Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER SIX





Competing Feet





1




A clear and very bright moon hung high in the sky, looking like a naked beauty. The third-watch gong had just sounded, and the county town lay in stillness. Smells of nature—plants and trees and insects and fish—were carried on the summer-night breeze to cover heaven and earth like fine gauze decorated with pearl ornaments. The naked moon shone down on Sun Meiniang as she strolled alone in her courtyard. She too was naked; she and the moon enhanced each other’s beauty. Moonbeams flowed like water in which she swam like a large silvery fish. This was a fully bloomed flower, a piece of ripe fruit, a youthful, vigorous, and graceful body. From head to toe, with the exception of her feet—which were large and unbound—she was flawless. Her skin was glossy, the only blemish a scar on her head that was hidden by her lush hair.

That scar was the result of a bite from a donkey before she had taken her first step as an infant. Unaware that her mother lay dead on the kang from swallowing opium, she had crawled up on her mother’s neatly dressed body, like climbing a resplendent mountain range. She was hungry, searching for the nipple, but in vain. She cried, and in the process she fell to the floor, where she cried even louder. No one came. So she crawled out the door, attracted by the smell of milk. No sooner had she reached the yard than she saw a young donkey drinking its mother’s milk. The ill-tempered adult had been tied to a tree by her owner, and when the little girl crawled up to feed alongside, or in place of, her baby, the donkey bit down on the girl’s head, gave her a shake, and flung her away, where she was immediately stained by her own blood. This time her terrified wails reached a neighbor woman, who picked her up and covered the wound with powdered lime to stop the bleeding. The injury was so severe that most people believed she would not survive. Even her normally buoyant father was sure she would die, but she hung on tenaciously. For the first fourteen years of her life, she was a scrawny, frail girl with a conspicuous scar on the back of her skull. She tagged along behind her dieh as he made the opera circuit, taking the stage in a variety of parts: little girls, little demons, even kittens. But in her fifteenth year, like a desiccated wheat sprout nourished by a spring rain, she grew like a weed, and at the age of sixteen, her hair grew lush and black, the way dense new shoots burst forth from a willow tree whose canopy has been lopped off. The scar disappeared beneath all that hair. At seventeen, she fleshed out, and people discovered that she was a girl. Prior to this, because of her unbound feet and sparse hair, most of the performers in the troupe had assumed that she was a nearly bald little boy. At eighteen, she had become the prettiest maiden in Northeast Gaomi Township.

“If not for her big feet,” people lamented, “the girl could become the Imperial Consort!”

It was this damning flaw—big, unbound feet—that caused her to be considered unmarriageable at the age of twenty, and was why, with no other prospects, Sun Meiniang, still lovely as a flower, was forced by harsh circumstances to marry Zhao Xiaojia, a butcher who lived and worked on the east side of town. When Meiniang moved in, Xiaojia’s bound-footed mother was still alive. She hated the sight of her daughter-in-law’s big feet, and tried to get her son to trim them down to size with his boning knife. When he refused, she decided to do it herself. Having lived up till then among a performing troupe, Meiniang knew all the acrobatic moves for the opera stage, and she had never been schooled in the traditional feminine imperatives of “three obediences”—first to father, then to husband, and finally to son—and the “four virtues” of fidelity, physical charm, propriety, and fine needlework. She was, not surprisingly, an untamed young woman who, now that she was married, found it suffocating to keep her temper in check and hold back her sobs. So when her mother-in-law came at her on her tiny feet, knife in hand, Meiniang’s pent-up anger burst to the surface. She leaped up and let loose a flying kick, a perfect demonstration of the “virtues” of unbound feet and testimony to her training and hard work in the troupe. Not particularly steady to begin with, her bound-footed mother-in-law was knocked to the floor. Meiniang rushed up, straddled her like Wu Song on the back of a tiger, and beat her with her fists until the poor woman could only scream piteously and soil herself, front and back. In the wake of this beating, the distraught old woman’s abdomen became dangerously distended, which soon led to her death. It was, for Sun Meiniang, a liberation, for she stepped up as head of the household. She converted a room with a southern exposure, facing the street, into a little public house that featured warm millet spirits and stewed dog meat for the general public. Burdened with a dullard of a husband, she relied upon her beauty to ensure a thriving business. All the local dandies entertained thoughts of finding their way into her favor, but none succeeded. Sun Meiniang was known by three nicknames: Big-Footed Fairy, Half-Way Beauty, and Dog-Meat Xishi, a play on the name of a legendary beauty.





2




Even ten days after the battle of the beards, the people’s excitement over Magistrate Qian’s striking appearance and broad-minded approach to governing had not abated, and they now looked forward with eager anticipation to the festive day on which they would meet his wife. Custom dictated that on the eighteenth day of the fourth month, the doors of the three halls, access to which was severely restricted, even to leading yamen officials, the rest of the year, were thrown open for women and children for the day. The wife of the County Magistrate would rise early in the morning and, in her finest attire, sit beneath the eaves of the Third Hall in the company of her husband, smiling broadly as she received members of the local populace. A gesture of goodwill toward the people, it also served as a grand display of the adage “A revered husband deserves an honored wife.”

Many of the county’s ordinary residents had been witness to His Eminence’s elegant bearing, and details of his wife’s background and education had early on filled local women’s ears. Anticipation leading to this special day had reached a fever pitch. What they yearned to know was, what sort of woman was a worthy spouse to a virtually celestial County Magistrate? Comments and opinions swirled above streets and byways like willow catkins: some said that the Magistrate’s wife was a woman of unrivaled beauty, capable of toppling a city with a smile; others said that the face of the Magistrate’s wife was scarred by pockmarks, that she was a demon in disguise. These two diametrically opposed views ignited avid curiosity among local women. Younger women were natural proponents of the view that the County Magistrate’s wife must be favored with the beauty of fresh flowers and fine jade. Slightly older, more experienced women doubted that this romantic view was sustainable in the world in which they lived, and were more inclined to accept the folk adage that says “A desirable man is burdened with an undesirable wife, while an ugly man marries a lovely maiden.” They cited as proof of this view the so-called “flower and moon” beauty of the former Magistrate’s wife, he of the wretched features. But younger women, especially the unmarried maidens, were firm in their desire to believe that the wife of the new Magistrate must be the sort of beauty who had fallen to earth from heaven.

