“That’s what I like to hear!” Hong said joyfully. “Young people who view our pigs as their mothers and fathers are exactly what we need.”
22
Piglet Sixteen Monopolizes the Sow’s Teats
Bai Xing’er Is Honored with the Title of Pig Feeder
Despite all the grandiose treatment bestowed upon the pigs by the fanatical people, a pig was still a pig. They could have showered me with all the love they had, but I was dead set on starving myself right out of this pig existence. I wanted another audience with Lord Yama, where I would make a scene, claiming my right to be human and demanding a rebirth I could be proud of.
By the time they returned me to the pigpen, the old sow was lying on her side, legs stretched out on a bed of hay as a row of piglets squeezed up to her exposed teats. They were sucking greedily and noisily. The unfortunate ones left out were shrieking their displeasure and trying to force their way in among their brothers and sisters. Some made it, forcing others out, while some others climbed up on top of the sow to jump up and down and raise a stink. The old sow lay there grunting, eyes closed, and all I felt were pity and loathing.
After handing me to Huzhu, Jinlong bent down and pulled one of the sucking piglets away from its teat, but not before it stretched it out like a rubber band. Another little pig filled the vacuum. So Jinlong pulled all those greedy little pigs away and put them outside the pen, where they protested ineffectually. Now only ten remained stuck to the sow’s belly, exposing a pair of usable teats. Both were red, puffy, and disgusting, thanks to the previous users. Picking me up from Huzhu, Jinlong put me down by the sow’s belly. I shut my eyes, which made me disgustingly conscious of the sucking sounds from my repulsive brothers and sisters. I’d have thrown up if I’d had anything in my stomach. You already know I wanted to die, so there was no way I was going to put one of those filthy teats in my mouth. I knew that the day I started sucking nonhuman milk was the day I’d give up half my humanity and sink forever into the abyss of the animal kingdom. The minute I put my mouth around that sow’s teats, I’d be seized by pig-ness. A pig’s temperament, a pig’s interests and concerns, and a pig’s desires would flow with her milk and course through my veins, transforming me into a swine that retained a mere smidgeon of human memories, thus completing a filthy and shameful reincarnation.
“Go on, drink up!” Jinlong positioned me so my mouth was up against a very plump teat, and when the saliva smeared on the nipple by my siblings touched my lips, I nearly puked. I kept my mouth tightly shut and my teeth clenched to avoid temptation.
‘What a stupid pig. It doesn’t have the sense to open its mouth when there’s a teat right in front of it.” Jinlong whacked me on the rump to underscore his comment.
“Don’t be so rough on him,” Huzhu complained as she pushed Jinlong away and pulled me up to her, where she gently rubbed my belly. I sort of purred, it felt so good, I couldn’t help it, though it was really a pig noise of contentment, but not that hard on the ears. Huzhu murmured, “You precious thing, foolish little piglet sixteen, your mother’s milk is really good, just taste it. You have to eat to grow up.” Thanks to her mutterings, I learned that I was the sixteenth piglet in a litter of sixteen, in other words, the last one out of the old sow’s belly. In spite of my extraordinary experiences in the worlds of light and darkness, that is, life and death, my knowledge of human and animal existences, in the eyes of the people, I was a pig, that’s all. A crushing tragedy; but even greater tragedies lay ahead.
Huzhu brushed the sow’s teat against my lips and nose, and that tickled my nose. I sneezed. That surprised her, I felt that in the way her hand jerked. Then she laughed. “I’ve never heard a pig sneeze before,” she said. “Sixteen, Piglet Sixteen, since you can sneeze, you ought to be able to eat.” She grabbed hold of the teat and squirted a warm liquid onto my lips. I licked it tentatively. Yow! My god! I never would have believed that a sow’s milk, my mother sow’s milk, could be so delicious, so fragrant, like silk, like love itself, so wonderful it made me forget the humiliation of being reborn as a pig and completely changed my impression of my surroundings, so glorious I couldn’t help feeling that the pig mother lying on the crushed grass supplying milk for a litter of boy and girl piglets was a noble beast, sacred and pure, solemn and beautiful. Without further hesitation, I wrapped my lips around that nipple, nearly taking Huzhu’s finger along with it, and opened the flow of milk into my mouth and down to my stomach. With each minute, each second, I felt myself grow stronger, felt my love for my pig mother increase; I heard Huzhu and Jinlong clap their hands and laugh, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw their youthful faces glow like cockscomb flowers. They were holding hands, and that sent fragments of historical memory flashing through my head, all of which I wanted only to forget. I shut my eyes so I could concentrate on the joys of a baby pig at its mother’s teat.
Over the days that followed, I became the most tyrannical piglet in the litter. My appetite shocked Jinlong and Huzhu; I had a natural gift for eating. I was always able to unerringly find the teat with the most milk, outmaneuvering my dull-witted brothers and sisters, who closed their eyes as soon as they wrapped their lips around a teat, while my eyes were open from start to finish as I sucked madly on the biggest nipple and covered up the ones next to it with my body I vigilantly kept my eyes peeled, waiting for one of my pitiful siblings to come looking for a meal; I’d send him or her flying with a butt to the head. Then as soon as I’d sucked the big teat dry, I’d move to the next one.
Seven days after I was born, Jinlong and Huzhu came and moved eight of my siblings to a neighboring pen, where they fed them millet gruel. A woman was put in charge of their care, but the wall between us was too high for me to get a look at her. Her voice, her lovely voice, sounded familiar, but when I tried to dredge up a memory of who she was and what she looked like, I just got sleepy. The three marks of a good pig are: big eater, deep sleeper, fast grower. I mastered all three. Sometimes the murmuring of the woman on the other side of the wall would be my lullaby. She fed the eight little pigs six times a day, sending the fragrance of corn or millet gruel wafting over the wall, and I could hear my brothers and sisters feasting happily. “My little darlings,” she’d mutter to them, “you little dears,” and I could tell she was a bighearted woman who treated the little pigs like her own children.
After a month, I was more than twice the size of my siblings. My sow mother’s twelve teats were pretty much mine alone. Every once in a while one of the other piglets, crazed from hunger, would attempt the death-defying act of charging one of the nipples. All I had to do was stick my snout under his belly and easily send him rolling to the wall behind our mother, who would moan weakly and say, Sixteen, oh, Sixteen, won’t you let them have a little? I brought you all into this world, and I can’t bear to see any of you go hungry! That sickened me, so I ignored her and sucked so hard her eyes rolled back in her head. Later on, I discovered that I could kick out with my hind legs, like a donkey, which meant I didn’t even have to let loose of a nipple or use my snout to rid the area of a hungry sibling. Whenever I saw one of them approach, red-eyed and squealing, I’d simply arch my back and kick out. Even if two came up at the same time, I could drive them back by landing well-placed kicks on their heads. All they could do then was run in circles and squeal out of jealousy and hatred, cursing me as they foraged for scraps at the base of our mother’s feed trough.
It didn’t take Jinlong and Huzhu long to see what was happening, so they invited Hong Taiyue and Huang Tong to watch from the other side of the wall. I knew they remained silent in hopes that I wouldn’t know they were there. So I pretended I didn’t know and ate with such exaggerated gusto that Mother Sow lay there moaning. I intimidated my brothers and sisters with one-legged kicks and struck fear into them with the two-legged variety, until all they could do was roll around and squeal miserably.