Chapter 3

Home is the last harbor in a person's heart. No matter what you run into out there, once you come home you can find comfort and shelter for your soul. But now, she has come into the house! Li Zhuiyuan saw there was truly no waking Cui Guiying, so he could only run to the inner room, where his cousins slept on pallets on the floor. "Pan Zi, wake up!" "Lei Zi, hurry, wake up!" "Ying Zi, wake up!" Li Zhuiyuan ran from one cousin to the next, shoving and shouting at each of them, but they were just like Cui Guiying in the kitchen — nothing would wake them. "Drip... drip... drip..." Li Zhuiyuan looked up at the door between the inner room and the kitchen. Little Oriole's figure had not appeared there. "Phew..." He let out a breath of relief — and the next moment saw a puddle of water at his feet, spreading, growing, beginning to spill and run along the uneven floor. "Drip... drip... drip..." Drops kept landing on him, soaking his clothes, bringing a sticky, cold, slippery wetness. On both edges of his vision, a pair of hands appeared. At last, the icy hands closed around his neck. Li Zhuiyuan's body jerked; a fierce suffocation rushed over him. But soon the suffocation ebbed, because the hands did not linger at his throat — they began to slide slowly downward. A shadow appeared above him, and Li Zhuiyuan lifted his head with some difficulty. The one above him was also slowly lowering her head just then, wet strands of long hair falling and falling, pressing again and again against the boy's face, and like a great black mouth, covering his head bit by bit, until... it swallowed him. ... "Han Hou, slow down, slow down! My backside's being ground raw — hiss... it hurts!" Li Sanjiang held Li Weihan's waist with one hand and with the other pulled his own buttock aside, arching himself up as much as he could. "Uncle, don't wiggle about. Wiggle any more and we'll fall!" "Bah! You ride this fast, how can I not move!" Ever since Li Weihan had picked Li Sanjiang up at the funeral banquet, he had pedaled for home without a moment's pause. The field paths were narrow and full of potholes, truly hard on the passenger, and Li Sanjiang was old besides; he really could not take that kind of jolting. Li Weihan had no choice. Seeing that home was very close now, and that the shortcut they had taken grew harder and harder to ride, he slowed a little. "Ooooh..." Li Sanjiang finally let out a breath. He felt the cigarette case in his trouser pocket and said, "Han Hou, stop a while and let's have a smoke." "Nearly home, Uncle. We'll smoke when we're home." "Hey, what's your hurry? Didn't you already call Blind Liu over to look at him? I reckon your little Xiaoyuan Hou is at home right now, eating and running about." "Is Blind Liu really any use?" Li Weihan did not much believe in Liu Jinxia's abilities. He had seen that mother and daughter at their hardest, and if she truly had the power to commune with the yin world, how could she have let herself fall so wretchedly low? By comparison he trusted Li Sanjiang more. After all, the man made his living fishing dead-flippers out of the water, and as he remembered it, Li Sanjiang's little household had always lived quite comfortably. "How to put it — in her early years Blind Liu was just out to cheat people of their money. Later on she muddled out a few real tricks of her own. There's an old saying: a hemp rope always snaps where it's thinnest. Wherever she went, it snapped on her first; and after enough snapping, she snapped out some experience." "What does that mean, Uncle? I don't follow." "Never mind, then. The worst case for your little Xiaoyuan Hou is that he's been hit with a spirit affliction, and that's a thing Blind Liu really can handle — for the sake of the kindness you showed her in the past." "It's the boy I'm worried about. I'd rather the affliction fell on me." "You Han Hou, you truly do play favorites. Long ago you favored your youngest girl, and now you favor your grandson. Still, fair enough — your youngest girl turned out well. This 28-inch bike, wasn't it your girl who bought it for you back in the day? But being afflicted isn't really much suffering. It might even be enjoyable. It's like people who hang themselves: before the noose goes over their neck, everything they