Sun Meiniang looked forward to this day more fervently than any other woman in the county. She had already seen the County Magistrate on two occasions, the first on a drizzly night in early spring. While she was trying to hit a cat that had run off with a fish, the missile struck the Magistrate’s palanquin by mistake. Inviting him into her establishment, she noted his elegant appearance and demeanor in the candlelight, and was taken by his poise and easy manner, almost as if he had stepped out of a New Year’s painting. His conversational skills were extraordinary, his attitude one of pure affability, and even when he discussed serious matters, a unique sense of intimacy and gentility was ever-present. Any comparison of that man with her hog-butchering husband . . . well, there was no comparison. If truth be known, at that moment there was no room anywhere in her heart or mind to accommodate the image of Xiaojia. She walked as if floating on air, her heart raced, and her cheeks burned. She masked her confusion with excessively polite conversation and frenetic industry in order to keep busy, but in the process she knocked over a wineglass with her sleeve and overturned a bench with her knee. All that time, with everyone’s eyes on him, the Magistrate maintained the airs of his office, but she could tell, either from his coughs, which did not seem natural, or from the limpid expression in his eyes, that tender feelings lay beneath His Eminence’s tough exterior. The second time she saw him was at the battle of the beards. On that occasion, as the person chosen to validate the outcome, she was close enough not only to drink in His Eminence’s features with her eyes, but to smell the exquisite fragrance emanating from his body. Her lips were so close to his thick, glossy queue and his powerful neck, so very close . . . she seemed to recall that her tears fell on his neck: Ah, Your Eminence, how I hope that my tears really did fall on your neck . . . To acknowledge her impartiality, His Eminence rewarded her with an ounce of silver. But when she went to claim her reward, the goateed revenue clerk looked at her askance, with a strange gleam in his eye, resting on her feet for a very long time, which abruptly brought her back to earth. She guessed, from the look in his eyes, what he was about to say, and her heart cried out in silent agony: Oh, heaven, oh, earth, oh, Dieh, oh, Niang, my feet have spelled my doom! If only I had let my mother-in-law pare my feet with that boning knife when I had the chance, no matter how great the pain. If having small feet cost ten years of my life for each, I would gladly die twenty years before my time. Those thoughts produced a loathing for her dieh. Dieh, you not only caused the death of my niang, but might as well have caused mine as well; you cared only for your own romantic escapades and had no thoughts for your daughter; you raised your daughter like a son and refused to bind her feet . . . even if your beard had been superior to that of His Eminence, I would still have declared him the winner. Though, in fact, yours is inferior to his.

Sun Meiniang returned home with the County Magistrate’s gift of silver, her passion rising whenever she recalled the look of tenderness in his eyes; but icicles formed on her heart when she conjured up the censorious look in the eyes of the revenue clerk. As the day to see the Magistrate’s wife drew near, women flocked to the shops to buy cosmetics and fussed over new clothes, like maidens preparing for their wedding. But Sun Meiniang still had not made up her mind to go. Although she had seen His Eminence on but two occasions, at which he had not bestowed upon her any sweet words or honeyed phrases, she stubbornly clung to the belief that they had feelings for one another and that one day they would be together like a pair of mandarin ducks with their necks entwined. When women on the street engaged in debate over what the Magistrate’s wife, whom they would soon see in person, looked like, her cheeks burned as if they were talking about a member of her family. Truth be told, she could not say whether she wished His Eminence’s wife to be angelically lovely or demonically hideous. If she had the face of an angel, would that not be the end of her dream? But if she had the features of a demon, would His Eminence not be an object of pity? So she looked forward to the arrival of the special day, yet was simultaneously apprehensive of it. The day would surely come anyway, however, whether its inevitability filled her with hope or with apprehension.

She awoke amid a chorus of cockcrows. Somehow she had survived till dawn. Having no interest in making breakfast, she was even less inclined to dress up. Time and again she went outside, only to walk right back into the house, catching the eye even of Xiaojia, her gnarled log of a hog-butcher husband.

“What’s wrong with you, wife,” he asked, “the way you’re going in and out of the house? Do you have itchy soles? I can scratch them for you with a chunk of bottle gourd.”

Itchy soles? I’ve got a bloated belly, and I have to walk to keep from going crazy! That is what she thought of her husband’s good intentions. A pomegranate tree beside the well was so red with flowers that it seemed to be on fire; she plucked one of the flowers and said a silent prayer: If the petals come out even, I’ll go to the yamen to see the First Lady, but if they come out odd, I won’t go, and I’ll give up my dream of ever being with him.

And so she began: one petal, two petals, three . . . nineteen. An odd number. A chill settled over her heart; her mood plummeted to the depths. No, that didn’t count. My prayer lacked devotion, so it doesn’t count. She plucked another flower from the tree, bigger and fuller than the first one. This time she held it in both hands, closed her eyes, and mouthed a new prayer: Gods in the heavens, Immortals on earth, give me a sign . . . She began with the petals in a mood of extreme solemnity: one petal, two petals, three . . . twenty-seven. Again, an odd number. She tore up what was left of the flower and flung it to the ground. Her head hung disconsolately on her chest. Xiaojia walked up.

“Do you want to wear a flower, my wife?” he asked in a cautious, fawning tone. “Here, let me pick one for you.”

“Get away from me!” she thundered before spinning around and storming into the house, where she lay down on the kang, covered her face with the comforter, and sobbed.

Crying helped a little. She got up, washed her face, and combed her hair. Then she took a pair of half-sewn shoe soles out of her dresser, sat cross-legged on the kang, and began to sew to keep her restlessness under control and avoid having to listen to the animated chatter of the women out on the street. Her husband, foolish as ever, followed her into the house.

“They’re all going to see the Magistrate’s wife. Aren’t you going?”

That threw her back into a state of turmoil.

“People say they’re going to pass out sweets. Take me along so I can grab some.”

With an exasperated sigh, she said to him, as if speaking to a child, “Are you still a little boy, Xiaojia? This is an event for women only. Why in the world would you want to go, a hulking man like you? Aren’t you afraid the yayi would drive you off with their clubs?”

“But I want to grab some sweets.”

“Go out and buy some if you want them so badly.”

“They don’t taste as good as the ones you grab.”

The lively chatter of the women on the street rolled into the house like a fireball and singed her painfully. She jabbed her awl into the shoe sole; it snapped in two. She threw the sole, with the embedded awl, down onto the kang, and threw herself down on it right after. Upset and confused, she pounded the bed mat with her fists.

“Is your belly bloated again?” Xiaojia asked timidly.

Grinding her teeth, she shouted:

“I’ll go! I’ll go see what that dignified wife of his is like!”

She jumped down off the kang and drove all thoughts of the recent flower petal fiasco out of her mind, acting as if there had never been any hesitation where the matter of meeting the Magistrate’s wife at the yamen was concerned. Once again she filled the basin and washed her face, then sat down at her mirror to put on makeup. The face looking back at her, powdered and rouged, had slightly puffy eyes, but remained as lovely as ever. Reaching into her wardrobe, she took out the new clothes she had hung in preparation for the visit, and dressed in front of her husband, who was aroused at the sight of her naked breasts. “Be a good boy, Xiaojia,” she said, as if he were a child, “and wait for me at home. I’ll grab some sweets for you.”

