basin in the air and, shouting ‘Fuck you!’ at the top of his voice, thrashes it down onto his head. Immediately the villagers grab bricks and shovels and attack the officers and policemen. The children perched on the compound walls hurl stones at Secretary Qian’s back. Inside the house, Kongzi’s mother crouches with the other women in the kitchen, holding Nannan tightly in her arms, while Meili cowers in the corner of the bed, pressing the folded quilt close to her belly, her eyes squeezed shut.
Kongzi runs back inside to help Yuanyuan into the dugout, then grabs a spade, charges out again and strikes Old Huan on the shoulder. Dusty and beaten, Wang Wu swings a hoe at a policeman’s chest shouting, ‘May your home lie in ruins too.’ The shaven-headed officer grasps his arm and twists it up behind his back but is then struck in the ribs with a shovel. In a sudden rush of courage, the spindly mother of Xiang pounces on a policeman and sinks her teeth into his shoulder. The burly Kong Guo grabs an officer in an armlock and wrestles him to the ground, shouting, ‘Fuck your mother, you crooked bastard.’ Finding themselves outnumbered and overpowered, the panicked intruders flee. Kong Zhaobo and Li Peisong see Old Huan sprawled in a corner moaning, so they pick him up and fling him out onto the lane as well.
‘Bolt the gate, Meili!’ Kongzi’s mother says, once everyone has left. Meili opens her eyes at last, takes her torch and ventures outside. The red-and-gold Spring Festival couplets which she hung on either side of the door have been ripped to shreds. The date tree sapling has been knocked right over and Kong Qing’s aborted son lies trampled on the ground. As a piercing gunshot explodes in the distance, she quickly bolts the gate, then wedges a spade against it and runs back into the house.
In the lanes outside, angry villagers pour out of their houses with hoes and spades and march to the school, Kongzi and his pupils leading the way holding rocks and sticks. When they reach the school’s compound walls, the policemen guarding the gates raise their batons and lash out at them.
‘Run, Teacher Kong!’ the children shout. The marchers scatter in panic. Little Fatty tries to keep up with his father Li Peisong, clutching the corner of his jacket, but is knocked over by the fleeing crowd, pulling his father down with him. Another procession of angry villagers emerges from a lane to the north, holding the old seamstress’s corpse in the air and shouting, ‘Every murder must be avenged!’ and ‘Give us back our property!’ Enraged by the sight of the corpse, Kongzi and his pupils turn round and attack the policemen at the gates. Young boys stuff a bundle of straw under a police car and toss lit matches onto it, while Clubfoot chases a police dog away with his walking stick. The women who’ve been locked in the school kitchen bash their way out into the playground, throw chairs at the family planning officers, then run off to grab bags of rice and fertilisers that were confiscated from their homes. The police sergeant fires another gunshot and the women drop the bags and retreat. Outside in the lane, the police car becomes shrouded in black smoke then, with a deafening bang, explodes into a ball of fire. The young boys light torches from the flames and toss them over the compound wall into the playground. ‘That man’s from the District Family Planning Commission!’ a voice shouts. ‘Chase him! Kill him! . . .’
The infant spirit sees once more that February night nine years ago when Kong Village became a battlefield. Mother has come out to look for Father. She’s wearing a white down jacket. The north wind is whipping up her hair. When a gunshot rings out, she drops to her knees and shrinks into a tight ball, shivering with fear and cold . . . A man in a sergeant’s uniform switches on a megaphone and shouts: ‘Villagers! If China’s excessive population growth isn’t curbed, the whole of society will suffer. Our nation won’t be able to achieve sustainable economic development and take its rightful place in the world. Deng Xiaoping has commanded us to take effective measures to ensure the birth rate is brought down. An enemy of the family planning policies is an enemy of the state. A class enemy. The masses must not allow themselves to be