The recurring motif of blood saturates the narrative, linking the novel’s central thematic concerns of life and death, creation and destruction. More than a consequence of violence, blood drives the continued existence of Northeast Gaomi Township. It prominently features in events of childbirth, sexual passion, and brutal conflict. This motif illuminates the thin line between heroism and brutality by demonstrating that vitality and violence spring from the same source.

Early in the narrative, the young narrator’s father has a revelation when he touches a comrade’s wound, realizing the substance “smelled a lot like the mud of the Black Water River, but fresher […] There are times when everything on earth spits out the stench of human blood” (11). The connection of blood to the natural landscape elevates it from a sign of injury to an elemental force. The narrative consistently blurs the line between blood and sorghum wine; Dai Fenglian declares, “Uncle Arhat’s blood is in this wine” (28), and she literally washes her own blood-stained face in a wine vat. This symbolic fusion suggests that the passionate, defiant spirit represented by the wine is inseparable from the violent, bloody history of the people who produce and consume it, collapsing any clear distinction between heroism and brutality.