Dressed in a red jacket atop green trousers beneath a floor-length green skirt, Meiniang looked like a cockscomb flower transplanted onto the street. Warm southern breezes carried the fresh fragrance of ripe yellow wheat on that resplendent sunlit day. It was the season for women in love, teased by those warm spring breezes. Burning with impatience, Meiniang wished that she could transport herself to the yamen in a single step, but the full-length skirt kept her from walking briskly. A restive heart agonized over the slow pace and was tormented by the distance that lay before her. So she scooped up the train of her skirt, lengthened her stride, and quickly overtook all the bound-footed women, who proceeded in mincing steps, hips undulating from side to side.

“What’s the hurry, Mistress Zhao?”

“Where’s the fire, Mistress Zhao?”

She ignored the women’s queries, intent on making a beeline from Dai Family Lane all the way to the yamen’s secondary gate. Half of the flower-laden branches of a pear tree at the home of Dai Banqing spread over the wall above the street. A subtle sweet aroma, the buzzing of bees, the twittering of swallows. She reached up and plucked one of the flowers and tucked it behind her ear, the barely perceptible noise drawing a string of barks from the always alert Dai family dog. With one final brush of nonexistent dust from her clothing, she let the hem of her skirt drop to the ground and entered the compound. The gate guard nodded, she responded with a smile, and before she knew it, she found herself in front of the entrance to the Third Hall courtyard, her body moistened by a thin coat of perspiration. Attending the gate was a young, fierce-looking yayi whose accent marked him as an out-of-towner, the one she’d seen at the battle of the beards. She knew that he was one of the Magistrate’s trusted aides. He nodded, and once again she responded with a smile. The courtyard was filled with women, children running freely in their midst. Meiniang pushed her way into the crowd, slipping sideways up to the front, where she had an unobstructed view of a long table in the passageway beneath the Third Hall eaves. Two chairs behind the table were occupied—the one on the left by Eminence Qian, the one on the right by his wife. In her phoenix coronet and ceremonial dress, she sat with her back perfectly straight. Her red dress shone like a rosy cloud under the sun’s bright rays, while her face was covered by a gauzy pink veil, which allowed for a blurred view of the shape, but none of the features. The sight had an immediate calming effect on Meiniang, for now she knew that what she had feared more than anything else was that the Magistrate’s wife had a face like moonbeams and flowers. Her unwillingness to show her face in public must mean that she was, in fact, unattractive. Instinctively, Meiniang threw out her chest, as hope was rekindled in her heart, just as she detected the heavy aroma of lilacs. She looked around and spotted a pair of mature lilac trees, one on each side of the courtyard, in full bloom. She also spotted a row of swallow nests beneath the Third Hall eaves, busily attended by adult birds flying in and out, accompanied by the chirps of fledglings inside. Legend had it that swallows never built their nests in government yamens, choosing instead the homes of good and decent farmers. But there they were, flocks of them, all tending their nests, which could only be a wonderful omen, good fortune brought to them by His Eminence, with his immense talent and strong moral character, but, needless to say, not by his veiled wife. Meiniang’s gaze drifted over from her face to his, and their eyes met. To her it felt as if his eyes held the promise of adoration, and tender feelings welled up in her heart. Your Eminence, oh, Your Eminence, how could someone who is nearly an immortal take as his wife a woman who must cover her face so as not to be seen? Do pockmarks scar her face? Does she have scabby eyelids, a flat nose, a mouth full of blackened teeth? I grieve for you, Your Eminence . . . Meiniang’s thoughts were a wild jumble, but then she heard a tiny cough, and that sound from his wife dispelled the intensity in the Magistrate’s eyes. He turned and had a whispered conversation with her. A maidservant, her hair combed into tufts above her ears, walked up with a basket filled with dates and peanuts, which she tossed to the crowd by the fistful. Chaos erupted as the children fought over the scattered delicacies. Meiniang watched as the First Lady casually adjusted her skirts, revealing a pair of tiny, pointed golden lotuses. A gasp of admiration rose from the crowd behind her. The woman had exquisite feet, and Meiniang felt ashamed to show her face. Granted, Meiniang’s skirt covered her feet, but she could not help feeling that the woman knew that her feet were big and ugly. And there was more—she knew about Meiniang’s infatuation with her husband. Revealing her golden lotuses had been a conscious act, intended to humiliate her, to go on the offensive. Meiniang did not want to look, was unwilling to look at the woman’s bound feet, but she could not help herself. They had pointed, slightly upturned tips like water chestnuts. And what beautiful little shoes, green satin embroidered with red flowers. The First Lady’s feet were magical weapons that subdued Meiniang, the girl from the Sun family, as she felt a pair of mocking rays pass through the pink gauze and land unerringly on her face. No, not her face—they passed through the veil and her skirt to land on her big feet. Meiniang was sure she saw a haughty smile on the lips of the Magistrate’s wife, and she knew she had been beaten, roundly defeated. She had the face of a goddess, but the feet of a serving girl. Her thoughts in total disarray, she began backing up. Was that mocking laughter behind her? And then it dawned on her that she had set herself apart from the others, putting on a performance in front of the Magistrate and the First Lady. Her humiliation now complete, she backed up in earnest, feet moving all over the place, ultimately stepping on the hem of her skirt and ripping it just before she fell backward in the dirt.

In the days to come, she recalled that when she fell to the ground, the Magistrate jumped to his feet on the other side of the table, with what she confidently believed was affection and concern in his eyes, the sort of look one expects only from someone near and dear. She also knew with the same degree of confidence that she saw the Magistrate’s wife angrily kick him in the calf with one of her tiny feet just as he was about to leap over the table and come to her aid. Momentarily dazed, the Magistrate slowly settled back down in his seat. Interestingly, despite his wife’s movements under the table, she remained poised and proper, as if nothing were amiss.

Meiniang picked herself up off the ground, her sorry plight accentuated by the humiliating laughter behind her. She scooped up her skirt and, without pausing to hide the big feet that had been shamefully exposed to the Magistrate and his wife when she fell backward, pushed her way back into the crowd. She kept herself from crying only by biting down on her lip, although tears had begun spilling from her eyes. Finally, she was as far away from the front as she could get, only to hear giggles and praise for the wife’s tiny feet from the women she had just left behind. She knew instinctively that the woman was showing off those bound feet without giving the impression of doing so. How true the adage that “One beauty mark can negate a hundred moles”! Her perfectly bound feet more than compensated for a face that needed to be veiled. As she was leaving the site, Meiniang turned for one last look at His Eminence, and once more there was a bit of magic when their eyes met. His, it seemed, was a mournful look, as if to console or perhaps show his sympathy. With a sweep of the arm to cover her face with her sleeve, she ran out through the Third Hall gate into Dai Family Lane and wailed at the top of her lungs.

