《傩赐》译文

Nuoci

Hua Wang

Translator: Mei Wang , FujuanLiu, Wen luo

Chapter 1

1

 

I am eager to tell you the story about a place named Nuoci a long time ago. That’s probably when my mother left my father, my elder brother and me for another man -- I knew nothing about sadness then. That’s probably when my mother sneaked back to breastfeed me and I saw the depression deep in her eyes. That’s probably when I spent my first Tonghua Festival. Or that’s probably when I saw the multi-colored fog in Nuoci for the first time. Or that’s probably when I spent my last days in school and my father decided to arrange my two elder brothers and me to marry Qiu with my tuition fees.It seems this desire to tell the story is like a patch of my skin, which was born with me and experienced the beautiful and sad stories in the white sun of Nuoci with me.

The white sun!

The people in Nuoci can feel the real sunlight only within less than two months a year. Usually what they can see is nothing but fog, so only a white sun can be seen in the sky of Nuoci for most of the time. From the sunrise to the sunset, the sun is as pure and white as silver and it is beautiful as well as sad.

You see the sunlight? Here and there. Red, green and pink.When you see the sunlight, you would know the spring is around you. However, even then, Nuoci is surrounded by thick fog as well as sadness from the white sun.

On such a day, one can see one side of the hill covered by something golden, and something white floating around something grey and green. That’s golden cole flowers,white plum flowers and grey and green hills and bamboo ridges which are not yet awake in winter. Below the bamboo ridges is a grey and green tile-roofed house.

It is on this day that Qiu was married into this house.

What Qiu had never expected was that she was married to three men.Things of this kind can only happen in Nuoci, and we would never tell anyone about this unless we have to, let alone our bride Qiu.

Qiu knew that she was to marry in a place named Nuoci, but she had no idea that we don’t have cole flowers or plum flowers in Nuoci when the spring is about to end in other places. That’s because the weather in Nuoci is not for cole flowers and the seasons in Nuoci are not for the plum flowers. It sounds as if Nuoci is a place far away from the earth, but actually Nuoci is not even too far away from Qiu’s hometown. It only takes three and half hours’ walk up the hill from Qiu’s home to get to Nuoci. However, Nuoci is deep in the mountain near to the sky, and the road to Qiu’s home is deserted with not a single figure to be seen. Nuoci is like the ear of sorghum, near to the sky while far away from the root, and that’s where the difference between Nuoci and other places lies.  

We have never done any research on which year Nuoci could date back to, but it is said that, long long ago, three men and a woman escaped from a war to the place and thus Nuoci came into being. However, even the story tellers were not sure about which war or which dynasty it was. Anyway, our ancestors chose the place which was completely surrounded by mountains and they named the place Nuoci with hopes for the good life in the place. They lived, farmed and multiplied with enough freedom in this place. What beautiful old days! It’s said the custom of two or three men marrying one woman started then. It’s also said that some outsiders came into Nuoci and told people in Nuoci to obey the rules and forced them to form a big family laboring and eating together -- even without eating together later, they still labored together.Those outsiders forbade people in Nuoci from the custom of more than one man marrying one woman, and the people followed the rule. However, something happened later, and people in Nuoci started to labor in one family on the land granted to them. More and more outsiders came to Nuoci to give more and more rules and ask for more and more money, and people in Nuoci could barely had enough food, even laboring from spring to winter. That’s when people in Nuoci came to realize that it was wrong to imitate the life in other places, after all Nuoci is unique. As a consequence, some old customs were picked up and well valued.

The old marriage custom resumed.

It’s said some people knowing about Nuoci once warned Qiu that Nuoci is not a good place to go, but Qiu couldn’t make a decision on her own. Qiu lost her parents long ago and lived with her elder brother since then. Besides, Qiu’s two legs were not the same in length, which made her walk in a staggering way, just like a duck. Qiu’s elder brother had a fiancee and, in order to have enough money to marry that girl, he had to arrange Qiu to marry someone to obtain some money from it. My elder brother Wudong went to propose a marriage, Qiu’s elder brother asked for a sum of money and Wudong agreed. Then in front of Wudong, Qiu’s elder brother told Qiu that this man was so tall and strong, just like a pine tree, that Qiu can rely on him. Hearing this, Qiu nodded without a second thought.

Actually the marriage proposed by Wudong was not just for himself, but also for me and my half brother Yanying, a 35-year-old single man. For one, Yanying was not as young as Wudong, and he had no left ear and no left hand. For the other, I was only 18 years old then. Therefore, 25-year-old Wudong was chosen to propose the marriage for the three of us. The whole thing was arranged by my father and he didn’t ask for anyone’s opinions or inform anyone else before and after the proposal. Just some time before the semester began,my father suddenly told me not to go to school anymore  and thus my tuition fees could be used for marrying Qiu. This idea seemed to hit my father all of a sudden, but it indeed shaped my whole life ever since. I was just a high school student at that time and right ahead of me should have been my last year in high school. However, my father just got in my way and forced me to follow his footsteps, as if I were just an crop in the charge of him.

The marriage was settled early in February and the wedding would be held late in February. Qiu was a little upset by her elder brother’s eagerness to marry her to us and couldn’t help shedding tears even before the wedding. What she didn’t know was that we people in Nuoci usually settled marriages in a hurry in case of any further change. When our people headed to Qiu’s home,I knew she was going to have a good long cry.

Qiu didn’t have parents and thus she was supposed to kneel down in front of her elder brother before she left her home.When the firecrackers were crackling, Qiu’s elder brother was supposed to came to the shrine to see Qiu crying. When Qiu knelt down before her elder brother, She started to cry and said a lot of things in a singing manner to her elder brother, her relatives, and her friends and other folks, many of whom were impressed by her and couldn’t help crying. Then, a woman accompanying Qiu had to help Qiu stand up to get out of the door. In the meanwhile, Qiu would be handed a small piece of firewood and she was supposed to throw it to her elder brother before she stepped out of the door,which meant that the wealth of the family remained in the house. In this way, other folks would praise Qiu for her selflessness, leaving the wealth to her elder brother instead of,like some selfish brides,leaving with the wealth .

Like many brides, Qiu brought three quilts, a wardrobe and a rice chest with her as her dowry, all in red. Some of our people carried her dowry and walked in the front of the group, several women accompanying Qiu surrounded her and moved forward together, and the suona was played to celebrate at the rear. All together, we headed to Nuoci.

Surrounded by the mountains and near to the horizon, Nuoci can hardly see the bright and clear sky.You can imagine how difficult it would be for Qiu, whose legs were not the same in length, to walk towards somewhere near to the horizon,far away from scented cole flowers and far away from the bright and lively spring.

On that day, Qiu wore a flaming red jacket with a big pink peony on the back of her waist. You can imagine how impressive the fresh peony is on such a bright spring day. In the sun, Qiu was in a sweat.

Qiu’s clothes was wet with a darker patch on her back. The further she went, the further she was away from the golden trees at the foot of the hills as well as the scent of flowers in the air. And she could feel a little bit cold with clothes wet with her sweat. She could see no more bright color,and while the sky seemed to be within her reach, the sky was all but grey and green, just like the road ahead. Looking back, Qiu could still see the sun in the sky, but she could also feel that something around her seemed to be resisting the sun or that the sun just could not reach Qiu.

Getting colder with the wind in the mountain, Qiu gradually felt less depressed about the departure. Along the road which seemed had no end, Qiu could feel a panic about the future rather than anxiety about the departure.

That’s when I went to meet Qiu.

As Qiu’s husband, I should have waited at home instead of going to welcome her, but this idea hit me when the village head Mr. Chen had come to me. Chen Fengshui, as the village head, was responsible for collecting money from villagers in Nuoci, handing the money to the officials outside, and communicating what the officials said to the villagers. Chen was selected as the village head by people in Nuoci when his father was too old to continue working as the village head. Although Chen was also old enough to retire, villagers in Nuoci still voted for him.That’s because villagers still believed he was the chosen one, for his father used to guide the villagers to resume the old marriage custom and help them get rid of a lot of financial burdens. Besides, Chen, just like his father, was still close to the villagers at the bottom of his heart.

Chen attended all the weddings in Nuoci not just for celebrating but also for getting clear about which one was the lawful husband of the bride. He had to keep it in mind,confirm it for many times and check the marriage certificate in case someone outside Nuoci came to inquire. What’s more, he had to keep in mind the bride’s other unlawful husbands so that he could tell people outside Nuoci that these men were single and the kids were adopted by them or someone else’s kids.

So, Chen had come to meet me.

At that time, I was just in the bamboo forest, picturing the scene of Qiu leaving her home.In my imagination, Qiu went into Nuoci and suddenly saw the white sun.How lovely she would be when she was shocked to see the bright sun change into the white sun. I tried to get rid of the thick fog in front of me as as to see my imagination more clearly.I didn’t look like a bridegroom at all, so the creases in Chen’s face deepened before he asked me,‘is this bride also your wife?’I didn’t answer.I hated it when he interrupted my imagination and I also thought he should have asked my father such a question.

Probably he had already asked my father, but he just wanted to confirm it with me. He added,‘do you have an opinion on this?’I ignored him again. Fog in the bamboo forest was thicker than anywhere else, and you would find it as ugly as torn cotton fiber when you were in a bad mood.I wanted to see something far away from me rather than Chen, but the fog only allowed me to see him.I vigorously waved my hands to get rid of the fog as well as the anger in vain, only to make myself exhausted, panting for breath.  

Chen lovingly looked at me as if I were his grandson, adding,‘I also thought your father didn’t handle this properly.’ I came to think Chen would understand me and turned to him for support. He saw the eagerness in my eyes and I could even see the very support in his eyes. His eyes narrowed with his yellowish eyeballs hidden under his wrinkles, and then he stretched his throat and lifted his jaw,yelling ‘You father is such an idiot! How could he ask Wudong and the bride to register marriage!You have received education in high school and you are the most educated one in our village.I don’t think anyone would believe it if I tell the officials up here that your are single and your kids are adopted.’ Everyone in Nuoci knew that we people in Nuoci were near to the horizon, and thus anyone outside Nuoci was called  ‘one at the foot of the hills or outside the hills’.Only Chen called those officials outside Nuoci as ‘someone up here’. Chen said, ‘your father should have asked you to propose the marriage and register marriage with the bride.’ He added, as for marriage registration,a large amount of money would be paid for the making of the certificate itself,the introduction letter, the notarial fees, the pre-marriage check-up, the women and children care fees,the only child deposit, the catering for the wedding, the slaughtering of pigs, the family planning deposit, the late childbirth deposit and the marital harmony deposit. Counting with his fingers as rough as tree roots,Chen suddenly made a fist and waved his hands anxiously as if all these fees could disappear with his waving. Then he calmed down and started to roll his tobacco. A piece of tobacco leaf with a strong smell was placed into his mouth and after getting wet, the leaf was placed flat on his knees. While rolling the tobacco leaf, he said that this large sum of money was divided into three portions,among which two went for the two sons of my father, and that no matter Wudong or I went to register marriage with the bride,my father had to pay two portions anyway. Chen thought my father was so stubborn.I was disappointed by what he said and when he focused on rolling the tobacco, it came to me that I’d better go and have a look at the bride instead of hearing all the talk here.

I had never seen Qiu before, but on his return from marriage proposal, my brother said Qiu was a cripple but she was a real beauty.Having heard this,Yanying couldn’t help sneaking to the foot of the hill to have a look at Qiu, but I didn’t. I preferred to imagine how she looked according to what I had been told. Besides,this decision was made by my my father and the money was paid by him, so I thought I had nothing to do with Qiu.

Through the road at the back of my house, I walked towards where Qiu was. I held a book tightly in my hands. It is last year’s text book, and I carried it with me not for some big dream, but for a kind of memory of the gone school days. On my way to Qiu, I held the book tightly, which made me feel as if I were going to school. I walked so fast that there was even wind around my feet as I paved a way among dried grass.

When the sound of suona gradually became louder and louder, I came to realize I was not on my way to school but on my way to see the bride, who was related to me no matter how I thought of this. From now on, one third of her life was closely tied to mine.

I stood there in the fog,seeing the march coming near to me.

All people in the march were beautifully dressed and there was only one cripple in the march, who was very close to what I had imagined.Such a beauty!I was pretty sure that is Qiu.

 

2

 

My presence surprised people in the march. They shouted,‘what are you doing here,Lantong?’I glanced at them without even a smile. I was always introverted and thus nobody would blame me for not answering their question.

Anyway, what I could think of was nobody but Qiu at that moment. I said to myself, Qiu was really gorgeous.

If Qiu were not a cripple, she would definitely be quite a beauty.Even though she was a cripple, she was still a beauty.

I saw Qiu for the first time and that’s when I could feel a real spring in my life.

I used to dream of women, but all the fantasy disappeared due to self-abasement. Ever since I saw from others’ eyes that I was just a nobody from the remote village,self-abasement was rooted in my heart and beautiful women were like clouds in the sky, so far away from me.I had never thought that I could ever come near to such a beautiful woman due to an arbitrary decision made by my parents. I had never expected that I could be so emotional before a beauty. Just within a moment, I was no longer depressed about quitting school or  ,together with my two brothers, marrying the same woman.I was no longer whom I had been.

Trying to hide my strong emotions, I looked at Qiu, and hoped for her glance at me.

I knew I was just a poor guy deep in the mountain, but I was pretty good-looking.I knew my eyes were beautiful -- young and clear.So I hoped that Qiu could look into my eyes when she first saw me and that I could win her recognition with my eyes just like I could recognize her beauty despite her crippling.     
However,Qiu didn’t look at me.

Qiu was a new bride and thus she was looking down when walking all the way.

Qiu was a beautiful new bride. She was related to me, and I was one of her three husbands. I could see that she has some difficulty with walking.

I said to her,‘Qiu, let me carry you on the back.’ I didn’t know how these words came out of my mouth and I could hear my voice shivering,just like the sound of a cicada’s wings waving in the air.

This request seemed to be too much for her. She glanced at me before her face reddened all of a sudden because of shyness. Someone in the marched yelled,‘new bride, he is your younger brother-in-law, why not letting him carry you on the back? The road is bad and the going is hard.’ Qiu glanced at me again. I thought her first glance must have given her a good impression on me, and thus her second glance could indicate that she was not against the idea of me carrying her on the back. However, she just looked at her accompanying girls helplessly, not knowing what to do next.

People in the march started laughing at me ,‘Hahahahaha’.They seemed to be even happier than watching a comedy. I knew my face reddened as well, but I insisted, telling her, ‘Qiu, the going is tough for you,and let me carry you on the back.’

Qiu was looking at me frightened, and it seemed as if she was a wild rabbit while I were the hunter. Her legs were trembling too much to move forward.

Someone in the march shouted again, ‘new bride, his name is Lantong and he is your younger brother-in-law. He is worried about you, so why not letting him carry you on the back?’  

Actually, people in the march already knew that I was not only Qiu’s younger brother-in-law, but also her man.However, they only mentioned the former.

Qiu was in such a panic that she seemed to want to escape, but somehow I managed to carry her on the back. It felt like there were thousands of frightened bunnies up and down in her chest. Her sweat was pouring off her and her body trembled. She didn’t struggle to get off my back and I thought this was because she didn’t know whether it was right to do so. My body was trembling as well, but it was because of excitement, not fear.Both of us trembled at the same time, and it’s seemed to be a kind of  integration between her and me. I felt good and a thought came to me: Lantong was not longer Lantong, or this was the real Lantong.

With her on my back, the whole march moved forward at a faster speed, and all of them became relaxed. Qiu was looking down on my back.

Gradually, she calmed down. The road was long and bad, and after a while, I got tired.The road was narrow and lonely, wriggling up to a hill,like a snake.

Qiu whispered around my ears, ‘could you please put me down? There’s still a long way to go.’

I lifted her up, indicating that I still had enough strength.

I told her, ‘just have a look up at the sky.’

She lifted her head and she must have seen the while sun. I felt that she lifted her head for quite a while, impressed by the sun.I said,‘the white sun could only be seen in Nuoci.’ Qiu didn’t hear me, and she was totally impressed by the sky.She gave her soul to the sky and the white sun while leaving her body on my back and somehow I felt she was heavier than before.

I slowed down, even slower than otherwise she walked on her own.

Someone in the march said, ‘wow, the white sun.’

And another one said,‘looked back at the foot of the hill! Our sun has not changed.’

Were there two suns in the sky?

Actually, this was a work of the fog, which turned the sun into a white one.

Qiu came to herself with people talking about the sun. She held me tight and tried to lift herself up so that she could be less of a burden.

I gritted my teeth, panted for breath and struggled to move forward. However, I did feel happy all the way.

Qiu lifted her head again. Seeing that the road was not as narrow and bad as before and that the white sun was bigger, she whispered to me,‘how long will it take to get there?’  

I stood still, but didn’t put her down. With her on my back, I went on walking.

As we went into the mountains, the road was flatter and we walked faster. It was not before long that we heard many people saying ‘the new bride is coming. Lantong is carrying the new bride on the back. They are coming back’.Qiu tried to get off my back but I didn’t let her go. Thus she lowered her head and put her burning face on my back. Her heartbeat was beating my back like a fist.

Arriving at the yard, I reluctantly put her down.How I wish I could carry her like this for the rest of my life! But I just had to let her go to the wedding ceremony with Wudong. In principle, Wudong would also represent Yanying and me on the wedding ceremony. Wudong was the one that proposed marriage, registered marriage, and attended the wedding ceremony as the bridegroom, and his first month of marriage life with her would start right away.Yanying and I had to draw to decide which one would start the marriage life with Qiu right after Wudong. This had happened before the wedding. Wudong and my father prepared the draw with two tiny spitballs with something written on them. My father showed the two spitballs in the palm of his hand and asked Yanying and I to draw.I was not interested in it at all and thus told them I was good with either. My father stared at me, saying ‘no body dares to decide for you on this.’I laughed at my father in my heart,‘he has decided on my marriage, but how doesn’t he dare to decide on such a tiny thing.’ I said ‘I won’t draw. Let Yanying go first. I am okay with what’s left.’ Yanying drew but only got ‘the second’, which meant what was left was ‘the first’.So my marriage life with Qiu would start right after Wudong’s. Yanying was too upset by his bad luck to say anything at all. I told him to swap with me and all of a sudden,he opened his eyes wide with his face lightening up. But my father said, ‘you can’t break the rule!’

When I thought of the draw later ,I felt grateful to my father for not preventing me from compromising. And I felt I was longing for the days spent with Qiu, just like any couple. This kind of days was sometimes like a cloud,a beautiful butterfly, or a meek ewe. I stared at this changing cloud in my imagination, and when it suddenly came to me that this beautiful woman didn’t belong to myself alone, my heart began to sink.

I didn’t like this. So what kind of life did I like, I asked myself.I was not sure for this moment,but since I used to go to school, since I had been to outside the mountain, since I read books, my heart saw somewhere far away. I felt my heart often went up to the top of Nuoci and looked in the direction outside Nuoci. But that’s all. Thoughts had never occurred in my mind, or my thoughts were nothing more than white and pale butterflies. My mind was usually filled with cloud-like fog, or fog-like clouds. Sometimes, I stared at the white sun in the sky for a long time and hoped I could see my own thoughts through it, and that’s when some white and pale butterflies appeared in my mind and took my mind to somewhere far away.

So, my answer to my own question was, ‘I wanted to leave this place.’

I didn’t like this marriage custom, but it didn’t mean I was not into Qiu. Although my eyes could hardly lighten up for anything as a result of my attitude towards life, I couldn’t resist being attracted by Qiu.

Qiu was such a beauty that all people in the village were staring at her and thus she only dared to looked down at her own feet.I hoped to see her face and I hoped we could see each other eye-to-eye. I stared at her in the hope that she could lift her head.

Qiu finally lifted her head because a woman came to her and took her into the house, leaving her sitting on the bench for the ceremony. Then Qiu looked down again, and all I could see was a sight of her back. Qiu was going to attend the ceremony as the bride of someone else.I felt dizzy for a moment and then I started laughing at myself. I said to myself,‘she never belongs to me alone.’

Qiu was arranged to sit on a bench in the entrance, still looking down at her feet. I could see the side of her face -- she was so beautiful even with her head down. This somehow made me feel satisfied.

A group of children, just like some dirty little monkeys, surrounded Qiu and stared at her with their round eyes.

Sizai ’s mother told Sici,‘you could ask the bride to touch your broken tooth so that it would grow fast.’Sizai  glared at his mother and other children burst with laughter. Qiu had a look at these children and the looked down again.

Sizai ’s mother came along and pulled Sizai  towards her, and then she asked Qiu, ‘my sister-in-law, could you please touch his broken tooth so that it would grow again.’ Qiu didn’t dare to look at the woman or refuse her request. After Sizai  opened his mouth, Qiu stretch out her shivering finger into his mouth. As soon as Qiu touched his broken tooth,Sizai  shut his mouth and bit Qiu’s finger. Screaming out, Qiu withdrew her finger before it was bitten into halves in Sizai ’s mouth.

Qiu couldn’t help crying.

Sizai  was then beaten, but he didn’t cry. He just looked at Qiu crying, and like a plastic doll, he made a screaming sound each time he was given a hit.

As the firecrackers were crackling and spluttering, Qiu was taken to the central room by the woman who had taken her into the house before. Two red candles were lit, and the smell of burning joss sticks was in the air.Qiu stood besides Wudong who was dressed in new clothes, and didn’t dare to open her eyes wide. She peeped at Wudong for a second and looked back. Looking at Wudong overwhelmed by happiness, how I wished to throw him away and replace him. But that’s just what I wanted to do, not what I would actually do in real life. I felt rather dizzy, putting my hand to my chest, and said to myself, ‘even if I were the bride groom of the wedding ceremony, I still had to share Qiu with my two elder brothers.’

Doing what the master of ceremony asked, Wudong and Qiu knelt down for several times. Then Qiu was taken into the room for the newly-wedded. The room and everything in that room were brand new to her. Qiu was excited by the sense of freshness and looked around.A big group of children crowded into the room and stared at Qiu without even a blink. Qiu took a lot of candies and sunflower seeds out of her bag and handed them out among the children. Then the children were taken out of the room while Qiu locked herself in it.    

 

3

 

Our three rooms stood side by side with thick yellow walls between the rooms and several transparent tiles on the roof as windows. At that moment,it was dark outside, so the transparent tiles were not as bright as during the day.The room was barely lit by three bulbs surrounded by thick walls and the smell of dishes and drinks remained in the room.

The central room was in the middle with two wing-rooms on its two side. Each wing-room was divided into two separate rooms -- the front room which was usually used as kitchen and the back room which was further divided by a bamboo partition into two bedrooms. The bedroom for Qiu and Wudong was in the left wing-room, which was just separated from my bedroom with a bamboo partition.The kitchen was in the right wing-room, not the left wing-room. Despite the sunny days in other places, people in Nuoci had to resort to burners when it was dark outside. Our burner was built with soil, and it’s a one-square-meter soil surface with a big burner in the middle filled with lumps of coal. During the winter, the fire was strong and all my family members gathered around the burner, cooking and have meals.

It was dark outside and villagers having attended the ceremony were back home. Yanying was still sitting opposite me, smoking a roll of tobacco leaves and glancing at me from time to time. Poor guy !He looked like an old goat that didn’t have enough courage to voice what was in his head.He was screwing me with his eyes, believing I gained extra advantage .He thought that, since there was nothing but a bamboo partition between my bedroom and Wudong’s, I must could hear something enjoyable in the evening. I really wanted to tell Yanying to sleep in my bedroom with me or exchange his room with mine,but I said nothing.So Yanying stared at me with a little bit of hatred for a while before he got bored, stood up and left the burner.As soon as he went away, I could see no point sitting around the burner alone.What’s in his eyes bored me ,but I felt even more bored when I was alone there.What a busy day full of joy!However,I finally came to realize that all of the joy had nothing to do with me, so I felt lonely and only wanted to get back to my bedroom like a dog back to its doghouse.

I followed Yanying into the left wing-room. Yanying asked me, ‘why are you following me?’I answered, ‘I am going to bed.’He made a strange sound with his nose, stopping to stand in the front room and stare at me. I faked a smile and went back to my bedroom alone.

I expected to rest my body and my thought when lying down on my bed with eyes closed, but some kind of sound in Wudong’s bedroom stimulated me all of a sudden.

It was a mixed sound of short screams,loud breathing as well as shaking of the bed. There was also a smell making me dizzy.

I felt as if my head was getting bigger and bigger into an inflated basketball amid the sound. There was fire burning in my eyes, which made a simmering sound and changed the darkness in front of me into blue.Qiu and Wudong were making love to each other for the first time in the blue background.

They were doing it fiercely as if they were fighting with hatred.

Wudong was doing it in a violent way so that Qiu made short screams constantly.

Qiu said,‘don’t hurry!Just slow down.’

Qiu never knew that she was the prey for three men and that although Wudong was the first to make love to her, he would not be satisfied if he didn’t do it as much as he could.

After a while, Wudong made a scream too before Qiu made another scream.

Then, all I could hear was the loud breathing of a man doing something laborious. It went on and on as if there was no end. I suddenly came to hate the bamboo partition in that it was not thick enough to insulate my room from the sound. I pulled the quilt to cover myself in order to weaken the sound, but failed.The sound was penetrating into every corner of my room so I decided to get back to the burner. I got off bed and went out of my bedroom when Qiu came out of her bedroom.

Qiu was shocked to see Yanying standing in front of her bedroom,and she turned around, only to see me standing aside. Seeing all of this, Qiu looked down and went out of the wing-room without greeting us. Yan Yang followed Qiu like a shadow of her. Qiu turned around to call him ‘brother’, and Yanying replied,‘it is dark.’Qiu ignored him,and he was about to follow her before Wudong had a short dry cough. Thus Yanying stopped following her.He looked at me with eyes filled with desire and told me to go to the burner. He pinched my face in a strange way and said, ‘I’m gonna go back.’

Qiu returned from the toilet,only to see Yanying and I standing in the middle of the room,so she went into her bedroom hurriedly with her eyes looking down and shut the door.The slam of the door shocked Yanying,but he still moved towards the door of Qiu’s bedroom as if to fetch something.

Qiu asked Wudong, ‘is your brother Yanying insane?’

Wudong didn’t reply.

Qiu added, ‘Please answer my question.’

Wudong replied,‘he is not insane.’

Qiu said, ‘I went to the toilet just now,only to find he and your younger brother standing in front of our door.They must have been listening to us. ’

Yanying and I looked at each other, only to hear something that sounded like kissing. The sound was quite loud and it must be made by Wudong as a kind of showing off or warning.

I told Yanying to go back.

Yanying pinched my face again and then silently walked into the darkness outside the house.

I took a book to the burner and stared at the book with the sour smell of burning coal around and the scene of Wudong and Qiu making love in my head.

The sound in my imagination was even louder and more piercing than the real sound I just heard.So I held my textbook up and read aloud as I had done during the morning period in school. I tried to drive away those crazy sounds with my own voice until I got really exhausted and thus went back to my bedroom to sleep.

As I entered my own bedroom, I fell into the strange atmosphere created by those sounds again. I had no idea how many times they had made love to each other. I only heard Qiu said, ‘you are incredibly thirsty for this!We’ve got enough!’I could still hear Wudong’s loud breath until I fell asleep.

 

4

 

It felt as if I had just shut my eyes for a while before the day was breaking.I heard some slight sounds from the other room.It’s time to get up to do labor at daybreak, which was a custom in my village. We were used to awakening, even from sound sleep, and worrying about the first thing of the day. Wudong said softly and lightly to Qiu, ‘you could sleep late to get more energy.’Qiu replied, ‘you could sleep late, but I have to get up, or I would feel ashamed.’Wudong said, ‘why?You are the new bride.’ ‘So you mean the new bride could sleep late. I don’t think so,’said Qiu. Then I heard the sound of a kiss, made by either Wudong or Qiu.

Qiu got up and went to do labor in the side room, and that was what women in our village usually did.

Women usually got up at daybreak and the first thing they did was to cook the food for the pigs.Then, they washed their face and combed their hair before cooking meals.At this moment, my parents were cleaning the bowls,plates and pots they borrowed for the ceremony and talked with each other about what to do during the day. My father said, ‘I told Yanying yesterday to build the burner for Wudong.’My mother replied, ‘no need to hurry. Just have some rest for two days. Qiu was married into our house yesterday, and you want them two to live independently from us today?’ ‘Sooner or later.And after it’s settled, we could focus on our crops,’ said my father.My mother went on, ‘we have to clean all these bowls,plates and pots. They need to be returned to others.’ My father replied, ‘we can do them both. You and I are responsible for returning these bowls, plates and pots while Yanying could work on burner building.’