see through that loop is something fascinating." "Uncle, the way you tell it, it sounds like a good thing?" "A good thing, of course not. Just think of it as the boy catching a bit of a graveside spell. Every village, every year, has a few of those mischievous, unlucky little ones — it's just a brief illness." "By the way, Uncle, that dead-flipper — what do you plan to do about her?" "Do about her?" Li Sanjiang's mood suddenly stirred and his tone turned harsh. "You think my little life's so comfortable that I have to go out of my way to deal with a dead-flipper who can walk in water?" At that, Li Weihan's heart tightened and he pedaled faster. "Hey, hey, hey! Slow down, slow down! Han Hou, what's gotten into you now? However tough that dead-flipper is, you all got away, so it's no great matter. Could she really chase you all the way to your house?" "Here we are!" The 28-inch reached the raised yard, and Li Weihan got off at once and steadied the bicycle. Li Sanjiang jumped down from the rear rack and kept rubbing his backside. "Guiying, Guiying!" "Coming, coming! Keep your voice down, don't make a racket, the children are all asleep." Cui Guiying came out and went first to Li Sanjiang. "Uncle, you've come." "Yes, I've come." Li Sanjiang wasted no words; he flicked his sleeve toward the inside. "Come on. Let me see the boy first." Reaching the door plank, Li Sanjiang crouched to look the boy over. "Shall I wake the child?" Cui Guiying asked. "No need. The boy's all right, the affliction's gone. Has Blind Liu been by?" "She has." Cui Guiying told him about the afternoon. Li Sanjiang nodded when she finished. "It's because you, Guiying, were kind and generous in the past, willing to let Han Hou go and help that mother and daughter out. That's why today turned out this way — your good deeds came back on your children and grandchildren." "Listen to you, Uncle. It was nothing." "It was a great deal. On another day, with anyone else, do you think Blind Liu would have lifted a finger? It's a debt of kindness, that's all. However unwilling she was, she had to pinch her nose and accept it. Inside she's probably feeling terribly wronged, and regretful too. Right now she's most likely at home wiping her tears and wailing over her hard fate." "Uncle, sit." Li Weihan set a little stool under Li Sanjiang and took out a cigarette to light for him, then turned to his wife. "Guiying, bring something to eat, something to hold off hunger." As he spoke, he glanced at the locked cupboard. Cui Guiying fetched the key, opened the lock, and took out sponge cake and biscuits and the like, spreading them before the two men. To Li Sanjiang she said, quite apologetic: "Uncle, tomorrow I'll go buy some meat, and then I'll ask you over for a proper drink." "Bah, what's all this fuss for? Put it all away. How could I take food out of the children's mouths?" Li Weihan pried open a biscuit tin with his hands, took out a biscuit, and handed it to Li Sanjiang; then he picked up the tin himself and looked it over. "Guiying, when the biscuits are done, remember to keep the tin. It'd be just the thing for needles and buttons." "I know." Li Sanjiang ate the biscuit in a few bites; when Li Weihan offered another he pushed it away and patted his trouser leg. "All right, the boy's out of trouble. I'll be off home." "I'll ride you back, Uncle." "No, no. No more bicycle." "Then I won't ride. I'll walk you back. Guiying, bring the flashlight." Just then, Li Zhuiyuan, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly twitched, his breathing grew heavy, and cold sweat seeped out on his forehead. Li Sanjiang sat straight back down and checked on the boy. Li Weihan asked anxiously, "Uncle, what's this with the boy..." "Nothing much. A nightmare, I'd reckon. That's normal. When the affliction first takes hold, you think the filthy thing is beautiful, mesmerizing. It's only afterward, when you come to your senses, that you learn to be afraid. It's nothing serious. The boy will play a few days and forget all about it." Li Weihan and Cui Guiying nodded. Of course they hoped the child was fine. "Ah!" Li Zhuiyuan cried out and sat up from the door plank, gasping for breath. "Xiaoyuan Hou, Xiaoyuan Hou." Cui Guiying went over and gathered him up, patting his back