Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN





Xiaojia Sings in Full Voice

Cannons draped in red create a rumbling boom, wind in a clear sky where wind and thunder loom~~meow meow meow~~I’m with Dieh-dieh on this execution day, and in my heart flowers bloom, glowing reds lucid purples glistening yellows pure whites blues, ah, soulful blues~~having a dieh is wonderful, having a dieh is wonderful~~meow meow~~when Dieh-dieh said that killing a person is better than killing a pig, I nearly jumped out of my skin~~wuliaoao, wuliao~~this morning I had plenty to eat, oil fritters that can’t be beat, and from the small pot my fill of meat. Bloodsoaked fritters a tasty treat, better than a dead rat with tiny feet~~wuliaoao, wuliao~~Another dead rat is the blood-soaked flesh~~Sandalwood stakes tested on a pig, Dieh-dieh training me to match his masterful skills. All to impale Sun Bing from the bottom up. Pound in the stake, ah, pound in the stake, pound in the stake~~meow meow meow~~A raucous crowd comes our way down the street, a cannon fires, bad news brings a change to my eyes. Then the tiger whisker spirit reappears, and the scene around me augurs defeat. No more people, the ground is full of pigs and dogs and horses and cows, bad people turned into savage wild animals, even a big turtle carried on an eight-man palanquin seat. It is Yuan Shikai, that bastard effete, a high official who is no match for my dieh~~meow meow meow~~mew~~

—Maoqiang Sandalwood Death. A childish aria





1




Brilliant reds greeted me when I opened my eyes—Hey! Where’s the fire? Heh-heh, there’s no fire. The sun had come out. The bed of wheat straw was alive with insects that bit me all over. Half-cooked oil fritters lay heavily in my stomach all night long, and I could not stop breaking wind. I could see that Dieh was no longer a panther, just my dieh, a mystical dieh who sat primly in the sandalwood Dragon Chair given to him by His Majesty the Emperor, fingering his string of sandalwood prayer beads. There were times when I wanted to sit in that chair just to see how it felt, but Dieh said no. “Not just anyone can sit in this chair,” he said. “If you don’t have a dragon bunghole, you’ll get up with hemorrhoids.” Liar! If Dieh had a dragon bunghole, how could his son not have one? If he did and his son didn’t, then the dieh wouldn’t be the dieh and the son wouldn’t be the son. So there! I was used to hearing people say “A dragon begets a dragon, a phoenix begets a phoenix, and when a rat is born, it digs a hole.” So Dieh was sitting in his chair, half his face red, the other half white, eyes barely open, lips seeming to quiver, all sort of dreamlike.

“Dieh,” I said, “please let me sit in that chair just for a moment before they get here.”

“No,” he said, pulling a long face, “not yet.”

“Then when?”

“After we’ve completed the important task ahead of us.” The expression on his face had not changed, and I knew that was intentional. He was very, very fond of me, a boy everyone was drawn to. How could he not be? I went up behind him, wrapped my arms around his neck, and touched the back of his head with my chin. “Since you won’t let me sit in the Dragon Chair,” I said, “then tell me a Peking story before they get here.”

“I do that every single day,” he said, seemingly annoyed. “How many stories do you think there are?”

I knew his annoyance was just an act. Dieh enjoyed nothing more than telling me Peking stories. “Please, Dieh,” I said. “If you don’t have any new stories, tell me one of the old ones.”

“What’s so appealing about the old stories?” he said. “Have you never heard the adage ‘Repeat something three times, and not even the dogs will listen’?”

“I’ll listen even if the dogs won’t,” I said.

“What am I going to do with you, my boy?” He looked up at the sun. “We have a little time,” he said finally. “I’ll tell you a story about Guo Mao, how’s that?”





2




I have not forgotten a single story my dieh told me, not one of the hundred and forty-one. Each of them is packed away in my head, which has lots of drawers, like those cabinets in herbal pharmacies. Every story has a drawer of its own, and there are still lots of drawers left over. I started pulling out drawers, and found that none of them held a story about Guo Mao. Happy? I was thrilled! A new story! I pulled out the hundred and forty-second drawer, into which I would put the story of Guo Mao.

“During the Xianfeng reign in the mid-nineteenth century, a father and son showed up in Tianqiao. The father’s name was Guo Mao, or Guo the Cat. His son’s name was Xiaomao, or Kitten. Both father and son were accomplished mimics. Do you know what that is? It’s someone who uses his mouth to imitate all the different sounds in the world.”

“Could they imitate the cry of a cat?”

“Children mustn’t interrupt when grownups are talking! Anyway, father and son quickly gained a reputation as street performers in Tianqiao. When I heard about them, I sneaked over to Tianqiao, without telling Grandma Yu, and joined the crowd milling at the square. I was pretty small back then, and skinny, and I had no trouble squeezing my way up front, where I saw a boy sitting on a stool, holding a hat. I got there just in time for the performance to begin: a rooster crows behind a dark curtain, a sound that’s immediately echoed by dozens of roosters, near and far, some of them squeaky attempts by young birds still with fledgling feathers. The squawks are accompanied by the thup-thup of flapping wings. Then an old woman tells her husband and son that it is time to get up. The old man coughs, spits, lights his pipe, and bangs the bowl against the side of the heated bed. The boy snores on until she forces him to get out of bed, which he does, muttering and yawning noisily as he gets dressed. A door opens, and the boy goes outside to pee before fetching water to wash up. The old woman starts a fire in the stove with the help of a bellows, while the old man and the boy go out to the pigsty to catch one of the pigs, a noisy process. The pig crashes through the gate and starts running around in the yard, where it knocks over a water bucket and smashes a bedpan. Then it bursts into a henhouse, producing an uproar of squawks from the terrified chickens, several of which flap their way up onto a wall. The boy grabs the squealing pig by a hind leg and is joined by his father, who takes hold of the other hind leg and helps him pull the animal out of the henhouse. But its head is caught, which its shrill complaints vividly attest. In the end they tie its legs with a rope and carry it over to the slaughtering rack. The pig fights to get free. The boy whacks it over the head with a club. Agonizing squeals follow. Then the boy sharpens a knife on a whetstone, while his father drags over a clay basin to catch the blood. The boy buries the knife in the pig’s neck. The stuck pig squeals. Blood spurts, first onto the ground, then into the basin. After this, the woman brings out a tub of hot water, and the three of them busily debristle the animal. That done, the boy opens the pig’s belly and scoops out the internal organs. A dog comes up, steals a length of intestine, and runs off. The old woman curses the dog, managing a hit or two before it’s out of range. The man and his son hang the butchered meat on a rack. Customers come up to buy cuts of pork. There are older women, older men, young women, and children. After selling off the meat, father and son count their money before the family of three enjoy a meal of slurpy porridge . . . all of a sudden, the dark curtain parted and all anyone saw was a scrawny old man sitting on a stool. He was rewarded with enthusiastic applause. Then the boy got down off his stool and passed the hat. Coins rained down into the cap, except for those that landed on the ground. Your dieh saw it with his own eyes and did not make up any of it. The old adage holds true: ‘Every trade has its zhuangyuan.’”