Qiu stood in front of the door for a while before she took a long breath and greeted my mother with ‘mother’.It was natural for her to hesitate for such a while since her own parents had been dead for many years. Besides, it was not easy for her to call two strangers ‘father’ and ‘mother’. My parents stopped to look at Qiu and Qiu greeted my father with ‘father’. After the greeting, my parents continue washing the bowls and pots, and Qiu joined them.It was during the labor that Qiu truly became a member of my family, like a snow flake into water. Qiu also smiled at me, from which I could tell two things: first, she didn’t hate me;second, she was grateful to me for carrying her on the back.

Wudong’s eyes were as red as a rabbit’s, which made Qiu laugh. Before long, Yanying came along with two red eyes to build the burner. Qiu saw his red eyes at first sight before she saw that Yanying didn’t have the left hand or the left ear. After a second of surprise, Qiu greeted him sympathetically with ‘elder brother’.

Wudong and I were supposed to return the kitchenware to others according to my parent’s arrangement, but Wudong refused to leave because he insisted on helping Yanying build the burner. Wudong said he had to decided on the size and shape of the burner, so he could not leave home. I knew the real reason for Wudong to stay. It’s time for my parents to turn up the soil, so they would go to the field after cleaning the kitchenware, leaving Qiu to cook at home. Then It would  be only Qiu and Yanying at home, and Wudong should be clever enough to realize this. Wudong,in theory, should not worry about this too much, for Qiu was also the wife of Yanying after all, but since Qiu kind of belonged to Wudong for this period, Wudong had to claim his ‘ownership’ over her. I didn’t worry about such a thing, neither would I like to return the kitchenware.Actually, I was interested in nothing since I had quit school. I was lazy and confused. I would not refuse to return the kitchenware, but,after my parents went to the field, I would sit casually and do nothing about the kitchenware.

The cooking stove for pigs’ food was in the pigpen lane, so Qiu had to go back and forth when cooking pigs’s food and our meals.Yanying was building the burner around the central room and with only the central room between him and Qiu, but he took the trouble of going to where Qiu was recklessly, pretending to drink water or look for something there. Qiu was clever enough to know why, but she was not angry, for Qiu,like any woman,liked to look into the mirror and men’s eyes were just exactly women’s mirror.

Qiu feared Yanying yesterday but not anymore today for having seeing he was disabled as she was.She may be even sympathizing with him. Once, Yanying came to the side room but didn’t see Qiu.Thus he was stretching out his neck to see the pigpen when Qiu almost ran into him, but Qiu didn’t get angry. She asked, ‘what are you looking for, elder brother?’ ‘You,’Yanying replied. ‘Why me?’Qiu went on. ‘I was just wondering what kind of burner would you like? An efficient one or an inefficient one?’ asked Yanying. ‘Of course an efficient one! Who would want an inefficient one?’Qiu laughed. ‘Some people are more into inefficient burners because efficient burners usually cost more coal,’ said Yanying. ‘Well, but I prefer an efficient burner. I’m okay with more coal,’ smiled Qiu. After the conversation, Yanying still stayed there, staring at Qiu.He took out a tape to measure the burner Qiu was using to cook, which seemed to be a good reason for him to stay with Qiu. ‘You’ve measured this burner for two times!’said Qiu. ‘I have a poor memory.So I have to measure it  again,’answered Yanying.

When Yanying was measuring the burner, his empty left sleeve fluttered into the fire and then there came a smell of burnt things. Seeing this, Qiu screamed, ‘elder brother, look at your sleeve!’Yanying put off the flames on his sleeve with his right hand and then stuffed his left sleeve into his belt, smiling at Qiu. Qiu asked him sympathetically, ‘elder brother, what happened to your left hand?’ ‘When I was digging for coal,a large piece of coal as sharp as knife fell down and cut off my left ear and left arm,’ answered Yanying. Before Yanying could continue describing what had happened that day, Wudong called Yanying at a distance,so Yanying had to go.

I suddenly laughed,but I had no idea why.I was as confused as before, sitting in a dark corner around the burner and seeing Qiu and Yanying walking around.I felt as empty as a jackstraw and they seemed to see me as a jackstraw, walking around as if they didn’t see me. Hearing me laughing ,Qiu turned around and had a look at me with her big eyes. ‘What are your laughing for?’ asked Qiu. ‘I don’t know. Just all of a sudden,’ I answered. ‘Mother and father asked you to return the kitchenware. You would be blamed if you didn’t do as they told you,’added Qiu. ‘I’m okay with that,’ I replied. ‘You are not well?’Qiu went on. ‘I’m well, and I feel very good huddling up like this,’ I said. Qiu smiled and then went on working.

Yanying spent the whole day building just half a burner, so my father unhappily asked during the dinner, ‘Yanying, you used to be able to build a burner within half a day, but why did you only manage to build half a burner within a whole day?’ ‘I used to have two hands in the past, but I have only one hand now,’ answered Yanying. My father frowned and said nothing any more. My mother had a look at Yanying and then at my father, and a far more complex expression appeared on her face.

During the dinner, my father said a meeting would be held to divide up family property. My father hated to see Yanying’s inefficiency and Wudong’s staying at home rather than working outside, and thus he said, after the family property was divided into two parts, he would only till his own land rather than worrying about our land. My parents gave birth to Wudong and me. Wudong would become a Taoist, going to Taoist rites from place to place, and I used to go to school, which made him feel a loss.

Hearing that we were going to divide up family property and live apart, Yanying felt it improper to stay here and thus ate in quite a hurry. ‘Take it easy. Don’t hurry,’my mother told Yanying.She looked at my father unhappily and said, ‘you are so mean.’ My father gave her a stare without any response, and then looked away. Then he continued talking about dividing family property.He said since he was still the parent in the family, there was no need for democracy in making the decision. He added that the family property would be divided into two parts, one for Wudong, and the other for himself and me. He took my mother and Qiu as guests in this family and thus didn’t mention them at all.He said since Wudong often went outside to Taoist rites, areas near to home, to a large extent, would be given to Wudong. My father announced his plan for the division of the family property between Wudong and me, and with his announcement, Qiu looked at Wudong and me from time to time. She got quite anxious when hearing that my father would give a larger amount of areas near to home to Wudong. However, as for Wudong and me, it didn’t matter at all since all land,near or far, fertile or barren, would belong to our wife Qiu any way, so there was no need to argue. But Qiu had no idea about this and thus she said, ‘father, please be fair and don’t leave all the land near to home to Wudong and me.’ My father had a look at Qiu and replied, ‘Wudong was a Taoist and he would often work outside. Thus you have to work at home alone. Besides, you have a problem with your legs. So this decision is settled.’ Qiu looked at me again, but I didn’t look back. I was never interested in the division of family property, and I even believed that since Wudong and I could share the same wife, it was all a fuss about dividing the land between us.I saw my father’s decision with contempt and thus started to read a book in my hand. It was last year’s textbook and I had turned the pages for so many times that the book was already old enough. When reading the book, I could see something floating in my mind like fog or clouds.Seeing that I ignored her, Qiu looked down to listen to my father talking.

My father talked about a tree, a tung tree, which brought us some profit each year. This tree stood right in the middle between two pieces of fertile land -- fertile land was rare in Nuoci -- and my father decided to equally divided the land between Wudong and me. And the problem was to whom the tree should belong. There were no other trees in Nuoci except tung trees.Actually, Tung trees were everywhere in Nuoci,and it didn’t matter how many tung trees we could get. However, this very tree was quite a problem because the crown of the tree was so large that it covered a big piece of land. It was not easy for my father to decide, so he asked us for advice. Qiu said, ‘leave it to father,mother and younger brother please. We have had enough.’ As a matter of fact, the tree belonged to Qiu anyway, but since Qiu said so, we would do as Qiu suggested.

We all focused on the division of family property without noticing when Yanying left.

That night, Yanying didn’t stay to listen to the sound from Wudong’s bedroom.

That night, the sound from Wudong’s bedroom was even louder than the night before.

 

Chapter 2

5

Wudong and Qiu spent their first three days happily though tired.Then it’s time for Qiu to return to her home.In the region where I lived, returning to the new bride’s own home was actually giving her an alternative. After spending three days in the bridegroom’s home, the new bride should know how life was going to be in the future. So after returning to her own home, the new bride had her own right to decide whether she would finally stay in her own home or go on living with the bridegroom in his home.  

Since Nuoci was quite far away from Qiu’s home,they had to get up really early to go downhill in order to go and get back within one day.

I heard Qiu getting up to search for what to wear at daybreak. She chose the red one with a big peony on the back, which she had worn on her wedding. She asked Wudong to wear the one he had worn on the wedding and Wudong did so.

After they left, my parents were worried about one thing -- would Qiu choose to return to our house with Wudong finally? My parents had very different expressions when facing the same question. My father stared as if seeing the enemy approaching her while my mother frowned with deep lines on her face as if someone was stabbing her heart. After dinner, my mother walked to the yard from time to time,frowning. Seeing the anxiety on my mother’s face, my father said to her, ‘don’t be so anxious. I think she is will come back.’ Saying this, my father was actually as worried as my mother for there was cases in our village that the new bride refused to get back, so he went to the yard to expect Qiu’s return as well.

When they were engaged in that, I was playing with a bamboo worm in the bamboo forest at the back of my house. The bamboo worm was yellow with its several thin wings torn off and tucked into my book by me. The bamboo worm without wings were folding and unfolding its shell on my book in vain,giving out a ‘Weng Weng’ sound in anger with its needle-like long mouth. Facing a huge being like me, that’s all it could do. My father dashed toward me and kicked off the book in my hand. I went after my book, hearing my father swearing me, ‘don’t be damn like this! I borrowed so much money with high interest to pay your tuition fees! You gotta be a man and repay it!’ I picked up my book on the ground, and seeing the book with one page broken and a lot of mud on it, I felt dizzy but I didn’t get angry. My father did borrow a large amount of money in order to realize my dream of going to school, and it was this year that he decided to borrow money for me to marry Qiu rather than go to school. So I didn’t think I had the right to blame him.  

My father said that I needed to learn to take care of my wife and earn money to support my family.I lowered my head to indicate that I accepted what he told me; otherwise, I could do no more to please my father.I knew I would not stand in the yard and anxiously expect Qiu as they did. However, my father was unhappy about my attitude, pulling me out of the bamboo forest and asking me to go to welcome Wudong and Qiu, as if he would kill me otherwise.

I had no choice but to go.  

I held my book to my arms and reluctantly did what my father told me. My mother shouted behind me, ‘carry a torch with you! It should be dark outside when you come back.’I stopped and waited for my mother to give me the torch when my father shouted, ‘don’t be lazy! You have to go to Qiu’s home to welcome them instead of waiting halfway. If Qiu doesn’t come back, you mustn’t come back.’I responded, ‘If I don’t come back, where should I stay?’ My father gave me a short stare and said, ‘ you idiot!’

I got the torch my mother gave to me and tried to comfort my parents by saying to them, ‘Qiu would certainly be back.’

My father’s gaze sharpened and told me, ‘hurry up!’

At that time, the white sun was right on the top of the hill on the other side, and the fog was as light and thin as yarn,covering mountains,trees,grass and roads with its color of fantasy. The road was covered with withered grass, winding its way like a snake overwhelmed by happiness. Stepping on such a road, I was suddenly in a very good mood and I could feel real happiness in my heart. Looking back to see what Nuoci looked like under such a circumstance, I saw there were cages hidden in the fog far away in the mountain, and I knew they were bamboo cages, under which a household lived . Walking down the road and passing the bamboo forest, I saw several chickens rested in the bamboo forest. Some withered yellow bamboo leaves fell down on the back of one chick which was asleep.Other chicken saw this and sighed with the sound ‘gu’ and when seeing me, they made a loud sound ‘gu’ and unfolded their wings to fly. The chick was awakened by this and stretched itself.

When walking down the road, I saw Wudong and Qiu.

Wudong carried Qiu on his back.

Wudong struggled to move forward, staggering as if he would fall down any time or as if to entertain Qiu. Qiu was dressed in red and she was so attractive and gorgeous, like a fairy in the foggy mountain, that I couldn’t help being overwhelmed by her charm.

My heart raced and I shouted towards them , ‘hey!’

Qiu and Wudong lifted their heads and saw me. Qiu tried to get off Wudong’s back but in vain because Wudong held her tightly. Qiu stared at me and stayed on Wudong’s back. They were approaching me. Qiu looked down and I could only saw one side of her red face. Wudong was sweating with a happy expression on his face.   

I said, ‘I came to welcome you.’

Not even giving a look at me,Wudong passed me proudly with Qiu on his back.

Qiu gave me a quick look and then looked down again. She whispered to Wudong, ‘I’d better walk on my own.’ Wudong ignored her and went on. Qiu was very shy and thus tried to get off Wudong’s back. She whispered, ‘Lantong is right here.’ Wudong deliberately said loudly, ‘you are my new bride. Don’t be shy.’Wudong held her tightly and thus Qiu could only struggle in vain and stay on his back.

However, she gave a quick glance at me and I could saw a very complicated look in her eyes. I could hardly understand what she meant before she turned her head back.Then, it was from the view of her back that I felt her uneasiness and anxiety about Wudong’s care for her.

Seeing Qiu’s red clothes with a big peony on her back , I could feel the something like sunshine and it touched me. Maybe it was good as well to have Qiu as my sister-in-law.

The two hillocks were so close to each other that the road before us was very narrow. Corn grew on the two hillocks and on the top of the them were stone here and there, which made the hillocks look like a human being’s face  or a dog’s face.

After a long walk , we finally finished this section of road between the two hillocks. However, we could only see another hillock instead of houses after making a turn.

The sun had long fell to the other side of the hill before we realized it. The white sun was like a lamp, and when the lamp was gone, the sky was nothing but dark.

We came across two dark figures -- a person and a dog. And this time, Qiu panicked and managed to get off Wudong’s back with all her strength. Then she stood there, looking down.

The two figures turned out to be Yanying and his black dog.

Wudong said to Qiu, ‘it’s the elder brother.’

Qiu greeted in a very shy manner, ‘brother.’

Qiu only knew that Yanying was her brother-in-law, but she had no idea that he was also her husband. Thus she felt very embarrassed to be seen on Wudong’s back.

Yanying said, ‘I came to see you two for it was dark outside and I’m afraid it would not be easy for you to move forward.’

Wudong said unhappily, ‘we’ve already had Lantong.’

Yanying ignored Wudong’s unhappiness and added, ‘let me carry Qiu on my back.’

Qiu gave Yanying a quick look and blushed like red-hot metal. On such a foggy dark night, Yanying might not be able to see the blush on her face, but she still kept her head down. According to Nuoci’s custom, it’s okay for the husband’s younger brother rather than the husband’s elder brother to carry the wife on the back; otherwise, it would be a joke.

Wudong and I had carried Qiu on the back, which was an envy of Yanying. In Yanying’s mind, he was not Qiu’s brother-in-law, but her husband, and the problem was that Qiu had no idea about this.

Yanying insisted, ‘let me carry Qiu on my back.’

Qiu shook her head determinedly and further approached Wudong. Wudong said to Yanying with determination, ‘I’ve carried her on my back all the way. Since the road ahead is flat, just let her walk.’ Wudong was okay with me rather than Yanying  carrying Qiu on the back because I was Wudong’s younger brother and Yanying was only Wudong’s half brother.

Seeing Qiu keeping her head down, the black dog wagged its tail, blinked and barked to attract Qiu’s attention. Qiu passed the black dog and walked forward alone.

The black dog gave a look at Yanying and Wudong and then followed Qiu. Wudong followed the black dog, Yanying followed Wudong and I followed Yanying -- the four of us and the dog stepped on the winding path towards home.

The hill started to become as dark as ink and the bamboo was even darker.It was silent all around us and the further we walked into the hill,the darker it was. It felt as if we were approaching a black hole. Yanying turned on his torch and lifted it high, trying to light up for Qiu. I turned on my torch as well and lifted it high. Then, there were two tiny beams of light on the dark background,and they were like a beast’s two eyes looking at us gently.

Hearing my father’s dry coughs, I knew we were very near to our home.

My father and mother stood right in yard waiting for us.

 

6

 

Qiu was back safe and sound in front of my parents.

My parents finally relaxed and could not stop laughing as if they got some kind of treasure. Although the family property had been divided into two, Qiu and Wudong were supposed to come into my parents’ house first. My parents wanted to celebrate Qiu’s return, so they thought of cooking fried flour. My father suggested, ‘let’s cook some fried flour. I haven’t had that for some time.’ My mother responded, ‘I certainly know what to do.’ It sounded as if they were arguing with each other, but the truth was that they were very happy and relaxed.

My mother started to cook on the burner, and a strong smell of food was released,which was a unique smell of fried flour in Nuoci. Qiu was attracted by the smell and tried to help my mother cook, but had no idea where to start. My mother said, ‘just give me the chance to be the master of fired flour.’ My mother tried to be humorous when feeling happy, but life usually gave her a blow at that moment.

Chen Fengshui came to our home.

People in Nuoci didn’t hate Chen, but they hated it when Chen came to their home.

Since Nuoci was different from other areas, Chen, as the village head of Nuoci, was different from his counterparts.Nuoci was sparsely populated and it would be difficult to organize a meeting, so Chen had to went door to door to communicate anything important. In the beginning, villagers in Nuoci were moved by his hard work, but later, they feared Chen’s coming.

Chen always brought his dog when he went to visit villagers. The dog was a local dog with black shiny hair. Chen’s dog and Yanying’s dog were born by the same female dog. Chen picked the dog on a path at the foot of the mountain on an afternoon years ago, and apparently it was taller and had more shiny hair compared with Yanying’s dog.

Below the yellow bulb in our house, Chen’s yellow wrinkles seemed to be softer. He greeted us with the sound of ‘hei hei’ as he usually did when visiting villagers.Then he would sit down even without your greeting.For so many years, those courtesies had been thrown away. After sitting down, Chen started to talk, not for himself, but for ‘people above him’ which Nuoci feared most.

Chen said, a highway was going to be constructed, from Wang’s in the direction of our house, but only to Li’s.

We didn’t responded for we already knew what he was going to say.

He added, ‘money was to be collected and it was 50 yuan per villager in Nuoci.’

My father was shocked, and he glared at Chen, ‘that highway wouldn’t reach our house, why should we pay for it?!’

My father’s reaction frightened Chen and his black dog, but Chen was still calm. After my father calmed down, Chen said, ‘I said the same to them, but people above me said since villagers in Nuoci would benefit from the highway anyway when going to the market, everyone should pay for it. ’

My father gave two tobacco leaves to Chen, but there was still anger in my father’s eyes. He said, ‘they know nothing but collecting money. Look, the soil here was not fertile, and the crops were not good enough for us to make a living.’

Chen sighed sympathetically and lowered his head, stretching his hand to stroke his dog. Then he lifted his head with shame as if he was the cause of our trouble. He added, ‘you had to pay more than that.’ At that moment, the fried flour was ready and my mother handed Chen a bowl of fried flour. Although my mother kept silent and looked angry, Chen would not see this as inhospitable. He believed that the villagers were actually angry at people above him rather than himself. Chen held the fried flour and took a sip with joy.Then he said, ‘shit, there are also money for education and school buildings, and it’s supposed to be collected for one time. So it would be a large amount of money for everyone.’ Anger disappeared from my father’s eyes for this sum of money from nowhere had exhausted him.

Chen continued to eat fried flour, and with changing yellow wrinkles on his face, he seemed confused.

He said, ‘for a whole year, we could not afford the payment even with flesh and blood sold.’ He often said so on such occasion and he sounded so sincere that there seemed to be no difference between him and other villagers in Nuoci. Right after that, he said with resignation, ‘but we had to compromise, right? People above us asked us to pay, so there is no other way. Is it? Actually I’ve already covered up the real situation for you. If people above us don’t investigate, we are actually paying less than those in other villages. But if we fight, refuse to pay, or only pay less than what’s required, people above us will come to investigate, and in this way, all illegal children that have no residence cards, haven’t handed in crops or paid tax will be found out. I don’t care about whether I would be dismissed from my post at that time, but it would be a huge problem for those illegal children and you. ’

What Chen said did work.

For so many years, Chen had covered for many illegal children that didn’t hand in crops,pay tax, or collect money. Every villager in Nuoci owed it to Chen.

Chen said, ‘for this time,you don’t need to count Qiu in. And this will be a secret between you and me.’

Hearing this, my mother kind of relaxed and thus gave Chen one more spoon of fried flour.

Chen naturally ate the fried flour and added, ‘I have to warn you that Wudong and Qiu are not supposed to apply for the pregnancy permit in a short time. You could apply for it after you have a baby.’ He said this to many villagers, and everyone understood what he meant. Two or three men married one woman, so it would be difficult to tell whose child the woman was to bear first. If the child was not the offspring of the man that the woman had registered the marriage certificate with, then the child could not have pregnancy permit or residence card. And this child would live in Nuoci like wild grass -- when mentioned to people outside Nuoci , the child could be only called by their own parents as ‘child of someone else’ or ‘child adopted’.

Having finished his talk, Chen ate up his fried flour and then left with his black dog. My parents saw him off at the entrance and despite unhappy expressions on their face, they were concerned about whether Chen’s torch was bright enough.

Qiu couldn’t help laughing at that moment and Wudong wondered why. Qiu said, ‘the pregnancy permit is to be got sooner or later.I see no point in being so serious.’ From Qiu’s face we could see that she thought the reason for the village head to say so was only to eat our fried flour. Nobody was to blame Qiu for thinking this way. What’s more, the real challenge for my parents and Wudong at the moment was the sum of money.

My parents frowned, so did Wudong. I could see pain on their faces. They took much brain to find out how to pay this sum of money. I suddenly felt dizzy and thus frowned as well, so did Qiu. We all frowned at that moment.

Suddenly my father suggested, ‘shall we sell one of our pigs?’

My mother responded, ‘we could sell anything but pigs. The two pigs have grown up and before long they will become very fat. So we could sell them then for a better price.’

My father stopped frowning and said, ‘how about selling crops?’

My mother said, ‘we don’t have extra crops to sell, or we will be starved to death.’

My father burst into anger and asked, ‘so what could we sell? You could just sell me as a dog!’

 

7

 

When we could not see the white sun, the fog in Nuoci was thicker than milk. It was time for the sun to rise up, but Nuoci was still surrounded by thick fog. The rooster crowed for many times but it didn’t go out of its coop for its eyes were not good enough for it to look for food in such fog. Villagers in Nuoci got up and waved their hands to get rid of the fog, but the fog was too light to catch, just like smoke.

My father shouted aloud to ask me to go to the field, frightening me a lot. I was not in a deep sleep, not since Qiu lived here. So there’s no need for me father to shout. But this was just exactly what my father would do, shouting as if there was a loudspeaker in his throat.

When I walked out of my bedroom, my father asked me to shoulder the plough and followed him. I was unhappy about that and said, ‘I hadn’t washed my face yet’. Hearing this, my father got angry and said, ‘nobody is gonna see your face on such a foggy day!’I hated my father’s such opinion and I was about to say something when Qiu approached me. Qiu was so close to me that I could even smell her fragrance. She told me mysteriously, ‘wait a moment.’ Then she came back to her bedroom with her fragrance. When I was confused, she came to me and gave me a candy, smiling at me and whispered, ‘I have more candies and I could give them to you later. Just do as father told you.’ Oh my God! She took me as a naughty younger brother!I was at a loss for some time with my face turning hot and cold.

After living independently with Wudong, Qiu had to go to the field to do labor as well.I had no idea how she got there or how difficult it would be for her to do labor. Except the village, villagers in Nuoci didn’t have oxen in, and thus we relied on ourselves to plough. One person worked as ox to pull the plough while another person put his or her hand to the plough. The land in Nuoci was not as flat as those at the foot of the mountain. Slopes were everywhere. I believed it would be difficult for Qiu to pull or follow the plough. Doing what one was not able to do was a cruel thing in my eyes and I thought that was what Qiu was facing right now. I really wanted to help Qiu, but I had no idea how. There was some point in my father calling me idiot, for I always seemed lazy and dull whenever my father saw me, especially after he arranged for me to marry Qiu without asking for my opinion.My father was very disappointed at me and although he had asked me to get up, he knew I was unlikely to help him do labor in the filed. Seeing me washing my face slowly, he decided to go to the filed with my mother and said to me angrily, ‘rush to the field after you wash your ass!’

My father was not educated and thus had no respect for me at all. He dared to call my face as my ‘ass’. I was very angry about this, so I decided not to follow him. However, I was rather eager to follow Qiu into the field to see how Qiu could manage to do such labor.

In this way, I secretly followed Qiu.

The fog was too thick to see anything five chi away, so I followed Qiu in a distance without being noticed by her. For a while, I thought it was a shame to follow her like that, but when it came to me that Wudong was walking ahead of us and he would hate me for following them rather than be grateful to me, I felt better for I was brave enough to care about Qiu.

Keeping thinking about this, I determined to follow Qiu into the field.

Ahead of me, Qiu walked through the fog.

Wudong carried the plough on his left shoulder and then dragged Qiu with his left hand in case she should fall down for the path to the field was very narrow, and the fog was thick. Qiu walked happily on her way and thus talked a lot. She said, ‘I’ve never seen such thick fog.’ Wudong laughed and said, ‘Nuoci is in the heaven. You used to be below the heaven, so you didn’t see such fog.’ Qiu said, ‘and the sun here is different from the sun I used to see in my village. The sun here is white.’ Wudong said, ‘there are two suns in the sky. The red one is like a fire ball and that is for your village. The white one is like an ice ball, and that is for Nuoci.’ Qiu giggled and told Wudong not to joke.Wudong smiled as well, admitting he was joking. Qiu asked, ‘so you were born in such whether?’ Wudong answered, ‘no, I wasn’t. I was born in winter.’ Qiu asked, ‘a foggy day in winter?’ Wudong said, ‘not on a foggy day. My mother told me that it was foggy during the month following my birth, so I was named Wudong when I was one month old.’Qiu shouted, ‘oh my God! It was foggy for a whole month?’Wudong burst into laughter and said, ‘it is not strange at all in Nuoci. Nuoci is richest in fog and it would be strange if there is no fog in winter.’ Qiu said, ‘Yeah. It is normal in winter, but this is spring. The spring is about to end in my village now and why does it still look like winter here in Nuoci?’ Wudong said, ‘Nuoci is different form your village at the foot of the mountain. Winter lasts in Nuoci for three quarters of a year.’ Qiu was shocked and stopped to stand still. Wudong turned back to approach Qiu’s face with his face to see the fear on her face. Wudong said, ‘don’t worry. People live a longer life in such weather.’ Qiu said, ‘I heard people say Nuoci is not a good place to live. Now it seems to be true.’Wudong said, ‘who said so?Nuoci is a good place! Come on, let me carry you on my back if you feel tired.’ Then Wudong squatted down and show Qiu his back.Qiu said, ‘just walk on your own. You are carrying the plough after all.’Then Wudong carried Qiu on his back with his left hand. While walking, Wudong said, ‘I am an ox. You could ride on me and later I would plough.’ Then Wudong laughed. Qiu giggled as well at the idea of a human working like an ox.

I felt sour suddenly as if I sipped vinegar. I thought although Qiu was happy right now she would cry when facing all the labor she had to do in the field. I felt sorry for her.

After reaching the field,Wudong put Qiu and the plough down. Despite the thickness of the fog, it is far more transparent than a solid wall. Therefore, one could still see what he really wanted to see even through the fog.I hid in a safe distance,which enabled me to see them without being noticed by careless Wudong and Qiu.

I saw Wudong getting the plough ready and Qiu putting her hands to it.Qiu said she had never done it before, so she was quite curious and anxious.Wudong said, ‘it is no high technology and you could master it after having a try.’Wudong didn’t take Qiu’s disability into consideration. I really wanted to do something to stop Qiu from doing such labor, but I did nothing more than lifting my ass a little bit.

Wudong placed the rope which should had been for an ox on his shoulder and then said ‘let’s get started,’ puling the plough forward.He used all his strength while there’s no counter-force behind him, so he fell down all of a sudden.Qiu was doubled over in laughter and lost her balance, falling down. Wudong was only angry for just a second before he could not stop laughing on the ground.

