Thoughts on Let the Bullets Fly （让子弹飞）

[The World of Chinese]

I finally saw this last weekend after all the buzz, and I have to say, I was pretty disappointed. Admittedly, I had some trouble following it at first, but as the story went on the language seemed to get simpler and I'm fairly certain I didn't miss any plot points.

I thought the whole thing felt really rushed, in ways that was unnecessary. And there were some scenes where the level of the special effects was well below what I would have expected for a blockbuster with this kind of star power (specifically, in the beginning when the train flips into the water, and the part where the guy is being kicked into a drum over and over again...both struck me as ridiculously CGI).

I always enjoy Ge You's performances, and I like Jiang Wen too, but this movie seemed like kind of a misstep to me. I'm not sure what the fuss is about....did anyone else see it?

[abcdefg]

I saw it a couple weeks ago, but missed many twists in the convoluted plot. I also missed the humor in lots of the jokes. Not a criticism of the movie per se, it was just a function of my low language skills.

[gato]

I commented on it before in the movie thread:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/27230-what-was-the-last-chinese-film-you-watched/page__st__80

I was disappointed by it after seeing all the great reviews. The story and acting were too exaggerated for a drama, so you had to enjoy as a comedy or satire, but the jokes were a bit too obvious to be funny. Most comments about the movie have centered on the political messages hidden in the movie. It is amusing how much got through the censors, but that doesn't necessarily make it a good movie.

[character]

Does anyone know of an (English) discussion/list of all the hidden messages?

[mk121]

I actually just saw the movie last night and have to say that I really enjoyed it. As others have mentioned the movie is more of a satire than a drama, but much of the humor is inaccessible to basic mandarin speakers as a whole lot of it is demonstrated through chinese puns and allusions that poke fun at historical events and political movements in china for the past hundred years (which, as I understand, are hard for the vast majority of native speakers to understand as well). I luckilIy watched it with my chinese girlfriend so she was able to explain a few of these allusions that I didnt quite understand. All in all i thought it was rather entertaining. I really liked Chow yun-fat's character. He had me rolling in the majority of scenes he was in (“我带了三件事，第一是公平，第二是公平，第三还是他妈的公平！”　“什么叫惊喜") and although the action was a little ridiculous at some points, like in many chinese action movies, it was definitely a fun, intelligent film.

[character]

^ Feel free to share the puns and allusions you understood and that were explained to you...

[Gleaves]

So much of this movie went right over my head. This will be a good Chinese benchmark for me, I think (kind of like 武林外传). I'll try to watch it in a couple years and see if it makes any more sense.

"第一是公平..." - was that Chow Yun Fat or Jiang Wen? I thought all three actors (them two plus Ge you) were great, but I liked Jiang Wen the best.

[Silent]

I've watched it several times in bits and peaces a couple of months ago. I agree with the disappointing special effects. Specially the train at the opening of the movie. I've no clue about hidden messages. I had trouble enough (read: was unable) to take in the surface layer.

I think however it's a great movie for students. In general the dialogs are easy. My subtitle file contains only 1190 different characters that are combined to less than 2000 words. Only just over 800 characters occur more than once and give almost 98% coverage. Most of the dialogs are spoken at a reasonable rate and I pitched it a bit further down by playing it at 70-80% speed. (further downpitching gives annoying deformation). Compared to other movies I've seen it's mostly spoken pretty clear.

Because of this thread I tried to watch it again yesterday. I fell asleep early on in the movie. I saw however enough to boost my motivation. Despite having the impression that I'm stuck, from the movie I must conclude that I improved a fair bit since the last time I watched it.

[imron]

I recently bought the book the movie was based on and plan to read it once I finish reading my current book. Watching the movie it felt like the plot just jumped around in many places without much of an explanation, so hopefully the book will fill in some of those details.

For those interested, the book is called 夜谭十记.

[imron]

Ok, I've now started reading 夜谭十记 (which is actually a collection of 10 short stories), and although I haven't finished reading the entire book, I have finished the story that 让子弹飞 was based on (for those who are interested, story number 3 - 盗官记 - electronic version here) and now have a much better idea about things. I also rewatched 让子弹飞 after finishing the story so I'd have a clearer idea about the differences between the movie and the book, which I'll talk about below.

Long Post Warning.

