A Lone Pig

When I was feeding pigs, I also fed cows. If no one intervened, these two animals would completely know how to live. They would wander freely, eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, and in spring, even talk about love; in this way, their lives are very low-level, completely dull. When humans came, they made arrangements for their lives: each cow and each pig had a theme. For most of them, these life themes are very tragic: the former's theme is working, the latter's theme is gaining weight. I don't think there's anything to complain about, because my own life at that time wasn't exactly rich either, aside from eight model operas, I had little entertainment. A very few pigs and cows had different arrangements; taking pigs as an example, breeding pigs and sows had more to do than just eating. From what I saw, they didn't really like these arrangements either. The task of breeding pigs was to mate, in other words, our policy allowed them to be playboys. But tired breeding pigs often put on a gentlemanly stance that only castrated pigs (castrated pigs are gelded) have, and stubbornly refused to jump onto the sow's back. The sow's task was to give birth, but some sows would eat their piglets. Overall, human arrangements made pigs miserable. But they still accepted it: pigs are always pigs.
Making various arrangements for life is a trait unique to humans. Not only do they set up animals, but they also set up themselves. We know that in ancient Greece there was Sparta, where life was arranged to be utterly dull, with the purpose of turning men into reckless warriors and women into reproductive machines— the former like fighting cocks, the latter like sows. These two kinds of animals are very special, but I believe they definitely didn't like their lives. But what can they do if they don't like it? Whether human or animal, it's hard to change their fate.
The pig I will talk about next is somewhat different. When I was feeding pigs, it was already four or five years old. Officially, it was a meat pig, but it was black and thin, with bright eyes. This fellow was as agile as a goat, able to jump over a one-meter-high pigpen; it could also jump onto the roof of the pigsty, which was more like a cat—so it was always wandering around, never staying in the pen. All the educated youth who fed pigs treated it as a pet, and it was also my pet—because it only liked the educated youth, allowing them to come within three meters; if anyone else tried, it would have run away long ago. It was a male, and originally should have been castrated. But try it—you hide the castration knife behind your back, and it can smell it out, stare at you with wide eyes, and growl. I always fed it porridge made with fine rice bran, and only after it had eaten enough would I mix the bran into wild grass to feed other pigs. The other pigs looked on with jealousy and started to squeal. At this moment, the entire pig soundscape was a scene of ghostly wails and howls, but neither I nor it cared. After eating, it would jump onto the roof to sunbathe; or imitate various sounds. It could mimic the sound of a car, a tractor, and it was very accurate; sometimes it would be missing for the whole day, and I guessed it went to nearby villages to find a sow. We also have sows here, all confined in pens, overbred to the point of deformity, dirty and stinky, and it wasn't interested in them; the sows in the villages looked better. It had many wonderful deeds, but my pig-feeding time was short, so I knew little and decided not to write about it. In summary, all the educated youth who fed pigs liked it, admired its independent style, and said it lived freely. But the villagers didn't see it as romantic; they said it was unruly. The leaders hated it, which I will talk about later. But I didn't just like it—I respected it, often disregarding my own ten-plus years of age difference, and called it "Pig Brother." As mentioned before, Pig Brother could imitate various sounds. I think it also learned to speak like humans, but it didn't quite master it—if it had, we could have heartfelt conversations. But that's not its fault. The tone of humans and pigs is too different.
Later, Pig Brother learned to whistle like a train horn, which brought it trouble. There was a sugar factory nearby that blew a whistle at noon to change shifts. When we were working in the fields, hearing that whistle, we would come back. My Pig Brother would always jump onto the roof at ten in the morning to learn the whistle; when the people in the fields heard it, they would come back—this was an hour and a half earlier than the factory’s whistle. Honestly, this wasn't entirely Pig Brother's fault; it wasn't a boiler, and its call was somewhat different from a train horn, but the villagers insisted they couldn't tell the difference. The leadership held a meeting and declared it a troublemaker sabotaging spring plowing, and decided to take special measures against it—I already knew the spirit of the meeting, but I wasn't worried about it—because if "special measures" meant ropes and pig-stabbing knives, there was no way. The previous leaders had tried before; a hundred people couldn't catch it. Dogs were useless: Pig Brother ran like a torpedo, able to knock a dog ten yards away. But this time, they were serious: the instructor brought over twenty people, armed with Type 54 pistols; the deputy instructor brought over a dozen with green rifles, and they split into two groups to hunt it outside the pigsty. This put me in a dilemma: given my relationship with it, I should have rushed out with two pig-stabbing knives and fought alongside it. But I thought that was too shocking—after all, it was just a pig; and another reason was that I didn't dare oppose the leadership—I suspected that was the real problem. So I just watched from the side. Pig Brother’s composure amazed me: it calmly hid within the line of the pistols and rifles, ignoring the shouts and dog-bites, staying within that line. As a result, when someone fired a pistol, they would accidentally shoot the person with the rifle, and vice versa; if both fired simultaneously, both would be shot dead. As for it, because of its small target, it was mostly safe. After circling a few times, it found an opening and crashed out—running very freely. I saw it again later in the sugarcane fields; it had grown tusks and recognized me, but it no longer allowed me to get close. This cold indifference hurt me, but I also approved of its keeping distance from those with ill intentions.
I am already forty years old, and besides this pig, I haven't seen anyone dare to ignore the arrangements of life so blatantly. On the contrary, I have seen many who want to set others’ lives, and many who accept their arranged lives calmly. Because of this, I have always missed that independent pig.