Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
Chapter Four: Mouse Fetus
At the eastern edge of the village, there was originally a piece of wasteland. According to the elders, it was once the grave of a high official, which had been disturbed time and again by grave robbers, leaving the entire area riddled with holes. Later, after heavy rains, the ground sank because the numerous holes weakened its structural integrity, revealing many underground palaces made of blue bricks.
In the 1970s, when Chairman Mao called for a firm commitment to socialism and the proletarian stance due to the severe domestic situation, he urged people to "dig deep and store grain." The village responded to this call by preparing to build an air raid shelter to prevent American imperialist planes from coming in to bomb them.
The air raid shelter was planned for the back mountain. The village team decided to proceed with the construction, and everyone in the village, regardless of age or gender, had to participate; otherwise, they would not earn work points and would go hungry. The soil on the back mountain was relatively loose, so they planned to build a wall inside. While building the wall was easy, finding bricks was difficult. Someone suggested that there were bricks in the wasteland at the eastern edge of the village. If such a good grave could be built there, it must have been bourgeoisie at that time. Chairman Mao taught us to fight against capitalism. The village team decided to send Ergou and a group of people to collect those grave bricks for building the wall.
Ergou was one of several idlers in the village who spent his days engaging in petty theft when he wasn't working. He was also one of the strong laborers in the village, so the team leader treated him with some respect.
The grave bricks were blue bricks from several decades ago. According to the elders, these bricks were made using glutinous rice and lime mixed with various other materials as cement, making them even sturdier than today's cement. Ergou and his companions needed to use a brick cutter to scrape off the ancient cement layer from the bricks before transporting them to the back mountain for wall construction. A group of people squatted by the wasteland continuously scraping bricks while some used a wheelbarrow—known as a "chicken cart," which is a type of unicycle with a flat board on top for carrying bricks—to push them.
Scraping bricks required considerable effort; their sharp edges could easily cut hands if they worked too long. Ergou and a few others usually slacked off, but now he had become their leader and thought about how to reduce his workload.
After collecting bricks for half a day, they had already removed enough material from the surface to reveal a dark hole beneath. When Ergou heard an announcement for lunch, he waved his hand and said it was time to eat.
After lunch, Ergou gathered a few friends who usually played together and returned to the wasteland. He suggested that they prepare some torches while others continued scraping bricks so they could explore inside without doing any work themselves and see if there were any valuable items.
They quickly found some branches and tied cloth and straw around them to make torches, shouting slogans against bourgeoisie as they walked into the hole. Inside was a passageway made entirely of bricks, dark and cold winds blowing out from within. Ergou shivered at the entrance and thought there might be something inside. In that era, Chairman Mao was considered supreme underground; everything else was just paper tigers. Ergou looked back at his companions; if they didn't go in now, they would miss out on something significant, so he steeled himself and ventured inside.
The ceiling of the brick tunnel was full of holes; clearly many grave robbers had visited before. Ergou felt both surprised and delighted—happy that grave robbers had come in before them, meaning there were no monsters or ghosts around; worried that with so many visitors before them, he might not find anything valuable to trade for drinks.
After passing through the tunnel, they arrived at a hall where the ceiling was also full of holes. Because it was lower in elevation, water had accumulated inside, turning everything muddy underfoot. In the middle of this hall stood a stone platform with an iron coffin placed upon it. Strangely enough, several iron chains bound this coffin tightly shut. Ergou and three companions approached the coffin; apart from this coffin, everything else in the hall had long been cleared out by grave robbers—only this coffin remained.
Ergou was casually touching the coffin when his companions asked him what to do. Ergou then asked everyone if they wanted to drink. At that time, alcohol was a rare commodity, purchased with food coupons; without food coupons, even money wouldn't buy it. The group usually craved a sip of alcohol, and upon hearing Ergou's words, they all started licking their lips as if there were wine in the cave.
Ergou casually picked up a few bricks and smashed the coffin. The Iron Chain on top of the coffin had rusted long ago, and a few bricks broke it apart easily. The iron coffin was tightly sealed, but Ergou and the others managed to lift the lid.
In the firelight, Ergou saw a pile of bones wrapped in tattered cloth inside the coffin. On the chest of the Corpse, there was an Earthen Jar about the size of a Pickle Jar. Seeing that there was nothing else in the coffin—not even a copper button—Ergou felt quite dissatisfied and picked up the jar.
Inside the jar, something was sloshing around. Curious, Ergou broke the seal on top of the jar and pulled away the red cloth covering it. Suddenly, a rich aroma of alcohol wafted out, and Ergou was delighted; this person had died clutching a jar of wine—he must have been a drunkard.
The fragrance of the wine was incredibly pure, lightly fragrant without being overpowering. Just smelling it made Ergou feel tipsy. He used a torch to inspect the jar and saw that it contained only half a jar of wine, golden in color and thick like syrup. When he poured a little out, it clung to the jar in strands.
Sensing the aroma of the wine stirred his cravings, Ergou couldn't hold back any longer and tilted his head back to drink. The taste was very mild but carried an intensely rich flavor with a hint of sweetness in its aftertaste. In one go, he drank nearly half the jar. Seeing that Ergou had drunk some, the other three quickly rushed over to take turns drinking until there was nothing left.
