Sandalwood Death

———— 1 ————

That morning, my gongdieh, Zhao Jia, could never, even in his wildest dreams, have imagined that in seven days he would die at my hands, his death more momentous than that of a loyal old dog. And never could I have imagined that I, a mere woman, would take knife in hand and with it kill my own husband’s father. Even harder to believe was that this old man, who had seemingly fallen from the sky half a year earlier, was an executioner, someone who could kill without blinking. In his red-tasseled skullcap and long robe, topped by a short jacket with buttons down the front, he paced the courtyard, counting the beads on his Buddhist rosary like a retired yuanwailang, or, better yet, I think, a laotaiye, with a houseful of sons and grandsons. But he was neither a laotaiye nor a yuanwailang—he was the preeminent executioner in the Board of Punishments, a magician with the knife, a peerless decapitator, a man capable of inflicting the cruelest punishments, including some of his own design, a true creative genius. During his four decades in the Board of Punishments, he had—to hear him say it—lopped off more heads than the yearly output of Gaomi County watermelons.

My thoughts kept me awake that night, as I tossed and turned on the brick kang, like flipping fried bread. My dieh, Sun Bing, had been arrested and locked up by County Magistrate Qian, that pitiless son of a bitch. Even if he were the worst person in the world, he would still be my dieh, and my mind was in such turmoil I could not sleep, forestalling any possibility of rest. I heard large mongrels grunting in their cages and fat pigs barking in their pens—pig noises had become dog sounds, and dog barks had turned into pig songs. Even in the short time they had left to live, they were tuning up for an opera. If a dog grunts, it is still a dog, and when a pig barks, it remains a pig. And a dieh is still a dieh, even if he does not act like one. Grunt grunt, arf arf. The noise drove me crazy. They knew they would be dead soon. So would my dieh. But animals are smarter than humans, for they detected the smell of blood that spread from our yard, and could see the ghosts of pigs and dogs that prowled in the moonlight. They knew that daybreak, soon after the red rays of sun appeared, would mark the hour that they went to meet Yama, the King of Hell. And so they set up a yowl—the plaintive call of impending death. And you, Dieh, what was it like in your death cell? Did you grunt? Bark? Or did you sing Maoqiang? I heard jailers say that condemned prisoners could scoop up fleas by the handfuls in their cells and that the bedbugs were as big as broad beans. You had lived a steady, conservative life, Dieh, so how could a rock one day fall from the sky and knock you straight into a death cell? Oh, Dieh…

The knife goes in white and comes out red! No one is better at butchering dogs and slaughtering pigs than my husband, Zhao Xiaojia, whose fame has spread throughout Gaomi County. He is tall and he is big, nearly bald, and beardless. During the day he walks in a fog, and at night he lies in bed like a gnarled log. Since the day I married him, he has badgered me with his mother’s tale of a tiger’s whisker. One day some roguish creature goaded him into pestering me to obtain one of those curly golden tiger whiskers that, when held in the mouth, confer the ability to see a person’s true form. The moron, more like a rotting fish bladder than a man, badgered me all one night, until I had no choice but to give in. Well, the moron curled up on the kang and, as he snored and ground his teeth, began to talk in his sleep: “Dieh Dieh Dieh, see see see, scratch the eggs, flip the noodle…” He drove me crazy. When I nudged him with my foot, he curled up even tighter and rolled over, smacking his lips as if he’d just enjoyed a tasty treat. Then the talk started again, and the snoring and the grinding of teeth. To hell with him! Let the dullard sleep!

I sat up, leaned against the cold wall, and looked out the window, to see watery moonlight spread across the ground. The eyes of the penned dogs glistened like green lanterns—one pair, another, a third… a whole stream of them. Lonely autumn insects set up a desolate racket. A night watchman clomped down the cobblestone street in oiled boots with wooden soles, clapper beats mixed with the clangs of a gong—it was already the third watch. The third, late-night, watch in a city where everyone slept, everyone but me and the pigs and the dogs and, I’m sure, my dieh.

Kip kip kip, a rat was gnawing on the wooden chest. It scampered off when I threw a whiskbroom at it. Then I heard the faint sound of beans rolling across a table in my gongdieh’s room. I later discovered that the old wretch was counting human heads, one bean for each detached head. Even at night the old degenerate dreamed of heads he had chopped off, that old reprobate… I see him raise the devil’s-head sword and bring it down on the nape of my dieh’s neck; the head rolls down the street, chased by a pack of kids who kick it along until it rolls into our yard after hopping up the gate steps in an attempt to escape. It then circles the yard, chased by a hungry dog. Experience has told Dieh’s head that when the dog gets too close—which it does several times—the queue in back lashes it in its eye, producing yelps of pain as it runs in circles. Now free of the dog, the head starts rolling again and, like a large tadpole, swims along, its queue trailing on the surface, a tadpole’s tail…

The clapper and gong sounding the fourth watch startled me out of my nightmare. I was damp with cold sweat, and many hearts—not just one—thudded against my chest. My gongdieh was still counting beans, and now I knew how the old wretch was able to intimidate people: his body emitted breaths of shuddering cold that could be felt at great distances. In only six months he had turned his room, with its southern exposure, into an icy tomb—so gloomy the cat dared not enter, not even to catch mice. I was reluctant to step inside, since it made me break out in gooseflesh. But Xiaojia went in whenever he could and, like a snotty three-year-old, stuck close to his storytelling dieh. He hated to leave that room, even to come to my bed during the hottest days of the year, in effect switching the roles of parent and spouse. In order to keep unsold meat from going bad, he actually hung it from the rafters in his dieh’s room. Did that make him smart? Or stupid? On those rare occasions when my gongdieh went out, even snarling dogs ran off as he passed, whining piteously from the safety of corners. Tall tales about the old man were rampant: people said that if he laid a hand on a cypress tree, it shuddered and began to shed its leaves. I was thinking about my dieh, Sun Bing. Dieh, you pulled off something grand this time, like An Lushan screwing the Imperial Concubine Yang Guifei, or Cheng Yaojin stealing gifts belonging to the Sui Emperor and suffering grievously for it. I had thoughts of Qian Ding, our magistrate, who had claimed success at the Imperial Examination, a grade five official, almost a prefect, what’s known as a County Magistrate; but to me, this gandieh, my so-called benefactor, was a double-dealing monkey monster. The adage goes, “If you won’t do it for the monk, then do it for the Buddha; if not for the fish, then for the water.” You turned your back on the three years I shared your bed. How many pots of my heated millet spirits did you drink during those three years, how many bowls of my fatty dog meat did you eat, and how many of my Maoqiang arias swirled in your head? Hot millet spirits, fatty dog meat, and me lying beside you. Magistrate, I waited on you with more care than any emperor has known. Magistrate, I presented you with a body silkier than the finest Suzhou satin and sweeter than Cantonese sugar melon, all for your dissolute pleasure; now, after all the pampering and the voyages into an erotic fairyland, why will you not let my dieh go free? Why did you team up with those German devils to seize him and burn down our village? Had I known you were such an unfeeling, unrighteous bastard, I’d have poured my millet spirits into the latrine, fed my fatty dog meat to the pigs, and sung my arias to a brick wall. And as for my body, I’d have given that to a dog…

———— 2 ————

With one last frenetic banging of the watchman’s clappers, dawn broke. I climbed down off the kang, dressed in new clothes, and fetched water to wash up, then applied powder and rouge to my face and oiled my hair. After taking a well-cooked dog’s leg out of the pot, I wrapped it in a lotus leaf and put it in my basket, then walked out the door and down the cobblestone road as the moon settled in the west. I was headed to the yamen prison, where I’d gone every day since my dieh’s arrest. They would not let me see him. Damn you, Qian Ding; in the past, if I went three days without bringing you some dog meat, you sent that little bastard Chunsheng to my door. Now you are hiding from me; you have even posted guards. Musketeers and archers who once bowed and scraped when I arrived now glare at me with looks of supercilious arrogance. You even let four German soldiers threaten me with bayonets when I approached the gate with my basket. Their faces told me they meant business. Qian Ding, oh, Qian Ding, you turncoat, your illicit relations with foreigners have made me angry enough to take my grievance to the capital and accuse you of eating my dog meat without paying and of forcing yourself upon a married woman. Qian Ding, I will do what I must in the name of justice, and I will strip that tiger skin from your body to reveal what a heartless, no-good scoundrel you are.

Reluctantly I left the yamen, and as I walked away, I heard those little bastards having a good laugh at my expense. Little Tiger, you ungrateful dog, have you forgotten how you and your damnable father got down on your knees and kowtowed to me? If I hadn’t spoken up for you, do you think a common little sandal peddler could have enjoyed the lucrative benefits of a yamen guard? And you, Little Shun, a common beggar who sought warmth from a cook stand in the dead of winter, if I hadn’t put in a good word for you, do you think you would now be one of his select archers? I let Military Inspector Li Jinbao kiss me and feel my bottom and District Jailer Su Lantong feel my bottom and kiss me, all for you two. How dare you make fun of me! Dogs think they are better than humans; well, you dog bastards, if a curing rack fell over, I would not be tempted by the meat, nor pay for spirits even if I were falling-down drunk. I will be back on my feet one day, and when I am, I will make sure that each of you gets what is coming to him.

I put the wicked yamen behind me and walked home along the same cobblestone street. Dieh, you old fool, as you moved from your forties into your fifties, instead of leading a Maoqiang troupe down city streets and country roads to sing of emperors, kings, generals, and ministers, or playing the roles of worthy scholars and beautiful maidens, toying with star-crossed lovers, earning a lot or a little, dining on spoiled cat and rotting dog, drinking strong spirits and rice wine, and when your belly was full, spending time with no-account friends, scaling cold walls to sleep in someone’s warm bed, enjoying your pleasures, big and small, and living as if in a fairyland, you decided to strut around saying whatever popped into your head: things a highwayman would not say found voice with you, and things no bandit would dare try were for you a challenge. You offended yayi and you provoked the County Magistrate. Even when your backside was beaten till it bled, you refused to bow your head and admit defeat. You challenged a foe and lost your beard, like a plucked rooster or a fine horse without a tail. When you could no longer sing opera, you opened a teashop, a move that promised a peaceful life. But you had to let your wife go off by herself and court disaster. A man laid his hands on her body, and that should have been the end of it; but you could not swallow your anger, as an ordinary citizen would have done. As they say, a loss suffered is a benefit delayed, and patience is a virtue. You succumbed to your anger and clubbed a German engineer to the ground, bringing a monstrous calamity down on your head. Even the Emperor fears the Germans, but not you. So, thanks to you, the village was bathed in blood, with twenty-seven dead, including your young son and daughter, even their mother, your second wife. But you were not finished, for you ran to Southwest Shandong to join the Boxers of Righteous Harmony, then returned to set up a spirit altar and raise the flag of rebellion. A thousand rebels armed with crude firearms, swords, and spears sabotaged the foreigners’ rail line with arson and murder. You called yourself a hero. Yet in the end, a town was destroyed, civilians lay dead, and you wound up in a jail cell, beaten black and blue… my poor benighted dieh, with what did you coat your heart? What possessed you? A fox spirit? Maybe a weasel phantom stole your soul. So what if the Germans wanted to build a railroad that ruined the feng shui of Northeast Gaomi Township and blocked our waterways? The feng shui and waterways are not ours alone, so why did you have to lead the rebellion? This is what it has come to: the bird in front gets the buckshot; the king of thieves is first to fall. As the adage has it, “When the beans are fried, everyone eats; but if the pot is broken, you suffer the consequences alone.” What you did this time, Dieh, sent shock waves all the way to the Imperial Court and outraged the Great Powers. People say that Shandong Governor Yuan Shikai himself was carried into the county yamen in his eight-man palanquin last night, and that the Jiaozhou Plenipotentiary rode his foreign charger in through the yamen gate, a blue-steel Mauser bolt-action rifle slung over his back. The archer Sun Huzi—Bearded Sun—who stood guard at the gate, tried to stop him, for which he was rewarded with a taste of the foreign devil’s whip. He slunk out of the way, but not before a gash the width of his finger had opened up on his fleshy ear. This time, Dieh, the odds are stacked against you, and that gourd-like head of yours will soon hang at the yamen entrance for all to see. Even if Qian Ding, Eminence Qian, were of a mind to free you as a favor to me, Governor Yuan Shikai would not permit it. And if he wanted to free you, Plenipotentiary von Ketteler would not allow it. Your fate is no longer in your hands, Dieh.

With the red sun before me, and my mind a jumble of thoughts, I trotted down the cobblestone road, heading east, enveloped in aromatic waves from the dog’s leg in my basket. Puddles of bloody water dotted the roadway, and in my trance-like state I saw Dieh’s head rolling down the street, singing an aria on the way. For him, Maoqiang opera was the bait to attract a wife. He turned a minor musical form that had never quite caught on into a major one. His voice, soft and pliable, like watermelon pulp, captivated scores of Northeast Gaomi Township beauties, including my late niang, who married him solely on the strength of his voice. One of the township’s true beauties, she even turned down a marriage proposal on behalf of Provincial Licentiate Du, preferring to follow my impoverished dieh, the opera singer, wherever he went… Licentiate Du’s hired hand, Deaf Zhou, was walking my way with a load of water, bent over by the weight, his red neck stretched forward as far as it would go. His white hair was a fright, his face dotted with crystalline beads of sweat. He was panting from the exertion, taking big, hurried strides, splashing water over the sides of his buckets that formed liquid beads on the road stones. All of a sudden, Dieh, I saw your head in Deaf Zhou’s bucket, where the water had turned into blood that filled my nostrils with its hot, rank odor, the sort of smell that bursts from the split bellies of the dogs and pigs my husband, Zhao Xiaojia, butchers. Not just rank, but a foul stench. Of course, Deaf Zhou had no way of knowing that seven days later, when he went to the site of my dieh’s execution to listen to a Maoqiang aria, a bullet from a German devil’s Mauser would rip open his belly and release guts that slithered out like an eel.

When we passed on the street, he strained to look up and greeted me with an ugly smirk. Even a wooden-headed deaf man is audacious enough to smirk at me, Dieh, which can only mean there is no way you can escape death this time, not even if His Imperial Majesty—forget about the likes of Qian Ding—were to come to stop it. I am discouraged, of course I am, but unwilling to give up. “You hit the tree whether there are dates or not; you treat a dead horse as if it were alive.” If I had to guess, I would say that at that moment Magistrate Qian was with Governor Yuan, who had come to the yamen from Jinan, and Clemens von Ketteler, who had ridden over from Qingdao, all lying on an opium bed in the guest house to enjoy a pipeful, so I decided to wait till Yuan and the foreigner left before taking my dog’s leg into the yamen. If they would let me see the Magistrate, I was sure I could get him to listen to me, for at that moment he would not be Magistrate Qian, but Creepy Eminence Qian, who keeps circling me. What frightens me, Dieh, is that they will transport you to the capital in a prison van. We can deal with them so long as they carry out the sentence here in the county. We’ll find a beggar to take your place, what they call stealing beams and changing pillars, to manage a bit of trickery. You were so mean to my niang, I should not be trying to save your skin; once you are dead and buried, you can never hurt another woman. But you are my dieh. Without heaven there can be no earth, without an egg there can be no chicken, without feelings there can be no opera, and without you there could be no me. Tattered clothes can be replaced, but I have only one dieh. The Temple of the Matriarch is up ahead, and I rush to prostrate myself at the Buddha’s feet. When you are sick, any doctor will do. I will beg the Matriarch to display her powers and extract you from the jaws of death.

The Temple of the Matriarch was eerily dark, too murky to see a thing, but I heard bats flying around, their wings flapping against the rafters—oh, maybe they were swallows, not bats, yes, that’s what they were, swallows. Slowly my eyes adapted to the darkness, and I saw a dozen beggars lying on the floor in front of the Matriarch. My head reeled from the stink of urine, farts, and spoiled food; I nearly retched. Revered Matriarch of Sons and Grandsons, how you must suffer, forced to live with these wild tomcats. Like snakes emerging from their hibernation, they stretched their stiff bodies and got lazily to their feet, one after the other. Zhu Ba—Zhu the Eighth—the white-haired, red-eyed beggar chief, made a face and fired a gob of spit my way.

“Bad omen, bad omen, truly bad omen!” he shouted. “This rabbit’s a female!”

His motley pack followed his lead and spat at me, then shouted in unison:

“Bad omen, bad omen, truly bad omen! This rabbit’s a female!”

A red-bottomed monkey was on my shoulder like a bolt of lightning, frightening two and a half of my three souls right out of my body, and by the time I gathered my wits, the little bastard had reached into my basket and stolen my dog’s leg. It scampered over to an incense table and in a flash was perched on the Matriarch’s shoulder. All that movement produced jangles from the chain around its neck, while its tail swept up clouds of dust that made me sneeze—ah-choo! The damned, stinking monkey, as much human as beast, perched on the Matriarch’s shoulder and bared its teeth as it gnawed noisily on the dog’s leg, making a mess of the Matriarch’s face with its greasy paws. But she bore it meekly, without complaint, merciful and benevolent. If the Matriarch was powerless to control a monkey, how could she possibly save my dieh’s life?

Dieh, oh, Dieh, your bluster knew no bounds, like a weasel on a camel, the biggest mate it could find. You have forged such a monstrous calamity that even the Old Buddha, Empress Dowager Cixi, knows your name, and Kaiser Wilhelm himself has been told what you have done. For an ordinary, worthless opera singer who haunted city streets and country roads to put food in his belly, you now know that your life did not pass through the world unnoticed. The opera lyric says: “Better to live three days and go out in a blaze of glory than to live a thousand years as a timid soul.” You sang on the stage for most of your life, Dieh, acting out other people’s stories. This time you were determined to insert yourself into the drama; you acted and acted, until you yourself became the drama.

The beggars surrounded me. Some held out rotting arms oozing with pus; others exposed their ulcerated midriffs. Catcalls and jeers rose from their ranks, a cacophony of bizarre sounds, some loud, some soft: songs, calls to the dead, wolf bays, donkey brays, every sound imaginable, all tangled, like feathers on a chicken.

“Help me, Dog-Meat Xishi, please, Sister Zhao, be charitable. Hand over a couple of coppers now, and you’ll find two silver dollars on your way home… if you refuse, I won’t worry, for in this life you’ll be sorry…”

All the time they were filling the temple with their horrid noise, those dogshit bastards pinched me on the thigh or squeezed my bottom or manhandled my breasts… groping here and fondling there, whatever they could do to have their way with me. I tried to get away, but they grabbed my arms and held me around the waist, so I threw myself at Zhu Ba. “Zhu Ba,” I said, “Zhu Ba, let this be between you and me.” Well, he picked up a willow switch and poked me in the back of the knee, dropping me to the floor. With a smirk, he said:

“When a fat pig comes to your door, you’d be a fool not to kill and eat it. Boys,” he said, “Magistrate Qian might feast on the meat, but you can have a taste of the soup.”

The beggars piled onto me and pulled my pants down. Out of desperation, I said, “Zhu Ba, you dog-shit bastard, a true burglar does not wait for a fire. You may not care, but my dieh was imprisoned by Qian Ding, and now has a date with the executioner.” He rolled his pus-filled eyes.

“Who is your dieh?” he asked.

“Zhu Ba,” I said, “your eyes are open, yet you pretend to be asleep. How could you not know who he is, when all of China knows? He is Sun Bing, from Northeast Gaomi Township, the Sun Bing who sings Maoqiang opera, the Sun Bing who pried up railroad tracks, the Sun Bing who led the fight between local residents and the German devils!” Zhu Ba rose up, cupped his hands in front of his chest, and said:

“Do not take offense, Elder Sister; I did not know. We were aware that Qian Ding was your gandieh, but not that Sun Bing was your real dieh. Qian Ding is a no-good bastard; your dieh is a hero who courageously stood up to the foreign devils, pitting sword against sword and gun against gun. How we envy him. If there is anything you need from us, do not hesitate to ask. On your knees, boys, and kowtow to the fair lady as an act of contrition.”

As one, the gang of beggars knelt down and kowtowed to me, banging their heads on the floor, which marked their foreheads with dust.

“Great blessings for Elder Sister, great blessings!” they shouted in unison.

Even the monkey crouching on the Matriarch’s shoulder tossed away the dog’s leg and bounded headlong to the floor, where, in imitation of the men, it kowtowed to me in its own strange way, to my delight.

“Boys,” Zhu Ba announced, “tomorrow we deliver several dog’s legs to the fair lady.”

“That is not necessary,” I said.

“Your generosity is appreciated,” said Zhu Ba, “but these boys can catch a dog faster than they can pluck a flea out of their pants.”

The beggars laughed, some revealing yellow teeth and others toothless gums, and I was struck by the feeling that these were decent men who lived simple yet interesting lives. Sunlight burst in through the temple entrance, its red, warm rays lighting up the smiles on the beggars’ faces. My nose began to ache; hot tears filled my eyes.

“Elder Sister, do you want us to break him out of jail?”

“No,” I said, “that you cannot do. My dieh is no run-of-the-mill case, and the prison gate is guarded not only by yamen soldiers, but by armed Germans as well.”

“Hou Xiaoqi,” Zhu Ba said, “go check things out. Report back with anything you hear.”

“Understood!” Hou replied as he picked up a bronze gong that was lying in front of the Matriarch. Then he strapped on a sack and whistled. “Come along with your papa, my boy.” The monkey leaped onto his shoulder, and Hou Xiaoqi walked out of the temple banging his gong and singing, the monkey riding on his shoulders. I looked up at the Matriarch, whose body exuded ancient airs, and whose face, like a silver plate, was beaded with sweat. She was making her presence known; she was telling me something! Use your power, Matriarch, to protect my dieh!

———— 3 ————

I returned home full of hope. Xiaojia was already up and was out in the yard sharpening his knife. He smiled at me, a warm, friendly greeting. I returned the smile, equally warm and friendly. After he tested the point of the knife on his finger and found it still not sharp enough, he went back to work—zzzp zzzp. He was wearing only a singlet; the exposed skin showed off his taut muscles, like cloves of garlic, a powerful man with a patch of black chest hair. I walked inside, where my gongdieh was sitting in a sandalwood armchair made unique by a dragon inlaid with gold filaments; he’d had it sent over from the capital. He was resting, eyes closed, and softly muttering as he fingered the sandalwood beads of his rosary, and I could not tell whether he was reciting a Buddhist sutra or mouthing curses. The room had a gloomy feel, with faint streams of sunlight filtering in through the latticed window. One of those sunbeams, bright like gold or silver, lit up his gaunt face: sunken eyes, a high nose bridge, and a tightly shut mouth that sliced above his chin like a knife. No hairs decorated his short upper lip or his long chin. No wonder there was talk that he was a eunuch who had escaped from the Imperial Court. His hair had thinned out so much he could make a queue only by adding black thread. His eyes slitted open, sending icy rays my way. “You’re up, Gongdieh,” I said. He nodded without interrupting the fingering of his beads.

A routine had developed over the months for me to groom his queue with an ox-horn comb, a task ordinarily performed by a maidservant, which we did not have. That was not something daughters-in-law were expected to do, and if word had gotten out, rumors of an incestuous relationship would have swirled. But something the old man knew put me at his mercy, and if he wanted me to comb his hair, I did so. In fact, it was I who had started the routine. One morning soon after his arrival, as he struggled with a comb with missing teeth, his son, my husband, went up to do it for him.

“Dieh,” he said as he worked, “I have sparse hair, and as a boy I once heard Niang say that most of it had fallen out from scabies. Is that why yours is so sparse?”

My idiot husband’s clumsy hands forced a grimace onto the old man’s face. He was lucky enough to have a son willing to comb his hair, though his head was being scraped like a debristled hog. I had just returned from Magistrate Qian’s and was in a decent mood, so to make them happy, I said, “Here, let me do that.” By adding black threads to the scant few strands of hair, I gave him a nice thick queue, and when I was finished, I handed him a mirror. He pulled the thing around front—half hair, half threads—and the gloomy look in his eyes gave way to glistening tears. It was a rare event, to say the least. Xiaojia dabbed at his father’s eyes.

“Are you crying, Dieh?” he asked.

The old man shook his head.

“The Empress Dowager had a eunuch whose only task was to comb Her hair,” he said, “but She never used him. That responsibility She handed to Her favorite eunuch, Li Lianying.” I had no idea why he was telling us this, but Xiaojia, who was besotted by anything having to do with Peking, begged him to say more. Ignoring his son, the old man handed me a silver certificate.

“Go into town and have some nice clothes made, Daughter-in-law. That’s the least I can do considering how you’ve looked after me these past few days.”

The next morning, Xiaojia woke me out of a sound sleep. “What are you doing?” I snapped.

“Get up,” he said with uncharacteristic boldness. “My dieh is waiting for you to comb his hair.”

This unexpected news made me very uncomfortable. The door to goodness is easy to open, they say, and hard to close. What did he expect of me? You are not the Empress Dowager, old wretch, and I am not Li Lianying. For the favor of having those few scraggly strands of washed-out, smelly dog hair combed out one time, you can thank eight generations of your pious ancestors. But like a cat that’s had a taste of fish, an old bachelor who’s had a taste of the good life, you can’t get enough. Did you really think that a five-ounce silver certificate was all you needed to buy my favors? Hah! Ponder for a moment who you are and who I am. I climbed down off the kang, boiling mad and of a mind to say exactly what I thought and teach him a lesson. But before I could open my mouth, the old wretch looked up and, as if talking to himself, said to the wall:

“I wonder who combs the County Magistrate’s hair for him.”