Meiniang returned home utterly distraught, only to have Xiaojia cling to her in search of the sweets. She shoved him away and went into the house, where she flung herself down on the kang and wept piteously. Xiaojia, who had followed her inside, stood beside the kang and cried along with her. She rolled over, sat up, grabbed the whiskbroom, and began lashing her feet. Frightened out of his wits, he stayed her hand. Then, looking up into his ugly, stupid face, she said, “Xiaojia, get a knife and cut my feet down to size.”





3




The First Lady’s tiny feet were like a bucket of ice water that cleared Meiniang’s head, for a few days at least. But after encountering the Magistrate three times, especially that one time when he had looked at her with infinite concern and emotion, the scenes of their encounters waged a staunch resistance against those tiny feet. In the end, their image grew increasingly murky, while the look of tenderness in the Magistrate’s eyes and his elegant features gained increasing clarity. Magistrate Qian filled the void in her mind. If she stared at a tree, it flickered and swayed until it was transformed into Magistrate Qian. If she spotted a dog’s tail, it shook and wagged until it was turned into Magistrate Qian’s thick queue. If she was stoking a fire in the stove, the flames danced and cavorted until Magistrate Qian’s smiling face appeared before her. She bumped into walls when she was out walking. She cut her fingers when she was chopping meat and felt no pain. She burned a whole pot of dog meat without noticing the smell. Whatever she laid eyes on became Magistrate Qian or some part of him. When she closed her eyes, she felt Magistrate Qian come and lie down beside her. She could feel his rough beard prickle her soft, dainty skin. She dreamed of Magistrate Qian touching that skin every night, and her nocturnal screams frequently sent her husband rolling off the bed. She developed a sickly pallor and lost weight at a perilous rate; but her eyes shone and were continuously moist. For some strange reason, she suffered from hoarseness, releasing the sort of guttural, husky laughter that is unique to women in whom passion burns hot. She knew she had a severe case of lovesickness, and was aware of how frightful an affliction it could be. The only way a lovesick woman can survive is to share a bed with the man over whom she obsesses. Absent that, her veins will dry up, she will be consumptive, and once she begins spitting up blood, she will wither away and die. Meiniang had reached the point where home could no longer contain her. Things that had once interested or pleased her, like earning money or admiring a flower garden, now seemed insipid and meaningless. Fine spirits lay flavorless on her tongue; lovely flowers turned ghostly white in her eyes. Carrying a bamboo basket that held a dog’s leg, she passed in front of the county yamen three times a day, hoping for an accidental meeting with the Magistrate, and if that was not to be, she would be content to spot the green woolen curtain of his palanquin. But Magistrate Qian was like a giant turtle hiding in deep water, leaving no trace of his existence. Her hoarse, wanton laughter as she passed by the yamen gate so enticed the gate guards that they rubbed their ears and scratched their cheeks in anxious delight. Oh, how she would have liked to shout deep into the compound, purging her heart of pent-up lustful thoughts, loud enough for Magistrate Qian to hear. But she could only mutter under her breath:

“My dear . . . my darling . . . thoughts of you are killing me . . . be merciful . . . take pity on me . . . The County Magistrate is an immortal peach, the embodiment of manly might! I fall in love with an image that after three lifetimes still burns bright. I long to make it mine, but the best fruit is at an unreachable height, behind a leaf and out of sight. Your willing slave looks up to see your face, she thinks of you day and night. But her love you do not requite. I salivate hungrily as I shake the tree with all my might, and if the peach will not fall, the tree . . .”

In her heart, that monologue, sizzling with passion, quickly evolved into a Maoqiang aria of infatuation, which, as she intoned it over and over, brought a glow to her face and a salacious twinkle to her eyes, leaving the impression of a moth performing a fervent dance around a flame. Her actions threw a grievous fright into the gate guards and yayi, through whose minds raced fantasies of ravishing the woman, although thoughts of the trouble that would bring down on them brought their lust under control. Flames of desire engulfed her; an ocean of passion threatened to submerge her. But that all ended when she spat up blood.

The act of spitting up blood opened a seam in the confusion that gripped her mind. He is a dignified County Magistrate, a representative of the Royal Court. What are you? The daughter of an actor, the wife of a butcher, a woman with big feet. He lives on high, you exist in the dirt; he is a unicorn, you are a feral dog. This one-sided burning lovesickness is doomed to lead nowhere. You could exhaust yourself mind and body over him, and he would not so much as notice. But if somehow he did, he would react with a disdainful smirk, one devoid of feeling for you. You can torment yourself until there is no more breath in your body, and people will conclude that you got exactly what you deserved—no sympathy, and certainly no understanding. People will not merely laugh at you, they will hurl insults. They will mock you for thinking too highly of yourself and for your inability to think straight. They will fling abuse at you for your fanciful thoughts, for acting like a monkey trying to scoop the moon out of the lake, for drawing water with a bamboo basket, for being the warty toad that wants to feast on a swan. Wake up, Sun Meiniang, and know your place in the scheme of things. Put Magistrate Qian out of your mind. For all its beauty, you cannot take the moon to bed with you. For all his wondrous ways, he belongs to heaven. Forcing herself to purge all thoughts of Magistrate Qian, over whom she had now spat up blood, she dug her fingernails into her thighs, pricked her fingers with a needle, and thumped her head with her fists, but his spirit clung to her. It followed her like a shadow, unshakable by either wind or rain, impervious to knives and flames. Holding her head in her hands, she wept out of despair.

“Defiler of my heart,” she cursed softly, “set me free . . . I beg you to let me go, for I have changed and will bother you no more. Is it your wish to see me dead?”

In order to forget Magistrate Qian, she led her doltish husband to the marital bed. But Xiaojia was no Magistrate Qian, as ginseng is not Chinese rhubarb. He was not a cure for what ailed Meiniang. Sex with her husband only increased the urgency of her longing for Magistrate Qian; it was like spraying oil on a raging fire. When she went to the well, the skeletal reflection in the water nearly made her pass out; something brackish and saccharine sweet stopped up her throat. Heaven help me, is this how it ends? Is this how death will claim me, my quest unresolved? No, I mustn’t die; I need to keep going.

In an attempt to revitalize herself, she took her basket, in which she had placed a dog’s leg and two strings of cash, through the town’s winding streets and alleys to Celestial Lane in the Nanguan District, where she banged on the door of Aunty Lü, the local sorceress. She placed the fragrant dog’s leg and greasy strings of cash on the altar to the Celestial Fox—Aunty Lü’s nostrils twitched at the smell of the meat; her dull eyes lit up at the sight of the money. She stilled her labored breathing by lighting a stemmed datura flower and greedily sucking in its smoke.

“Good Sister,” she said at last, “you are terribly ill.”

Sun Meiniang fell to her knees and sobbed.

“Please, Aunty, save me . . .”

