The Explosion Chronicles Read Online Free Page B

him,
    “Kong Mingliang, it was truly my misfortune to run into you today.
    “… Now that I’ve run into you, I have no choice but to marry you.
    “… I must marry you, and embrace your Kong family for the rest of my life.”
    As Zhu Ying’s shout bolted like lightning, Kong Mingliang turned in the direction of her voice and saw that the Cheng family’s daughter Cheng Qing was walking out of a small alleyway, carrying a red lantern. Her neighbor Yang Baoqing walked out of another alleyway, using a lighter to illuminate her path, while a villager named Second Dog also walked out, shining a flashlight on the ground.
    Suddenly, the village was illuminated on all sides, as the sound of footsteps accelerated like a torrent of water. Everyone walked forward under the light of his or her lamp, as though searching for something. By this point quite a few people had congregated at the intersection and were discussing how something significant seemed to have occurred at the national level—something as momentous as the death of an emperor. Otherwise, how could the officials have ordered that the communes, which had been in place for several decades, be converted back into countryside, that the production brigades be renamed villages, that the production teams be renamed villager groups, or that the land that had been reclaimed by the state now be reassigned to individual peasants? The officials even encouraged people to start their own businesses. Previously, if you went into private business, you would be arrested and paraded in the streets, but now everyone was encouraged to do precisely that.
    There was a dynastic shift and an attendant process of geographic transformation, as place-names were all changed. The entire world was turned upside down, with black becoming white and white becoming black.
    Because of this dynastic shift that overturned heaven and earth, the people of Explosion reported that while they were sleeping that night, they dreamed the same dream: that there was a skeletal man in his sixties or seventies who had just been released from prison and came over their beds to shake their shoulders and tug at their hands,urging them to quickly go out into the streets. He urged them to go straight ahead without looking back, and whatever they encountered first would determine their fate. Some people didn’t believe him, and when they woke up they simply rolled over and continued sleeping, but then they proceeded to dream the same dream. This process was repeated over and over, and each time it was that skeletal man who had been released from prison urging them to go out into the streets and proceed straight ahead. If they found a coin or a feather, this meant they would earn a lot of money, and if they encountered a woman’s item that had fallen to the ground, it meant they would have a good marriage or an endless string of affairs. The villagers struggled to wake up; then they put on their shoes, grabbed a lamp, and went outside. There, they all discussed their dream and related what strange things they had seen or encountered on their way over. One person excitedly held up a coin or a bill and said that he had found money immediately after stepping outside, while someone else held up a red rope or a girl’s plastic hair clip and asked what it prophesied.
    There was also that girl named Cheng Qing, who was not much more than ten, and who had also dreamed the same dream. She had grabbed a lantern and proceeded outside, where she found a white finger-shaped condom in the middle of the street. She didn’t know what this was or what it foretold, so she rushed over to the crowd and asked if anyone knew what it could be. The more experienced men all laughed and said this was something that men and women use when they go to bed together. Cheng Qing became excited and curious, and wanted to ask why men and women need to use this, but at that moment her mother reached through the crowd and slapped her face, then dragged