lightly. "It's all right now, the boy's not scared. Grandma's here, Grandma's right here." Li Zhuiyuan looked at Cui Guiying first, then at Li Weihan, and at last his gaze settled on Li Sanjiang's face — a man he was seeing for the first time. Li Sanjiang pointed at his own drink-reddened nose and smiled. "Xiaoyuan Hou, I'm your Great-Grandpa." Li Zhuiyuan blinked, then, as if remembering what he had been through in the dream, he turned at once toward the back door and pointed. "Little Oriole, Little Oriole — she's come to the house!" "Good boy, you've just had a nightmare. It's over now. Grandma beat her off; she won't dare come after my boy again." Li Zhuiyuan looked at Cui Guiying, puzzled. "Really, Grandma?" Li Weihan let out a breath. "Looks like the boy really was frightened by a dream, heh." Seeing everything unfolding just as Li Sanjiang had said, the two of them finally felt completely reassured. Only Li Sanjiang, following the direction of the boy's finger toward the back door, felt his own expression gradually turn grave. "Han Hou, give me the flashlight." Li Weihan did not hand it over. "Uncle, I told you, I'm walking you home." "Give it to me!" Li Sanjiang snatched the flashlight away. "Uncle, let me walk you back. You've had drink, and it's night, the road..." "Out of the way!" Li Sanjiang shoved Li Weihan aside and walked straight to the back door. "Uncle?" Li Weihan glanced at his grandson and hurried after him. Li Sanjiang stepped over the threshold and came to the riverbank that faced the back door, shining the flashlight down. "Uncle, is there something else?" Li Sanjiang spat on the ground and lowered his voice. "If the boy dreamt anything else, that'd be normal enough and no matter. But dreaming that a dead-flipper followed him home — that's frightening." "What? She really followed us home?" Li Sanjiang raised a hand to signal silence, then went on sweeping the flashlight over the boat and the nearby stretch of river, but after several passes he found nothing at all. Li Weihan asked softly, "Uncle, there's nothing there." "Shh, Han Hou. Did you hear that?" Li Weihan listened carefully, then shook his head. "Uncle, is there a sound? I don't hear anything." "Ha." Li Sanjiang rubbed his nose with his hand. "A summer night, by the river — how could it be this quiet?" Li Weihan understood at once. Yes — around their house it was far too quiet. The cicadas and frogs usually carried on like a town meeting every night, but tonight there was not a stir. A deathly stillness. Now, looking at the placid water and the swaying waterweed before him, Li Weihan felt afraid too. That dead-flipper might be hiding anywhere in there. Li Sanjiang turned and walked back inside, saying to Cui Guiying, "Guiying, bring me a bowl of yellow rice wine." "Ah — shall I fry you some peanuts and eggs as well, Uncle?" "Go get the wine, and no more questions!" Li Weihan urged her on; he well knew Li Sanjiang did not mean to drink here. Cui Guiying brought a bowl of yellow rice wine. Li Sanjiang took it, crouched before Li Zhuiyuan, and said with a smile, "Xiaoyuan Hou, this will hurt a little in a moment. Don't cry out. Bear with it, understand?" Li Zhuiyuan looked up at Li Weihan and Cui Guiying, then nodded to Li Sanjiang. "Mm, good boy." Li Sanjiang poured the wine over Li Zhuiyuan's neck. The boy's body shrank instinctively at the shock of it, but Li Sanjiang at once gripped his arm with his left hand and rubbed hard at his neck and shoulder with his right. The old man's hands were covered in calluses, coarse and rough, like sandpaper scraping his skin raw. It hurt, but Li Zhuiyuan obeyed and only pressed his lips hard together. When the boy's neck and shoulders had been rubbed bright red, Li Sanjiang put his face close and drew in air through his nose with all his strength. When he had finished, Li Sanjiang's eyes went wide. He pushed the boy gently away and dropped down to sit on the ground himself. "Uncle, Uncle?" Li Weihan hurried over to help him up. Cui Guiying went to look at Li Zhuiyuan's neck. Her heart ached for him, but she knew something had changed again; she dared not say anything, only silently stroked the child's head. "A cigarette, Han Hou. Give me a cigarette." "Here." Li Weihan lit it for him at once. Li Sanjiang