Free Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke

the wheat fields. It was more than a hundred li from the county seat to the Balou mountains, and it took them more than half a day to cover the distance, since the driver was afraid that if he went too fast they might get a flat. When they had arrived in the Balou mountains, they drove through a forest of pagoda trees, where they were able to enjoy a breeze. As the temperature dropped, however, the fragrance of ripe wheat began to fade. The smell of summer gradually changed to that of fall, and as the car scurried over the mountain the weather became increasingly cool, even downright chilly. If the car’s occupants hadn’t kept the doors and windows tightly shut, they would have felt as though they were out in a field in the dead of winter.
    The driver said, “It’s getting colder and colder. What’s going on?”
    The township chief replied, “Fuck your family for eight generations. That’s just how the weather is here. In the third lunar month they sometimes have peach blossom flurries, while in the middle of winter it can be scorching hot.”
    The driver said, “Fuck, if it really is snowing, we should use the windshield wipers to clean the snow off.”
    Secretary Shi asked, “Chief Liu, are you cold?”
    The township chief said, “Why worry whether he’s cold or not? Let the heat bake him to death, and the cold freeze him to death.”
    Chief Liu said, “I didn’t bring any other clothes. If it’s this cold in Shuanghuai, where will I get warm clothes?”
    The township chief said, “If you wear heavy clothes you will burn up, but if you take them off you will freeze to death.”
    The township chief added, “It’s snowing. Let’s go—we need to get the county chief a padded jacket.”
    Secretary Shi said, “Let’s pull into the village up ahead.”
    Chief Liu said, “Fuck, I simply can’t believe it could possibly get too cold for me.”
    As he was saying this, the car pulled into a village halfway up the mountain and stopped at a wheat factory, where they borrowed a jacket and an army coat. After the driver stored the new clothing, they continued making their way up the mountain. It was on that snowy day that they encountered Jumei and her three nin daughters, and succeeded in finding Grandma Mao Zhi.
    They arrived at Liven’s guest house, where they stayed for the night.
    The snow finally stopped falling.
    The temperature, however, remained bitterly cold. When they woke up the next morning, the sky was still overcast and snow was blowing everywhere. Chief Liu hadn’t slept well. The statues of the bodhisattvas, Lord Guan, and Lady Livening that had been in his room in the former Buddhist temple were no longer there. The three-room tile-roofed house was split into three sections by two partition walls. Chief Liu slept in the northernmost section, with a bed all to himself. The bed had two mattresses and two quilts, and therefore was certainly warm enough, but he couldn’t sleep. Instead, he kept thinking about some of the things that had taken place eighteen years earlier when he was a soc-school teacher in Liven, and particularly about a woman who had given birth to quadruplets.
    He thought that once he was able to bring back Lenin’s remains and install them on Spirit Mount, 7 he could help promote tourism throughout the county and bring wealth to the district. He would surely be promoted then from county chief to deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party committee secretary. By that point, he would become a major figure, even an international personality, and not even the district Party secretary would be his equal. Four-fifths of the dozen or so counties in the district were poor, but he had already decided that once he was appointed deputy district commissioner or deputy district Party secretary, he would order that a memorial hall be erected in each of those poor counties, and then would have Lenin’s remains circulate from one county to the next, thereby bringing each of them