3




Now that he had told his story, Dieh sat quietly with his eyes shut. But I was too enraptured to want to extract myself from the tale. It was yet another story about a boy and his father, and I could not help feeling that all his stories about a boy and his father were really about me and him. Dieh was the mimic, Guo Mao, and I was the boy who walked through the crowd, hat in hand—Meow meow~~mew~~

My dieh had performed countless executions in the capital to audiences of thousands, people who were drawn to his unparalleled skill, and it seemed to me that I could actually see tears in the people’s eyes. Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if I’d been there with Dieh at the time, hat in hand, a cat cap on my head, collecting donations from onlookers? While I was collecting money, I’d be practicing my cat cries~~meow meow~~and how wonderful that would be! Just think about all the money I’d get! I tell you, Dieh, why did you wait so long to come home and introduce yourself to your son? You could have taken me to the capital with you. If I’d been at your side ever since I was a boy, by now I’d be a man-slaying zhuangyuan . . .

When my dieh first showed up in town, people took me aside and whispered, “Xiaojia, your dieh isn’t human.” “What is he, then?” “He’s a ghost that has taken over a corpse and brought it back to life. Think about it, Xiaojia, before your mother died, did she ever say you had a father? No? Of course not. So your mother said nothing about a father on her deathbed, and then he shows up, like he’d dropped out of the sky or popped up out of the ground. What could he possibly be except a ghost?”

“Go f*ck yourself!” Meow meow. I rushed those tongue-wagging bastards with a cleaver. I went without a dieh for more than twenty years, and now, by some miracle, I suddenly have one, and you people have the nerve to say not only that is he not my dieh, but that he’s a ghost. You’re as brazen as rats that’ll lick a cat’s ass. I raised my cleaver and ran at them. Meow meow. With one swing of my cleaver I could chop them in two, from their heads all the way down to their heels. My dieh said that particular chop is called the “big cleave,” and today I’m going to use it on any son of a bitch who has the guts to say my dieh isn’t really my dieh. Well, they nearly shit their pants when they saw the look of rage on my face, and could not get out of there fast enough. Meow meow, watch out, you bunch of long-tailed rats. Provoke my dieh, and you’re asking for trouble. The same goes for me. Meow meow. Come give it a try if you don’t believe me, any of you. My dieh is an executioner who sits in the Emperor’s chair. His Majesty gave him leave to report an execution after it had been carried out, to kill without constraints, man or dog. And when I take my place, knife in hand, at my dieh’s side, I can kill a man as easily as I can butcher a pig or a dog.

I pleaded with Dieh to tell me another story. He said:

“Quit dawdling and get things ready. I don’t want you rushing around when it’s time to do our job.”

I knew that a spectacle was planned for today—spectacles always made for happy days for Dieh and me—and that there would be plenty of time later for stories. Good food needs to be savored. Once the sandalwood death was successfully carried out, Dieh would be in a good mood, and there’d be nothing holding him back from spitting out all the stories he held inside, for my ears alone. I walked out behind the shed to relieve myself—numbers one and two—and took a look around while I was at it. The opera stage and Ascension Platform were there, and I watched a flock of wild pigeons, their wings flapping loudly, fly past in the bright sunlight. The parade ground was surrounded: soldier, wooden post, soldier, wooden post. A dozen cannons hunkered down at the field’s edge. People called them turtle cannons, I called them dog cannons. Turtle cannons, dog cannons, slick and smooth, loud barks, green moss on the turtles’ shells, dogs’ bodies covered with fur, meow meow.

I retraced my steps to the front of the shed, itching for something to do. I needed a job of some sort. By this time on most days, I’d already have slaughtered the day’s pigs and dogs and hung the carcasses on the a rack, letting the smell of fresh meat join the birds in the sky. Customers would be lined up in front of the shop, while I stood at the butcher block, cleaver in hand to chop off a hunk of the still-warm fatty meat, giving my customers the exact amount they asked for, not an ounce more or an ounce less. They’d give me a thumbs-up. “Xiaojia,” they’d say, “you’re quite the man!” I didn’t need them to tell me that. But this was the first time I was to be part of a spectacle with Dieh, one that was a lot more important than butchering pigs. But what about all those customers? What do we do? Sorry, folks, I guess you’ll have to be vegetarians for a day.

I was getting bored now that there were no more stories, so I went up to the stove, where the fire had gone out. There were no ripples on the surface of the glistening oil. It was no longer a cauldron of oil, but a mirror, a big bronze mirror, brighter than my wife’s mirror at home, and so clear that I could count the whiskers on my face. There were dried stains in the mud in front of the stove and on the stand—Song Three’s blood. And those weren’t the only places his blood had landed; some had splattered into the cauldron. Was that why the oil had such a bright sheen? After this business of the sandalwood death is done with, I’m going to move this cauldron into the yard back home and let my wife see her face in it, but only if she refrains from mistreating my dieh. Last night I was half asleep when I heard a loud pop. Song Three’s head was buried in the churning oil, and before they could pull it out, it was about half cooked. I got a kick out of that. Meow meow.

That was good shooting. Who did it? My dieh didn’t know, and the government soldiers who started looking the moment they heard the shot didn’t know. I’m the only one who knew. Gaomi County could boast only two marksmen that good. One was the rabbit hunter Niu Qing; the other was County Magistrate Qian Ding. Niu Qing had one eye—the left one. He’d lost his right one when his gun blew up in his face. A distinct improvement in his marksmanship followed the accident. He mastered the skill of shooting rabbits on the run. If he raised his fowling piece, a rabbit would be on its way to the netherworld. Niu Qing was a good friend of mine. My good friend. The other marksman was the venerable Qian Ding, our County Magistrate. Once, when I was in the Great Northern Wilderness hunting for herbal medicine for my wife’s illness, I saw Qian Ding, with his attendants Chunsheng and Liu Pu, out hunting. Chunsheng and Liu Pu were on donkeys driving rabbits out of the bushes so the Magistrate, sitting astride his horse, could draw his pistol and, seemingly without aiming, send a rabbit flying up into the air to land with a thud—dead.

From where I hid in the brush, not daring to make a sound, I could hear Chunsheng praise the Magistrate to the skies with words like “crack shot,” while Liu Pu sat in the saddle, head down, a blank look on his face that gave away nothing of what he was thinking. My wife once told me that the Magistrate’s loyal follower, Liu Pu, was Qian Ding’s wife’s ganerzi, and the son of some big shot. He was, she said, a wise and talented man. I refused to believe her. What talented man would serve as somebody’s lackey? A talented man would be like my dieh, who lifted up his sword, smeared his face with blood, and—thwack thwack thwack thwack thwack thwack, six heads rolled on the ground.

