The Massacre

By Gao Jianqun

Translated by Huang Jinqiao & Robin Gilbank

Proofread by Hu Zongfeng

This is a bloody story. It lay buried deep in my heart for twenty years, only to be disinterred thanks to a phone call. Beyond the phone call, my recent state of mind has given me cause to want to share the following tale.

I am soon to return my hometown. I could choose to spout grand lines of poetry like: “Behold Chang’an beneath the distant setting sun,/ And witness how Wuhui rests among the clouds spun.” And yet my heart is indeed engulfed in sorrow.

I dislike this city. Beneath its glamorous veneer of modern civilization there resides too much hypocrisy, vulgarity, and ugliness.

“On this small planet, who can tell me where our souls ought to find their resting place? Where is the natural home for human tenderness? As we wander about the world as drifters, we still reserve a niche for our hometown in a corner of our hearts. That furnishes a refuge in times of weariness, a spot to hide and weep when we feel wronged. It is a repository for tears of grievance and sighs of exhaustion alike. However, dear friend, please tell me why do we still have the sense of being an outsider when we reside in our hometown? I find myself beset with strangeness and bewilderment, as if I am a temporary guest!”

That was my feeling twenty years ago upon returning home after serving in the army on the national frontier. The above paragraph was how I later captured that sensation in my novella The Yili Horse. Now, at this very moment the same feeling once again envelopes me.

I have probed into the depths of countless people, only to find that the soul within is invariably cold and cruel. Where did humanity go wrong? How did all of this come to fruition? I have no idea!

The Massacre bears some resemblance to my other works like The Great Shun Inn, published in The Novelist, and The Grand Parade, which is likely to appear in Youth Literature. Someday, if I am in a good mood, I might compile them together under a title like Confirming Human Nature. Released as a standalone volume that should ruffle a few feathers among mankind.

— the Author’s Reflection

This happened twenty years ago.

Recently, a woman of exceptional ability called me, lamenting that the world had gone awry, gone awry to such a degree that she found herself astonished. As she spoke, her voice became choked with emotion. She said that if a war were actually to break out, you could count on all these despicable men to cower and push a women, like the heroine in Maupassant’s A Ball of Fat, to dodge bullets from the enemy’s barrel.

I agreed with her. I’ve always believed that every word she’s spoken, this one included, is absolutely true.

I told her that the world has indeed gone awry. Quite right. But it was already that way long before we were even born. Hence, there should be no call for astonishment, nor for us to shoulder any responsibility or anguish over this deterioration. When the human creature first stood upright and walked, he freed up his hands, and those hands were then basically available for doing mischief.

I added that were we to divert our eyes towards the natural world we could survey noble and beautiful horses, untamed eagles, docile rabbits, clumsy oxen, and even marauding wild boars. In comparison to them, humans are far more base, far more ludicrous.

Speaking of wild boars, this story from twenty years ago suddenly flashed through my mind like lightning.

Am I trying to prove something through this story The Massacre? I have no express purpose! Perhaps after reading this absurd tale, readers might draw the opposite conclusion. That is hard to predict. Nevertheless, I’m going to begin to tell it. Once a story is in process, it’s not my habit to break off.

Imagine how it might have looked in the bleak Gobi Desert; imagine a solitary white house in the middle of the sands; imagine that beside the white house, a river roared, and primeval forests blotted out the sky and the sun on either bank; imagine that inside the white house, a group of melancholic soldiers were gathered together.

Among these soldiers, one had a half-broken front tooth - that soldier was me.

Our situation at that time was truly imbued with melancholy. Poets often wax lyrical about the “masculine land” and “northern manhood” when trying to showcase its virile allure. I scoff at such words. I believe that anyone who writes in that tenor is laying bare their inexperience; they have no notion of how bleak it is for a company of men like that to hunker down together in shared straits. For sure, there is no virility here, and half of them must have succumbed to impotence.

The way in which those two white creatures appeared still astonishes me today as it did then.

Both were two meters long and had sprawled themselves out in the forest clearing, with their elongated maws resting on the ground and their tusks embedded in the earth. On their pale bellies were two rows of nipples, resembling the buttons on the black garments worn by warriors in Peking opera.