I realized that the reality was not as serious as I had imagined and that joy could alleviate any suffering. It was further proved by what happened later.

Getting he plough ready again, Wudong taught Qiu to press the plough with strength and thus the plough was deep in soil. Listening to Wudong, Qiu couldn’t help bursting into laughter, probably because she thought of the scene of Wudong falling down to the soil. Seeing Qiu doubled with laughter Wudong laughed again. After laughing for a while, Wudong just sat there and said he would like to have a rest. Qiu said, ‘we need to work!Come on!Let’s plough.’ Wudong said, ‘no, I’ve laughed a lot so I have no strength any more for ploughing.I have to sit to recover.’ Qiu said, ‘what a lazy ox!’ and then she burst into laughter again.Suddenly, Qiu disappeared in the thick fog. Wudong shouted, ‘where are you, Qiu?’ Qiu didn’t respond. Wudong added, ‘are you having a pee?’Qiu didn’t respond either.Howver, Qiu gradually appear in the fog,like a fairy,with a long and thin twig in her hand, approaching Wudong in a staggering manner. She lifted the twig and pretended to beat him, saying ‘you lazy ox, get up and do labor.’Wudong mooed, got up and held Qiu to his arms. Then he put her down to the ground and tried to undress her, and Qiu screamed and laughed, ‘you crazy ox! Don’t do this in public!’Wudong said, ‘the fog is thicker than a mosquito net!’ Qiu said, ‘no no no!Don’t be so crazy!’Wudong said, ‘I am crazy!I’ve already gone crazy!’ At that time, Wudong had undressed Qiu and tightly held her in his arms. Qiu stopped struggling and lay down like dead fish.

She murmured, ‘but this is in the field.’

Wudong said, ‘this is our field. Nobody will come here, and the fog could hide us.It is very safe here.’

Qiu said, ‘so you should hurry up!’

That field had never been ploughed since corn was harvested last time. The land was covered by only a layer of withered grass and Qiu lay on it as if she was the land ploughed by Wudong.The area Qiu lay down was certainly cold and uncomfortable,but Qiu didn’t complained about it at all.

Perhaps because it was in the open air, or perhaps because of the shield of the fog Wudong was far more active than he was in the bedroom. He made love to Qiu boldly and even moaned with sexual pleasure. He even asked Qiu, ‘do you like it,Qiu? Do you like it?’Qiu didn't open her mouth at all. I thought she was trying to hold all the cry and emotion in her mouth in case they would escape.Wudong cried out, and fucked Qiu hard with all his strength. As a result, Qiu couldn’t help screaming.

‘You crazy ox!’shouted Qiu.

Her voice suddenly struck me,as if it penetrated through my chest and dug a hole in my body. All of a sudden, I felt like being hit by an anonymous bullet in my dream when Qiu screamed.I put my hand to my chest and saw black blood flowing through my fingers. Then everything before me went black.

After a while, I felt my fast heartbeat and said to myself, ‘have you seen it clearly? No!what you saw is just your fantasy!’

Their figures became vague in the thick fog and I felt like being in a dream. However, the fog couldn’t stop the sound from them, which made the dream real.

Wudong asked Qiu, ‘why did you call me crazy ox just now?’

Qiu answered, ‘because you are exactly a crazy ox!’

Wudong laughed and said, ‘ok, you could take me as an ox from now on. I am your ox!’

Qiu said, ‘a buffalo or an ox?’

Wudong smiled and flirted with her, ‘so which one do you prefer?’

Qiu said, ‘a buffalo!’ And she giggled.

She added, ‘go to plough, ox!’

Wudong stood up immediately and mooed towards Qiu. Then he went to pick the plough.

Qiu put her hands to the plough and asked, ‘so I need to press it into the soil?’

Wudong answered, ‘yes! Press the plough deep into the soil.’

Qiu pressed the plough with all her strength while Wudong leaned forward and stretched his neck with one leg bent forward and the other leg kicking the ground backward. Consequently, the plough moved forward.Qiu put her hands to the plough so that the plough moved well despite Qiu’s staggering. When the plough moved, it left a crack on the soil. The patches which had been ploughed were like humid lips full of hope.

I thought Qiu was doing a good job, so I left.

 

Chapter 3

8

I felt panic when I stood up to leave, as if I had been hungry for a long time. I said to myself that I’d better go back to lie on my own bed and shut my eyes with my soul going anywhere it would like to. It would be great.

I wandered back home and into my bedroom which,due to the thick fog, was dark even during the day. I picked a book randomly, sat at the edge of my bed and kicked off my shoes, ready to lie on my bed.Suddenly, I was curious about what was going on on the other side of the partition.It came to me that the bamboo partition was soft so that the narrow crack could actually be widened. Thinking of this, I got excited all of a sudden.I opened up several cracks wider than my finger and then put my eye to the first crack to see if it was wide enough for me to see what happened on the other side.when thinking of what I might see in the coming evening, I felt dizzy with excitement.

A person in another village died, so someone came to invite Wudong to perform a Taoist rite.

I said to him, ‘Wudong was in the field.’

That man said, ‘could you please go and ask him to come back?’

Therefore, that man waited in my yard and I went to Wudong for him.

When I approached Wudong in the field, he and Qiu were seated, cuddling each other. They hadn’t plough a lot, but they seemed to be exhausted. Qiu was in Wudong’s arms with eyes closed and laziness on her face. Seeing this, I thought of the lively and exciting scene I had witnessed in the afternoon. I still clearly remembered the different expressions on Qiu’s face and her moaning due to pain or excitement. My head got dizzy so that I couldn’t see things clearly with my eyes. I waved my hand towards them and shouted , ‘hey!’

They were shocked and stopped cuddling each other. Wudong asked me with hatred, ‘what brought you here?’I answered, ‘I’m coming to help you plough, for someone has asked you to perform a rite.’

Hatred disappear in Wudong’s eyes, but he was still unhappy, asking, ‘which village is it?’

I said, ‘Xiao Yang Village.’

Wudong said, ‘Xiao Yang Village is too far away. I’m not going.’

I said, ‘but you used to be okay with long distance. So you don’t want to make money?’

Wudong said, ‘Xiao Yang Village is so far away that it would be hard to return in the evening. You just tell him I’m not going.’

Perhaps Wudong could see the special desire in my eyes, so a little bit hatred emerged in his eyes, indicating that he knew that I was going to fight for my opportunity to be with Qiu when he was away. I said, ‘I can just go away if you don’t believe me.’ But I didn’t go away.

Wudong looked at me incredulously.

I said, ‘don’t you need money to pay to the people above? Don’t miss this opportunity to earn money.’

Wudong frowned, as my mother usually did when getting anxious.

I knew that, despite his longing for this opportunity, Wudong was worried that I might take chance to be with Qiu. So I said , ‘you can go. There’s no need to worry.’ When saying this, I pretended to stare blankly to dispel his doubt.

But Wudong insisted, ‘I don’t want to go.’

I could do nothing about this. After all, I was not his father. All I could do was to show my care for him when persuading him.

I said, ‘if it’s hard to return in the evening, you could just come back tomorrow, as you used to do in the past. You are not a lady, and no one is gonna gossip about your not going home in the evening. What are you afraid of?’

I knew my persuasion would not work, but I knew that as time went by, that man waiting in my yard would get more and more anxious, and he might finally went to the field himself. When that man came to invite Wudong, it would be difficult for Wudong to reject.

Wudong said, ‘don’t bother with my own business. You should go to tell him that he should go for another Taoist.’

I looked at Qiu and said, ‘Qiu, you really need to persuade Wudong! He must be crazy, or why doesn’t he want to earn money?’

Qiu smiled and said, ‘really, Wudong? You could go. Lantong will help us plough.’

Wudong suddenly said to me angrily, ‘I am not going! Are you deaf or not? You didn’t hear what I said?’

My father suddenly appeared from the fog and shouted, ‘you don’t go? What the hell are you going to do?!’ My father always dominated in my family and tended to show his authority on all occasions. In our opinions, Wudong had lived independently and thus it depended on him whether he went to perform the rite or not, but clearly my father didn’t think so.

My father said, ‘the man has been waiting for you for quite a while and is about to come to the field to invite you. Who do you think you are? You are not the only Taoist in the region. If you reject for this time, they would not invite you later. Then your skill would be useless!’

Wudong was still struggling, ‘I have to plough here.’

My father burst into anger and said, ‘can’t we help plough for you? When you and us lived together, you often went to perform rites, but the field was done anyway! ’

Wudong was weak and cowardly in front of my father, just like a convicted criminal.

My father said, ‘hurry up! Or you will have not money to pay!’

Wudong had a look at Qiu and then trailed into the thick fog.

My father followed him and stared at his back, like herding an ox.My father’s voice was still clear in the fog. We heard him saying, ‘I knew you are greedy for your thing with your wife.I used to be young. I know exactly what you are thinking about. But we couldn’t miss the opportunity to make money,right?It just took two to three days, no more than 4 to 5 days. When you have enough rest, you could come back to do it anyway. Just like doing labor in the field, you won’t miss the season if there is a delay of several days…’

Hearing what my father said, something suddenly came to me and it was red hot, making my whole body burning from inside to outside.I stared at Qiu and my eyes were telling what I was thinking of. But Qiu looked at me and burst into laughter, ‘why are you staring at me? Don’t you remember your sister-in-law? Go to plough right now and I will give you candies when we are back.’I was quite disappointed, and I said, ‘I am 18 years old now. I’m a grown man with a moustache. I don’t want your candies.’ Qiu laughed even more happily and said, ‘ok,you look like a different man now.’ Then she told me to plough. I really wanted to tell her that I had seen what you did with Wudong and that I really wanted to do the same thing with you. But I didn’t dare to say a word.

Wudong suddenly ran back,drew me aside and stared at me with hatred, saying to me in a lower voice, ‘I need to make it clear to you. Qiu is mine this month. Don’t even think of taking advantage of my absence!’

Wudong had gone too far, which made me feel bored with what I was doing. My mind took a jump and tried to jump out of the thick fog. I suddenly heard the sound of flipping through a book in my head, ‘hua la la.’But after a while, the sound disappeared.I heard Qiu ask me what Wudong told me. I answered, ‘nothing serious. He told me to plough and not to be lazy.’ Qiu said, ‘don’t listen to him. You are too young and not as tough as him. Just take it easy.’

Qiu’s voice was like a soft finger, fondling my heart. After several strong heartbeats,I became sober and calm.I,as a male adult, was filled with a mixture of admiration and sexual desire, but Qiu played dumb and insisted on taking me as a minor, which disappointed me. Despite my disillusion, I still felt more active when being with Qiu. And I felt more enthusiastic than ever about plouging.

When ploughing, Qiu asked me, ‘why don’t we raise an ox?’

I said, ‘do you know how much an ox would cost?’

She said, ‘a big ox costs about one thousand and a small ox costs hundreds.’

I said, ‘yes, it is.’

She said, ‘well, we don’t have oxen in my original family, but when it is time to plough, we will borrow or rent an ox.’

I said, ‘in my village, nobody gets an ox except the village head. So I could borrow an ox from nowhere.’

Qiu said, ‘perhaps several families could gather money to buy an ox together. And they could take turns at raising the ox, and plough in turn.’

Oh,it sounded exactly like how men in Nuoci marry a woman.I nearly told her the marriage custom here in Nuoci. But I didn’t. After all, such a custom was nothing to be proud of, and it would be a disappointment for her.

I said, ‘males in Nuoci are just like oxen, ploughing the fields all year around.’

Qiu said, ‘an ox is equivalent to ten men.’           

I thought she was right because an ox didn’t get tired easily as I did. But I couldn’t say I was tired, and I couldn’t rest. A driving force in my heart was pushing me so that I could make every effort to leave Qiu a good impression.

With all my strength, I pulled the plough for several rounds and more than half of the field was ploughed by me, far more than what they had ploughed in the afternoon.

Qiu said, ‘have a rest, Lantong.’

My sweat was dripping on the ground and my shoulder was burning with pain, but I said, ‘I’m not tired. Let’s complete it and then go back to cook.’

Qiu said, ‘you do have more strength than an ox.’

I said, ‘I was more than ten oxen.’

On that day, I was really curious where I got so much strength. Except lunch time, I had been pulling the plough the whole day until the fog got grey and black.

Qiu said, ‘it’s getting dark now. Let’s go home.’

I was not afraid of darkness, and I was actually hoping it could get dark sooner. I had been dreaming of making love to Qiu the whole day. When pulling the plough, I looked down at the soil and I could even see the scene of Qiu and I having sex in my imagination. It was the illusion that made me generate strength from inside to shoulder the plough.

Qiu left the plough and walked forward to wipe my sweat with her sleeves. She even unfolded my clothes to examine my shoulders and blew the blood red scars on my shoulder, which made me feel cool and very comfortable. Oh, my God!She was so close to me and I was about to faint.I really wanted to held her in my arms until she melted. But I was not brave enough to do that. My hands almost went limp and to my disappointment, my legs were trembling as well. I didn’t know what happened to me. On the day when Qiu got married, I even carried her on my back without getting limp or trembling. So what happened now?

Qiu said, ‘look, you are exhausted. Let’s go home.I will cook something yummy for you.’ Then Qiu carried the plough on her shoulder. I recovered all of a sudden and took the plough from Qiu at once.

Qiu took a look at me tenderly and then walked forward.

The fog was like a dying patient, who would die very soon once his face became grey. Within a moment, the fog surrounded us like a black cover.

I said, ‘let me carry you on my back, Qiu.’

Qiu said, ‘I know the path better than you do. Let me carry you.’

She continued, ‘don’t pretend that you have extra strength. I am too heavy.’

I said, ‘I have more strength than ten oxen.’

Qiu said, ‘even you are more than twenty oxen, you must be tired right now.’

When talking to me, Qiu lost her balance and nearly fell. I immediately came up and forced her onto my back.Qiu giggled, ‘how could you,  a younger brother, do this?’ I joked, ‘all paths grow lawns ,and all brothers care for their sister-in-law.’ Qiu patted me on the shoulder and even gently bit my ear. I felt my head dizzy all of a sudden and my body burning like live charcoal.But I could feel Qiu’s heart didn’t beat faster. So she still didn’t take me as a grown male.

 

9

 

After getting home, Qiu fetched some water for me to wash my face, and then magically fetched out some candies. I said, ‘I don’t want candies. I’m a grown man now.’Qiu smiled and said, ‘you could not be taken as a man. Just take the candies.’I was annoyed that Qiu didn’t take me as a grown man, so I said angrily, ‘you can have a try if you don’t believe I’m grown now.’Qiu immediately said, ‘well, you are a grown man now, or  you couldn’t have ploughed so much soil. Just take the candies, man.I managed to get those candies from my elder brother only when I got married. So if you said ‘no’ to the candies, you may regret later.’

Qiu put these candies in my pocket and then examine my shoulders. She undress my clothes without asking me first. Her face was so close to mine that I could feel she breathing around my face, and her hands were touching my skin. I really wanted something more than that from her, but I could do nothing more than blushing with fast heartbeat. She applied a kind of ointment to my purple scars left by ropes and exhale towards my scars. She said, ‘look at you. You are just a student. You shouldn’t have worked so hard.’

On this day, Qiu cooked four scrambled eggs for me. The two hens which were given to her as their family property gave birth to only four eggs during the two days, and she cooked them all for me. I said, ‘you could have one.’ She said, ‘no, you can have them all.’I said, ‘let me feed you.’ She laughed,opened her mouth and ate the egg I gave her. Seeing her laughing and chewing the egg, I really wanted to kiss her on the face.But I didn’t.It seemed what I dared to do was nothing more than carrying her on my back.

My mother called Qiu to have dinner together with us, but Qiu made a meal and asked me to have dinner with her alone. I enjoyed being with Qiu alone, so I stayed with her. This made me feel we were a couple. This feeling was as remote as the fog in the air. I wanted to made this feeling more solid, so I came up with an idea that I should be with Qiu in one room when Wudong was away. In order to realize such a dream,I decided to say something during the dinner. I asked her, ‘Qiu, have you seen ghosts?’

Qiu was shocked and asked me back, ‘have you seen one?’

I answered, ‘there are many ghosts in our village. Of course I have seen ghosts, more than once.’

Hearing that, Qiu paled visibly, her eyes staring and her neck stiffening, as if there were a ghost behind her. She tried to pretend to be clam but her voice trembled, ‘are you kidding your sister-in-law?’

I had never call her sister-in-law, but she always called herself sister-in-law in front of me. So I was a little bit unhappy. I didn’t hide my feeling, but I said ‘how could you doubt me?’ Qiu immediately said, ‘well, I believe you, I believe you. Let’s not talk about this. I’m afraid of it. ’

I said, ‘there’s no need to be afraid. One evening, I came across an ghost on my way with a long tongue hanging out of its mouth.So I stuck out my tongue at it, and it escaped away.’ Qiu was so frightened that she almost dropped her bowl. She looked in the direction of the door at once. Her face went purple with fear and she said , ‘the door is shut and the ghost could not come in.’ Qiu relaxed a little bit and then I said, ‘the ghost is like wind, and it could come in from between the tiles.’ Qiu was so frightened that she turned to see the roof immediately. I thought that would be enough, so I changed our topic.

I told her some jokes I had heard from others, and Qiu gradually got rid of the fear and giggled. When Qiu laughed, I stopped to enjoy her laughter. Something purple was flying out of my mind and into the fog, forming confusion. I couldn’t catch my own thought again.

Qiu began to wash up before going to bed, the fog-like things in my mind sank after all. I whispered, ‘since Wudong was away, you could call me if you are afraid.’ Qiu smiled and said, ‘there’s nothing to be afraid of. I’m not afraid.’

After I reminded her, Qiu started to fear and even left the light on when sleeping.

My mother came here, only to find the light in Qiu’s bedroom was still on, so she asked Qiu why. My mother was frugal and thus she would hate it if Qiu wasted electricity.So Qiu could only turn off the light. Once my mother was gone, I went out of my bedroom and made frightening sounds behind the house, crying and screaming, as if there were ghosts. After a while, I guessed Qiu was frightened, so I got back to my bedroom. The light was still on in Qiu’s bedroom, so I chose a wide crack on the bamboo partition and managed to see what happened on the other side through the crack. Qiu covered her head with her quilt and bent like a shell. Perhaps these sounds had formed many images in her mind, in which some ghosts were standing in front of her bed, sticking their tongues out and stretching their green hairy hands to unfold her quilt. She suddenly screamed and threw back the quilt, only to see nothing strange. But she was breathing quickly with sweat on her face.

I suddenly came to realize that I had gone too far, and I really wanted to slap myself on the face.I almost forgot I was peeping, and I said directly to Qiu, ‘are you afraid, Qiu?’She looked at the partition in a panic and said, ‘Lantong, I heard ghosts crying just now.’I said, ‘that’s not ghosts. Don’t be afraid.’ Qiu covered her body with the quilt and turned around towards me, saying, ‘yes, it is!It’s so frightening!’ She was just like a mermaid in the legend at the moment, but this mermaid was frightened by me and she couldn’t help looking around. I was touched by her beauty and fear, so I said, ‘ would you like me to come to be with you?’ Qiu was silent and consciously held her quilt more tightly.

My mother probably heard the noise here and came along. Seeing the light was till on in Qiu’s bedroom, she shouted, ‘Qiu, why did you turn it on again? Are you going to sleep with it on.?’

Qiu had to turn off the light.

It was dark now and I could not see her lively face. I did hate my mother’s intervention. After my mother was away, I said to Qiu in a low voice, ‘if you are afraid, just turn on the light.’ Qiu said, ‘no, mother would blame me for that.’I said, ‘she would not come back any more. Just turn on the light.’ Then Qiu really turned on the light and thus I could see her beautiful face again.

I said, ‘ Qiu, let me come to be with you. Then you would not be afraid.’

Qiu hesitated for a moment and said, ‘I’m not afraid right now, not with the light on.’

My heart sank and I said, ‘well, so I’m going to sleep now.’

Qiu kept silent on the other side.

I said, ‘don’t be afraid, I could just come to talk with you and wait for Wudong to come back.’

Qiu said, ‘you could talk with me like this, and it would be good.’

I said, ‘but I feel really tired to talk to you with putting my mouth close to the partition.’ Qiu hesitated for a while and said, ‘well, you can come.’

Oh my God!I made it!I happily went out of my bedroom and when I was about to open Qiu’s bedroom door, I heard some noise around the gate behind me.Then I heard Wudong calling Qiu to open the gate.I was frightened and shocked, and I went to open the gate for Wudong. He said to me, ‘there is no rite in the evening, so I came back.’ I said to myself, ‘I didn’t ask him anything. So why did he explain this to me?’ Dry laughter arose in my head as if to laugh at myself. Hearing the noise here, Qiu might know that Wudong had come back, so she called Wudong aloud. Wudong immediately replied and went to her without even locking the gate. I locked the gate and laughed at myself, walking back to my bedroom in disappointment.

Wudong’s returning was really ironic,and I saw through the partition with hatred.

Qiu was in the arms of Wudong right now, and she held Wudong as tightly as she could. Wudong was moved because he thought Qiu must have been missing him a lot. So he cuddled Qiu tightly and kissed her.

Wudong turned off the light when kissing her. Qiu said, ‘don’t turn it off. I am so afraid.’

Wudong asked, ‘what are you afraid of?I am here with you.’

Qiu turned on the light and said, ‘ghosts were here. I heard ghosts screaming behind the house just now.’

Wudong said, ‘you must have mistaken something else as ghosts out of fear.’

Qiu said, ‘the ghosts screamed and cried, just like humans. I was frightened to death.’

Shocked, Wudong thought for a second and then shouted towards the partition, ‘ghost, don’t you know I am a Taoist?Don’t you fear that I would catch you?’

Qiu literally freaked with her whole body trembling into the quilt.

Wudong said, ‘I will draw magic figures for you to expel spirits. Wear it around your neck, and you will not be afraid of ghosts any more. ’         

Qiu said, ‘why not do it now?’           

Wudong said, ‘alright.’ Then he seriously went to the outer room to wash his hand and then returned to find a piece of yellow paper. He was drawing the figures on the paper with a solemn expression on his face.Seeing Wudong drawing the vivid figures,Qiu gradually calmed down.After getting finished, Wudong shut his eyes and said something to himself for a while before clapping the drawing which nobody except a Taoist could understand. It was over.Wudong hung the drawing around Qiu’s neck and said, ‘then ghosts should be afraid of you, not vice versa.’Qiu said, ‘you should have drawn me one earlier.’ Wudong said, ‘let’s do it.’ Qiu asked, ‘do what?’ When Wudong held Qiu down, she came to understand what he was going to do and giggled. Wudong glanced at the partition before turning off the light. Then, I heard the sound he deliberately made in darkness and that’s when I realized what his glance meant.

I pinched my face vigorously and said to myself, ‘Lantong, you are so boring!’       

    

10

My mother said, ‘we are going to to plant potatoes in the morning. Qiu, you could stay at home and cook. After we had a meal, you could ask Lantong to help you plough.’ Hearing such arrangement, I decided not to go to the field. I said nothing. I just went to stand in the yard with a book in my hands and stared at the sky. The fog was the same as yesterday and it looked dead in Nuoci without moving at all. The sky was so low that once lifting the head, one could see the sky right above his nose.I missed the white sun and I knew that when it appeared , the sky would be much higher and wider. My parents called me to go the the field and I said, ‘I have a headache.’ My father angrily called me ‘idiot’ without forcing me to go with them.

Qiu came out and asked me, ‘Lantong, would you like some medicine for headache?’

I said, ‘I am well. I just want to see the sun.’

Qiu remained speechless for a while and then smiled with sympathy. She said, ‘I used to pretend to be ill when I was a kid. And that’s because I didn’t want to go to school.’

I said, ‘I like going to school more than doing labor.’

Qiu said, ‘you were born to be a scholar. It is not a easy job for you to do labor at home.’

I said, ‘I’m not a scholar, but I hate doing labor. I miss the sun.’

Qiu said, ‘the sun seldom appears here. ’

I said, ‘I miss the white sun.’

Qiu was speechless for a second and then giggled, saying, ‘the educated usually speak like this?’

While talking with each other, Qiu and I went into the room and sat around the burner. Seeing Qiu engaged herself in chores, I chatted with her. When we were chatting happily with each other, Yanying entered the room. He said nothing and ignored me while humbly smiling towards Qiu.

Qiu asked, ‘brother,what brought you here?’

Yanying said, ‘I came to see whether your burner works well.’

Qiu said, ‘it works perfectly well.’

Yanying said, ‘I knew perfectly about the burner I built. It usually has some problems after working for a while.’  He went to see the burner and poked the fire. Yanying concluded,‘it was alright for now,’and then sat down to drink the tea Qiu made for him.

Sipping the tea, Yanying glanced at Qiu from time to time and said something about farming.

At that time, Qiu found the fire in the burner was little and the smoke arose from burning coal, filling the room with the strong smell of coal. I was short of breath and stormed into the central room. Qiu said, ‘brother, look, there is really a problem with the burner you built.’ Yanying put down the cup and went to examine and fix the burner seriously. He said, there was a problem with the burner, but he would fix it and it would be alright later.

Qiu said, ‘you do know about your burner.How did you know that the burner would go wrong this morning?’

Yanying said, ‘I’ve been working as a burner builder for over two decades. Just like one having a baby, he or she will know perfectly what his or her child is like.’

After working on the burner for about ten minutes, Yanying finally made it and the fire became big again.Qiu was extremely happy and said, ‘it would be impossible for me to make a meal if brother didn’t come to help with the burner.’I knew it was Yanying’s trick to get close to Qiuiqu, but I didn’t reveal it despite my sympathy for Qiu.

At the very moment, Yanying played a trick again and said, ‘oh, I have a heatstroke right now.’ Then he gritted his teeth and kept silent with his eyes rolling and his face turning purple. Qiu panicked and and cried out, ‘brother, what should we do? What should we do?’ Yanying struggled to say, ‘you could practice bloodletting  cupping on me.’Qiu frowned heavily and said in a trembling voice, ‘but brother, I’ve never done it before.’ Yanying gritted his teeth and said, ‘you go to find a small bottle and I’ll teach you.’ Qiu did what he said. Then Yanying stared at me with something with a meaningful look,saying ‘don’t interfere in my business. You should go back to your room to read your book!’ I said, ‘you shouldn’t have fooled Qiu. She would be your girl later anyway.’Yanying impatiently gritted his teeth and said, ‘mind your own business.’

Qiu found a small glass bottle and handed it to Yanying.

He pretended to be very painful and said to me, ‘could you please tear one page out of your book?’ I said, ‘I won’t damage my book anyway.’ According to what he did, I came to realize his purpose, and felt very disgusted. He said to Qiu, ‘go and fetch a stripe of torn cloth.’Qiu did as he told. Then Yanying asked Qiu to ignite the cloth and put the burning cloth into the bottle before putting the bottle to his naked chest.

After a while, Yanying asked Qiu to take the bottle off and thus Qiu saw a dark purple round mark. Yanying said, ‘go and get some pieces of broken bowl. Then practice bloodletting.’ Qiu fetched some broken pieces of bowl but she didn’t dare to stick. Yanying took the broken pieces of bowl and stick them into the purple mark. Then black blood poured. Qiu felt a little bit dizzy and thus turned her head to the other side.

When she turned back, Yanying had wiped the blood. He insisted on lying on Qiu’s bed to rest. Without a second thought, Qiu said, ‘go and have a rest.’Yanying stood up and walked as if he was drunk. Qiu said, ‘Lantong, go and help your brother.’ Standing aside and seeing Yanying pretending to be ill, I allowed Qiu to see the unwillingness on my face.Qiu could only help him herself.When Qiu entered her bedroom in this way, she would not be able to leave.

I knew something disgusting was happening, so I stormed into Qiu’s bedroom.

At that moment, Yanying had already put Qiu down beneath his body. In the beginning, Qiu was scratching Yanying’s face silently, but when I stormed in, she struggled and screamed like a piggy trying to escape from being killed. But Yanying, even with only one hand, had more strength than Qiu, so Qiu struggled in vain. Yanying pressed Qiu down with his entire body and undressed Qiu with his mouth.