drew deep and let the smoke out through his nose. Li Weihan noticed that the hand holding the cigarette was trembling. "Guiying, take the boy inside." Li Sanjiang pointed to the inner room. "Shut the door behind you." "What on earth has happened now?" Cui Guiying could not hold back. "Do as Uncle says." Li Weihan waved her on impatiently. Cui Guiying took a deep breath, but she picked Li Zhuiyuan up, went into the inner room, and shut the door. In the kitchen, only the two men were left. "Uncle?" "Han Hou, we're in trouble. This afternoon Blind Liu surely cleared the affliction off Xiaoyuan Hou. Once she took it on, she couldn't have left it half done. But just now my nose caught the smell of a corpse on the boy's neck again. I've fished dead-flippers my whole life, and I tell you, the stench of a corpse soaked in water is not the same as the smell of a dead body anywhere else. My nose never gets it wrong." Li Sanjiang turned to Li Weihan and said gravely, "That dead-flipper really did follow us home." At that Li Weihan rose at once and took down the wood-chopping axe from the top of the cupboard — with so many children in the house, such things had to be kept up high. "To hell with her — I'll fight the damn thing!" Li Sanjiang narrowed his eyes, took another drag, and said slowly, "And if she doesn't come out?" "What?" Li Weihan did not quite follow. "If she doesn't come out, isn't that good?" "She just stays beside your house, and you can't find her. She watches your house. One day, two days, three days... first Xiaoyuan Hou, then Xiaopan Hou, Xiaolei Hou, Xiaohu Hou... then Guiying, then you. Other families enshrine gods and Buddhas for protection; your family would be enshrining something foul. Before long there'd be sickness, bad luck, and... the family broken and ruined." Li Weihan asked blankly, "Then what do we do? I... I could stop living here and go live at one of my sons' places?" "She followed you here once. Can she not follow a second time?" "Uncle, is there any other way?" "A way? There is." The cigarette end at Li Sanjiang's lips glowed and dimmed. "Uncle, you have to help me." Li Weihan crouched beside Li Sanjiang. If anyone else had said these things to him, he would have suspected the man of trying to frighten him for some other purpose — but Li Sanjiang never would. "A dead-flipper that walks in water carries great resentment. They're not easy to deal with at the best of times, and one that can follow you home — in all my years, Uncle's never seen such a thing. It's downright eerie." "But Uncle, every wrong has its wrongdoer. What does this have to do with our Xiaoyuan Hou?" "Ha." Li Sanjiang gave a cold laugh, rubbed his fingers, and stubbed out the cigarette. "I reckon she'd like to settle with the one who wronged her, but she can't find the guilty party, so she latches onto the first person she came across and won't let go." Li Weihan seemed to think of something; hesitation and calculation showed in his eyes. Li Sanjiang went on: "This dead-flipper is that woman who was dancing and singing at Big Beard's funeral yesterday, isn't she? You told me on the way when you came to fetch me. Called Little Oriole?" "Lei Hou says he saw her. I didn't go to Big Beard's house yesterday, so I can't be sure." "It's Little Oriole. Lei Hou may have seen wrong; Xiaoyuan Hou wouldn't. He called for Little Oriole the moment he woke from the dream." "Mm, that's true." "Didn't you say the villagers saw Little Oriole and Big Beard's youngest son slip into the woods last night? And by daylight the funeral performance troupe had gone to Big Beard's house to make a scene, and Big Beard paid them off. That means his heart's got a—" Li Sanjiang forced the word "ghost" back down his throat. At a moment like this, it paid to mind the taboos. "...That means he's got something on his mind, and he's feeling weak. Ha. The way that household carries on — if there really were no dirty business, how could they be so soft? Big Beard, Big Beard — he's not far off from the 'beards' who ran as bandits in the Northeast before Liberation. A regular bandit's manner, and who knows how much evil he's done." Here Li Sanjiang paused. He reached into the tin before him for another biscuit, bit into it, and smiled. "These biscuits are nice