The chief instructor thought they were feral swine, which had perhaps escaped from the soldier who tended them at the border station year ago. The deputy captain, on the other hand, believed they were wild boars, which, having grown fed up of living in the primeval forest longed to emerge from that place and befriend people. But to date I still cannot be certain what they truly were. I believe the most accurate term for them was “white creatures.” I remember having read a Japanese novel entitled The Strange Creature, Agui, in the Sky, which recounted the story of an extraterrestrial visitor.

The only thing we could accurately define about them was that they were sows. These females, whose sex was evidenced by their possession of button-like nipples, had now invaded this land of men.

In the dense and towering primeval forest, one would occasionally come across a clearing the size of a basketball court. A possible explanation for this was that a lightning strike had killed the trees, which subsequently decayed into the ground. An alternative theory held that it had originally been the site of a swamp. Yet another proposal was that the patch of forest had been initially cleared by wild boars, and later, as the trees nearby grew taller and blocked out the sunlight, it was transformed into grassland.

In winter, the clearing was covered in snow; in spring, wildflowers bloomed; in summer, it was lush with sward; and in the fall, after a frost, the greenery turned pure white.

It was the season of the fall then, and the two white creatures lay quietly on the pale grassland. The autumnal sun of Central Asia was gentle, casting its golden light like an egg yolk. The wind, winnowing through layers of trees, arrived here softly and freshly.

Surely it was the call of these two white creatures that had been the trigger for the unease that perturbed the entire station these past few days.

The one who felt this unease most keenly was the deputy captain. His face was cleanly shaven, a shiny belt was cinched around his waist and his hands were clasped behind his back. He paced back and forth above the kiln used for storing vegetables.

The autumn wind blew. It was growing chillier by the day. When accompanied by the chirping of insects it was easy to see how a sense of homesickness could be stirred.

Beyond homesickness, what perturbed the deputy captain the most was the scent of intrusion invading this male territory.

The aroma was somewhat pungent and rank, while at the same time exhibiting a hint of fragrance and sweetness. It hovered gently in the air above the white house, refusing to dissipate. It was reminiscent of scenes we have all witnessed on television, where a character employs a bamboo pipe to waft “incense” into a room through its paper windows.

The deputy captain stood atop the vegetable kiln, sometimes checking the direction of the wind, sometimes sniffing though his nose. Finally, he satisfied himself that the scent originated from the primeval forest.

Soldiers from the entire station assembled, rifles at the ready, and marched into the woods in a skirmish line.

As they advanced, the scent grew stronger. Everyone soon knew where their target was. At last, they formed a circle, enveloping the clearing.

Moving forward, the group formed a tighter circle. The dark barrels of their guns came to be trained at the two white creatures lying on the ground.

There was some disagreement as to whether to shoot them, run them through with bayonets, or just let them be. While they were arguing, one of the sound asleep white creatures let out a loud, forceful fart. Its ripe smell momentarily brought the verbal tussling to a halt.

After one of them let rip, both awoke.

They opened their eyes, tilted their bodies, rolled over, and finally stood up. All around them were dark barrels and waxen-faced soldiers. They glanced in every direction, being not surprised in the slightest.

They then began to amble - not towards the depths of the forest, but in the direction from which the soldiers had come - towards the white house.

Their actions rendered the earlier debate meaningless. The troops still cocked their rifles at the ready, but now it was more a matter of self-defense than hostility, lest the white creatures suddenly turn around and bite someone.

It was at this moment that a quarrel broke out between the chief instructor and the deputy captain over whether these were “domestic pigs” or “wild boars.”

I leaned towards the “wild boar” hypothesis. That was my initial idea. It might alter in due course, but considering the characteristics of these two white creatures and my yen for adventure, I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that they were some sort of white monsters that had assumed a porcine form for purposes of camouflage.

The two wild sows strode proudly ahead, their heads held high like a pair of queens. The soldiers who followed them modeled their behavior on palace guards. What a fitting metaphor!

They entered the yard, but not through the gap in the low wall that we passed on our patrol route. Even though that was closer, they instead circled halfway around the perimeter wall and used the large gate intended for vehicles.

Once in the yard, they completed a circuit, as if on maneuvers themselves. This was a trivial turn, but immediately a warm, musty reek seeped into our every pore.