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TL;DR: The book is better than the movie, explains a lot more things, and doesn't jump around so much. The book wasn't set out to poke fun/criticise corruption in modern China, but rather, given the time it was written, corruption in post-Qing pre-Communist China, which coincidentally seems to have had many of the same problems that Chinese society faces today. If anything, compared to the book, the movie plays down the amount of corruption amongst the wealthy elite as well as playing down the role communist ideals played in helping the oppressed overthrow their oppressors.

--

The movie basically follows the plot of the short story, however there were a number of large changes/additions that I don't think worked out so well, and are the reason that the movie seemed to jump around so much because they hide the motivations and explanations for why 张麻子 decides to become 县长 and also why he and 黃老爷 are at odds with each other. Not only that, but a couple of different characters seem to have been merged into one (presumably to give Ge You a longer role), which I don't think worked out so well either, and was probably part of the reason why they had to change some bits around.

I'm going to give a summary of the short story below, but before I do, I just want to talk a little bit about the book as a whole, because I think it helps explain a number of points and also brings context to speculation about whether certain parts of the movie were added to make subtle or not so subtle commentary about certain aspects of current Chinese government/society.

As mentioned previously, 夜谭十记 is a collection of short stories, but the stories are not completly isolated. The book itself revolves around a number of minor bureaucrats in a government office in post-Qing, pre-Communist China. Their job is not exactly interesting, nor is it going to make them rich, but it keeps them from starving and they have plenty of time to sit around chatting about various people and situations that they have encountered over the course of their bureaucratic careers. In fact they like swapping yarns so much that they decide to form their own story telling society - "The Cold Bench Club". The 10 members of this club each take it in turn to talk about some interesting event that happened to them, or that they heard about/witnessed during their career (hence the 十记) and each chapter is one of those stories (however the meta-story about the cold bench club and its members is also weaved into the beginning and end of each chapter, plus of course the introduction).

Interestingly, the entire book was written over a span of 40 years, with the first story being written in the early 1940's, and the book finally being published in the early 1980's. By his own account, the author was also a staunch communist, and before the founding of the People's Republic, worked as an underground agent for the communists in various positions in Kuomintang controlled areas of China.

I mention the above because I think it helps bring into perspective parts of the move that people see to be criticisms of current day society/government. Actually I'm now of the opinion that these probably weren't originally written as criticisms of today's society (because they also exist in the short story), rather they were criticisms of various aspects of society that existed back in the 30's and 40's, and it just so happens that many of them are also relevant today, given what modern Chinese society has become (I'm sure that's something the makers of the movie also realised, and revelled in). In fact when reading the book (not just the 让子弹飞 story, but the other ones too), you'd swear that parts of it could have been written yesterday, but given the timeline of when the book was written/published, that's not really possible, and presumably the author didn't have a crystal ball, and so one can only conclude that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Take for example this section taken from paragraph two of the introduction, where the main protagonist from the meta-story is talking about graduating from university (probably around the late 1930's early 40's) and mentioned:

我越想越得意。我捧着那张金字毕业证书，以为是捧着一只金饭碗，扬扬得意地走出校门，走进社会，等待着别人给我奉献牛奶、面包和荣誉。谁知竟应了在大学里早已听说却总不肯相信的话：“毕业即失业！”

Anyway, with all that aside, below is a complete summary of the story and some of the ways it differs from the movie.

SPOILER ALERT: the next part of this post contains numerous spoilers for both the book and the movie. I'm not going to put it in spoiler tags so If you haven't seen the movie or read the book, but are planning to, now would be a good point to stop reading if you don't want various plot points revealed.

The story begins with the current story teller saying that before he can begin the story proper, he first needs to provide bit of background story. He then begins by talking about the arrival of a newly appointed governor to the un-named county where he was working at the time. The county was situated on a river, and boats were the common method for arrivals and departures, and the arrival of the new governor was no exception. The governor, his advisor, financial director, wife and other members of his entourage are arriving on a larger boat which can't moor close to shore and so smaller boats are sent out to welcome the new arrivals.

Unfortunately, when getting on to the smaller boat, the new governor missteps and falls into the water, gets sucked under the larger boat and drowns. The people on the shore see this happen, but then see the members of the entourage huddle together for a short discussion and then continue on as usual. When they get to the shore, the person who was actually the governor's advisor is presented as the governor and everyone goes along with the charade (including the governor's wife). They pass off the drowned governor as an unimportant member of their entourage who was too excited to get on shore and rushed ahead of everyone and in his carelessness fell overboard and drowned. We also see that the person actually calling the shots on everything is the new financial director.