and creamy — can't have been cheap, eh? Sent by your youngest girl?" Li Weihan took out a cigarette, lit it, took several quick, hard drags, wiped his forehead and eyes with his hand, and when he looked at Li Sanjiang again there were threads of blood in his eyes: "Uncle, do you not trust Han Hou's character?" Li Sanjiang took another biscuit and said nothing, only went on eating. Li Weihan continued: "Uncle, back in those early years, when I had to arrange wives for four sons, it was truly hard. Not only did you let me farm your fields, every time I lent you a hand you'd spare me a share of the labor pay. Guiying came to help you paste up paper effigies, and her work was so crude I was ashamed to look at it — and even so, Uncle, you counted her wages. Later, when the hardest days had passed, I stopped farming your land, because I knew you'd get more grain rent from someone else. And I was too ashamed to keep sending Guiying over, afraid it would look like the old days in the brigade, just coasting along for work points. I truly couldn't bring myself to keep taking advantage of you, but your kindness, I, Li Weihan, have always kept in my heart. I said it before: when the day comes that your legs won't carry you, I, Li Weihan, will look after you, see you through your old age, and bury you at the end. Uncle, you have to trust Han Hou's character." Li Sanjiang nodded. "Heh." Li Weihan laughed twice and reached for a biscuit too. He had eaten nothing from afternoon till now and was truly hungry. Smack! A slap landed on the back of his hand, and the biscuit he had just picked up fell back into the tin. Li Sanjiang stood and said, "Eat, my ass. Save some to lay out as offerings." Li Weihan stared a moment, then understood. After all, he had once worked as Li Sanjiang's helper for a stretch. They opened the inner room door and found Cui Guiying standing there, leaning sideways, the boy in her arms. When the door opened, Cui Guiying hastily smoothed the hair by her ears and asked, "You two finished talking?" "Guiying, come out and help set up the offering table. Xiaoyuan Hou can sleep first," Li Weihan said. Then Li Sanjiang's voice came from behind him: "Let Xiaoyuan Hou stay out here for now." Li Weihan turned to look at Li Sanjiang, his brows drawing together, but after a moment's hesitation, as if he had settled on some resolve, he signaled his wife to bring the boy out. Li Zhuiyuan had slept since afternoon, so he wasn't sleepy. He sat obediently on a little stool and watched the adults bustle about. "Your brain's gone soft!" Li Sanjiang cursed, pointing at the offering table Li Weihan had carried outside the back door. "Do you want everyone outside to see? Bring it in. Set it up here!" This was flat farmland — no hills, no gullies, and no tall buildings to block the view; the sightlines were wide open. If they lit candles and burned spirit money outside, anyone who stepped out at night to take a piss would see it from far off, and word would spread fast. After all, what normal family holds a sacrifice and makes offerings in the dead of night? Li Weihan at once carried the table he had just moved out back inside and set it against the wall close to the back door. Cui Guiying began to lay out the offerings: four plates, on which she set biscuits, sponge cake, and peanuts; the last stayed empty. "Uncle, there's no meat in the house." Cui Guiying looked at Li Sanjiang. "The cured pork and the salted pork are all gone." With a dozen children living here, how could any dish ever be left over? Even the pickled vegetable crock was emptying fast. But an offering without meat would not do. Li Sanjiang pointed at the cupboard where the snacks were locked. "Is there pork floss?" "There is." Cui Guiying nodded at once. "Will that do?" "It's meat, isn't it? It'll serve." "All right." At last a plate of pork floss was set out, and the offerings were complete. Li Weihan carried a rough tin bucket in from the yard outside; this time he needed no reminding, and set it in the corner of the kitchen himself. Spirit money was still a rare thing in those days — you had to buy it at the spirit shop in town, and villagers begrudged using it for small offerings. But yellow paper and paper ingots were stockpiled in nearly every household. The gold