The Magistrate was no marksman, was how I saw it, just a lucky shot, like a blind cat bumping into a dead rat. He’d probably miss the next. Well, as if he knew what I was thinking, he pointed his pistol into the air and brought down a bird. A dead bird, like a black stone, plopped down right next to me. Would you believe it! A superhuman marksman, meow meow. The Magistrate’s hunting dog came bounding over to me. I stood up with the dead bird, its body heat burning my hand. The dog leaped and jumped up and down, barking the whole time. Now, I’m not afraid of dogs; dogs are afraid of me. Every dog in Gaomi County runs away with its tail between its legs, yelping like crazy, when it sees me coming. Dogs’ fear of me proves how much I take after my dieh, a panther. The Magistrate’s dog looked mean, but I could tell from its bark that it was expecting to be backed up by its master to make me think it wasn’t afraid. Me, Gaomi County’s King of Hell for dogs! The dog’s barks brought Chunsheng and Liu Pu riding up from two sides. I was a stranger to Liu Pu, but Chunsheng was a friend of mine. He’d often visited the shop, where he was treated to cut-rate food and drink. “What are you doing here, Xiaojia?” he asked. “Searching for herbal stuff,” I said. “My wife is sick, and she sent me out to find some heartbreak grass with red roots and green leaves. Know where I can find any? If so, tell me, and hurry, because she’s in a bad way.” By then the Magistrate had ridden up and was giving me the once-over with a pitiless look in his eyes. “Who are you?” he demanded. “What is your name?” He sputtered when I didn’t answer. When I was still a little boy, my mother told me to act dumb in the presence of an official. “He’s Dog-Meat Xishi’s husband,” Chunsheng whispered, “a borderline idiot.” Well, f*ck you, Chunsheng! I felt like saying. I was just saying how you were a friend of mine, and that’s no way for a friend to talk. Would a real friend say that his friend is a borderline idiot? Meow meow, f*ck you! Who are you calling a borderline idiot? If that’s what I am, then you’re a total idiot.

When Niu Qing pulled the trigger, only buckshot came out of the barrel. But the Magistrate fired a single bullet each time he pulled the trigger. A neat little hole dotted Song Three’s head, and if that doesn’t prove it was the Magistrate, I don’t know what does. But then why would the Magistrate want to kill Song Three? Oh, now I get it. Song Three, you must have stolen money from the Magistrate, something most people would not dare to do. Stealing from the Magistrate was signing your own death warrant. Most of the time you pranced around the yamen like a big shot and refused to even acknowledge my presence. You refused to settle up the five strings of cash you owed the shop, and I didn’t have the nerve to ask you for it. Well, things worked out in the end. We’re out the money, but you’re out for good. Now, which was more important, your money or your life? Your life, of course, so take your unpaid debt and talk it over with the King of Hell.





4




Government troops were swarming our way even as the sound of gunfire hung in the air. They dragged the top half of Song Three’s body out of the oil. His head reeked of sesame oil, which dripped along with his blood back into the cauldron. It looked like a newly fried hawthorn berry. Meow meow. The soldiers laid him out on the ground, where his legs, a thread of life still in them, twitched uncontrollably, evoking the image of a half-dead chicken. The soldiers stared wide-eyed at the soon-to-be corpse, not knowing what to do. One of their officers rushed up and bundled my dieh and me into the shed, then turned to look in the direction from which the bullet had come and fired his weapon. I’d never had a rifle fire that close to me, a foreign rifle, at that—I’d heard it was a German weapon whose bullets could penetrate a wall at over a thousand yards. The other soldiers took his lead and fired at the same spot. Smoke emerged from their muzzles when they stopped shooting, and the smell of gunpowder engulfed us, like New Year’s, when firecrackers are set off. “Go after him!” the officer commanded. Meow meow. The soldiers took off running, whooping and hollering. If Dieh hadn’t grabbed me by the arm, I’d have taken out after them to watch the fun! Those morons, I was thinking, what do they think they’re going to find? By the time you dragged Song Three out of the boiling oil, the Magistrate was already back in the yamen, thanks to his spirited horse, a Red Rabbit thoroughbred. With its sleek red coat, it looked like a fiery red blur when it galloped at high speed, faster and faster, filling the air with a whistling sound. The animal, which had once belonged to Master Guan Yu, did not eat hay. When it was hungry, it ate a mouthful of fresh dirt, and when it was thirsty, it drank the wind. Or so Dieh told me. He also said that instead of Red Rabbit, it ought to be called an earth-eating or wind-drinking thoroughbred, because those traits described the animal’s essence. It was a fine animal, a rare treasure, and I wondered whether I would ever own such a horse. If that happened one day, I’d let my dieh be its first rider. He’d probably want that privilege to be mine, but I’d insist. As a filial son, I always let him have the best. The most filial son in Gaomi County, the most filial son in Laizhou Prefecture, the most filial son in Shandong Province, the most filial son in all of the Great Qing Empire! Meow meow.

After searching the area, the soldiers started heading back in twos and threes.

“Grandma Zhao,” the officer said, “Excellency Yuan asks you to please remain inside the shed from now on. It’s for your protection.”

Dieh merely grinned in response. Several dozen soldiers quickly surrounded the shed, meow meow, as if we were treasures to be protected. The officer blew out the candle and moved the two of us out of the moonlight. Then he asked my dieh if the sandalwood stakes in the cauldron were ready. “More or less,” Dieh replied. So the officer removed the kindling under the stove and dumped it in water. I love the smell of charred wood, so I breathed in deeply. In the darkness I heard Dieh say, either to me or to himself:

“Heaven’s will, it was heaven’s will. A sacrifice to the sandalwood stakes!”

“What did you say, Dieh?”

“Go to sleep, son. Tomorrow is our big day.”

“Would you like me to massage your back, Dieh?”

“No.”

“Scratch your back?”

“Go to sleep!” he said, starting to get annoyed.

Meow meow.

“Go to sleep.”





5




Once the sun was up, the cordon of government soldiers around the shed was replaced by a contingent of German soldiers that ringed the parade ground, facing out. Once they were in place, another contingent, this time of government troops, moved in and took up positions around the parade ground, but facing in. Finally, six government troops and six German soldiers marched in and took their positions: one at each corner of the shed, one at each corner of the Ascension Platform, and four in front of the opera stage. Two of the four men at our shed were foreign; the other two were Yuan’s troops. They all had their backs to the shed, standing at attention, as if competing to see who could stand the straightest. Meow meow, straight as an arrow.