My mind went blank for a while when seeing this. When I came to myself, I saw Yanying’s private part. However,as soon as his private part was in the air,it became soft at once as if it was not part of Yanying’s body despite his strong desire. Yanying turned to stare at me with hatred.The hatred in his eyes suddenly ignited something in my head, which enabled me to pull Yanying off the bed. I was surprised at my strength and I even threw him out of Qiu’s bedroom before he realized what happened to him.

Yanying was shocked and said, ‘you idiot!’ Later, he went away with his face blushing with shame.

Qiu and I stayed. We glanced at each other and it was difficult for us to believe what had happened. Suddenly, Qiu dashed about like a frightened rabbit. Then she carried a basin of water into her bedroom and shut the door.

That was cold water! It was freezing!I asked, ‘Qiu, what are you going to do?’ Qiu didn’t reply. I said, ‘you would catch a cold if you wash your body with the cold water.’ Hearing the noise of washing in her bedroom, I could imagine how freezing it would be and thus couldn’t help feeling a cold shiver. After a while, I heard the sound of teeth chattering. This sound could be clearly heard so it was hard for me to believe this sound was made by Qiu ,such a shy girl. But nobody but she could make such a sound at the moment. Then, I heard she crying with the sound of teeth chattering becoming louder and louder.

Qiu had been crying and thus forgot to cook. When going home, my mother saw the meal was not ready and thus looked at me confused. I said, ‘Yanying had been here.’ My mother seemed to be confused about the relation between Qiu’s not cooking and Yanying’s coming, so her eyes were filled with confusion. I said, ‘go and ask Qiu.’ My mother stood outside Qiu’s bedroom, heard Qiu crying, and asked, ‘Qiu, what happened to you?’ Qiu stopped crying ,but didn’t reply to my mother. My mother didn’t walk away. She stubbornly knocked the door. Qiu stayed in the her bedroom for a while and finally opened the door. Seeing Qiu’s red eyes and purple face, my mother was very worried about her and couldn’t help making a sound ‘si’ between the teeth. Qiu forced a smile and said, ‘I had a stomachache just now.’ My mother asked, ‘what kind of pain? If it is a heatstroke, you need to have some limewater.’ Qiu said, ‘I am well now,’ and then hurried to cook, forcing herself not to think about what had happened. But the ‘stroke’ mentioned by my mother reminded Qiu of the incident and thus she couldn’t help choking with sobs when cooking.

My mother realized that it was not about stomachache at all, but about something else, so she came to help Qiu around the burner. Qiu tried to avoid seeing my mother eye-to-eye, pretending to be very busy.

My mother asked, ‘my girl, what happened to you?

Qiu shook hear head and her warm tears were thus cast onto my mother’s face.

My mother wiped the tears and said, ‘my girl, you could go and rest in your room. And I will cook.’

Qiu went back to her room and shed tears on her bed.

Then my mother turned to me to tell her the truth for she really wanted to know what happened to Qiu. My mother asked, ‘Lantong, what happened to Qiu?’ I didn’t want to talk about it for it was really disgusting, but seeing my mother was so nervous that she might lose her appetite if she didn’t hear the truth, I roughly told her what happened just now.

My mother’s face turned yellow when she heard the whole story.

That night, I didn’t cry or scream like a ghost to scare Qiu for I thought it was very stupid, and I knew Wudong would come back anyway. Qiu lay on her bed for the rest of the day without eating or drinking anything. During the previous nights, I usually calmed down by reading a book and thus stopped thinking about Qiu. But that night, this method didn’t work at all. I could still see Qiu’s sad face with the book before me. And occasionally I saw the characters on the book changing into Qiu’s tears which were becoming transparent and shiny and flowing on her face. Sad Qiu showed me another kind of beauty, which broke my heart. I could tell that such kind of beauty would appear on her face for many times, even for her whole life.I began to imagine how shocked and sad she would be when,one month later, she came to realize that she would have to live with Lantong and Yanying besides Wudong. I imagined many versions of her reactions and I couldn’t help shedding tears for her.

When Wudong came back, he made a lot of noise.

I immediately put my eyes to the partition to see what was going on.

Wudong unfolded Qiu’s quilt, but Qiu didn’t respond. Wudong asked curiously, ‘what happened to you, Qiu?’

Qiu covered herself with the quilt and didn’t allow Wudong to see her face. She kept silent. Wudong said impatiently, ‘what’s wrong with you? You were alright when I left, but why do you avoid seeing me after I had come a long way back home?’Qiu remained silent. Wudong lifted Qiu’s face with force, only to see Qiu’s red eyes as swollen as peaches in the light. Wudong gave a little cry of astonishment, and asked, ‘why are your eyes so swollen?Who bullied you?’

Qiu said, ‘nobody bullied me. I just like crying,’and then she turned off the light. Wudong turned it on and looked at Qiu’s eyes very seriously. Qiu avoided seeing his eye and covered her head with the quilt. Wudong sat on the bed silently for a while and then turned to the side of my room and stared at the partition.

Then he asked Qiuiqiu with his eyes on the partition, ‘so Lantong bullied you?’

It made sense for him to ask such a question because I was close to Qiu recently. His eyes were full of hatred when asking Qiuiqu. He was very careful so he must know that I must be seeing through the partition as long as the light was on in his room. He wanted me to see his hatred.

Qiu argued for me, ‘it was not Lantong.’

Wu Don’s gaze sharpened and asked, ‘was it Yanying?’

A wife usually had several husbands in Nuoci and it was common that one of them came to make love to the wife when it was not his turn. Such a practice was not illegal in Nuoci, and it was just in violation of the agreement, and the violator would be laughed at and taken as a frivolous man who couldn’t control his desire.

So Wudong had doubt about Yanying and me.Qiu didn’t have any idea about the marriage custom, so when hearing Wudong’s question, Qiu asked surprisedly, ‘how do you know this?’Then, the great wall Qiu had built in her heart to defend herself broke down. Usually when women encountered such an embarrassing thing, they tended to cover it up, but it was only when they didn’t have someone to share the sorrow with or when they didn’t realize someone else held the key to the lock of their heart. After all, women were too fragile to have such a big secret in their heart.Now, Wudong easily opened the door of her heart.

Qiu burst into tears and said, ‘Yanying is such a terrible person!’

Wudong understood everything and said with nothing but hatred, ‘I’m gonna beat him to death!’

Qiu probably thought she had got the right person to rely on to recover her dignity, so she cried and told Wudong every detail, including Yanying’s impotence and my throwing Yanying out of her room.After a while, she stopped crying and said, ‘I hadn’t expected that Lantong would have so much strength. He just threw Yanying out of my room within a second.’

Wudong smiled twice, and Qiu asked why. Wudong said, ‘I never expected that idiot could have saved you.’ Then he added, ‘I’m gonna beat Yanying to death when I finish my task .’ His tone was clearly not as determined as before.

 

Chapter 4

11

Wudong hadn’t finished his task in the rite yet, so I had to plough for him.When we set the plough, the white sun emerged from the sky, like a sad eye staring at us. Then, the fog began to move before us, like cotton or ice on the water, floating slowly.

I said, ‘look, Qiuiqu. The white sun.’

Qiu lifted her head and look in the direction I pointed to. Qiu’s eyes were as sad and deep as the sun at the moment. Qiu’s voice was like floating from the other side of the sky with the wind.She said, ‘the sun makes people feel upset.’

I said, ‘so do your eyes.’

Qiu looked back and smiled at me in a realistic manner, ‘let’s plough.’

On that day, Qiu brought a bag of fired soybeans with her to the field and she put some in my bag and told me to chew the soybeans when ploughing. Qiu said, ‘kids are fond of food, so you would not feel so tired when doing labor with these soybeans in your mouth.’I said, ‘I’m not a kid.’ I wanted to say ‘I’m your man’,but I only told her I was not a kid.Qiu looked down and said, ‘I didn’t expect that you are so young but you do have some strength sometimes, just like a real man.’I knew what she was talking about, so I said, ‘I hate it when others bully you.’Qiu nodded and whispered , ‘I’m really grateful to you.’ I wanted to say something more but I didn’t. I lowered my head and ploughed like a real ox.Qiu said, ‘I heard that you were going to school, but why don’t you go to school now?’ I wanted to said, ‘my parents asked us to marry you with my school fees, so I had no money to go to school,’ but what I said was ‘I didn’t want to go to school any more.’ Qiu said, ‘going to school is so wonderful, and doing labor is so exhausting.’

The fog moved gradually and brought about the sound of a kid crying.It was Sizai . He was running and crying like a lamb. He was less than 50 meters away from us, but the fog was to thick for us to see him. Hearing the cry, I dropped the plough and went to look for him immediately. When he saw me, he dragged me towards a direction, so I ran with him, only to see Yanying’s father, the other husband of my mother, whose name was Guan Gaoshan. He was pressing Sizai ’s mother whose clothes was torn off and whose white belly was exposed. Guan Gaoshan was undressing her pants.

Guan was shouting when tearing off her clothes,just like a wild hog hunting for its food.Sizai ’s mother was screaming, like a pig about to be killed. I ran to them and pulled Guan backward. He completely ignored me and was still engaged in doing his business. Right before the private part of Sizai ’s mother was exposed , I slapped Guan on the face and kicked him on the back. His eyes were hurt in the process; by the way, two parts of a male were the most fragile: the private part and the eyes.Guan screamed and covered his eyes with his hands, and that’s when I took the chance to pull him backward. Then he fell off Sizai ’s mother like a huge corn stick.  

Then Qiu came here and realized what happened. Sizai  was still crying and Qiu just stared at him. The fog was moving slowly above and around Qiu.

After being saved, Sizai ’s mother got up and hid behind the fog to put on her clothes.

Guan opened his swollen eyes which were as red as soaked in blood. Seeing me as his enemy, he screamed at me, seized me by the throat and pressed me hard with his heavy body. His hands were just like pinchers and just after a second, I felt a loss of hearing and vision with my head becoming dizzy. His crazy face full of hatred was more and more vague before me.His beast-like roar from his throat was louder and louder. I saw,in a daze, that Qiu was so anxious that she was scratching and beating Guan all over while Sizai ’s mother was picking clods to throw them towards Guan and Sizai  was biting Guan’s legs. I couldn’t hear their voice, and I could only see they were trying to save me, just like in a shadow play. But this time Guan was like King Kong, and nothing could stop him.

I thought I was going to die.

I really wanted to see Qiu again.I tried to gather all my energy round my eyes to see her again. When I saw Qiu with my dying eyes, she suddenly thought of a idea -- biting Guan’s hands. Guan gathered all his strength around his hands and thus Qiu, just like a wolf, bit Guan hard. Guan screamed and loosened his hands to try to get rid of Qiu, but Qiu didn’t stop biting his hands. Seeing this working well, Sizai ’s mother bit the other hand of Guan. In this way, Guan’s had to let my neck go. Thus I survived.       

After Guan let me go, Sizai ’s mother didn’t bite him any more, but Qiu was still biting his hand. Seeing the black and purple mark left by the teeth, Guan turned around and tried to tear Qiu off.He got Qiu off his hand and tried to throw her away. I recovered within a second and tried to stop him. So I was beating him when he attempted to seize my by the throat again. That’s when I kicked his private part. He screamed, scratched me on the face and then fell down like a wall.

Everyone here except Sizai  was hurt. Qiu’s mouth was bleeding for she got hurt when biting Guan. Her teeth were just like her, very fragile and tender, not tough enough to suffer this.My face was burning hot and I could feel it was bleeding.

I helped Qiu up and was about to leave. I told Sizai ’s mother, ‘go back home, or you could do labor in somewhere else.’

Sizai ’s mother nodded and said, ‘I’m sorry that you two got hurt as well today.’ Within a moment, Guan screamed and ran to us again. Just after his private part recovered from the pain, he thought of Qiu. He ignored me completely and dragged Qiu with all his strength. He suddenly gathered strength and threw me away. And this time he would be disabled or dead if my mother didn’t appear in time. Would I allow him to take advantage of Qiu?No way! Could I bear the shame of being thrown away by him? No way!

But my mother appeared. Guan was the other husband of my mother, and he listened to nobody but my mother. He did what my mother told him any time, even when he was going crazy. My parent were ploughing less than a meter away from us and when hearing the noise here, they decided to come to see what happened. My mother followed my father and they hadn’t expected that this should involve Guan, Qiu and me. When they saw us, my mother gave a yell which worked better than anything for Guan. He stood still at once, just like being struck by lightning. My mother came forward and gave him two slaps across the face. He stared at mother like a puppet and called her ‘Suhua.’

My father had thought about coming to cease the fire, but my mother made it with only a yell. He was a little bit disappointed by not playing a role here.With his contempt at Guan, my father left.

Guan stared at my mother and I guessed he had only my mother in his mind right now. He called my mother ‘Suhua’ again and again, just like doing sleep-talking.

Hearing him calling her, my mother glanced at him, seeing his clothes torn and dirty and his mouth trembling,my mother couldn’t help shedding tears.One tear flew from her left eye and across her face like a shooting star and then another tear flew from her right eye down to her collar.

Seeing my mother shedding tears, Guan cried too. He sniffed and tears were flowing across his face with his snot and saliva. My mother yelled at him, ‘go back!Have you ploughed your field?’ Guan said, ‘not yet.’ My mother shouted, ‘then go and plough!’ Guan burst into tears and slowly went away.  

He gradually disappeared in fog and we could only hear him crying with grievance like a kid.

Then my mother turned around to look at me, only to see the scratches on my face bleeding, and couldn’t help bursting into tears. I knew how bad she must feel right now about the fight between her own son and her husband. It was difficult for her to express her complex feelings and pain with language, so she could only turn to crying. She had a good cry and kept wiping her tears with sleeves, wetting both sleeves. Tears poured across her face and she glanced at me and Qiu. Seeing the blood stain around the corner of Qiu’s mouth, my mother stretched her hand to wipe it. Qiu called, ‘mother,’ and my mother held Qiu’s hand. Suddenly my mother gave herself a slap across the face with Qiu’s hand. Qiu hadn’t expected this and screamed in anxiety, ‘mother!’After that, my mother decided not to cry. She took a deep breath,went to Sizai ’s mother,and said, ‘so sorry about this.’ Sizai ’s mother replied at once, ‘don’t say sorry.It’s not your fault.I’m alright now. You could go.’

My mother nodded, and went into the fog with tears which never seemed to end.

I was about to call Qiu to go back to our field when Qiu asked me suddenly, ‘why did that madman do as your mother told him.’ Sizai’s mother, a talkative woman, pulled Qiu to her and told her seriously, ‘dear, let me tell you something. The madman is Yanying’s father and your mother’s husband. He wasn’t crazy all the time. Only when your mother is in your house instead of in his house, would he go crazy. And he only goes crazy when seeing women, not all the time.And it really depends…’

I couldn’t live with the gossip from Sizai’s mother, so I said, ‘Qiu, let’s go and plough!’

Qiu nodded at Sizai’s mother and then followed me.

Back to the field, Qiu lifted my face to see the scars and examined my neck. Like a mother, she blew on the scars and asked me whether they were painful.I really wanted to cry in her arms, but as a man, I just told her carelessly I was alright. She was so close to me that some romantic feelings arose in my mind. But I dared to do nothing. I just told her that her mouth was bleeding just now.Qiu said, ‘yeah, my teeth still hurt now.’ Then I had no idea what I should say. Looking into the direction where Sizai ’s mother left, Qiu got confused and asked herself, ‘why are there so many crazy people in this village?’

Then she suddenly asked me, ‘what Sizai ’s mother said is true or not?’

I thought for a while and realized that it was impossible to hide the truth forever, so I told Qiu, ‘yes, it is.’

Qiu asked, ‘why is Yanying’s father also the husband of our mother?So our mother divorced him and then married our father?’

I said, ‘no, it isn’t.’

Qiu asked, ‘so what is it like?’

I kept silent because I didn’t want to tell her that Guan was just the other husband of my mother.

Qiu asked, ‘so our mother married our father without divorcing Guan?’

I said, ‘no.’ But I thought what she said made sense, so I added, ‘I suppose so.’

Qiu remained speechless for quite a while and she must be thinking about something. So I took the chance and tried to change a topic. I said, ‘Guan and my mother used to have a son. The kid fell into the fire at the age of four for Guan went crazy at that time and nobody was looking after the kid. As a result, that kid had his face burnt and hands off.’ After telling her the story, I found out I had failed to skip the topic.

Qiu thought for a while and tried to find out the truth in vain, so she asked me,‘Lantong, could you please make it clear? Why did mother marry our father without divorcing Yanying’s father?’

I was stuck in such a question and thus kept silent, but Qiu insisted. So I could only tell her that my mother was the wife of both my father and Guan.

Qiu was too shocked to hold the plough and asked, ‘why?’

For Qiu, this was just like a story in fiction.It seemed that god intended to allow Qiu to see her own fate today, but Qiu was too careless to make a further inquiry. She was astonished for quite a while. Then she felt it inappropriate to ask one more question, so she didn’t ask any more.

 

12

When my mother was cooking, my father was repairing the ropes in case they got broken when dragged to plough. He asked me to examine Wudong’s ropes as well, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to do such things and I was not interested in farming either. I took an old textbook randomly and read it around Qiu’s burner. For me,the textbook was just something in the past and when I was reading the book, I was actually looking back at the past. A character or a punctuation mark could reminded me of a series of memories. Those memories were sometimes like the white sun in Nuoci, sad and beautiful, and sometimes like the fog in Nuoci, heavy and confusing. I stared at the book and fell into the memories,floating or sinking from time to time.

Qiu was busy behind the steam, like a shadow acting in a silent movie. When Qiu’s laughter went into my ears, I saw two leader-like persons standing before me with Chen Fengshui. My father besides them said, ‘what a bookworm!’and then he shouted at me, ‘don’t be so dull!The leaders were asking you questions!’My head was filled with something like cloud or fog and I had no idea what they had asked me. So I smiled at them lazily and stood up to give my seat to them. Leader A stopped me and said, ‘go on reading your book. Few people in the village are fond of reading as you are. Are you a student? Are you preparing for the college entrance examination?’ Before I could reply, Chen Fengshui said, ‘he is the most educated person in our village and he has attended high school.’ The leader smiled and asked, ‘so he is preparing for the college entrance examination?’ Chen answered, ‘no, he couldn’t afford the tuition fees, so he quit school and has been doing labor ever since.’The leaders nodded and lost interest in me. They then inquired about Qiu besides them, ‘who is this?’Chen said, ‘this is their daughter and she is going to get married soon.’ Leader B blew his eyes and asked Chen, ‘why have you been answering all the questions for them?They have their own mouths.’Chen smiled awkwardly and said, ‘nothing.’ Leader A turned to asked my father, ‘so you are a family?’ Before my father could answer, the leader went to my mother with his hands clasped behind his back. Seeing my mother was busy around the burner, the leader asked, ‘so you are two families?’Before my mother could answer, Chen said, ‘she is the mother of the two children.’ The leader rolled his eyes towards Chen and asked, ‘one family with two burners to cook?’Chen took a breath and said, ‘this is their own business.Let’s not bother with this.’ The leader moved his face a little bit and then went to my father.Failing to find my father in the crowd, the leader turned to my mother and  asked, ‘are you going to plant tobacco leaves this year?’ My mother looked at Chen and Chen asked my mother, ‘why are you looking at me? Do you want to plant it or not? Just tell the leader your plan.’ My mother said, ‘the soil here is not for the tobacco leaves. And the tobacco leaves would die before they grow up.’The leader asked, ‘so what are you going to do to earn money to accomplish the task?’ My mother suddenly got angry and said, ‘we pay money to complete the task every year.’ The leader sensed the anger in my mother’s answer and knew it was not proper to ask further questions, so he said, ‘actually, once you get the proper method, planting tobacco leaves would be very profitable. There is a family at the foot of the hill that has become rich after planting tobacco leaves…’ While making his speech, the leader went out of the door. Chen had been following the leaders, just like the black dog following him.

Stepping into the yard, the three persons and the dog stopped. The leaders looked at my father and asked, ‘are you okay with collecting money to build the highway?’ My father snorted and said, ‘okay okay. We have to pay even we are not okay, right?’The leaders was about to say something more with my father when Chen said to them, ‘I’ve talked with them, and they are willing to pay. They have not objection to this.’ The leaders glanced at my father and realized that my father was not in the mood to talk with them, so they went away.

When they were off, Qiu asked me, ‘why did the village head say I was the daughter in the family?’

I said, ‘if two kids stood besides you, he would say one kid belongs to other people while the other kid belongs to your relatives even if both of them are your own kids.’

Qiu asked, ‘why?’

I said, ‘one couple could only have one child, so when there are two kids besides you, you have to explain for that.’

Qiu asked, ‘then why did he say that I was the daughter in the family?’

I answered, ‘in order to hide the truth. That’s how he talked to those leaders.’          

Qiu smiled and said, ‘is it possible to hide it all the time?’

I said, ‘Nuoci is far away from where the leaders are and thus it is quite a journey for them to get here. They would pay such as a visit only after a few years, so they hear about everything from the village head, Chen Fengshui.’

Qiu smiled and went to the burner.

After that, Sizai ’s mother came to my yard with her three daughters and told my father that the leaders were going to have dinner in her house so she had to let her daughters stay in our house. Sizai ’s mother was Chen Fengshui’s daughter-in-law and for so many years only Chen’s big family were monogamous, which meant Chen Fengshui was the only son of his own father,Sizai ’s father was the only son of Chen Fengshui. Sizai ’s father had suffered from tuberculosis in the past and thus after getting married with Sizai ’s mother, he was getting thinner and thinner and finally managed to have three daughters. Chen Fengshui used to terribly want Sizai ’s father to have a son but he was so weak as if he could be blown down by wind. Sizai ’s father was always sitting on the bed or crouching around the burner with only bones under the purple skin. He coughed occasionally or made some noise to show he was still alive.But even so,he and Sizai ’s mother finally had a son who some villagers said was actually the son of Sizai ’s mother and Chen Fengshui. This was all gossip, and we could skip it.

Sizai ’s mother had given birth to three daughters but Chen Fengshui didn’t register them. Chen said that one couple could only have one child and that this was national regulation which couldn’t be violated. After Sizai  was born, he was registered because he was a boy.

Sizai ’s mother said, ‘my father-in-law said, I should bring my daughters to your house to hide once they left your house.’

Her three girls were named Da Niu, Er Niu, and San Niu. They all looked like their mother with a big face which looked like being swollen, and thick lips.They were used to the hide-and-seek with the leaders and felt at home wherever they were without being shy at all.They were old enough to go to school but they didn’t. The school was very far away from our village and thus children in our village went to school one or two years later than they ought to be. But I knew there’s a reason for them not to attend school -- the school suddenly asked students to hand in their household residence cards, and those who didn’t have one were unable to go to school.

The three girls were as talkative as their mother.Their mother just left them to us and went away without even taking a look at them.They walked around, surrounding Qiu for a while and then surrounding me. They were talking all the time and thus our house was quite lively.

With three of them having dinner with us, our whole family ate together. The rice was yellow rice with a single tiny grain of white rice in between,but the three girls enjoyed their meals a lot. And we four adults were quietly controlling our appetite in case the food might be not enough for these three girls.          

 

13

Wudong was performing a rite in another village for four days. My father was unhappy about Wudong’s coming back late at night everyday, and said, ‘what are you going back so late at night for? You should focus on your work and earn money! You won’t miss anything if you are away from home for one or two nights.People would say you are nothing but lustful.’ Wudong felt ashamed and muttered, ‘well, I’m not going home tonight.’ My father added, ‘they kept pressing us to pay. Could you try to borrow some money?’

Wudong muttered, ‘it’s difficult to borrow money from people in other villages.’

My father goggled,raised his voice to the maximum and said, ‘you’ve been performing rites in other villages for so many years, and you could borrow no money from them?!’

Wudong bit his lips and remained silent. My father said, ‘you could come back tonight, but only when you bring borrowed money with you.’

People in Nuoci have no such things as nightlife. After having dinner, people would do some chores and then went to bed. As for people like my father, they would have a cigarette before going to bed. So when it was dark, Nuoci was as lonely and dark as the hell.

As usual, I held a textbook in my hands under the yellow bulb, hence the dim light on my book. I was not in the mood to read, but I was thinking about my future. I had been thinking about the question for so many years but I didn’t get an answer no matter how hard I tried. What I could see ahead was as confusing as the thick fog in Nuoci. I failed to see my future.

After Qiu entered my life, I somehow saw the outline of my future which was,like my father and Guan Gaoshan, staying in Nuoci, sharing a wife, and living a strange life for a lifetime. I didn’t know whether I was into such a life, or whether I could be able to live a life that I adored. I kept thinking about that.

My father came to my bedroom. He knew nothing about the courtesy of knocking the door, so he just opened the door and approached me. ‘Idiot,’ said him. I glanced at him and looked back at my book, hoping to regain the feelings of sinking in the cloud and fog. He said, ‘idiot, has Wudong come back?’

Qiu answered on the other side, ‘father, Wudong hasn’t come back.’

My father nodded towards me as if I had answered him. He said, ‘tell Wudong to come to me when he is back. I am waiting for him to collect the money. I’m quite anxious now.’

Qiu replied, ‘ok.’

My father stared at me and said, ‘idiot!’ Then he went away without shutting the door for me.

Qiu asked, ‘what are you doing , Lantong?’

I said, ‘I am reading a book.’

After some noise, Qiu’s voice came closer, ‘what kind of book are you reading?’I put my face closer to the partition and saw an eye right through the crack on the partition. I couldn’t help laughing and said, ‘Qiu, you are peeping at me?’The eye was gone and the light on the other side was on. Qiu asked, ‘you opened up these crack?’ I said, ‘no, I didn’t. It’s like there have been cracks for ages.’ Qiu asked, ‘do you think Wudong will be back tonight?’I said, ‘yes, he will.’ She said, ‘I don’t think so. He could borrow money from nobody, and thus he doesn’t dare to come back.’ I said, ‘he would come back even without money. He would miss you.’ Qiu said, ‘I will ask Wudong to plaster up the cracks tomorrow.’

When we were talking with the partition between us, Wudong came back.

He went into the house secretly without calling anyone to open the door for him. He just unlocked the door with a hay knife and then sneaked into his room. After entering his room, he turned off the light and whispered, ‘don’t make a sound.’Then he asked me to turn off the light in my room.Qiu said, ‘father asked you to go and see him.He is waiting for the money.’ Wudong whispered, ‘that’s why I don’t dare to make a sound. I failed to borrow any money.’ Qiu asked, ‘so what can we do?Father said he was waiting for you anxiously.’ Wudong didn’t say a word but some slight sounds reminded me that Wudong was trying to keep the silence with another method.

But my father came over suddenly.

As if he had been listening aside, his voice suddenly arose in the darkness.

‘Wudong, have you managed to borrow some money?’shouted my father.

After a moment of panic, Wudong opened the door and went out of the room. My father asked, ‘where’s the money you borrowed?’ Wudong said, ‘father, I failed to borrow any money.’ My father asked, ‘you failed to borrow money or you didn’t go to borrow money at all?’ Wudong answered, ‘I failed. I went to several households to borrow money but they said they had to pay a lot of money to the above at the moment, and that they had to borrow money from others.’ My father swore, ‘damn it!’My father’s voice was the opposite to Wudong’s voice. My father was in a high voice while Wudong was in a low voice. My father swore again, ‘dame it!’I had no idea whether my father was cursing Wudong or those who refused to lend money to Wudong. All of a sudden, there came an astonishing sound. It sounded like the chair flying to hit the pot and the pot falling off the burner and breaking.

Wudong yelled, ‘father!’

My father lowered his voice and said, ‘useless!’

 

Chapter 5

14

The fog was finally getting thinner, hanging around people like yarn. Although the fog above one’s head was still thick, those before one’s noes was thinner than before so that people could breathe more easily.When the white sun was above us around two bamboo poles away, the fog as thin as yarn floated into the sky and disappeared before us. When the fog formed a fog roof above us, the space between the fog roof and the land was less than one bamboo pole high.

Qiu said the sky and the land were like a sandwich and we were the filling between them.

Qiu said this weather was really not for the crops to grow well.

There was a good deal of land in Nuoci, but crops were not growing well here. So we had to plant more and work harder. However, it still depended on whether god allowed us to harvest more. The spring in Nuoci came later than places outside the mountain and it was at the end of the spring in other places that we started to see the spring coming in Nuoci. However, the autumn and winter in Nuoci came earlier than that in other areas. When other villages were in the middle of summer, the autumn came in Nuoci. In this way, we were longing for drought in Nuoci.When there was drought outside the mountain where the crops were dry enough to be ignited, we would have a good harvest for the year in Nuoci. But we seldom had such good weather. Because of the late coming of the spring, we usually put off tilling land and thus the crops grew up very late. Before the crops absorbed enough sunlight, the autumn was coming. As a result, we could only harvest corncobs as small as little mice. So if we didn’t work harder and planted more, we would have nothing to hand in or feed ourselves.