Next, they took a dust bath on the playground. A basketball was lying on the court; they sniffed at it with their snouts, kicked it with their trotters, then opened their mouths wide, baring their fangs. With a sharp “pop”, they punctured the ball.

The deflated plaything was no longer of any interest. Eventually, they left the concrete court one following the other and headed towards the door of the white house.

To fend off the cold, each entrance in Xinjiang is double-doored. Both of the doors in question were securely latched from the inside, but the two white creatures barged in as if no one were there. With a slight dig from their elongated maws, one door shattered, and with another, its companion was knocked off one of its hinges.

The people who were inside the building, a broken-toothed me being among them, rushed out in a commotion.

This was an incident that occurred in the autumn of 1975. I always like to be clear about the timeline when telling a story. 1975 was an important year for me as three events that I consider to be highly significant happened that fall. One, of course, was the anecdote that is now on course towards its climax. The second was the publication of my first piece of writing. And the third was seeing a UFO one night while out on guard duty. It looked like an orange basketball, flying in from a distance, tracing a half-orbit above my head, before zooming off towards the depths of the Altai Mountains.

Of these three events, the UFO came first, followed by the white creatures, and then the publication of my work. I cannot discern whether there is any correlation between the three. I never speak about things which are beyond my cognition. I am an earnest person, both in the way I hold my countenance and in the nature of my soul. It is just that the gap in my dentistry gives the illusion of a permanent grin, disrupting the overall impression of integrity.

By the way, speaking of UFOs, my friend Danhua who lives far away overseas came across a report of the sighting I had witnessed in a book. Out of curiosity, she wrote to me, asking for details about the incident. Of course, I elaborated at length for her. At the end of the letter, I mentioned how happy and fulfilled I felt at recounting these stories of long ago. I felt like an old soldier who had survived a bloodbath, only to now regale high school students with my exploits, they being at the age when they are given to the most lurid fantasies.

But let us get away from these idle diversions.

The two white behemoths entered the house, first urinating with a “splosh” that left the cement floor damp. They then sprawled out in the puddle, stretching their bodies in luxurious ease.

Calling them “behemoths” was no exaggeration. Out in the wild, they did not seem overly large, but indoors they appeared enormous, occupying almost half the floor space with their alabaster-colored bulk.

The entire station gathered outside, peering in.

We watched the scene through the broken door and the glass windows. The pungent stench of urine made us sneeze incessantly. The thing between our legs began to itch in response to this stimulus. Fortunately, the crotches of the standard issue trousers we wore were spacious enough so as not to compromise military decorum.

Speaking in jest, those myriad aphrodisiacs on sale today must not have one ten-thousandth of the potency of this odor. I often muse foolishly that if anybody had the foresight back then to bottle this scent and sell it, they would have made a fortune. But at that time, no one thought of such a thing, nor did they anticipate that the future would be an era marked by impotence.

The white creatures seemed to regard the white house as their sty or pen, lying inside, grunting contentedly and refusing to budge.

This advent disrupted the normal order of affairs.

Calling it a “den” was the deputy captain’s idea. He insisted they were in fact wild boars. As per his simplistic way of thinking, he proposed sending in two assault marksmen; a volley of bullets would easily slay these two beasts. He also believed wild boars were marauding creatures. His assertion was not without foundation. In one particular incident soldiers patrolling on horseback passed through a patch of reeds only to find themselves trapped by a wild boar. Having previously escaped a shepherd’s snare, it was missing a leg. Startled by the noise they made, the boar reared up on its three remaining legs and bounced in the direction of the mounted soldiers. Its mouth, head, and sturdy neck collided into the horse’s foreleg, injuring it enough so that it gave way, whilst also fracturing the soldier’s leg at the same time.

We had all heard this story before. We had even seen that injured horse. It was permanently lame, so spent the spring among the reeds and eventually died in the Gobi Desert. Its demise was gruesome; its flesh being devoured by eagles and crows, leaving behind only a blackened heap of bones, resembling the eponymous horse head fiddle. Overrun by ants, the bones took on a dark appearance. By the time we passed by again, the skeleton had become totally desiccated and turned snowy white.

Since they were wild boars, they belonged on the list of animals suitable for slaughter. The deputy captain was right.

However, the chief political instructor was even more sure of himself; he believed they were domestic pigs gone astray.

