Free The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke

should learn from Explosion and not waste your time with petty theft. How much do manhole covers and steel pipes sell for, anyway? And television sets get cheaper every day, to the point that they’re now as cheap as carrots and cabbage. Is it really worth your time to steal this sort of thing?” He continued, “Get lost! All of you, go back to the city, to the provincial capital, to Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Beijing. I won’t punish you for stealing, but within two years you must build several small factories in the village. And if you don’t succeed, and instead are arrested again, I’ll parade you and your families through the streets.” After those youngsters from Liu Gully and Zhang Peak were reprimanded by the mayor and given the new blank letters of introduction, they didn’t even return home to see their parents and instead proceeded directly to take another bus back into the city, and from the city they took the bus to the provincial capital or to other cities.
    Following a few more of these incidents, the city police stopped sending the villagers they detained, and instead would simply call up the mayor and ask him to come into the city to collect them—saying that if he didn’t, not only would the city not let the detainees go, it would even publicize the details of the arrests in the newspapers and on television. Whenever the situation grew tense, Mayor Hu had no choice but to go to the police station in the provincial capital or Jiudu City. As soon as he entered, he saw more than a dozen young women from Liu Gully or Zhang Peak squatting in a row along the wall. Each of them was naked except for a bra and a pair of colorful panties, revealing her nubile body.
    While the mayor was looking the girls over, one of the police officers walked over and spat on the ground in front of him.
    “Are you Mayor Hu?”
    The mayor said, “I’m sorry we’ve given you so much trouble.”
    The police officer cursed him, saying, “Does your town fucking specialize in producing prostitutes?”
    The mayor replied, “When I return, I’ll make sure each of these girls walks through the streets with an old shoe hanging from her neck. We’ll see if they ever dare go out in public again, and furthermore who the fuck would be willing to marry them?”
    He led the women away, telling them to get dressed and follow him out of the police station, like students following their teacher out of school. They first crossed one street, then another. When the mayor turned around, he saw that they were all still following him. He stared at them and said, “What are you following me for? If you follow me, will you get food to eat or money to spend? All of you should follow the example of Zhu Ying, who has returned from Guangzhou and opened a store in the provincial seat.”
    The young women stared at him in astonishment, then looked at one another. They proceeded to walk away, like a row of flowers planted along the city streets. Only after they bade the mayor farewell did he reprimand them as though he were their father, calling out,
    “You should each become your own boss, like Zhu Ying. You should hire some young women from other towns and counties to work as prostitutes for you. Then you should go straighten out the policeman who spat at me, so that his wife and children abandon him and his family falls apart. You should then become that policeman’s wife, and make sure he doesn’t enjoy a day of happiness for the rest of his life.
    “… You should all leave. Get lost! If you aren’t able to replace your thatched-roof house with a tile-roof house within half a year—or able to then replace your tile-roof house with a small building—you will have truly earned the right to be called a whore. You will havelost face on behalf of your ancestors back in Explosion and Balou and will be too depraved to return home and stand before your parents and grandparents.”
    From a distance, the young women heard the mayor’s remarks. They