I shuddered. The old wretch was not human, I felt, but an invisible, all-knowing ghost. How else would he know that I combed Magistrate Qian’s hair? Having said what he wanted to say, he turned back around, sat up in his chair, and fixed his gloomy eyes on me. My anger suddenly gone, I meekly walked around and began combing his dog hair. And as I was doing that, I unconsciously thought about my gandieh’s nice black hair—sleek, glossy, fragrant. And when I grabbed hold of a queue that resembled nothing so much as a shedding donkey’s tail, my thoughts drifted to my gandieh’s heavy, fleshy queue, which seemed capable of moving all by itself. He could brush my body with that queue, from the top of my head down to my heels, gentle claws that burrowed into my heart and squeezed waves of seduction out of every pore.

I had no choice but to work the comb. It was time to drink the bitter brew of my own creation. Whenever I combed my gandieh’s hair, he began touching me, and before I had a chance to finish, our bodies were intertwined. I found it hard to believe that this old wretch was unmoved by my ministrations, and I was waiting for him to start climbing the pole. Old wretch, if you even try, I’ll make sure you can’t climb down once you’re up there. Yes, when that happens, you’ll start doing my bidding, and I’ll be damned if I’ll ever comb your hair again! Rumors swirled that the old wretch was in possession of a hundred thousand in silver certificates; sooner or later, he would have to bring it out for me to see. So I looked forward to the day when he would try to make the climb; but that day had yet to come. Still, I was not prepared to believe that there is a cat anywhere that does not like fish. Old wretch, we’ll see how long you can hold out. I loosened his queue and ran my comb through those soft, scraggly hairs. I was especially gentle that day, though it was a struggle not to vomit as my fingers touched the base of his ears and I pressed my breasts against the nape of his neck. “My dieh has been arrested,” I said, “and thrown in jail. With all the time you spent in the capital, and the reputation you enjoyed there, you can get him out.” He made no sound in response. He sat like a deaf mute, so with a gentle squeeze of his shoulder I repeated myself. Still no response. As the sun’s rays drifted by, they made the brass buttons on his brown silk Mandarin jacket shine, and then moved on to his hands, with which he unhurriedly fingered his sandalwood Buddhist beads. Pale and soft, those delicate hands seemed not to belong to someone of his sex and age. You could put a knife to my throat, and I still could not believe that they wielded an executioner’s sword. At least that is what I thought at the time; now I wasn’t so sure. I pressed myself even harder against him and said coyly, “Gongdieh, my dieh did something bad, but you, after all you’ve seen and done in the capital, you can do or say something to help him.” I squeezed his bony shoulder a second time and rested my full breasts on the nape of his neck as my lips formed a series of provocative sounds. When I used tricks like that on Qian Ding, Eminence Ding went limp and was ready to do whatever I asked. But the balding old wretch in front of me now was like an egg that could never be cooked; I could bounce my soft, supple breasts up and down in front of him or send enough seductive waves his way to submerge Gold Mountain Temple without getting a rise out of him. But then he abruptly stopped fingering the beads; I thought I saw those small, meaty hands begin to shake, and I was ecstatic. Have I finally gotten to you, you old wretch? A toad can hold up a bedpost only so long. I don’t believe you can keep those silver certificates hidden forever, and I don’t believe you will use my relationship with the County Magistrate to force me to comb your dog hair. Dieh, help me think of something. So I kept up the seductive act behind him, until, that is, I heard a contemptuous laugh, like the chilling hoot of an owl emerging from a graveyard deep in a dark woods on a moonless night. I froze. It felt as if ice ran through my veins, and all my thoughts and wishes flew off to I don’t know where. The old wretch, was he even human? Could a human being produce a laugh like that? No, he was not human; he was a demon. And so he must not be my gongdieh. In more than a dozen years with Xiaojia, I had never heard him say he had a dieh who lived in the capital. And he was not alone: our neighbors, too, who had seen much of the world and knew a thing or two, had never mentioned him. He could be a lot of things, but not my gongdieh. He and my husband looked nothing alike. Old baldy, you must be a beast in human form. Others might fear demons and spirits, but not the people in this family. I’ll have Xiaojia butcher the black dog out in the pen and keep its blood in a basin. Then, when you’re not looking, I’ll dump it over your bald pate to reveal your true form.

———— 4 ————

A light rain fell on Tomb-Sweeping Day; dirty gray clouds rolled lazily low in the sky as I walked out of town through South Gate, along with colorfully dressed young men and women. I was carrying an umbrella decorated with a copy of the painting Xu Xian Encounters a White Snake at West Lake, and I had oiled my hair and pinned it with a butterfly clip. I had lightly powdered my face and dabbed rouge on each cheek, had added a beauty mark at a spot between my eyebrows, and had painted my lips red. I was wearing a cerise jacket over green slacks, both of imported fabric. However terrible foreigners might be, their fabrics are first-rate. On my feet I wore full-sized cloth shoes whose green silk tops were embroidered with yellow Mandarin ducks floating amid pink lotus flowers. You people laugh at me because of my unbound feet, don’t you? Well, I’ll give you something to look at. I stole a glance at the quicksilver mirror, and there I saw a radiant, amorous beauty. That was someone even I could love, to say nothing of all those young men. Of course I was griefstricken over my dieh’s situation, but my gandieh once said that the deeper the sadness, the more important it was to put on a happy face and not give the impression of being a slave to your emotions. All right all right all right, take a look. Today this old madam is going to see how she stacks up against Gaomi’s city girls. I don’t care if it’s the daughter of the provincial licentiate or the apple of the Hanlin scholar’s eye, they cannot compete with one of my big toes. Big feet are the only things holding me back. When my niang died so young, there was no one at home to bind my feet, and it hurts me even to hear feet mentioned. But my gandieh says he loves big, natural feet, loves the natural feel of them, and whenever he is on top of me, he has me pummel his bare bottom with my heels.

“Big feet are best!” he shouts when I do that. “Big feet are best! Golden ingots, better than bound feet, those goat hooves…”

Back then, even though my dieh was playing with magical powers and had erected a spirit altar in Northeast Gaomi as part of his plan to engage the Germans in mortal combat, and even though his activities drove my gandieh to distraction, and even though he was depressed over the deaths of twenty-seven citizens, peace reigned in the town. The bloody events that had occurred in Northeast Township had had no effect on the big city. My gandieh, Eminence Qian, had built a swing set out of China fir on the grounds of the military academy outside South Gate, attracting boys and girls from all over town. The girls dressed in their finest; the boys combed and oiled their queues until they shone. Shrieks of joy and whoops of laughter filled the sky and were joined by the shouts of peddlers:

Candied——crabapples——!

Melon seeds——peanuts——!

After folding my umbrella, I made my way into the crowd and looked around. My eyes fell first on the young mistress of the Qi family, who was attended by a pair of maidservants. Renowned as someone who wrote especially well—verse and prose—she was splendidly dressed and resplendently jeweled. Too bad she had a long, horse-like face, pale as a salt flat, on which lay two anemic grassy clumps—her eyebrows. I also saw the daughter of Hanlin Scholar Ji, who was attended by four maidservants; she was reputed to be peerless in the art of embroidery and was a talented musician, proficient in instruments from the zither to the lute and balloon guitar. Sadly, she had a small nose and undersized ears that combined to make her look like a little bitch with tiny, toad-like eyes. The whores who walked out of Rouge Alley, on the other hand, laughed and wiggled like chimps and had a lively good time. After taking in everything around me, I held my head up proudly and threw out my chest, drawing approving stares from all the young scamps, who looked me over admiringly. Their mouths hung open like dark caves; slobber wetted their chins. I smiled and struck a pose. My dear boys, my little darlings, go home and enjoy your erotic dreams. Take a long look—this is my good deed for the day. Well, they stood there besotted for a while, and when they finally regained their senses, they let out a roar that made the ground tremble. Then came the lusty shouts:

“Dog-Meat Xishi, the best in Gaomi!”

“Look look look at that peach-blossom face and willow waist. The graceful neck of a mantis and the shapely legs of a white crane!”

“The top part is to die for; the bottom part will petrify you! Only Eminence Qian, with his strange obsession, can appreciate the big feet of a living fairy!”

Watch your tongues, boys. What you say by the roadside is heard in the grass. If someone reports you, you’ll be whisked inside the yamen to have your backsides turned to mush by forty swats of the paddle.

Go on, little monkeys, say what you want. I’m in no mood today to take offense. Who cares what you imps think as long as His Eminence likes what he sees? I’m here for the swings, not to listen to your silly talk. I know you’d just love to lap up my pee.

At the moment no one was using the swings, their thick, wet ropes swaying in the drizzle, waiting for me. I tossed away my umbrella, which was caught by a little monkey that ran up as I jumped forward, like a carp leaping out of the water. I grabbed the ropes, jumped a second time, and landed on the swing seat with both feet. Now you children will see the advantage of having big feet. “Hey, boys and girls,” I shouted, “open your eyes and take a lesson on the art of swinging. Coal looks clean compared to the face of the fat, clumsy girl who sat on the swing before me. A millstone is tiny compared to her backside, and water chestnuts are bigger than her feet. What was someone like that doing on a swing set? How mortifying! She looked like a lizard. What is a swing set, after all? It’s a moving stage for an actor to display her skills and show off her face; she’s a sampan riding the waves, she’s the wind of desire, the surge of seduction, the rage of passion, the epitome of lust. This is a chance for a woman to act the siren. Why do you think my gandieh chose this spot to build a swing set? Because of his devotion to the people? Hah! You think too highly of yourselves. I’ll tell you why. He built it for me, as my Qingming gift. Go ask him if you don’t believe me. I took dog meat to him last night, and after our frolic in bed, he put his arms around me and said, ‘Tomorrow is Qingming, my pet, my precious, and I have built you a swing set on the Southern Academy parade ground. I know you once played the sword-and-horse role, so go out there and put your feet to work. You might not make a splash for all of Shandong, but for my sake make one for all of Gaomi County. Let those commoners know that Qian’s little pet is special, another Hua Mulan! Let them know that big feet are better than bound ones, and that Qian will change prevailing customs by prohibiting the practice of binding women’s feet.’

“I said, ‘Gandieh, you have been so sad about what happened to my dieh. You are taking a risk by protecting him. And when you are unhappy, I am in no mood for entertainments.’ Well, he kissed my foot and said with an emotional sigh:

“’Meiniang, my dearest, I want to use Qingming to sweep all gloomy, inauspicious signs out of the county. The dead cannot be brought back to life, but the living have a right to a little gaiety. No one sympathizes with a grumbler, who winds up being the butt of jokes. But if you square your shoulders and get tough, tougher than everyone else, ready to take them on, you’ll have them where you want them. Writers will put you in their books; playwrights will write plays about you. So climb onto those swings and show them what you’re made of. Ten years from now, the repertoire of that Maoqiang opera of yours might well include a play called Sun Meiniang Raises Eyebrows on a Swing!’

“’I may not be able to do much, Gandieh,’ I said as I lifted his beard with my feet, ‘but I will not cause you embarrassment when I am on the swing.’”

Holding the ropes with both hands, I squatted down, bent my legs, and stood on the balls of my feet; then, sticking my rear end out and leaning forward, I threw out my chest, raised my head, and, with my midriff as a fulcrum, began to swing. I pulled the ropes back toward me and, feet on the seat, again threw out my chest and raised my head, pushing with my legs, bent at the knees. The metal rings cried out with urgency as my swing gained momentum, higher, faster, steeper, harder, deeper; the taut ropes sang like the wind; the rings made a fearful noise. I was transported to a fairyland; I felt like a bird soaring aloft, my arms transformed into wings, feathers sprouting on my chest. At the summit, the swing and my body hung in the air together, while tides of ocean waves surged through my heart—swelling high, then falling low, one wave hard upon another, foam gathering in the air. Big fish chasing little fish, little fish chasing shrimp. Waa waa waa waa… higher higher higher, not yet high enough, just a little higher, a little more… my body laid out horizontally, my face bumped into the soft yellow belly of a curious swallow; I felt as if I were lying on a cushiony pad woven of wind and rain, and when I reached the highest possible point, I bit a flower off the tip of the highest branch of the oldest and tallest apricot tree around. Shouts erupted on the ground below. I was carefree, I was relaxed and at ease, I had achieved the Tao, I was an immortal… and then, a breach in the dam, the waters retreated, waves returning to sea, taking foam with them; big fish tugged on little fish, little fish dragged shrimps, la la la la, all in retreat. I reached bottom, and then flew up again. My head pitched back between the twin ropes as they grew taut again and trembled in my hands, and I was nearly parallel to the ground. I could see fresh soil where purple sprouts of new grass were beginning to poke through. The apricot blossom was still between my teeth, its subtle fragrance filling my nostrils.

All the while I was having a frisky good time on the swing, my earthbound audience, especially all those sons and grandsons, those little hooligans, were as frenzied as I was. They ooh-ed on my way up and aah-ed on my way back down. “Ooh, there she goes! Aah, here she comes!” My clothes fluttered in the wind, carrying fine drops of rain—damp and cloyingly sweet, like wet cowhide—which filled my heart to overflowing. Sure, my dieh had gotten into a terrible fix, but a married daughter is like water splashed on the ground—it cannot be taken back. You will have to look out for yourself, Dieh, and I will do the same from here on out. I have a kind and simple husband at home, a man who can keep out the wind and the rain for me, and a powerful, affectionate, and entertaining lover outside the home. There is strong drink when I feel like it, meat when I want it, and no one can stop me from crying or laughing or flirting or causing a scene. That is the definition of happiness. It is the happiness that my devout, sutra-chanting, long-suffering niang made possible for me; it is the happiness that fate had in store for me. I thank the heavens for that. I thank the Emperor and Empress for that. I thank His Eminence Magistrate Qian for that. I thank my dull and peculiar husband, Xiaojia, for that. And I thank Magistrate Qian’s supernatural “club” for that. It is a rare treasure seldom found in heaven or on earth; it is the medicine that cures my ills.

———— 5 ————

A popular adage has it that “When the moon is full, the decline begins; when the river is high, water flows away. When someone is too happy, bad things happen; and when dogs feel good, they fight over shit.” While I was the center of attention on the swing, a mob from Northeast Gaomi Township, armed with shovels, pickaxes, pitchforks, carrying poles, wooden spears, and rakes, and led by my dieh, Sun Bing, was surrounding a railroad shed that housed German rail workers, killing many of the invaders’ lackeys, and taking three German soldiers hostage. After stripping the soldiers naked and tying them to scholar trees, they sprayed their faces with urine. Then they burned the wooden construction signs, dug up the tracks and dumped them into the river, and carried the railroad ties home to build pigsties. They also burned the shed to the ground.

At the height of my arc, above the public wall, I could see the warren of houses in town; I also saw the cobblestone street in front of the yamen and rows of tiled buildings in my gandieh’s official compound. I saw his four-man palanquin being carried out through the ceremonial gate, led by a black-clad yayi in a red cap who banged a gong to clear the way. He was followed by two rows of yayi dressed the same way, carrying tall poles with banners of his official insignia, sunshades, and fans. Two sword-bearing guards walked directly ahead of the chair, holding the shafts with one hand. The procession behind the chair included the secretaries of the six bureaus and personal servants. Three long and one short clangs of the gong were followed by impressive shouts; the palanquin barriers moved with swift, nimble steps, as if their legs had springs. The chair rose and fell rhythmically, like a boat tossed on ocean swells.

My gaze carried beyond the town, to the northeast, where the German-built rail line was crawling our way from Qingdao like an elongated insect with a crushed head, trying to squirm forward. A swarm of men on fields bursting with early spring green sprouts waved multicolored banners, heading for the railroad tracks. At the time, I did not know that my dieh was leading the rebellion; if I had, I would not have been so self-indulgent on the swing set. I watched as black smoke billowed from spots along the tracks, like dark trees on the move. Thudding sounds came on the wind.

My gandieh’s procession drew ever nearer to the city’s South Gate. The sound of the gong grew crisper by the minute, the shouted commands clearer. Banners hung low in the drizzle, like bloody dog pelts. I saw beads of sweat on the carriers’ faces and heard their labored breathing. People lined the street, heads bowed, afraid to make a sound or a false move. Even the notoriously vicious dog that belonged to Provincial Scholar Lu knew better than to bark. Anyone could see that my gandieh was a more intimidating presence than Mt. Tai, since even animals shied away from him. The buildup of heat in my heart was like a stove warming a decanter of wine. My dearest, thoughts of you have entered the marrow of my bones; you are steeping in a decanter of wine. I stood tall on the swing seat to give him an unobstructed view of my figure when he looked through the parted curtain.

From my perch I could see the black-haired mob—a ground-hugging cloud of humanity—though at that distance they all—man or woman, young or old—looked alike. I have to admit that the waving banners dazzled my eyes. You were all yelling and shouting—truth is, I couldn’t hear any of you, but I’d have been surprised if you weren’t shouting. My dieh was an opera singer, a second-generation Maoqiang Patriarch. Maoqiang had emerged from the masses as a minor form of popular drama, and prospered thanks to my dieh: it traveled north to Laizhou, south to Jiaozhou, west to Qingzhou, and east to Dengzhou. In all, it gained popularity in eighteen counties. When Sun Bing sang, women wept. He was always ready to shout something, so how could he not shout with such a martial following? This was too good a scene to miss. I pushed harder to get a better look. The nitwits on the ground, who assumed that I was merely putting on a show, were dancing joyously, all of them, dizzy with the thought that I was doing it for them. I was wearing only a thin garment that day, yet I was sweating—my gandieh liked to say that my sweat smelled of rose petals—and I knew that those two little darlings on my chest were in full view. With my bottom sticking out in back and my breasts jutting out in front, I gave those lecherous little devils an eyeful. Cool breezes found their way under my clothes and made little eddies in my armpits. There was a mixture of sounds—of wind and rain, of peach blossoms opening and drooping heavily with rainwater. Shouts from the yayi, the urgent cries of the metal rings, the hawking of peddlers, and the lowing of calves formed a chorus. It had turned into a lively Qingming Festival, a flourishing third day of the third month. White-haired old women burned spirit money in an ancient cemetery in the southwest corner; dust devils curled the smoke straight up, little white arboreal columns that merged with the stand of dark trees. My gandieh’s procession finally passed through South Gate and immediately caught the attention of the gawking crowd below. “His Eminence the County Magistrate is coming!” someone shouted. As the procession made a full turn around the parade ground, the yayi perked up, throwing out their chests and sucking in their guts, eyes staring straight ahead. Gandieh, I see your feathered cap through the gaps in your bamboo curtain, and I see your square, ruddy face. You have a long beard, so straight and wiry-stiff it will not float if immersed in water. That beard is what binds our hearts together, the red silk thread cast down by the man in the moon. If not for your and my father’s beards, where would you have found such a sweet melon as me?

Once the yayi had paraded their prestige, which, in truth, came from you, they set the palanquin down at the edge of the parade ground. Flowers bloomed in profusion on peach trees bordering the ground, producing a fine pink mist in the drizzle. A yayi with a sword on his hip parted the curtain to let you emerge from the palanquin. You straightened your feathered hat, shook the wide sleeves of your official robe, clasped your hands, brought them up to your chest, and bowed to us all.

“Local elders,” he said in a booming voice, “citizens, a joyous holiday to you!”

That was just an act. I thought back to when you and I were frolicking in the Western Parlor, and could barely keep from laughing out loud. But when I thought of all you had suffered this spring, I was on the verge of tears. I stopped swinging and, steadying myself with the ropes, stood still on the seat. My lips were pursed, my eyes moist, my heart assailed by waves of emotion—bitter, acrid, sour, and sweet—as I watched my gandieh put on a show for the monkeys.

“In this county we have long promoted the planting of trees,” he said, “especially peach trees——”

His lackey from the Southern Society, Junior Officer Li, cried out:

“His Eminence sets an example for us all; he is first in all things. On this drizzly Qingming day, he has come to plant a peach tree to bring blessings to the common people…”

My gandieh greeted this interruption with a stern look at Li, then continued:

“Citizens, go back to your homes and plant peach trees, in front and in back, and on the borders of your fields. Citizens, as the poet reminds us, ‘Spend less time meddling in others’ affairs and idling in the marketplace, and more on reading good books and planting trees.’ In fewer than ten years, Gaomi County will enjoy wonderful days. The poem also says, ‘Thousands of trees with peach-red flowers, the people sing and dance, celebrating world peace.’ ”

After intoning the lines of poetry, he picked up a shovel and began to dig. Just as his shovel hit a buried rock and sent sparks flying, Chunsheng, who hardly ever left his side, rolled up to him like a dirt clod and fell frantically to one reverent knee.

“Laoye,” he said breathlessly, “it’s bad, really bad.”

“Bad?” my gandieh demanded. “What’s bad?”

“The unruly citizens of Northeast Township are in revolt!”

Without a word, my gandieh dropped the shovel, shook his sleeves, and climbed back into his palanquin. The bearers picked it up and ran with it on their shoulders, followed by a contingent of yayi, who stumbled along like a pack of homeless curs.

Gripped by ineffable dejection, I watched the procession head away from me. Gandieh, you have ruined a perfectly good holiday. Listlessly I alighted from my perch and walked into the clamorous crowd, where I was manhandled by little imps as I tried to decide whether to lose myself in the grove of peach trees and all those flowers or go home and prepare some dog meat. Before I could make up my mind, Xiaojia, my dullard husband, strode vigorously up to me, his face beet red, eyes wide, lips trembling.

“My, my dieh,” he stammered, “my dieh is back…”

Strange, strange, how very strange: a gongdieh has dropped into our laps. I thought your dieh was long dead. Hasn’t it been more than twenty years since you heard from him?

Xiaojia was sweating profusely. “He, he’s back,” he stammered. “He’s really back.”

———— 6 ————

Together with Xiaojia I sped toward home, and was soon gasping for breath. “How could a dieh just show up out of nowhere?” I asked. “He’s probably looking for a handout.” But I wanted to see what sort of goblin had just entered my life. If he was all right, well and good. But if he had a mind to upset me, or tried anything funny, I would break his legs and deliver him to the yamen, where, guilty or not, he’d get two hundred strokes with a paddle, leaving his backside bloody and covered with his own filth. Then we’d see if he dared pass himself off as somebody’s dieh. Xiaojia stopped everyone we met along the way to say enigmatically:

“My dieh is back.”

And when it was obvious that they could make no sense of what he was talking about, he raised his voice:

“I have a dieh!”

Before we’d reached home, I spotted a horse-drawn carriage outside our front gate and a swarm of curious neighbors, including top-knotted youngsters who were threading their way in and out of the crowd. The horse was a young, dark red, overfed stallion. The accumulated dirt and grime on the vehicle gave ample evidence of the distance it had traveled. I received the strangest looks when the people spotted me, their eyes flashing like graveyard will-o’-the-wisps. Aunty Wu, who owned a general store, greeted me with a false display of good wishes:

“Congratulations!” she said. “’Fortunate people live a life of ease; the wretched among us spend their life on their knees,’ as the adage has it. The god of wealth favors the rich, that’s for sure. You were already the envy of others, and now heaven has sent you a super-rich gongdieh. Good Mrs. Zhao, a nice big porker has landed at your door, while your stable is crowded with horses and mules. You are blessed, truly blessed!”

I glared at the woman, with her piss pot of a mouth, and said, “Aunty Wu, does that mouth of yours ever stop spouting gibberish? If your family is short a dieh, you can have this one. I certainly don’t cherish him.”

“Do you mean it?” she said, with a false laugh.

“Yes, and anyone who doesn’t take me up on it is the product of a horse-humping donkey!”

Angered by the argument, Xiaojia put a stop to it:

“I’ll screw the life out of any woman who tries to take my dieh away!”

Aunty Wu’s flat face turned bright red. Known in the neighborhood as an inveterate gossip and rumormonger, she knew all about my dealings with Magistrate Qian, and was so full of sour jealousy that her teeth itched. After being humiliated by me and cursed by Xiaojia until her bunghole itched, she stormed off in a huff, muttering to herself. I walked up the stone steps and turned back to the crowd. “Come on in, good neighbors, for a really good look. If you don’t want to, then get your dung beetle asses out of here and stop being so damned nosy!” Soundly embarrassed, they left. I knew they spoke of me in glowing terms to my face and gnashed their teeth, cursing me, behind my back. They’d have liked nothing better than to see me singing in the street to fill my belly. Appealing to their better instincts and treating them with courtesy was a waste of time.

Once inside the yard, I commented loudly, “I wonder which heavenly spirit has dropped into our world? Let’s see, maybe I can broaden my mind.” This was no time to be genteel. I needed to give him a firm warning, whether he was a real gongdieh or not, to let him know who he was dealing with and to keep him from trying to lord it over me in the future. A gaunt old man with a scrawny queue was bent over carefully dusting a purple sandalwood armchair with gold inlay and a silk pad. The wood was so highly polished and dust-free I could have seen my reflection in it. He straightened up slowly when he heard my blustery entrance, turned, and sized me up coolly. Mother dear! His sunken, furtive eyes were colder than the steel of Xiaojia’s butcher knife. My husband stumbled across the yard and, with a foolish laugh, said ingratiatingly:

“This is my wife, Dieh. Niang made the match for me.”

