The Donkey, The Cow, and The Pig

Some time ago, I read the novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out. It had been a long while since I last spent such a large, uninterrupted block of time finishing a long novel. At the very beginning of the story, the protagonist Ximen Nao is killed by a bullet—half his head blasted into a bloody mess, smeared across the bridge deck and the pale gray pebbles below, each the size of a winter melon. In the underworld, he cries out in protest, pleading his case before Yama, the King of Hell. To ease the hatred in his heart, Yama sentences him to six reincarnations.

In his first life he is a donkey, second a cow, third a pig, fourth a dog, fifth a monkey, and sixth a human. People often say that human beings are products of their times, and that every small figure interprets the grand era in his or her own way. But what if it were animals doing the writing?

The First Life: Donkey — “The Donkey Tosses and Kicks About”

The very first words Ximen Nao utters upon meeting Yama – the King of Hell, after his execution are: “I was wronged!” He recounts, one by one, how he had loved hardworking, been frugal and family-minded, built bridges and repaired roads, and been charitable to others. But as observers, we cannot obtain an objective truth from the testimony of the accused himself—after all, everyone speaks through a filter of subjectivity.

Perhaps only those who wrong you truly know how wronged you are. Yama replied: “Enough, I know you were wronged. Many people who deserve death do not die; many who do not deserve death end up dead. That is a reality even I cannot change.”

Thus, he is reborn as a donkey. As “Ximen Donkey,” his personality is especially vivid. On one hand, he embodies raw strength and wildness—unyielding, refusing to be caged, longing for the free life of wild donkeys, even fighting wolves to protect a female donkey and earning the name “heroic donkey.” On the other hand, he carries traces of humanity, inheriting Ximen Nao’s spirit of defiance, his memories and his unwillingness to yield. Human thought and animal instinct intertwine, and the dust kicked up by his busy hooves transforms into the chapter’s title: “The Donkey Tosses and Kicks About.”

Why does man—or donkey—toss and kick about? What is the essence of this restlessness? Originally, still waters flow deep, with a meditative calm. To stir waves, to kick up dust, is to toss about. Perhaps “tossing about” can be seen as a form of longing: a longing to be seen, to be needed; a longing for romance, passion, adventure, applause; a longing for self-surpassing, for the very sensation of being alive. Longing is the projection of imagination, the embodiment of desire, the completion of what is lacking.

In this life, Ximen Donkey embodies desire most of all. He flaunts his passion, charges forward with courage, and does not conceal his ambition and craving. After tasting, without reservation, the full spectrum of love, hatred, gratitude, and vengeance, he dies in a blaze of glory. A life spent tossing and kicking about may leave him exhausted, or perhaps still unsated. But with different forms of life’s performance, to exchange them for just the words “It was worth it”—that may well be enough.

The Second Life: Cow — “The Cow’s Obsession”

In this second life, “the stubborn will of the cow” takes shape. Its character shifts toward an introverted, tragic tone. As a plow ox, it bears immense toil with silent endurance—never crying out, never complaining, utterly loyal to its master. Its master, “Blue Face,” insists on farming alone; the ox refuses to plow for the commune, never yielding. The animal’s story and the human’s struggle run in parallel lines.

The chapter closes with the ox’s death, steeped in somber weight. It is publicly whipped until its flesh and blood are torn apart, its body crisscrossed with lash marks, its hide seared, its nose ring ripping through bleeding nostrils that drip with blue and black blood. Step by step, it staggers toward its master, before collapsing heavily onto that acre and a fraction of land.

The earth is ochre yellow, death is charred black, blood is blue. The deep, desolate hues resemble an oil painting congealed with fate. Why isn’t the blood red? Why must blood be red? Just as, in the eyes of outsiders, the ox and Blue Face seem twisted, struggling, out of joint with the times—but to themselves, they are nothing if not steadfast and pure.

Sometimes the root of suffering is not suffering itself, but obsession. The ox and Blue Face both carry a tenacity that radiates outward from the heart. And is not the force the outside world imposes upon them also a kind of obsession—the obsession with conformity to all things? Two rigid energies clash head-on, like burning iron branding themselves into one another, leaving marks meant to last forever.

This brings to mind a question: is being wholly true to oneself freedom, or is it selfishness? Life inevitably encounters a moment of ego-attachment—a state like wandering into the darkest and most intricate forest, not knowing whether ahead lies light or shadow, whether to advance or retreat. One stumbles through it, colliding with unseen walls, undergoing the journey of transformation fate prescribes for each of us. Some say one must let go of obsessions; others say one should cling to them unrepentantly. Perhaps the heart itself is the smallest unit of that black forest—you may step into it to pick up forgotten grains, to listen to silence, to dwell in doubt, to search for proof of truth.