“Tell me about it, my child.” As she breathed in more of the datura smoke, she took a long look at Sun Meiniang and pronounced, “You can fool your parents, but not your healer. Tell me about it.”

“I cannot, it is too hard . . .”

“You can fool the healer, but not the spirits . . .”

“I have fallen in love with someone, Aunty . . . and that love is destroying me.”

With a crafty laugh, Aunty Lü asked:

“With a face like yours, Good Sister, can you not have anyone you desire?”

“You do not know who he is, Aunty.”

“Who could he be? The Spirit Master of the Nine Caves? Or perhaps the Arhat of the West.”

“No, Aunty, he is neither of those. It is County Magistrate Qian.”

Radiant light shot from Aunty Lü’s eyes. As she held her curiosity and deep interest in check, she asked Meiniang:

“What is it you wish to do, Good Sister? Are you hoping that I will work some magic to help you achieve your aim?”

“No, no . . .” Tears spilled from her eyes as she struggled to say: “Heaven and earth are separate realms, so that is not possible . . .”

“Good Sister, you are a novice in the affairs of men and women. If you are willing to pay your respects to the Celestial Fox, the man will take the bait even if he has a heart of stone.”

“Aunty . . .” Meiniang buried her face in her hands; hot tears oozed from between her fingers. “Work your magic,” she sobbed, “to help me forget him . . .”

“Why do you want to do that, Good Sister? Since he is the one you desire, why don’t we make something good happen? Can there be anything in the world more perfect than the love between a man and a woman? Clear your mind of those foolish thoughts, Good Sister!”

“Could something good really . . . happen?”

“If you are sincere.”

“I am!”

“Kneel.”





4




Following Aunty Lü’s instructions, Meiniang ran into a field carrying a spotless white silk scarf. After a lifetime of an unreasonable fear of snakes, on this day snakes were precisely what she was looking for. Aunty Lü had told her to kneel before an altar, close her eyes, and offer up a prayer to the Fox Spirit. Aunty Lü then intoned a chant that quickly brought the Fox Spirit into her body. At that moment, her voice turned shrill and tinny, like that of a little girl. The Fox Spirit commanded Meiniang to go into the field, where she was to find a pair of mating snakes and tie them together with the silk scarf. Once the coupling was over, the snakes would separate, leaving a spot of blood on the white silk. “Take this silk scarf,” the Fox Spirit said, “to the one you love and wave it in front of him. He will then be yours, since his soul will forever after reside in you. The only way to then keep him from wanting you is to kill him with a knife.”

So Meiniang, bamboo staff in hand, went to a weedy area far from the county town; there she chose a marshy spot where water plants grew in profusion. Curious birds noisily circled the sky overhead. Butterflies kept a respectable distance from her as they flitted to and fro. With her heart mimicking the dance of those butterflies, her feet sank into the spongy ground, nearly making her fall as she beat the bushes with her staff, scaring hordes of grasshoppers, katydids, hedgehogs, and jackrabbits . . . but no snakes. Snakes—what she sought and what she feared. Harboring those contradictory feelings, she continued pounding the bushes. Suddenly there was a raspy hiss, and a big brown snake wriggled out from the bushes to confront her with a hideous look, its forked tongue flicking in and out. Its eyes were hooded and gloomy, but there was a grin on its triangular face. An explosion went off in Meiniang’s head, and everything went black. For a brief moment she was blinded, but she heard a meandering scream tear from her mouth just before she sat down hard on the grassy ground. By the time she had come to, the snake was long gone. Her sweat-soaked shirt felt clammy; her heart was pounding wildly, as if someone were hurling rocks inside her chest. Her lips parted, and she spat out a mouthful of blood.

What a fool I was, she chided herself, to put any faith in the sorceress’s false words. And why do I keep thinking of Qian Ding? He is, after all, only a man, someone who eats and drinks and then eliminates it all, just like everyone else. Even if he climbed onto my body and squirmed in and out, it would be a sexual encounter and nothing more. What distinguishes him from Xiaojia, anyway? Get a grip on yourself, Meiniang! The rebuke, in a somber voice, seemed to come from high above, so she looked up into the clear blue and cloudless sky, where passing birds were calling out happily. Her mood was a mirror of the blue sky—clear and bright. She sighed, as if waking from a bad dream, then stood up, brushed off some blades of grass that had stuck to her dress, straightened her hair, and started walking home.

But as she passed the marshy spot, her gay mood underwent a change, for she spotted a pair of white egrets standing in the shallow water of a tiny pool whose surface shone like a mirror. Neither of them moved, as if they had been standing in the same spot for a millennium. The female was resting her head on the back of the male, whose head was turned so he could look into her eyes. They were lovers for whom no speech was needed to draw full enjoyment from mutual intimacy. Suddenly, all that changed, owing perhaps to Meiniang’s unexpected arrival on the scene, or maybe they had been waiting for her to show up, and it was now time to put on a special show. They thrust out their long necks, spread their wings to reveal black feathers hidden beneath the white, and in loud voices, as if shedding their hearts’ blood, welcomed her into their midst. The passionate greeting completed, they entwined their long, snake-like necks. She could hardly believe that any neck could be that soft and supple, with his and hers forming a long braid of deep emotion. Over and over they coiled and uncoiled, a seemingly endless process, one that could have gone on forever, never to end. But then they separated and began to preen one another’s feathers, tenderly yet with amazing speed. Their affection was manifest in the caresses, one feather at a time, and each feather from head to tail. The display of love between the two birds moved Meiniang to tears. Prostrating herself on the damp ground, she let her hot tears merge with the grass as her heart beat a rhythm on the muddy earth. With emotions flooding her soul, she muttered:

“Heavenly beings, transform me into an egret, then do the same with Master Qian . . . with humans there are high and low, noble and base. But all birds are equal. I beg you, heavenly beings, let my neck entwine with his until we form a red rope. Let me cover his body with kisses, every inch and every pore. What I long for is his kisses covering my body. Oh, that I could swallow him whole, and be swallowed whole by him. Heavenly beings, let our necks entwine for all time, let us fan our feathers like a peacock’s tail . . . I can imagine no greater pleasure, nor any more profound gift . . .”

Her feverish face wilted the grass beneath it; her fingers dug so deeply into the mud that she was pulling up roots.

Then she stood up and walked toward the birds as if in a stupor, a radiant smile creasing her mud-and-grass-covered face. She held out her white silk scarf, which billowed slightly in a breeze. Her thoughts took flight.

“Birds,” she murmured, “birds, give me a drop of your blood. One drop, no more, and make my dream come true. I am you, birds, and you are him. Letting him know what is in my heart is knowing what is in your hearts, so let our hearts beat as one. All I ask, birds, is some of your happiness, just a little. I am not greedy; a tiny bit will do. Won’t you take pity on me, birds, a woman whose heart has been seared by love?”