Without even looking at me, the old wretch emitted a throaty, indecipherable noise.

Just then, the carriage driver, who had eaten a big meal and washed it down at Wang Sheng’s restaurant across the way, walked into the yard to say goodbye. The old wretch handed him a silver certificate and gestured politely to show his gratitude.

“Have a safe trip, driver,” he said in fine-sounding cadence.

Well, the old wretch spoke the standard Peking dialect! Like Magistrate Qian. When the driver saw the amount printed on the bill, his scrunched-up little face blossomed like a flower. He bowed deeply, not once but three times, and repeated rapidly:

“Thank you, sir, thank you, sir, thank you, sir…”

So, old wretch, you have an interesting background! None but a rich man hands out money that freely, and those bulges inside your jacket must hide wads more. Certificates worth a thousand ounces? Maybe even ten thousand! All right, then. Anyone with breasts can be my niang, and anyone with money can be my dieh. I got down on my hands and knees to kowtow with a good, loud banging of my head.

“Your obedient daughter-in-law respectfully welcomes the father of her husband!” I intoned in a stage voice.

Xiaojia could not follow my lead fast enough. He banged his head on the ground but said nothing, for he was too busy chortling.

The old wretch, thrown off balance by my excessive show of courtesy, reached out—I was struck dumb by the sight of his hands; what strange hands they were—as if he wanted to help me to my feet. But he did not; nor did he assist his son. He just said:

“No need for that. After all, we’re family.”

Stung by the snub, I stood up, and so did Xiaojia. The old wretch reached under his jacket, which made my heart race in wild anticipation of being rewarded with a handful of silver certificates. It seemed to take him forever to find what he was looking for, but he finally produced a small jade-green object, which he held out to me.

“I don’t have much to give you on this, our first meeting,” he said. “So take this little bauble.”

As I accepted the gift, I parroted his earlier comment: “There’s no need to give me anything. After all, we’re family.” It felt heavy in my hand, but supple and smooth, and it was so green I couldn’t help but like it. In all the years I’d slept with Magistrate Qian, I’d received much cultural nurturing, until I no longer considered myself to be a vulgar person, so I knew at once that this was no common gift, but I had no idea what it was.

Xiaojia clicked his tongue and gazed mournfully at his father, who merely smiled.

“Head down!” he commanded.

Xiaojia complied without a whimper. The old wretch hung a glistening silver pendant on a red string around his son’s neck. Xiaojia showed it off to me, but when I saw that it was a longevity talisman, I couldn’t help but curl my lip. Why, the old wretch treats his son like an infant on his hundredth day.

Sometime later, I showed my first-meeting gift to my gandieh, who recognized it as an archery thumb guard, one carved from the finest jade. More valuable than gold, such a prized object was something that only members of the Imperial family and the nobility could afford. With his left hand on my breast, he held the thumb guard in his right and said admiringly, “This is wonderful, truly wonderful.” When I told him he could have it, he replied, “No, this is yours. ‘A superior man does not take someone’s prized object.’” “But why would a woman consider an archery thumb guard a prized object?” I said. In an uncharacteristically prudish tone, he waved me off. “Do you want it or don’t you?” I asked him. “If you don’t, I’ll smash it to pieces.” “Aiya, my little treasure,” he blurted out, “don’t you dare. I’ll take it, I’ll take it!” He slipped it over his thumb and held it out, so engrossed in looking at it that he forgot the important business of fondling my breast. But later, he draped a red string with a jade bodhisattva around my neck. I took an immediate liking to that, a woman’s gift. I tugged on his beard. “Thank you, my fine gandieh.” He laid me down and started riding me like a horse. “Meiniang,” he gasped, “Meiniang, I’m going to find out everything I can about this gongdieh of yours…”

———— 7 ————

With his gloomy, grim laughter as a backdrop, dizzying whiffs of sandalwood abruptly emerged from my gongdieh’s armchair, and the prayer beads in his hand and made my heart flutter. He was unmoved by my dieh’s plight, and my flirtatious moves were wasted on him. He stood up on shaky legs and tossed away the prayer beads that virtually never left his hand, star-like flashes of light bursting from his eyes, a sign that something had either pleased him or struck fear in his heart. Those demonic small hands of his reached out to me as he muttered something under his breath, a look of deep anxiety in his eyes. The ferocity of his gaze was gone, completely gone.

“Wash my hands,” he pleaded, “I need to wash my hands…”

I ladled cold water from the vat into our brass basin and watched as he thrust his hands into it. A hissing sound escaped from between his lips, but he gave no hint of what that meant. His hands were as red as hot cinders, his delicate fingers curling inward like the feet of a young red-legged rooster. I was struck by the image of fingers of molten metal, underscored by the sizzle of the water in the basin, which had begun to bubble and steam. I had never seen anything like it, and did not expect to ever see it again. Immersing his feverish hands in cold water obviously brought soothing comfort to him, since he seemed to sag and go limp all over; his eyes were slitted, and every intake of air whistled through his teeth. The way he held his breath each time was the sign of an opium addiction, the sort of otherworldly languor that only an old donkey like him could manage. It all seemed quite sinister, and unexpected. He was, it was now clear, the embodiment of an evil spirit, a worrisome old degenerate.

Once his self-indulgence had run its course, he took his red hands out of the water and returned to his chair without drying them off. Now, however, instead of shutting his eyes, he kept them wide open and fixed on his hands to watch drops of water slide down his fingers to the ground. He was relaxed almost to the point of lethargy, physically spent but luxuriantly content… like my gandieh when he climbs off my body…

That was before I knew that he was a renowned executioner, and when all I could think about were the silver certificates tucked into his clothes. “Gongdieh, I said in as solicitous a tone as I could manage, “it seems I’ve made you comfortable. Well, I expect my dieh’s life to end either tonight or tomorrow morning, and given our family connection, won’t you help me think of something? Mull that over while I go inside and prepare a bowl of congee with forbidden rice and pig’s blood.”

I felt empty inside as I washed rice at the well. When I looked up, I saw the flying eaves of the towering City God Temple, where pigeons were cooing and crowding together, and I wondered what they found so interesting. The crisp clack of horse hooves resounded on the cobblestone road beyond the gate. Some German devils were riding by, their tall, rounded, feathered hats visible above the wall. The sight made my heart pound, since I was sure that my dieh was what was on their minds. Xiaojia, who by then had sharpened his butcher knife and readied the necessary tools, picked up a hooked Chinese ash pole and went into the sty, where he selected a black pig and quickly hooked it under the chin. Squeals tore from its mouth, and the bristles on its neck stood straight as it struggled to back up, its hind legs and rump flat on the ground, blood seeming to seep from its eyes. It was no match for Xiaojia, who hunkered down and pulled so hard that his feet sank at least three inches into the dirt, like a pair of hoes, as he backed up, one powerful step at a time, pulling the pig along like a plow, its feet digging furrows in the sty. In less time than it takes to tell, Xiaojia had pulled the pig up to the killing rack. Then, gripping the hooked pole in one hand and the pig’s tail in the other, he straightened up and, with a loud grunt, lifted a creature weighing two hundred jin up onto the rack, so disorienting it that it forgot to struggle—but not to squeal. Now that all four legs were sticking straight up, Xiaojia removed the hook from the pig’s chin and tossed it to the side, picking his razor-sharp butcher knife out of the blood trough in the same motion. Then—slurp—with the sort of casual indifference of slicing bean curd, he plunged his knife high in the pig’s chest. A second push and it was buried deep inside the animal, bringing an end to the squeals, which were replaced by moans that lasted only a moment. Now all that remained were the twitches—legs, skin, even the bristles. Xiaojia pulled the knife out and turned the pig over to let its blood spill into the trough below. Great quantities of bright, hot blood the color of red silk pulsed into the waiting trough.

The stench of fresh blood hung over the half acre of our courtyard, which was big enough to accommodate dog pens and pigsties, Chinese roses and peonies, plus a rack for curing meat, vats to hold fermented drink, and an open-air cook pit. The odor attracted blood-drinking bluebottle flies that danced in the air, a testament to their keen sense of smell.

Two yayi, attired in soft red leather caps, black livery secured around the middle with dark cloth sashes, and soft-soled boots with ridges down the middle, swords in scabbards on their hips, opened the gate. I knew they were constables, fast yayi from the yamen who tracked down criminals, but I did not know their names. Feeling a lack of self-assurance, since my dieh was in their jail, I smiled. Normally I would not have deigned to look their way, not at contemptuous toadying jackasses who were a scourge of the people. They returned my courtesy with nods and tiny smiles squeezed out of their fiendish faces. But only for a second. One of them reached under his tunic and pulled out a black bamboo tally, which he waved in the air and intoned somberly:

“We bring orders from His Eminence the County Magistrate to escort Zhao Jia to the yamen for questioning.”

Xiaojia came running up, bent humbly at the waist, still gripping his bloody butcher knife, and, with a bow, asked:

“What is it, Your Honors?”

With frosty looks, the yayi asked:

“Are you Zhao Jia?”

“I am Xiaojia; Zhao Jia is my dieh.”

“Where is your dieh?” one of the puffed-up yayi demanded.

“In the house.”

“Inform him that he is to accompany us to the yamen.”

I had taken all I was about to take from this pair of nasty dogs.

“My gongdieh never goes anywhere,” I said angrily. “What offense has he committed?”

My display of temper was not lost on them.

“Mistress of the Zhao home, we merely follow orders,” they said, looking for sympathy. “And we are only messengers. If he is guilty of an offense, we do not know what it is.”

“One moment, good sirs. Are you inviting my dieh to the yamen for a social visit?” Xiaojia asked, his curiosity bubbling over.

“How should we know?” the yayi said with a shake of his head and an enigmatic grin. “Maybe he’ll be treated to some nice dog meat and millet spirits.”

Of course I knew exactly what kind of dog filth and cow crap had come out of the little mutt’s yap: a not so subtle hint at what went on between Magistrate Qian and me. Xiaojia? How could a blubber-head like him have any idea what this was all about? He was only too happy to run inside.

I followed him in.

Qian Ding, you fucking dog, what are you up to? You arrest my dieh, but hide from me. Then early this morning, two of your lackeys show up to take my gongdieh away. The plot certainly thickens. First my own dieh, then my husband’s dieh, and now my gandieh, three diehs coming together in the Great Hall. I’ve sung the aria “Three Judges at Court,” but this is the first time I’ve heard of “Three Diehs at Court.” I doubt that you can stand being away from me for the rest of your life, damn you, and the next time I see you, I’m going to find out what you have in your bag of tricks.

Xiaojia wiped his oily, sweaty face with his sleeve and said excitedly:

“Good news, Dieh! The County Magistrate has invited you to the yamen for some millet spirits and dog meat!”

My gongdieh remained seated in his chair, his bloodless little hands resting squarely on the arms. He made not a sound, and I could not tell whether he was resting calmly or putting on a show.

“Say something, Dieh. The yayi are out in the yard waiting for you.” Xiaojia’s nerves were beginning to show. “Will you take me with you, Dieh? Seeing the Great Hall would be a real treat. All those times my wife went, she never once agreed to take me along…”

I jumped in to put a stop to what the buffoon was saying:

“Don’t listen to him, Gongdieh. Why would they invite you for a social visit? I’m sure they plan to detain you. Have you committed a crime?”

My gongdieh lazily opened his eyes and sighed.

“If I have,” he said, “it is what was expected of me. As they say, ‘Confront soldiers with generals and dam water with earth.’ There is nothing to get excited about. Go invite them in.”

Xiaojia turned and shouted out the door:

“Did you hear that? My dieh wants you to come in.”

With a hint of a smile, my gongdieh said:

“Good boy; that’s the right tone for people like that.”

So Xiaojia went outside and said to the yayi:

“Are you aware of the fact that my wife and Magistrate Qian enjoy a close relationship?”

“You foolish boy,” his dieh said, shaking his head in exasperation before fixing his gaze on me.

I watched as the smirking yayi pushed Xiaojia to the side, hands on the hilts of their swords, resolute and ruthless in their determination as they rushed into the room where we were talking.

My gongdieh opened his eyes a crack, barely wide enough for two chilling rays to escape and smother the two men with contempt. Then he turned his gaze to the wall and ignored the intruders.

After a quick exchange of looks that seemed to bespeak their embarrassment, one of them said officiously, “Are you Zhao Jia?”

He appeared to be asleep.

“My dieh is getting on in years and doesn’t hear so well,” Xiaojia said breathlessly. “Ask him again, but louder.”

So the fellow tried again:

“Zhao Jia,” he said more forcefully, “we are here by order of the County Magistrate to have you visit him in the yamen.”

“You go back and tell your Eminence Qian,” he replied unhurriedly, without looking at them, “that Zhao Jia has weak legs and aching feet and cannot answer the summons.”

That prompted another quick exchange of looks, followed by an audible snigger from one of the men. But he turned serious and, with a display of biting sarcasm, said:

“Maybe His Eminence ought to send his palanquin for you.”

“I think that would be best.”

This was met with an outburst of laughter.

“All right, fine,” they said. “You wait here for His Eminence to come in his palanquin.”

They turned and walked out, still laughing, and by the time they were in the yard, their laughter was uncontrollable.

Xiaojia followed them into the yard and said proudly:

“My dieh is really something, don’t you think? Everyone else is afraid of you, but not him.”

One look at Xiaojia set them off laughing again, this time so hard that they weaved their way out the gate. I could hear them out on the street. I knew why they were laughing, and so did my gongdieh.

But not Xiaojia, who came back inside and asked, clearly puzzled:

“Why were they laughing, Dieh? Did they drink a crazy old woman’s piss? Baldy Huang once told me that if you drink a crazy old woman’s piss, you can laugh yourself crazy. That must be what they did. The question is, which crazy old woman’s piss did they drink?”

The wretch replied, but for my benefit, not his son’s:

“Son,” he said, “a man must not underestimate himself. That is something your dieh learned late in life. Even if the Gaomi County Magistrate is a member of the Tiger group, someone who passed the Imperial Examination with distinction, what is he but a grade five County Magistrate whose hat bears the crystal symbol of office in front and a one-eyed peacock feather in back? Even though his wife is the maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, a dead prefect is no match for a live rat. Your dieh has never held official rank, but the number of red-capped heads he has lopped off could fill two large wicker baskets. So, for that matter, could the heads of nobles and aristocrats!”

Xiaojia stood there with a foolish grin on his face, his teeth showing, likely not understanding what his father had just said. But I did, every word of it. I’d learned a great deal in my years with Magistrate Qian, and my gongdieh’s brief monologue nearly froze my heart and raised gooseflesh on my arms. I’m sure my face must have been ghostly white. Rumors about my gongdieh had been swirling around town for months and had naturally reached my ears. Having somehow found a cache of hidden courage, I asked:

“Is that really what you did, Gongdieh?”

He fixed his hawk-like gaze on me and said, one slow word at a time, as if spitting out steel pellets, “Every—trade—has—its—master, its zhuangyuan! Know who said that?”

“It’s a well-known popular adage.”

“No,” he said. “One person said that to me. Know who it was?”

I shook my head.

He got up out of his chair, prayer beads in his hands—once more the stifling aroma of sandalwood spread through the room. His gaunt face had a somber, golden glow. Arrogantly, reverently, gratefully, he said:

“The Empress Dowager Cixi Herself!”

———— 1 ————

My dear dissolute daughter-in-law, why do you glare like that? Do you not worry that your eyes will pop out of your head? Yes, that is my profession. From my seventeenth year, when I dissevered the body of a thieving clerk at the silver repository, to my sixtieth year, when I administered the lingering death to the would-be assassin of His Excellency Yuan Shikai, I earned my living at that calling for forty-four years. You still glare. Well, I have witnessed many glares in my life, some far more insistent than yours, the likes of which no one in all of Shandong Province, let alone you people, has ever seen. You need not even see them in person. Merely describing them could make you soil yourself out of fear.

In the tenth year of the Xianfeng Emperor, a eunuch called Little Insect audaciously pilfered His Majesty’s Seven Star fowling piece from the Imperial Armory, where he worked, and sold it. A tribute gift from the Russian Tsarina to the Emperor, it was no ordinary hunting rifle. It had a golden barrel, a silver trigger, and a sandalwood stock in which were inlaid seven diamonds, each the size of a peanut. It fired silver bullets that could bring down a phoenix from the sky and a unicorn on land. No fowling piece like it had graced the world since Pangu divided heaven from earth. The larcenous Little Insect, believing that the sickly Emperor was rapidly losing his faculties, impudently removed the piece from the armory and sold it for the reported price of three thousand silver ingots, which his father used to buy a tract of farmland. The poor delusional youngster forgot one basic principle: Anyone who becomes Emperor is, by definition, a dragon, a Son of Heaven. Has there even been a dragon, a Son of Heaven, who was not endowed with peerless wisdom? One who could not foretell everything under the sun? Emperor Xianfeng, a man of extraordinary mystical skills, could see and identify the tip of an animal’s autumn hair with dragon eyes that appeared normal during the day, but emitted such powerful rays of light when night fell that he needed no lamp to put brush to paper or to read a book. It was said that the Emperor planned a hunting expedition beyond the Great Wall and called for his Seven Star fowling piece. A panicky Little Insect made up bizarre explanations for why that was not possible: first an old fox with white fur had stolen it, then it was a magical hawk that had flown off with it. Emperor Xianfeng’s dragon mien turned red with anger, and He handed down an Imperial Edict, ordering that Little Insect be turned over to the Office of Palace Justice, which was responsible for disciplining eunuchs. The standard employment of interrogation tactics secured a confession from the miscreant, so angering His Majesty that golden flashes shot from His eyes. He jumped to His feet in the Hall of Golden Chimes and roared:

“Little Insect, We shit upon eight generations of your ancestors! Like the rat that licks the cat’s anus, you are an audacious fool. How dare you practice your thieving ways in Our home! If We do not make an example of you, We do not deserve to be Emperor!”

With that, Emperor Xianfeng decided that Little Insect would be subjected to a special punishment as a warning to all, and He called upon the Office of Palace Justice to read him a list, not unlike a menu for an Imperial meal. Officials presented all the punishments used in the past for the Emperor’s selection: flogging, crushing, suffocating, quartering, dismemberment, and more. After hearing them out, the Emperor shook His head and said, “Ordinary, too common. Like stale, spoiled leftovers. No,” He said, “you must seek advice from the experts in the Board of Punishments to provide an appropriate punishment.” On the very night that His Excellency, President of the Board of Punishments Wang, received the Imperial Edict, he went looking for Grandma Yu.

Who was Grandma Yu? you ask. My mentor, that’s who. A man, of course. So why do I call him Grandma? Listen, and I will tell you. It is a reference peculiar to our profession. Four executioners are listed in the Board of Punishments register. The oldest, most senior, and most accomplished among them is Grandma. Next in line, ranked by seniority and skills, are First Aunt, Second Aunt, and Young Aunt. During the busy months, when there is more work than they can handle, outside helpers are taken on, and they are called nephews. I started out as a nephew and gradually worked my way up to Grandma. Easy? No, by no means. I served the Board of Punishments as Grandma for thirty years. Presidents and Vice Presidents came and went, but only I remained as tall and sturdy as Mt. Tai. People may despise our profession, but once someone joins its ranks, he looks down on all people, in the same way that you look down on pigs and dogs.

To continue, His Excellency, Board President Wang, summoned Grandma Yu and me, your father, to his official document room. I, barely twenty that year, had been elevated from Second Aunt to First Aunt, an unprecedented promotion and a display of great Imperial favor.

“Xiaojiazi,” Grandma Yu said to me, “your shifu did not ascend to First Aunt until he was over forty, while you, young scamp that you are, have reached the plateau of First Aunt at the age of twenty. Like sorghum in the sixth month, you have shot upward.”

But that is talk for another time.

“His Imperial Majesty has issued an edict to the Board of Punishments to provide a special, even unique, punishment for a eunuch who stole a fowling piece,” Board President Wang said. “You are the experts, so give this your full attention. We do not want to disappoint His Imperial Majesty or show this Board in a bad light.”

A sound like a moan emerged from Grandma Yu’s mouth.

“Excellency,” he said after a moment, “your humble servant opines that His Imperial Majesty loathes Little Insect because he has eyes but does not see. We must therefore carry out the Emperor’s will.”

“How true,” Board President Wang said. “What do you have in mind? Tell me quick.”

“There is a punishment,” Grandma Yu said, “known as Yama’s Hoop, named after the doorway to the King of Hell’s realm. Another name for it is Two Dragons Sport with Pearls. I wonder if it might be appropriate.”

“Tell me about it.”

So Grandma Yu described Yama’s Hoop in detail, and when he was finished, His Excellency beamed in delight.

“Go make preparations,” he said, “while I seek permission from His Imperial Majesty.”

To which Grandma Yu replied, “The construction of Yama’s Hoop is a burdensome task. The iron hoop alone is a unique challenge. It can be neither very hard nor too soft. Only the finest wrought iron, repeatedly fired and hammered, will do, and there is no blacksmith anywhere in the capital who is up to the task. Will His Excellency approve a delay of several days, giving me and my apprentice time to make it ourselves? We of course have no adequate tools or facilities and must somehow make do. Will His Excellency favor us with a bit of silver to purchase what we need?”

Wang sneered.

“Don’t you receive enough income by selling cured human flesh for medicinal purposes?”

Grandma Yu fell to his knees, and naturally I, your father, followed.

“Nothing escapes His Excellency’s eyes,” Grandma Yu said. “But constructing Yama’s Hoop serves the public good…”

“Get up,” Wang said. “I’ll see that you are given two hundred ounces of silver, one hundred for each—master and apprentice—but you must spare no effort in the service of perfection. I will tolerate no shoddy work. Throughout history, from dynasty to dynasty, generation upon generation, the discipline and punishment of eunuchs has been the responsibility of the Office of Palace Justice. For the Emperor to deliver this case to the Board of Punishments is unprecedented, a manifestation of the trust and high regard His Imperial Majesty has in us. We could ask no higher honor! It is incumbent upon you to take great care in this enterprise. If it is performed well enough to please the Emperor, our future is bright. If not, if His Imperial Majesty is displeased, our Board will be in for bad times, and that will provide a moment for your dog heads to find a new place to perch.”

Grandma Yu and I accepted this glorious task with trepidation, though we were delighted to receive the silver, which we took to Smithy Lane south of the Temple of National Protection in search of a shop capable of fabricating a hoop to our specifications. Once that was done, we went to Mule Avenue, where we bought several untanned cowhides and hired someone to turn them into leather straps to affix to the iron hoop. In all, we spent a grand total of four ounces of silver, with a hundred ninety-six ounces left over, twenty ounces of which we used to buy a gold bracelet for Board President Wang’s concubine, whom he had installed in Jingling Lane. From the remaining one hundred seventy-six ounces, we gave six each to Second Aunt and Third Aunt. We kept the rest, a hundred for Grandma and seventy for me, your father. I brought that back to our hometown and bought this house, marrying your mother while I was at it. If the eunuch Little Insect had not stolen the Emperor’s fowling piece, I would never have had enough to buy a house or get married. And without a wife, you would not have been born. And if I had missed out on the opportunity to have a son, there would never be a daughter-in-law in this house. Now you understand why I feel it is important to tell you about the Little Insect affair. There are root causes for everything that happens. The theft of a fowling piece by Little Insect is the root cause of your existence.

Excellency Wang, who was on pins and needles the day before the punishment was to be carried out, ordered that a prisoner awaiting decapitation be taken from the condemned cell and brought to his audience hall as a subject on whom we were to practice our technique. We did as we were told, affixing the iron hoop over the poor man’s head.

“Laoye!” the man screamed. “Laoye, I did not commit the unforgivable act of retracting my confession, I did not. Why are you doing this to me?”

“All for the sake of the Emperor,” Excellency Wang declared. “Begin!”

From start to finish, the punishment lasted no longer than it takes to smoke a pipeful of tobacco. The man’s head split open, and he died as his brains spilled out.

“That was impressive,” Wang declared, “but he died too quickly. His Imperial Majesty went to the trouble of allowing us to choose a method of execution that will inflict maximum suffering on Little Insect. A death of utter anguish will serve as a trenchant warning to all palace eunuchs. So what do we get from you? You placed the hoop on the man’s head, tightened it, and poof, it was over. Strangling a rabbit takes more time than that. Is that the best you can manage? I demand that you slow the process down, make it last at least two hours. It must be more enjoyable than a stage play. You know that the palace supports troupes that employ thousands of actors who have performed every play in existence. I expect Little Insect’s body to be drained of fluids and for you two to work up a mighty sweat in the process. That is the only way this Board and the punishment you call Yama’s Hoop can gain the reputation they deserve.”

Excellency Wang then ordered that a second condemned prisoner be brought over for us to practice on. The head of this particular man was the size of a willow basket, almost too big for the hoop, which we struggled to affix to his head, inept like coopers, greatly displeasing His Excellency.

“That little toy is what I get for two hundred ounces of silver?”