As he fingered his prayer beads, Dieh looked like a meditating old monk, Amita Buddha. Amita Buddha, my wife said that a lot. My eyes, like awls, bored into Dieh’s hands. Meow meow, they were uncommon hands; the Great Qing Empire’s hands, the nation’s hands, the hands of the venerable Empress Dowager Cixi and the ageless Emperor. My dieh’s were the hands They used to kill anyone They wanted dead. If the Empress Dowager said to my dieh: “Slaymaster, go kill someone for Me,” my dieh would say, “As you wish!” If the ageless Emperor said: “Slay-master, go kill someone for Me,” my dieh would say, “As you wish!” My dieh had wonderful hands. Still, they were a pair of little birds; in motion, they were like feathers. Meow meow. I still remember how my wife once said to me, “Your dieh’s hands are abnormally small,” and as I looked at those hands, I couldn’t help feeling that he was somehow not an ordinary human being. If not a ghost, he had to be an immortal. On pain of death, you would never believe that those hands were capable of killing a thousand people. Hands like his belonged to a midwife. Where I come from, we call a midwife an auspicious grandma. Auspicious Grandma, Grandma Auspicious, ah-ya-ah, and I suddenly understood why people in the capital referred to him as Grandma. He was a midwife. But then again, midwives are all women, and my dieh is a man. Or is he? Of course he is; I’ve seen his little pecker when I bathed him. It’s like a little frozen green carrot, heh-heh . . . What are you laughing at? Heh-heh, a little carrot . . . Idiot son. Meow meow, can men really be midwives? Wouldn’t a male midwife be a laughingstock? And wouldn’t he have a clear view of a woman’s privates? And wouldn’t that be all her menfolk needed to beat him to death? I didn’t know what to think, and the harder I tried, the more confused I became. To hell with it. Who’s got time to waste on stuff like that?

My dieh’s eyes snapped open; he draped his prayer beads around his neck, stood up, and went to check the cauldron of oil. I could see our upside-down reflections in the oil. The surface was brighter than a mirror, and so clear I could see every pore in our faces. Dieh lifted one of the sandalwood stakes out, breaking the smooth surface and turning my reflection into the long face of a goat. What a shock! All along, my true form has been that of a goat, with a pair of horns. Meow meow. What a disappointment. Dieh’s true form is a black panther, the County Magistrate is a white tiger, my wife is a white snake, and me? I’m a bearded goat. A goat! What kind of animal is that! I didn’t want to be a damned goat! Dieh examined the stake in the sunlight, like a master blacksmith examining a newly forged sword. Bright threads of oil dripped back into the cauldron, creating little eddies on the surface of the slightly gummy oil. He waited till the last of the oil had dripped from the stake before taking out a piece of white silk and wiping the stake dry. The silk quickly absorbed all the oil residue. Dieh laid the silk on the cauldron stand, then held the stake in two hands—one on the butt, the other on the tip—and tried to bend it. I detected a slight arch when he did that; it returned to its original shape as soon as he loosened his grip. After placing the stake on the cauldron stand, he lifted out the second stake, first letting all the oil drip off, then wiping it dry with the silk, and tried to bend it. As before, when he loosened his grip, it returned to its original shape. A look of satisfaction spread across his face. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen him so happy, and it affected me the same way, meow meow. What a wonderful thing, the sandalwood death, for it made my dieh happy, meow meow.

Dieh carried the two sandalwood stakes into the shed and laid them on a small table. He then knelt on the straw mat and bowed down to pay his respects, as if an invisible apparition were ensconced behind the table. His obeisance completed, he got up and sat in his chair, shielding his eyes with his hand as he gazed heavenward. The sun had begun its climb in the morning sky; normally by this time I’d have sold off all that day’s fresh pork, and it would be time to slaughter dogs. Having noted the sun’s progress, without looking at me, Dieh said:

“You can kill the rooster, son!”

Meow meow~~mew~~





6




My heart soared when Dieh said that! Meow meow meow, Dieh, dear Dieh, my dear dieh! My seemingly unending wait was over, and the long-delayed moment of excitement had arrived. I selected a razor-sharp paring knife from the knife hamper and showed it to Dieh. He nodded. Then I went up to the rooster, which began flapping its wings; its tail feathers jerked up, and out came a puddle of white excrement. On most mornings at this time, it would be perched on the wall at home crowing loudly, but today it was tied to a post. With the knife held between my teeth, I reached down and grabbed it by its wings and held its legs down with my foot. Dieh had told me this rooster was for its blood, not for eating, so I placed a black bowl under its neck to catch the blood. The rooster, burning hot, was struggling to free its head from my hand. I squeezed hard. Behave yourself, damn it, how am I supposed to do this if you don’t behave yourself? Pigs are stronger than you, dogs meaner, and they don’t scare me, so what makes a rooster think it can scare me? F*ck you. I plucked its neck clean, stretched it taut, and made a pass with my knife. The skin parted. No blood appeared at first, which made me nervous, because Dieh had said that if you kill a rooster prior to an execution and it doesn’t bleed, things will not go well that day. I made a second cut, and this time it worked: purplish blood gushed from the wound, like the stream a young boy makes when he gets up after a good night’s sleep. Splash splash, meow meow. More blood spurted than the bowl could take, and some of it spilled over the side. “There, Dieh,” I said as I tossed the limp bird to the ground, “that does it.” With a broad smile, he waved me over and told me to get down on my knees. Then he plunged both hands into the blood, almost as if he expected them to drink it up. Dieh’s hands come equipped with mouths, I was thinking, and can drink blood. He smiled.

“Close your eyes, son,” he said.

I closed them, as he said. I am an obedient child. Wrapping my arms around his legs, I banged my forehead into his knees and sputtered: Meow meow . . . “Dieh Dieh Dieh Dieh . . .”

Dieh clasped my head between his knees.

“Raise your head, son,” he said.

So I did, and I was looking into his impressive face. I am an obedient child. Before I had a dieh, I obeyed my wife, but after that I obeyed my dieh. That thought reminded me of my wife, whom I hadn’t seen for a day and a half. Where had she gotten to? Meow meow . . . Dieh rubbed his blood-soaked hands all over my face, sending a stench much worse than pig’s blood into my nostrils. I hated the idea of having my face smeared with rooster blood, but Dieh had the final word on that. If I didn’t obey him, he’d send me into the yamen to be paddled, five ten fifteen twenty swats from a big wooden paddle that would leave me with a bloody behind. Meow meow. Dieh plunged his hands back into the bowl and smeared more blood over my face. Including my ears. Whether he meant to or not, he got some of it in my eyes, and—ouch!—that stung, meow meow. It also blurred my vision, veiling everything in a red haze. With a mew mew I complained, “Dieh, Dieh, you’re blinding me.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and mewed loudly. Everything got brighter the more I rubbed, until the light itself was blinding. Oh, no, that’s bad, meow meow, the magical tiger whisker was working again, meow meow, no more Dieh, in front of me now was a panther. It was standing on its hind legs and dipping its front paws in the blood bowl, staining them red with pearls of blood dripping from the black fur, making it look like the paws were injured. He reached up and smeared blood all over the coarse fur of his face, turning it red as a cockscomb. I was well aware that Dieh’s true form was a panther, so that was nothing to make a fuss over. But I didn’t want the power of that tiger whisker to last and last—just a little while would be plenty. But its power this time wouldn’t fade away, meow meow, and what would it take for things to return to normal? No matter how upset I was, there was nothing I could do about it. I was torn between worries and happiness. Worries over my strange inability to see human beings, happiness over the knowledge that no one but me had the ability to see people’s true forms. I took a look around, taking in all of Yuan’s government troops and the German soldiers standing guard over the parade ground—long-tailed wolves, dogs with hairless tails, plus a few raccoons and other animals. There was even one that looked like a cross between a wolf and a dog; its uniform identified it as a junior officer. It was probably the offspring of a wolf-dog mating. I gave it a name: lobo-dog. It was sneakier than a wolf and meaner than a dog; anything it bit was doomed, meow meow.