and silver ingots were folded by the women themselves in ordinary times; as for yellow paper, it could sit in a basket by the outhouse and serve as toilet paper. Li Sanjiang first lit the two candles on the offering table, then used the candle flame to light several sheets of yellow paper, waved them quickly before the table, muttering words all the while, then hurried back to the corner and dropped the half-burnt paper into the tin bucket as kindling. Cui Guiying at once put in the rest of the yellow paper and the ingots to burn. Li Weihan stirred the paper with a thin stick, and once he was sure it had burned through, he carried the bucket outside and dumped the ashes. When he came back, Li Sanjiang had taken a little bell from his pocket and was digging inside it with a gray-black fingernail; at last he worked out the cotton ball stuffed in it. Ding, ding, ding... One light shake, and the sound was clear and bright. Li Sanjiang untied the bell's cord and came to Li Zhuiyuan. "Come, Xiaoyuan Hou, hold up your right hand." Li Zhuiyuan obeyed and watched as Li Sanjiang tied the bell around his wrist. Next Li Sanjiang picked up the incense burner from the offering table, thought for a moment, broke a good length off all three incense sticks, leaving only a short stub at the base, and stuck them back into the burner. "Xiaoyuan Hou, take this." Li Zhuiyuan stood and held the burner. Only then did Cui Guiying realize what was happening. Instinctively she moved to step forward, but Li Weihan caught her wrist and pulled her back hard. "How can you let Xiaoyuan Hou..." Li Weihan glared hard at his wife. Li Sanjiang reached out and covered Li Zhuiyuan's ears, then lifted his head, looked at the husband and wife, and asked casually, "I'll ask you one last time. Do it, or not?" "Do it!" Li Weihan answered at once. "If anything happens to Xiaoyuan Hou..." Cui Guiying swung her arm, trying to break free of her husband's hold. Li Weihan said in a low voice, "If there's no such thing, then nothing will happen. But if there is, and we don't do this, Xiaoyuan Hou will come to harm anyway. That thing has fixed its eyes on our Xiaoyuan Hou!" Hearing that, Cui Guiying stopped struggling and let her arm drop. Li Sanjiang smiled and said, "Han Hou, you'd better be sure. If word of this gets out, life in this village won't be easy for you afterward." Even if there were no dead-flipper at all and the whole thing was a preposterous joke people had cooked up — if you made this kind of display at home and performed that kind of rite aimed at someone, and they got wind of it, that would be a feud for good. "Heh." Li Weihan snorted too. "Uncle, I'm not afraid of Big Beard's household. I've got four sons of my own." In the countryside, the more grown sons a family had, the more confidence it had. True, Li Weihan's four sons were no models of filial piety, and there was plenty of petty nastiness among their wives, but when the Li family really faced something from outside and needed its front door propped up, those four sons would surely stand up together against the outsider. "Right, then. Let's do it." Li Sanjiang took his hand from Li Zhuiyuan's ears and crouched to speak at the boy's ear. "Xiaoyuan Hou, in a bit Great-Grandpa will walk in front, and you follow behind. Walk slowly. Don't spill the burner. Understand?" "Mm, I understand." "Good boy." Li Sanjiang led Li Zhuiyuan out the back door, turned, and looked at Li Weihan and Cui Guiying, who had followed. "You wait in the house. Don't follow. Too many people and we'll be spotted, and I'm afraid of startling her." "Mm, Uncle. We're counting on you." "Shut all the doors in the house." "Yes, Uncle." Li Weihan pulled his wife back inside and shut the doors and windows. Out in the night by the river, only Li Sanjiang and Li Zhuiyuan remained. "Wait for me a moment, Xiaoyuan Hou." Li Sanjiang said a word to him, then went down the bluestone steps to the river alone. He crouched and, with one hand constantly stirring the surface of the water, spoke quietly of something. The distance was a little far and the voice deliberately kept low; Li Zhuiyuan could not make out the words. As he spoke, Li Sanjiang's body began to lean backward, and several times he made as if to run, as though whatever was