Sweat oozed from my pores at his comment. But Grandma Yu appeared not to let it bother him, although he later told me he was quaking from fear. Our performance this time was a distinct improvement, as we drew it out for a full two hours, inflicting untold anguish on the pitiful man with the big head before he died. That earned a smile from His Excellency. With an eye on the two corpses laid out in the center of the audience hall, he said:

“Go ahead, get everything ready. Replace the bloodstained leather straps, clean the hoop, and add a coat of varnish. Be sure to clean the garments you plan to wear, so His Majesty and His court followers will see that the executioners attached to the Board of Punishments are a refined lot. There may be many ways of putting it, but in simplest terms, only success matters. You will not fail! If there is the slightest flaw in your performance, casting the Board in a poor light, you will experience Yama’s Hoop from a more personal angle.”

We rose at second cockcrow the next morning and set to making our preparations. Our minds were filled with the gravity of performing a palace execution, making sleep impossible. Even Grandma Yu, who had weathered many storms, tossed and turned all night, getting out of bed every hour or so to take the urinal down from the windowsill and empty his bladder, then sitting down to smoke. Second and Third Aunts busied themselves lighting the stove and preparing breakfast, while I concentrated on subjecting Yama’s Hoop to a meticulous inspection. After convincing myself that it was in flawless condition, I handed it to Grandma Yu for one final inspection. He rubbed his hand over every inch of the device, nodded his approval, and wrapped it in a three-foot length of red silk before reverently laying it on the Patriarch’s altar. The Patriarch of our profession is Gao Tao, a sagely eminence from the period of the Three Kings and Five Emperors, who nearly succeeded the legendary Yu on the Imperial Throne. Many of the punishments in use and the penal codes honored today originated with him. My shifu told me that our Patriarch needed no knife to dispatch a victim—by staring at the victim’s neck and slowly rolling his eyes, he could make the man’s head fall to the ground on its own. Ancestor Gao Tao had phoenix eyes, brows like reclining silkworms, a face the color of a jujube, eyes as bright as stars, and three handsome tufts of whiskers on his chin. He bore an uncanny resemblance to the warrior Guan Gong of the Three Kingdoms period. “The truth is,” Grandma Yu said, “Guan Gong was a reincarnation of Gao Tao.”

Following a hurried breakfast, we rinsed our mouths, cleaned our teeth, and washed our faces. Second and Third Aunts helped us into our new court attire and placed red felt caps on our heads.

“Shifu, Elder Apprentice, you look like bridegrooms,” Third Aunt complimented us.

Grandma Yu gave him a stern look, showing his displeasure with the comment. One of the conventions of our profession is a proscription against silly or foolish words before or during an execution. Any violation of that taboo can summon the ghosts of wronged victims or evil spirits. You often see little spinning dust devils in the marketplace. What do you think they are? They are caused not by wind, but by the spirits of those who were put to death unjustly.

Grandma Yu took a bundle of prized sandalwood incense from a willow case, gently extracted three sticks, lit them from the flickering candle on the Patriarch’s altar, and inserted them into the incense burner. He went down on his knees, followed hastily by his three assistants. Grandma began muttering softly:

“Patriarch, Patriarch, today we will carry out our task in the palace, with enormous consequences. Your offspring ask for your protection and guidance in the proper performance of our duties, and for that we kowtow to you.”

Grandma Yu banged his head loudly against the brick floor. We did the same. Our Patriarch’s face glowed red in the candlelight. Altogether we each kowtowed nine times before standing up, starting with Grandma Yu, and stepping back three paces. Second Aunt went outside to fetch a celadon bowl; Third Aunt went outside and returned with a white rooster with a black comb. Second Aunt placed the bowl in front of the Patriarch’s altar and stepped aside, going down on his knees. Third Aunt knelt directly in front of the altar and held the rooster by the neck with one hand and by the feet with the other, stretching it out horizontal. Second Aunt then took a dagger out of the bowl and neatly sliced the rooster’s neck. For a moment no blood appeared—our hearts nearly stopped, for killing a rooster and drawing no blood augured a botched execution. But then the blood—so red it was almost black—spurted from the wound and into the bowl. Blood surges through the veins of roosters with white feathers and black combs, and killing one before an execution is for us an essential ritual. Once all the blood had drained out of the rooster, the two aunts placed the bowl on the altar, kowtowed again, and backed away, bent at the waist. Grandma Yu and I stepped forward, fell to our knees, and kowtowed three times. Then I followed his lead by sticking the first two fingers of my left hand into the bowl and painting my face with the rooster’s blood, like an actor applying stage paint. The warm blood made the tips of my fingers tingle. There was enough to paint both our faces, and a bit left over to turn all four hands red. Now our faces, mine and Grandma Yu’s, were the same color as the face of the Patriarch. Why had we used rooster blood? To unite us with the Patriarch, but also to notify those spirits of the wrongly executed and evil spirits that we were descendants of Master Gao Tao, and that when we put someone to death, we were gods, not humans. We were the law of the land. With our hands and faces painted red, Grandma Yu and I sat peacefully on stools to await the official summons from the Imperial Palace.

As the red sun wheeled into the sky, crows in scholar trees set up a racket of caws. A woman was keening in the Imperial Dungeon. Condemned to die for killing her husband, she keened like that every day—for heaven, for earth, and for her children. By now she had descended into madness. Your dieh, I, being young, soon began to fidget and could not sit still. I stole a glance at Grandma Yu, who sat straight and unmoving as an iron bell, and I followed his lead by holding my breath to calm myself. The blood-paint had dried and become stiff, turning our faces into something resembling sugarcoated berries, and I strained to experience the feeling of armor covering my skin. Little by little my thoughts blurred, and a hazy picture formed in my mind of me following Grandma Yu down a deep, dark trench, walking on and on without ever reaching the end.

The Office of Palace Justice Director, Eminence Cao, led us up to a pair of small, blue-curtained palanquins and gestured for us to climb in. This sudden and unexpected indulgence nearly unnerved me, for I had never ridden in a palanquin before. I glanced at Grandma Yu, who, to my surprise, stood without moving, open-mouthed, as if he were about to cry or sneeze. A eunuch with a double chin standing beside the palanquins said in a throaty voice:

“What’s the matter, chairs too small for you?”

Still, neither Grandma Yu nor I was willing to climb in. Our eyes were fixed on Eminence Cao, who said:

“These are not intended as a show of respect, but to keep you from attracting too much attention. What are you waiting for? Get in! It is true, you cannot put a dog’s head on a golden platter.”

The four bearers, all unwhiskered eunuchs, stood in front of the chairs, their hands tucked into their sleeves, looks of disdain on their faces. That actually emboldened me. Stinking castrati, fuck you and your mothers. Thanks to your Little Insect, I am going to ride on the shoulders of you two-legged beasts today. I stepped up to a chair, pulled the curtain aside, and climbed in. Grandma Yu did the same.

Our transports left the ground and began the bumpy ride to the Imperial Palace. I heard the hoarse grumbling of one of the eunuchs:

“This executioner is heavy, dead weight, probably from drinking all that human blood!”

These men, who normally carried the Empress or one of the Imperial Consorts, had never imagined that they would one day carry an executioner, not in their worst nightmare. That made me so proud that I began to rock back and forth to make the trip harder on those stinking castrati. But before we’d even left the Board of Punishments compound, Young Aunt shouted from behind:

“Grandma, Grandma, you forgot Yama’s Hoop!”

An explosion went off in my head; I saw stars; sweat seeped from my pores and rained to the ground as I tumbled out of the chair and took the red-wrapped Yama’s Hoop from Young Aunt. I cannot describe what I felt at that moment. Grandma Yu had also gotten out of his chair, I saw, his face similarly beaded with sweat, his legs quaking. If not for Young Aunt’s quick thinking, we would have been in very hot water that day.

“Your mother be fucked!” Eminence Cao cursed. “Can an official misplace his official seal? Does a tailor lose his scissors?”

I was all set to enjoy the privilege of riding in a palanquin, but this turn of events soured my mood. I crawled back in and sat quietly, making no more trouble for the eunuchs.

I don’t know how long we had been riding when my chair abruptly landed with a thud and I emerged, confused and disoriented, nearly blinded by my resplendent surroundings. Holding on to Yama’s Hoop, my back bent slightly, I followed Grandma Yu, who was being led into the palace by a eunuch, down one winding corridor after another, until we emerged into a large courtyard in which a line of men with no whiskers on their faces and dressed in tan clothing with black skullcaps were kneeling in the dirt. Little Insect, the fowling piece thief, was already bound to a post. He was a good-looking youngster with delicate features, so daintily demure he could easily have passed for a girl, especially his beautiful eyes—double-fold lids, long lashes, and moist pupils that looked like grapes. What a shame! I had to sigh over such a fine specimen, a good-looking boy brought into the palace only to be castrated and made to serve as a eunuch. What kind of parents could do that to their own son?

A temporary viewing stand had been erected in front of the post on which Little Insect was bound. A row of carved sandalwood chairs had been placed on the viewing stand, the central one larger than the others. That particular chair had a yellow cushion embroidered with a golden dragon. His Imperial Majesty’s Dragon Seat, no doubt. Already present were Excellency Wang, the President of the Board of Punishments; his deputy, Eminence Tie; and, standing in front of them, a host of other officials, all in caps inlaid with jade or coral, officials from the various boards and bureaus. None of them dared even cough. This was, after all, the Imperial Palace, with an atmosphere that set it apart from all other places: silent, hushed, so quiet I could hear my own heartbeat. Only the sparrows nesting beneath the glazed roof tiles did not know enough to keep silent, as they chirped insistently. Suddenly, without warning, a white-haired, red-faced old eunuch on the platform sang out smoothly, letting each syllable hang in the air:

“His Majesty the Emperor!”

The lines of red caps sank to the ground, the only sound the swish of their wide sleeves; and faster than it takes to tell, officials from the Six Boards, palace women, and eunuchs were all kneeling in the dirt. I was about to fall to my knees when something stomped on my foot. I looked up and was pinned by the blazing glare in Grandma Yu’s eyes as he stood beside the post, head up, motionless as a stone carving. That jogged my memory: for generations, one of the conventions associated with our profession has been that an executioner whose face is smeared with chicken blood is no longer a person, but has become the sacred and somber symbol of the Law. We are not required to kneel, not even in the presence of the Emperor. And so, following Grandma’s lead, I threw out my chest, sucked in my gut, and stood as motionless as a stone carving. I tell you, son, such unprecedented glory had never before been bequeathed to a third person here in Gaomi County, or in all of Shandong, or for that matter in any of the territory belonging to the Great Qing Empire.

At that moment, the toots and whistles of pipes and flutes drew near; behind the languishing musical notes, His Majesty’s procession appeared between two high walls. A pair of tan-clad eunuchs led the way, carrying incense burners in the shape of auspicious creatures, from whose mouths emerged clouds of dark green smoke, so fragrant that it penetrated my brain, sharpening my senses one moment and dulling them the next. On the heels of the two eunuchs came the Imperial Musicians, followed by two columns of eunuchs carrying flags, banners, umbrellas, and fans, all in reds and yellows. Next came the Imperial Bodyguard, armed with golden battleaxes, brass spears, and silver lances, marching ahead of a bright yellow palanquin carried on the shoulders of two powerful eunuchs; in it sat the Manchu Emperor, protected from the sun’s rays by an oversized peacock fan held by a pair of palace women. That was followed by dozens of resplendently attired women of great beauty, the Imperial Harem, of course, all riding in palanquins and forming a florid array of colors. A long tail constituted the end of the procession. Grandma Yu told me later that since all of this was taking place within the palace grounds, the Imperial Procession was greatly simplified. If it had occurred outside, it would have been so long that the head would have passed long before the tail appeared. The Emperor’s palanquin alone would have been carried by sixty-four men.

The eunuchs were so well trained that everything was quickly in place. His Majesty and His consorts were seated in the viewing stand. Emperor Xianfeng, in yellow robes and a golden crown, sat no more than ten feet from me. I stared with rapt attention, taking in all the royal features. He had a gaunt face around a nose with a high bridge. His left eye was a bit bigger than the right. A large mouth, white teeth. A neatly divided moustache adorned his upper lip, a goatee his chin. His cheeks were dotted with white pockmarks. Bothered by a persistent cough, he made liberal use of a glittering spittoon held for him by a serving girl. He was sandwiched between a dozen or more palace ladies, creating the image of a phoenix with spread wings. Their towering coiffures were adorned with brightly colored red flowers, from which silk tassels dangled, the sort of decoration you see on stage actresses. Every one of the palace ladies was a striking beauty; their bodies emitted bewitching perfumes. The woman to the Emperor’s immediate right, powdered and rouged, had the appearance of a celestial maiden come down to earth. Know who she was? You’ll shudder when I tell you. The one we now call Cixi, the Empress Dowager.

Taking advantage of the Emperor’s turn to use his spittoon, the imposing old eunuch lightly swished his horsetail whisk as if it were a flyswatter, a sign for the ministers and officials, as well as the dark-haired lines of eunuchs and palace ladies, to shout at the top of their lungs:

“Long live Our Imperial Majesty! May He live forever and ever!”

That is when I discovered that, far from keeping their heads down so as not to look up, they were all sneaking peeks at the viewing stand. Between coughs, the Emperor declared:

“Worthy ministers, you may rise.”

To which they responded with a kowtow and a shout in unison:

“Praise His Majesty’s generosity!”

Another kowtow, a flicking of wide sleeves, and they rose to their feet, before, bent at the waist, retreating to the periphery. The President of the Board of Punishments, Excellency Wang, emerged from the cluster of officials, flicked his sleeves, and fell to his knees to kowtow once more.

“Your loyal servant Wang Rui, President of the Board of Punishments, in compliance with the Imperial Edict, has ordered the fabrication of Yama’s Hoop and has selected two eminently qualified executioners to bring their equipment into the Palace to carry out the execution. May it please His Majesty.”

“Yes, We know. You may rise.”

Excellency Wang kowtowed yet again, thanked the Emperor for His favor, and retreated to one side. The Emperor said something, but it was so garbled I couldn’t make out what it was. Obviously, in the throes of consumption, He was short of breath. The old eunuch made another announcement, drawing out each syllable like an operatic aria:

“His Majesty decrees that President of the Board of Punishments Wang present Yama’s Hoop for his inspection——”

Wang scurried over to where I stood and snatched the red silk bundle in which Yama’s Hoop was wrapped out of my hand. He returned to the viewing stand, holding the bundle gently in both hands, as if it were a steaming-hot pot. There he went down on his knees and raised his hands above his head, offering up Yama’s Hoop. The old eunuch walked up, bent down, and took the proffered bundle, which he carried up to the Emperor, laid it gently on a table, and slowly unwrapped the red silk until the object itself was in full view. It glistened in all its terrifying grandeur. It had not cost much to make, but I had put considerable effort into it. When first produced, it was an ugly black thing, but I’d rubbed and scoured it for three days to make it shine. I’d earned every one of those seventy ounces of silver.

His Majesty reached out with one sallow hand and tapped the object tentatively with the long, yellowed nail of His index finger. Whether it felt too hot or too cold was impossible to gauge, but the golden finger jerked backward almost immediately, and I heard the aging ruler mumble something. Knowing what that something was, the old eunuch stepped up, retrieved the object, and carried it down the line to let the members of the Imperial Harem have a look at it. They each followed the Emperor’s lead by touching it tentatively with index fingers shaped like jade bamboo shoots. Some put on a show of terror, quickly turning their heads away; others simply stared at the thing with no discernible expression. When he had finished, the old eunuch returned the object to Excellency Wang, who was still on his knees; accepting it with deference, he stood up and, walking backward, bent at the waist, returned to where I was standing and handed it to me.

Up on the reviewing stand, the old eunuch bent to whisper something in the Emperor’s ear. I saw His Majesty nod. The old eunuch stepped up to the front of the reviewing stand and announced in a singsong cadence:

“His Majesty decrees: Carry out the punishment of the monstrous offender Little Insect—”

That elicited a howl from the pole-bound Little Insect:

“Your Majesty,” he wailed, “Your Majesty, be merciful and spare the life of this dog of a slave… your slave will never again…”

The Emperor’s bodyguard snapped to attention. Little Insect, his face waxen, his lips bloodless, and his eyes blinking fiercely, stopped shouting as he wet himself. Turning to us, he whispered:

“Laoye, Shaoye, do your job quickly, and when I’m down in the bowels of Hell, I will be forever grateful for your kindness…”

Listening to him rant was the furthest thing from our minds. It would have taken more courage than we possessed to listen to him. We could have made things easy on him by looping a rope around his neck and strangling him, but that would have been the beginning of our downfall. Even if the Emperor had granted us forgiveness, Board President Wang would not have been so charitable. We hurriedly unwrapped the instrument of torture. Grandma Yu and I held it between us—it seemed considerably heftier after passing through the hands of the Emperor and His harem—each holding one of the leather straps, and carried out our rehearsed routine: first we displayed it to the Emperor and His harem, then to Board President Wang and the other officials, and lastly to the gathering of eunuchs and palace ladies, like actors. The Head of the Office of Palace Justice, Eunuch Chen, and Board President Wang exchanged glances before calling out in unison:

“Let the execution begin!”

It was as if the heavens had eyes—the gleaming iron hoop might as well have been made for Little Insect’s head. With hardly any effort, it fit perfectly. His fetching eyes peered out from two holes in the device. Once it was in place, Grandma Yu and I, your dieh, took two steps backward and gripped the leather straps firmly. Little Insect was still muttering:

“Laoye… Shaoye… make it quick…”

At a time like that, who cared what he wanted? I glanced at Grandma Yu; he returned the glance. I knew what to do, and I was ready. We nodded, and I saw the beginning of a smile on Grandma Yu’s lips, the old master’s customary expression when he was working, for he was an urbane executioner. That smile was my signal to begin, so I flexed my muscles and pulled at half strength, and then quickly let up—anyone not of our profession could not detect the alternating tightening and loosening, and saw only that the leather straps were pulled taut… But Little Insect released a tortured cry, shrill and forceful, one that would have put the howl of a wolf in the zoological garden to shame. Knowing that this was a sound the Emperor and His women loved to hear, we kept it up, subtly tightening and loosening—no longer involved in putting a man to death, we had become conductors producing exquisite music.

That day, as it turned out, was the Autumn Equinox: the sky was blue, and the sun shone down bright, causing the red walls and glazed tiles on the roofs around us to shimmer in the light, like little reflecting mirrors. All of a sudden a terrible smell filled the air, and I knew at once that the little bastard had shit his pants. I sneaked a look at the viewing stand, where the Emperor sat staring at the scene, His face a rich golden color. Some of His consorts were ashen-faced; others looked on with the black holes of their mouths in full view. The ministers and other officials stood ramrod straight, their arms at their sides, barely able to breathe. Eunuchs and serving girls were banging their heads on the ground as if they were crushing cloves of garlic; the weakest among them had already fainted. I looked over at Grandma Yu and knew he shared my view that the results so far were about what we had expected. The time had come; Little Insect had suffered enough, and we knew that we must not let his stink reach the nostrils of the Emperor and His women. By then, some of the consorts were already covering their mouths with silk hankies. Their sense of smell was keener than the Emperor’s, who had abused His nose with snuff until it barely functioned. We needed to put an end to this quickly. If a wayward breeze rose up and carried the stink of Little Insect’s shit into the Emperor’s nose, and His Majesty was looking to place the blame somewhere, we would get more than we bargained for. Little Insect’s innards had probably turned to mush by now anyway, and that stench, which went straight to the brain, was decidedly non-human. It took all my willpower to keep from running to one side to throw up—needless to say, that was out of the question. If Grandma Yu and I had been unable to keep from retching, the impulse would have quickly spread to the viewing stand, with disaster the inevitable result. The sacrifice of our lives—Grandma Yu’s and mine—would have been inconsequential, as would the stripping of Board President Wang’s official standing. All that mattered was the health and well being of His Imperial Majesty. That thought had already entered my mind. Grandma Yu’s, too. It was time for the performance to come to an end. So, on a secret signal, we pulled the straps with all our might, squeezing the iron hoop tighter. Little by little, poor Little Insect’s head began to look like a narrow-waisted bottle gourd. The last drop of his sweat had long since left his body, and what came out of him now was a glistening, sticky, foul-smelling grease, reeking nearly as badly as the rancid crotch odor. His howls at this point used up what little of his strength remained and made my flesh crawl, despite my familiarity with killing. No one, not even someone made of iron or steel, could bear up under Yama’s Hoop. Why, not even Sun Wukong, the all but indestructible magic monkey who was tempered for forty-nine days in the Jade Emperor’s hexagram crucible without capitulating, could endure the pressure of the iron hoop placed on his head by the monk Tripitaka.

The real genius of Yama’s Hoop manifested itself in the victim’s eyes. As Grandma Yu and I slowly leaned back, the tremors of Little Insect’s body traveled through the leather straps and affected our arms. What a pity, those lovely eyes, so expressive, capable of capturing the souls of pretty maidens, slowly began to bulge in the holes of Yama’s Hoop. Black, white, streaks of red. Bigger and bigger, like eggs emerging from the backsides of mother hens, little by little, until… pop. Then another—pop—and Little Insect’s eyes were hanging by threads on the edge of Yama’s Hoop. That, of course, is what Grandma Yu and I had hoped would happen. We followed our planned course of action, at a snail’s pace, increasing pressure bit by bit, like inserting a carrot up a bunghole, to narrow the gourd’s waist. And when the fateful moment was at hand, we pulled the straps with one final jerk, producing a crunch. Finally, after all that time, Grandma Yu and I released loud sighs. At some point during the process, rivulets of sweat had soaked our backs, while streaks of dried chicken blood had run onto our necks; to the unfocused eye, that made us appear to be bleeding. I knew how I looked by what I saw on Grandma Yu’s face.

Little Insect was still alive, but no longer conscious and clearly on the verge of death. Brain matter and blood seeped out through the cracks in his skull. I heard the sound of women vomiting up on the viewing stand, and saw that an elderly, red-capped man had crumpled to the ground, his cap rolling off in the dirt. The moment had arrived:

“The sentence has been carried out!” we shouted in unison. “May it please Your Excellency!”

Board President Wang looked at us over the sleeve covering the lower half of his face, then turned to the viewing stand, assumed a respectful rigid stance, raised his hand, and, with a flicking of his sleeve, knelt in the dirt.

“The sentence has been carried out!” he announced. “May it please Your Majesty!”

Following a prolonged fit of coughing, His Imperial Majesty announced to the assemblage:

“You all saw that, yes? Let him be an example to you!”

His Majesty’s voice was not loud, but each word was clear as a bell to the people on and below the viewing stand. While His words were intended for the ears of the eunuchs and palace girls, every leader of the Six Boards, every member of the royal family, and all the ranking officials fell to their knees as if their legs had been snapped. Amid the thumping of heads on the ground, shouts of “Long live His Imperial Majesty, may He live forever!” “This unworthy official deserves a cruel death!” and “Undying gratitude to the Imperial Dragon!” vied in the air like chicken clucks and duck quacks, and that told me, your dieh, and Grandma Yu everything we needed to know about these so-called men of power.

His Majesty stood up. The old eunuch intoned:

“Return to the Palace!”

The Emperor was carried away.

Followed by His royal consorts.

And the palace eunuchs.

Only a clutch of snot-worthy officials and Little Insect, who had died like a tiger, remained.

My legs were so rubbery I could barely stand, and golden stars danced before my eyes. If Grandma Yu had not reached out to hold me up, I would have crumpled to the ground next to Little Insect’s corpse before the royal procession had left the site.

———— 2 ————

How dare you glare at me like that!

I’ve nearly talked myself out, and by now you should understand why I had the nerve to rage against those yayi. If an insignificant County Magistrate, an official about as important as a sesame seed, thinks he can summon me by sending a pair of lackeys to my house, he has too high an opinion of himself. In the presence of the Xianfeng Emperor and the consort who would one day become the Empress Dowager, I, your dieh, had done something that would make your knees buckle before I’d reached my twentieth birthday. When it was all over, word came from the palace that His Imperial Majesty, He with the mouth of gold and speech of jade, had said:

“The executioners from the Board of Punishments performed their task well—methodical, cadenced, and measured. We were treated to a fine performance!”

Justice Board President Wang was granted the title of Junior Guardian to the Crown Prince and was promoted in the official hierarchy. To show his appreciation for this happy turn of events, he presented each of us with two pieces of red silk. Now go ask that Qian fellow if he has ever laid eyes on the Xianfeng Emperor. The answer will be no. Why, he has never even been in the presence of the current occupant of the Dragon Throne, the Guangxu Emperor. How about the Empress Dowager, has he ever seen Her face? Again, no. Not even Her back. And that is why I, your dieh, am not afraid to assume superior airs with him.