After drinking, their desires were satisfied, but there was nothing else in that hall. With a grand gesture, Ergou signaled for everyone to head back. As they reached the cave entrance, Ergou felt dizzy; each person appeared as multiple shadows in his vision. Just as he wanted to speak, he opened his mouth and felt everything spinning before collapsing at the cave entrance.
Ergou felt as if he had entered a long dream where he felt completely relaxed—a sensation he had never experienced before. Lying on the grass and savoring the taste of that wine, an Old Man approached him. With white hair and wearing a long robe, he asked Ergou, "Why did you drink my wine?"
Confused, Ergou replied that he had never drunk his wine. The Old Man insisted that Ergou had come to his home, smashed his bed, and taken wine from him without admitting it. Thinking that this Old Man might be the person from the grave, Ergou reasoned that since he was dead, he had nothing to fear and boldly said, "So what if I drank your wine?"
The Old Man laughed heartily and then vanished. When Ergou woke up, it was already nighttime. He felt an intense headache and wondered what kind of alcohol could have such a strong aftereffect.
After sleeping all day, Ergou couldn't fall asleep at night. He got up and built a fire at home, squatting by it waiting for dawn. Less than an hour later, he felt hungry because there was no food cooked at home due to communal dining arrangements. He drank some cold water to suppress his hunger but ended up with his stomach growling incessantly. Starving and drooling uncontrollably, he decided to find something to eat.
He went outside to find sweet potatoes growing in the field planted by his team; they were just sprouting and small underground. Using his hands to dig them up, he stuffed them directly into his mouth.
As dawn broke, people heard announcements from their team about going to work for breakfast. They walked towards the back mountain only to find Ergou lying in the sweet potato field with an enormous belly; even the buttons on his Zhongshan Suit had popped open. His veins bulged on his stomach while mud filled his mouth; no one knew what had happened to him. They carried Ergou back home and called for the village's Barefoot Doctor.
The barefoot doctor is quite simple; just reading the health knowledge manual is enough to start working, with only a bottle of red medicine in his pocket. When the barefoot doctor arrived at Ergou's home, he dramatically felt Ergou's pulse and said something shocking: Ergou was pregnant. But Ergou is a man; how could he be pregnant?
Fortunately, everyone knew the barefoot doctor's skills and laughed it off before going back to work. When Ergou woke up, he found himself at home with a very swollen belly. He remembered digging up sweet potatoes to eat but then lost track of everything. Ergou stood up with his big belly and still felt hungry, his stomach growling. He found it strange that he had eaten so many sweet potatoes but was still hungry. Ergou walked outside and saw that the corn in the field had just started to grow green husks. Looking at it made him think of roasted corn, and his stomach growled again, saliva flowing from his mouth. Unable to resist, Ergou grabbed a cob of corn with newly formed kernels and started munching on it.
Ergou kept eating until he could barely stand, yet he still felt hungry. He understood that something was wrong but couldn't stop eating.
When the villagers found Ergou again, he had eaten a pile of corn husks and was lying on the ground sleeping soundly. His belly had grown so large that it looked like an iron pot. The villagers realized that seeking the barefoot doctor was useless now. Although Ergou wasn't a good person, the villagers were simple-hearted and decided to take him to the hospital.
They fashioned a stretcher from two bamboo poles and a blanket and carried Ergou toward town. On the way, they encountered an old beggar sleeping by the roadside.
As the villagers passed by, the old beggar stopped them, looked at Ergou's belly, and said something strange! The villagers were busy hurrying along and ignored him. The old beggar told them that taking him to the hospital wouldn't help.
Curious, the villagers asked what they should do instead. The old beggar had them set Ergou down, felt his pulse, and declared that Ergou was pregnant. The villagers burst into laughter; how could he be pregnant?
The old beggar didn't say much but picked up a piece of dog feces from the roadside that had been there for days and was covered in hair and smelled terrible. He took out a yellow talisman from his pocket, asked for matches from the villagers, lit it on fire, mixed it with the dog feces, and held it up to Ergou's mouth. To everyone's surprise, the sleeping Ergou grabbed it and ate it.
After eating the dog feces, within minutes, he began to vomit. First came out corn, followed by a mix of sand and mud along with sweet potatoes; with each bit he expelled, his belly shrank a little. Finally feeling an itch in his throat, he continued to vomit until many small animals came out of his mouth onto the ground, still wriggling. The villagers curiously approached to see that they were all hairless little mice that Ergou had vomited up; there were about twenty of them.
After finishing vomiting, Ergou knelt before the old beggar and begged for his life. The old beggar asked what had happened, and Ergou recounted how he had drunk alcohol. The old beggar nodded in understanding.
It turned out that the alcohol was good wine that belonged to a tomb owner who didn't want to drink it but buried it instead. When Ergou drank someone else's wine without admitting it, the old man—who was actually the tomb owner—got angry and caused Ergou to have a belly full of mice. Although Ergou was a man and couldn't be pregnant in the traditional sense, those little mice grew inside him because they needed food, which made him feel constantly hungry without any taste sensation; even when presented with dog feces, he couldn't smell its foulness. The old beggar was originally an elderly Taoist priest who fled during the Cultural Revolution and became a beggar. Seeing Ergou's condition, he saved his life by using dog feces—a thing believed to attract good fortune—and combined it with a cleansing talisman that helped expel evil spirits while inducing vomiting; this ultimately allowed Ergou to escape disaster.
Comment 0 Comment Count