chutzpah 天南

1. “Inception”

The great educator Kong Zhongni (Confucius), after a lifetime of frustrations and peregrinations, determined to ascend Mt. Taishan to look at the heavens. As he stood on the peak gazing at the azure sky, he saw two frolicking fishes, Yin and Yang. But when he touched them, heaven and earth collapsed.

When he awoke, Zhongni heard thunderous shouts of “Kill! Kill!” and “remembered” that he was the leader of a peasant uprising. The King of Chu had used the dream–machine invented by the scientist Gong Shuban  in an attempt to transplant into his head the notion that: “Compassion is the true way to rescue the world from chaos”. Yet the evil characters in his dream, who forced him on his peregrinations, were actually his own subconscious.

General Kong, seeing through this trickery, gave a contemptuous smile.

2. Terminator

The First Emperor Qin Shi Huang Di was a brutal tyrant. The anti-government rebel, Chen Sheng ordered man–made terminators to assassinate the Emperor Qin.

The first Terminator he sent, Jing Ke  experienced sudden programming faults because he was running pirated software. He failed in his assassination attempt and was put to death.

The second Terminator, Gao Jianli  , struck the Qin Emperor with his zhu but failed to kill him because he used a village–made/knock-off zhu. He was put to death.

The third Terminator, Zhang Liang  , was betrayed and beat his hammer against an empty chariot. He was put to death.

The fourth Terminator, No Name  , lacked determination and was talked around by the Emperor of Qin. Abandoning his mission, he took his own life.

Realizing the situation was hopeless, Chen Sheng staked all in one final attempt: he created the Nth Terminator, the woman Meng Jiangnü  . If the Emperor of Qin could not be killed, then she would use ultrasonic waves as a weapon which would shatter his lifetime’s achievements.

3. 2001: A Space Odyssey

Once peace was established, Liu Che  surveyed his unaccustomed expanse of territory and felt uneasy.

When Zhang Qian sent word to the Emperor that a square, jet–black stele had been discovered in the desert, the Emperor Wu seemed to hear it as a call from Heaven. He had craftsmen create a great dragon of bronze, inspired by the stele. The Emperor mounted it and flew off to the depths of the universe, turning his back on earthly wealth and honours.

He did not return to this dark world again. Once he had gone through the starry gate, he could see the past and the future. Amid the oceans of Time, once he had understood the truth, he became a star child, and turned his profound gaze on the speck of dust that was the homeland from which he had come.

Only Zhang Heng , who spent his nights star-gazing, sometimes heard him give a faint far-away sigh.

4. Avatar

When “Mr. Five Willows”  was a young man, he was boundlessly ambitious. Later, disillusioned, he happened upon the Peach Blossom Utopia. It was inhabited by hermits from other planets, who lived off wild fruits and the water from mountain streams, reciting poetry and practicing calligraphy.

Time went by and he began to yearn for worldly pleasures. He secretly returned home in the hopes of taking his lady wife, Zhai, with him to live as an Immortal. However, he was apprehended by the secret police who had had him under surveillance.

The country was in turmoil and the people longed for peace. The Emperor heard that the “heart of the universe”  was to be found in this Peach Blossom Utopia and if he could get hold of it, he could subdue the entire kingdom. He therefore led his army to invade it and did not return for a decade. According to posthumous records left by the inventor Ma Deheng  , he created an avatar, and used it as a Trojan horse to penetrate Utopia. But although he wreaked havoc, he found no “heart of the universe” and the Utopia could not be restored.

5. S1m0ne

As a lover of aesthetic art, Li Longji  organized a solar system beauty contest in the hopes of finding the most beautiful woman in the universe. But no one met his expectations. Then he badgered the famous monk Yi Xing until he created the most perfectly beautiful woman. Li Longji’s heart broke as soon as he set eyes on her.

After this, Li Longji turned his back on the human world to satiate himself with this ineffable beauty of the virtual games world. Ministers and commoners alike complained that the Son of Heaven had been seduced by fantasy, plunging the prosperous world which his ancestors had carved out for him into crisis. The Emperor felt occasional pangs of guilt and uninstalled the game. However he secretly kept one file and would soon succumb to temptation and re–install it.

At Ma Wei Po, where Yang Guifei was killed, the troops treated His Majesty with ECT. The Emperor Li Longji, weeping, finally permanently reformatted his lady. Many years later when he was old and grey and alone in his dreary Immortality Palace, he still yearned for his Yang Guifei and remembered how beautiful and tragic she had looked when he first saw her that evening.

6. The Matrix 

“Old man Yue!”

General Yue Fei recalled how his teacher once warned him: “If people hail you as the saviour of the world, be careful.”

The fierce soldiers of the Kingdom of Jin fell back in disarray when they met him, yet the great Song Dynasty which General Yue Fei was protecting always ordered him to halt at the crucial moment. Every time he was enjoying his wine at a banquet, Yue Fei came to the realization that he did not know if he was a slave in revolt against the matrix or an anti–virus software embedded in the matrix itself. How was he to make use of the powerful body which fate had bestowed on him in this virtual environment?