I believe that Qian Ding, the Gaomi County Magistrate, will personally come with an invitation, not because he wants to, but at the behest of Governor Yuan. His Excellency and I have met on several occasions. I once did a job for him and did it well, so well, in fact, that he rewarded me with a box of Tianjin’s Eighteenth Street Crullers. I know you think that since I have barely stepped out of the house in all the months I have been back, I am little more than a rotting log. Well, for your information, I am being clever by acting dumb. There is a mirror inside me that lets me see the world for exactly what it is. My dear daughter-in-law, do you believe that I do not know what you have been up to? My son is an idiot, so I cannot blame you for sneaking around the way you have been doing. You are a woman, a young woman, and there is nothing wrong with being hot-blooded in ways that involve men. I know that your dieh nearly turned the world upside down and that he is now rotting in prison. The Germans demanded his arrest by name, and not a soul in this county, or for that matter all of Shandong, would dare set him free. He will not escape death. Excellency Yuan Shikai is ruthless. To him, killing a man is no different than squashing a bedbug. He is a man so favored by the foreigners that even the Empress Dowager must rely upon him to get things done. The way I see it, your dieh’s life is a pawn in Excellency Yuan’s plans. He wants to show not only the Germans, but the people of Gaomi County and all of Shandong the benefits of being law-abiding citizens and the cost of murder, arson, and banditry. The Imperial Court has given the Germans permission to build their railroad, and that has nothing to do with your dieh. He is like a carpenter locked in stocks of his own creation, a victim of his own actions. You cannot save him, and neither can that Qian fellow of yours. Son, the time has come for you and me to act. It was my wish to, as they say, wash my hands in the golden basin, to keep a low profile and end my days in my country home. But the powers that be have decreed otherwise. This morning, these hands of mine began to itch and grow hot, and I now know that my work is not yet finished. It is heaven’s will, from which there is no escape. As for you, daughter-in-law, you accomplish nothing by weeping or venting your loathing. I was the recipient of the Empress Dowager’s magnanimity, and will do nothing to displease or dishonor the Court. If I do not kill your dieh, someone else will, and he will be better off in my hands than at the mercy of a butcher, what we call a three-legged cat. There is a popular adage that goes, “If you’re kin, you’re family.” I will do everything in my power to ensure that his is a spectacular death, one that will go down in history. Son, I am going to help you make a name for yourself that will open the eyes of your neighbors. They find us beneath them, do they not? Well and good, we will show them that what is known as “execution” is an art, one that a good man will not do and anyone who is not a good man cannot do. Executioner is an occupation that represents the heart and soul of the Imperial Court. When the calling flourishes, the Imperial Court prospers. But when it languishes, the Imperial Court nears its fated end.

Son, I am using the time before Eminence Qian’s palanquin arrives to fill you in on family affairs. I was afraid that if I did not say this to you today, there might not be another chance.

———— 3 ————

Your grandfather contracted cholera when I, your dieh, was ten years old. The sickness took hold in the morning, and by noon he was dead. Every family in Gaomi County lost someone to the disease that year, and no house was spared the sound of wailing. People were too busy burying their own to give thought to their neighbors’ troubles. Your grandmother and I—I know this sounds terrible—dragged your grandfather like a dead dog over to the nearest potter’s field and buried him in a makeshift grave. We had no sooner turned to head back home than a pack of wild dogs ran over and dug him up out of the ground. I picked up a piece of broken brick and went after those dogs with carnage on my mind. But they just glared at me through bloodshot eyes, baring their fangs and baying. They feasted on the dead until their whiskers were slick with grease, their bodies sleek and powerful. Fierce as a pack of little tigers, they were a fearful enemy. Your grandmother pulled me away.

“Your grandfather isn’t the only one, boy,” she said, “so let them go ahead and eat.”

Knowing that I had no chance to ward off those crazed dogs, I backed off and watched as they tore the clothes off your grandfather and sank their fangs into his body. They went first to the internal organs and finished by gnawing at his bones.

Five years later, typhoid fever came to Gaomi County and carried off your grandmother, who, like her husband, fell ill in the morning and was dead by noon. But this time I dragged the corpse over to a haystack and cremated it. Now I was on my own, all alone. All day long I roamed the land with a stick in one hand and a wooden ladle in the other, begging for food. At night I slept anywhere I could, staying warm in a haystack or by the lingering heat from a stove frame. Back then, there were lots of young beggars like me, and that made survival especially hard. On some days I knocked on hundreds of doors without getting even the scrapings of a sweet potato for my effort. I was on the verge of starvation when I recalled something your grandmother had told me about a cousin who lived and worked in a yamen in the capital. Life was so good for him, he often sent gifts of silver back home. I decided on the spot what to do. Off to the capital.

I survived the trip by begging or doing occasional odd jobs for people. And so it went, breaking up the journey by staying in a place long enough to earn a little travel money, my progress slow but steady—hungry one day, full the next—until I reached my destination. Joining a bunch of liquor traders, I entered Peking through Chongwen Gate. I vaguely recalled your grandmother’s telling me that her cousin worked at the Board of Punishments; by asking along the way, I made it to the Six Boards District, where I walked up to one of the two hard-looking soldier-types who guarded the Board of Punishments gate and was sent flying by the back of his sword. A setback, to be sure, but not nearly enough for me to abandon my plan, not after traveling all that distance. All I could do was hang around the Board, pacing back and forth until my luck changed. The street was fronted by restaurants with fancy entrances, places with names like “Where Immortals Gather” and “The Inn of Sages,” all bustling with hungry customers whose carriages and other conveyances interrupted the flow of traffic. The air was heavy with the smells of cooked meat, fish, and poultry. The street was also home to nameless food stands where stuffed buns, wheat cakes, flatbreads, bean curd, and other treats were sold… who could have guessed that there could be so many good things to eat in Peking? No wonder people flocked to the city. I’ve been a survivor all my life, and have enviable judgment. I do not let opportunities pass me by. I did odd jobs for the restaurants, working for leftovers, and since Peking was so big, begging was easier than here in Gaomi. Rich diners would order a table filled with meat or fish or poultry, take a few bites, and leave the rest, which made it possible for me to keep my belly full without spending anything. Then, after filling up with someone’s leftovers, I’d find a quiet spot out of the elements and sleep. In the warmth of the sun’s rays, I heard my skeleton creak and pop as it grew bigger and stronger. By my second year in Peking, I was a head taller than when I’d arrived. I was like a thirsty rice shoot after a spring rain.

But then, just when I had settled into a carefree life with plenty of food, a gang of beggars attacked me and beat me half to death. The leader, a scary-looking one-eyed man with a knife scar on his cheek, fixed his good eye on me and said:

“You little bastard, what rock did you crawl out from under? Who said you could fill your belly with food in my territory? If I ever see you around here again, I’ll break your dog legs and gouge out your dog eyes!”

Sometime in the middle of the night, I crawled out of a foul-smelling ditch and curled up beside a wall, hurting all over, shivering, and hungry. I thought I was going to die. But then, through a haze, I saw your grandmother standing in front of me.

“Don’t let this get you down, son,” she said. “You are about to enjoy a stroke of good luck.”

My eyes snapped open—there was nothing there but the autumn wind making the tips of tree branches moan, nothing but the last chirps of some half-dead crickets in the rotting weeds, that and a sky full of winking stars. But when I closed my eyes again, your grandmother was still there, telling me that my luck was about to change. I opened my eyes, and she was gone. Early the next morning, the sun rose round and red in the eastern sky, making the dew on dead grass shimmer beautifully. A flock of crows flew by, trailing caws behind them on their way to the south side of the city, for what reason I could not say. I would later learn the reason. I was so hungry I could barely stand, and I contemplated going over to beg for something to eat from one of the food stands. What held me back was the fear that I would run into that one-eyed beggar dragon. But then I spotted a piece of cabbage in a little pile of charcoal. I ran over, grabbed it, and carried it back to my spot beside the wall, where I took big crunching bites, just as mounted soldiers in gray uniforms with red borders and hats with red tassels emerged from the Board of Punishments and broke into a trot down the street, newly smoothed over with yellow earth. They had swords on their hips and whips in their hands. Every human who got in their way tasted the whips, as did the dogs. The street was swept clean of obstacles in no time. A few moments later, a prison van rolled out through the gate, pulled by a scrawny mule whose protruding backbone was as sharp as a knife and whose legs looked like spindles. I could not make out the features of the shaggy-haired prisoner standing in the caged wagon, whose ungreased axles creaked as it rolled along, swaying from side to side. The way ahead was led by the horsemen, who had ridden up and back earlier and were followed by a dozen or so men blowing horns, making a noise that could have been mistaken for weeping cattle. A clutch of officials on horseback came next, all in fancy court attire. In the middle was a rotund man with a thin moustache that looked as if it were pasted on. Another ten or fifteen mounted soldiers brought up the rear. Two men in black, with sashes around their waists and red caps on their heads, walked alongside the prison van, each holding a broadsword. They appeared to have ruddy complexions—at the time, I was not aware that they had smeared rooster blood on their faces. They had a spring in their steps, but their footfalls made no noise. I could not take my eyes off them. Fascinated by their impressive bearing, I wondered if I would ever get a chance to learn how to walk that way, like a big black cat. All of a sudden, I heard your grandmother say from behind me:

“That’s your uncle, son.”

I spun around. There was nothing behind me but the same old gray wall, not a trace of your grandmother. But I knew that her spirit had spoken to me. So I shouted out, “Uncle!” at the same time that someone behind me—or so I thought—shoved me up close to the prison van.

I had no idea what I was doing, but the procession—officials, cavalrymen, everyone—froze. A horse reared up with a loud whinny and threw its rider. I ran up to the swordsmen in black and called out, “Uncle, at last I’ve found you!” All the bitterness and sorrow I’d experienced over the years came pouring out in a cascade of tears. The two men in black were dumbstruck, their mouths hanging open as they exchanged surprised looks, as if to say:

“Are you that beggar’s uncle?”

But before they could gather their wits, soldiers came riding up from front and back, shouting and brandishing their swords until I was hemmed in. I felt a cold shadow settle above my head and immediately felt an enormous hand close around my neck. Whoever it was lifted me off the ground, and I thought he was going to break my neck. With my arms and legs flailing in the air, I kept shouting “Uncle! Uncle!” Until whoever it was flung me to the ground, where, with a splat, I crushed a frog in the road. Worst of all, my face landed in a pile of still-warm horse manure.

A fat, dark-faced man on an enormous roan charger behind the prison van wore a robe with a white leopard embroidered on the chest and a plumed hat studded with crystalline blue gems. One look told me that he was a high official. The soldier got down on one knee and, in a resounding voice, announced:

“Excellency, it is a little beggar.”

Two of the soldiers dragged me up in front of the official, where one of them jerked my head back by my hair to give the man on horseback a good look at me. He barely glanced at me. With a heavy sigh, he cursed:

“The little prick has a death wish! Toss him off the road!”

“Sir!” the soldiers barked in unison as they picked me up by my arms, dragged me to the side of the road, and flung me into the air with a “Fuck off!”

Accompanied by their curse, I landed headfirst in the thick mud of the ditch.

Climbing out of that ditch was no easy feat, especially because I couldn’t see a thing. By groping my way along, I got my hands on some weeds, with which I managed to clean the muck from my face, just in time to see that the execution procession was heading south, raising clouds of dust on the road. My mind was a blank as I sat there staring at the horses and their riders. But then your grandmother’s voice sounded in my ear:

“Go watch them, son; he is your uncle.”

I looked around, trying to find your grandmother, but all I saw was the dirt road, some steaming horse manure, and a bunch of sparrows, their heads cocked, their beady black eyes searching for undigested food in the manure. There was no sign of your grandmother. “Niang!” I felt so bad I started to cry, my wails stretching out longer than the ditch I was sitting in. Oh, how I missed your grandmother, and how she disappointed me. You told me to go up to my uncle, Niang, but which one was he? They picked your son up like a dead cat or a rotting dog and flung him into a filthy roadside ditch. I’m lucky I wasn’t killed. You must have seen what happened. If your spirit has the power, Niang, light up my path ahead so I can find my way out of this sea of bitterness. If it does not, then please do not talk to me anymore, and stop interfering in my life. Let me live or die, with my little pecker pointing to heaven, on my own. But she ignored my plea. The sound of her aged voice kept swirling inside my head, over and over:

“Go watch them, son; he is your uncle… he is your uncle…”

So I ran like a maniac to catch up with the procession. One of the benefits of running fast was that your grandmother’s voice was stilled. But as soon as I slowed down, that maddening, nagging voice found its way back into my ears. Running like a madman was the only way I could escape the mutterings of her floating spirit, even if it meant getting flung into another foul ditch by soldiers in their red-tasseled straw hats. I fell in behind the procession as it passed through Xuanwu Gate and headed down the narrow, bumpy road on its way to the execution ground by the open-air market. It was my first time on this infamous road. By now there are layers of my footprints on it. The scenery outside the wall had a more desolate feel than inside. Dark green vegetable plots separating the squat houses on both sides of the road were planted with cabbages, turnips, and beans on trellises, the leaves now withered, the vines all jumbled. People working plots had little or no interest in the raucous procession passing in front of them. A few cast stony glances behind them, but most went on about their business without looking up.

As the procession neared its destination, the twisting road opened out onto a broad execution ground in which a pack of bored observers were milling around a raised platform. There were several beggars, including the one-eyed dragon who had beaten me. This was obviously his territory. The mounted soldiers spurred their horses on to form a line. The pair of magnificent executioners opened the cage and pulled the prisoner out. His legs must have been broken by the way they dragged him along the ground. The useless limbs reminded me of wilted onions. They carried him up onto the execution platform, where he crumpled to the floor as soon as they let go. He was all flesh and no bones. The onlookers began to make noise, shouting their disapproval of the condemned man’s poor showing. “Coward!” “Softy!” “Get up!” “Sing a line of opera!” The shouts seemed to have an effect on the man, who began to stir, a little bit at a time, flesh and bones, with painful slowness, but enough to earn him a round of applause and shouts of encouragement. He pushed himself up onto his knees as best he could. The crowd demanded more:

“Good man, show some bravado! Say something. How about ‘Take off my head and leave a bowl-sized scar!’ or ‘I’ll be back in twenty years, better than ever!’”

The man’s mouth twisted as he cried out tearfully:

“Heaven is my witness, I am innocent!”

The spectators gazed at the man in stunned silence. The two executioners were impassive, as always. And then your grandmother’s spirit spoke to me from behind.

“Shout, son, be a good boy and shout. Call to them. He’s your uncle!”

There was a sense of urgency in her voice, as the pitch rose and grew increasingly shrill. Cold, shuddering blasts of air hit the nape of my neck. If I hadn’t shouted, she’d have throttled me. There was no way out, so, risking retaliation from one of the fierce sword-wielding soldiers, I cried out in a choked voice:

“Uncle—”

Every eye in the crowd was on me in an instant—the official witnesses, the soldiers, the beggars, though I’ve forgotten what the looks in those eyes were like. But not those of the prisoner; I’ll never forget the look in his eyes. His blood-encrusted head jerked upward as he opened his bloodshot eyes and looked straight at me; I fell backward as if I’d been struck by red-tipped arrows. The next thing I heard was the voice of the dark, fat official in charge:

“It’s time—”

Trumpets blared, and the soldiers pursed their lips to make mournful sounds as one of the executioners grabbed the prisoner’s queue and pulled his head forward to expose the scruff of his neck for the other man, who raised his sword, turned slightly to the right, then handsomely to the left, and—swish—the glinting blade arced downward, truncating a scream of tragic innocence. The man in front was already holding aloft the severed head. He and the other man now stood shoulder to shoulder, faced the witnessing official, and shouted in unison:

“May it please Your Excellency, the sentence has been carried out!”

The dark, fat official, who was still sitting astride his horse, waved his hand in the direction of the severed head, as if seeing off an old friend, then reined his horse around and clip-clopped away from the execution ground. Whoops of excitement burst from the crowd of onlookers, as the beggars boldly rushed up to the stand to await the moment when they could climb up and strip the man’s clothing off. Blood was still pumping from the corpse, which had pitched forward and was resting on the stump of its neck, conjuring up the image of an overturned liquor vat.

That was the moment everything became clear. The official witness to the execution was not my uncle, nor were the executioners or any of the soldiers. My uncle was the man whose head had just been lopped off.

That night I went looking for a willow tree with a low-hanging branch, and when I found it, I took the sash from around my waist, made a noose, tossed it over the branch, and stuck my head in. Dieh was dead, and so was Niang; and now my uncle, the only family member I had left, had just been beheaded. There wasn’t another soul in this world I could turn to. Ending my life now was the only answer. But at the very moment I was about to rub noses with King Yama of the Underworld, a huge hand grabbed me by the seat of my pants.

It was the man who had just beheaded my uncle.

He took me to a restaurant called The Casserole, where he ordered a plate of bean curd and fish heads. While I was eating—just me—he sat watching me. He didn’t even touch the tea the waiter had brought him. When I finished with a loud belch, he said:

“I was your uncle’s good friend, and if you are willing, you can be my apprentice.”

The impressive image he’d created earlier that day reappeared: standing tall and unmoving, then quickly turning slightly to the right, his right arm circling the air like a crescent moon, and swish—my uncle’s head was raised high in the air, accompanied by his scream of innocence… your grandmother’s voice sounded again in my ear, but now it was uncommonly gentle, and the sense of gratitude she felt was clear and sustaining.

“My dear son,” she said, “get down on your knees and kowtow to your shifu.”

I did that, and with tears in my eyes, though if you want to know the truth, my uncle’s death meant nothing to me. I was concerned only about myself. The cause of those hot tears was the realization that my daydream was about to come true. I wanted nothing more than to become a man who could lop off someone’s head without blinking. Those two men’s carriage and icy demeanor lit up my dreams.

Son, your dieh’s shifu was the man I’ve mentioned to you hundreds of times—Grandma Yu. He later told me that he had been sworn brothers with my jailer uncle, who had committed a capital crime, and that it had been his good fortune to die by his hand. Swish, faster than the wind. Grandma said that when his sword severed my uncle’s head, he heard it say:

“That is my nephew, Elder Brother. Watch over him for me!”

———— 1 ————

Meow, meow, I learned how to sound like a cat before I could talk. My niang said that the longest whisker on a tiger is precious, and that anyone who owns one can carry it on his body and see a person’s true form. All living humans, she said, are reincarnations of animals. If a person gets one of those precious whiskers, what he sees is not people. On the street, in alleyways, in taverns, in a public bath, what he sees are oxen, horses, dogs, cats, and the like. Meow, meow. There was once a man, Niang said, who traveled east of the Shanhai Pass, where he killed a tiger to get one of those precious whiskers. He was afraid of losing it, so he wrapped it in three outer and three inner layers, then sewed it into the lining of his padded jacket. When he returned home, his mother asked him, “Did you make your fortune during all those years you were away up north, son?” “My fortune? No,” he said proudly, “but I did lay my hands on a rare treasure.” He reached inside his jacket, tore open the lining, and removed the bundle, which he unwrapped to show her the whisker. But when he looked up, she’d vanished, her place taken by a nearsighted old dog. The poor man was so frightened by this that he ran outside and collided with an old horse carrying a hoe over its shoulder. The horse was puffing on a pipe and snorting streams of smoke from its flared nostrils. The man nearly died of fright at this encounter, and was about to run away when he heard the horse call out his childhood name: “Aren’t you Xiaobao? Don’t you even recognize your own dieh, you little bastard?” The whisker, that’s what made all this happen. He quickly rewrapped it and put it away. Now he could see that his dieh was not an old horse and his niang was not an old dog.

Getting one of those whiskers has long been a dream of mine. Meow, meow. I make this clear to everyone I know and ask people I meet if they can tell me where I can get one. Someone once said that the forests of the great Northeast are the best place. I was burning to go see, and would have if it hadn’t meant leaving my wife. A precious tiger’s whisker, just think how wonderful that would be! Well, I’d just put up a meat rack on the street when a huge boar in a long robe under a short jacket, wearing a black silk skullcap and carrying a thrush in a birdcage, sauntered up. “Two catties of pork, Xiaojia,” it said. “Give me a good weigh, and make it streaky pork.” There was no question that it was a boar standing in front of me, but the voice was that of Li Shizhai, Elder Li, the father of Graduate Li, a learned local scholar respected by all. If he didn’t get the respect he thought he deserved, he intoned in a loud voice, “A base man cannot be taught!” Who could have guessed that he’d actually be a boar? Even he didn’t know. No one but I knew. But if I told him, I’d get a taste of his dragonhead cane, for sure. The boar hadn’t even left when a white swan sashayed up carrying a bamboo basket on its wing. When it was right in front of me, it gave me a dirty look and said in a voice dripping with spite, “Xiaojia, you heartless fiend. I found a fingernail when I bit into the dog meat jelly you sold me yesterday. Are you selling human flesh and calling it dog meat?” It turned to the boar. “Did you hear what happened? Two nights ago, the Zheng family’s child bride was beaten to death. Her battered body was a mass of bruises!” Now that the swan had spewed its garbage, it turned back to me and said, “Give me two catties of dog meat jerky. We’ll try something different.” “Who do you think you are, you stinking bitch? A big-assed swan is what you are. I ought to turn you into swan jelly. That’d shut that mouth of yours once and for all.”

—If I’d owned a tiger’s whisker, think how wonderful that would have been! But I didn’t.

Uncle He was having a drink in the tavern that rainy afternoon—he was an ugly man with a pointed mouth, an ape-like chin, and shifty eyes, a damned gorilla if I ever saw one—when I told him about the tiger’s whisker. “You’re a man of the world, Uncle He,” I said, “so this is something you must know about. And you must know where to get one.” “Xiaojia,” he said with a chuckle, “you idiot. What’s your wife up to while you’re here selling meat?” “My wife is delivering dog meat to Eminence Qian, her gandieh.” “I’d say she’s delivering the human kind,” Uncle He said. “She’s a nice morsel, tender and tasty.” “Stop trying to be funny, Uncle; we sell pork and dog meat, that’s all. Who ever heard of selling the human kind? Besides, Eminence Qian isn’t a tiger, so why would he want to feast on my wife’s flesh? If he did, he’d have finished her off by now. But she’s still here, in the flesh.” With a strange laugh, Uncle He said, “Eminence Qian is not a White Tiger, he’s a Green Dragon, the Taoist guardian. It’s your wife who’s the White Tiger.” “Now you’re really not making sense, Uncle He. Without one of those tiger’s whiskers, how could you see the true form of Eminence Qian or my wife?” “Pour me another drink, idiot,” Uncle He said, “and I’ll tell you where you can get a tiger’s whisker.” I filled his glass to the brim.

“You know,” he said, “that they’re real treasures, worth a great quantity of silver.” “I’m not interested in selling them,” I said. “I want one for myself. Just think, I could walk down the street with my tiger’s whisker and meet up with all kinds of animals wearing clothes and talking just like you and me. Wouldn’t that be terrific?” “Are you serious about getting a tiger’s whisker?” Uncle He asked. “Yes,” I said, “very serious. I dream about it.” “Well, then, give me a plate of chopped dog meat, and I’ll tell you.” “If you’ll tell me where to get a tiger’s whisker, Uncle He, you can have the whole dog, and I won’t charge you anything.” I cut off a dog’s leg and handed it to him. Then I stood there, gaping expectantly. He leisurely sipped what was in his glass and sampled the dog meat. “Idiot,” he said with slow deliberation, “do you really want a tiger’s whisker?” “Uncle He, I’ve given you spirits to drink and dog to eat, so if you won’t tell me now, you’ve been playing tricks on me, and I’ll go home and tell my wife what you’ve done. You can fool me easily enough, but she’s a different story. All she has to do is curl her lip, and you’ll find yourself in the county yamen getting your ass whipped.” Now that I’d brought my wife into the discussion, he said, with a note of urgency, “Xiaojia, my good little nephew, if I tell you, you must promise never to tell anybody who you heard it from, especially your wife. If you do, any tiger’s whisker you get your hands on will lose its power.” “All right, I promise, I won’t tell a soul, and that includes my wife. If I do, I hope her belly starts to hurt.” “I’ll be damned, Xiaojia, what the hell kind of oath is that? What does a pain in your wife’s belly have to do with anything?” “Are you joking? Any time her belly starts to hurt, my heart aches and I end up bawling like a baby.” “All right, then,” Uncle He said, “I’ll tell you.” He took a look out on the street to make sure that no one was listening. Rain was sheeting off of eaves, a curtain of white. I pressed him to tell me. “We must be very careful,” he said. “If somebody hears us, you’ll never get your treasure.” He leaned over and put his burning lips up to my ear. “Your wife goes to see His Eminence every day,” he whispered. “His bed is covered by a tiger skin, and what are the chances of not finding a tiger’s whisker on a complete pelt? Now, pay attention. Have your wife pluck a curly golden whisker for you. Those, my friend, are the real treasures. None of the others are any good.”