The egrets abruptly spread their wings and took off together, four strange, rail-thin legs breaking the mirrored surface of the pond in what some might have seen as awkward and others as nimble steps that left tiny ripples in their wake. Faster and faster they ran, their strength increasing, each step producing a sound like crackling glaze and sending modest sprays of water into the air. Once their legs were as straight as they would ever be, they fanned out their feathered wings, lifted their tails, and were airborne. Flying. At first they skimmed the surface, and then began to settle, reaching a spot opposite the pond, where now they were nothing but white blurs . . . Her legs had sunk into the loose mud, as if she had been standing there for a millennium . . . deeper and deeper, until the mud was up to her thighs and she felt her heated buttocks sitting on the cool mud . . .

Xiaojia rushed up and pulled her out of the mud.

For a very long time Meiniang was deathly ill, but even after the sickness passed, her longing for Magistrate Qian hung on. Aunty Lü slipped her a packet of yellow powder and said sympathetically:

“Child, having taken pity on you, the Fox Fairy has asked me to give you this love-lost powder. Take it.”

With her eyes fixed on the powder, she asked:

“Aunty Lü, what is it?”

“I’ll tell you after you take it. That is the only way it will be effective.”

So she dumped the powder into a bowl, added water and stirred it, and then, holding her nose, swallowed the foul-smelling stuff.

“Tell me, child,” Aunty Lü said, “do you really want to know what it is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I’ll tell you, then,” she said. “Your aunty is too soft-hearted to see a vivacious young beauty like you come to grief, so I have conjured up my ultimate power. The Fox Spirit disapproves of my decision, but you are too far gone for it to save you. What I have come up with is a secret passed down from my ancestors, one that can be applied only to daughters-in-law, never to daughters. I will hold nothing back from you. What you just drank was distilled from the feces of your beloved. It was absolutely genuine, and very costly, not a cheap imitation. It was not easy to get my hands on it, I can assure you. I paid Magistrate Qian’s chef, Hu Si, three strings of cash to fetch it from the master’s privy. After baking it on a clay tile, I ground it into powder, then added croton seed and Chinese rhubarb to create a powerful medicine that can relieve internal heat. Believe me, I did not prepare this lightly. You see, the Fox Spirit told me that this method can shorten the practitioner’s life. But I felt so sorry for you that I was willing to give up a couple of years of my life. Child, there is one lesson you must take from ingesting this nostrum, and that is that the excretions from even a great man like Magistrate Qian are foul and smelly . . .”

Before Aunty Lü had finished her monologue, Sun Meiniang bent over and vomited, and kept vomiting till all that came up was green bile.

With this difficult episode behind her, clarity slowly returned to Meiniang’s mind, which had been mired in lard. While her longing for Magistrate Qian lingered on, it was no longer an obsession. The wounds to her heart were still painful, but scabs had formed. Her appetite returned: salt now tasted like salt, and sugar was sweet again. And her body was on the mend. This baptism of love, which had rocked her to her soul, had taken a toll on her seductiveness and replaced it with innocence and purity. But sleep remained evasive, especially on moonlit nights.





5




The moonbeams were like sands of gold and silvery powder. Xiaojia was sprawled on the kang, fast asleep and filling the room with thunderous snores. She walked into the yard, where moonbeams washed over her naked body. Lingering feelings of dejection diminished the sensation, as the source of her illness lost no time in producing fresh new sprouts. Qian Ding, ah, Qian Ding! Magistrate Qian, my star-crossed lover, when will you realize that somewhere there is a woman who cannot sleep because of you? When will it dawn on you that there exists a body as ripe as a juicy peach just waiting for you to enjoy it? Bright moon, you are a woman’s divinity, her best friend. The heavenly matchmaker of legend, is that not you? If it is, then what is keeping you from delivering a message for me? If it is not, then which constellation is in charge of love between a man and a woman? Or which earthbound deity? Just then a white night bird flew out from the moon and perched on a parasol tree in a corner of the yard. Her heart began to race. Oh, moon, you are, after all, the heavenly matchmaker. Though you have no eyes, there is nothing on earth that escapes your vision. Though you have no ears, you can hear whispers in the darkest rooms. You have sent down this feathered messenger after hearing my prayer. What kind is it, this great bird? Its pristine white feathers sparkle in your moonbeams; its eyes are like gold, white inlaid with yellow. It has perched on the highest and finest branch of the tree and is gazing down at me with the loveliest, most intimate look in its eyes. Bird, oh, bird, magical bird, you with a beak carved from white jade, use it to deliver my yearnings—hotter than a raging fire, more persistent than autumn rain, and more thriving than wild grass—to the man I love. If only he knew what was in my heart, I would willingly climb a mountain of knives or leap into a sea of fire. Tell him I would be happy to be a door threshold on which to scrape his feet, and that I would be content to be the horse on which he rode, whipping it to make it run fast. Tell him I have eaten his feces . . . Eminence, dear Eminence, my brother my heart my life . . . Bird, oh, bird, don’t waste another second, fly away, for I am afraid my yearnings and feelings may be too much for you to carry. They are like the flowers on that tree, soaked with my blood and my tears to give off my fragrance. Each flower represents one of my intimate utterances, and there are thousands of those on that one tree. My darling . . . Sun Meiniang, her face awash in tears, fell to her knees beneath the parasol tree and gazed at the bird perched at the top. Her lips trembled as a jumble of indecipherable words poured from between those red lips and the white teeth behind them. Her sincerity was so moving that the bird cried out as it spread its wings and disappeared without a trace in the moonlight, like ice melting in water or rays of light overwhelmed by bright flames.

A pounding at the gate startled her out of her crippling infatuation. She ran back into the house and dressed quickly, then, with no shoes on her big feet, ran across the muddy ground to the gate, where, with her hand held over her pounding heart, she asked in a shaky voice:

“Who is it?”

She hoped, nearly prayed, for a miracle, that the person on the other side of the gate was the beneficiary of her impassioned sincerity, the one the gods had linked to her by a red thread. He had come to her in the moonlight. It was all she could do to keep from falling to her knees and praying for her dream to come true. But the person outside the gate called her name softly:

“Meiniang, open the gate.”

“Who are you?”

“It’s your dieh.”

“Dieh? What are you doing here at this late hour?”

“Don’t ask, daughter, your dieh is in trouble. Open the gate!”

After hurriedly sliding back the bolt, she opened the squeaky gate for Northeast Gaomi Township’s famous actor, Sun Bing—who fell heavily to the ground.

Moonlight revealed patches of blood on her dieh’s face. His beard, which had been the loser in a contest not long before, but had not been torn out completely, was now reduced to a few scraggly strands curled up on his bloody chin.

“What happened?” she asked in alarm.