under the water might come up and lunge at him at any moment. At last Li Sanjiang finished. He came trotting back up, still panting. "All right, Xiaoyuan Hou. I'll walk in front; you follow along behind. Remember: no matter what happens next, and no matter what sounds you hear, hold tight to this burner, and whatever you do, don't look back. Understand?" "I understand." "Mm, good." Li Sanjiang walked ahead, opening a gap of about twenty meters, then turned and beckoned to Li Zhuiyuan, showing the boy he could follow. But Li Zhuiyuan stayed where he was and did not move. "Come on, follow me, Xiaoyuan Hou." "But..." Li Zhuiyuan wanted to turn his head, but he remembered Li Sanjiang's warning; holding the already extinguished burner in one hand, he pointed at the river with the other. "Aren't we waiting for her?" "Waiting for whom?" "Her. Little Oriole." "And what about Little Oriole?" "She hasn't followed." Li Sanjiang was taken aback. He walked back, bent down, and studied Li Zhuiyuan closely. "Xiaoyuan Hou, do you know what we're doing?" Li Zhuiyuan shook his head, then nodded. Li Sanjiang looked at him in some surprise and muttered, "This boy of yours — takes after your mother. Smart." Then, as if something had occurred to him, he fixed his eyes on Li Zhuiyuan's and asked, "You can... sense her?" "Mm." "She... where is she now?" Li Zhuiyuan opened his mouth and said nothing, as though thinking, or as though waiting. Then he spoke: "She's here." "Where?" Li Sanjiang started in alarm. "Just now she was in the water..." "Phew..." Li Sanjiang let out a breath. "Now she's behind me." Li Sanjiang: "..." Instinctively Li Sanjiang wanted to shift his gaze past the side of Li Zhuiyuan's head to look behind him, but he held the urge back. Even without looking, though, his nose caught a thick stench of corpse — a smell he knew all too well. She had truly come. Li Sanjiang swallowed nervously. He wanted to call it off, but then he thought of what would follow... Damn it. Someone else commits the sin, so why should Han Hou's family carry it? "Xiaoyuan Hou, remember what Great-Grandpa told you." "Mm." Li Sanjiang closed his eyes, raised both hands high, and slowly stood. The corpse stench grew thicker. He turned, opened his eyes, and walked forward a certain distance — the distance at which he used to watch dead-flippers from his boat. After a deep breath, he turned his head and looked behind him with his eyes open. Xiaoyuan Hou stood there holding the burner, and behind him was a darkness the moonlight could not pierce. "Xiaoyuan Hou, keep close now." "Mm." "Mm." Li Sanjiang began walking on, and behind him came the ding, ding, ding of the bell. He did not take the village road; he deliberately kept along the riverbank or ducked through the little groves. Though there were few people about late at night, he was as careful as he could be. No outsider could be allowed to know. Halfway along, Li Sanjiang stopped, and the bell behind him stopped too. Li Sanjiang looked back. Li Zhuiyuan was still standing there twenty-odd meters away, and behind the boy he dimly made out a figure, pressed very close. "Xiaoyuan Hou, keep following. We're nearly there." "Mm." "Mm." Li Sanjiang went on leading the way. He walked and paused, and behind him the bell rang and fell silent by turns. At last, once they rounded one more fish pond ahead, they would be at Big Beard's front gate. That pond actually belonged to his family. This time Li Sanjiang did not stop. He kept walking along the edge of the pond, but as he went he slowly turned his head and looked behind him: Under the pale moonlight, Li Zhuiyuan held the burner, now glancing ahead at Great-Grandpa leading the way, now looking down at the path beneath his feet. The path was bad, and a child could easily slip and fall, so he walked earnestly and carefully — yet he still could not keep from swaying. Behind him followed a woman in a qipao, her long hair soaking wet. She was like a blind person, unable to see the road ahead. And a blind person being led usually holds on to whoever is leading, so the woman's hands gripped the boy's shoulders; as they moved, her body lurched along with the little boy's, high step and low step, swaying without end. Li Sanjiang swallowed. Walking backward as he was, he