When my wife returned home from delivering the dog meat, the night sky was inky black. “Why are you so late?” With a smile, she said, “Use your head, you poor fool. I had to wait till His Eminence ate every bite. And don’t forget, it’s raining, so it gets dark early. Why haven’t you lit the lamp?” “I’m not doing needlework, and I’m not reading, so why waste the oil?” “My dear Xiaojia, you’re all about getting by, aren’t you? A little bit of oil won’t make the difference between rich and poor. And we’re certainly not poor. My gandieh told me that from this year on, we’re exempt from paying taxes. Go ahead, light the lamp.” So I lit the bean-oil lamp, and she adjusted the wick with one of her hairpins, flooding the room with bright, holiday-like light. I saw that her face was red and her eyes were moist, the way she looked when she was drinking. “Have you been drinking?” “Greedy cats have pointy noses,” she said. “My gandieh was afraid I’d be cold on the way home, so he gave me what little was left in his flask. It was pouring out there, as if the River of Heaven had been diverted to earth. Now turn around; I’m going to change into dry clothes.” “Why? What you need is to climb into a nice warm bed.” “Now, that’s a good idea,” she said with a giggle. “Who’d dare call our Xiaojia a fool? No, he’s brilliant!” With that she began undressing, throwing one item of clothing after another into a wooden tub, until she stood there, milky white, like a luscious eel just out of the water. She arched her back and hopped up onto the heated bed, then arched it again and slipped under the covers. I stripped and climbed in beside her. But she rolled herself up in the bedding. “Don’t bother me, my young fool; I’ve been running around so much today I can barely keep my bones attached to my body.” “I won’t bother you,” I said, “but you have to promise something. I want you to get me a tiger’s whisker.” Again she giggled. “Where, my little fool, am I going to find you a tiger’s whisker?” “Somebody said you could get one. I want a curly one with a golden-yellow tip.” Her face turned bright red. “What son of a bitch told you that? I’ll flay his dog hide right off him! Give me the name of the bastard who put you up to this!” “You’ll have to kill me first. I’ve sworn on your belly not to tell. If I say who it was, your belly is going to hurt.” She just shook her head. “You poor fool, your niang was teasing you. Use your head. Things like that don’t happen in this world.” “Other people can tease me, but not my niang. I want a tiger’s whisker; I’ve wanted one all my life, so help me get one, I beg you.” “Where am I going to do that?” She was getting angry. “And a curly one, at that. You’re not a fool, you’re a big fool!” “The person told me that Eminence Qian uses a tiger pelt as a bedspread, and where there’s a tiger pelt, there must be tiger’s whiskers.” “Xiaojia,” she said with a heavy sigh, “Xiaojia, what do you expect me to say to that?” “Help me get one. I’m begging you. If you won’t do it, then I won’t let you deliver any more dog meat. Someone said you really deliver the human kind.” “Who said that?” she demanded, gnashing her teeth. “All you need to know is that somebody said it.” “All right, Xiaojia, if I get you what you want, will you leave me alone?” I just grinned.

My wife was as good as her word—she brought me a tiger’s whisker the next night. It had a golden-yellow tip. “Don’t let it fly away,” she said as she handed it to me. Then she doubled over laughing. My heart beat wildly as I clutched my whisker. A treasure I’d longed for most of my life, how could it have come so easily? Well, I examined it closely. It was just as Uncle He had described, curly with a golden-yellow tip. I held it between my fingers till my wrist tingled. It felt heavy in my hand. I looked up and said to my wife, “Let’s see what you really are.” She curled her lip. “Sure,” she said with a smile, “take a good look and tell me if I’m a phoenix or a peacock.” “Uncle He says you’re a white tiger.” Her face colored. “So it was that lousy maggot who told you,” she cursed. “I’m going to have my gandieh drag him over to the yamen tomorrow and see that he gets two hundred whacks with the paddle. He’ll know what it feels like to have his ass turned into fried bamboo shoots and meat!”

Still clutching the tiger’s whisker in the lighted room, I stared at her. My heart was racing, my wrist shaking. Now, with heaven’s help, I was going to see my wife’s true form! She was an animal, but which one? A pig? A dog? A rabbit? A goat? A fox? A hedgehog? I didn’t care what she was, as long as it wasn’t a snake. I’ve been afraid of snakes since I was a little boy, and I’m more afraid of them now than ever before. If I so much as step on a rope, I jump three feet in the air. My niang said that snakes usually turn into women, and that most beautiful women are transformed snakes. Sooner or later, one of those snake-women will suck dry the brain of any man who sleeps with her, she told me. Don’t let me down, heaven. I don’t care what my wife is, even a toad or a gecko, just so it isn’t a snake. And if she is, well, I’ll pick up my butcher’s tools and run off with my tail between my legs. So with all those wild thoughts scrambling the landscape in my head, I sized up my wife, who turned the lamp up as high as it would go, until the wick was as red as a pomegranate and really lit up the room. Her hair was so black it was almost blue, as if oiled. Her shiny forehead was as bright as the belly of a porcelain vase. Her brows arched and curved like a pair of willow leaves. Her nose was so white it was nearly transparent, as if carved from a tender lotus root. Her limpid eyes looked like grapes floating in egg white. Her mouth, which was a little too big for her face, curled upward at the corners, like water chestnuts, the lips naturally red. I could have looked till my eyes ached and not known what she was before she was a woman.

She curled her lips into a sneer and said with palpable sarcasm, “Well? Tell me, what am I?”

Bewildered, I shook my head. “I don’t know, you’re just you. How can this treasure lose its effectiveness when it’s in my hand?”

She reached out and tapped me on the forehead with one finger. “You’re possessed,” she said. “You’ve let a whisker take control of your life. Your niang told you a story one time, and you elevated it into your life’s work, like treating a stick as a needle. Are you ready to finally give it up now?”

I shook my head again. “You’re wrong. My niang wouldn’t lie to me. The rest of the world might, but not her.”

“Then why doesn’t it let you see what I am? I don’t need a tiger’s whisker to show me what you are—you’re a pig, a big, stupid pig.”

I knew this was her way to make me feel bad. She couldn’t possibly see my true form without a tiger’s whisker. But why wasn’t I able to see hers, either, even with one? Why wasn’t my little treasure working? Oh, no! Uncle He had said that if I mentioned his name, the thing wouldn’t work. And that’s what I’d just done without realizing it. I was crushed. How stupid could I have been, ruining something I’d worked so hard to get? I stood there with the whisker in my hand, in a daze. Hot tears streamed from my eyes.

My wife sighed when she saw me crying. “You fool, when will you grow up?” She sat up, snatched the whisker out of my hand, and, with a single puff, blew it out of sight. “My treasure—!” I shrieked tearfully. She wrapped her arms around my neck and tried to calm me down. “There, now, don’t be foolish. Here, let me hold you, and we can get some sleep.” But I fought my way out of her grip. “My tiger’s whisker! It’s mine!” Frantically, I groped all over the bed trying to find it. Oh, how I hated her at that moment. “I want my tiger’s whisker! You owe me!” I went over and picked up the lamp to help me look for my treasure, cursing and crying the whole time. She just sat there watching me, shaking her head one minute and sighing the next. “Stop looking,” she said at last. “It’s right here.” I was thrilled. “Where? Where is it?” With her thumb and index finger, she held the curly tiger’s whisker with its golden-yellow tip and laid it across my palm. “Do a better job of holding on to it this time,” she said. “If you lose it again, don’t blame me.” I curled my fingers tightly around it. It might not do what I wanted it to do, but it was still a treasure. But why wouldn’t it work for me? I needed to try again. So once again, I stared into my wife’s face. If it works this time, I was thinking, if she turns out to be a snake, then so be it. But once again she was just my wife, nothing more.

“Hear me out, my foolish husband. My niang told me the same story yours told you. She said the whisker doesn’t work all the time, only at critical moments. Otherwise, it would be nothing but trouble. How would you live if all you ever saw were animals? So listen to me and put that thing in a safe place, where you can retrieve it at a critical moment. It’ll work then.”

“Honest? You’re not lying, are you?”

She nodded. “Why would I want to lie to my beloved husband?”

I believed her. After scaring up a piece of red cloth, I wrapped up my treasure, tied it tight with string, and hid it in a crack in the wall.

———— 2 ————

My dieh is a force unto himself. He sent Magistrate Qian’s two yayi back to the yamen empty-handed. You might not know what the Magistrate is capable of, Dieh, but I do. When Xiaokui from the Dongguan oil mill spat at his palanquin as it passed by, a pair of yayi dragged him off in chains. Two weeks later, his father sold two acres of land to pay someone to stand as guarantor to get his son back. But by then one of Xiaokui’s legs was shorter than the other, and he not only walked with a limp, but the toes of one foot dragged along the ground. They started calling him the foreigner, because the lines he scraped in the dirt looked like foreign writing. After that, any time he heard the name “Magistrate Qian,” he foamed at the mouth and fainted. Xiaokui knew what Magistrate Qian was capable of. Not only doesn’t he dare spit at the palanquin when it passes by anymore, but the minute he sees it, he wraps his arms around his head, turns tail, and hobbles off. What you’ve done today, Dieh, is a lot worse than spitting at his palanquin. I may be a fool in other things, but where Magistrate Qian is concerned, I’m as smart as I need to be. Even though my wife is the Magistrate’s little pet, he is strictly impartial. How could he let you get away with what you’ve done when he went and arrested that disappointing gongdieh of mine?

On the other hand, I could see that my dieh was no pushover. He was hard as nails, not soft as bean curd, a man who’d done and seen plenty in the nation’s capital, where he’d lopped off a truckload—maybe a shipload—of heads; a power struggle between him and Magistrate Qian would be like a fight between a dragon and a tiger, and I could not say who would come out ahead. Now, at this critical moment, I was suddenly reminded of my tiger’s whisker. Truth is, that treasure was never far from my mind. According to my wife, it was my amulet, which could turn bad luck into good as long as I kept it with me. So I jumped onto the bed, reached over to the wall, and retrieved my red bundle, which I frantically unwrapped to make sure the curly, golden-tipped tiger’s whisker was still there. It was. As my little treasure lay in my hand, I felt it move, little flicks, sort of like a hornet’s stinger, against my palm.

A huge white snake, as big around as a water bucket, stood in front of the bed and thrust its head toward me, a purple forked tongue darting in and out between its red lips. “Xiaojia.” It was my wife’s voice! “What do you think you’re doing?” Heaven help me, how could you do this to me? You know I’m afraid of snakes, and so you made sure that’s what my wife is. Someone I’ve frolicked in bed with for the last ten years without knowing she was a snake. My own wife, a reincarnated white snake. Of course, The Legend of the White Snake, now I get it. Back when she was on the stage, she played the part of the white snake, and I’m the scholar she married, Xu Xian. But why hasn’t she sucked out my brains? Because she isn’t all snake. She has a snake’s head, but arms and legs, too, and breasts. And there’s hair on her head. Still, well and truly frightened, I flung the whisker away like a piece of hot charcoal and broke out in a full-body sweat.

My wife stood there sneering at me. Since I’d just had a glimpse of her true form, seeing her now as my wife was both strange and unsettling. That big, fleshy snake living inside her could break through the flimsy skin covering and take its true form any time it wanted. Maybe she already knew that I’d seen her true form, which would have explained the strange, forced smile on her lips. “Well, did you see it?” she asked. “What am I behind this human façade?” Cold rays of light shot from her eyes, eyes once beautiful but now ugly and malignant, the eyes of a snake.

A foolish grin was the best I could manage to mask my terror. My lips had stopped doing my bidding; my skin tingled. She must have released a cloud of noxious airs onto my face. “No, I didn’t,” I stammered, “I saw nothing.”

“Liar,” she said with a sneer, “I’m sure you saw something.” A chilling, foul odor emerging from her mouth—snake’s breath—hit me square in the face.

“Tell me the truth, what am I beneath all this?” She smiled in a peculiar way, and light glinted off the shiny, scaly things on her face. I could not tell the truth, not without harm to myself, and I was suddenly no longer the fool I’d always been. “Really, I didn’t see a thing.” “You can’t fool me, Xiaojia, you’re a terrible liar. Your face is red, and you’re sweating. So, come on, tell me. Am I a fox? Or maybe a weasel. Or how about a white eel?” White eels are members of the snake family, real close members. She was trying to trick me. But I was not about to be fooled. The only way I’d let my tongue betray me was if she came out and admitted that in reality she was a white snake. The surest way to have her take on her true form was to tell her I’d seen that she was a reincarnated white snake. She’d open that bloody mouth wide and swallow me up. No, she knew I always carried a knife, and if I wound up inside her, I’d slice her open. That would be the end of her. So instead, she’d open a hole in my head with her tongue, which was harder than a woodpecker’s beak, and suck out my brains. Then she’d suck the marrow from my bones, followed by my blood, reducing me to a pile of hollow bones wrapped in human skin. You cannot pry the words out of me, not even in your dreams. My niang used to say to me, “Pretend you know nothing, and the spirits will have no control over you.” “Honest, I saw nothing.” This time she reacted by laughing and changing form. Laughing made her look more human and less snake-like. Pretty much all human. She began crawling out of the room, her body soft and pliable, saying on her way out, “Take that treasure of yours and see what animal your dieh is after spending forty-four years killing people. This is just a guess, but I’ll say eight or nine chances out of ten, he’s a poisonous snake.” More talk of snakes! I knew she was like the fleeing bandit who yells “Stop, thief!” and I was not about to be fooled by that.

I put my treasure back in its hiding place in the wall, beginning to wish I’d never gotten it in the first place. The less you know, the better, most of the time. Knowledge only gets you into trouble. Knowing a person’s true form is especially dangerous, because that’s something you cannot get past. Now that I’d seen what my wife really was, that was the end of it for me. If I’d been ignorant of her snake background, nothing could have stopped me from wrapping my arms around her in bed. Think I’d dare do that now? That was reason enough not to want to know what my dieh was. I was already pretty much a loner, and now that my wife was a snake, my dieh was all I had.

So I hid my treasure and went into the living room, where I got the shock of my life. Heaven help me, there on my dieh’s sandalwood chair sat an emaciated panther! It turned to look at me out of the corner of its eye. I’d seen that look before, and it didn’t take a genius to know that it was in fact my dieh in an earlier form. It opened its mouth, making its whiskers twitch. “Son,” it said, “so now you know. Your dieh was the preeminent executioner at the Great Qing Court, the recipient of accolades from the Empress Dowager Herself. It is a calling that must stay in the family.”

My heart skipped a beat. Heaven help me, what was that all about? In the story my niang told me about the tiger’s whisker, she said that after the man hid the whisker he’d gone up north to get, he could only see people as people—his dieh was not a horse and his niang was not a dog. I’d tucked my whisker back into a crack in the wall, so why was I now seeing my dieh as a panther? My eyes must have been deceiving me. Maybe the effects of that thing lingered on my hand. I was already having trouble accepting the fact that my wife was a white snake, and now that I’d discovered that my dieh was a panther, well, for me the road ahead was a dead end. In a state of panic, I ran into the yard, where I scooped up a pail of water and frantically washed my hands and rinsed out my eyes. Then I buried my head in the water. One weird occurrence after another that day had swelled my head, and I was hoping that a cold-water bath would bring it down to size.

I returned to the living room, only to find the panther still sitting in my dieh’s sandalwood armchair. There was a look of disdain in those eyes, disappointment that I hadn’t made much of myself. A red-tasseled skullcap was perched atop its large, furry head; two hairy ears were pricked straight up in a state of vigilance. Dozens of long, wiry whiskers fanned out from the sides of its wide mouth. After licking its chops and the tip of its nose with a spiky, slurpy tongue, it yawned with red grandeur. It was wearing a tea-colored short jacket over a long robe, from whose wide sleeves fleshy, clawed paws emerged. It was such a strange, comical scene, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. At the moment, those claws were deftly manipulating a string of sandalwood prayer beads.

Niang once told me that a tiger manipulates Buddhist prayer beads to give the impression of goodness. She never said anything about a panther.

I backed up slowly, barely able to keep from turning and running. My wife was a snake, my dieh a panther. This house was no place for me. I’d be in real trouble if either one of them reverted back to its original form. Even if what we’d meant to each other kept them from eating me, I don’t think I could stand the crushing anxiety of doubt. I forced a smile, hoping that would keep him from getting suspicious. It was my only hope. That panther was showing its age, but its hind legs, folded into a crouch in the armchair, looked to have plenty of spring left—leaping a good five or six feet would be no problem. Sure, its teeth had worn down over the years, but those steely fangs would have no trouble crushing my throat. And let’s say I had the leg strength to get away from the panther; there’d still be the white snake. According to my niang, a snake that has gained spirit status is half a dragon and can move like the wind, faster than a racehorse. She said she’d actually seen a snake as thick as her arm and as long as a carrying pole chase down a fawn in the wild. The young deer had run and bounded through the grass, fast as an arrow off the bow. The snake? With the front half of its body raised off the ground, it parted the grass with a whoosh. In the end, it swallowed the fawn whole. My wife was as big around as a water bucket and had reached heights of Taoist cultivation way beyond that of the snake that ate the fawn. I could run faster than a jackrabbit and still not escape something that could soar with the clouds and mist.

“Where are you going, Xiaojia?” A gloom-laden voice sounded behind me. I turned to look. The panther had risen up out of the sandalwood chair, its forelegs pressing down on the armrests, its hind legs now touching the brick floor. I was caught in a withering glare. Heaven help me, the old-timer was ready to pounce, and could easily make it out into the yard in one leap! Don’t panic, I told myself to boost my courage; calm down. Heh-heh, I feigned a laugh. “I’m going to take care of that pig, Dieh. Pork must be sold when it’s fresh. It’s heavier on the scale and it looks better.” The panther smirked. “It’s time for you to take up a new calling, son,” the panther said. “It too involves ‘killing,’ but pig-killing is one of the three debased occupations, while man-killing has been elevated to one of the nine chosen occupations.” I kept backing up. “You’re right, Dieh. From today on, I’ll stop killing pigs and learn from you how to kill a man…” At that moment the white snake raised its head, a head covered with glistening, scary coin-sized scales all the way down its white neck. “Cluck cluck cluck cluck”… a strand of laughter sounding more like a laying hen sputtered from her mouth. “Xiaojia,” she said, “did you see it? What animal was your dieh? A wolf? A tiger? A poisonous snake?” I watched her scaly white neck rise up as the red jacket and green pants she was wearing slid off her body like a multihued snakeskin. Her red-tinged black tongue was within striking distance of my eyes. Niang! I lost it then, jumping backward in terror, and—bang! I heard what sounded like a thunderclap and saw stars—Niang! I passed out, foaming at the mouth. My wife later said I’d suffered an epilepsy attack. Nonsense! How can someone who’s not an epileptic suffer one of those? What happened is that in my panicky jump I hit my head on a doorjamb nail. The pain knocked me out.

A woman was calling me from far, far off: “Xiaojia… Xiaojia…” I couldn’t tell whether it was my niang or my wife. I had a splitting headache, and when I tried to open my eyes, I couldn’t—my lids were stuck shut by something gummy. There was a perfumed smell in the air, and then the smell of crushed grass, and finally the heavy, rank odor of boiled pig entrails. The calls kept coming: “Xiaojia, Xiaojia…” Then something cool and refreshing pelted me in the face, and my mind was abruptly as clear as a bell.

The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was a rainbow of dancing colors. Then I saw brilliant flashes of light, followed by a big, pasty face that nearly touched mine. It belonged to my wife. “Xiaojia,” I heard her say, “you scared me half to death.” She was tugging me with a hand that felt sweaty, and finally managed, very clumsily, to pull me up off the floor. I shook my head. “Where am I?” “Where are you? You’re home, you poor fool.” Home. Feeling a sense of agony, I frowned, as everything that had just happened came back in a flash. “As heaven is my witness, I don’t want that tiger’s whisker, I don’t! I’m going to throw it into the fire.” She smirked and put her mouth up close to my ear. “You big fool,” she said, “did you really think that’s a tiger’s whisker? It’s one of my hairs.” I shook my head. It hurt, it hurt like crazy. “No, that can’t be. You don’t have hair like that. But even if you did, how do you explain the fact that when I held it in my hand, I could see your true form? And I saw my dieh’s true form even when I wasn’t holding it.” “Tell me, then,” she said, her curiosity piqued, “what was I?” As I looked into that fair, fresh face, then down at her arms and legs, before glancing over at my dieh, who was slumped in his armchair, everything suddenly cleared up. I must have been dreaming. My wife as a snake, my dieh as a panther, it was all a dream. She laughed a strange little laugh. “Who knows, maybe I am a snake. Yes, that’s exactly what I am, a snake!” Her face lengthened, and her eyes turned green. “If I’m a snake,” she added venomously, “I’ll wriggle my way into your belly!” Her face grew longer and longer, her eyes a deeper and deeper green, and scales reappeared on her neck. I covered my eyes with my hands and screamed: “No, you’re not, you’re not a snake, you’re human!”

———— 3 ————

The gate to our compound flew open.

There stood the two yayi my father had sent packing, except that now they were gray wolves in human clothing. Hands resting on their swords, they stood one on each side of the door. Scared out of my wits, I shut my eyes in hopes that this would rescue me from my dream. When I reopened my eyes, I saw that they now had yayi faces, but the backs of their hands were coated with fur, and their fingers ended in sharp claws. I was struck by the sad realization that my wife’s hair was more powerful than any tiger’s whisker could ever be. The whisker worked its magic only when you held it in your hand, but all my wife’s hair had to do was touch your hand to hold you in its supernatural power, and then it made no difference whether you kept it or threw it away, whether you were aware of its existence or not.

After the wolf-yayi took their positions by the sides of the gate, a four-man palanquin was set down on the cobblestone street in front of the gate. The bearers—a quartet of donkeys, with big, floppy ears hidden under stovepipe caps, but with easily identifiable faces—rested their glistening front hooves on the chair shafts, slobber oozing from their mouths as their breath came in snorts. By all appearances, they had run the whole way, their hoof-encased boots covered with a thick layer of dust. The legal secretary, Diao, whom everyone called Diao Laoye—he was a pointy-faced hedgehog—grabbed a corner of the chair curtain with his pink paw and pulled it open. I knew it was Magistrate Qian’s official palanquin, the one Xiaokui had spat at to bring the wrath of its owner down on his head, and I knew that the person about to step out was Gaomi County’s Magistrate, His Eminence Qian Ding, my wife’s gandieh. Logically, that made him my gandieh as well. But when I told my wife that I’d like to go along to pay my respects to him, she flatly refused. Fairness requires me to admit that Magistrate Qian had generously exempted us from paying taxes over the years, saving us a lot of silver. But he really shouldn’t have broken Xiaokui’s leg just because he spat at his palanquin. Xiaokui was a friend of mine, after all, even though he’d said to me, “You really are a fool, Xiaojia. Magistrate Qian has given you a cuckold’s green hat, so why don’t you wear it?” Well, I went home and said to my wife, “Dear wife, Xiaokui said that Magistrate Qian has given me a green hat. What’s it look like? Why won’t you show me?” “You idiot,” she cursed, “Xiaokui is a bad person, and I don’t want you spending time with him. If you do, I won’t sleep with you anymore.” Before three days had passed, some yayi had broken Xiaokui’s leg. Breaking somebody’s leg just because he spits at you makes you a very cruel man, Magistrate Qian. So now here you are, and I want to see just what you used to be.

I watched as a white tiger head, as big as a willow basket, emerged from the palanquin. Heaven help me, Magistrate Qian was a white tiger in human form! No wonder my niang said that the Emperor is a reincarnated dragon and that high officials are reincarnated tigers. A blue official’s cap sat atop the tiger’s head, while its body was sheathed in a red official’s robe with a pair of strange-looking white birds—neither chickens nor ducks—embroidered on the chest. Bigger than my dieh, a skinny panther, this was a very fat tiger. It was doughy white, my dieh coal black. The tiger stepped down and lumbered in through our gate, taking slow, measured steps. The hedgehog dashed ahead of it into the courtyard and announced, “His Eminence the County Magistrate has arrived!”

The tiger and I were face to face. It snarled, and I shut my eyes in fear. “You must be Zhao Xiaojia.”

Bent like a shrimp, I replied, “Yes, yes, I am Zhao Xiaojia.”

While I was bent over like that, he hid the bulk of his original form, leaving only the tip of his tail showing beneath his robe and dragging it along the muddy ground. I had a very private thought: Tiger, there’s pig’s blood and dog shit in our compound mud, so pretty soon flies will be landing on your tail. My thought still hung in the air when flies resting on the wall swarmed over, buzzing and raising a din as they landed not just on the Magistrate’s tail, but on his cap, his sleeves, and his collar. “Xiaojia,” the Magistrate said amiably, “go inside and announce that the County Magistrate has come calling.”

I said, “The Magistrate can go on in. But my dieh might bite.”

The legal secretary reverted to human form and said angrily, “Are you really so reckless as to disobey the County Magistrate? Go inside and tell your dieh to come out here!”

His Eminence raised his hand to stop his secretary and, bending slightly at the waist, stepped inside. I rushed in after him, wanting to see what would happen when tiger and panther met. I hoped they would be enemies at first sight—growling, their hackles raised, green lights shooting from their eyes, white fangs bared. The white tiger glares at the panther; the panther glares right back. The white tiger circles the panther; the panther does the same. No backing down. My niang told me that wild beasts display their aggressive power to potential enemies by snarling, glaring, and showing their fangs, trying to drive them away without a fight. If one shows a hint of vulnerability by pricking up its ears or wagging its tail or lowering its eyes, the other one will snap at it a time or two, and the battle is won. But if neither is willing to back down, a savage fight is inevitable. No fight, how much fun is that? A good fight, now that’s worth waiting for. And that’s what I was doing—waiting, no, hoping, for a tiger-panther fight to the death between my dieh and Magistrate Qian. They circle one another, faster and faster, more and more aggressively, alternating black and white trails of smoke, moving from the living room out to the yard, and from there to the street beyond, round and round and round, until I am dizzy just watching them, spinning like a top. At one point the two merge, with black encircling white, like an egg, and white encircling black, like a twisted rope. They spin from the east end of the compound to the west, and from the south to the north. One minute they are up on the roof, the next down deep in the well. A sudden shriek—mountains echoing, oceans roaring, rabbits mating—until finally the settling—heaven and earth—arrives. I see a white tiger and a black panther, separated by no more than a couple of yards, sitting on their haunches as they lick the wounds on their shoulders. My mind was awhirl from watching the tiger-panther battle, and I was wild with joy, trembling from fear, and damp with sweat, all at the same time. Nothing had been resolved—no winner and no loser. While they were locked in battle, tooth and claw, I was wishing that I could help my panther dieh somehow, but I never found an opening.