On his death–bed, General Yue wanted to tell Zhang Xian and Yue Yun that this was just a dream. But having spent half a century in glorious battle, he had forgotten the truth which had come to him so long ago when he swallowed the red pills. That’s destiny! You may think that “Heaven shines bright”  , but if you are a protagonist in a game, who bestows the setting “absolute loyalty to his country” on you?

7. Iron man

When Temuchin was born, a ray of scarlet light shone from his chest. Later, he waged war all over the Galaxy, relying on the “heart of the universe” which Heaven had bestowed on him.

His gigantic body was like a dark comet whistling through the planetary system. The Great Khan’s god-like will was more invincible than the densest neutron armour. Spiderman, Batman and green giants and supermen from distant planets quailed before him, and the constellations dimmed. Only the invisible black hole was totally indifferent to him. 

The Great Khan feared that his heart might leave him one day and his corruptible flesh might become the burden he had dreamed of. He took a nap, then upon awakening flew to a black hole, in the belief that in this underworld of unfathomable darkness, he might metamorphose into King Kong and lord it over the entire universe.

8. Star Trek

During a very long journey through space, Zheng He  , the captain of the Da Ming, killed time with the aid of The Records of the Grand Historian and chess games with Einstein.

For many years he had been able to find spiritual comfort in that brilliant book. That most manly of men  who lived more than one thousand years before him helped him to understand that, no matter how great the humiliation inflicted on you, great thinking can annihilate evildoers. Thus, when he received the Emperor’s orders, he resolved to employ his fleet to complete the task which the Grand Scribe had only begun with his pen.  

On its voyage, the Da Ming spread Imperial Chinese military might and culture through the world, Zheng He formed many alliances and exchanged gifts of great value. Poets on board wrote unfinished epics, while scientists made discoveries without end.

As Zheng He got older, he grew melancholy. Einstein said that the earth has been in existence for billions of years, thus everything he thought had long since turned to dust and ashes. This shows the inevitability of the theory of relativity. 

“Go faster,” cried the captain, gesticulating, hoping that that he could catch up with time and recall his original name.

9. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hong–Li Aisin–Gioro had a dream about the extermination of humanity while in a West Lake brothel.

When he awoke, the Emperor called all the world’s scholars together and spent ten years assembling all humankind’s learning together in the Complete Library of the Four Treasures of Knowledge. When the end of the world approached, his descendants used this learning as a guide as they roamed the Galaxy.

One September morning sixty years after the death of the Emperor Qianlong, the Englishmen Carrington and Hodgson both separately observed a bright solar flare  . Brilliant polar auroras have for many years caused a plethora of doomsday myths. The next year, English and French forces attacked Beijing and seized the Complete Library of the Four Treasures of Knowledge.

Guided by the Library, the white men boarded spaceships and set off for the Galaxy in search of pastures new, leaving earthly disasters behind them. But until the day they died they never knew that the Emperor Qianlong foresaw in his dream not only doomsday but also the great fire which consumed the Summer Palace  . When the Library was compiled, much key knowledge was excised or repudiated, and the result was a maze which entrapped poor white men forever within the brains of the dead. Guided by the soul of the late Emperor Qianlong, the Empire of the Great Qing slowly ascended and flew off in quite another direction.

10. Back to the Future

Ladies and gentlemen of the future:

Tonight a shadow of a young woman suddenly leapt out of the moonlight and said:

“I am your descendant, sir!”

A radiant girl, she began to talk as if in her sleep. When I heard about the unprecedented prosperity and true perfection which was to come, I felt moved, and was almost prepared to go with her to be a history exhibit. Although I was only invited as a living corpse to be admired by my descendants, it was worth dying for the privilege of seeing the long–vanished Peach Blossom Utopia with my own eyes, even if I turned to dust on my journey through time. But then doubts set in as I heard that some things were not right, and when she asked me to lecture to the people of the future, I took this as an opportunity to pull out. However, the look of disappointment on this young woman’s face obliged me to attempt to comfort her:

“If the future is as splendid as you say it is, it requires redoubled efforts from me today. If not, then I will not need to go further,” I told her.

She departed, still disappointed. Although I was put to shame by the adoration of my descendant, I had no alternative.

There is something which does not give me pleasure in heaven, so I do not want to go there. There is something which does not give me pleasure in hell, so I do not want to go there. And there is something which does not give me pleasure in the golden world of your future, so I do not want to go there. 

But it reminds me of a dream I had when I was young. I had translated some science fiction, made some rambling utterances and had ambitions to write myself. Later, this dream disappeared along with everything else. If it comes to mind now as I write this trifling piece, please take it as an expression of appreciation to you all for your goodwill towards me!

Translated by Nicky Harman