He surmised that if they had not broken free from our border station, they might have escaped either from a Soviet collective farm across the border or from the farm operated by our production and construction corps. They might have been at large for many years.

As to why they had grown so huge (twice the size of ordinary farmyard pigs), the chief political instructor attributed that to the abundance of nutrition in the primeval forest, the moist air, and the unfettered freedom of their lifestyle. Their age must have bestowed on them an aura of immortality.

As to why they had returned to the white house, he believed that after years of vicissitudes, one day their deeper instincts took hold. “Liberty is relative; only in restriction do we find absolutes,” he said.

He believed that what they were longing for was a form of control, some sort of restraint, and a desire for certain rules that only human masters can provide. They emerged from the primeval forest in search of humanity.

The chief political instructor had completed his high school education in the old days. In a sense, he was a philosopher or a transcendentalist.

As for me, the bloke with a missing front tooth, I found myself half agreeing with both of their opinions.

I thought their definitions of “domestic pig” as opposed to “wild boar” were much of a muchness. They were in agreement that those two white creatures were pigs, and that was all we needed to know. After all, a wild boar was just a pig that had not been tamed, while a domestic pig was one that had - that was the size of it.

I leaned more towards the view that they were white creatures of indeterminate identity.

I found it quite mysterious that these two females with their unsavory stench should suddenly drop from the sky to disturb this male-dominated, parched land.

From the outset I always regarded them as the white creatures rather than being either domestic pigs or wild boars. In this sense, the fantasy that seized the soldiers was not so much obscene as a dreamlike reverie.

If they were just pigs after all that was not to be frowned upon. I remember how an obstinate novelist once wrote of how “Three years in the army is enough to make even an old sow look attractive!” This statement was not uttered in a frivolous fashion; it was the product of profound bitterness.

But outside the white house, amid the noisy chatter, I presented my assessment that “These are domestic pigs!”

I concurred with the chief political instructor’s words because at that moment I was striving to join the Communist Party. My application had been submitted, and I was in the process of being tested by the Party.

Were I aiming to join the district instructional team, perhaps I would have sided with the deputy captain. After all, he was a military expert, and his words carried weight in this matter.

Despite my missing tooth and speech impediment, the chief political instructor managed to hear my assertion. He addressed me affectionately as the “Third Squad Leader”. Buoyed by my support, his tone grew firmer.

To prove that they were indeed domestic pigs, he instructed me to fetch a basin of pig feed.

I brought this over and placed it in front of him.

He then told me not to leave it there; for he did not eat that stuff. Instead, he said I should take it into the room and feed those two white creatures. As domestic pigs they would be sure to eat it.

I stood there dumbfounded, holding the basin of pig feed in my hands.

I had not anticipated that my agreeing with him would result in this outcome. As a vulgar local saying goes, “You try to kiss someone’s butt, but end up with their cock in your mouth.” This seemed to describe my situation to a tee.

I stood there in bewilderment, rattling out nonsense and unwilling to move. Reader, you must understand that my reluctance was justified. As the instructor had claimed they were domestic pigs, should they decide to identify themselves as wild boars, that would place me in a sticky corner. I had not forgotten the fate of that rider and his horse.

The instructor’s face became sullen as he noticed my hesitation.

He recalled how when he was an ordinary soldier every time he heard the command “Baldies, charge”, he would comply. Were he to be faced with a cliff, he would jump off it with his eyes closed. And if the command was “Lie down”, he would hit the ground at once even if there was a cow pat in front of him.

The instructor was not just all talk; he was a man of action.

He snatched the basin of pig feed from my hands and stirred it with a stick, scraping the residue from the edge of the basin. Then, he tapped the rim with the stick, creating a rhythmic “Dang-Dang-Dang” sound.

The basin was made from porcelain and the stick was bone dry, so the sound was clear, like a melody.

With the basin of pig feed in one hand and the stick in the other, the instructor entered the white house. He muttered what sounded like an incantation as he walked, making a “Lao-Lao-Lao” sound.

I felt worried for the instructor and deeply ashamed of myself. I followed him, tugging at the hem of his jacket, urging him to come back. The soldiers standing outside the white house also shouted for the instructor to withdraw.

“He used to be a swineherd! He’s not afraid!” the deputy captain cried, stopping us from calling out.