After using up all the blood in the bowl on his face and front paws, my panther dieh focused his bright black eyes on me and treated me to a barely perceptible smile, lips parted just enough to show his yellow teeth. Even though the change in his appearance was enormous, the expressions and mannerisms were unmistakably Dieh’s. I returned his smile, meow meow. He swaggered over to the purplish-red chair; his tail made his pants stand up in back. He sat down and narrowed his eyes, looking perfectly serene. I surveyed the area around us, yawned, mewed once, and sat on a board next to him, within view of the slanting shadow of the Ascension Platform on the ground. As I stroked Dieh’s tail, he stuck out his rough tongue and began licking the hair on my head. Mew, I wheezed just before falling asleep.

I was awakened by raucous noise, meow meow, a mixture of horns and trumpets and gongs and Western drums, and all of it punctuated by the low rumble of cannon fire. I saw that the shadow cast by the Ascension Platform was much shorter than before and that blinding lights were making their way onto the parade ground from the street. At some point the green tarpaulins covering the cannons on the edge of the parade ground had been removed to reveal the weapons’ blue steel. Four wolfhounds behind each of the cannons were in motion, and even though they were quite a ways away, the hair on their bodies did not escape my sharp eyes. The barrels of the cannons were like turtles’ necks, recoiling back into their shells each time a shell was spat out, followed by puffs of white smoke. The wolfhounds moved like puppets behind the cannons, comical little figures. My eyes began to sting badly, and it only took a moment’s thought to realize that I was sweating. I wiped my face with my sleeve; it came away red. That was nothing to worry about, but the scene in front of me had changed again. My dieh no longer wore the face of a panther, but his body was still that of a panther, and his pants rose up behind him because of the tail. Then the heads of the soldiers standing guard were once again human, sitting atop wolfhounds’ bodies. It was a comforting sight, and it made me feel better, knowing I was still living in the world of humans. And yet the look on Dieh’s face puzzled me, since it didn’t look especially human. But he was still my dieh, and when he licked my head, I moaned with pleasure, mew~~

A palanquin covered in blue wool was part of the contingent emerging onto the parade ground, preceded by wild animals with human heads, all carrying banners and gongs and umbrellas and fans. The chair was carried by horses with human heads and humans with horse heads, plus a few humans with cow heads. A thoroughbred horse trailed the palanquin, a bizarre wolf-headed human in the saddle, and I knew that was the German Plenipotentiary from Qingdao, Clemens von Ketteler. I’d heard that my gongdieh had shot the man’s first horse out from under him with a shotgun, so the one he was riding now he’d probably taken from one of his subordinates. More horses preceded a prison van that held a pair of cages. I thought the sandalwood death was reserved for my gongdieh alone. Why two cages? A long procession spread out behind the prison van, flanked by crowds of local residents. What I actually saw was a sea of hairy skulls, but I knew they were local residents. I was secretly thinking of someone, someone I tried to spot among all those dark heads. Do I need to say who that person was? No. I was searching for my wife. I hadn’t seen her since my dieh had sent her racing fearfully out of the house yesterday morning. I had no idea if she’d eaten or drunk anything, and though she was a white snake, she was a good white snake, like Bai Suzhen, the heroine of The Legend of the White Snake. She was Bai Suzhen, and I was her lover, Xu Xian. But who was the Green Snake Demon and who was the sorcerer Fa Hai? Of course. Yuan Shikai was Fa Hai. My eyes lit up. I see her, I see her! She’s standing with a bunch of women! Her flat white head is raised, her purple tongue flicks in and out, she’s slithering this way. Meow meow, I felt like crying out, but my dieh’s panther eyes were fixed on me.

“Son,” he said, “stop looking around!”





7




After three bursts of cannon fire, the official in charge of the execution announced loudly to Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler, who had taken seats in the center of the stage:

“Your humble servant, Gaomi County, respectfully reports to His Excellency the Governor that the midday hour has arrived, and the Imperial prisoner Sun Bing has been identified as the condemned. The executioners are in place and await instructions from His Honor!”

Yuan Shikai, seated on the stage, stuck his turtle neck out from under his shell, which looked like a pot lid and gave his official robe the look of an oilpaper umbrella, the very umbrella that Xu Xian had given to the White and Green Snakes. But how had that umbrella wound up on Yuan Shikai’s body? Oh, it’s not an umbrella, it’s a turtle shell. How wonderful that a turtle would be a high official, meow meow. Turtle Yuan stretched his neck toward the mouth of Gray Wolf von Ketteler and sputtered something in turtle-wolf talk; then he took a red command flag from one of his subordinates and swung it in a hard downward chop. This was no meaningless demonstration: like a knife cutting through a tangle of jute or slicing through a cake of bean curd, it was a deft and resolute action, proof that this turtle had reached profound Taoist attainments. This was no ordinary turtle; no, it was exceptional, for official status of this magnitude was beyond the reach of an ordinary reptile. Of course, he was still no match for my dieh. When the official in charge saw Excellency Yuan drop the little red flag, he sprang into action, growing half an inch in height; rays of light, green in color, surged from his eyes, menacing enough to frighten anybody. His tiger whiskers twitched; he bared his fangs. He looked good to me. Drawing on the power of his throat, he announced loudly:

“It is time——let the execution begin——”

His body shrank back to normal as soon as the proclamation ended, and his whiskers retreated to his cheeks. You don’t have to reveal your identity. I know you’re Qian Ding. That may be an official’s cap resting on your tiger head and a red robe girding your body, and while you may be able to hide your tail under your clothes, I knew it was you as soon as I heard you speak. His proclamation ended, he stood beside the execution stand, bent at the waist, his back arched, as his face slowly regained its human form; drenched in perspiration, it made for a pitiful sight. Three more thunderous blasts from the dozen cannons shook the ground. Now that it was nearly time to join Dieh in our spectacle, I took one last look around. There were, I saw, throngs of people surrounding the parade ground—men and women, young and old, some in their true form, others having reverted to their human form, and others still in the midst of changing from one to the other—half human, half beast. At that distance I couldn’t tell Zhang Three from Li Four, whether pigs or dogs or cows or sheep, nothing but a swarm of heads, big and small, all awash in sunlight. Feeling a surge of pride, I threw out my chest and raised my chin, meow meow, and then looked down at the new ritualistic clothes I was wearing: a black Buddhist robe with a vestment over my left shoulder, a wide red sash with long tassels around my waist, black trousers tied at the ankles, and high deerskin boots. I couldn’t see the hat with a circular crown that rested on my head, of course, but everybody else could. My face and ears were smeared with a layer of rooster blood, which had dried and begun to crack, making my skin feel funny. But no matter how it felt, it had to be done, since it was a tradition handed down by our ancestors. My dieh often said that traditions are the essence of any endeavor. Because the dried blood on his face had begun to crack, in my eyes he was looking more and more human—now a half man–half panther dieh. His paws were becoming hands, and his face was changing, but he still had the ears of a panther: thin and nearly transparent, they stuck up in the air and were topped by bristly hairs. Dieh reached out to straighten my clothes and said softly:

“Don’t be afraid, son. Just do as your dieh taught you, courageously. It is time for father and son to show what we can do!”