Qiu said the land owned by Wudong and I was as large as three households in her village.

I said, ‘despite being large the land was not good enough for the crops to grow. And money couldn’t grow in the field anyway.’ Qiu said, ‘we should buy an ox.’ Looking at the ox pulling the plough of Sizai ’s family, Qiu’s eyes were full of envy.

A man herding an ox,a woman holding a hoe in her hands and a kid chasing crickets in the field formed a wonderful scene in Qiu’s mind.

I said, ‘an ox helps nothing in such a place.’

Qiu said, ‘with an ox, people would not be so tired.’

When Qiu spoke of ‘tired’, I suddenly felt exhausted.So I dropped the plough and sat down in the field with tears in my eyes.

Sizai ’s mother went to plough the corners where the ox couldn’t reach with her big ass moving from side to side towards us. I shouted in the direction of her ass and asked Chen Fengshui, ‘could money grow in your field after it was ploughed by an ox?’ Sizai ’s mother stopped to lift her face towards us and asked , ‘what did you say, Lantong?’ I regretted at once. Why should I shout just now anyway?I was not crazy. I looked down to see a black ant struggling to move forward.

Chen led his ox to come over before me. Chen took a look at me and said, ‘after going to school, Lantong has become too lazy to do labor and only wished for money growing in the field.’Then he burst into laughter.Sizai ’s mother said, ‘Lantong should have completed his education.He is not tough enough to do labor.’Then, she dropped the hoe to go to drink tea in a corner. After drinking like a cow, she got one more bowl of tea and asked whether Chen would like to drink. She held the bowl above her face and greeted Chen without saying a word. Although Chen was ploughing, he directly saw the bowl in the air. He stopped the ox, clapped,hawked and spat.Then Sizai ’s mother handed him the bowl and saw him drinking up the tea within a second.After that, she put the bowl back to the corner.

Sizai  went to the corner to drink water with plenty of crickets in one of his hand. He had difficulty in drinking water with one hand, so the other hand holding crickets came to help when the crickets took the chance to escape,jumping around on the ground.

Seeing this, Qiu couldn’t help laughing. Sizai  turned around to stare at Qiu. Sizai ’s eyes were as deep as a well and such eyes seemed to absorb something from Qiu, making her shiver with her face turning pale. She said, ‘Lantong, Sizai  doesn’t look like a kid.’ I looked at Sizai  carefully and thought he was still a kid. So I asked Qiu, ‘if he doesn’t look like a kid, then what does he look like?’ Qiu shook her head and said, ‘his eyes were not like those of a kid.’

Chen and his ox moved towards us with their plough, and then Qiu suddenly said it was very hot.

Then Qiu took off her coat and only wore a red hot sweater, which felt like a shiny sun before us. On such a foggy day, this red somehow brought us some warmth. But the ox felt different about the redness.It seemed to be reminded of something and glanced at Qiu from time to time, breathing heavily and running at the mouth.I said, ‘Qiu, that ox was attracted by you.’Qiu giggled and threw a clod towards it. All of a sudden, the ox got angry and ran fiercely towards Qiu with the plough. Before we can blink, the ox threw Qiu into the air and I only came to realize what happened when Qiu fell down.Then I got a hold of its horns and was lifted by the ox.I climbed onto its face so that it could not see anything, and it tried to get rid of me.At the moment, the ox went crazy ,and no matter how its master beat it or dragged it’s nose with the rope, it determined to throw me to death.I held its horns tightly and it threw me down again and again. I was like a line cloth bag, being thrown up and down by it, and finally I was thrown into the sky and then fell down on the ground.When it’s vision was not blocked by me, it saw Qiu again who was calling my name loudly and hitting the belly of the ox with the hoe. But since it was jumping around with its belly full of gas and it skin tough and thick, Qiu didn’t hurt the ox at all. Despite not being hurt, the ox took Qiu as its enemy and it threw Qiu into the sky again. As soon as Qiu fell down, the ox attempted to ran towards Qiu again. I stopped it with my body and was thus thrown into the sky and then down to the ground again. Then I saw a hole in my belly, from which I could see the gut trembling inside.

The ox finally fell down after Chen Fengshui vigorously hit it on the head with the hoe. They didn’t care about whether the ox was dead or not for my belly was bleeding like a spring.Qiu took off her sweater to wrap my belly and then cut the coat into stripes with the hay knife to tie it up.Then Chen held me up in his arms and sent me to a local doctor. Hearing that there was a hole in my belly, the doctor refused to give me treatment. One day, this man placed some medicine in a prominent place at home and announced that he could cure diseases, so some people went to him to buy medicine and found it indeed worked. As a result he had become a doctor in our village.He said, ‘you’d better take him to the town as soon as possible.’ The town was so far away from us. My father heard about this before long, and he called two other men to go with him and catch up with us to replace Sizai ’s mother and Chen Fengshui.

I was in a coma before getting to the town.

My soul slept in my body all the way and awakened when I reached the town. Then, my soul flew to the top of the room. When seeing Qiu crying sadly, I felt bitter as well as sweet and then my body awakened.

That’s when Wudong came over. He had finished the rite in Xiao Yang Village and hurried to see me after hearing about the incident. I thought he might punch me when seeing Qiu’s arms around my head, but he didn’t. He didn’t pay attention to Qiu’s holding my head in her arms. Instead, he said to me, ‘let’s kill that ox and made soup out of it for you.’ Adults usually talked like this to joke with kids, but Wudong said it in a very serious manner, which made me want to laugh. But when I was about to laugh, I felt a sharp pain on my belly, so I held it back.  

Later, Wudong didn’t kill the ox. Wudong told me that the master of the ox said to him, ‘it was just an animal and didn’t see sense.It just couldn’t stand people in red. It has lived with me for over a decade and I care more about it than about my unhealthy son. If you are gonna kill it, you’d better kill me as well.’ But of course,I didn’t believe what Wudong told me.Chen Fengshui was the village head, and his ox didn’t kill me, so there was no reason for Wudong to go to kill the ox.

But what Chen did was quite satisfactory. He paid for my medicine fees and lent the ox to my father for three days.                 

 

15

Villagers like me didn’t feel like staying in hospital for too long, so I was in hospital for four days and then went back home. The wound was stitched up, the gut was not likely to get out of my belly, and thus it was only about diminishing inflammation and recovery. Since I bled a lot and my blood needed to be enriched, my mother slaughtered all our chickens except the old hens followed by ten-odd chicks. Qiu also slaughtered her two hens.During this period of time, my life was full of happiness. I could have nutritious meals as if I were in a lying-in and be taken care of by Qiu as if I were her son.

Wudong didn’t hate me any more, and he didn’t envy me even when Qiu was looking after me. But Wudong kept in mind that Yanying attempted to rape Qiu. Although Yanying didn’t make it, Wudong still felt hatred for Yanying. Wudong didn’t go and punch Yanying for if he did so, other people would regard it as ridiculous and refuse to support him when Yanying fought back.  

Wudong said on my bed and said to me or Qiu, ‘why hasn’t brother Yanying come to see you?’ Qiu rolled her eyes to indicate that she hated it when he mentioned Yanying. Wudong shut up and stared at the wall as if he was thinking. I saw from the side of his face what he was thinking about. He must be thinking that since Lantong got hurt for Qiu who was also the wife of Yanying, Yanying should have come and paid. Then he turned to me and said, ‘I’m gonna ask him to pay money to buy some nutritious food for you.’

Wudong stood up and said, ‘if he doesn’t pay money, he should do something to help at least, right?’ Before stepping out of my room, Wudong suddenly said, ‘oh, I could ask him to kill his black dog. Dog meat is very nutritious.’

Such an idea made Wudong blush with joy and he turned to me and said, ‘he has been treating the black dog as his own son, so I’m gonna ask him to kill it!’

Wudong was very happy, so he repeated what he said in the outer room to Qiu and went straight to Yanying’s.

Seeing Wudong going away, Qiu came back and asked me. ‘Wudong is gonna kill the dog? Is it true?’

I said, ‘yes, it is.’

Qiu said, ‘do you want to eat the meat of the black dog?’

I said, ‘no, I don’t. It is only Wudong’s own decision.’

Qiu said, ‘dogs are human beings’ friends. That black dog is very lovely. If Yanying really regards it as his own son, then it will be mean of Wudong to kill it.’

I said, ‘Wudong is fawning on you. If you tell him not to kill it, then he will change his mind.’

Qiu thus went for Wudong.

Then I was left alone at home, and my mind was flying around again. I stared at one point of the roof and the outline of a dog seemed to appear there. It was black and looked exactly like Yanying’s black dog.It turned around to look at me. I wanted to see its expression, so I strained my eyes so much that they felt painful.It turned out not to be the black dog, and changed into a red heart beating hard.I could even hear the sound of the beat, ‘dongdong! dongdong!’Suddenly, the sound was hitting my chest and the heart was becoming bigger and bigger, like a mountain or the sky or the world. And it swallowed me.

I pressed my hands to my chest in such imagination and felt it beating in a panic. Then I started to imagine what was going to happen to Qiu. Qiu hadn’t met Guan Shitou yet, and she would surely met him this time, perhaps after seeing the black dog which would have become a dead dog being dissected. The dead dog would upset and shocked Qiu. And when Guan Shitou lifted his head from the dead dog and faced Qiu eye-to-eye, Qiu would be deeply shocked by his face, half of which looked like unfired pottery which had suffered from the pouring of heavy rain and blood.If that was what happened to her, Qiu should be home soon.

            

But Qiu came back after quite a long time.

When she was back,her clothes was dirty all over and torn as if she had been attacked, and there was still some panic on her face. I asked her what happened, and she kept silent, running back to her bedroom to cry. I guessed something must have happened to her, but where was Wudong?I asked her, ‘where is Wudong? Why didn’t he come back with you?’ Qiu chocked with sobs and answered me, ‘Wudong went to buy medicine for Yanying.’ I didn’t understand why Yanying would need medicine, but I sensitively believed that Yanying might be plotting again. I held my belly which would be sharply painful when I moved and then I approached Qiu to get to the bottom of it. That’s when Wudong came back.

Wudong was back with anxiety. He directly ran to Qiu and held her into his arms and kissed the tears on her face as if I were not present. When he was whispering and trying to comfort her, she turned her sorrow into anger and pushed him away. She asked him in a sharp voice, ‘why did you come back that late?!’Wudong explained, ‘the damn local doctor was not at home, so I went to see him in the field and then bought the medicine.’ He added, ‘Guan Gaoshan wasn’t home when I went to Yanying, and I didn’t expect Guan would be back within such a short time.’

Then, Wudong told me what happened.

He said they didn’t kill the black dog for Yanying was sick. Yanying’s private part was as swollen as a rotten radish, so he lay on the bed for two days and was unable to get up. Since Guan Gaoshan was insane and Guan Shitou was an idiot,nobody offered a meal to Yanying during this period. When Qiu went there, Wudong asked Qiu to cook for Yanying and then Wudong went to buy medicine for Yanying. Wudong checked with extra attention and made sure that Guan Gaoshan was not home before leaving Qiu. Wudong knew that Qiu was afraid of Guan Gaoshan going crazy. Yanying’s house used to be part of Guan Gaoshan’s. Although Yanying now lived independently, his house was still connected to Guan Gaoshan’s house. However, after Qiu cooked for Yanying, Guan Gaoshan came back. Wudong gritted his teeth and said, ‘he was such an old madman!’

‘then…’ Wudong said with broken sentences. He was unwilling to mention it, but he wanted to reveal the crime in anger.

He continued,‘that madman dared to take advantage of Qiu!’

Wudong’s gum was bleeding, so he spat a mix of saliva and blood and said, ‘Yanying was beating Guan Gaoshan with a shoulder pole and his dog was biting Guan Gaoshan’ s ass, or Qiu would have been raped by Guan.’

He added, ‘Qiu escaped from him and he followed. That’s when I came back and came across them. I dragged him back his home and beat him hard, or he would surely followed Qiu back to my home. Damn it!’

 

16

My father came back home with nothing in his hands. He walked straight to my mother silently and turned all his pockets inside out in front of my mother. My mother knew what he meant. She asked him to try to borrow money to pay the money to the above instead of selling the pigs in the pigsty. My fathers’ eyes were round with eyeballs shining like the sun when he was turning his pockets inside out before my mother. After that ,he walked towards the pigsty. My mother knew what he was gonna do, so she hurried to the entrance of the pigsty ahead of my father and defended her lovely pigs like a guard.

My father took a look at her and turned around, which my mother thought was a sign of giving up. But,to my mother’s surprise, he came back to the pigsty again with a hemp rope which indicated that he was even more determined to sell the pig, let alone giving up.

My mother pulled a long face and said, ‘couldn’t you just leave them alone and think of some other way?’

My father burst into anger and shouted, ‘I tried everything!I’ve beaten my brains out! How about you coming up with another way?If you are so clever, how about you giving me your portion of money that I have to pay for you otherwise?’

My mother bit her lips with hatred in her eyes and swore at my father, ‘your conscience must have been swallowed by the dog!’

My father said, ‘yes!My conscience has been swallowed by the dog! So are my intestines, liver and lung!’

My mother turned to the side and stood with her back to the gate of the pigsty and a look of defending her pigs with her life.The pigs just had their meals and they were curious about humans’ life when they were full. So the pigs stretched their pink snouts out of the cracks of the boards to listen to my mother and father quarreling.

Looking at the snouts, my father said, ‘do you think I am happy to sell the pigs ?But I just failed to borrow money from anybody. I have no other way.We haven’t repaid usurious loan yet. The amount of the usurious loan we took to pay the village construction has now risen so high that it is equivalent to the price of a cow.What do you think the usuriou loan is?It grows faster than grass!So do you want me to take one more usurious loan? So you don’t remember that the usurious loan lenders went here to take our pigs away with force?’My father listed all the facts and got more and more angry. Then,he stopped persuading my mother and tried to get into the pigsty with force. My mother got anxious and called Qiu to help her stop my father. But my father shouted at Qiu, ‘Qiu, if you dare to stop me, I’m gonna transfer the usurious loan to you and Wudong!’ Qiu had no idea about what to do and just stood there like a fool, watching this happening without doing anything.

Finally,my father managed to drag my mother aside and forced his way into the pigsty.

My mother struggled in vain and stood aside wiping her tears with red eyes.

Seeing this, Qiu tried to hand her money to my father when he put a rope around the pig. All the money was either from Qiu’s wedding ceremony, Wudong’s rite practices or Qiu’s own savings. It was just 232 yuan in total. Qiu said, ‘father, please take this money. Don’t sell the pig, or mother would be upset.’ Turning around to see the new and old notes in Qiu’s hands, my father was in a daze for two seconds. The pig in his arms touched his face with his snout, and such a cool and wet kiss awakened him. He hit the pig on the head and said, ‘if you lent the money to us, then you’ve got no money to pay to the above.’

Qiu said, ‘we only need to pay Wudong’s portion and I will ask Wudong to borrow money.’ For a moment, my mother thought the problem would be solved and the pig would stay. She sniffed and put her hand on the gate of the pigsty, indicating that she would shut the gate once my father came out so the pig would be safer.

However, she hadn’t expected that even Qiu’s money couldn’t save her pig. My father didn’t take Qiu’s money. My father said, ‘even with your money, this wouldn’t work out. I have to sell the pig even if I borrowed your money.’ Qiu didn’t understand so my father patiently explained to her, ‘at the moment, we need not only pay to the above, but also repay some of the usurious loan. The less the usurious loan is , the better. You need to know that the usurious loan is shocking!If we don’t pay it back within two months, the debt would be equivalent to two large fat pigs.’  

My father didn’t take Qiu’s money. He had found a buyer before he went home and thus he could sell the pig immediately. He planned to sell the pig and went to the market to pay some of the loan back.For my father, the fast-growing usurious loan was like fire, the sooner he could put it out, the less anxious he would feel.

In this way, he managed to take the pig away, but when coming back, he still borrowed 150 yuan from Qiu. He said, ‘after selling the pig, we are still short of 150 yuan to pay the money to the above.’

In the evening, Qiu sat around the burner, lost in thought. Suddenly she asked Wudong, ‘are we going to buy a pig to feed?’ Wudong narrowed his eyes as if he was thinking about the idea, and said , ‘why?’Qiu said, ‘now that we are independent from your parents’ family, we should live as an independent family.So we should feed a pig in case we have to pay money within a short time like what we did today…’Wudong interrupted her and said, ‘not now.’Wudong glanced at me when answering Qiu, and I saw how awkward and upset he was from his glance. Qiu said, ‘you are gonna pick a lucky date to buy a pig?’Wudong answered, ‘we have to wait until you are pregnant with my child.’ Qiu covered her mouth with her hand and looked around for somebody to share the funny idea. There were only Wudong and me besides Qiu around their burner, so Qiu looked at me and meant to share her joy with me, bursting into laughter. She asked me, ‘you haven’t seen such kind of people, have you?’ However, it’s very difficult for me to answer her question. What Wudong had just talked about was a very serious fact. Since Qiu was married to three of us, Qiu would spend the first 1.5 years with the one who made her pregnant. And only when she lived such a stable life could she raise a pig. Therefore, what Wudong just said was not a laughing matter at all for Wudong and me. If we were gonna laugh, we could only give a wry smile instead of being as joyful as Qiu was. I could hardly force a smile anyway, and I even felt bitter when seeing Wudong’s face turning yellow. But Qiu knew nothing about the fact, and she just thought Wudong was strange and funny.

Since Qiu didn’t get a response from me, she gave herself an out by patting Wudong and said awkwardly, ‘I have never seen such kind of people like you.’ Seeing Qiu’s face, Wudong had some complex expression on his face. He said, ‘let’s go to sleep.’ Qiu said, ‘it’s far too early. Nobody would go to sleep this early.’ Wudong asked, ‘don’t you want to raise a pig?’Qiu thought Wudong was excessively strange and she was a little bit afraid of this. She pulled a long face and asked him, ‘do you have any problem with your head?Is there any connection between going to bed early now and raising a pig?’Wudong smiled at once and said, ‘when we have a baby, we could raise a pig.’ Qiu glanced at me and faced Wudong with anger. Wudong’s face was stiff but he was still laughing as if he wore a mask of smile. He said to Qiu, ‘I’m just joking. I don’t want you to be too tired. If you want a pig, we will buy one next month.’ Qiu’s anger disappeared and she told Wudong softly, ‘don’t be so strange any more.’ Wudong said yes and took Qiu into the bedroom.

 

Chapter 6

17

 

Early in the morning, Qiu exclaimed, ‘wow!We are in the heaven!’ What surprised Qiu turned out to be the fog at the foot of us,just like snow carpet or cloud, and the blue sky was just above our head. Qiu had never seen such a scene.Wudong said, ‘make a nice meal and cook some yummy fried flour and we are gonna invite the Queen Mother of the West to dine here.’ Qiu giggled and asked, ‘which one?The Emperor of the Sky has married four women. ’Wudong said,‘the most powerful one. Let me find out.’ Qiu giggled again.

My mother shouted on the other side, ‘Qiu, could you please help me cook the pig’s food?I’m gonna go to the field and I will cook for us later.’ Qiu responded joyfully, ‘ok, mother!Just go ahead.I’ll come at once.’

My father shouted, ‘Wudong, go to the field with us!’

Wudong muttered and then said to Qiu, ‘look, we are going to the field riding the cloud.’

Then, Wudong followed my parents and left Qiu staring at the thick fog around her feet.

The fog was like thick snow,light cotton, or clouds with a fairy standing on it. The fog lay flat on the ground and moved gently as Qiu walked. Qiu,like a kid, shouted at me, ‘Lantong, come on!I’m standing on the cloud.’

And she yelled, ‘wow!The sun turned red! The fog is in different colors! Lantong, come on!’

I didn’t get out of my room immediately,but I could imagine what Qiu saw. It was time for the beginning of the spring in Nuoci. Each year, when the spring began, a fantastic scene could be seen in Nuoci. The white sun changed into the red sun and the sunlight endowed the fog with a purple layer,a blue layer and a golden layer. It was gorgeous!

Seeing such a unique scene, Qiu wanted to share it with somebody, so she asked me to see this with her. She was anxious and said, ‘if only Wudong could be here!He could carry you in his arms to see such a beautiful scene!’My belly was still painful and I had seen such a scene for many times, but seeing Qiu was so happy and excited, I didn’t want to spoil this. So I asked her to held me up and went out to see the scene with her.

Under the clear sky with Qiu, I felt refreshed all over. The pink sunlight was warm and the air was full of some kind of scent. Perhaps because Qiu was standing under the sky with me, I felt the sunlight was warmer, and the air was more scented than before. The multi-layer fog around our feet was even more beautiful. At that moment, I felt that something from Qiu touched my heart more deeply than ever before.

Qiu held me up and I was very close to her.I was half a head taller than Qiu. We stood there, arm in arm, and my hands was right to her bosom. I felt something soft and warm flowing into my arm and through my body, which made me feel warm all over. And feeling such warmth, I was like a melting snowflake. I saw myself melting into a drop of water with petals falling off. And the drop of water became my tear and hung around the corner of my eye. Qiu saw this.

She asked, ‘why are you crying?’

I said, ‘I’m melting.’

Qiu remained silent for a second and decided to adapt to my strange behavior. She asked, ‘you didn’t see such beautiful fog before?’

I said, ‘I could see such fog every year.’

Qiu, ‘ so is the fog like this last year?’

I said, ‘I want to bask in the sun. Could you please fetch me a chair?’

Qiu took a bamboo desk chair out of home for me and allowed me to lie in the sun. I said, ‘don’t go away, Qiu.I will tell you the story of the fog and the Tung Flower Festival.’ Qiu fetched a small stool and sat on it besides me. She was like an obedient pupil, listening to me carefully.

I started to tell her the story. ‘When the fog is in different colors, the spring is coming in Nuoci. And two days later, tung flowers will be all over the mountains and plains in Nuoci.

Outside the mountains, the spring starts with apricot blossoms,peach blossoms and plum blossoms,followed by cole flowers, and then by tung flowers, and after that the summer is coming.However in Nuoci, the spring starts with tung flowers only. When tung flowers are all over, Nuoci has the best scenery in a year.

During such days, the sky in Nuoci is so bright and the air is scented as well.

Villagers in Nuoci take the twelfth and the thirteenth of April as Tung Flower Festival, which is a unique festival celebrated only by people in Nuoci.There is a ‘Aunt Tung Flower’ in the history of Nuoci. It’s said that on an evening long long ago, a village was on fire and strangers armed with knives and guns came into the village and killed a lot of villagers. Most vulnerable villagers failed to survive the fire or the massacre. After the fire was gone, only four people survived, among whom three were men wounded or disabled to different degree and one was an eighteen-year-old woman named Tung Flower. The four of them met on their way deep into the mountain.So they went together into the mountain and settled in the place which they named Nuoci.

The day before they ran away,Tung Flower picked up and peeled the soy beans in the filed and then put the soybeans into a small cloth bag. When she was ready to go home, her cloth bag was full of soybeans. Then she went to her friend’s with her female friends. The fire started raging when she was about to go home, so she escaped with her bag of soy beans. There weren’t so many soy beans, and Tung Flower mashed some of them and mixed them with water to make soy-bean milk. The three men drank the soy-bean milk in order for better recovery. Then Tung Flower planted the rest of soybeans in the field and later they all fed on the crops.   

In order for Nuoci to exist, Tung Flower became the wife of the three men and gave birth to many children, hence Nuoci village. It is said that after Tung Flower settled here with the three men, a good many tung trees grew here. These trees bore fruits which could be used for lighting up.Later, they went outside of the mountain to exchange those fruits for salt and cloth.

Since then, Tung Flower had been called ‘Aunt Tung Flower’ by villagers in Nuoci,and she had been the goddess in their eyes. On the twelfth of each year, tung flowers are in blossom and villagers in Nuoci would gather together to burn joss sticks, act in an opera and spray soybeans in memory of her.’

I didn’t tell Qiu that villagers in Nuoci had been sticking to the custom of two or three men marrying one woman since then.

I skipped the marriage custom and started to talk about the festival.

‘On the twelfth,villagers in Nuoci all dress up and gather together around the rapids. And the rapids, which are a result of the flood in spring and summer, are mud-free and covered by a layer of wet grass before the flood comes. The grass is a mix of withered grass and fresh grass. Villagers in Nuoci sat on the grass with men and women seated separately. After the ceremony in member of ‘Aunt Tung Flower’ is finished, villagers,old and young, will sing love songs all the day. And when they finish a song, women will spray fried soybeans among the men and the men will excitedly look for the fried soybeans to eat, like chickens. On the thirteenth, all villagers gather there together again and women are seated in a circle to watch men playing in the game of beating bamboo eggs. Sometimes they would act in an Nuo Opera or play in a high-stick-lion game.’

Qiu counted the date with her fingers and said, ‘it is the eighth of April today, so the festival is four days away.’

Qiu was excited about the coming ‘Tung Flower Festival’ and thus the tune she hummed was more beautiful than usual.When Qiu didn't feel too bad, she usually hummed a tune when doing chores. After a while, she might even sang a song aloud. The songs Qiu sang were pop songs spreading from outside the mountain, and Qiu’s voice was very clear. So all my family members would love to hear her humming.If my parents happened to hear Qiu humming when they came back from the filed, they would deliberately make less noise.

I said, ‘let me teach you sing our village songs.’ Her interest was aroused and she joyfully said, ‘wait a moment. Let me put some firewood in the hearth first.’Then she happily went away. Looking at Qiu’s receding figure, I thought with sorrow to myself, ‘if Qiu’s legs are alright, she must be very good-looking when running.’

When I was thinking about which song to teach her, Qiu shouted, ‘Lantong, the black dog was dragging me?What’s this for?’Then, I saw she coming to me with Yanying’s dog dragging her trouser legs with its mouth. Qiu asked, ‘why is it doing this?’Qiu’s face was full of doubt as well as a sense of foreboding. She asked, ‘something happened to Yanying?’

I felt something extraordinary was happening, so I said, ‘just go and have a look, Qiu.’Qiu said, ‘I’m afraid.’I knew Qiu was afraid of Guan Gaoshan as well as something bad that she dared not to tell. I said, ‘Uncle Gaoshan should be in the field at the moment and Yanying must be looking for you.’ I analyzed , ‘it would be okay, for the black dog must be sent for you by Yanying.’

Qiu said, ‘let’s wait until Wudong comes back.’

I thought for a while and agreed.

But the black dog wouldn’t give up. Qiu shouted at it, but it still made a pathetic sound,asking Qiu to go with it.Qiu’s face began to turn purple and she begged, ‘please let me go. I will go for Wudong and ask him to go with you.’ The black dog let Qiu go and came to bite my trouser legs. Since we had never seen it do this, we got a little bit afraid. Qiu and I looked at each other with the dog running between us and then we decided to go to Yanying’s together. Qiu said, ‘you can’t walk.’ But I felt my belly was no longer painful. I touched my scar curiously and it was numb. So I said, ‘I’m alright. I can walk now.’ Qiu was curious as well , but we didn’t have the time to think about this. I thought to myself, since Yanying was ill, would he be dying and want to see Qiu before he shut his eyes forever?

We followed the black dog into Yanying’s room with fright, only to find that Yanying was dying, as we had guessed. Hearing us calling him, he pointed at his private part before us. Qiu didn’t dare to see it, so she turned her head to the other side and only glanced back. Yanying said. ‘blood, you see, blood.’ There was indeed something dark red around Yanying’s private part. He said, ‘I’m gonna die.The medicine Wudong bought me didn’t work.Just now, when I was in a coma, an old granny wearing a black cloth mask told me that I got the disease because of my longing for a woman and it could only be cured with the woman’s milk or blood. Only in this way could I recover, or I will die soon.’

Since Qiu was standing next to me,I could hear her fast heartbeat. I could imagine several mice were about to suffocate in her chest and wanted to get out.

Yanying said, ‘I derived this disease since I did that bad thing to Qiu. And after that, I’ve been impotent. I kept figuring out why but in vain. If I am impotent, what can I do later? Qiu, look, I am single, and I don’t think it’s shameful to think about a woman.But how could I get such a shameful disease?’