As it turns out, the new governor had actually bought his appointment, but buying a government appointment doesn't come cheap. Luckily, back then, there was an organisation willing to help loan money to people wanting to buy appointments to important government positions. After all, being governor put you in a position to earn (or in reality rob) a lot of money off the back of the general populace, and these loans were guaranteed by providing the governor-to-be with a financial director who made sure that any income first went towards repaying the loan and interest.

Normally such appointments are for a fixed time, however given that they're living a lie and don't want their charade to be exposed, the newly arrived 'governor' and his party decide (mostly from pressure from the financial director) that rather than sitting out the full term, they're just going to try and make as much money as possible to cover the loan in as short a time as possible, and then skip out. This basically means oppressing the general populace and riding them hard for taxes, and/or receiving large bribes to let local landowners do that for them.

Before long, wind of this activity reaches the ears of local bandit 张麻子, and it is here we are then given some background info on 张麻子, whose real name is unknown. The story teller chips in here to mention that despite being called a bandit, there was never a man more just and fair than 张. In fact you can see the story teller's admiration and respect for 张 throughout the whole story. Anyway, born into a poor family, 张 is sold off to a local landowner when he's big enough to hold his own rice bowl. This landowner also happens to be the steward of 黃老爷 (the wealthiest, most important and powerful landowner in the region). Life is harsh for the young 张, however he enjoys the company of the other workers, especially one of the older ones (also surnamed 张) who is always telling stories about martial heros in days gone by. The older 张 also teaches the younger 张 how to read, which the younger 张 takes to like a duck to water (mostly because he wants to be able to read the stories the older 张 is talking about). Anyway, years pass, and 张 grows up, and the older 张 passes away. One day 张's sister pays him a visit. Unfortunately for his sister, the landowner takes a liking to her, and decides that she'd make a nice gift as a servant for 黃老爷. 张 doesn't like the idea of that, but the landowner decides he's going to take her as a gift for 黃老爷 anyway, but not before raping her. While on the route to being delivered to 黃老爷, she then commits suicide. 张's father takes issue with this and sues the landowner, however all it takes is a note from 黃老爷, and the local magistrate instead orders that the father and the rest of 张's family be executed.

This enrages 张, and inspired by《水浒传》which he has just recently read, he takes to the hills with a bunch of other workers to live the life of a bandit, robbing the rich, and living free (watch out renzhe ). Actually I also kind of get the impression that 张 (whose real name is never revealed) took the surname 张 out of respect for the older 张 when he became an outlaw. Anyway, he gets the nickname 张麻子 because society at the time had a tendency to attribute bandits with looks corresponding to what they would expect of bandits, and so in wanted posters 张 is described as having a big beard and pockmarks, despite having neither.

It also happens that the hills 张 and his merry men set up camp in, are also owned by 黃老爷, and among other things are where 黃 grows and trafficks opium, and also where he maintains small groups of bandits he uses for robbing and kidnapping people to supplement his other incomes. 张 puts a stop to a lot of this, and defeats several of the bandit groups, taking their weapons and in the process also becoming incredibly popular with the general public because of his policy of only robbing the rich, and basically helping out the poor. His general popularity makes it difficult for 黃 and also the local government to put a stop to 张 because everytime they try to route him out of the mountains he has the support and help of the public to always manage to stay ahead of the game.

At this point, the story now returns to where it began, with the financial director, 'governor', governor's wife and their entourage running off in the middle of the night with their ill-gotten gains from the last few months of governing/robbing the people, and 张 deciding that he's going to rob them back, which he does. He then finds out their story and what they're doing and is amazed that you can just buy a government position like that. He kills both the financial director and the 'governor', but sets the other members of the party (including the governor's wife) free, as he sees them as just pawns and victims in the whole scenario.

张 has always been wanting to find a way to get back at 黃老爷 to avenge the death of his family, but knows that in the mountains, although he can harass 黃老爷, he can't really do much else, and so inspired by the ex-governor, he decides that'll he'll go and buy himself appointment as the new governor to not only exact revenge on 黃老爷, but while he's at it, also help prevent the general public from being oppressed by wealthy landowners.

Although 张 can read, no-one else in his group can, and they don't really know the ways of officialdom, and so they decide to go and find a non-corrupt local bureaucrat and convince him to join their cause. This is done first by kidnapping him and bringing him to their stronghold. We are only told his surname, 陈, and they ask him to join their cause, but he's not so sure. They keep him around for a while, treating him well, and he comes to see that they are good people fighting against injustice, and actually the real 'bandits' are the local landowners and corrupt government officials. After few months, 张 says the time has come to make a decision. Either he can stay and help them, or he is free to go. He stays to help.