“I’m not afraid, Dieh!”

Dieh looked at me with tenderness in his eyes.

“You are a good son!”

Dieh Dieh Dieh Dieh, do you know that people say the County Magistrate and I are in the same pot fighting over a ladle . . .





8




I noticed right away that there were two cages on the prison van, with a Sun Bing in each of them. Two cages, two Sun Bings. At first glance they looked identical; but a closer look revealed significant differences. The true form of one was a big black bear, the other a big black pig. My wife’s father was too heroic a character to be a pig, so he had to be the bear. The eighty-third story my dieh told me was about a fight between a black bear and a tiger. In the story, the bear and the tiger always fought to a draw, until finally the tiger won. The bear lost not because it was an inferior fighter, but because it was too practical an animal. After each fight, the tiger went hunting for food—pheasants, gazelles, or rabbits—and went to drink from a mountain stream. But there was no food or drink for the bear, which angrily dug up trees on the battlefield, since it never felt there was enough space. Once the tiger had eaten and drunk its fill, it returned to start the fight all over. Eventually, the bear, its strength sapped, was beaten, and the tiger was anointed king of the beasts. I could also tell which of the two was my gongdieh by the look in his eyes. Sun Bing’s eyes were bright and lively, and when they settled on something, they seemed to emit sparks. The fake Sun Bing’s eyes were dark, his gaze evasive, sort of fearful. The fake Sun Bing looked familiar somehow, and it didn’t take much thought to figure out that he was Xiao Shanzi, a member of the beggar community, Zhu Ba’s right-hand man. Each year, on the fourteenth day of the eighth month, Beggars’ Day, a pair of chili peppers hung from his ears in his role as a matchmaker. Now he’d assumed the role of my gongdieh. What did the fool think he was doing?

My dieh had seen that there were two criminals even before I had, but he’d witnessed so much in his life that one more criminal, or ten for that matter, had no effect on him. I overheard him say under his breath:

“I’m glad I prepared an extra stake.”

My dieh was a man of foresight, a modern-day Zhuge Liang.

Who would be first? First impale the real criminal or the imposter? I tried to find the answer in my dieh’s face. But his gaze was glued to the face of the official in charge of the execution, Qian Ding, who was returning the look, though his gaze was clouded, sort of like a blind man. The look in Qian Ding’s eyes told my dieh that he was seeing nothing. It was up to my dieh to choose the first to be impaled. So he turned his eyes to the two criminals in front of him. The eyes of the fake Sun Bing were unfocused. Those of the real Sun Bing emitted a strong, steady gaze. He nodded to my dieh and said loudly:

“You are well, I assume, Qinjia!”

My dieh responded with a smile and a respectful bow with his fists closed over his chest.

“A joyous day for you, Qinjia!” he replied.

“For both of us,” my gongdieh said jubilantly.

“Who first, you or him?”

“Do you really need to ask?” my gongdieh replied forthrightly. “As they say, ‘Relatives tend to favor each other.’”

Dieh said nothing in response; he merely smiled and nodded. But then, as if a sheet of paper had been removed, his smile gave way to a face the color of pig iron. He turned to the prisoner’s escorts.

“Unlock the shackles!” he ordered.

Unsure of what to do, they looked around, as if waiting for a command from someone. My dieh repeated himself, impatiently:

“Unlock the shackles!”

One of them stepped up and, with trembling hands, unlocked my gongdieh’s chains. Now freed, he moved his arms around to limber them up, eyed the instruments of execution, and, as if this was the moment he’d waited for, strode confidently up to the pine plank, which was considerably narrower than his body, and lay down on his belly.

The plank, which Dieh had commissioned from the county’s finest carpenter, was as slick as glass. It had been placed across a hog-butchering rack that I’d used for more than a decade. By now the wood, saturated with pig’s blood, was as heavy as a bar of iron. It had required four strapping yayi to carry it over from our yard, forced to take ten or more breaks along the way. From where he lay on the wooden plank, my gongdieh turned his head toward us and asked modestly:

“Like this, Qinjia?”

Ignoring the question, my dieh reached under the stand to retrieve the leather strap we’d readied. He handed it to me.

About time, I was thinking. I snatched the strap out of Dieh’s hand and began to tie up my gongdieh just the way I’d practiced it. My gongdieh was not pleased.

“You must not think much of me, worthy son-in-law,” he said.

My dieh, who was watching my every move from right beside me, reached down to retie a knot I’d bungled. My gongdieh huffed and puffed to show his displeasure at being tied down. He was overdoing it, I thought; so did my dieh, who had to remind the man sternly:

“Don’t be so stubborn, Qinjia. I’m not sure you will be in control of your body when this trial of strength and will commences.”

But my gongdieh’s complaints kept coming, even after I’d strapped him down tightly on the wooden plank. Dieh tried to slip his finger between the strap and the man—he couldn’t. That was how he wanted it, and he nodded to show he was satisfied.

“Begin,” he said softly.

I went over to the knife hamper and removed the knife I’d used on the rooster a short while ago. With it I sliced open my gongdieh’s pants to expose his buttocks. After laying the oil-saturated mallet next to my hand, Dieh selected the sandalwood stake that seemed the smoothest, and wiped it down with an oilcloth. Taking a position to the left of my gongdieh, he held the stake in both hands and placed the pointed end, which was as round as a calamus leaf, at a spot just below my gongdieh’s tailbone, as he continued to complain, loudly and obstinately, interspersed with snippets of Maoqiang opera, as if what was about to happen was of no concern to him. But I could tell from the slight tremors in his voice and the twitching of his calf muscles that deep down he was tense and fearful. My dieh, who by then had stopped conversing with my gongdieh, held the stake tightly; I saw a serene expression on his red face as he raised his head and gave me an encouraging, expectant look. His affection toward me was plain to see, meow meow, and I knew there wasn’t a better dieh anywhere in the world. How lucky I was to have such a wonderful dieh, meow meow, and that was all made possible by my mother’s lifelong devotion to the Buddhist way. Dieh signaled with his chin for me to begin. So I spat in my hands, leaned to one side and took a step backward, and dug in my heels until I was anchored like a stake in the ground.