Qiu was seated with her back towards him, and listened to him with nothing but sympathy.Yanying even started crying and he made a sound as if he was having noodles.He said, ‘that old granny said I was longing for a woman. Isn’t it you?If you are willing to save me, just give me some blood. If not, just go away and let me die here.’ Then he burst into tears again. Qiu stood there still, without saying a word. Yanying cried loudly with desperation.

It seemed Yanying could only move his face. He lay on his back stiffly, frowned badly and let his crying out of his dry throat.

I intended to persuade Qiu to help him, but before I opened my mouth, Qiu went out of Yanying’s room and cut her finger with Yanying’s kitchen knife when he was crying.She allowed the fresh blood dripping in a small bowl and couldn’t help shedding tears for a complex reason, perhaps for herself or for Yanying. But she didn’t make a sound when shedding tears.

After a while, Yanying stopped crying. He thought Qiu was gone and he couldn’t make a sound with his desperate throat.

Qiu’s scar stopped bleeding and a drop of blood covered the scar. Seeing the blood in the bowl was far from enough, Qiu squeezed her wounded finger and let the blood drip again. The bleeding was faster than before.Qiu didn’t stop until her finger was squeezed into a pale one. Qiu handed the bowl to Yanying, looked at the blood in the bowl and said, ‘brother, this is my blood. You can use it.’ Then, she went out of the room and waited for me in the outside room.

When I was applying Qiu’s blood to Yanying’s private part, the scar on my belly got painful suddenly.

After that, I asked Qiu to held me and we slowly walked back home.

At that time, there was a light-yellow layer in the fog around our feet.

 

18

Qiu was chosen as ‘Aunt Tung Flower’ for this Tung Flower Festival.

Wudong brought the good news back home. Each year, villagers in Nuoci would choose a woman as ‘Aunt Tung Flower’. The chosen one must be young and pretty. The girl didn’t have to be gorgeous,but must be the most beautiful one in our village. A girl in our village had been chosen as ‘Aunt Tung Flower’ for several years and this year she got married. So Qiu was chosen this time.

Qiu was surprised as well as self-abased.She asked, ‘but could a woman like me really be the one?’

We all knew what Qiu was talking about, so I immediately told her, ‘why not? You are more beautiful than those Tung Flower Ladies in previous years.’

Qiu was still not confident. She took a look at my mother and Wudong, and they smiled with encouragement and approval and kept nodding. Qiu didn’t look at my father, but my father voiced his opinion anyway because he was very happy. He said, ‘the Aunt Tung Flower is a goddess. You don’t have to sing or dance. All you need to do is just stand there for a while. You can certainly make it!’ He then added, ‘your mother-in-law once acted as Aunt Tung Flower.’

Then Qiu asked my mother how she should act as Aunt Tung Flower.

My mother smiled and ordered Wudong with her jaw, ‘you tell her.’

Wudong grinned and said, ‘I will teach you later.’

Qiu was so excited about the coming Tung Flower festival that her face glowed with pink.

Of course, Qiu was not the only one excited about the festival. My parents’ faces were glowing with light during the two days, and they were always smiling with narrowed eyes. My mother took Qiu’s measurement and made her fine clothes for the festival. Qiu was going to attend the Tung Flower Festival in clothes with Nuoci’s characteristics.

My mother also taught Qiu to sing the local songs of Nuoci. She said to Qiu, ‘you have a beautiful voice. Just learn these songs and beat others!’ Qiu was happy to learn and thus she sat in front of my mothers and learned in earnest.

My mother had never been a teacher, so she didn’t know how to teach. Perhaps she was more excited when singing, and thus she sang directly,

‘One central room with four square corners, three rows of benches with four rows of light.

Three rows of benches with four rows of men seated.

They are all male singers.’

When my father,seated on the other side,heard my mother singing this, He got excited as if he was the lad singing songs to his girl. So he sang:

‘I couldn’t see my girl, and I want to wipe my tears and go home.’

Before my mother went on singing, Qiu interrupted them and said, ‘when are you going to stop?I couldn’t remember even a sentence.’ She added, ‘I think the tune is the same. Mother, please teach me part of it first, and then I will memorize the other lyrics.’

My mother giggled and said, ‘then I will teach you seriously?’

Then, she cleared her throat and start to teach Qiu sentence by sentence. After a while, my mother laughed again. Being a teacher made her feel like laughing like a young lady.

This evening, we celebrated Tung Flower Festival beforehand by singing. My father even cut bamboo into strips and then sat around the burner, knitting bamboo eggs as well as hearing my mother teaching Qiu the local songs.

The bamboo egg was not as fragile as a real egg and it’s also called bamboo ball. However, after celebrating Tung Flower Festival each year, villagers in Nuoci would throw the bamboo eggs they had played with and knit new ones next year. We people in Nuoci always loved the new bamboo eggs rather than the old ones.

My father seemed to envy my mother’s role as a teacher right now. The honor of Qiu being chosen as the Aunt Tung Flower touched him somehow, so he wanted to be close to Qiu as well. He said, ‘Qiu, you don’t know the history of bamboo balls, right?’ Qiu said, ‘no, I don’t know.’ My father said, ‘you must have known the story of Aunt Tung Flower. At that time, Aunt Tung Flower has decided to be the wife of three men. But she had no idea which one she was going to live with first. Seeing there was a bamboo strip on the ground, she knitted a bamboo ball. Then she asked the three men to play the ball and she would spend her first night with whoever won the game. Later, when it’s time for young men in Nuoci to get married, two or three of them will gather together and play the ball and sing local songs in front of their beloved girl. And the girl would choose one of them like Aunt Tung Flower once did.’

Qiu giggled and said, ‘why didn’t Wudong play the bamboo ball before me?’

My father said, ‘it used to be the custom many years ago, but many customs in Nuoci are gone now.’

Qiu smiled again and said, ‘now that the custom of three men marrying one woman is gone, what’s the bamboo egg for?’

My parents glanced at each other and lowered their head to avoid answering Qiu.

It got embarrassing at the moment. That’s when Wudong came back. Qiu pulled him to the side of me and talked to him. Wudong didn’t lower his voice as to please her and he said, ‘alright. The swelling is gone and it stops bleeding.’ His voice was loud enough that everyone could hear it as long as he or she was not deaf.Qiu rolled her eyes and dragged Wudong’s sleeve. She glanced at me and indicated that Wudong was very disappointing and embarrassing. Wudong didn’t lower his voice at all this time. He just spoke aloud as usual and said to Qiu, ‘I’m not joking. Let me tell you. Some disease cannot be cured by the medicine. And only we Taoists could be the solution.’

Seeing this, Qiu didn’t struggle anymore to hide the truth.

My father asked, ‘what happened?What’s your secret?’

What my father said sounded like blaming Qiu, so Qiu got embarrassed and curious about how Wudong might explain to them.She glanced at me to indicate she would be happy to see Wudong’s response.

Wudong didn’t find it embarrassing at all. He said, ‘Yanying was ill and I have cured him.’

My mother asked immediately , ‘What kind of disease?’

My father said at once, ‘it would not be a big deal if Wudong can cure it. It might be heatstroke or a poisoned sore. Wudong said, the swellling and bleeding are both gone.’ Then my father held the bamboo egg and giggled.

My mother laughed and said, ‘yes, it’s true. If Wudong could cure it, he should be able to be a doctor as well.’

Qiu joined them and giggled as well.

Wudong felt embarrassed and said, ‘what are you laughing for? What Yanying got is not a common disease. He might die without proper treatment.’ My mother’s face turned yellow at once and stared at Wudong, frowning. Then, my father and Qiu stared at Wudong as well. Wudong wasn’t afraid of confronting this, and after all, he just wanted to show off. His face glowed with pride and he said, ‘I went to a local old granny for the prescription and then I used magic words to send the black dog for the one who’s got the cure. Thus, Yanying was saved.’

Qiu suddenly jumped. Then I saw goose flesh over her face.

 

19

As if being ordered, the fog was gone on the twelfth of April. And Nuoci became a world of tung flowers. The god had been hiding this beautiful world with fog until this day, and finally the world of gorgeous tung flowers appeared in front of us once the fog was gone.

The whole village was full of excited voices as well as the smell of fried soybeans.

My mother was frying soybeans, so was Qiu. My father and Wudong got up early in the morning to sing local songs in order to rehear for the real show later.

After having a quick breakfast, we all dressed up and went to the shoal.

All villagers in Nuoci dressed up in black with red lace around the shoulders,the back and the cuffs. The straight trousers also had red lace around the bottom of the trouser legs. In their spare time,women in Nuoci embroidered the clothes with the pattern of tung flowers,using pink and red silk threads.The only difference between male clothes and female clothes was that the former was double breasted while the latter was single inclined breasted. Besides, males placed a black silk handkerchief around his head while females placed one or two tung flowers around their ears. We had no idea which ethnic groups this kind of costume belonged to, but one generation of ancestors just told the next generation that villages in Nuoci should celebrate Tung Flower Festival and dress up like this without saying which ethnic groups we were.So we didn’t know which ethnic group we belonged to.

All villagers in Nuoci lived on the hillside. One hillside for one family.On such a pink and noisy day, there would be a scene of several people in black walking down each hill. From a distance, these villagers in black were just like black fish swimming in the sea of flowers, and these black fish sang aloud on their way down to the shoal to celebrate the most beautiful day of the year.

Five of us went out of home, just like red-collared crows getting out of their nest, and moved forward with the joyful noise from my father, Wudong and Qiu. Qiu dressed up as well with pink flowers around her pink face, which made her look not only beautiful, but also mysterious and elegant. She was like a fairy among us red-collared crows, bringing our hillside more liveliness than other hillsides. Since she acted as Aunt Tung Flower today, there was something mysterious and solemn around us as well.

Listening to my father, Wudong and Qiu singing aloud, I really wanted to sing as well, but I didn’t, in case my wounded belly would hurt again.My mother was happy, too, but she was not used to singing aloud like a lion. So listening to others, she just smiled and even giggled sometimes.

Wudong brought his things for a local Nuo Opera as well and he said, ‘the village has prepared a local Nuo Opera and a high-stick-lion game besides singing in memory of Aunt Tung Flower.On the first day, they will sing local songs in memory of Aunt Tung Flower. And after that, there will be a local Nuo Opera. On the second day, there will be a game of bamboo ball first and a game of high-stick-lion then.’

I told Qiu, ‘you are so lucky! You are not only acting as Aunt Tung Flower, but also witnessing the best Tung Flower Festival ever.’

Qiu’s face glowed with pride.

Qiu knew that Aunt Tung Flower had been respected by people in Nuoci.

When there were only a total of three hundred odd Nuoci villagers gathering together, the scene was as joyfully noisy as if there were over one thousand people. We were shouting towards the sun,singing for the clouds,and enjoying ourselves under the sky.We thanked the sun for getting rid of the fog and giving us a world of tung flowers. We begged our Aunt Tung Flower for a sunny Tung Flower Festival each year.

We gathered together on the shoal, surrounded by the pink world of tung flowers.Above us were the blue sky, white clouds and bright sunshine. We felt bright and refreshed for it was the most comfortable time in the year. We were celebrating our festival!

Males and females sat apart in opposition on grass.Their smiling faces were just like sun flowers, glowing with white light in the sun.

After hearing the beating sound of gongs and drums, they shut up and put on an serious expression on their faces, waiting silently for the play.After another beating sound of gongs drums, a beam of red light passed by and Wudong started to dance in a bright red gown like a red whirlwind. Then, the beating sound of gongs and drums were as intense as raindrops. All of us Nuoci villagers shouted aloud and started to run, and Wudong was dancing like fire and the sword in his hand was like the paw of demon. When the beating sound of gongs and drums gradually lowered down, we all lay flat on the ground to show that we were gone and that we vanished due to the disaster. After that, three men on the other side gradually rose to their feet and a woman stood up. Who were to act as the three men were arranged beforehand each year, and it was me, Wudong and Yanying this year.And the woman acting in the play was Aunt Tung Flower each year and it was Qiu this year. I didn’t know whether it was a coincidence or it was set so because Qiu was the Aunt Tung Flower.In real life, the three of us were Qiu’s husbands, and in the play we were her three men.

We three men looked around, only to see nothing but barren land, so we held each other and cried. At that time, Qiu came forward with a small cloth bag full of soybeans. Qiu seemed to be trying to walk normally instead of staggering as usual, but because of nervousness or excitement, she did a even worse job in walking.However, nobody cared about that. At the moment,she was Aunt Tung Flower, the goddess for Nuoci villagers.Qiu limped towards us and gave each of us a handful of soybeans from her bag. Then, Qiu fetched out a bamboo ball and the three of us pretended to be playing the ball.After that, Qiu chose her first man. She pulled Wudong aside and made a fire. When the fire went up, several kids stood up. And then Qiu pulled me aside to make a fire, and several kids stood up. When she made a fire with Yanying, all people below stood up, symbolizing the offspring of Aunt Tung Flower and her three men.

Then villagers stood up like boiling water and started to dance.All villagers, hand in hand, danced and sang in a circle to celebrate the rebirth of our people.

Then Wudong took off the red gown and put on his black gown. He ignited three red joss sticks in front of Aunt Tung Flower and then joyful villagers calmed down and came to kneel before Aunt Tung Flower. After that, Aunt Tung Flower pointed to a tung tree which had been set by villagers. That tree was luxuriant and close to us.Under the guidance of Aunt Tung Flower, villagers approached that tree solemnly and picked a tung flower from that tree, which would be brought back home to bless them.

That’s the end of the play. Something free and relaxing would get started.There was no serious master of ceremony or anything like shyness, and the young competed to stand up and sing local songs.Their voice were clear and loud and it could be seen that the festivities in the mountain were as direct and simple as the people and the wind in the mountain.

A male sang,

‘it is sunny today and I miss my girl.

I miss you when having a meal, and my tears drop in the middle of the bowl.’

A female sang,

‘the horses were grazing around the canal, and I miss my man in tears.

I miss you when having a meal, and you are always in my heart.’

When one person started to sing, others would want to sing as well. So after one finished singing, another person would start to sing. Wudong immediately stood up and sang for Qiu on the other side,

‘you are as pretty as a flower, as soft as the cabbage bud in the yard.

The cabbage grows to go with the bowl, and you grow to go with me.

You have fair skin and your beautiful face is like the goddess Guanyin.

You are sitting there like a goddess, and I will play the ball for you.’

Right after Wudong, Qiu sang,

‘the sun is bright, and there is sunshine all over your gate.

The door-god is right on your door and he is the guard of your home.

The sun is shinning, on the fields of yours.

The water flows in the fields and we will be a perfect match.’

Qiu’s voice is very unique, as clear and melodious as a lark, and all villagers in Nuoci, male and female, old and young, were surprised by her voice.After she finished her part, men were struggling to stand up to sing right after her, and Yanying made it. Yanying sang and danced with excitement and pride, but Qiu didn’t respond to him. So Sizai ’s mother sang right after Yanying. On such an occasion,either to respond to someone or not to respond to someone was perfectly okay, so nobody would bother about it.The sunshine was bright so nobody would bear anything unhappy for more than half a second.

One person sang after another and one group sang after another.

We were just singing over and over until the sun went to the west and we used up our strength and lost our voice. Women then started to spray their soybeans in the air and started the rain of soybean. After a while, the soybeans were pouring in the air like a rainstorm, by which we men were overwhelmed. We went crazy in the rainstorm of soybeans, shouting and competing to pick as much soybeans as possible. We put the soybeans in our mouth and chewed them. We were competing with one another, for the more you can pick up, the more care Aunt Tung Flower would give to you. The one that managed to get the largest number of soybeans would be the luckiest this year. In our eyes, one soybean represented one portion of luck.

Then it was time to have dinner, we still had a local Nuo Opera to watch rather than going back home to dine.The local Nuo Opera was a kind of wizard play passed on from one generation to another in Nuoci, and it was intended for villagers to pray for blessing and get rid of disasters. Normally, the local Nuo Opera was connected with Taoist rites, but in order for the Tung Flower Festival to be more meaningful, villagers in Nuoci added the local Nuo Opera to the festival.The play in a Taoist rite was usually about resting the soul of the dead and praying for blessing for who were alive, while the play in the festival was about praying for blessing for Nuoci and hoping all villagers could get rid of disasters.

Wudong and his fellows brought the play of ‘mountain king picture’ for us.

Wudong put on the costume of mountain king and began the sacrificial rite. After that, he put on the mask of mountain king.

The mountain king had two large horns and two little horns on top of his head. He had the face of a deer with two round eyes without eyeballs, which made it less meek than a deer. Above the eyes were two hollow crescent-like cracks with two pointed areas, which was very frightening. Below the nose seemed to be the mouth of an old man, and the bone was clear without extra fat. Around the corners of the mouth were pointed tusks, which made him look young and tough.

When Wudong put on the mask, his black eyeballs were shining with ghostly light and he became a beast full of the magic, a barbarous mountain king.

The mountain king held an ax in his hand and right after the first beating sound of gongs and drums, he sang aloud, ‘listen to the beating of gongs and drums, I am such a good hero. With the cloak of lion around me, I stepped out of my hall.’ Then the beating sounds of gongs and drums got intense and the mountain king walked in a crazy way towards the people and sang, ‘I am the king of the mountain, and I have an ax with me.If you ask my real name, it is Pangu. I appear here and there, in Yin or in Yang, and after the beating of gongs and drums I appear again.’ After the beating sounds got intense again, the god of earth was present.

This play was said to be about one of King Zhou’s generals, Qin Wenyu in charge of inspection of the city gate. Qin’s soul was taken by a fox spirit with a soul-absorbing bottle, so he was ill in bed for a long time. He invited Taoist Wang and Taoist Deng to conquer the fox spirit but they failed. Then he resorted to the mountain king to conquer the spirit. When the mountain king was bathing on his way to Qin’s, his red ax was stolen by a shrimp spirit. So he had to resort to Qing Shuixian Lady and look for his ax all over the country. After a big fight, he finally retrieved his ax, but the ax had been bitten and broken by the shrimp spirit and could no longer be used to conquer the spirit. So the mountain king visited Blacksmith Tan for fixing the ax. Finally, the mountain king conquered the fox spirit and dropped its soul-absorbing bottle to retrieve Qin Wenyu’s soul.

Although the play Wudong and his fellows prepared was originally about the story above,they adapted it for villagers in Nuoci. According to their edition of the play, there was a fox spirit in the mountain of Nuoci, which kept seducing our god of mountain and god of the earth. As a result, Nuoci was in thick fog all year around and people here were unable to see the sun. In order for our god of mountain and god of earth to work normally, Taoist Wang and Taoist Deng were invited to conquer the spirit. The middle part of the story was much the same as the original one, but in the end of the story, our god of mountain and god of earth finally woke up. Therefore, we treated them with meat and tofu as well as liquor and tea, and ignited the joss sticks for them. We were trying to ask them to bless us.

The god of the sky and the god of earth,

Now we invite you,

A Ba here,

A Nuo there,

A Gu here,

A Ni there,

A Ye here,

A Bu there,

We invite you to drink tea,

We invite you to drink liquor,

We invite you to have meat,

Please bless us after you drink,

Please bless us after you eat.

On the second day, we still came to the shoal and sat together in a circle to watch the players playing bamboo ball.That was much like the scene of playing soccer outside the mountain. A group of men ran and chased the ball. The spectators’ eyes were fixed upon those running players, and they would shout when getting excited. But what we got here was not as impressive as the formal soccer field and we played it in quite a wild and local way.But we were as happy as the football players outside the mountain or maybe we could be happier than them.

After the bamboo ball game, different groups began their lion dance.

A building frame was constructed with twelve square tables and twelve chairs and it looked as if it could be blown down by the wind any minute. The lions and the persons playing with the lions would give different shows on the building frame.

Later, the lions and the persons playing with the lions would dance in the air and the spectators would open their mouths while watching the show. The spectators wouldn’t blink even with the bird shit falling into their mouths.

After the festivities, Nuoci villagers were still in the joyful mood, and they would stare at the tung flowers they put on the shrine the day before. The shrine was blackened by the smoke and covered by some dust. The tung flower was put on the shrine, which went with the famous saying ‘placing a flower on bullshit.’But Nuoci villagers were perfectly okay with that.  

 

Chapter 7

20

 

The beautiful legend left us such a beautiful festival as well as a cruel reality.

After two days of festivities, it was time for my mother to go to live with Guan Gaoshan.

Early in the morning, my mother got up to cook the pigs’ food . Seeing this, my father pulled her aside off the burner in anger and put the firewood into the burner hole with force. My mother murmured like a mosquito, ‘I will get the pigs’ food done before I leave.’ My father replied in a loud voice, ‘just leave!just leave!’It seemed as if the decades-long marriage custom were set by my mother and he were the only victim.He added, ‘just go! Or that madman will come for you!’ My mother had no expression on her face and thus it was impossible to read her mind. She just went to pack up her own clothes like a quiet cat. My mother had just a few clothes and when it was time for her to leave to live with another husband, she would take all her clothes with her.

Qiu came to help my mother pack up things, and my mother took a glance at her without any change in her facial expression, as if Qiu were not with her and what she glanced at were nothing but the air.

Qiu spoke to my mother cautiously, ‘mother.’

My mother took a look at her again, but with a numb face.

Qiu continued with great care, ‘mother, so you have to leave?’

Without looking at Qiu, my mother responded, ‘yes, I have to. It’s been the custom for decades.’

Qiu said, ‘but the custom could be changed.’

My mother said, ‘how could it be changed? This house is my home, so is that house.’

Qiu silently stared at my mother.

My mother looked back and said, ‘I am married to two men and thus I have to bear children for both of them and live with them in turn.’

She added, ‘just have a look at that house! It has been a real mess since I left.’

Qiu asked, ‘mother, why did you have to marry two men?’

My mother kept silent as if she didn’t hear Qiu’s question.

But Qiu knew my mother did hear it.

Qiu kept asking, ‘mother, who asked you to do so?’

My mother was silent as well and she was ready to leave with her packed clothes.

Qiu murmured, ‘mother.’

My mother sighed deeply and said to Qiu with a dry laugh,‘there are just a couple of days left before your’ve been married to Wudong for one whole month.’ My mother didn’t continue and thus Qiu just took what my mother said as a meaningless sigh.

Qiu said, ‘mother, let me walk you to that house.’

My mother nodded and walked forward. After walking for a very short distance, she turned back,took a deep look at me, and said, ‘Lantong, you can accompany Qiu to walk me to that house.’ I thus followed them without hesitation.

When Qiu, followed by me,was walking out of the yard, she took a look back at my father, only to see my father’s eye were fixed upon us. So Qiu shouted, ‘father, mother is leaving.’ My father shouted aloud like a firing gun, ‘of course!I definitely know!’ Qiu was left awkward and thus said to my mother, ‘mother, father doesn’t want your to leave.’My mother still walked silently and calmly.

Not before long, we heard hurried footsteps and my father’s shouts. Qiu stopped walking, so did I. But my mother was still walking forward. My father shouted, ‘stop!’ My mother did what he said. My father ran to my mother, tucked 20 yuan into my mother’s hands and said angrily, ‘I told you to take the money with you. Why didn’t you take it?! If you didn’t take the money with you, how could you handle all the mess made by that madman?’    

My mother stood still numbly. It seemed my father still had something to say and some anger to express, so she planned to wait until he finished. But my father saw at a long distance that Guan Gaoshan was coming all the way to welcome my mother, so my father gave a snort and was ready to go back home. He told Qiu and me, ‘you don’t need to walk your mother to that house. You see, someone is coming for your mother.’But Qiu insisted. She was afraid of Guan Gaoshan,so she asked me to go with her despite the fact Guan Gaoshan was normal when he was with my mother. My mother said, ‘Lantong, just keep Qiu’s company.’

Qiu and I,following my mother, walked towards the direction in which Guan Gaoshan came.

My mother suddenly spoke in a high voice, ‘Qiu, Uncle Gaoshan could hardly remember what he has done when going crazy. So don’t take him as a bad guy.’

Qiu said, ‘yeah.’

Guan Gaoshan ran to us, puffed hard for a while and said, ‘Suhua, I’m coming for you.’ Then he added, ‘Lantong, Qiu, so you are walking your mother to my house?’   

Qiu shrank back with fear when seeing Guan Gaoshan approaching us and she finally became relaxed after making sure that he was a normal person now.

Then, the four of us walked forward together.

Tung flowers were beginning to wither and fall, hence the pink flowers all over the ground. They were still bright in color, but they fell down onto the ground so early and finished their beautiful life.

My mother said, ‘once the tung flowers have all fallen onto the ground, it is time to plant maize.’

Qiu answered, ‘ah.’

Right now, my mother’s mood had changed from the state of leaving home into the state of going home, which was a skill she had finally mastered after all these decades. I didn’t know how long it would take Qiu to master such a skill.

Right in Guan Gaoshan’s house, there was a fresh smell of corn rice cooked by him and Shitou sat around the burner and smiled towards mother happily,his saliva flowing out of his mouth and hanging there. Guan Gaoshan immediately fetched out benches to welcome us as if we were the guests and hurried to take a pair of rubber shoes covered by mud out of our sight. Seeing Qiu and my mother didn’t sit down, he immediately wiped the benches with his sleeves.

My mother smiled with Qiu and this time her smile was not dry at all. It seemed as if she had absorbed the moisture from the wind all the way and thus her smile reminded me of the color of tung flowers. My mother said, ‘Qiu, just sit down.’ Qiu did as my mother told and had no idea what to do then, so she looked at me. I nodded towards her although I didn’t know why I should nod at all. My mother said, ‘I’m gonna cook. You could stay to have a meal before you leave.’ Qiu stood up immediately and replied, ‘it’s time for me to go back to cook.’ My mother didn’t persuade us to stay anymore and said, ‘well, it’s okay for you two to leave. After all, we live in the same village, so you could see me from time to time. ’

Qiu held my hand and hurried to get home with sweet and moist wind around us.

Looking back, I saw Guan Gaoshan was seeing us off around the door. Seeing my face, he shouted towards us, ‘Qiu, Lantong, take care!’

Hearing this, Qiu looked back as well and both us smiled and nodded towards him.

 

21

 

It seemed that with or without purpose, I saw from a cluster of tung flowers that a special date was approaching me. It was like a burning hot eyeball or a hard-beating heart among the tung flowers, dragging me near to it with some increasingly magnetic force. Just within a while, it became even bigger than the world, it even overwhelmed the world and I became a particle of dust in the darkness, tightly attached to it and suffocated.

You must have known, the date was for Qiu and I to get married.

The first month of Qiu and Wudong’s marriage life had come to an end and it was time for Qiu to sleep with me on my bed and started a new marriage life with me. But she knew nothing about it.

For quite a time I came back to my previous state of laziness and I didn’t listen to my father at all. Even my passion for Qiu was gone. I hated doing any kind of labor or chores. I didn’t sleep well, and I just lay on the bed with my eyes half open and my purple, black or red thoughts flying out of my mind and dancing like butterflies. They seemed to try to take me away from Nuoci to go to somewhere else and live a different life. But there’s no strength in my body to support my two legs to move forward and thus I, like a mollusc, disappointed my own thoughts.

One day, Qiu suddenly stared at me, which drove all my butterfly-like thoughts away. She said, ‘you need to see a doctor.’ There’s nothing in her eyes but worry. She said, ‘Lantong, you must be ill. You need to see a doctor.’ Then she handed me some money and asked me to see a doctor on my own. I took the money and walked out of the door, only to see a cluster of tung flowers, which reminded me of the coming day.

All of a sudden, everything went black and some kind of strength came from my feet and all the way to my head. I turned back and walked with vigorous strides to Qiu. I wanted to tell Qiu that she would be lying on my bed tomorrow. I would like to see how she would react when hearing this. But I opened my mouths for several times and finally failed to say anything. Qiu asked, ‘Lantong, what’s wrong with you?Do you need someone to go with you?’ I gave a dry smile and said, ‘I’m well.’ Then I tucked the money into her hands and left right away.

I moved aside, only to see Qiu tucking the money into Wudong and asking Wudong to accompany me to see the doctor. Wudong was upset by her care for me, refused to take the money and shouted, ‘Lantong is not ill. He is nothing but lazy. He just doesn’t want to do labor!’ My father once told Qiu the same thing, but she didn’t expected Wudong would also answer like this. So Qiu said, ‘father is not sensible, so you are going to lose your sense?’ Wudong attempted to say something more but in vain.

