The wind outside was biting cold. He had forgotten his scarf. All he could do was wrap his arms tightly about himself, put his head down and walk into the wind in the direction of the Wisdom Bureau.
The leaden sky watched indifferently, like a solitary pair of eyes. A crow voiced an assassin’s cry as it shot out of a bush and into the sky. The chill offered the promise of snow.
He found that every place he passed through was in a state of upheaval. People were talking about the strange pile of faeces. Their interest had already escalated to panic level. Heated comments had begun to appear on the double-tracked wall, criticising the government’s incompetence, saying its response to the excrement situation had been too slow and that it had taken too long to reach a conclusion in its discussions concerning the tower. It would be more efficient to invite the experts to eat the pile of shit.
When Mengliu saw that, he felt like laughing. Everyone was making a big fuss over nothing. It was just a pile of shit. Surely it did not portend the descent of some strange beast, intent on gobbling up Beiping. What was the fuss all about? Of course, he knew that people had been looking for a reason to vent their anger. For the past few years, everything had been in a mess. Times were hard, all over the country the rich were buying up villas while the poor could barely keep clothes on their backs. Pests had been gnawing at the fabric of society, and there were holes everywhere.
Mengliu was a bit bored now. He thought he might go to the Green Flower and grab a drink and a bite to eat. That should prove to be more interesting.
Despite his longing for a little warm Chinese wine and some fried peanuts, he found himself mysteriously wandering into Round Square instead.
The crowd in the square was beyond imagining. Some had lingered there for a long time, and in front of the newcomers their expressions filled with the pride of those in the know.
Mengliu, listening to them talking about the faeces, got a general impression of it — that it was a dark brown lump smelling of buckwheat, soft in texture, and standing nine stories high. Its bottom layer was fifty metres in diameter. Its structure was like that of a layered cake, narrowing to a relatively artistic spire at the top.
Mengliu found that the masses that had gathered in the square could be divided into three factions. The first had no sense of crisis, their interest lay in the question of what sort of sphincter would have been capable of forming such a masterpiece. The second was not interested in taking sides, and adopted a more neutral position as they waited to hear what those with some scatological expertise might conclude about the matter. The third group was for reform, having endured their meaningless lives for long enough. Anchorless, they held nothing dear. Their only hope was to catch a little fish out of the troubled waters through which they waded.
In a state of disbelief over the size of Beiping’s population, Mengliu plunged right into the fray and became just another sheep in the mob. The rams, goats, ewes and lambs crowded together. They rubbed and brushed against one another, bleating the gossip from one mouth to the next. The agitation encompassed everyone — office workers and menial labourers, tourists and loiterers. They wore their expressions like masks, firmly buckled in place. Numb, expectant, worried, nervous, excited or eager, they wiggled their bloated bodies as their noses turned red and white smoke emerged from their mouths in the cold air. In times of excitement, even hands that are normally caged inside billowing sleeves will be let loose to the air. The people, huddled together as if waiting to witness some astronomical wonder, warmed the chilly streets.
Mengliu could not squeeze his way into the heavily guarded area, where armed police were surrounded by a group of high school students, who in turn were surrounded by a group of kindergarten children. They had formed a three-layered human wall with their uniformed bodies. Water had been sprayed on the ground and, having frozen over, it now let off a luminescent glow. The air was heavy with fog and the sun seemed to be wrapped in a cocoon, emitting only a little grey-white light.
Mengliu, pushing his way through the crowd, broke out in a sweat. Before he was able to get a good look at the famous tower of shit, he had to turn back. When he got home, he was feverish, and he felt ill.
That evening, the television news went to great lengths reporting the incident, clearly advancing the theory that the tower was made of gorilla excrement, while at the same time criticising rumours of aliens and biological monsters. Together with sound bites, experts were seen donning their white gloves and inspecting the faeces. Their wrinkled brows showed their respect for their subject and underscored the serious academic nature of their work, leaving no room for doubt concerning the rigour with which their research was being conducted. The next morning’s newspapers printed essentially the same content, with nearly identical headlines appearing throughout the nation. But the majority of the people did not believe that it was gorilla excrement. Some even burned newspapers in the street as a sign of protest against the media’s failings and called for the government to be more transparent in relation to the faecal matter.
Of course, the government could not easily modify its own conclusions about the Tower Incident. The media stood in a united front, offering an objective view of the event. When some papers went so far as to raise questions, their editors were immediately relieved of office for ‘dereliction of duty’, and the reporters were likewise sacked. This provoked the public’s ‘sense of justice’, making the people all the more certain that things were not as simple as they seemed. The feelings of resentment grew, and it did not take long for some people to take to the streets in protest. The crowd got steadily bigger, the protest gained momentum.
People gathered at the site where the pile of shit had appeared. Naturally, it had been removed long ago. The ground had been carefully scrubbed clean. All evidence of it had disappeared, so finding out the truth was virtually impossible. No one could tear down the testimony of the so-called experts. They all knew of the shit’s existence, and many had witnessed the oddity first hand. But every one of them remained silent, without exception.
The news that aliens had come spread like wildfire. Then, some reported that they had seen a UFO in the sky, and described it in concrete terms. Some claimed they had run into huge, strange creatures at night. As soon as evening fell, people locked their doors, no longer daring to walk on the streets after dark.
Because of the emergence of the excrement, life was no longer calm for the citizens of Beiping.
Postings on the double-tracked wall offered a detailed analysis of the Tower Incident, and mentioned several news reports. They pointed out a few holes in the arguments of the experts who claimed to know that the pile of excrement had come from a gorilla just by looking at it. In fact, they said, the research was very sloppy. They called for the most authoritative experts and the most scientific testing to be employed in addressing the mystery, saying that only DNA analysis of the faecal matter would be convincing.
One of the famous writers in the ‘monster theory’ camp wrote: ‘Recklessly, they first came up with conclusions to deceive the public. It’s a trick for maintaining stability. The truth is in the hands of a small minority. If we go on like this, there will come a day when even the sun above us will be covered up by them.’
Mengliu thought the claims of the ‘monster man’ were exaggerated. It was just a pile of shit. It was nothing to get so worked up about. But still, he had to admit it was a well-written essay, worthy to be counted among those of the talents at the Wisdom Bureau. As he casually read through the posters, he suddenly came across poems Hei Chun and Bai Qiu had composed about the faeces. They were written with a lot of passion. He was so excited that he fell into a fit of coughing.