Explore Chapter 12 of "生死场" with the original Chinese text, English translation, detailed Chinese vocabulary explanations, and audio of the Chinese original. Listen and improve your reading skills.
Boundless fields of tender seedlings were tinged with green. But this was no longer a tranquil village; people had lost their inner balance. Cars sped across the grassland, churning up dust. Red and green leaflets fell like sown seeds. Colored papers fluttered on the roofs of small thatched cottages. Branches along the nearby highway caught leaflets, which fluttered and whistled. From the city, more cars raced in pursuit. On the vehicles stood Japanese and Koreans, their flags waving, and Chinese who also flaunted their might. As the wheels flew, the flags in each hand flapped noisily, and the people on the cars seemed to have sprouted wings, flying past as one. Those who held Japanese flags, their faces a grotesque mix of obsequious smiles, vanished at the crossroads.
Mother Wang stood at the door. The goat that belonged to Erli Ban drooped its beard. The old goat walked softly under the lush trees. It no longer sought food; it was weary. It was too old; its coat had faded to the color of earth. Its eyes were blurry as if on the verge of tears. The old goat was now a picture of utter forlornness and pathos; swinging its long beard, it walked toward the depression.
Facing the depression ahead and the old goat, Mother Wang traced back to the painful days of the past. She wanted to reclaim those days, for today was even worse than yesterday. No one tilled the depression. The wheat fields on the hillsides lay deserted and wild. She was lost in sorrowful reminiscence.
Japanese planes roared past with a tremendous din. Then the sky was filled with fluttering papers. One leaflet fell on the branch above Mother Wang's head. She took it down, glanced at it, and threw it at her feet. As the planes passed again, they left more leaflets. She paid them no more mind and stomped on them repeatedly with a kind of frantic irritation.
The roosters in her hands occasionally flapped their wings. The sun was almost at its zenith. The tree shadows formed circles.
The village took on a strange new sight: Japanese flags, Japanese soldiers. People began to discuss these things: "the Kingly Way!" "Japan-Manchukuo friendship!" "Soon there will be a true dragon son of Heaven, the emperor!"
Under the Kingly Way, the abandoned fields in the village increased. People wandered melancholically in the square.
"All these years, I've been raising chickens. Now I can't even keep a feather. Not even a crowing rooster is allowed to stay. What kind of times are these?…"
She shook her sleeves, somewhat frenzied. She stood up. She strode across an uncultivated wasteland ahead, which seemed diseased. The short grass yielded listlessly and without spring beneath the old woman's tread.
Even from afar, one could still discern that the two roosters were clutched in the hand that hung at her side. Her other hand kept wiping at her face.
When Mother Wang lay down to sleep, she heard what seemed like a woman screaming in the distance. She opened the window to listen… Then, after a moment, police sirens wailed. Guns fired. Had some devil broken into the distant households?
That night, Japanese soldiers and Chinese police searched the entire village. They came to Mother Wang's house. She replied:
Covering their noses, they made a turn in the room and went out. The bluish light of flashlights flickered chaotically. As they were about to step over the threshold, a Japanese soldier under his steel helmet spoke in Chinese:
Truly, it was unknown whose woman they had dragged away. Bent-backed like a pig, she was led off. In the thin, shifting green light of the flashlights, one couldn't distinguish who the woman was.