Eighty-Eight: The Origin of Life

After draining a cup of fine wine behind the screen of his sleeve, Luan Yi began to explain his own understanding of exchange and the order in which division of labor came into being.

He stressed to Zhou Yu that the reason division of labor and exchange arose in the world was simple: people have needs. Yet a person’s strength and time are limited after all, and many needs cannot be met by one individual, or even by a single household. What, then, was to be done? Thus division of labor and exchange came into being.

In the final reckoning, need is the root from which division of labor and exchange spring, while the limits of human time and energy form the foundation.

At the same time, man lives within his surroundings, and those surroundings exert an influence of the utmost importance. Most obvious of all, different environments provide different productive resources to the people who dwell there. For example, in antiquity, those born among the mountains lived at first by gathering fruit and hunting, while those living beside rivers made their living by fishing. In the earliest ages, a man of the mountains might never have seen fish at all; he could survive perfectly well without them, and thus had no need for fish—or rather, that need remained hidden, latent, unseen. But once he encountered fish, desire for them arose within him. Yet at that moment he had no skill for catching them. What was he to do? He traded fruit for fish. The same logic applied in reverse to the people who lived by fish.

From this it could be seen that division of labor existed before exchange. Only, this division was not consciously devised by men. Rather, under the iron laws of nature, people were unwittingly assigned different kinds of work and the products that came from them; and from men’s need for one another’s differing products, exchange was born.

Having said all this, Luan Yi lightly moistened his cracked lips, lifted his cup again, and drained it in one swallow.

“Do you understand now, Young Lord Zhou?”

“The environment shapes mankind...” Zhou Yu murmured in thought. Then he bowed and said with solemn respect, “Hearing these words from Master Ziqi has cleared the fog from my mind. Only...”

Luan Yi asked, “Oh? Do you still have some uncertainty over whether exchange came first or division of labor?”

“Not at all.” Zhou Yu shook his head. “Your explanation was detailed, and I understood it clearly.”

“Then...?” Luan Yi was puzzled.

On Zhou Yu’s handsome face appeared a trace of the shy, almost endearing awkwardness peculiar to youth. “The question I wish to ask has nothing to do with The Origin of Wealth. What I truly wish to know is the answer to the question you mentioned earlier. In this world, which came first—chicken or egg? A man of your gifts, Master Ziqi, must surely already have a solution in mind.”

“I dare not accept the title of gifted,” Luan Yi said, waving a modest hand. He swept his gaze across those seated around him and saw that Zhou Yi, Sun Jian, Qiao Xuan, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei were all staring straight at him. Sun Ce, the elder Qiao girl, and the younger Qiao girl, the younger ones among them, looked even more eager, their eyes full of thirst for knowledge. Only Dian Wei sat composed, as though he already held an answer in his heart.

Luan Yi could not help feeling secretly pleased. Slowly he said, “To explain whether the chicken came first or the egg, one must begin with the origin of life...”

The moment they heard that he was about to speak on the origin of life, the yearning in the eyes of everyone in the cabin deepened all the more.

In the textbooks of twenty-first-century mainland China, among the many theories concerning the origin of life, evolution had always occupied the dominant place. According to Darwin’s explanation, the earliest life-forms in the world were single-celled organisms. After hundreds of millions of years of evolution, those single-celled organisms gradually developed into multicellular life, marine microorganisms, sea algae, oceanic creatures, amphibians... and afterward climbed onto land, transforming into plants and primitive cold-blooded animals. Later still, some animals evolved wings and gained the power of flight—the beings men call birds. Then, one day several million years ago, a bird inadvertently laid a special egg. The chick that hatched from it appeared frail, and was far smaller than its parents. This was the earliest form of the chicken. Naturally, it was still a wild fowl.

As human civilization advanced, that clever primate called man learned how to catch wild chickens, and how to bring them home and rear them. After thousands upon thousands more years of change, the offspring produced by those domesticated wild birds grew weaker with each generation, until in the end even the power of flight had degenerated, and they truly became poultry.

Thus, according to the theory of evolution, it was the egg that came first in this world.

But Luan Yi had no wish to explain the origin of life from the standpoint of evolution. As for the reason—one must not forget that he was now the Great Pontiff of the Holy Mother Faith, the dignified leader of a religion, not some natural philosopher. Any scientific doctrine that ran counter to religion was something he ought to resist; and even if he did not resist it outright, he ought at least to interpret it through the ethics of faith.

As with the question before him now, from the standpoint he presently occupied there could be only one answer: the Holy Mother’s Seven Days of Creation. The chicken had been created by the Holy Mother’s boundless divine power, and the egg was its later product. Therefore, in this world, the Holy Mother first created the chicken, and only afterward did the hen lay eggs.

So Luan Yi rose from the table, took four copies of the newest edition of the Holy Mother Scripture from his pack, and placed one each into the hands of Zhou Yu, Sun Ce, the elder Qiao girl, and the younger Qiao girl.

This new edition differed from earlier books of plain text. It employed a new technique combining woodcut illustration with movable-type printing, and the books it produced were nearly the same as the picture stories of later ages. With images and words side by side, they were especially suited to young readers.

By now, this edition of the Holy Mother Scripture was being used throughout the Kingdom of Jinan as a primer for children’s literacy.

Once he had distributed the books to the four of them, Luan Yi used the illustrations as a guide and told everyone present the story of the Holy Mother’s Seven Days of Creation, and of the suffering that followed once faith fell into decline.

In the course of founding the Holy Mother Faith, Luan Yi had presided over nearly a hundred services, and he had long since developed a set way of plucking the strings of human belief. The story he told was vivid and lifelike, and everyone in the cabin listened as though entranced. The two Qiao sisters cried out in wonder again and again.