陈 now accompanies 张 to the provincial capital to buy the appointment for governor of the county, which luckily, just so happens to be vacant 陈 gives 张 and his crew a crash course on the ins and outs of running a county, and also gives 张 a new name 张牧之, which is a play on 张麻子, but sounds much more elegant. Interestingly, in the movie, this is the other way round, where they say that 张麻子 is actually a bastardisation of 张牧之. The other big difference at this point between the book and the movie is Ge You's character, who seems to be a sort of a mix between the original financial director, the original governor's advisor, and also 陈. You can also see that by the time 张 arrives to take up position as governor, which occurs more or less at the beginning of the movie, there has been a whole lot of back-story which is never really explained. In contrast with the movie, the book 张 also has a completely loyal advisor in 陈, compared to Ge You's character who it seems is willing to be on whoever's side can be of more benefit to him.

Anyway, after a crash course in how to be a government official, and after buying a new set of clothes 张, 陈 and several key members of 张's gang arrive via boat in much the same way as the previous ex-governor (except no-one falls into the water) to take up their new appointment. Straight away the people see that 张 is going to be a different kind of governor, because he refuses to be carried in a litter to the government offices, and also forgoes the usual banquets and partying the accompany the appointment of a new governor, saying that based on orders from his superiors, this sort of activity by government officials needs to stop.

Very quickly, we also see that he's going to be on the side of the people. When a case comes up where a local landowner is suing a tenant for not paying rent on time, 张 finds in favour of the tenant. Actually, according to official government policy, landowners were supposed to be reducing rents, however most landowners ignored this policy as it was never enforced. This landowner on the other hand had decided to increase rents, hence the reason the farming tenant was unable to pay. 张 decides the case in favour of the tenant, and also shows that he's going to do away with many aspects of old society and that people are equal under the eyes of the law, regardless of wealth and status.

Not long afterwards, 张's county receives notice that it needs to pay a patriot tax of 50,000 yuan to fund the central government's ongoing military expenditures. Normally governors love this sort of thing because it gives them an excuse to tax the locals and cream money off the top. Landowners also love this kind of tax because the tax collection process is normally subcontracted out to them, and so they can cream money off the top too. 张 isn't having any of this, because he knows it's just going to create more of a burden for the people who can least afford it, and so he decides the tax will be levied based on the amount of land/grain one owns. This means instead of collecting the taxes, the landowners are going to be the ones paying them, while the general public who don't own land or stockpiles of grain, get off scot-free. This policy is extremely popular with the general public, but far less popular amongst the wealthy elite. In fact, 张 and 陈 were so worried about it, that they first went to the provincial capital to get the support of (i.e. bribe) a local powerful official, so they'd have someone to back them up if the wealthy elite went above their heads to complain.

张 gets back to town and announces the new tax, also saying the landowners who refuse to pay on time will be treated as obstructing the military affairs of the government. Some landowners say they are not going to pay, and they are swiftly dealt with - locked in prison and beaten until they agree to pay up, which doesn't take them too long. Being the largest landowner 黃 is also up for the largest taxes. He pays, but as a test of 张’s mettle, he gets one of his stewards, who is also a landowner, to refuse to pay. Everyone knows this person's connections with 黃老爷, so they're looking to see how 张 will deal with him. 张 of course doesn't care who he is, and locks him up, and decides to make an example of him and put him in a cage on public display. 陈 convinces 张 that this won't be the best idea, and so 陈 personally visits 黃老爷 and say they despite his steward breaking national law, because it's his first offence they are releasing him into 黃老爷's care. 黃老爷 apologises for his steward being so childish, and will see to it that he pays the tax. When the other landowners see that even 黃老爷 has capitulated, they are left with no other option and all pay as well.

张 hasn't finished here though, he also starts to enforce the previously unenforced policies of reducing rent for farmers and tenants, helped in part because the government has recently been losing a number of a battles against the communists, who are also winning the people's hearts, and so they have issued a directive ordering local officials to enforce this rent reduction policy to help win back the support of the people. At this point 黃 starts to suspect that 张 is possibly a communist, due to his continued policies of helping the poor at the expense of the rich. He gets the head of the local branch of the government's investigation bureau to investigate, but he fails to get any background information on 张 despite trying to wine and dine 张's men.