She ran inside and woke up Xiaojia to help her dieh over to the kang, where she pried open his mouth with a chopstick and poured in half a bowlful of water. He came to, and the first thing he did was reach up to feel his chin. He burst into tears, like a little boy who has been bullied. Blood continued to ooze from his injured chin, staining the few remaining hairs, which she removed with a pair of scissors before daubing on a handful of white flour. His face had undergone a transformation; he now resembled a very strange creature.

“Who did this to you?” Meiniang demanded.

Green sparks seemed to shoot out of his tear-filled eyes. His cheek muscles tensed; his teeth ground against each other.

“It was him, it had to be him. He was the one who pulled out my beard. He won the contest, why couldn’t he let it go at that? He pardoned me in front of everyone, said I didn’t have to do it, but then he carried out his revenge in secret. Why? He’s more vicious than a viper, a marauding blight on humanity!”

At that moment, her lovesickness was suddenly cured, and as she pondered her dazed and confused thoughts over the past several months, she felt both shame and remorse. It was almost as if she had conspired with Qian Ding to rip out her own father’s beard. Magistrate Qian, she said to herself, you are a mean and sinister man, someone to whom justice means nothing. What made me think that you were a tolerant, loving people’s Magistrate, instead of a cruel and ruthless thug? So what if I hovered between human and ghost because of you? That was my fault for demeaning myself. But what gave you the right to treat my father with such cruelty after he publicly acknowledged his defeat? When you pardoned him in front of everyone, I was so moved that I got down on my knees and let you tear my heart to shreds. That gesture earned for you a reputation of magnanimity, while all the time you planned to seek revenge in secret. How could I have let myself become besotted by a beast in human form, a true scoundrel? Do you have any idea what sort of life I have lived over the past few months? It was a simple question that produced both sadness and anger in her. Qian Ding, I will one day erase your dog life for tearing out my father’s beard.





6




After picking out two nice fatty dog’s legs, she cleaned and tossed them into a pot of soup stock, where they boiled noisily. She added spices to enhance the flavor of the meat, and tended to the fire herself, making it as strong as possible at first and then letting the meat stew over a low flame. People out on the street could smell it cooking, and big-eared Lü Seven, a regular customer, banged on the door when the aroma drifted his way. “Hey, Big-Footed Fairy,” he shouted, “what wind cleared the air this time? You’re cooking dog’s legs again, so put me down for one.”

“I’ll put you down for one of your damned mother’s legs!” she cursed loudly and banged the side of the pot with a spoon. In the space of a single night, she had recaptured Dog-Meat Xishi’s nature—easy to laugh and quick to curse—and had regained her looks. Where the enchanting gentility that had characterized the days of all encompassing yearning for Qian Ding had gone, no one knew, but it was gone. After polishing off a bowl of pig’s-blood gruel and a plate of chopped-up dog entrails, she brushed her teeth with salt, rinsed her mouth, combed her hair, and washed her face, then applied powder and dabbed on some rouge before changing out of her old clothes and taking a good look at herself in the mirror. She touched up her hair with wet fingers and placed a red velvet flower over one ear. Her eyes were moist and bright, her appearance one of grace and elegance. Even she was so taken by her own beauty that tender feelings made a reappearance. An assassin in the making? Hardly. More like a sexual provocateur. She nearly crumbled under the weight of her tender feelings, and hastily turned the mirror around so she could grind her teeth and let the hatred reignite inside her. In order to reinforce her confidence and keep her will from dissolving, she went inside to take another look at her father’s chin. The flour she’d spread on it had formed clumps and was giving off a sour, unpleasant odor that had drawn flies to it. Presenting an appearance that both nauseated and pained her, he awoke with a shout when she lightly poked his chin with a piece of kindling; obviously in pain, he gazed at her with a vacant look in his puffy eyes.

“I want to ask you, Dieh,” she said coldly. “What were you doing in town at that hour?”

“I went to a whorehouse,” he admitted frankly.

“Pfft!” she uttered in a mocking tone. “Maybe some whore picked your beard clean to make herself a flyswatter.”

“No, we’re all on good terms. They would never do that to me,” he insisted. “When I came out of the whorehouse, I was walking down the lane behind the county yamen when a masked man jumped out of the darkness, knocked me to the ground, and yanked out my beard, hair by hair!”

“One man could do all that?”

“He knew his martial arts. Besides, I was pretty drunk.”

“How do you know it was him?”

“He had a black bag hanging from his chin,” he said confidently. “Nobody but a man with a fine beard would take such care of it.”

“All right, then, I’ll avenge you,” she said. “You may be a scoundrel, but you are my dieh!”

“How do you plan to avenge me?”

“I’ll kill him!”

“No, you can’t do that. That is beyond your ability. If you can yank out a handful of his beard, that will be vengeance enough for me.”

“All right, that’s what I’ll do.”

“But that is impossible too,” he said, shaking his head. “With his powerful legs, he can jump three feet in the air, which is how I know he is a practiced fighter.”

“Don’t you know the adage ‘When virtue rises one foot, vice rises ten’?”

“I’ll wait here for good news,” he said sarcastically. “Except there is another adage that bothers me, and that is ‘Throw a meaty bun at a dog and it’ll never come back.’”

“You just wait.”

“Your dieh may be good for little, but I am still your dieh, and I’d rather you didn’t go. I’ve had a good long sleep, and that’s given me a chance to think some things through. Losing my beard like that is fit punishment for my misdeeds, and I cannot hold anyone else to blame. I’m going to head back, but no more singing opera for me. I’ve spent my whole life doing that, and it has turned me into an undesirable character. There is a line in opera that goes, ‘Cast off your old self and be a new man.’ Well, in my case let’s change it to ‘Lose your beard and be a new man.’”

“I’m not doing this for you alone.”

She went into the kitchen and scooped the cooked dog’s legs out of the pot with tongs, drained the liquid, and covered them with a layer of fragrant pepper salt. Then she wrapped them in dry lotus leaves and put them in her basket. From Xiaojia’s tool kit she removed a paring knife and tested the point on her fingernail. Satisfied that it was sharp enough, she slipped it into the bottom of her basket.

“What do you need a knife for?” her puzzled husband asked her.

“To kill someone!”

“Who?”

“You!”

He rubbed his neck and snickered.





7




At the entrance to the county yamen, Sun Meiniang gave one of her silver bracelets to Xiaotun, who was standing guard at the gate with his fowling piece, and pinched him playfully on the thigh.

“My good brother,” she said softly, “won’t you let me in?”

“Let you in to do what?” Xiaotun was so pleased by the attention that his eyes had narrowed to slits. With his chin he motioned to the big drum that stood to the side of the gate. “You’re supposed to beat that drum if you want to lodge a complaint.”

“What sort of complaint could someone like me have that was serious enough to beat that drum?” Her sweet-smelling cheek nearly touched Xiaotun’s ear. “Your Magistrate sent a message that he wanted me to bring him some dog meat.”