His words made me realize that deep down he had not ruled out the possibility that these were domestic pigs.

Thankfully, nothing adverse happened to the instructor. He marched forward like an old woman feeding her pet pigs. He tiptoed around, tapped the rim of the basin, hummed a tune, and placed the receptacle by the mouths of the two white creatures. The pair, who had been feigning sleep, opened their eyes and fixed him with the whites of their eyeballs. They stretched their bodies lazily, then closed their lids again. Outside the room, we held our breath, watching on nervously and with fear.

The stick in the instructor’s hand seemed like a stage prop.

Seeing how the two white creatures were paying no attention to the food, he thought for a while before then wielding the stick and scratching where they were prone to feeling an itch. He knew that the prime spot on animals was at the base of their ears. He poked around there for a while, and in their comfort the two released gas, reclined onto their sides, and slept even more cozily than before.

This motion was no big deal, but the two long rows of buttons on their bellies were now fully exposed to us. What was of more vital importance was their downstairs region had become moist and rosy with pink flesh swelling like a flower.

The instructor flexed his magic stick like the first emperor of the Northern Song Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin used his dragon-taming staff. He swept it along the two rows of buttons on the white creatures’ bellies.

With a roll of their bodies, the white creatures stood up. Having risen, they paused, shook themselves, then stretched their mouths to eat from the basin.

Before they could take their first bite, the instructor bent down and lifted up the basin.

Now holding it in his hand, he continued to tap away with the wooden stick, murmuring words as he led the two white creatures out of the white house. They followed on closely, grunting away. It remained unclear if these noises was targeted at the instructor or the feed in the basin.

Once out of the house, the instructor led the two white creatures through the courtyard.

We all followed on behind, as silent as a cicada in a cold spell, fearful of provoking the two behemoths. I had a feeling that they were still wrapped up in their dreams and were not fully awake yet. The deputy captain drew his pistol and cocked it, ready to fire if the beasts dared to attack the instructor. His bullets would be swifter than their reflexes.

We thought the instructor would lead them into the primeval forest and then find a way to escape. Instead, he led them into the vegetable kiln.

The instructor coaxed the two white creatures through the long, dim underground passage. They hesitated at the entrance but eventually went in.

He placed the basin down inside the kiln, tapped it twice, and then stepped back. The two creatures, with their long-toothed mouths, reached for the basin.

As they ate, he stepped back a few paces, retreated to the entrance of the passage, then threw away the stick. He turned on his heels and dashed out of the underground passage as if he were flying.

“Quick, block the passage with wood!” the instructor shouted to us as we rushed forward.

Sweat dripped from his forehead, his face now being pale and his lips trembling. From this, it was clear he had not ruled out the possibility that they were wild boars.

Next to the vegetable kiln were stacks of logs we had cut down for firewood. By carrying and lifting, in the blink of an eye, the passage was blocked with logs by the soldier.

The two white creatures in the vegetable cellar now seemed as if they were just awakening from their dreams.

They growled and roared, trying to break out of the passage. But the passage was securely blocked by the round logs. They searched for another way out. With the exception of the passage they were surrounded by compacted sand on every side. The ceiling was too high, with several meters of sand over its top, and as the white beasts reared up and jumped, they realized it was futile. They couldn’t reach the ceiling.

We watched all this through the ventilation holes in the roof of the cellar.

The two white creatures were thus captured alive. Since the winter vegetables had yet to be put in the cellar for storage, this empty space served as their prison.

It was only then that our heroic instructor’s expression changed. He muttered, “These two might be wild boars!” The deputy captain listened, removed the bullets from his gun, reloaded the magazine, placed the gun back in its holster, and then said, “But it’s more likely they’re domestic pigs!”

I remained silent on the sideline, though I still believed deep down that they were simply creatures of indeterminate nature, not pigs or boars.

The instructor was excited. He said he wanted to keep them because he had a grand plan. He did not care whether their origins were domestic or wild. He believed that if they were allowed to mate with the boar in the border station pigpen, they would produce a new breed. He estimated that each of these white creatures weighed half a ton, and if all our pigs grew to that size, we would have an endless supply of pork. If this superior breed were to spread across the country, imagine the possibilities.

Twenty years ago, meat was still rationed in China.