I picked up the mallet and gave the butt end of the sandalwood stake a light tap to see how it felt. Meow meow, not bad, no trouble at all. Now the real pounding began, neither fast nor slow, and I watched as my pounding drove the stake into my gongdieh’s body, inch by inch. The sound it made wasn’t heavy——beng——beng——beng——meow meow——not even loud enough to cover the sound of my gongdieh’s heavy breathing.

As the stake penetrated more deeply, my gongdieh’s body began to shake; despite the fact that he was strapped down so tightly he couldn’t move, every muscle in his body convulsed, causing even the heavy plank under him to move violently. But I kept pounding——beng——beng——beng——keeping in mind my dieh’s instructions: “Son, you must use only half the strength in your arm.”

I saw my gongdieh’s head shake uncontrollably. He seemed to be stretching his neck out of shape. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I’d never have believed that a man could do that to his neck. Fiercely stretching it out——stretch——stretch——stretch——as far as it would go, until, like a leather strap about to snap in two, his head looked like it was on the verge of separating itself from his body. Then his neck snapped back with incredible force, until it completely disappeared, as if his head were growing straight out of his shoulders.

beng——beng——beng——

Meow meow——

My gongdieh’s body was heating up; his clothes were drenched with sweat. Whenever he raised his head, I saw rivulets of sweat coursing down from his damp hair, sweat that was a sticky yellow, like rice soup straight from the pot; and when he turned his head toward me, I saw how puffy his face had gotten, looking like a bronze-colored basin. His sunken eyes reminded me of those butchered pigs I puffed up before skinning them, meow meow, just like the hollow eyes of a puffed-up pig.

pa——pa——pa——

Meow . . .

The sandalwood stake was nearly halfway in——meow . . . sweet-smelling sandalwood . . . meow . . . Up to this point, my gongdieh had not uttered a sound. The look on Dieh’s face showed his admiration toward the man. Long before we began, Dieh and I had striven to anticipate every situation that might arise during the execution. Dieh’s greatest fear was that my gongdieh would fill the air with wild shrieks and howls that would unnerve me, a neophyte, at my first execution, and that I’d start doing things wrong, like driving the stake too hard and damaging the internal organs. To keep that from happening, he’d wrapped a pair of date pits in cotton, ready to stuff into my ears if his fears were borne out. But my gongdieh still hadn’t made a sound, except for heavy breathing that was louder and huskier than any I’d ever heard from a buffalo pulling a plow. He did not bellow in pain, nor did he weep or beg for mercy.

pa——pa——pa——

Meow . . .

Dieh was sweating, too, something he never did, meow, and I noticed a slight tremor in his hands as he continued guiding the stake. He was getting anxious; the look in his eyes made that clear, and that worried me. Meow, Sun Bing clenching his teeth and refusing to cry out was not something we’d hoped for. We’d gotten used to shrieks of pain when we experimented on that pig, and in more than ten years of slaughtering pigs, there had only been one mute, and that animal had nearly been my undoing. For weeks I’d suffered nightmares in which the pig looked at me and sneered. Cry out, gongdieh, I beg you to cry out! Meow meow, but not a sound. My wrist was getting sore, my legs were weakening, my head felt swollen, my eyes were failing me and had begun to sting from invading sweat; the stench of dried rooster blood was making me nauseous. A panther’s head had replaced Dieh’s human head, and black fur now covered those lovely hands. Black fur also grew on my gongdieh, whose head, which kept rising and falling, was now that of a huge bear. His body had grown dramatically, as had his strength, while the leather strap holding him down was stretched thin and brittle, ready to snap. That was when my hand slipped. Carelessly, I hit Dieh’s paw instead of the butt end of the stake; with an audible moan, he dropped his hand. I swung again, harder this time. The stake flew out of Dieh’s hands and arched upward. The tip obviously went somewhere it wasn’t supposed to, injuring something inside Sun Bing and sending a stream of blood running down the length of the stake. A shriek erupted from Sun Bing’s mouth, meow meow, more hideous than I’d heard from any of the pigs I’d slaughtered. Sparks flew from Dieh’s eyes.

“Careful!” he said under his breath.

I wiped my face with my sleeve and took several deep breaths. In the midst of howls that got louder and louder, I began to calm down. My wrist was no longer sore, my legs were strong again, my head was no longer swollen, and my vision returned, meow. Dieh had regained his human face, and my gongdieh no longer had the head of a bear. Pumping myself up as my strength surged back, I recommenced pounding the stake:

beng——beng——beng——

Meow meow——

There was no stopping Sun Bing’s howls now, shrieks that drowned out all other sounds. The stake was back in the right position, guided by Dieh as it inched its way deeper into him, between his vital organs and his backbone . . .

Ow——oh——ahh——yeow——

Meow meow mew——

Disturbing sounds emerged from inside his body, like cats in heat. What was that? I wondered. Are my ears deceiving me? Strange strange really strange, there are cats in the stomach of my wife’s father. I was on the verge of losing my concentration again, but before that happened, I received calm assurances from Dieh. The louder Sun Bing screamed, the more comforted I was by the smile on Dieh’s face. Even his eyes, which had narrowed to a slit, were smiling. He looked like a man who was enjoying a leisurely smoke and listening to opera, not someone inflicting the cruelest form of punishment on a man, meow meow . . .

The stake finally broke through Sun Bing’s skin just above his shoulders, making a small tent of his collar. My dieh’s original idea was to have the stake emerge from Sun Bing’s mouth, but for someone who had sung opera all his life, a stake through the mouth would have ended that possibility, so he decided to have it emerge from between his shoulder blades. I laid down the oily mallet, picked up my knife, and cut open the collar of his shirt. Dieh signaled me to keep pounding, so I picked up the mallet and swung it another ten or fifteen times, meow meow, until the same length of stake impaling Sun Bing was visible top and bottom. Sun Bing’s howls continued without weakening. Dieh examined the points of entry and exit, in each of which a trickle of blood had stuck to the wood. A contented look spread across his face. I heard him breathe a huge sigh of relief. I did the same, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Meow . . .





9




Under Dieh’s direction, four yayi lifted the pine plank, with my gongdieh on it, off the rack and carried it carefully up the Ascension Platform, which was taller than the rooftop of any house in town. The platform was next to the shed, connected by a long, gently sloping ramp of rough wood and some logs to make it easy to negotiate. And yet the four strong men were sweating profusely, leaving damp footprints on the wood as they climbed. Sun Bing, who was strapped tightly to the plank, was still howling, but he was losing his voice, and his energy level was dropping fast. Dieh and I followed the men up the ramp to the spacious top of the platform, whose new flooring smelled refreshingly of pinesap. A three-foot-long crossbar of white wood had been attached to a spot just below the top of a thick pine pole that had been erected in the center of the platform, creating a frame that looked like the cross I’d seen at the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

The yayi gently laid down the plank to which Sun Bing was attached and retreated to the side to await further instructions. Dieh told me to cut the leather straps holding Sun Bing to the plank. His body immediately expanded, and his limbs flailed wildly, but that was the only movement the stake would allow. So as not to completely sap what strength he had left and, at the same time, to protect against injury to his internal organs, with me looking on, Dieh had the yayi pick Sun Bing up and tie his legs to the dark pole and his hands to the crossbar. He was now standing upright in the center of the platform, but only his head enjoyed freedom of movement. Out came the curses:

“F*ck your old granny, von Ketteler——f*ck your old granny, Yuan Shikai——f*ck your old granny, Qian Ding——f*ck your old granny, Zhao Jia——f*ck your old granny——ow——!”

