The Bray of a Live Donkey

Zhang Yao woke up tied to a chair.

The room was dim — he could make out desks and chairs stacked along the walls, and the number four chalked on the blackboard. He was in an empty classroom. Class 4.

His wrists were bound to the armrests and his ankles to the legs of the chair with what felt like electrical cable. He had a headache severe enough that thinking through it was difficult. He remembered the hospital, the sedative the doctor had given him after the classroom incident, and nothing after that.

Standing in front of him was a figure in a gray cotton robe. On the figure's head was a mask — not a rubber Halloween mask, but a papier-mâché face painted with bright colors in the style of traditional opera. Round eyes, red cheeks, a wide fixed grin. It was a woman's face, Zhang Yao thought — the shape of the jaw, the style of the features.

The figure was carrying a short-handled entrenching shovel.

Zhang Yao stared. Then he understood. "Gu Qing," he said.

The figure tilted its painted head. When it spoke, the voice that came out was a woman's, deliberately roughened. "You remember."

"Gu Qing is dead," Zhang Yao said. "I saw her body."

"You see a lot of things." The figure tapped the flat of the shovel blade against its palm. "What I'm interested in is what you did. You were head of school discipline for six years. You want to tell me what that involved?"

Zhang Yao said nothing.

The figure brought the shovel around in a short hard arc and struck the edge of the chair beside his right hand. The clang rang through the empty classroom. Zhang Yao flinched.

"Speak," the figure said. "Let's start simply. How many complaints were filed with the disciplinary office in the past three years about teacher misconduct? What happened to those complaints?"

"I don't know the exact—"

Another strike, closer. Zhang Yao shouted at the impact.

"Every complaint that named a tenured teacher was buried," the figure said. "You filed them in a locked cabinet in your office and they were never followed up on. I have a specific list. Do you want me to go through it?"

"What do you want from me?"

"I want you to understand what you protected," the figure said. The voice was still rough but something in the phrasing was precise, almost academic. "And I want you to say it out loud. Here. To me. So that at least one living person heard a man in your position admit it."

Zhang Yao was sweating now despite the cold room. The figure's painted face watched him with its fixed grin, entirely still.

"I want a lawyer," he said.

The shovel struck him on the shoulder. Not hard enough to break anything — but hard enough that his vision went white and he heard himself make a noise he had never made before: a hoarse wordless cry, like an animal.

The figure leaned down close to the painted mask. "That's the sound," the figure said softly. "That's exactly the sound. They called it the bray of a live donkey. Did you know that? When a person makes that sound under a blow — that was how teachers punished students, in the old days, when people could get away with it. The students made that sound. Didn't any of them file a complaint with you?"

Zhang Yao was shaking. Tears were running down his face. He couldn't stop them.

"Yes," the figure said, straightening up. "Some of them did."