“So according to what you say, Master Ziqi... then it was the egg that came first in this world!” Zhou Yu nodded repeatedly. Such an explanation fit perfectly with the Eastern Han understanding of the world; by contrast, if one were to speak to them of evolution, it would only make comprehension more difficult.

Luan Yi then went on to explain many doctrines of the Holy Mother Faith, as well as the way it had been spread throughout the lands of Jinan.

Again, everyone revealed eager curiosity, each looking as though they longed to go to Jinan at once and see the matter for themselves.

Without noticing it, dusk had deepened. The wine was finished, the gathering dispersed, and the four sworn brothers—Dian Wei, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, and Luan Yi—moved into the guest cabin Zhou Yi had prepared for them in advance.

Earlier, after boarding the ship, Luan Yi had been too absorbed in conversation to feel that anything was amiss. But now, with the moon high overhead and silence all around as he lay on his bedding, he finally sensed the trouble.

The ship was sailing on a river lashed by surging waves, rocking and swaying, swaying and rocking. The ceiling above his eyes shifted back and forth in the wind and rain as though drunk itself. Luan Yi’s head spun, his vision dimmed, and his stomach churned like a stormy sea. The dishes he had eaten at the night’s banquet rolled and tossed within him, rising steadily toward his throat.

On the other side, Zhang Fei was faring no better. He suddenly sat bolt upright, clapped a hand over his mouth, and dashed for the door.

Luan Yi hurried up to block him by force, but in his urgency Zhang Fei’s strength was overwhelming, and one man alone could scarcely stop him. So Luan Yi roused Dian Wei and Guan Yu as well. “Elder Brother, Second Brother, quickly stop Third Brother. We mustn’t let him vomit over the rail. If he falls into the river in the pitch dark, someone will surely die.”

At once Dian Wei and Guan Yu understood the urgency. Forcing themselves to endure their own urge to retch, they sprang from their beds, seized Zhang Fei’s arms from either side, and together with Luan Yi dragged him back onto the bed.

Zhang Fei’s dark face had turned a frightening shade of purple. Mumbling, he said, “No... let me out... I, Old Zhang, I have to...” Before he could finish, a great heaving sound burst from him. Lying flat on the bed, Zhang Fei vomited violently, foul matter gushing from his mouth like a fountain, splattering Dian Wei, Guan Yu, and Luan Yi from head to toe, until all the wine and dishes of the evening were emptied out.

Originally, Dian Wei, Guan Yu, and Luan Yi had still been managing to hold back the misery of seasickness. But now, seeing Zhang Fei retch so disgustingly, the nausea in their own bellies surged beyond endurance.

“Urk—urk—urk—”

They too began to vomit with abandon, as though they might empty out even their gall.

It was a night of utter torment. Bound fast to the ship by force, Zhang Fei slept soundly through the latter half of the night, while the other three, after vomiting until there was truly nothing left to vomit, still had to stagger about cleaning the filth strewn across the floor. Their suffering was beyond words.

The next morning, the sun rose slowly above the river’s edge, and the wind and waves had calmed considerably. Luan Yi stripped off his soiled clothes and put on a fresh robe. He pinched the fabric to his nose and sniffed, only to frown at once—it still carried a heavy stench of vomit.

He flicked his sleeve, lifted the hanging curtain, and stepped out of the cabin, heading straight for the deck. What he needed now was the clear river air to wash his heart and lungs.

Once he stood upon the deck, the distant mountains came into view through the pale veil of river mist—range upon range without end, lush and deep green, jagged with strange rocks, with birds wheeling and perching among them: a magnificent landscape painting brought to life. At the foot of the mountains, by the riverbank, little fishing villages appeared now and then. Their thatched cottages stood facing the water, and the early-rising fishermen were already drawing water, washing clothes, emptying chamber pots by the shore... Thin curls of smoke drifted from the huts, and the whole scene was alive with the unadorned vitality of a riverside household in the south.

Luan Yi could not help staring in enchantment. In an instant, the beauty of the landscape drove the bitterness of the previous night from his mind.

As he stretched lazily, he heard someone greet him. Turning, he saw that it was Zhou Yu, Sun Ce, and the two Qiao sisters.

Looking closely, he found the four of them in excellent spirits. Clearly, the wind and waves of the night had not affected them in the least. This made Luan Yi sigh inwardly in admiration. “The saying is true indeed: northerners are poor with water, and many grow seasick; southerners are adept at swimming, and boarding a boat is as easy to them as walking on level ground.”

Seeing Luan Yi’s pale complexion, Sun Ce asked with concern, “Master Ziqi, your color is poor. Did you not sleep well last night?”

Sleep poorly? He had not slept at all. Luan Yi gave a bitter smile and offered no answer. Zhou Yu, however, had already guessed the truth from the fact that Luan Yi was a northerner. “Could it be... that Master Ziqi also suffers from seasickness?”

The moment Zhou Yu said this, the two Qiao sisters would not stand for it. Ever since they had been old enough to understand, they had often heard their father speak of the famed prodigy. When they were five, their mother had told them stories from Strange Tales and Idle Talk by the bedside, and the first book outside the classics that they had ever read in their lives was precisely that very Strange Tales. One might say that from early childhood onward, they had been Luan Yi’s most devoted admirers.

The sisters glared at Zhou Yu in indignation and spoke in perfect unison to defend Luan Yi. “Master Ziqi is a divine talent of this age. How could he possibly grow seasick?”

Zhou Yu was just about to argue back, but before he could speak, Luan Yi scratched his head and answered first.

“In truth, I do get seasick.”