The general incorruptability of 张 and his men only further convinces 黃 that 张 is communist, and so sends away to the capital to get a couple of veteran agents to come and investigate. By the time the agents arrive, 张 has committed yet another act of goodwill for the people, executing two wealthy locals who saw themselves as above the law and went around raping, assaulting and extorting people as they pleased. The agents agree that 张's behaviour is suspicious, but say you can't find anything out from communists through wining, dining, money and women, and you have to use other more scientific methods. They take up roles in society that support the efforts of 张 as a way to get closer to him, but eventually also come to the conclusion that he doesn't appear to be communist, although they can't find out what specifically it is that motivates him.

Around this time, 张 and his men have been in charge of things for a couple of months, and 张's men are starting to get a little restless, mostly because they have nothing to do all day and they miss their days of being able to take direct action against injustice (rather than requiring to go through more legal methods). Unbeknownst to 张, they start to keep an ear out for various unjust things that are happening around town, usually as the result of some wealthy merchant or landowner bullying/oppressing a member of the general public, and then during the night they don masks and disguises, and go about meting out their own brand of justice, usually by stealing back money from the bully and giving it the victim, all the while threatening the bully to keep his mouth shut about the whole thing or else someone will come back and shut his mouth for him.

Before too long though, word starts to spread among the general population that a gang of benevolent vigilantes has come to town, and is helping provide justice for the poor. 张 learns from his men that they are behind it, and he wants to take part in their activities too. The rest of the gang say that as boss, he can't afford to get mixed up any of that sort of stuff, but when they decide one day to go and rob and threaten 黃老爷, 张 insists on taking part. Unfortunately the spate of recent vigilante justice has made 黃老爷 a little cagey and so he's always on guard and moving around, not letting his movements be known and always sleeping in different places. On the night that 张 and the gang raid 黃's house, he's not home, so the 张 and his men trash his room, steal various items of worth and make a break for it. In the process however they alert 黃's security guards and there is a brief firefight before they manage to escape, with 张 receiving a superficial wound to his finger and leaving a bloodied fingerprint on the surrounding wall of 黃's mansion.

The next day 黃 visits 张 to complain about the robbery and tell him that he needs to do something about all the recent attacks. With his injured finger, 张 doesn't want to meet 黃 as he might be able to figure out what happened, so he tells 陈 to go and deal with it. 陈 notices 张's finger and putting it together with what 黃 told him, realises that 张 and his men have been behind everything.

What has also been happening now that 张 is governor, is that he has a whole lot of inside information about which merchants are shipping which goods where and how, and which wealthy landowners are behind such shipments, and they feed this back to members of 张's gang who are still in the hills. This of course leads to an increase in the number of landowners who are being robbed by 张's gang, and so the notoriety of 张麻子 continues to grow, so much so that they tell 张 that he needs to do something about it. 张 has a good laugh and sticks up more wanted posters of himself on the city walls. He also agrees to send an armed force into the hills to route out 张麻子, but he can only do that if he can get more funds by way of a tax, once again imposed based on land/grain ownership. The wealthy landowners all agree. 张 naturally tips off his men about the raiding party, and tells them to either lay low for the time being, or even lie in ambush to steal the weapons of the raiding party. Needless to say the raiding party doesn't meet with any success in clearing out the 张麻子 and his bandits.

Unfortunately, this is where things start to come apart for 张 and his gang. With the flow of information happening between 张 and his men who are still in the hills, there is a constant coming and going of gang members to and from the government offices in the city. One of these gang members, 独眼龙, also happens to have a very distinguishing characteristic of wearing an eye-patch, and unfortunately one day he is spotted coming out of the government building by someone who was part of the original governor's entourage, that was captured and then later released by 张 and his men before 张 became governor. This person also happens to work for 黃老爷, and goes to report to him what he saw. He mentions what had previously happened to him and how he recognised 独眼龙. 黃 asks him if he saw 张麻子 while he was captured, to which the man replies that he didn't see anyway with a big beard or pock marks, so he guesses not. He also didn't recognise anyone else from that day when he was captured.