The instructor was a visionary dreamer and a brave man of action. Since leaving the white house, the only contact I had with him over the years was through letters. Perhaps it was this assessment of the instructor at that moment that prompted me to do so. Of course, he had long since left the white house and moved to work in Urumqi.

None of us at the time could have predicted that a bloodbath would ensue at the white house because of these two white creatures.

The next day, hundreds of fierce wild boars with gleaming tusks surrounded the border station. Their thunderous roars sounded as if they were trying to wrench the white house up from its foundations. Their invincible long snouts snapped at us like they were devouring cornstalks.

The next day was September 30, 1975. I remember this day vividly because it was the eve of a holiday. As per tradition, the day before the holiday was reserved for military mobilization. All the soldiers at the White House were armed and gathered in the mess hall, listening to the deputy captain’s mobilization briefing.

So, it was on September 29, 1975, the two white creatures appeared and were detained.

We were in the midst of our mobilization training when suddenly the door was kicked open, and a sentry rushed in, dragging his rifle. This soldier from Hunan had a face flushed with fear, giving him the likeness of a monkey. He stammered, “Wild boars! Hordes of wild boars!”

In Hunan dialect, “wild boar” is pronounced as “wild chicken”. We were puzzled - how could wild chickens terrify him like this? Before we could ponder further, a massive wild boar burst through the door of the mess hall. Then, glancing outside, we saw the entire courtyard filled with white-colored boars.

The parade ground, where we usually marched in formation, was now packed with wild boars, roaring and marching in perfect array. Even more wild boars, seemingly going beserk, were running around in circles within the inner enclosure of the black fence of the border station.

Before the boar that broke in could advance further, the deputy captain swiftly grabbed the machine gun from the sentry, cocked it, and unleashed a hail of bullets at the animal.

The boar fell dead at the entrance to the mess hall.

No sooner had the first one fallen than another charged recklessly.

Many of us, including me with my missing tooth, fired this time.

After felling several more, the wild boars ceased trying to charge. Now keeping their distance they resorted to mere threatening growls. And there we were, trapped inside the mess hall. No one dared to venture out; anyone bold enough to try would surely be torn to shreds by these angry beasts.

“Into the tunnels!” the instructor commanded.

We had tunnels. Every room in the white house was built with a tunneled exit. These led to various bunkers built around the perimeter fence.

Tunnels cannot be dug straight into sandy soil and so these were created by digging trenches into the ground and reinforcing them with steel and concrete to form circular openings, then covering them over with sand. These tunnels were constructed for defensive purposes, not in anticipation of the day when the white house would come under attack from wild animals.

The tunnels had undoubtedly been a matter of military secrecy in the past, but nowadays they were obsolete and their existence was known to all. They were said to have formed part of the friendly border, so my knowing about this particular tunnel was unlikely get me into trouble now.

We quickly dispersed from the tunnel, and in no time, each bunker was manned with armed soldiers.

My bunker was conveniently positioned opposite the vegetable cellar.

A massive crowd of creatures, similar to the two we had detained, now filled the raised dome of the cellar.

Like them, these were also white, robust, and mighty. The difference lay in their bellies, which did not sport the two rows of double buttons. Instead, there were elongated, coiled, pink genitals at the rear.

Through the ventilation hole of the cellar, they conversed with the two captives inside in a language unknown to us. They seemed distressed, their pain turning quickly into rage. They now extended their long mouths, beginning to claw at the dome of the cellar.

Gunshots rang out around us. On hearing them, I knew this was my cue to act.

I grabbed my automatic rifle and started shooting. Regular bullets proved ineffective against the creatures’ skin, so I switched to the armor-piercing kind.

These were effective. One just had to aim for the chest, and a shot would pierce their hearts.

Once penetrated, a geyser of blood immediately spouted out, spraying high into the air before raining down like spangled stars upon the creatures’ bodies.

On that bright and crisp Central Asian morning, the sunlight shimmered like scattered silver.

The sunlight illuminated those geysers of blood, making them somehow as beautiful as shimmering rainbows.

It is said that creatures belonging to lower orders flee in fear at the sight of blood. But with the onslaught of my automatic rifle, amid this starry rain of blood, some fell, while those that did not remained remarkably composed, emitting threatening growls from their mouths and continuing to claw at the dome of the cellar.

