1. Selling Blood: A Metaphor for Survival at the Bottom#

Xu Sanguan sold blood eleven times in his life. Each time he sold blood marked a turning point in his fate—

The first time he sold blood was the beginning of his “keeping up with the times”; he used the money from selling blood to marry Xu Yulan. Later, to compensate for the trouble Yile caused, he sold blood. During the great famine, he used the money from selling blood to take the whole family to Victory Restaurant for a bowl of noodles. To help Erle get transferred back to the city, he sold blood to give gifts and entertain. Finally, to get Yile’s hepatitis treated, he sold blood all along the way to Shanghai and nearly died on the road.

In Xu Sanguan’s world, selling blood is not a metaphor but a tangible means of survival. Yet Yu Hua’s narrative turns it into a metaphor—the only “capital” of the people at the bottom is their own bodies, and when they have nowhere to turn, they can only extract the most precious thing from their bodies in exchange for a chance to survive.

2. Yile: The Trial of Bloodline and Kinship#

Yile is not Xu Sanguan’s biological son, and this fact triggers the most intense conflict in the novel. Xu Sanguan’s anger and pain upon learning the truth are real—he sends Yile to call back He Xiaoyong’s soul, and he refuses to acknowledge Yile as his son. But at the critical moments, when Yile truly needs a father, Xu Sanguan always chooses to be his father.

The most moving passage occurs when Yile falls ill. Xu Sanguan sells blood all the way to Shanghai; in the cold winter, he sells blood in different towns, and after each sale he buys a bowl of stir-fried pork liver and two liang of yellow wine to “replenish his blood.” This man at the bottom uses the most primitive method—drawing out his own blood—to save a child who shares no bloodline with him. This fatherly love beyond blood is the warmest moment in Yu Hua’s writing.

3. Dialogue: The Art of Dissolving Weight#

The most distinctive artistic achievement of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is its dialogue. The novel makes extensive use of concise short sentences and repetitive dialogue structures, creating a rhythm close to folk storytelling and singing. Xu Sanguan’s mouth is never idle; he uses chatter, complaints, and bragging to resist the oppression of fate.

This narrative approach forms a sharp contrast with To Live. Fugui in To Live is silent; his suffering is a stone pressed against the reader’s chest. In Chronicle of a Blood Merchant, the same suffering is diluted by dialogue and dissolved by humor. This is not escape, but a kind of survival wisdom unique to Chinese folk life—“When you’re living your days, you laugh and chat and it passes.”

4. Small Figures in the Historical Background#

The novel spans several important historical periods from the 1950s to the 1990s: the Great Leap Forward, the People’s Commune, the Great Famine, the Cultural Revolution, and the early days of Reform and Opening Up. Yu Hua does not directly depict these grand narratives; instead, through the life of Xu Sanguan’s family, he lets us see how the times concretely affect the life of an ordinary person.

During the famine, Xu Sanguan “cooks for everyone with his mouth” on his birthday—he describes in detail how to make braised pork, making the whole family’s mouths water as they listen. This passage is absurd and heartbreaking; it records the hunger of that era more truthfully than any macroscopic historical account.

5. The Ending: No One Wants His Blood Anymore#

The ending of the novel has a gentle cruelty. Xu Sanguan has grown old, and the last time he wants to sell blood, he is refused by the blood broker—“Only a paint maker would want your blood.” Xu Sanguan wails loudly on the street, not because his body is failing, but because he feels his blood is no longer wanted, and in the future when difficulties arise there will be no way to solve them.

Xu Yulan scolds him, saying life is better now and there’s no need to sell blood. But Xu Sanguan’s crying contains a deeper sorrow—his whole life, his value of existence, his entire dignity as a man and a father, are bound up with “selling blood.” When his blood no longer has value, he doesn’t know who he is.

6. My Reading Experience#

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant has a kind of “refined lightness.” Yu Hua uses the plainest language and the simplest structure to write the heaviest subject with ease. It reminds me of an old Chinese saying—“Playing the pipa under the coptis tree.” Xu Sanguan is like that, playing the pipa under the coptis tree his whole life.

After reading this book, you will feel that Xu Sanguan is someone you know. He may not be very clever, is a bit concerned with face, and sometimes unreasonable, but at the most critical moments, all the blood drawn from his body turned into love and flowed back into the people he loved.