Seeing Qiu’s mouth opening and closing, my ears went into a state of deafness. In such a state, a group of pale butterflies started to fill my mind. Qiu was kind and beautiful. My father paid one portion of money for me to marry her and thus one part of her life should be with me. So she would sleep with me soon…

However, we had been hiding it from Qiu.

We were cruel, right?

I walked into the sunshine and found a place covered with dry grass to lie down. Seeing the grey white sky above me, I began to imagine what it would look like when Qiu woke up tomorrow morning only to find out that her first month of marriage life with Wudong ended and that she was supposed to sleep with me on my bed. In front of me, the grey white sky was like a screen with the imaginary scenes on it. I stared at the scenes without blinking and my head began to change. My head bulged and then my face bulged as if my head were filled with several fists trying to bloat my head to the maximum. I could feel these fists finally bloated my head so that my head was large enough to reach the sky and even the sun. Then I could only see black patches flying in a mad manner in front of me. They were bloody shadows. Tears as red as blood flew over my face.

My eyes were bloodshot.

However, the sun went down anyway.

 

22

 

When the sun went down, it was time to announce the end of Wudong and Qiu’s first month of marriage life. And on the second day, Qiu was supposed to start a new marriage life with me. However, Qiu had a period this evening. The last evening was cruel for Wudong, which meant a period of good life was to end. He was like a person who was to be shot dead soon when enjoying his yummy meal, trying to have as much food as he could at the very last moment.

Once it was dark outside, Wudong dragged Qiu onto the bed. Qiu refused, so Wudong carried Qiu into the bedroom. Qiu asked, ‘what are you doing?’Wudong said, ‘I’m gonna fuck you.’ Qiu lowered her voice and blamed Wudong, ‘lower your voice please.Lantong was just on the other side.’ Wudong didn’t listen to her because he knew that there was only a partition between the two sides, that there were cracks made by me on the partition, and that I could hear them clearly and even see them clearly when the light on their side was on.

Wudong said, ‘forget that idiot.’

Then Wudong put Qiu on the bed and turned off the light.

I admitted that I was peeping through the cracks on the partition but what I saw was nothing but darkness. And there came some sounds made in the darkness on the other side, so I tried to listen to them instead of peeping at them.

Wudong said, ‘hurry up, take off your clothes.’

Qiu said, ‘I’m having a period.’

Wudong said, ‘it doesn’t matter.’

Their arguing voices got twisted and then there came a clear sound of a slap on the face, ‘pa!’

Their voices disappeared all of a sudden. And it was all silence.

Who slapped whom?I guessed it must be Qiu slapping Wudong on the face.

However, Qiu’s voice began to choke, ‘you swore you would never beat me.’

Wudong was silent.

I came to realize that it was Wudong that slapped Qiu.

I also realized that Wudong was riding on Qiu with his dull eyes open.Poor Qiu started to complain, ‘you’ve made love to me every night since I married you and I never said no. I never blamed you even if you tortured me like a beast. But I have a period today and I’m not supposed to make love with you. Don’t you know that?’

Wudong finally said, ‘you don’t know that…’

However, he didn’t continue. Qiu kept asking him what he was going to say, but he refused.

Qiu said, ‘I don’t know why. You are like a hungry beast and you fuck me every night. We have a whole lifetime before us, not just one day or one month, so there is no point for you to do it every night.’

Then there came a series of sound of kissing.

Qiu choked and said, ‘you beat me just now and you are gonna fuck me right now. Do you think I’m a three-year-old kid?’

Wudong raised his voice and said, ‘you are not three years old, but I’m still a little baby who wants to suck your milk. I’m not a real man. A real man would never beat his own woman. I’m just a dog. No, I’m inferior to a dog. I’m damn shit!’

And he added, ‘I’m your shit baby. I’m hungry and I want to suck your milk.’

‘Ba Ji Ba Ji.’

‘Hei Hei Hei,’ here came Wudong’s laughter.

Qiu lowered her voice and said, ‘lower your voice, please.’

‘Ba Ji Ba Ji! Hei Hei Hei.’Wudong laughed in a mad manner.

‘Hu Chi Hu Chi, Hu Ha Hu Chi.’

‘Eh, don’t do this. I’ve told you. Wudong, you crazy man…Ah!’

‘Ding Dong Ding Dong Ding Dong!’

All of a sudden,there was dead silence on the other side, and my heart beat hard and aloud.

After a while, there came a sound of clenched teeth, ‘Si…’

Then the darkness on the other side changed into yellow and thus I began to peep through the crack,only to see Wudong had a red round mark on his naked shoulder, like a kiss mark. But Wudong said to Qiu, ‘you bit me! It’s bleeding.’

It seemed Qiu’s bite had the power of Siberian cold current, freezing Wudong’s burning blood within a second. Wudong’s tone was as cold as ice. With his dancing blood getting frozen all of a sudden, Wudong seemed to change into another man.

After a while, Wudong went off the bed.

Qiu murmured, ‘where are you going?’

Wudong went out of the door without answering. Qiu’s eyes were fixed on him until he left. Then he came back.

Wudong said, ‘I just went to the toilet.’

He came back to the bed, tightly holding Qiu in his arms as if he wanted to become part of Qiu.

Qiu asked, ‘why don’t you get angry with me?’

Wudong asked back, ‘why should I be angry with you?’

Qiu said, ‘because I didn’t let you fuck me and I bit you as well. So you don’t get angry?’

Wudong said, ‘I deserve that bite!’

Qiu said, ‘if a woman make love during her period, she would get sick.’

Wudong said, ‘I know, but I just want you too much.’

Qiu said, ‘well, let’s do it. I’m not afraid of getting sick anymore.’

Wudong said, ‘no, I don’t want to get you sick.’

Qiu said, ‘so you want me to bear your baby, right?’

Wudong said, ‘yes.’

Qiu said, ‘we are both young. Just take our time. With the village head Chen Fengshui covering for us, I will give birth to many kids for you. ’    

  Holding Qiu more tightly, Wudong asked, ‘If you were my mother, who would you love more, my father or Uncle Gaoshan?' Qiu answered, ‘I’m your wife. Why did you say that?'

With a sigh, Wudong said, ‘Nothing at all, I just wanna talk with you tonight. I’ve been married to you for a month, but I just had sex with you instead of having a serious talk with you.'

‘Then go ahead.' Qiu said.

‘My mother didn’t know at the very beginning that she married two men. It was my father who registered and performed three bows with her. The first month was spent with my father, and only after the month did she know that Uncle Gaoshan was waiting to be his man.' Wudong said.

‘How could they cheat Mom like that?' Qiu asked.

‘They were not trying to deceive her.' said Wudong.

‘Then who did it?' Qiu said.

‘It was money.' answered Wudong.

‘Was it Aunt Tung Flower?' asked Qiu.

Wudong said, ‘In fact, the custom passing down from Aunt Tung Flower had long gone. Later Chen Fengshui’s father found that residents in Nuoci had to pay a lot of taxes and fees, and after paying it, they couldn’t afford to marry a wife. Therefore, he asked men in Nuoci to raise money for marriage, which was also to inherit the customs of the ancestors.'

‘All the men in Nuoci are married in this way?' Qiu was surprised.

With his eyes closed, Wudong didn’t give any answer, pretending to be asleep. After a while, he began snoring. Hence, Qiu switched off the lights.

 

Chapter 8

23

I lay awake all night. So did Wudong, I reckoned. I was too excited to sleep for the day to come while he must be too sad and depressed because tomorrow he would hand his own wife over to someone else. At dawn, Wudong got up and stood outside the house with a little fear. Probably, he wanted to see whether there was anything different from any other day. However, the mountains still looked like a wash painting; the greyish white sky formed a bright line clinging to the rolling hills; the roosters were, as ever, singing in a disciplined tone; and the bamboo cages behind the house were quiet in the windless dawn as before. Seeing nothing had changed for his special day, he returned to the bedroom. He stood in front of the bed and silently stared at Qiu for quite a while. Then he turned his head toward the bamboo wall. He was looking at me. I knew it though he could not see me clearly without pressing his eyes close to the bamboo strips.

If he could, would he run through this wall and strangle me? I looked at him through the strips and asked myself.

It seemed pretty simple to my father for what was to happen today. As soon as he got up early in the morning, he woke us up for his talk in the central room. As everybody was present, my father told Qiu bluntly, ‘From today on, you’ll move to Lantong’s room.' Qiu heard Father clearly, but she didn’t understand what he meant.  She was still sleepy with eyes half closed, and covered up a yawn that was just about to come out. Rubbing her eyes, she asked, ‘Why, Dad?' Father said, ‘You are not only married to Wudong but also to Lantong. You have been with Wudong for a month. From now on, you’ll be with Lantong for a month, too.'

Hearing such nonsense, Qiu believed she was still dreaming. She looked at us confusingly for a while and smiled innocently at us, saying that our father had not come back to real life from that play. Then she said with a smile, ‘Dad, that was a play the day before yesterday. I am no longer ‘Aunt Tung Flower’. I’m Qiu. Are you sober now?' Father said, ‘A play is a play, and the life is the life.' Without smiling, Qiu tried asking Father, ‘Who are you angry with? Who makes you so confused?' Father grunted discontentedly, saying that he was neither angry nor confused, and that he was more sober than any of us. Taking another look at Wudong and me, Qiu laughed and said in a low voice, ‘If not confused, how could you make such a joke so early in the morning?' Father snorted with specious laughter this time. He said, ‘I’m not kidding. That’s it.'

Qiu watched Father without a blink, but we could not figure out whether she was looking at Father. After quite a while, she turned her head towards Wudong who was afraid to have eye contact with her. Hence, he rose himself and walked out of the door.

Qiu’s sleepiness suddenly disappeared as if she were poured cold water over her head. She twisted her neck a few times and suddenly had her eyes on me. I did nothing but nodding and laughing, not knowing whether it were like a grandson or a son. However, Qiu didn’t talk to me. She gazed at me and asked Father, ‘Are you saying that I, like Mom, were married to two men in Nuoci?' Father answered fair and square, ‘Yes, you are the wife of both Wudong and Lantong.' And with justice and strictness, he waved his hand, saying that it was true for all the women in Nuoci. Qiu still stared at me, which made me feel guilty like a thief who had been caught red-handed. Qiu said, ‘Dad, how young Lantong is!' Father answered, ‘In Nuoci, he can be called a true man at the age of 18 years old.' Qiu’s eyes were fixed on me for a long time like a hand in my body grasping them. The room was so quiet that the world appeared to be mute in a flash. It seemed to be a century, and Qiu had no voice before drifting into my ears, ‘Lantong, what Dad has said is true?' At the moment, all the excitement last night was gone, and I suddenly found myself as frightened of the day as Wudong. But after thinking it over, I nodded to her.

Qiu would not like to be convinced, so she hurried out to ask Wudong who was squatting under the eaves. Being asked the question again, he, irritated, jumped up and shouted, ‘How can it not be true? Such things have been told you for fun? !'

Totally shocked by the shouts of Wudong, Qiu was frozen again and stood stock-still.

My father probably deemed that he had made it clear and fulfilled his mission. He went out and said to Qiu, who seemed to be thinking about the matter as he saw, ‘It is unnecessary to think deeply of it. Didn’t you just act as ‘Aunt Tung Flower, did you? Men in Nuoci all follow the customs. You are not the first one. So, observe the customs.' Then he asked us to go farming, and said: ‘We are going to work in the farmland, and Qiu cooks the meal at home. From today on, Qiu is gonna live in Lantong’s room and take over your mother’s job for a month. Wudong has to cook by himself.'

Qiu would not cook at this moment. Qiu, like a chicken suddenly awakened by lightning, flapped the wings and ran down the slope. Neither Wudong nor I knew where she was going, but my father knew. He told us that she was going back to her parental home. And then he yelled, ‘Qiu, come and fetch this hen. How can you go back empty-handed?' Certainly, Qiu didn’t hear him. Even if she did, how was it possible for her to return to carry the hen?

My father grabbed the hen, with a bunch of young chickens in her arms, from the chicken coop. Ignoring the cackling of those chickens, he thrust the hen into my arms and told me to chase after Qiu. While I was hesitant, he took the hen from me and thrust it into Wudong, saying, ‘You’d better go, Wudong, her family only know you are her husband.'

Wudong ran madly with the hen and caught up with Qiu shortly afterwards, because Qiu had some trouble with walking. My father seized me, and said with his teeth clenching as if I were his foe, ‘Don’t stand there like an idiot. No matter what Qiu has did, bring her back, because she’s your wife!' Then my father pushed me forward and stared at me fiercely. I had no choice but to catch up with them. I repeated the order of my father--bring her back--in case of my forgetting about it halfway.

With the hen in his arms, Wudong followed closely behind Qiu, seemingly annoyed. Hearing my mumble, he suddenly turned his head and growled at me, ‘Lantong, what the hell are you muttering? !' Seeing I was scared like a goofy sheep, he held back his temper and said, ‘You fool!'

Qiu had just run in a rage. Hearing our steps behind her, she could not help but let the tears running down her face and air her grievances by jumping crazily and coughing which was choked by tears in the throat. Neither of us knew how to comfort her, just following her quietly like her loyal dogs.

We walked along for a while, but Qiu was very dissatisfied with us following her. She suddenly turned around screaming ‘What’s your point of following me?' as if she were bitten by a snake. The hen in Wudong’s arms was so frightened that it cackled before her screams fell, and fluttered one of its wings, almost flying away. Wudong said immediately, ‘I’ll go back to your home with you.' Qiu swung her arms wildly like driving an army of flies away and yelled at us, ‘I won’t go back to my own home. I feel ashamed to go home!' Wudong asked, ‘Then where are you going now?' Qiu shouted at us, ‘It’s none of your business. I’ll go anywhere I wanna go. Just not Nuoci.' Wudong said, ‘I’m staying with you no matter where you go.' Qiu burst out crying, with tears flying like rains, saying, ‘I’ll go die. You’ll go with me?!' Wudong gave a positive answer without hesitation. Qiu stared at me with hatred, shouting, ‘How about you, Lantong. What do you want to do?' I hesitated for a while and said, ‘It was my father who asked me to follow you. If you are bothered, I’ll stop.' Qiu screamed out, ‘I’m bothered. Go away.' However, I didn’t do as she said. Instead, I said that father ordered me to return with you.

Qiu didn’t know what to do with us, thus going down the slope in a rage.

We kept following her like two faithful dogs.

As a matter of fact, Qiu, like most women, would go to her parents to pour out her grievances when she were greatly aggrieved. But she was not sure whether it could solve the issue. Since we had followed her all the time and it was a long way back to her parental house, she suddenly paused walking halfway.

Out of Nuoci, the air began to heat up, and the more one went down, the clearer the sky became. The fields have been dyed green due to the crops around. Qiu sat down in a field of corn seedlings, staring at a half-foot tall, tender corn. Both of us, certainly, had to accompany her.

‘Lantong, I always treat you as my brother.' Qiu said.

‘It was arranged by my parents.' I hastened to answer.  

Qiu rolled her eyes at me and started to sob. She said, ‘You’re all liars! All of you in Nuoci!'

Wudong and I bent our heads, staring at our toes and listening to her rebuke.

Qiu cried and said, ‘Lantong, do you remember, on my wedding day, when you came to carry me on the way, all the people present said you were the brother of Wudong, so you are all cheating me?'

We had nothing to say since we did band together and lie to her.

‘Lantong, you are an educated person, so you know it’s not right.' Qiu said.

‘I know it’s against the law.' I said.

Qiu, like catching the final straw, said, ‘Are you willing to do anything against the law?’

Qiu was ignorant of the fact that she had married another man with only one ear and one arm who had once shown disrespect for her and was spurned by her. In her view, I was the only one waiting to live with her, so she only needed to convince me out of it. A burst of sadness seized me suddenly. Looking at the blue sky, I said, ‘I haven’t a clue whether the people in Nuoci had this custom in the past really because there was ‘Aunt Tung Flower’? But I know the reason why they do it in this way nowadays. They mainly want to reduce part of the money paid to those above them. Over the years, people in Nuoci have been living like this. If it is to be investigated, all the people in Nuoci are breaking the law.'

‘What should we do then? Break the law like them?' Qiu said.

‘I don’t know, either.' I said.

‘I know. I’m going to sue you!' Qiu said.

Wudong hastened to pull Qiu back with us, but she screamed hysterically, as if there were fangs of a serpent on his hands.

She cried: ‘Set me free, you pointy skull!' ‘Pointy skull', in the vernacular, indicated a man handed over his wife to another man without any fight. Wudong flew into a fury, burst out shouting, ‘I don’t fucking want to, but I can’t afford to marry a wife alone. They have paid their share, so I can’t kill them all!'

‘They?! Who else but Lantong?' Qiu shouted.  

I answered without hesitation, ‘No one else. Just me. I’m his brother. He can’t kill me.'

Qiu did not want to listen to me. She instinctively waved her arms to drive my voice away, shouting, ‘I’ll sue you! I’m gonna sue you all in Nuoci!'

Then, Qiu wiped his eyes and jumped crazily, whereas Wudong and I, like two dogs, followed quietly, just as it was before.

Wudong kept on convincing Qiu out of suing us. He said, ‘You can’t go to court. If so, all people in the hamlet were done for. Not to mention that we’ll all be put to prison, we’ll also have to pay a great deal of money and grain. We can’t survive then.'

Qiu said, ‘It’s all right not to go to court, but this kind of thing in our family should be canceled.'

We all knew it wasn’t that simple, so we sighed.

 

24

The house of Qiu was composed of a main room and a wing, made of blue bricks and a blue-tile roof. It was surrounded by a variety of green plants, like apricots, pears, plums and bamboo shoots. The air was suffused with their sourness, astringency, bitterness and sweetness.

Upon our arrival, a yellow dog with smooth hair barked at us as a greeting, followed by the greeting of Qiu’s sister-in-law who seemed to bring a heat wave.

Before her sister-in-law came to us, we heard her saying, ‘Ah! What brought our sister back?! See, it’s the right time to be here. We’re eating.' There was a bowl in her hand and a grain of rice on a corner of her mouth. Hearing her shouting, her husband, Qiu’s elder brother, also came out with the bowl.

So the three of us went into the house warmly greeted by her brother and his wife as well as the yellow dog.

As Wudong put down the hen, it cackled for being in the strange environment. The yellow dog could not understand the way it was fussed, and barked at it. The hen was so scared that it flew up having the dust fanned up in the house and our eyes closed. Sister-in-law drove out of the yellow dog and was busy cleaning up the leftovers on the table, which could obviously not show their hospitality. Thus, she had to cook again. ‘Just make yourself at home. There’s no need to bring anything back.' She said.

We didn’t look well. Although we tried to cover it up, we could not escape the eyes of this couple. After they had exchanged a look of suspicion, Brother looked at us one by one. Then, looking above Qiu’s head, he asked, ‘What happened?'

Qiu, pretending to be relaxed, just sat there and played with the yellow dog without uttering a word.

Brother took out his cigarettes and gave us. However, neither of us dared to take it, for we didn’t know what was going to happen.

Brother said, ‘It seems that you are busy with growing corns in Nuoci, right?'

Wudong said yes.

Brother looked at me and said, ‘Is this your brother?'

Wudong answered yes quickly.

Brother said, ‘Then why aren’t you working at home during the busy season? Anything wrong?'

Wudong faltered and his face was flushed. I answered immediately, ‘It goes well. We had finished growing corns yesterday, so we escorted Qiu back home for a visit.

Brother’s eyes revealed his distrust, but he still said, ‘Oh, I see.'

As we were talking, Sister-in-law brought each of us a bowl of noodles and said, ‘Have some noodles first, and I’ll take my time to cook the supper.'

We took the noodles and began eating like pigs, whereas Qiu said she was not hungry. Sister-in-law had long noticed that the eyes of Qiu were swollen, but she did not want to ask bluntly before us. At this moment, she could not help but ask, ‘Qiu, what happened to you?' Qiu pretended to be fine and smiled, saying, ‘Nothing wrong.' Sister-in-law turned her eyes at her husband. He then turned back to ask Qiu, ‘Why are your eyes swollen?' Qiu replied that her eyes had some sickness these days. Sister-in-law said again, ‘You don’t eat now, right? Since you have married before me, we have no chance to chat. Let’s go outside and talk a bit.' Qiu stood up and followed her to the plum tree in the yard. Sister-in-law put a bench under the tree, and sitting side by side on the bench, they talked while watching the chicks rolling over on their feet like pompoms.

‘Which kind of life is better, unmarried or married?' Sister-in-law asked.

‘It’s the same.' Qiu said.

‘No, that’s different.'

‘I think there’s no difference.'

‘You just cried.'

‘No, it was due to the coldness.'

‘Something definitely went wrong for your being here.'

‘Nothing was wrong. I just wanna see if you need any help for the farm work.'

‘Okay, then let’s go to the field, and you all help me hoe.'

However, none of us helped her hoe. We are all awaiting her supper.

After supper, it got dark. Wudong asked Qiu to go back home, but Qiu didn’t want to.

‘If we don’t go back now, it’ll be dark later.' Wudong said.

‘I don’t care.' Qiu said.

‘Don’t get into a huff so easily. Let’s go, or we can’t see anything in darkness in Nuoci.' Wudong said.

‘I’ve told you, I’ll never return to Nuoci. Don’t mention it any longer.' Qiu said.

‘If you don’t go back, we won’t go back, either. It’s a good place here. You ask Brother to spare a room for us and give us some land.' Wudong said.

‘No way!' Qiu screamed out.

Actually, they were talking quietly under the apricot tree at the pigsty. Qiu’s scream was heard. Brother shouted at Qiu and asked, ‘What are you quarreling? Look, Qiu, don’t be petulant. Just go home.' Qiu answered, ‘No, I won’t go back!' Brother and his wife were not surprised to hear that, for they knew Qiu had some arguments with us. Brother said, ‘Then where are you going? You’re married now. Are you still living here?' Finally, Qiu couldn’t hold back tears and cried, saying, ‘Brother, you just consider me as a single girl. Does it work? I can do all the work and chores as long as you give me food and clothing.' Staring at Wudong angrily, Brother asked, ‘What on earth happened?' Wudong said, ‘nothing happened.' Brother was so fierce that his eyes seemed to be falling out. He asked again, ‘Then why doesn’t Qiu go back with you?' Wudong really didn’t know how to answer, which made this angry Brother catch his clothes firmly. Wudong told him to ask Qiu. Brother loosened his hand and asked Qiu, ‘What’s wrong?' So did Sister-in-law.

Qiu just couched down and cried without saying anything.

I found it hard to settle the issue. On a whim, I pulled Brother over to a further place and told him that Qiu would like to live with me instead of Wudong. Brother stared at me blankly, obviously not trusting my nonsense. He asked me to explain it clearly. I was so scared on thinking that it wouldn’t be better than gored by an ox if Brother gave me a kick or a punch. Nevertheless, I must be a man rather than a coward. It was not for your own face, but to throw a scare into his opponent. I told Brother what I said was true and that Qiu lost her temper because of Wudong’s disagreement. Upon hearing this, Brother appeared to have a headache, as he wrinkled his brow, and sucked in a breath. It revealed that Brother kind of believed my words, but not quite convinced.

He went straight to Qiu and pulled her over to the other side, even kicking a  chick far away due to his carelessness. They went to a place far enough to have a private conversation. Brother asked Qiu whether she truly had an affair with Lantong? Qiu was so startled that she began to cry, asking who had cooked up the story? Brother said, ‘Lantong did.' Qiu denied it immediately. Hence, Brother asked her for the truth.

‘Didn’t you know that when you arranged this marriage?' Qiu asked.  

‘What should I know?' Brother was confused.

‘I accept the marriage you arranged, but I can’t accept being married to two men, blood brothers.' Qiu said.

The hand grabbing Qiu suddenly stiffened like a stone. He had never heard of such kind of marriage, even if it was said by his sister. He could not believe it.

However, Qiu told him it was completely true and real.

Brother flew into a rage again. He let go of Qiu and ran to me. The moment he believed what Qiu said was true, he had no target for his rage. But in a while, he thought of me and my story. Thereupon, he came to me with great rapidity and punched me on the nose before I thought out of a solution. I was too dizzy to come up with a good idea.

Brother was totally irritated that he didn’t care whether I was thinking about it. He treated me like a straw target by hitting me with his fist and his feet, which displeased my brother. Wudong made an awful scream and punched out his brother-in-law. Undoubtedly, the two brothers fought against each other. I sat on the ground with blood on the whole face. My face had already swollen up, and my calf hurt like burning. The two women, Qiu and Sister-in-law, were stunned by this sudden fight at the very beginning. Later, Qiu rushed over followed by Sister-in-law.

Since the women were involved, the men ceased their fighting instantly.

Consequently, Wudong got injured, not to speak of me. Qiu’s brother was terribly keen on hitting others in the face. I was beaten black and blue. So was Wudong. However, he seemed to be totally alright.

Qiu burst out wailing. She came over to feel Wudong’s mouth and then my nose, as if these injuries were hers.

Sister-in-law cried as well, but there were no tears on her face. She said, ‘What are you doing? What’s all this about?'

None of us answered.

Qiu’s Brother didn’t expect such a result. This kind of victory was not worthy of pride. He just sat down at where he was and buried his head between his knees silently for a long time.

Subsequently, he raised his head suddenly and looked at Wudong, saying, ‘How will you handle this? Thing done cannot be undone. I have given vent to my anger on you, but it has to be solved.'

Wudong said, ‘It’s the custom in Nuoci. What we say doesn’t count.'

Brother goggled at Wudong once again, without belief in his words.

‘All people in your hamlet act in this way?' Brother asked.

Wudong gave a positive answer.

‘Don’t they know it’s illegal, do they?' Brother asked in surprise.

‘Yes, they do.' Wudong said.

‘Now that they know it violates the law, why do they continue this custom? Aren’t you afraid of being accused?' Brother was puzzled.

‘The custom has passed on from generation to generation. We were accused before, but it ended in smoke. You can’t charge us, Brother.' Wudong said.

‘Why?' Brother asked.

‘If you accused us, our whole hamlet would be done. You would destroy Nuoci.' Wudong said.

Looking at Wudong with his round eyes slowly narrowed down, Brother said, ‘If I insisted on an accusation, what would you do?'

Wudong replied, ‘Why should you make troubles for us? If you don’t allow Qiu to go back with us, just give the money back and Qiu would be back home.' Brother was surprised at his speech, asking, ‘You have never thought of marrying Qiu alone?' Wudong said, ‘There’s no use. The bride-price was pooled, because I don’t have so much money.' Brother said, ‘Bah! That’s fucking ridiculous!' Then he went on deliberation after which he had a private talk with Qiu. He said, ‘My dear sister, the situation, a disgraceful one, has been set. We may be sullied for saying it out, regarding me in a muddle.'

Qiu said angrily, ‘You aren’t muddled without saying it?'

Brother said, ‘Actually, they are pretty nice guys as I see. Therefore, they will treat you well. Besides, it’s better to be cared for by two people than one. Why not make a concession and accept it?'

Qiu glared at her Brother.

Brother continued saying, ‘As you know, the money they gave has been used for my marriage. Now that it’s not rare in their hamlet, you might as well stop bothering. I have hit hard at them just now. If they don’t treat you well in the future, I’ll beat them much harder...'

What Brother said made Qiu spitting at him angrily.

 

25

At that moment, Qiu had no idea where to go. Her chest heaved violently, and tears poured down like beans. Walking back and forth in the yard like a dizzy little hen, she suddenly made eye contact with her Brother. As a result, she decided to head toward Nuoci in a fit of pique.

At that time, she did care what lied on the road, for she was totally in despair for her Brother’s solution. She did go as her Brother told her so that her Brother may not fell at ease for the rest of his life.

Qiu went straight ahead in front of us towards Nuoci, the increasingly darker place, in a solemn and tragic manner. Wudong and I followed behind without a sound made. I saw the unsteadiness in the eyes of Wudong, because he knew Qiu did not go back to Nuoci for him. Not for me, either. Neither of us were sure where she would go. However, I could read from Wudong’s eyes that he would always follow Qiu, no matter where she would go. It was not my case. While following Qiu on the way back, I wavered. I was hurt for the beating, which made me feel I was being dull. I supposed, since I did not approve the whole thing from the beginning to the end, why should I pay for this?

Wherever Qiu went this time, I would go back to sleep, I told myself.