With a series of exaggerated sniffs, Xiaotun said:

“That does smell good, really good! Who’d have imagined that Magistrate Qian liked this stuff?”

“I’ve never known one of you vulgar males who didn’t like this stuff.”

“Good sister, after you’ve seen to it that the Magistrate has eaten his fill, you can bring me the bones to gnaw on . . .”

She pretended to spit in his face.

“You naughty boy, do you really think I’d forget you? So tell me, where will I find the Magistrate at this hour?”

“At this hour . . .” Xiaotun looked up to see where the sun was in the sky. “I expect he’ll be in the document room attending to business. Over there.”

After being let in, she followed the path that took her through the garden where the beard competition had been held, past the secondary gate, and into the official compound, with its six offices; she walked down the eastern passageway, skirting the main building, where he held court, drawing curious looks from everyone she met and responding with a sweet smile that let their imaginations run wild and set their souls on fire. Yayi drooling at the sight of her swaying hips exchanged hungry looks and knowing nods of the head. Dog meat, that’s right, taking him some dog meat, turns out it’s the Magistrate’s favorite. She is quite the sleek, plump bitch . . . pleased with themselves, the yayi smiled lasciviously.

Her heart began to race, her mouth was dry, and her knees went weak when she stepped into the Second Hall compound. The young clerk leading the way stopped and pointed with his pursed lips to the document room. She turned to thank him, but he had already left her side and returned to his courtyard. As she stood in front of the high carved and latticed door, she took a deep breath to settle the turmoil in her heart. Blasts of the heavy fragrance of lilac emerging from the Budgetary Office area behind the Second Hall made her restless. She touched up the curls at her ears, straightened the red velvet flower tucked behind one of them, then ran her hand down over her jacket, from the slanted collar to the hem. When she gently opened the door, a green curtain embroidered with two silver egrets blocked her way, and in that instant the blood seemed to race uncontrollably through her body, as the image of the intimate pair of white egrets she’d seen kissing on the pond leaped into her head. She had to bite her lip to keep from crying out, and was mystified by her inability to tell whether the turmoil she was experiencing was caused by love or by hate, by resentment or by injustice. What she did know was that her chest felt as if it might explode. With difficulty, she took several steps backward and rested her head against the coolness of the wall.

By clenching her teeth, in time she was able to calm the rough seas inside. She returned to the door, where she heard the faint rustle of pages in a book being turned and the clink of a lid as it was placed on a teacup. When that was followed by a light cough, her throat clamped shut and she could hardly breathe. It was his cough, a cough by the man of her dreams, but also the cough of a bitter enemy, the man who had yanked out every hair of her father’s beard, a man with a benevolent exterior but a cruel nature. She was reminded of the humiliation stemming from her unrequited love and of Aunty Lü’s advice, plus the filthy remedy she had consumed. You thug, now I know why I have come. I fooled myself into believing that I wanted to avenge my father, but in fact, the sickness is in my bones and cannot be cured, not in this life. I have come for release, though I know he could never give a passing glance to the big-footed wife of a butcher. If I throw myself at him, he will only push me away. For me there is no hope and no salvation, so I will let you watch me die, or maybe I will watch you die and then follow you by my own hand.

In order to find the courage to break through the curtain before her, she had to intensify her hatred. But that sense was like nothing so much as willow catkins lifted into the air by a spring breeze—rootless and insubstantial, powerless to keep from being blown out of existence by even the slightest breath of air. The bouquet of lilac dulled her mind and unsettled her heart, just as a faint whistle rose from the other side of the curtain, like the melodious twitter of a bird. The idea that an eminent personage such as the County Magistrate was capable of whistling like a frivolous young man caught her by surprise. A cool breezed seemed to caress her, raising gooseflesh and opening a seam in her mind. Heavenly Laoye, if I don’t do something fast, my courage will desert me altogether. She needed an immediate change of plans. Reaching into her basket, she took out the knife, intending to rush into the room and stab him in the heart before turning the knife on herself. Their blood would flow together. Steeling herself, she tore open the curtain, took one step, and was in the document room; the egrets on the embroidered curtain fell back into place to cut the two of them off from the outside world.

The document room’s broad writing desk, the writing implements atop it, the scrolls of calligraphy hanging on the walls, a flower rack in the corner, the flower pots on it, and the flowers and plants in them were illuminated by sunlight streaming in through the latticed window; it all slowly entered her consciousness once the intense emotions had peaked and were beginning to retreat. When she’d first parted the curtain, the only thing that had entered the curtain of her vision was the Magistrate. Casually dressed in a baggy robe, he was leaning back in an armchair with his white-stockinged feet on the table. Startled by her entrance, he took his feet down, a look of astonishment frozen on his face. He sat up, laid down the book he was reading, and stared at her.

“You . . .”

Then two pairs of eyes were riveted to each other, as if linked by red threads that quickly became entangled. An invisible rope seemed to bind her tightly, and she hadn’t an ounce of strength to struggle against it. The basket over her arm and the knife in her hand clattered to the brick floor. Light glinted off the knife. She did not see it; neither did he. The cooked dog’s legs gave off a mouth-watering aroma. She did not smell it; neither did he. Hot tears gurgled from her eyes and wetted her face as well as the front of her jacket. She’d put on a lotus-colored satin top whose sleeves, collar, and hem were all embroidered with pea-green floral piping. The high collar enhanced her long, delicate, fair neck. Her haughty breasts cried out from under her jacket, and her slightly reddened face looked like a dew-covered pink lotus—fragile, tender, timid, abashed. Magistrate Qian was profoundly moved. This beautiful woman, who seemed to have fallen out of the sky, was like a lover who had returned after a long absence.

He stood up and walked around the table, oblivious to the bruising bump on his leg when he skirted the corner of the desk. He could not take his eyes off hers. She filled his heart, leaving room for nothing else, like a butterfly-to-be imprisoned by the thin skin of its cocoon. His eyes were moist, his breathing labored. He stretched out his arms, opening up to her, stopping just before they met. Their eyes never wavered, despite the tears filling them. Their strength was gathering, the heat was rising, until finally they were in each other’s arms, though who had made the first move would always remain a mystery. They were quickly entwined, like a pair of snakes, investing all their strength in the embrace. They stopped breathing at the same moment; their joints cracked noisily. Lips drew closer and were frozen together. Their eyes closed in the midst of a frenzy of activity by hot lips and searching tongues. Rivers roiled, seas churned; you swallow me, I devour you, lips began to melt from the heat . . . afterward, flowing water formed a channel, ripe melons fell from the vine, and no power on earth could stand in their way. There in broad daylight, amid the solemnity of a document room, absent an ivory bed and a conjugal quilt, he and she shed their cocoons and emerged with natural beauty as they achieved immortality.