Black blood streamed from his mouth and ran down onto his chest.

Meow meow . . .





10




Before walking down off the platform, I took a look around, and my heart suddenly seemed to contract, so violently was I having trouble breathing, meow . . .

All four sides of the parade ground were packed with people, bright sunlight glinting off their heads. The only reason for that, I knew, was that all those heads were wet with sweat. Sun Bing’s curses merged with the pigeons soaring above us and spread out in all directions, like waves rushing to the shore. Soldiers—foreign troops and Yuan’s government troops—stood as motionless as posts amid the crush of local residents. There was someone on my mind at that moment, meow, know who that was? I searched among the onlookers. Found her! Two burly women were gripping my wife by the arms, and a tall woman was holding her tightly around the waist to keep her from taking even one step forward; she could only leap backward. I heard her cry out in agony, a knife-edged sound as sharp and as oily green as a bamboo leaf.

My wife’s wails threw my mind into upheaval. There was no denying that my feelings toward her had decreased after Dieh came into my life, but I’d had strong feelings toward her before that. She used to let me suck on her breasts even during the daytime, a thought that got an immediate response from my little pecker. Meow meow, I recalled how she said: “Go on, go to your dieh, go ahead and die in your dieh’s room!” When I wouldn’t move, she kicked me . . . memories of my wife’s virtues brought a soreness to my eyes and an ache to my nose, meow meow, I was nearly in tears. I started to run down the ramp, intent on going straight to my wife, so I could feel her breasts again and smell her. I’d give her the remainder of a malt candy Dieh had given to me that was still in my pocket. But a small heated hand grabbed hold of my wrist; I knew it was Dieh without having to look. He pulled me over to the pig-slaughtering rack, where another criminal awaited, along with an oil-steeped sandalwood stake that emitted a strong sesame aroma. Dieh got his message across without having to say a word; his hand said it all. Then his words pounded against my eardrums: “Son, you are doing something too important to let your thoughts run wild. You mustn’t cast aside the nation and the Imperial Court over a woman. I cannot let you commit a capital offense like that. Dieh has told you many times that once our faces are smeared with the blood of a white rooster, men in our line of work are no longer people, and the suffering of the human world is none of our concern. We are tools in the employ of the Emperor, visible, corporal manifestations of the law. How could you even think of giving your wife that piece of candy under these circumstances? Even if I said it was all right, Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler would not permit it. Take a good long look at the impressive figures sitting on the stage where your wife’s father once performed, and tell me if either one of them looks any less fierce than a tiger or a wolf.”

I looked over at the stage, where Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler sat stony-faced, pinpoints of green light boring down on me from both pairs of eyes. Quickly lowering my head, I followed Dieh back to the stand. Wife of mine, I muttered under my breath, stop crying. After all, that father of yours isn’t much of a dieh. Didn’t you say he once let a donkey bite you on the head? That sandalwood stake has him pinned to a post, and that’s a fact. If he’d been a good dieh, like mine, then you’d be right to cry if he was pinned by the stake. But don’t cry over one like Sun Bing. You probably think he’s in agony. Well, you’re wrong. This is the moment of his greatest glory. He and my dieh were celebrating that a while ago, meow meow.

Qian Ding was rooted to the spot, staring at something, though I knew he saw nothing. For someone supposedly in charge of the execution, he hadn’t done a damn thing and was worse than useless. Better to let Dieh and me do our job without waiting for him to give orders. Since the prison van had brought us two Sun Bings, we were required to inflict the sandalwood death on both of them. The real Sun Bing was already up on the Ascension Platform, thanks to us, and while I could see on Dieh’s face a bit of unhappiness over minor mistakes during the process, overall he was pleased. With one success behind us, it was time to move to the next, and it would be another assured success. Two yayi carried the pine plank no longer needed for Sun Bing down from the platform and laid it across the slaughtering rack. My dieh turned to the man watching over the fake Sun Bing and said in a casual manner:

“Unlock the shackles.”

The man removed the heavy chains from the fake Sun Bing’s body, but unlike the real Sun Bing, who had immediately straightened up, this one slumped helplessly to the ground like a wax-softened candle. His face was ashen, his lips as pale as torn paper window covering. Only the whites of his eyes showed, a pair of tiny moth eggs. He was dragged up to the slaughtering rack, and when they let go of him, he crumpled to the ground like a pile of mud.

My dieh told them to lift him onto the plank atop the slaughtering rack, where he lay flat on his belly, twitching uncontrollably. Dieh signaled for me to strap him down, which I managed to do expertly. Then, without waiting to be told, I cut open his trousers with my paring knife; but when I pulled them back to expose his backside——Aiya! Would you believe it!——a horrible stench rose up from the bastard’s crotch——he’d shit his pants!

Dieh frowned as he placed the sandalwood stake just below the fake Sun Bing’s tailbone; I picked up my oily mallet and stepped forward. But before I could raise it for the first strike, an even more disgusting smell assaulted me. I threw down the mallet and backed off, holding my nose, like a dog assailed by the rotten smell of a skunk. Dieh called out in a stern, deep voice:

“Come back here, Xiaojia!”

The summons reawakened my sense of responsibility; I stopped backing up and, in a roundabout fashion, headed toward him. The fake Sun Bing’s insides were probably a pile of mush by now. Normal excrement didn’t smell that scary bad. Now what? Dieh was still holding the stake in place, waiting for me to start pounding, while I was wondering what would come out of his backside once the stake entered his body. Dieh had emphasized over and over the importance of what we were doing that day, and I knew I’d have to put that mallet to use even if he fired bullets out of his ass. Truth is, the smell that emerged from his a*shole was worse than bullets could possibly have been. I took a tentative step forward despite the vomit rising into my throat. Show me some mercy, Dieh! If you make me follow through with this execution, I’m afraid I’ll die of suffocation before the stake pokes out from between his shoulders.

Well, the heavens came to my rescue. At that crucial moment, Yuan Shikai, who looked like he was about to fall asleep up on the stage, ordered that Xiao Shanzi, originally sentenced to die by the sandalwood death, be beheaded instead. Dieh wasted no time tossing the sandalwood stake to one side; holding his breath and scowling, he unsheathed the sword at the waist of the nearest yayi, took several quick steps, looking more energetic than his years, raised the sword, and created a shining downward arc; before anyone could so much as blink, the head of the real Xiao Shanzi, the fake Sun Bing, lay on the ground beneath the slaughtering rack.

Meow——