The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke

Author:Yan Lianke [Lianke, Yan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780802190017
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2016-12-03T05:00:00+00:00

2. VICTORY

I.

Coincidentally, the day Zhu Ying gave birth happened to be the same day Explosion was officially redesignated from a town to a county, and her husband was promoted from town mayor to county mayor. That was the nineteenth day of the third month of the following year, just as the entire world was waking up from its hibernation. The ceremony celebrating Explosion’s redesignation as a county was held in the location where the authorities planned to build a sports stadium, and there were so many people in attendance that the shoes they lost in the bustle were enough to fill five trucks. Each night, the trucks hauled the shoes back from the meeting site to a local shoe factory, where they were cleaned, repaired, matched up, then shipped to shoe stores in different cities. In this way, one of Explosion’s shoe factories was able to double its profits overnight. That day, everyone drank so much soda and bottled water that the taps of several local beverage companies ran dry, and it took more than a hundred sanitation workers, working continuously for three days and three nights, to collect all of the discarded bottles to send back to the factory for recycling. So many fireworks were used that several fireworks factories were rescued from bankruptcy, and so many slogans were posted on the walls that several paper companies ran out of paper. Explosion held a celebration that ran nonstop for several days, and with this the county’s economy, culture, and politics improved.

The day Zhu Ying gave birth happened to be the same day the town hospital was redesignated as a county hospital. On that day, the hospital discharged all of its patients, and the entire hospital was cleaned so that the mayor’s wife could come to give birth. There was a six-wheeled float parked in front of the building, every hallway was full of fresh flowers and bouquets, and the maternity room and bathroom were scented with French perfume. The hospital had purchased an expensive piece of equipment for the express purpose of confirming whether or not Zhu Ying’s fetus was in the correct position, and later paid an enormous sum for a Japanese-produced ultrasound machine. The birth was personally overseen by the director of the hospital, and the director of the maternity ward—a woman in her fifties—had prepared eight different contingency plans to address potential complications, and had even prepared blood plasma for a potential transfusion. But when Zhu Ying was transferred to the maternity ward, no sooner had she lain down on the sterilized sheets and said a few words to the hospital director than the baby immediately popped out.

The hospital director had asked, “How do you feel?”

Zhu Ying had replied, “The perfume in the hospital is very pungent.”

The hospital director then said, “You should prepare for excruciating pain.”

Appearing unsettled, Zhu Ying had asked. “What’s wrong with my belly? What’s wrong with my belly?” She then screamed loudly, “Why has it collapsed like a mountain?”

The hospital director and

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