma from a pile of sorghum husks and another of leaves caught his attention. Kneeling down beside the dry husks, he took out his stone and flint, and lit them. But no sooner had they ignited than he had another idea, and he smothered the flames with his hands. He walked over to the pile of leaves, some twenty paces distant, and set fire to it. Less compact than the husks, they would burn more quickly and be easier to extinguish. On that windless night, the Milky Way stretched across the sky, surrounded by thousands of twinkling stars; flames quickly leaped into the air, lighting up the village as though it were daytime.
    ‘Fire!’ he yelled at the top of his lungs. ‘Fire –’ Then he hid among the shadows of the western wall around the family compound. Tongues of flame licked the heavens, crackling loudly and setting the village dogs to barking. The distillery workers in the eastern compound, startled out of their sleep, began to