Hence, to this day I still cannot regard them as wild boars.

They were filled with passion, something that was palpable to me.

Like the ancient knights of legend, they were so resolute, so wrathful in their quest to save their queen, they faced death with nobility and disdain even when it came in carnage as wrought by the automatic rifle.

Before this event, I was never quite sure of the exact meaning of “envy”. Now, I understand it well. The rifleman harbored a somewhat vitriolic sentiment.

I envied what these white creatures were currently doing.

That envy stemmed from the fact that their actions now appeared nobler than mine. Another reason was that out here on this vast, lonely plain, did I really have cause to envy anybody?

It is said that higher animals are struck by a sense of guilt upon seeing blood.

But I felt none of that now. So, it is hard to say what I was thinking at that moment.

My gaze burned with delight, a malicious grin playing on my lips. With each column of blood I created, I experienced a cathartic release.

In the endless, endless epochs of time, I had almost forgotten how to smile. Only now, I began to laugh.

Dissatisfied with toting a mere rifle, I picked up the rocket launcher. It was a bit more cumbersome to set up, but its firepower proved immense. A rotating warhead passed through the bodies of three of the white creatures, causing instant death without even needing to reach the heart.

And what did the rocket launcher resemble? A phallus!

At its front was a pointed, rounded glans, mounted outside the barrel. Behind the glans was a long body.

I hoisted it onto my shoulder, one hand gripping the front handle, the other on the trigger, eyes peering through the sight. The crosshairs aligned with a white torso, and as I squeezed the trigger, my body recoiled, a burst of fire erupting behind me as the warhead spun forward.

Before my eyes there unfolded a scene of flesh and blood spraying everywhere.

Readers might think I am alluding to something. Well, you must be sharp, and have guessed it right!

Actually, it is not an allusion. For me, the era of suggestive artistry has passed, and I prefer directness.

I want to be straightforward and admit that this massacre did indeed represent a sexual release for the soldiers at the white house.

Many years later, after I had gained my own sexual experiences, after I had become familiar with many secrets of intimacy, when I recall the terrifying carnage at the white house, I must reluctantly admit that the frenzy and the bloodthirsty joy of those soldiers did indeed carry an element of sexual release.

And because that had been suppressed for so long and we felt parched for so long, this release was as fierce as a raging storm and as hysterical as madness.

Human beings are ugly. Human destruction and vindictiveness stem from various drives. Still, the most powerful and primal drive is rooted in sex.

What exactly were those two white creatures, along with this herd of the same? It has always been a mystery to me, at least.

In many of my subsequent deep dreams, they always appeared as symbols of sexuality - pure, beautiful and noble. I had seen similarly plump buttocks in a painting by Picasso. The title of that painting is Women Running on the Beach.

Rose-colored blood streaked across the sky above the white house. This slaughter lasted almost an entire day.

When all the white creatures finally dropped dead, the deputy platoon leader somehow emerged from one of the bunkers and blew the bugle. This bugle call had a name, “Cease Fire”.

I walked out of the bunker feeling like I had woken from a nightmare.

Many soldiers just like me emerged from the bunkers. Everyone dispersed onto the parade ground.

The entire white house, inside and out, was littered with the carcasses of these white creatures.

Apart from my battlefield, there were many other battlefields. In other words, every soldier at the white house had shared in the same experience as me.

Blood flowed and bodies were strewn everywhere.

We stepped over the corpses of the white creatures, standing awkwardly in the pool of blood and trying to form a line.

After the euphoria of the recent massacre, now everyone wore a look of defeat on their face. We all exchanged glances in silence, the deputy platoon leader and the instructor included.

I probably found some basis for my earlier bizarre theories. Because according to Lawrence: after experiencing a great joy, a gray mood suddenly pervaded the whole body of Lady Chatterley.

The aftermath of this slaughter lasted a long time.

The bodies of these white creatures were heaped together, forming a small mountain on the parade ground.

We began to skin, gut, and dismember them, processing them into food.

We called on our friends from the distant Production and Construction Corps to help us digest all this, and they reported that the meat was delicious. So they brought many carts and slowly carried the pink flesh away.

The remaining meat was cured into salted pork. Eight large barrels were filled to the brim with it. We kept eating this meat until I was demobbed and left the army.