We met my mother and Uncle Gaoshan on the half way home. My mom told us that she was bringing us flashlights because she was afraid that it was too dark for us to walk on the road. She was carrying two flashlights in her hands and she held them up for fear that we didn’t trust her.

As a matter of fact, the features of her Brother linger on in her mind as she walked along. It could be certain that her Brother was holding a torch for her, a torch of hatred, all the way. The appearance of my mother and Guan Gaoshan shoved her Brother’s shadow away. She stopped walking, looked around and ran in the opposite direction.

Wudong grabbed her on the arm, not letting her go. Qiu struggled to shake off his hand.

‘There’s no use going back for your brother won’t let you enter the house.' Wudong said.   

‘Don’t mention him, and I’d rather die than return to his house!' Qiu said.

‘Then where else can you go?' Wudong asked.

‘I’ll go to die!' Qiu said.  

Wudong grasped her firmly, seeming to break her bones. And he said, ‘I won’t let you die!'

My mother approached us, showing the expression of love and sympathy. She stroked Qiu’s messy hair, whereas Qiu shook her head in a wild way, trying to evade my mother’s hand.

My mother became fierce to Wudong all at once, saying, ‘Are you frozen? It’s not an easy way to go. Why not carry Qiu on the back?!'

Wudong came to realize it, thus forcing Qiu to be carried on his back.

Qiu shouted on the back of Wudong again and again, ‘I don’t go back. Let me down. Let me die. I prefer dying to returning to Nuoci...'

Whatever she yelled, we listened without response.

It seemed like some kind of ritual, her shouting and our footsteps as the chief forms.

It was totally dark then and there was still a long way to go. The shouting of Qiu had faded away, and she kept silent in the darkness. As my mother saw no motivation to replace Wudong when shining her flashlight in my face, she pulled Gaoshan. Hence, Gaoshan took Qiu over from Wudong.  

Being carried on the back of Guan Gaoshan, Qiu started shouting again. Then after a short break, her voice went higher and became shriller than before. Probably, Wudong did not want to hear this voice, or he just would like to sing with her. He began singing as well. I had no idea what he was singing, but I was certain it must be some scripture. The deeper and stronger sound of Wudong wrapped Qiu’s up. Qiu’s voice was soon covered up. Then, we heard nothing but the song from Wudong.

The dark night was touched with desolation by the ink-like mountains, and the song of Wudong highlighted it.

My mother commanded Wudong to stop singing.

Wudong really did.

Our footsteps seemed timid and pathetic in the dead of night. Nevertheless, for heaven’s sake, we finally arrived in Nuoci.

Qiu was put under the light, unable to open her eyes for quite a while. When she did, she found herself standing in front of the fire made for her by Yanying. Without taking any look at those people in front of her face, she lowered her eyes and went out of the door with a black face. Undoubtedly, she did not succeed, as Wudong held her. Without Wudong doing that, she could not walk out of the room, either, for Yanying was still hiding in the dark outside. It was not suitable for him to come forward, so he hid in case a hand were needed.

Caught by Wudong, Qiu could not move a bit. However, her face suggested her stubbornness like black iron sheet.

My mother remained silent, but we all could read her thoughts from her eyes. She looked at Wudong for a while, and the counterpart understood her intention immediately. He said to Qiu lazily and sourly, ‘Qiu, Lantong warded off the cattle for you. He almost lost his life for that. Therefore, you owe him.' It sounded ironic to me, and I almost burst into laughter at the moment. But the stare of my mother prevented me from doing so. I could see the pity and sadness in her eyes, which made my heart straight sinking. I said, ‘Mom, if Qiu doesn’t agree with the marriage, I can quit.' My mother was startled, with her wrinkles on the face twisting in confusion.

My father’s voice was heard, saying, ‘What fucking nuts are you saying?!' Looking at my father in the face seriously, I said, ‘Don’t you just want a daughter-in-law, do you? I’ll marry one someday. Why should we compel Qiu?' She cast a quick glance at me, and I was surprised to find that there was more sadness in her eyes than gratitude. Her sensitive feelings simply regarded my words as a slight, but at present we had no time to care and explain it. My father was so mad that he came up and slapped me twice in the face, making my bruised face worse. He scolded me angrily, ‘You are a fucking learned guy, ha? You know what to say? Why don’t you take a piss and look at yourself? Can you marry a wife by yourself? Even if you fucking have one here, you don’t dare to catch her? Can you feed her even though you fucking marry one?' Tears glistened in the eyes of my father under the lights. My sight turned black by these twinkling tears, feeling suffocating. Hence, I decided to hide my thoughts by lowering my head deeply.

My mother approached Qiu, and stared at her for long. However, Qiu kept bowing her head, completely ignoring my mother. In the meantime, she strained to get rid of Wudong’s hoop-like hand. My mother persisted in her stare whatever Qiu was doing. Finally, Qiu couldn’t withstand it. She raised her head and called, ‘Mom.' The eyes of these two women eventually met, as if two streams of water that had been watching each other from far joined together at last. The warm tears gushed from their eyes simultaneously.  

Nonetheless, Qiu said, ‘Mom, I can’t.'

My mother burst out weeping, as if the breakwater of the Yangtze River broke.

My mother was crying for the present and the past, crying for Qiu and herself. It showed the pity of one bitter heart for the other, and the begging of a bitter heart for mercy. Tears brought the two hearts together. Qiu was choked with tears and snot, yelling ‘mother' miserably, which made my mother crying even more bitterly. Her cry, like powerful currents, shook the reality.

My mother said, ‘My dear kid, accept it, just as I did. Life is still moving on, right?'

Qiu said, ‘Mom, I can’t.'

Mother told her, ‘There is always a way out. Just bite the bullet, and we’ll get over it.'

Qiu had a good cry then.

Later, Qiu could not bear the tragic atmosphere, and she suddenly ran out of the house. Maybe Wudong was listening to their cry too carefully. Qiu escaped from him successfully but was caught by Yanying. When Qiu saw it was Yanying, she begged sadly, ‘My dear brother, could you just let me go.' Yanying refused with his hands grabbing Qiu like a vice.  

My father shouted at me, ‘Lantong, go and fetch the rope on the stove, and tie her to your bed!' He had known the rope would be required as it developed. However, I did not want to adopt the method. If Qiu must go to my bed, I wished her to come to my bed out of her will even after a rough time. At this moment, I was eager for escaping as Qiu did. Without seeing a ray of hope from me, my father developed several twitches at a corner of his mouth in despair and had a strange cry like a crow. Then, he knelt down in front of Qiu with some kowtows. Qiu felt the sky was falling. On her knees to my father with a plop, she shouted at the top of her lungs, ‘Dad!' The shout may tremble the mountains hidden in the dark Nuoci.

 

Chapter 9

26

Qiu was lying on my bed now.

A beautiful woman was lying on my bed!

I clearly knew that I could not ignore it any more, as my heart was beating in my chest.

My blood started burning, and I felt a boom in my head. I was not myself any longer but a goat blinded by happiness who did not know whether to wave the hooves or shake the horns.

I saw Qiu, a woman like a flower, who treated me as her younger brother, was lying on my bed like a dead person with a look of resignation and despair. A feeling of guilt was looming up in my mind, as if a naughty kid were playing tricks in my burning blood, popping his head out or raising his hands. I felt my throat was dry, my breath was quick and something irritable was in my head.

I was totally at a loss what to do for quite a while. Finally, I decided to utter something. I had to do so anyhow.

‘Qiu, neither I nor you should be blamed.' I said.

Qiu kept silent. There was a pair of invisible hands drawing out her tears.

‘My gosh, why do you have so many tears? It seems to be the tears of your whole life.' I said.

The pair of invisible hands drew her tears faster and longer.

I said, ‘Qiu, I like you.'

Her lip shook a little for her sobbing, then she bit her lip until her lower lip was blue.

I said, ‘Qiu, don’t you like me?'

Biting her lip, Qiu shook her head. Then she looked to another side. I deemed that she must want to say it had nothing to do with whether she liked me or not.

I said, ‘Why do you ignore me?'

Qiu was not able to explain it clearly, so she could do nothing but shake her head. She cried all day, but her fate was still standing on the verge of the cliff, and her efforts could not stop others from pushing her towards the cliff. She had no choice but to close her eyes and jump down. Now she really closed her eyes, resigned to her fate. she wanted to keep her eyes closed, not seeing the heaven who gave her such an embarrassing fate.

I said, ‘Qiu, I know you can’t accept this kind of life. Actually, I can’t, either. But I don’t have the ability to change it. I live in Nuoci. As it is said, when in Rome, do as the Romans do.'

Qiu’s eyelids quivered and two streams of clear tears gurgled incessantly.

I said, ‘Now that I’m not a real nuisance to you, why do you ignore me? I like you, so you are better with me than with someone you hate?'

Qiu was still lying in her deep sadness and despair.

My heart seemed to quit beating and sank down to a dark hollow.

I left Qiu and went outside.

My father had been keeping his eyes on what happened inside from the outside. When he saw me come out, his eyes seemed to pierce my bones like iron awls. He asked me why I came out? I was silly for a moment, then I lied and said I wanted to go to the latrine. He just kept watching me go out of the door and go to the latrine with his awl eyes.

I stood in the latrine for quite a while. In front of my eyes is the sky as black as pitch. As I kept watching it, one or two white dots jumped up like stars, which later turned to white butterflies flying in front of me. Following these white butterflies, I walked out of the latrine. I desired to follow them to anywhere instead of Nuoci, but my father wouldn’t let me go. Just as I stepped on a dark path, I saw my father’s eyes, which were phosphorescent in the dark, and scared away the white butterflies leading me away. He grabbed me into the room and slapped me on the weeping face. He scolded me severely, saying, ‘You idiot! Your wife is lying on the bed. Don’t know what to do? '

My face quickly became tense after he slapped it. I stood there touching my tense face. My father pushed me into the bedroom quickly and then locked the door from outside. Standing behind the door, he told me not to bring shame on myself and be a man!

My route of retreat was cut off and it seemed somewhat clear ahead. I said to myself my father was totally correct. I was a man. How could a man ignorant of what to do with a beautiful woman lying next to him? I had long been attracted by the beauty of Qiu. Why did I hesitate now?

However, I saw Qiu shedding her tears without ceasing.

I took some dry swallows, hoping to swallow the rush of longing that filled my body.

Nevertheless, I felt I was more impetuous than before.

I said, ‘Qiu, you don’t hate me, right? Then let’s have a talk. You know my dad has locked the door. If they are not satisfied, they’re not going to let us out. Our parents arranged our marriage in accordance with the customs of Nuoci. I’ve been your husband since the day you married me. I may not give a wedding to you, but I’m already your man. In Nuoci, how many men or which man a woman should marry doesn’t depend on us but the money.'

In the lamplight, I saw another frivolous face of myself. I continued saying, ‘Qiu, you touch my heart, feeling how vibrantly my heart is beating. I like you. I have fallen in love with you since the day you married me. I’m a man, too. I can give you what Wudong can.'

From the expression of Qiu, I did not see the slightest effect of my words. I became a little worried. I said, ‘I see, you think I don’t deserve you. You told me why am I unworthy of you? Why do you hate me? Please don’t ignore me. You make my heart painful as if a knife were stabbing it. If you don’t talk to me tonight, I may be dead tomorrow morning.'

However, Qiu kept her eyes closed tightly with a firm and unshakable expression.

I suddenly felt disgusted for my frivolous face. I closed my eyes for a moment, expelling that ugly face. Afterwards, sadness gushed out in my eyes. I said, ‘Qiu, to be frank, we would not act in this way if there were any other solution. The land of Nuoci is barren and high, so the crops are not enough to keep body and soul together. People here have long been in such poverty that girls would prefer to marry any man out of the hamlet rather than those in ours. The men have to marry girls from other hamlets. When they couldn’t afford to marry a wife, they figured out a way of raising money for their marriage. We are also human, knowing that this kind of practice is disgusting, but only in this way can we stay alive.'

While saying, I was choked with grief and sobs.

The eyelids of Qiu began to shiver violently, as if a crowd of elves were urging to open her eyes. Gradually, her big round eyes with thick eyelashes finally opened. But they were closed immediately.

Nonetheless, her failure was totally revealed. I could tell that she had a gentle heart. All women were made of mud, and could not resist tears. A voice within told me to go into her arms, for she had removed the latch that fastened on the door of her heart. I heard my voice trembling so much, saying, ‘Qiu, here I am.'

As the trembling voice faded away, my body started to shake. I shuffled into bed and lay down beside Qiu. I was so close to this beautiful woman, whose temperature and odor made me dizzy. The desire to have sex with her drove away all my sadness. But, I didn’t know how to start it! I had dreamed it for so many times. Now I could remember none of them. It seemed that I had never had those dreams. In the face of reality, the dream fled, and I had to count on myself.

I calmed down and tried to imitate what I had seen out of the bedroom before. I put my hands on the chest of Qiu like Wudong did. When I touched her breast, I knew exactly what to do. So these things needed not to be taught! But Qiu wanted to stop it. Even with her eyes closed, she seemed to have eyes on her hands. Her hands reached out to stop me wherever my hands went. However, for a man struggling with desire, this half-refusal became a kind of flirting. My hands, my mouth, and my feet got moving in a terrible mess. Although Qiu opened her eyes and endeavored to resist, she was still unable to attend to everything at once and was stripping off. At this moment, Qiu bit me on the shoulder.

The bite cut off the fire of desire on my body. I saw the flame over my head jumping for a while and extinguished with a poof, only leaving the smoke not knowing where to go.

Burying her face in her hand, Qiu wept with amounts of grief.

My neck softened in her weeping and my head hung heavily like a melon. Then I saw the scarlet down her lower part.

Qiu was in her menstrual period. Yeah, I knew it last night!

Last night, I heard Qiu saying to Wudong that women would get sick if they had sex in their period. Since I was a bookish person, books also taught me that women could not have sex during menstruation. I made my apology to Qiu. The apology in Nuoci seemed so eccentric that Qiu put her sadness aside temporarily.

Qiu murmured, ‘What did you say?'

I said, ‘I’m sorry.'

Qiu said, ‘Why did you say that?'

I said, ‘I know you’re menstruating and still want to have sex.'

Qiu’s eyes froze for a while, and tears filled her eyes.

 

27

At dawn, my father came here shouting, ‘Langtong and Wudong get up and do farm work, and Qiu cooks pig food, feeds chicken, and cooks our meal.'

It seemed that nothing had happened yesterday.

Hearing the shouting, I opened my eyes. I had no idea when I fell asleep. I could not figure out why I were lying beside Qiu as if I were suddenly thrown here by someone else from a completely unfamiliar place. Qiu stared at the roof with her eyes open too. The very spot she was looking at was a flat floor with an irregular stain, like some dry urine, but I knew it came into form by the rain. Then Qiu turned her eyes to me. But when meeting with mine, she evaded her eyes and continued to look at the original roof in panic. I said, ‘I’m sorry, Qiu.' Qiu ceased her stare and closed her eyes.

My father was yelling again, like a detonator in the silent morning.

I asked Qiu to get more sleep. But she raised herself up and went to the alley by the sty to cook pig food in silence.

That day, my father and I were watching the corn shoots in the field. The tender yellow buds that had just been unearthed were most attractive to rabbits and birds, and also the seeds sown in the field were also a lure to rats. We needed to check whether there were seeds in the place we sowed. If the seeds were eaten by the rats or the unearthed corn sprouts were destroyed, we should fill in the seeds. It was easy work, so my father kept talking to me. He said, ‘You’ve been a man since last night. Don’t be so silly in the future. The kind of marriage in Nuoci is not written in the book, but we live a real life, not in the book. In this place, I have treated you fairly to marry Qiu, such a pretty wife. Apart from your mom, none can be better wife than Qiu.'

My father kept talking on and on, making my mind humming and my eyes fainting. I sat down on the floor and saw a large flock of pale butterflies again. They lured my soul into the air, dancing with them and flying away with them. My father kicked me in the ass! The butterfly suddenly disappeared and my soul was scared back into my body. I felt the ache in my butt. Standing behind me and staring at my butt, my father was ready for a second kick with his right foot. Actually, the kick was due to my sitting on the sprouts.

Standing up and looking at the sprouts ruined by me, I deemed, touching my butt, I might as well go back home than do the tedious work.

With that in mind, I walked away, even though my father called out to me. My father could not do anything with me, thus shouting at my back, ‘How could I raise such a silly son, damn it!'

I said to myself that nothing went wrong to stay foolish and I just went back to sleep.

I returned home senselessly and got a few punches in a muddle. When I opened my eyes, I saw Wudong standing in front of me like a mad man. He not only beat me, but also grabbed me and asked angrily, ‘Why did you still force her to have sex with you even if she is not in fairly good condition?' At the moment I was really as dumb as they said for his sudden blow. Wudong took it as a fact by default. Therefore, he did not give up his ventilation because of my dumbness till my nose was a bloody pulp.

It occurred unexpectedly. Qiu realized it was for her when she heard Wudong saying that I forced her. Hence, Qiu held Wudong and shouted repeatedly, ‘He didn’t force me!' Wudong stopped then and got stunned. After looking at Qiu and me with stunning eyes, he laughed in a strange way and asked me with a glare, ‘Didn’t you force her?' What I saw from his eyes was not only the hatred for my tenderness but also more self-pity or self-hatred. I felt a surge of sadness, so I wiped the blood and walked away to evade his eyes.

There was something in his bones that could not bear to be looked down upon, whereas my pity and sympathy for him kind of stung him. He was so unhappy that he said in a voice dripping with sarcasm and a little chuckle, ‘Look at you! Dumb ass! You can’t do anything.' Then he turned to Qiu with his mouth twitching twice, he said, ‘Qiu, you are less interesting than a cat.'

Not wanting to see Qiu any longer, Wudong walked back to his own room.

It was weird to say that Qiu was less interesting than a cat, which left Qiu and I blank for quite a while like a pair of silly cats. Later, Qiu probably figured it out and her stupefied eyes rolled with tears filling the eyes instantly and brimming over like two streams. She wiping her eyes, my father came back. Seeing Qiu wiping her eyes and me wiping blood, with a twitch on his face, he cleared his throat and went out. Less than a second, he returned and yelled, ‘Your father wants to eat eggs. Yesterday, your mother has brought some and put them in the cupboard. Qiu, cook up some scrambled eggs.'

Qiu silently fetched the eggs and stir-fried them. The smell floated all over the room which caused my father to breathe in deeply with his nose as I saw. However, he commented that the eggs were not delicious when eating.

Sitting by the table, Qiu just gazed at her own bowl of rice with her head bending down. Even though the scrambled eggs was giving off tempting smell, she did not raise her head. It seemed that she had not looked up since yesterday. I took some scrambled eggs for Qiu into her bowl. She only gave them back without appreciation. I threw an awkward glance at my father, who encouraged me to do it again with his eyes. So I did it as was suggested when my father said, ‘Qiu, the scrambled eggs you cooked are not delicious. I prefer that of your mother. That is very appetizing. The smell goes everywhere in the hamlet.' Rather than putting the eggs back into the dish, Qiu just stopped eating and let me serve eggs for her until her bowl was filled up. I asked her to eat. Qiu whispered to me like a mosquito, ‘You don’t like the dish, either?' I replied that I loved it without hesitation. The overreaction appeared deceptive to others. Qiu bent her head lower. My father knocked my head with his chopsticks, saying, ‘Don’t be deceitful. It is not tasty. The one who has cooked it eats it. Qiu, you eat it.' In the meantime, he winked at me and I was aware that he said it deliberately so that Qiu could enjoy the delicious scrambled eggs by herself. However, Qiu did not understand the intention of my father, for she did not look at my father and had never seen my father being so funny. She carried her bowl of rice to Wudong quietly like the walk of a cat.

After a while, Qiu returned empty-handed. She stood beside us with her head bent down, saying cautiously that Wudong had not cooked. With much embarrassment on her face, I could read that she was wondering whether to bring some food for Wudong. I asked her to sit down eating and I would deliver the food. A light of agreement came into her eyes. Putting down my bowl, I filled a big bowl with yellow rice, as was mixed with corn particles, and other dishes. When Wudong found I was carrying the rice, he stopped chewing with a half mouthful of yellow rice as unsightly as shit. It made my mind blank and totally forgot what I wanted to utter just now. I put down his rice and returned to the table, seeing that Qiu maintained the posture, eating slowly like a cat.

‘Qiu, raise your head for eating, or you’ll suffer a neck pain.' I said.

Qiu quit eating without moving her head.

‘Don’t bend your head. You haven’t done anything wrong.' I went on saying.

Qiu still acted like a puppet, staring at the rice in the bowl. I saw her tears fall into her bowl one after another. Her unkempt cropped hairs, blown by the wind, were trembling.

I cast a glance at my father, hoping that he could see the expression of Qiu. He evaded my eyes. Afterwards, he took up his bowl and pulped water down at the water vat before he went to the yard.

Looking at where my father went, I told Qiu, ‘It is we who have done something wrong instead of you. We should bend our heads. You’re right to raise your head and scold us as you like, if scolding can alleviate your hatred.'

Qiu moved her head slowly, but failed to raise it.

I said, ‘If you want to sue us, I’ll accompany you to the fair.'

Finally, Qiu raised her head. I saw her eyes seemed to burst with tears. Looking at the eyes, I felt my heart broken. I said, ‘Let’s go. Now.' All of a sudden, Qiu shook his head, leaving tears flying here and there. Two or three teardrops fell on my face, which made me feel unparalleled cold. If one’s heart was not ice-cold to the extreme, how could his/her tears be so.

With her cold tears on her face, Qiu squatted down in the pigsty alley and hid all her crying and tears into her arms. Her back was convulsed, another kind of crying that she could not hide.

I went over and said, ‘Well, go into the room, Qiu. Now, it’s yours.'

Without moving a bit, Qiu’s back was twitched hard.

I approached her and held her up. I wished I could take her to the room. I said, ‘If you want to cry, go to the room and cry out. Don’t be afraid of being heard.' Qiu stood up, pushed my hand away, and walked towards the house. But the minute she reached the central room, she paused. Probably she was still ignorant of which room to go into, Wudong’s or mine.

 

28

The father of Sizai died. He was called Sizai for being the fourth male child of his family. Wudong carried the gears of funeral rites and went to Sizai’s house before Chen Fengshui’s invitation. My father required us to quit what we were doing and give a hand in burying Sizai’s father. Certainly, the ‘us' here included Qiu. However, Qiu pretended as if she hadn’t heard it and was busy with what she was doing. My father had to tell Qiu in a clear way, ‘Qiu, stop those work. You also have to go and help with the kitchen work.' She refused. My father went on his talk, ‘Our folks will surely go for the sake of Chen Fengshui’s kindness, except for those children who are too young to do chores.' Qiu insisted on her refusal, but my father still persuaded Qiu, ‘Chen Fengshui didn’t ask for your donations. You’d better go.' Qiu didn’t change her mind yet.

I would not like to go, either. I was not sure whether I hated Chen Fengshui or not, but it didn’t matter. I was fond of quiet places and being alone, perhaps because I were born with the property of the owl.

‘Dad, how about you go first and I will come later with Qiu.'

My father rolled his eyes at me, which revealed that he had little expectations for us to go, but he could not help it but to go first himself.

‘Why don’t you go?' Qiu asked.

‘Because I just want to sleep. After quitting school, all I wanted most is only sleeping, lying in bed, and thinking about nothing or thinking much else. Sometimes, my body becomes as light as a feather flying in the sky, and sometimes it becomes very heavy flying on a boat.'

‘Lantong, are you ill?' Qiu asked.

‘No. I’m just lazy.' I replied.

Qiu stared at me with astonishment in that she may have never seen a person who considered himself lazy.

‘I’m lazy indeed, so I don’t like working.' I claimed.

‘Fine. Then you go to sleep.' Qiu said. I lay in the bed as was told, covering a book on my face for the feel of flying. However I got up several minutes later, because I found that I could not keep the peace in myself. I desired to see Qiu even at a far distance.

My mother offered her help at the house of Sizai. Without seeing Qiu, she found time to call Qiu, who was just sitting in the yard and looking at the ground lost in thought. The field was muddy and wet with many scratches by the chickens. Two of them with wings were digging carefully,searching for something to eat.

With a gentle call of my mother, Qiu regained her presence of mind, but still had no strength to pull back her sight. My mother went into the room, took out a stool and sat down beside Qiu. She finally drew back her gaze from the field and called, ‘Mom.'

‘Sizai’s father has died.' My mother said.

‘I know.' Qiu answered.

‘Why don’t you go and have a visit?' Mother asked.

‘I feel weak now and a little dizzy.' Qiu said.

‘Then I’ll go to make some ginger ale. You’ll be much better after drinking it.' Mother said.

My mother stood up and went to boil ginger ale for Qiu. Qiu stood up immediately and said she could do it herself. My mother said, ‘You’re not feeling well. Just take a good rest. I’ll do it. It’ll be done soon.' Since my mother walked faster than Qiu, she helplessly watched mother do the job.

My mother made the fire burning briskly in the stove, and put a pot of water on it. Then she went washing the ginger.

Qiu stood aside with a warm current in her heart. She wanted to show her heart to my mother.

Qiu said, ‘Mom, I don’t know how to move on.'

Without a look at Qiu, my mother told her to live in accordance with the seasons like a common thing. Plant the corns and grains when they should be done. My mother looked up at me and asked me, ‘Lantong, have you read that in the books?' I didn’t answer my mother, just gazing at Qiu.

Qiu looked at me and whispered, ‘Mom, is it really that easy for you to live on?'

My mother responded, ‘As to life, it totally depends on yourself. When you consider it simple, it’s simple; when you consider it difficult, it’s difficult. We human had better treat ourselves as grass. No matter where we are, we are able to live. In the wind and rain, or in the heat and cold, we can’t take it too seriously.'

Qiu said, ‘Mom, should I be nice to Wudong as before then?'

My mother replied, ‘Of course. It’s our responsibility to our husbands.'

Qiu remained silent and bent her head.

The ginger ale was ready and my mother watched Qiu drink it, for she required her to go to Sizai’s house with her. Qiu told her not want to go. But my mother said, ‘You should go. Why not? Go with me and have a look. It’s alright if you don’t want to help. But as an expression of our good will, we must go to make the funeral bustling.'

My mother was helping Qiu out of the dilemma. As long as Qiu could show herself in the presence of others, her future would be much easier.

My mother said, ‘Both you and Lantong must go with me.' My mother took Qiu away. I felt bored at home, thus going with them, too.

The courtyard of Sizai was full of busy people. Held by my mother, Qiu dared not to look up while walking. Nonetheless, my mother, pulling her to each person, introduced her to everyone and told her who they were. Qiu had to raise her head, nodding and smiling, which was really crucial for her. During the introduction, Qiu saw no signs of despise or belittlement from their eyes. What she received was the admiration and compliments of others for her pretty appearance. Their responses seemed that they had no idea of what happened to Qiu, or that they didn’t care about it. After walking around, Qiu raised her head slowly. Seeing some women trimming vegetables, my mother pulled Qiu there. They all greeted Qiu and asked mother her name. Someone answered, ‘It’s Qiu, right? She sings the folk songs well.' My mother nodded with agreement. Then she introduced them to Qiu one by one. With clicks of their tongues, these women uttered, ‘Why haven’t you got a tan since you are exposed to sun and rain like us? You also do the farm work, why are your waist so thin?' Qiu felt bashful about it and bowed her head. Then they all turned to listen to the wailing of Sizai’s mother instead of talking about Qiu.

In Nuoci, we usually wailed in some kind of songs. As they may die for varied reasons, we may sing different lyrics but in the same tune.

The mother of Sizai cried in a loud voice like:

Oh, my man, you are heartless as I see.

Yo, heartless.

I’ve married to you for ten years. You’ve been standing for less than ten days.

Yo, less than ten days.

It’s not enough to eat and sleep well, but to leave us and go to heaven.

Yo, go to heaven!

...

Daniu, the oldest female child of the family, stood beside her mother with her unkempt hair. Her eyes were filled with tears and her throat was moaning. Yet, the second and third female children of the family were chasing and playing happily. Sizai was hung in their mother’s arms, peeping out from her armpits with his eyes rolling continuously. The women listened and watched, and they felt like crying. They began to talk about the father of Sizai, when he got tuberculosis, when he married his wife, and when he was confined to bed and never got up.

 

heavy fog, the white sun appeared extremely thin, faintly discernible.