The Third Life: Pig — “The Pig’s Revelry”

From the restless donkey to the stubborn ox, the first two lives are filled with tragedy and violent collisions, bloodily struggling against the times and the world. In the third life, as a pig, it feels as though the very order has finally collapsed by its own strength, plunging into a dramatic, comic, and unrestrained revelry. It lives exuberantly, untamed in its wildness, brimming with raw vitality. At the same time, it is clever and strategic, contending with rivals within the herd, bending human rules into animal terms to serve its own ends. By wit and strength, it becomes a pig-king.

I especially liked its philosophy of life:

• “Anything I can’t make sense of, I simply forget.”

• “You can find pigs scared out of their wits everywhere, but a pig laughing out loud—there’s only me.”

• “Honestly, I am not a sentimental pig. What I have in abundance is the spirit of revelry, and almost none of that whining, petty melancholy.”

• “I am vitality, I am passion, I am freedom, I am love—I am the most beautiful spectacle of life on this earth.”

Unlike Ximen Donkey, who performed for others, or Ximen Ox, who was obsessed with loyalty to another, this pig—imaginative and filled with unbridled fantasies—lives more freely and more truthfully. Its life is a dance of revelry in the river of freedom. It escapes the pigsty, rushes into the wilderness, shakes off the chains of daily life and the fetters of obsession. Ahead lies only the flowing horizon, an unfurling scroll of wild dreams and wandering.

But is true freedom to be without hindrance, with a heart free of dust? When it has long since mastered survival in the wild and its animal instincts reach their peak, it comes upon the endless plain. Yet in the end, it chooses to return to the original Ximen Village. When it sees children fallen into the water, its humanity surfaces from that free current. With all its might, it sacrifices itself to save them.

The pig’s life is lived with intensity and richness. Beneath its wild and free hide, there is also a sacred soul, bound and ennobled by humanity.

The Fourth Life: Dog — “The Dog’s Peace”

In the chapter of Little Four the dog, its temperament shifts gradually from wildness to reason. As a guardian, it loyally protects the young master, Lan Kaifang. As an observer, it witnesses the loves and hatreds of the Lan family’s generation. As a leader, it becomes the president of hundreds of dogs in the county, regularly presiding over full-moon assemblies by the fountain in the town square, greeted by the cheers of the pack.

The master and the dog are both participants and bystanders in each other’s lives. They exchange not a word, yet all the desires, hypocrisies, passions, and secrets that spread open before Little Four’s eyes are known to it, though it remains silent. At the same time, each is a ruler of their own sphere, maintaining self-restraint and boundaries. Thus, their relationship enters a state of civilized parallelism.

This chapter made me think about the nature of intimacy between two individuals. I once saw a metaphor: when each person exists as an individual, they are like animals—able to roam different forests, claim different territories without bonds. But when two people enter into a relationship, they become like plants, rooted in the same soil. Their roots intertwine, nourishing each other—but that nourishment depends on each tree’s ability to grow independently. If we do not grow well on our own, our roots only entangle and drag each other down.

In the relationship between Little Four and the Lan household, two individuals look at each other with a detached perspective, yet form an intimacy that leads to balance and harmony.

The Fifth Life: Monkey — “The Monkey Performs”

As the final life within the animal cycle, unlike the autonomous, detached dog, the monkey is completely subjugated—reduced to a tool for entertainment. Bereft of Little Four’s depth and wisdom, it becomes a brief regression toward the primitive state. Its last shards of animal nature vanish in an instant, scattered like ashes after being shot dead by Lan Kaifang. With this, the feud between the Ximen and Lan families surges into its climax, and the karmic cycle of the five animal reincarnations is brought to its end.

The Sixth Life: The Big-Headed Infant — “Reconciliation”

The title Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out comes from a Buddhist scripture: “Life and death are wearying, arising from desire. With fewer desires and non-action, the body and mind are at ease.”

This newborn, arriving with the tolling of the new millennium, is both a pure beginning and a vessel of all the memories of the past lives, bearing the weight of countless weathered souls. Through his mouth, the story of Ximen Nao’s reincarnations is told. Cause and effect, karma and retribution accumulate across each life, then dissolve, sink, and finally redeem.

I believe the most unconventional element of this book is its perspective: it uses the eyes of animals to observe humanity, while giving animals the voice and presence of human beings. Just as in Chinese tradition, the twelve zodiac animals correspond to earthly branches and are endowed with distinctive personalities and symbols.

In the human world, people struggle with all their might, longing to live as heroes. But in this book, the animals, with effortless calm, each embody their own extremes—the extremes of humanity, of obsession, of freedom. They drift with the currents of history’s tides. The pig arrives in its own era and enjoys its fortune. The dog loyally bears witness to human love and hate. Each writes its own era of the animal self.

Perhaps humans cannot truly understand animals. But animals exist in their own right. Or perhaps “human” is itself just a label—humans may live like dogs, and dogs may live with the soul of a human.

At this point, I am reminded of a film and a line of dialogue.