黃 arranges for a shipment of fake opium to be made, but is very conspicuous about it, knowing that information will make its way back to 张's gang and the shipment will be captured. He plans to use the opportunity to gather intelligence on 张's hideout, and also when the fake opium gets sold back on the market, he intends to catch the people selling it and get information out of them, knowing that they will be members of 张's gang. The plan goes as 黃 expects, and the shipment is captured and taken back to 张's mountain stronghold. The porters carrying the shipment are actually spies for 黃 who gather information about the location and defences of the hideout, and based on previous experience 黃 knows that 张's men will let the porters go free afterwards, which they do.

With the knowledge he gets back, 黃 starts to plan an assault on 张's hideout, teaming up with surrounding counties to send a force to the mountains to clean out 张's gang. He doesn't involve 张 because although he doesn't suspect either 张 or 陈, he's not sure he can trust other members of 张's staff. He also manages to infiltrate 张's mountain gang with a number of his agents.

张 on the other hand is sick of playing government official and wants to end everything. He decides he's going to call 黃 in to the magistrate's office to be tried for crimes and be executed. At the same time, he plans to call his entire gang into the city, and after the execution the gang will rob the bank, burn down the government offices, and make their escape. 张 sends word out for all his gang members to come to the city, and the infiltrators believe that they've somehow gotten word of 黃's pending attack and so when they get back to the city, one of them sneaks away to alert 黃. 黃 quickly sends out word to his attack force to return to the city, but knows it will take a couple of days.

Thanks to 陈, 张 finds out his gang was infiltrated, and so they decided to bring forward their plan to kill 黃 and make their escape. 张 sends 陈 to 黃's mansion to ask him to pay a visit to the government offices the day after next to discuss plans for clearing out 张's gang from the hills (at this point, neither party really knows what the other is up to). Anyway, with the plan brought forward 独眼龙 decides to sell the (unknown to him) fake opium straight away. He sends a couple of his men to sell it, but they are caught and taken back to 黃. 黃 can't get any information out of them, but locks them up, and with increasing reports of members of 张麻子's gang visiting the government offices, decides it would be an opportune time to have a chat with 陈, but they're not sure what pretext they can use to lure him out to 黃's mansion. It's at this point that 陈 arrives himself to ask 黃 to pay a visit to 张. 黃 starts to question 陈 about what he knows about members of 张's gang visiting the government offices, and 陈, realising that 黃 doesn't know the full story about what's happening, denies that he knows anything about it. 黃 locks him up anyway, in the same cell as the two gang members who had sold the fake opium.

One of these gang members manages to escape and alert 张 about what has happened, so 张 sends a team to rescue 陈 and the other gang member, and also arrest 黃. They are successful in doing this, capturing 黃 and bringing him in for trial. The general public, who basically see 张 as their saviour, and see 黃 as the worst of their oppressors, are over the moon, and are out in full force to attend the trial and subsequent execution. Just as the sword is about to come down on 黃 however, the executioner is shot, and a gang of armed men rescue 黃 and take him away. It turns out that the same person who recognised 独眼龙 was attending the trial and saw governor 张 for the first time, and also recognises him as being in charge from when he was captured by 张麻子, and puts two and two together about 张's real identity. He rushed to tell the two special agents (who are still around, and have been helping 黃), and those agents managed to bring in the armed forces who have just returned from the hills to rescue 黃.

张 however is not about to let 黃 escape, and chases after him and his rescuers, eventually catching up to them and cutting 黃 in two. As a result he is also captured by the two agents, who the other wealthy landowners appoint as acting governor and advisor. A bunch of 张’s gang also died in the resulting fight, although some of them managed to escape again into the hills, led by 独眼龙. In the resulting confusion, 陈 also manages to escape, but realises that for his part in the whole affair is likely a hanging offence if he's caught and so he's determined to stay hidden. The story ends with the story teller in tears telling of 张 admitting to being 张麻子, being tried and being taken away for execution.

The other members of the cold bench society ask what happened to 独眼龙 and also 陈, and the story teller, who it turns out is also surnamed 张, says that 独眼龙 escaped to the hills and continued to harass wealthy landowners, until eventually teaming up with communist forces. As for 陈, 张 mentions that he changed his name, moved to a new location, and did the only thing he knew to do, once again becoming a minor bureaucrat in a government office somewhere. The chapter concludes with the other members realising that story teller 张 is almost certainly 陈.

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Anyway, I really enjoyed the short story, and have been enjoying the other stories in the book also. It has a slightly higher difficulty level than some of the other books that have been recommended on the forums recently, and while more difficult that 活着 or 圈子圈套, it's still a good sight easier than 金庸 for anyone interested in giving it a go.