Magistrate Qian glowered at my dieh, a contemptuous smirk on his face. Dieh wore a contemptuous smirk as he glowered at Magistrate Qian. In his eyes, this County Magistrate, who had ordered his lackeys to beat Xiaokui nearly to death, was beneath contempt. Dieh was panther-savage, mule-stubborn, ox-bold. The looks in the combatants’ eyes were like crossed swords, embodying clangs that produced sparks, some of which blistered my face. They held their intense gazes, neither willing to turn away, and by then my heart was in my throat, on the verge of leaping out of my body and turning into a jackrabbit, its tail sticking up as it bounded away, out of the yard and onto the street, to be chased by dogs all the way to the southern foothills to graze on fresh grass. What kind of grass? Butter grass. Eats a lot, hits the spot, too much and it grows a pot. When it returns, in my chest it’s a knot. Their muscles were taut, claws unsheathed from the folds of their paws. They could pounce at any minute and be at each other’s throat. At that critical moment, my wife walked in, bringing her feminine perfume into the room. Her smile was a rose in bloom, petals arching outward, opening wide. Her hips shifted from side to side like braiding a rope. Her original form glimmered for a brief moment, but was quickly hidden beneath fair, tender, fragrant, sweet skin. She knelt down dramatically and, in a voice dripping with honey yet sour as vinegar, said, “Sun Meiniang, a woman of the people, bows down before His Eminence the County Magistrate!”

That bow took the steam out of Magistrate Qian. He looked away and coughed, sounding like a billy goat with a cold: ahek ahek ahek ahek, ahek ahek ahek ahek. It was obviously contrived. I might have been a bit of an idiot, but I was not fooled. He sneaked a glance at my wife, willing neither to look her in the eye nor to look for long. That look was a grasshopper, bouncing all over the place, until it finally smacked into the wall. His face twitched, a pitiful sight, whether from shyness or fear I could not say. “No need for that,” he said; “please get up.”

My wife stood up. “I understand that His Eminence has locked up my dieh, for which he was handsomely rewarded by the foreigners. I have prepared some good strong drink and dog meat to offer His Eminence my congratulations!”

After a hollow laugh and a pregnant pause, Magistrate Qian replied, “As an official in the service of the throne, I must carry out my duties.”

As she exploded in lascivious laughter, my wife reached up and audaciously tugged on the Magistrate’s black beard, then twisted his thick queue—how come my niang never gave me one of those?—and marched him over behind the sandalwood chair, where she grabbed my dieh’s queue and said, “You two, one is my gandieh, the other my gongdieh. My gandieh has arrested my real dieh and wants my gongdieh to put him to death. So, Gandieh, Gongdieh, my real dieh’s fate is in your hands.”

She had barely gotten this crazed talk out of her mouth before she ran over to the wall and had an attack of the dry heaves. The sight nearly broke my heart, so I walked up to shyly thump her on the back. “Have they driven you crazy?” I wondered aloud. She straightened up and, with tears in her eyes, growled, “You fool, where do you get off asking me that? At this moment I am carrying the next generation’s evil bastard for your family!”

My wife’s barbs were directed at me, but her eyes were on Magistrate Qian. My dieh was staring at the wall, probably looking for the fat gecko that often appeared there. Magistrate Qian’s rear end began to shift uncomfortably, like a boy trying to keep from soiling himself. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Diao Laoye stepped up and, with a bow to his superior, said, “Eminence, business first. His Excellency Yuan Shikai is waiting at Court for your response.”

Magistrate Qian mopped his brow with the sleeve of his robe and tidied his beard, which my wife had ruffled. He coughed, sounding more like a goat than a man, and then composed himself, clasped his hands in front of his chest, and, with obvious reluctance, bowed to my dieh. “Unless I am mistaken, you must be the renowned Grandma, Zhao Jia.”

My dieh, sandalwood prayer beads in hand, stood up and replied smugly, “I am your public servant Zhao Jia, and since I am holding a string of prayer beads that were a gift from the Empress Dowager Herself, you’ll forgive me for not kneeling before a local official.”

Once the words were out, he lifted the sandalwood beads, which looked to be weightier than a chain of steel, over his head, as if waiting for something to happen.

Magistrate Qian took a step backward, brought his legs together, and straightened his wide sleeves. Then, with a swish of those sleeves, he fell to his knees and banged his head on the floor. “I, Magistrate of Gaomi County, Qian Ding,” he called out, his voice cracking, “wish Her Royal Highness, our Empress Dowager, a long, long life!”

The ritual of respect completed, Magistrate Qian scrambled to his feet and said, “This humble official would never presume to trouble the revered Grandma on his own. I come on behalf of the Governor of Shandong, Excellency Yuan Shikai, who requests an audience.”

Dieh’s reaction to the invitation was to finger his beads, ignoring the request, and gaze at the gecko on the wall. “Honorable Magistrate,” he said, “the sandalwood chair upon which I have been sitting was a gift from His Imperial Majesty the Emperor, and the custom is to treat any object from His Royal Personage as if it were the Emperor Himself.”

Magistrate Qian’s face turned the color of the darkest sandalwood. Flames of anger seemed to burn in his chest, but he managed to keep them from bursting forth. I thought my dieh had gone a bit overboard by forcing the Magistrate to kneel, an act that could be seen as turning the world upside down, reversing the order of official and subject. But to do it twice? I think you’re flirting with danger, Dieh. Niang said it best: The Emperor is a mighty force, but a distant one. A County Magistrate is a low-ranking official, but local. It would not be hard for him to find an excuse to make our lives difficult. Magistrate Qian is not someone you want to provoke, Dieh. I told you how he broke my friend Xiaokui’s leg just because he spat at the Magistrate’s palanquin.

Magistrate Qian rolled his eyes. “When did the Emperor sit in this chair?” he asked frostily.

“On the eighteenth day of the twelfth month in the Ji-Hai year of 1899 at the Imperial Residence in the Hall of Benevolence and Longevity. When the Empress Dowager heard Grand Steward Li’s report on how I had carried out my duties, She favored me with a private audience. It was then that She presented me with this string of Buddhist prayer beads, telling me that when I laid down my executioner’s sword, I ought to become a Buddha. She then had me seek a reward from the Emperor Himself. His Imperial Majesty stood up and said, “We have nothing at hand to give you, and if you are not bothered by a bulky object, you may take this chair with you.”

A smirk appeared on the County Magistrate’s gloomy face. “I am a man of little learning and few talents. Yet however ignorant and ill-informed I may be, I have read a classic or two, ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, and in none have I ever read that an emperor would willingly surrender the chair in which he is sitting to anyone—especially not to an executioner. I submit, Grandma Zhao, that this tale is a bit far-fetched, even for you, and that you display unwarranted audacity. Why not go further and maintain that His Imperial Majesty rewarded you with three hundred years of property belonging to the Great Qing Empire, including its rivers and mountains? You wielded a sword for the Board of Punishments for many years, from which we must conclude that you are familiar with most, if not all, national laws. And so, I ask you, how should your fabrication of an Imperial Edict, your bogus assertion that you have come into possession of Imperial furniture, be dealt with under the law, given that you have created a rumor that touches upon the persons of the Empress Dowager and His Imperial Majesty? The slicing death? Or perhaps being cleaved in two at the waist. Shall your entire clan be exterminated?”

Oh, Dieh, how could you make such wild claims first thing in the morning? Now look what you’ve done—we’re doomed. I was so frightened, my soul flew out of my body, but not before I fell to my knees to beg for forgiveness. “My dieh has offended you, Your Eminence,” I said to Magistrate Qian, “and he is fully deserving of being chopped to pieces that are then tossed to the dogs. But she and I are blameless, and I beg you to be lenient. Please do not exterminate our clan, for if you did, who would bring you dog meat and spirits from now on? On top of that, my wife has now informed me that she is carrying a child, and if there is no way to avoid extermination, you must wait until after the child is born.”

Diao Laoye rebuffed me: “Use your head, Zhao Xiaojia. Exterminating a clan means precisely that, not letting a single member off the hook. Do you really think they would let a son off just so you could have an heir?”

My dieh walked up and kicked me. “What are you up to, you no-account son? You are the perfect son so long as there is no trouble. But in a crisis, this is what you turn into!” Then he spun around to face Magistrate Qian. “Since the County Magistrate seems to believe that I am spreading a rumor to dupe him, why not ask the Empress Dowager and His Imperial Majesty in the capital? If you are afraid that is too great a distance to travel, we can go to the yamen to see what Excellency Yuan has to say. He ought to recognize this particular chair.”

My father’s brief monologue sounded as soft as silk, but a barb was hidden inside it. A stunned and frightened Magistrate Qian shut his eyes and sighed. Then, opening his eyes again, he said, “No need for that. I am a man of inadequate knowledge and deserve Grandma Zhao’s ridicule.” He cupped his hands in front of him in a gesture of respect, after which he once again lowered his wide sleeves, assumed a look of distress, and fell to his knees with a swish of those sleeves, facing the chair. When his head hit the floor this time, the sound resonated throughout the room. “I, Gaomi County Magistrate Qian Ding,” he said as loud as a curse, “wish His Imperial Majesty a long life, a very, very long life!”

My dieh’s hands quaked as he fingered his prayer beads. An irrepressible look of triumph shone in his eyes.

Now that he was back on his feet, the Magistrate said, “Grandma Zhao, may I ask if there are other Imperial treasures in your possession? I have been on my knees once and then twice, so I can surely do it yet again.”

With a smile, Dieh said, “Your Eminence, that is not my fault. The custom has been dictated by the Imperial Court.”

“Well, then, since there is no more, will Grandma Zhao accompany me to the yamen, where Governor Yuan and Plenipotentiary von Ketteler await?”

“May it please the Magistrate to have his men pick up this chair? I would like for Governor Yuan to determine its authenticity.”

Magistrate Qian hesitated for a moment. “Very well,” he said with a wave of his hand. “Come take this!”

The two wolf-yayi picked up the Dragon Chair and followed my father and Magistrate Qian, who walked side by side out our gate. My wife stayed behind to vomit in the yard, crying between her stomach upheavals, “Dear Father, you must live on, for your daughter is carrying your grandchild!”

I watched as Magistrate Qian’s face went from red to white, proof of his discomfort, while the look of arrogance and self-satisfaction on my dieh’s face was, if anything, more apparent than ever. The two of them vied to let the other mount the palanquin first, like officials of equal rank or best friends. In the end, they both chose not to climb aboard, while the yayi tried to squeeze the Dragon Chair inside. When they failed, they hung it upside down from the shaft. My dieh leaned into the palanquin to set his prayer beads inside, and then leaned back out, as the curtain fell to keep the sacred object from view. Now that his soft white hands were empty, he looked contentedly at Magistrate Qian. With a leering smile, the Magistrate raised his hand and—whack—spun my father’s head around with a slap that sounded like the squashing of a toad. Caught unawares, my dieh stumbled, trying hard not to fall, but the moment he steadied himself, a second slap, more savage than the first, sent him thudding to the ground, where he sat only semi-conscious, his eyes glazed over. He leaned forward and spat out a mouthful of blood and, it appeared, a tooth or two. “Forward!” Magistrate Qian commanded.

The carriers picked up the palanquin and trotted off, leaving the two yayi behind to pick my dieh up by his arms and drag him along like a dead dog. Magistrate Qian walked on, head high, chest out, the epitome of power and prestige, like a rooster that has just climbed off a hen’s back. The head-up posture did not serve him well, as he nearly fell when his foot bumped into a brick in the middle of the road, and would have had it not been for the quick action of Diao Laoye. Not so fortunate was the Magistrate’s hat, which fell to the ground in the flurry of activity. He reached down, scooped it up, and put it back on his head—cockeyed, as it turned out. He straightened it, then continued walking behind the palanquin, followed by Diao Laoye; the yayi brought up the rear with my dieh in tow, his legs dragging along the ground. A bunch of impudent neighborhood children fell in behind my dieh, bringing the total number in the procession to a dozen or more traveling along the bumpy road on their way to the county yamen.

Tears spurted from my eyes. Oh, how I wished I had thrown myself at Magistrate Qian for what he’d done. No wonder Dieh said I was the perfect son so long as there was no trouble, but in a crisis, I turned into a no-account son. I should have broken the man’s leg with a club; I should have cut open his belly with a knife… Well, I picked up my butcher knife and ran out of the yard, intent on chasing down Magistrate Qian’s palanquin. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I followed a trail of houseflies to the spot where the puddle Dieh had made lay in the sun. Yes, there they were, two of his teeth, both molars. I moved them around with the tip of my knife, feelings of sadness bringing fresh tears to my eyes. After I got to my feet, I turned toward their retreating backs, spat mightily in their direction, and cursed at the top of my lungs, Fuck you—followed, in a barely audible voice, by: Qian Ding.

———— 1 ————

Please sit, dear wife. I cannot ask you to bother with the lowly chore of preparing food and drink. I have told you so a thousand times, and yet you treat my words as wind passing by your ear. So please sit, dear wife; tonight you and I shall drink to our hearts’ content, till we are both pleasurably tipsy, and then retire to my sleeping quarters. Do not fear the prospect of inebriation or how the spirits will loosen your tongue. Though it be true that we are in the depths of this compound, where secrets are safe, even in a teahouse or wine shop surrounded by a gathered crowd I would say what is in my heart, for I could not rest until I had my say. Dear wife, you are descended from a towering official of the Great Qing, born into a family of affluence, maternal granddaughter of Zeng Guofan, who came to the rescue of the dynasty, expending energy under the most difficult of circumstances, sparing no effort as a true loyalist amid a desperate state of affairs, to become a mainstay of the nation. The Great Qing would not exist today but for the Zeng family. A toast, dear wife, to us. Do not assume that I am drunk, for I am not. Oh, if only I were! While drink may have an effect on my body, my soul remains beyond its power. I will not mislead you, dear wife, nor could I if I tried, for this once-great dynasty is nearing its fated end. The Empress Dowager holds the reins of power; the Emperor is but a puppet. The rooster broods the eggs; the hen heralds the dawn—yin and yang are reversed, black and white all mixed up, with villains holding sway and black arts running wild. It would be a monstrous absurdity if the death knell of such a royal house were not struck. Let me have my say, dear wife, for I shall burst if I do not. Great Qing Court, you magnificent edifice on the verge of toppling, do so quickly and let your demise come swiftly. Why must you hang on between life and death, neither yin nor yang? Do not try to stop me, dear wife, and do not take my glass from me. Let me drink to my heart’s content and speak my piece! Revered Empress Dowager and He Who Has Received His Mandate from Heaven, as beneficiaries of a nation’s respect, how could You show no regard for Your exalted position and make a grand show of allowing an audience with an executioner? An executioner—the dregs of society, a man at the bottom of the heap! We who serve in official positions rise before dawn and do not eat until it is dark, performing our duties with diligence, and even a glimpse of the Dragon countenance is an event of earth-shaking rarity. Yet a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs has been accorded the dignity of a grand and solemn audience, at which Her Royal Highness presented him with a fine ring of prayer beads and His Imperial Majesty favored him with the very chair occupied by His noble person, treatment that barely fell short of granting high rank and hereditary title. Dear wife, your esteemed grandfather, Zeng Guofan, devised strategies that ensured victory in his command of the nation’s armed forces in campaigns all across the land, winning glory in battle after battle, and yet His Imperial Majesty did not favor him with the chair in which He sat, did He? Your grandfather’s younger brother, Zeng Guoquan, charged enemy lines under heavy fire, engaging in bloody battles, narrowly escaping death time and again. But Her Royal Highness did not present him with a ring of prayer beads, did She? No, they chose to make gifts of a Dragon Chair and a ring of prayer beads to a bottom-feeding denizen spurned by dogs and pigs. And that overweening swine, a beneficiary of the Emperor and Dowager’s munificence, forced me to perform the reverential ritual of three bows and nine kowtows before the exalted chair and prayer beads—in other words, before him. If that can be tolerated, is there anything that cannot? Subjecting a successful candidate of the metropolitan examination, a grade five official, however modest his standing, to such humiliating treatment goes beyond indignation. And please do not insult me with the adage “A lack of forbearance in small matters upsets great plans,” for recent events make a mockery of so-called “great plans.” On the street, rumors are flying that the Eight-Power Allied Forces have reached the outskirts of the city and that Her Highness the Empress Dowager and His Majesty the Emperor are about to abandon the capital and flee to the west. The Great Qing Empire, many believe, will fall at any moment. At a time like this, of what use is forbearance? I forbear nothing! No, it is revenge I seek. Dear wife, when that swine placed the Dragon Chair and the prayer beads into my palanquin, I delivered two well-placed slaps across his cadaverous dog face, satisfyingly resounding blows with such force that the swine looked down and spat out two bloody dog teeth. The stinging sensation on my hand persists even now. Ah, how good it felt! Fill my cup again, please, dear wife.

Those slaps swept away every shred of the swine’s sense of esteem and made him slink away like a mangy dog with its tail between its legs. But I could tell that deep down he did not admit defeat, no, not for a minute, as I saw in his eyes, set deep in sockets so dark that no trace of white emerged, only rays of emerald-green light like will-o’-the-wisps. And yet that swine was no craven pushover. As we stood outside the yamen gate, I asked: “How did that feel, Grandma Zhao?” Do you know what he said? The swine actually giggled and said to me, “Those were fine slaps, Your Eminence, and one day I shall return the favor.” “Well,” I said, “that day will never come. I may one day swallow gold, hang myself, take poison, or cut my throat, but my demise will not come at your hands.” “My only fear,” he said, “is that when the time comes, Your Eminence will not be in a position to control his own fate.” He then added, “There are precedents for that.”

Yes, dear wife, you are right. I soiled my hand by using it on him. A County Magistrate, a representative of the Imperial Court, should not lower himself to vie with so lowly an antagonist. What is he, after all? A pig? No, a pig has more grace than he. A dog? No, a dog is nobler. But what was I to do? Excellency Yuan ordered me to extend the invitation, and once a grand official of that elevated status had spoken, I had no choice but to send messengers, who failed, necessitating my personal attention to it. One would be a fool not to see that in the eyes of Excellency Yuan, the Gaomi County Magistrate is of less worth than a common executioner.

Before we went into the hall, I took the hand of that swine—it was as hot as cinders and as soft as dough, a hand unlike any other—with the idea to lead him inside with feigned affection, making him uncomfortable but unable to say so. But the swine gently pulled his hand from mine and fixed his eyes on me with an enigmatic look. Sinister thoughts, impossible to interpret, were running through his head. He climbed back into my palanquin, where he draped the prayer beads around his neck and emerged with the Dragon Chair over his head, legs up. I was amazed to see that this skeletal dog of a man actually had the strength to carry such a heavy wooden chair. The swine then entered the hall, swaying from side to side under the heft of his protective talisman. Feeling incredibly awkward, I followed him inside, where I saw Excellency Yuan sitting shoulder to shoulder with the Jiao’ao Plenipotentiary, von Ketteler, looking rather bewildered. The foreign bastard was winking and making strange faces.

The swine, still holding the chair over his head, knelt in the middle of the hall and announced crisply, “Your humble servant Zhao Jia, a former executioner who was granted retirement from the Board of Punishments by Her Royal Highness and permitted to return home, is here in response to Your Excellency’s summons.”

Excellency Yuan nearly jumped to his feet and trotted across the hall to where that swine knelt, his protruding paunch leading the way, and reached out to relieve him of the weighty chair. Seeing that it was too heavy for His Excellency to manage by himself, I rushed over to help him take it from the swine and then carefully turn it right side up and set it down in the middle of the hall. As for Excellency Yuan, he shook his wide sleeves, removed his cap with both hands, and fell to his knees. After touching his head to the floor, he intoned: “Shandong Governor Yuan Shikai humbly wishes His Imperial Majesty and Her Royal Highness a long and prosperous life!” I stood mutely off to one side as if struck by a thunderbolt for a moment before being abruptly awakened to the knowledge that my lack of action was a monumental affront to the august Son of Heaven. I could not fall to my knees fast enough, as I again performed the three bows and nine kowtows to that swine and his chair and prayer beads. The cold brick flooring raised blisters on my forehead. As I was banging my head on the floor to the Imperial chair, that foreign bastard whispered something to his interpreter and wore a contemptuous smirk on his long, skinny, goat-like face. Oh, Great Qing Empire, what you excel in is trampling your own officials underfoot and pandering to the foreigners. That bastard von Ketteler and I have clashed many times, so I am confident that he would never speak kindly of me to Excellency Yuan. There may be nothing I can do about those bastards, but no matter what you say, it was I who made it possible for them to take Sun Bing into custody.

That swine remained on his knees, even when Excellency Yuan reached down to help him to his feet, and I steeled myself for the worst. The moment for that swine to get his revenge over those two slaps had arrived. As I feared, he took the prayer beads from around his neck, held them out with two hands, and said, “Your humble servant asks His Excellency to be his arbiter.”

With a derisive snort and a quick glance at me, Excellency Yuan said, “State your case.”

“His Eminence Qian has accused me of gross fabrication and spreading a rumor.”

“What did he accuse you of fabricating, and what rumor are you supposed to have spread?”

“He said that the Dragon Chair and prayer beads are common items among the populace, and he has accused me of using deception to burnish my name.”

Excellency Yuan glared at me. “He is just ignorant and ill-informed!” he said.

“Excellency,” I defended myself, “your humble servant believes that propriety does not extend to the lower classes and that punishments do not accrue to the elite. How could the exalted Imperial Majesty and Royal Highness grant an audience to an executioner and reward him with gifts of inestimable value? That is why your humble servant was suspicious.”

Excellency Yuan replied, “You are a man of shallow learning who has swallowed the lessons of antiquity without digesting them. In conforming to the times in their desire to make the country prosper, His Imperial Majesty and Her Royal Highness have dedicated Themselves to loving the common people as Their own children, to understanding and sympathizing with those at the bottom, in the same way that the sun shines down on all creation. Tall trees and minuscule blades of grass alike receive nourishment. You are narrow-minded and petty, adhering blindly to convention, an ignorant man too easily surprised.”

Then that swine said, “His Eminence Qian also slapped me so hard I lost two teeth.”

Excellency Yuan pounded the table and sputtered angrily, “Grandma Zhao has served three emperors in his role of punishing miscreants for the Board of Punishments Bureau of Detentions. He has made great contributions in meting out punishments with such skill and loyalty that even the Emperor and the Empress Dowager have commended and rewarded him, and yet you, a mere County Magistrate, had the audacity to knock out two of his teeth. Do His Imperial Majesty and Her Royal Highness mean nothing to you?”

I was paralyzed with fear, as if struck by lightning, until I was covered with perspiration that soaked my clothes. My legs were so weak they could not hold me up. I fell to my knees and began banging my head on the floor. “This humble, small-minded subordinate, who cannot see what is under his nose, has offended Grandma and sinned against the Son of Heaven,” I said. “I deserve ten thousand deaths and throw myself upon His Excellency’s mercy!”

Excellency Yuan was silent for a moment before he said, “By physically abusing an ordinary citizen, you have proven that the Imperial Court means nothing to you, and you deserve to be severely punished. However, you aided the Plenipotentiary in capturing the bandit chieftain Sun Bing alive, a notable achievement, and I shall let that erase your crime.”

I banged my head again on the floor and said, “Eternal thanks to Your Excellency!”

“There is a popular adage that goes, ‘Do not hit someone in the face or reveal another’s shortcomings,’” he continued. “You struck him in the face without provocation and dislodged two teeth. If I were to simply absolve you of that, Grandma Zhao might well object. So here is what we shall do: You kowtow twice to Grandma Zhao and give him twenty ounces of silver to replace his missing teeth.”

Now you know, dear wife, the extent of the humiliation to which I was subjected today. But when I stand beneath low eaves, how can I not lower my head? So I steeled myself and once again fell to my knees, though it caused me excruciating pain to do so, and, as I saw red, gave that swine two kowtows.

The swine grinned as he accepted my obeisance and had the unmitigated gall to say, “Your Eminence, this humble servant is one of society’s poorest, lacking even rice for the next meal, so I look forward to receiving those twenty ounces of silver very soon.”

That got a big laugh out of Excellency Yuan. Yuan Shikai, Excellency Yuan, you son of a bitch, how dare you humiliate one of your subordinates by siding with a common executioner in front of a foreigner! I was an impressively successful double candidate at the metropolitan examination and am a respected representative of the Imperial government. I ask you, Excellency Yuan, by humiliating a man of letters, have you not inflicted emotional pain upon all who serve? On the surface it looks as if you and he together have humiliated only the insignificant Magistrate of Gaomi County, whereas in fact you have brought dishonor to the Great Qing Court. A sallow-faced interpreter repeated everything that was said in the hall to the Plenipotentiary, a man who can kill without blinking, and whose laughter drowned out even that of Excellency Yuan. Dear wife, they treated your husband like a trained chimp. Utter abasement and degradation! Let me drink, dear wife, until I am drunk and as good as dead. Excellency Yuan, has the reality that “you can kill a gentleman but you must not humiliate him” escaped you? Do not worry, dear wife, I have no desire to kill myself. Sooner or later I will sacrifice myself in the cause of the Great Qing enterprise, but now is not the time.