The bloody sky was soon blown away by the wind. While poets had praised the masculinity of the land, they had also sung praises to the “winds blowing from spring to winter” that swept across the vast desert. This time, they hit the nail on the head. The winds which attacked the ground around the white house were indeed fierce.

The blood on the ground quickly seeped into the sand.

Only the red traces on the concrete basketball court turned out to be hard to wash away. And so, sometimes our feet would skid as we marched or practiced thrusting motions during drill sessions.

The dead silence and the oppressive nights set in again.

It is necessary to explain a little more about the fate of those two captive white creatures.

They survived the massacre by hiding in the vegetable cellar. However, the sound of gunfire, cannon fire, and howls from outside must have reached their ears. And the crimson blood seeping through the three-meter-thick layer of sand, dripping onto them, must have made them aware of the terrible events beyond the cellar.

But they remained unfazed and unshaken in their proud demeanor, like true queens. According to Andersen’s fairy tales, to determine who is genuinely a princess you should pile seventeen mattresses on top of one another, and then place a single hair under the one at the bottom. Whoever can still feel restless while sleeping on the uppermost mattress must be a princess. What I am trying to say is that such a person must truly be a noble queen, for she can calmly acknowledge seeing so many admirers willingly devote themselves to her.

The two white creatures lived in that cellar for another six months. Their feed was delivered daily by the swineherd through that ventilation hole. According to him, their appetite was excellent.

The instructor had not forgotten his brilliant idea.

Six months later, the he said they had been tamed and any residual streak of wildness had been subdued. Now his plan could be put into action. He led us over to dig open the passage to the vegetable cellar, and then called the swineherd to bring the pigs from the border station.

The herd of pigs was driven into the cellar. When they emerged again, the two white creatures came out with them. We were worried that the latter might attack us, but they did not. After coming out, they gave a glance at us, pondered for a moment, and then joined the other pigs.

They showed the instructor and the platoon leader some face, acknowledging their porcine nature.

But, as we know, the instructor’s Spark Project (the first plan approved by the Chinese government to promote rural economic development through science and technology) did not materialize. That was because supply could not meet demand and news reports about water-injected pork abounded.

One day, the swineherd stood to attention and reported that in the process of releasing the pigs, the two white creatures decided to strut back into the primeval forest.

“Why didn't you stop them?” the instructor asked, somewhat irritated.

“If you’ve got the guts, you go stop them! They haven’t gone far!”

And so, the two white creatures returned to the wild, coming and going at a leisurely pace, leaving behind an episode that every generation of soldiers at the white house would talk about. I do not know whether they reappeared later on because I left the white house two years later. Anyway, I did once write to the instructor, who stayed on for a few years after me, and he answered that they had never reappeared.

That is the story of The Massacre.

Can this story be used to validate the point raised at the beginning? Perhaps not! I remember having doubts about my ability at the outset. But this old story, hidden deep inside me or, as Conrad put it, “in the heart of darkness”, was ultimately triggered by a conversation with a friend faraway. So, I want to say now that validation is necessary for a writer even if the evidence presented proves flimsy.

This is a true story. Since it is a true story, the author has relinquished his right to use poetic license. That is one way of explaining it.

April 11, 1995.

About the Author:

Gao Jianqun: Born in January 1954, with ancestral roots in Lintong District, Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. He is a prominent western novelist of the new era, a National First-Class Writer, Vice Chairman of the Shaanxi Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and Vice Chairman of the Shaanxi Writers Association. Recognized as an expert with outstanding contributions enjoying special government allowances, he was also named one of the State Council’s Cross-Century “Three-Five” Talents. Hailed as the “Last Knight” of romantic literature, his masterpiece The Last Hun, along with Chen Zhongshi’s White Deer Plain and Jia Pingwa’s Abandoned Capital, sparked the phenomenon known as the “Eastern Expedition of the Shaanxi Literature”.

About the Translators:

Huang Jingqiao: Associate professor, Doctor, Master's Supervisor. Specializing in college English teaching, literary translation and news compilation. Member of the Northwest Regional Committee of the American TESOL China Expert Committee and a member of the Shaanxi Translators Association.

Hu Zongfeng, Robin Gilbank (Refer to the previous introduction)