That swine, having received the tacit approval of Excellency Yuan, sat proudly in his sandalwood chair, while I stood off to one side, like a common yayi. An overwhelming sense of indignation filled my heart, and heated blood rushed to my head. My ears were buzzing, my hands seemed to swell, and it was all I could do to keep from throttling that swine. But knowing what a coward I am, that was not to be. Instead, I tucked in my head, raised my shoulders, and managed a forced smile. I am a shameful, debased, contemptible, disgraced clown, dear wife, the most pathologically restrained person anywhere. Do you hear me, dear wife?

Excellency Yuan asked that swine, “Has it really been almost a year since we parted at Tianjin, Grandma?”

“Eight months, Excellency,” the swine replied.

“Do you know why we invited you here?” Excellency Yuan asked him.

“No, Excellency, your humble servant does not,” the swine replied.

“Do you know why Her Royal Highness requested an audience?” Excellency Yuan asked.

“Your humble servant heard from Grand Steward Li that Excellency Yuan spoke highly of your humble servant to Her Royal Highness Herself.”

“You and I are tied together by fate,” Excellency Yuan said.

“Your humble servant will remember Your Excellency’s benevolence to the end of his days,” the swine said as he got out of his chair to kowtow to Excellency Yuan; he then sat down again.

Excellency Yuan said, “I have asked you here today to perform another task for me—and, of course, for the Imperial Court.”

“What task does Your Excellency wish your humble servant to perform?” the swine asked.

The great man laughed. “You are a damned executioner. What do you think it could be?”

The swine replied, “Your humble servant must be honest with Your Excellency. Ever since the executions at Tianjin, an infirmity of the wrist has made holding a knife impossible.”

Excellency Yuan merely sneered. “If you can lift the Dragon Chair, a mere knife cannot present a problem. I can only hope that, in the wake of an audience with Her Royal Highness, you have not actually become a Buddha.”

Well, that swine slid out of his chair and knelt on both knees. “Excellency,” he said, “nothing could be further from the truth. Your humble servant is a pig, a dog, someone who will never become a Buddha.”

Excellency Yuan sneered again. “If even you were to become a Buddha, then the same could not be denied to a stinking turtle!”

“Your Excellency speaks the truth,” the swine said.

“Have you heard news of Sun Bing’s rebellion?” Excellency Yuan asked.

The swine replied, “Since your humble servant’s return to his native home, that is where I have stayed. I know nothing of events in the outside world.”

Excellency Yuan said to him, “You are aware that Sun Bing is your married son’s qinjia, I assume.”

The swine said, “Your humble servant plied his trade in the capital for decades without returning home. The marriage of my son was arranged by my departed wife.”

“Sun Bing has allied himself with the Boxer bandits,” Excellency Yuan said, “inciting rebellion among the people and creating an international incident that has caused unimaginable grief to His Imperial Majesty and Her Royal Highness. In accordance with the Qing legal code, accountability for a crime of this magnitude must extend to the culprit’s extended family, wouldn’t you say?”

The swine replied, “Your humble servant merely carries out punishments and has no knowledge of the law.”

Excellency Yuan said, “According to the law, you count as a member of his extended family.”

The swine replied, “Your humble servant returned home barely six months ago, and would not recognize Sun Bing if he saw him.”

Excellency Yuan said, “The people’s hearts are iron, the law is a furnace. Since last year’s rebellious disturbance by the Boxers, their anti-religion movement and murderous attacks on foreigners have led to an international incident, a calamity of monstrous proportions. As we speak, Peking is ringed by the Great Powers, and the capital is in imminent peril. Sun Bing has been apprehended, but surviving members of his clique are prepared to stir up the countryside again. The people of Shandong are known for their quick tempers, especially those in Gaomi County. With the nation in extreme peril, caught up in the chaos of war, only the most severe punishments can strike fear into the hearts of the unruly. I have asked you here today both to recall our days of friendship and to ask you to devise a means of execution for Sun Bing that will have the power to terrorize and serve as a warning to his unruly adherents.”

I looked over at that swine and saw telltale flashes in his eyes light up his cadaverous face, like steel fresh from the furnace. His strange little hands, which were resting on his knees, began to twitch like tiny animals, and I knew that was not because the swine was frightened, for I do not believe there is anything in this world that can intimidate a man who has taken the lives of a thousand human beings. I knew that excitement was the cause of the twitching hands, no different from that of a wolf when it sees its prey. A sinister glow filled his eyes, but humble, submissive words emerged from his mouth. The swine may be a coarse, uncultured executioner, but his knowledge of Qing officialdom is bewilderingly extensive. He succeeds in things by keeping his inadequacies hidden, seizing his prey by feigning to let go, and pretending to be dull-witted. “Excellency,” he said as he bowed his head, “your humble servant is a man of little refinement who carries out only those punishments deemed appropriate by his superiors.”

Excellency Yuan had a big laugh over that, and when he was finished, he said with a kindly smile, “Grandma Zhao, you are unwilling to devise anything particularly brutal since he is your qinjia. Am I right in that?”

The swine truly is a demonic creature, for he detected the vicious undertone in Excellency Yuan’s mocking comment and the fiendish expression masked by the smile. He jumped out of the Dragon Chair, fell to his knees, and said, “Your humble servant has said that he has returned home to live out his days and would not dare to usurp the prerogatives of the local tradesmen…”

“So that is what has been bothering you,” His Excellency said. “The abler one is, the more he ought to do.”

Well, that swine said, “Since His Excellency extends such magnanimity, your humble servant will display his inadequacies.”

“Tell me, then,” His Excellency said, “down through the ages, from dynasty to dynasty, what forms of punishment have been used, official and popular. Speak slowly, one at a time, so the interpreter can pass them on to the foreigner.”

The swine said, “Your humble servant heard his shifu say that among the punishments permitted by the current regime, none exceeds the slicing death in terms of brutality.”

“That is your specialty,” His Excellency said. “It is the one you used on Qian Xiongfei in Tianjin. It is a worthy punishment, but death comes a bit too quickly, I think.”

His Excellency then turned and nodded meaningfully to me. Dear wife, few men are as crafty as Excellency Yuan, and no one is better informed. He clearly knew that Qian Xiongfei and I were related. Yes, he stared at me with a squinting smile, a smile that would have been welcome were it not for the light that shone from his eyes—like the sting of a scorpion or the bite of a hornet—and then, as if he had just been reminded, he said, “Gaomi Magistrate, they say that Qian Xiongfei, the man who tried to assassinate me, was your cousin. Is that true?” Dear wife, I felt as if I had been struck by lightning. Cold sweat oozed from my pores as I fell to my knees and banged my head on the floor as if I were crushing cloves of garlic. I tell you, dear wife, your husband’s head has been badly abused today! Backed into a corner, I was reminded of a rustic adage that goes, “Whether one lives or dies is already written somewhere,” and if I simply admitted the relationship, I would not have to suffer the consequences of trying to cover something up. So I said, “May it please Your Excellency, Qian Xiongfei was your humble servant’s third brother, but because my uncle had no heir, he raised him as his son.” His Excellency nodded and said, “A dragon has nine sons, each different from the others. I have read the letters you wrote to him, and they are worthy of a successful double candidate at the metropolitan examination. As the descendant of an illustrious family, you write eloquently, with fine calligraphy and an elevated tone. But you have not seen the letter he wrote to you, one in which he severed relations with you and poured out a stream of invective against you. Gaomi County, you are an honest man, and an intelligent one, and it has always been my belief that honesty equals intelligence. Gaomi County, though there are no wings on your cap, it is on the verge of soaring into the sky. Get up!” I tell you, dear wife, this has been an extraordinary day, with danger lurking at every turn. Pour the spirits, dear wife. It would be unreasonable for you to refuse me. I shall get drunk before I take my rest.

Dear wife, we know that my third brother suffered the slicing death in Tianjin, but were surprised to learn that his executioner was that swine Zhao Jia. How true the adage that “Old foes are fated to meet.” Yuan Shikai is a man of wisdom and wide experience, with honey on his lips and murder in his heart, and my misfortune will be certain now that I have fallen into his hands. Drink up, dear wife, take advantage of the good days, for the arrival of bad times is ensured. Man has but one life, grass sees but one spring. I am prepared for anything.

That swine cast a furtive look at me, his gaze sweeping across my neck, probably searching out the junctures to determine the best spot for the sword to enter.

Excellency Yuan left me standing there and turned to Zhao Jia. “Besides the slicing death, can you think of any other splendid forms of punishment?”

The swine said, “Other than the slicing death, the cruelest form of punishment approved by the current regime, Your Excellency, is cleaving at the waist.”

Excellency Yuan asked him, “Have you ever performed that?”

“Once,” the swine said.

“Describe it for the benefit of the Plenipotentiary,” Excellency Yuan said.

———— 2 ————

“Your Excellency,” the swine said, “in the seventh year of the Xianfeng reign, your humble servant was a seventeen-year-old ‘nephew’ in the Board of Punishments Bureau of Detentions, serving his shifu, assisting the Grandma at executions and attentively studying his every move and action. The person to be killed by waist cleaving that day was a clerk at the Imperial Treasury, a big man with a mouth so large he could fit his entire fist in it. These clerks, Your Excellency, were master thieves, specializing in silver. Each time they entered the Treasury, they were required to strip naked. The same was true, of course, when they left. But that did not stop them from stealing silver. Can you guess, Excellency, where they hid the silver they stole from the Treasury? They hid it in their grain passages.” The sallow-faced interpreter asked, “What do you mean by a grain passage?” Excellency Yuan glared at the man. “The anus! Keep it short.” The swine said, “Yes, Excellency, I shall.” Throughout the history of the Qing, each year has seen a lessening of the silver in the Treasury, for which many innocent superintendents have died. The idea that clerks might be the culprits somehow never occurred to anyone. Every trade has its rules and customs, just as every family has its way of doing things. Even though the clerks received meager wages, they lived in lavish surroundings, dressed their womenfolk in finery, and displayed ostentatious wealth, all thanks to their grain passages. Now, one can say that such passages are tender spots sensitive to even a stray grain of sand. But those men had no trouble inserting a fifty-ounce silver ingot into them. At home, it turned out, they enlarged the openings to their rectums with sandalwood clubs soaked in sesame oil for years until the wood had turned red and was unbelievably slippery. They came in three sizes: small, medium, and large, and their use proceeded along those lines. The training went on day and night, until the passage was unnaturally wide and all was in readiness to steal silver from the Treasury. But that was a bad day for one of them. The clerk with the big mouth had stuffed three ingots up his grain passage, but while he was being searched on his way out, he grimaced and had trouble walking, as if he were carrying a bowl of water on his head or holding back an urgent bowel movement. The superintendent, suddenly suspicious, kicked him in the buttocks, which by itself was of no consequence. But the man relaxed just long enough for one of the ingots to slide out of his anus. The momentarily dumbstruck superintendent kicked him again and again, and out came the other two ingots. “You son of a bitch!” the superintendent cursed. “What you shoved up your ass is worth more than I make in three years!” The source of the clerks’ riches was a secret no longer. Now when they leave the Treasury, they are required to bend over and have their rectums reamed for hidden treasure. When the report reached Emperor Xianfeng’s ears, He was livid and angrily ordered that all the Treasury clerks be put to death and their property be confiscated. If that weren’t enough, He told Grandma Yu to devise a new means of execution, which was to jam red-hot pokers up their grain passages. All but the big-mouthed man, who was to be cleaved in half in public, a warning to the masses.

A sea of faces filled the marketplace on the day of the execution, for this was something new and exciting for people who had had their fill of beheadings. The chief witness to this solemn event was Excellency Xu, Vice President of the Board of Punishments. Also in attendance was Chief Justice Sang of the Supreme Court. The assigned team of executioners was up half the night in preparation. Grandma Yu personally sharpened the broadax, while First Aunt and Second Aunt—Third Aunt had recently died—prepared the wooden block, the ropes, and the other things they would need. I had always assumed that a sword was used for this punishment, but Grandma Yu told me that as far back as the founding of our calling, it was always a broadax. But before we set out, Grandma Yu told me to take a broadsword along in case anything went wrong.

They dragged the condemned man out, obviously drunk from the alcohol they’d poured down his throat. Red-eyed and foaming at the mouth, he thrashed around like a mad ox. He was as strong as an ox, almost too much for Second and Third Aunts, and every show of strength drew approving roars from the crowd, which further emboldened him. Finally they were able to tie him down on the wooden block, with First Aunt holding down his head and Second Aunt his legs. He fought us at every turn, flailing his arms, kicking with both feet, and twisting his body in all directions, like a snake, even arching his back like an inchworm. The chief witness found the display so disturbing that he gave the order before the team had the man completely subdued. So Grandma raised the ax high over his head and brought it down with all his might, creating a streak of white and a gust of wind. While the ax was still over Grandma’s head, absolute silence settled over the crowd; but when he buried it in the man’s body, a mighty roar erupted. I heard a slurping sound and watched as a tower of red shot into the air. The two aunts’ faces were drenched in blood. To Grandma’s discredit, one chop had not severed the man cleanly in half. At the last second he had twisted his body, and the ax had only cut through half his midsection. His inhuman shrieks drowned out the crowd noise as his guts slurped over the sides and covered the wooden block. Grandma wanted to make a second chop, but he had swung so hard the first time he’d buried the blade in the wood under the man’s body. When he tried to pull it free, the handle was too slimy with the man’s gore for him to get a grip. Jeers arose from the crowd; the victim’s arms and legs flailed wildly, and his horrifying screams rocked the area. The situation had turned ugly, and I knew instinctively what to do. Without waiting for Grandma to give the order, I stepped up, raised the broadsword over my head, and—teeth clenched, eyes shut—completed what Grandma had left undone. The one-time Treasury clerk was now severed in two. That had given Grandma enough time to gather his wits. He turned and announced to the chief witness, “The execution has been carried out. May it please Your Excellency!” The officials sat there in shock, their faces drained of blood. First and Second Aunts released their grip and, confused and bewildered, stood up. The lower half of the victim’s body was twitching, noticeably if not violently. The top half was a different story altogether. Excellency, you did not see it with your own eyes, and may not believe what I am about to tell you. Even people who saw it thought that their eyes were deceiving them, or wondered if it was all just a bad dream. The man must have been the reincarnation of a dragonfly, which can fly even without the lower half of its body. By pressing down with his elbows, he pushed his truncated body into an upright position and started bouncing up and down, his blood and guts soaking and getting tangled in our feet. The man’s face was the color of gold foil that shone in our eyes. His large mouth was like a sampan tossed on the waves, from which gushed incomprehensible, blood-soaked howls. Strangest of all was his queue, which curled up behind him like a scorpion’s tail, then fell back limply, over and over. The crowd was stilled, some with their eyes boldly open, others with their eyes timidly shut. A number of them were retching loudly. The ranking officials were by then galloping away on their horses, leaving the four of us standing there like wooden statues, eyes glued to the half clerk as he performed his remarkable feats. He kept it up for as long as it takes to smoke a bowlful of tobacco, before reluctantly pitching forward, gurgling noises emerging from his mouth; if you closed your eyes and listened, it sounded like a suckling infant.

———— 3 ————

The swine went quiet after finishing his graphic description of the execution. Strings of slobber hung from his mouth, and his eyes rolled around in their sockets as he looked up at Excellency Yuan and the Plenipotentiary. The ghastly image of the dissevered Treasury clerk floated in front of my eyes, and I could almost hear the man’s screams. But Excellency Yuan obviously liked what he’d heard. He sat there squinting, not saying a word while the interpreter finished jabbering into the ear of von Ketteler, who cocked his head and looked first at Yuan and then at Zhao. His jerky movements and the look on his face reminded me of a hawk perched on a rock.

Excellency Yuan finally spoke up. “As I see it, Plenipotentiary, that is how we ought to do it.”

The interpreter translated Excellency Yuan’s comment in a soft voice. Von Ketteler said something in that devilish language of his, which the interpreter translated: “The Plenipotentiary wants to know how long the condemned can live after he’s cut in half.”

With a slight upward tilt of his chin, Excellency Yuan signaled the swine to answer.

“About as long as it takes to smoke a bowlful of tobacco,” he said, “but it is hard to say. Some die on the spot, like lopping off the branch of a tree.”

Von Ketteler said something to the interpreter, who translated: “The Plenipotentiary does not approve. He says death might come too fast and will not serve as a proper warning to people with evil thoughts in their heads. He would like you to find a uniquely cruel method that will inflict the maximum amount of suffering and draw it out as long as possible. The Plenipotentiary would like to see an execution where the subject holds on for at least five days. Ideally, the man would still be alive on August twentieth, the day the section of railroad between Qingdao and Gaomi is completed.”

Excellency Yuan said, “Think hard, is there any punishment that fits the bill?”

The swine shook his head. “He’d die if you hung him up for five days and did nothing else to him.”

Von Ketteler said something to the interpreter. “The Plenipotentiary says that China is backward in everything but punishment techniques. This is one area in which the Chinese are world-beaters. Inflicting unbearable pain on someone before killing him is a uniquely Chinese art and is at the core of its governing philosophy.”

“Horse shit,” I heard Excellency Yuan mutter under his breath. But he quickly smothered that with a loud, impatient command to the swine: “Think hard,” he said, before he turned to von Ketteler and said, “Esteemed Plenipotentiary, if such a punishment exists in your country, I would be happy if you taught him. It would take less effort to learn that than how to build a railroad.”

The interpreter did his job, after which I saw von Ketteler scrunch up his forehead as he pondered a response. With his head down, the swine was trying to come up with something.

Then, abruptly, he excitedly jabbered something to the interpreter.

“The esteemed Plenipotentiary says that there is a punishment in Europe that guarantees prolonged suffering before death. The condemned is nailed to an upright cross and left there.”

But then, just as abruptly, the swine’s eyes lit up, and he blurted out excitedly, “Excellency, your humble servant has an idea. Years ago I heard my shifu say that during the Yongzheng reign, his master’s master put to death a man who had emptied his bowels in the Imperial Mausoleum by means of what he called the sandalwood death.”

“What does it consist of?” His Excellency asked.

The swine said, “My master described it to me only in vague terms, but the gist of it is that a pointed sandalwood stake is inserted into the subject’s grain passage and forced up all the way to the nape of his neck and out. Then he is bound to a tree.”

With a satisfied sneer, His Excellency said, “Great minds think alike. How long before the man died?”

“Three days, I think,” the swine said, “or maybe four.”

Excellency Yuan told the interpreter to immediately inform von Ketteler, who reacted almost rapturously. He stammered in stilted Chinese, “Good, the sandalwood death, that’s it!”

His Excellency said, “Since Plenipotentiary von Ketteler approves, that is what we shall do. Sun Bing will suffer the sandalwood death, but you must make sure that he lives five days. Today is the thirteenth of August. Tomorrow you make your preparations, and the day after that, the fifteenth, the punishment will be carried out.”

The swine fell to his knees. “Excellency, your humble servant is getting on in age and is not as spry as he once was. He will require an assistant for an execution of this magnitude.”

His Excellency turned to me. “Have an assistant chosen from among the executioners at Gaomi’s South Prison.”

The swine objected: “Excellency,” he said, “I would rather that the county not be involved.”

Excellency Yuan laughed. “Are you afraid they will steal your thunder on this?”

The swine merely said, “I ask that Your Excellency grant me permission to have my son serve as an assistant.”

“What does your son do?” Excellency Yuan asked.

“He butchers pigs and dogs,” the swine replied.

Again His Excellency laughed. “He sounds qualified. All right, then, in battle one relies on his brothers; in a fight, only father and son will do. Permission granted.” The swine remained kneeling on the floor.

“What else do you have to say?” Excellency Yuan asked.

“Excellency,” the swine said, “carrying out the sandalwood death will require a thick post with a crossbar on top of a high wooden platform, with an access plank on one side.”

“Make a drawing and give it to the County Magistrate for construction,” Yuan said.

The swine said, “I will also require two stakes made of the finest sandalwood and shaved down like spikes. Your humble servant will personally do the work.”

“The County Magistrate will see to that,” Excellency Yuan said.

Then the swine said, “I will also require two hundred jin of refined sesame oil.”

Excellency Yuan laughed. “Are you planning to fry Sun Bing to go with fine spirits?”

“Excellency,” the swine said, “after the stakes are properly carved, they must steep in sesame oil all day and all night if they are to slip through the body without soaking up blood.”

“Have Gaomi County take care of everything,” Yuan said. “Is there anything else? Now is the time to give me the complete list.”

The swine said, “I will also require ten strips of leather, a wooden hammer, a rooster with white feathers, two red felt caps, two pairs of high-top boots, two sets of black clothing, two red satin sashes, two bull’s-ear daggers, plus a hundred jin of white rice, a hundred jin of wheat flour, a hundred chicken eggs, twenty jin each of pork and beef, half a jin of top-quality ginseng, a medicinal pot, three hundred jin of kindling, two buckets, a water vat, and two woks, one large and one small.”

“What do you need ginseng for?” Excellency Yuan asked.

The swine said, “Hear me out, Excellency. The subject’s stomach will not be affected by the insertion of the stake, but there will be a significant loss of blood, and keeping him alive will require a daily infusion of ginseng. That is the only way your humble servant can ensure that the subject will last five days.”

Excellency Yuan said, “Can you guarantee that he will not die for at least five days with the infusion of ginseng?”

“Your humble servant guarantees it,” the swine replied emphatically.

Excellency Yuan said, “Gaomi County, go make a list and have it filled without delay!”

The swine would still not rise.

“Rise,” Excellency Yuan said.

But the swine kept knocking his head on the floor.

“That’s enough,” Excellency Yuan said. “I don’t want you to break that dog head of yours. Now listen carefully. If you satisfactorily carry out this assignment, I will reward you, father and son, with one hundred ounces of silver each. But if something goes wrong, I will have you both speared with sandalwood stakes and hung on posts until you are desiccated corpses!”

With one last resounding kowtow, the swine said, “Thank you, Excellency.”

“Gaomi County,” Excellency Yuan said to me, “the same goes for you!”

I said, “Your humble servant will spare no effort.”

Yuan stood up and, together with von Ketteler, started out of the hall. But he had taken only a few steps when he turned back, as if he’d forgotten something. “Gaomi County,” he said nonchalantly, “I hear you have brought Liu Peicun’s son here from Sichuan and given him an official position. Is that true?”

“Yes, Your Excellency,” I replied frankly. “Liu Peicun was from Fushun County in Sichuan Province, where I was once posted. When his widow and family returned to Fushun with his coffin, I paid my respects as someone who was born in the same year as he and made a gift to the family of ten ounces of silver. Not long after that, his grieving widow passed away, but not before turning her son, Liu Pu, over to my care. When I saw how intelligent and conscientious he was, I gave him a job in the county yamen.”

“Gaomi County, you are a straightforward man of integrity,” His Excellency said somewhat enigmatically, “not someone who curries favor with the powerful, a man with a big heart. But you show a lack of judgment.”

I laid my head against the floor and said, “Thank you, Excellency, for your instruction.”

“Zhao Jia,” Excellency Yuan said, “you are the sworn enemy of Liu Pu for killing his father!”

The swine’s clever response was, “I was carrying out Her Royal Highness’s decree.”

———— 4 ————

Dear wife, why aren’t you pouring? Pour! Fill them up! Let’s drink. You are so pale. Are you crying? Don’t cry, dear wife, I’ve already decided what to do. I’ll make sure those hundred ounces of silver never reach that swine and that von Ketteler’s plot falls through. And I will stop Yuan Shikai from getting his wish. Yuan saw to it that my brother, my own flesh and blood, was sliced to shreds. Cruel! Barbaric! Savage! Yuan Shikai has honey on his lips but murder in his heart. A dagger is hidden in his smile, and I know that he will not lightly spare me. Once he has disposed of Sun Bing, he will come for your husband. Since death is inevitable, one way or the other, dear wife, why not do it right! In times like this, only the dead are men; the living are dogs. Dear wife, you and I have been husband and wife for more than ten years, and even though we have been denied a child, we treat each other with respect in domestic harmony. I want you to leave for Hunan tomorrow morning. Your transportation has already been arranged. There you will find ten acres of paddy land, a five-room house, and savings of three hundred ounces of silver, enough for you for the rest of your life if you live frugally. After you have left, there will be nothing for me to worry about. Please, dear wife, do not cry. It breaks my heart. We are living in chaotic times, hell on earth for officials and commoners alike. It is better to be a dog in peace than a human being in times of chaos. Dear wife, when you are back home in Hunan, adopt one of Second Brother’s sons. He will take care of you in your old age and see to your funeral. I have written a letter to that effect, and they will not object. When a bird is about to die, its cry is sorrowful; when a man is about to die, there is kindness in his words. Do not talk like that, dear wife, for if you were to die, who would burn incense and spirit money for me? You must leave, for if you were to remain here, my willpower would suffer.

Dear wife, I have a confession to make to you. I have wanted to own up to this for a long time, but you probably already know. For the last three years, I have carried on a liaison with Meiniang, Sun Bing’s daughter and the daughter-in-law of Zhao Jia. She is now pregnant with my child. Dear wife, in light of more than a decade of marriage, I ask that if the child is a boy, you will find a way to have him brought to Hunan with you. If it is a girl, let that be the end of it. Consider this my last will and testament, dear wife, and an expression of Qian Ding’s enduring gratitude.