missed his footing and nearly fell, but after swaying for a moment he regained his balance. Seeing it, Li Zhuiyuan was about to stop. Li Sanjiang called out hurriedly, "Xiaoyuan Hou, don't stop, keep walking, steady now, we're nearly there." "Mm." "Mm." At last, having rounded the pond, Li Sanjiang came to the yard before Big Beard's house. It was the small hours now. Not only was Big Beard's house dark, the few neighboring houses in sight had no lights either, and not a soul was to be seen. Li Sanjiang turned sideways and crouched, his left hand open toward Big Beard's house and his right hand open toward where Xiaoyuan Hou stood, and spoke: "Today I make you an offering; next year I'll send you rites. This is as far as human kindness goes — are you satisfied? Yin or yang, whichever you are, everything must come down to reason! If you've been wronged, go take your redress; if you've been injured, go take your revenge. Everyone in this world suffers; do not drag the innocent in." When Li Sanjiang finished, he stole a glance toward Li Zhuiyuan and saw that there were still two figures there, one big and one small, standing one before the other, perfectly quiet. "Xiaoyuan Hou, kneel." Li Zhuiyuan did not kneel. He stood there still holding the burner. "Xiaoyuan Hou?" Li Sanjiang urged softly. "Great-Grandpa... I can't kneel." Li Zhuiyuan wanted to kneel, but a force at his shoulders was holding him up, so he could not get himself down. Li Sanjiang drew a deep breath and recited at once: "The boy is small; the boy knows no better; the boy owes you nothing. The road has been brought to you, the door has been shown to you — will you truly pay no heed to any rule at all?" He finished speaking, but over there it was still the same two figures, one big and one small. Anger rose in Li Sanjiang's eyes. He withdrew the hands he had spread to "build a bridge" and drove his ten fingers into the earth, black mud packing under his nails. "You walk beneath the water; I drift on top of it. I offer you courtesy and you won't take it; I reason with you and you won't listen. Fine, then — you force me to overturn the table, and we'll all go before the Dragon King and have him judge!" Li Sanjiang's whole bearing turned solemn. He had never wanted to, nor dared to, face that one straight on, but things had come this far and it was out of his hands. He could not very well lead this dead-flipper out and then lead her home again. But just then, with a creak, Big Beard's big iron gate opened. Li Sanjiang looked. Two people stood behind the gate: Big Beard and his youngest son. Both wore only baggy undershorts, bare-chested and barefoot. For a moment Li Sanjiang's heart quailed. This was a sneaking, underhanded business he was about; if he were caught at it face to face, it would be hard to settle things afterward. But soon he noticed something wrong. Big Beard and his son did not so much as glance at him standing outside the gate. They walked blankly, dazedly, straight toward the fish pond. As they passed in front of Li Sanjiang, he saw that both were walking on tiptoe, heels lifted off the ground. Father and son walked side by side like that, swaying, yet never quite falling. When they reached the edge of the pond they did not stop, but kept walking on down. Their feet touched the water; they walked on. The water passed their knees, their waists, their shoulders, and at last... over their heads. Plop! Li Zhuiyuan felt the weight lift from him and sat straight down on the ground. Seeing it, Li Sanjiang ran over at once and shielded the boy. "Boy, are you all right?" Li Zhuiyuan did not answer. He raised his hand in a daze and pointed ahead. Ahead was the figure of Little Oriole. Her arms stretched out before her, hands spread, as if groping her way. Though she walked slowly, she came to the edge of the pond, and then walked into the water. As if sensing the water beneath her, she slowly lowered her arms and walked more and more steadily. She began to twist her waist, as if dancing once more the dance she had danced on this very yard only yesterday, facing this very pond. Her dancing was as unprofessional as ever — her joints were stiff now, so it was naturally even less polished — but she danced wholly absorbed. Her figure in the night now sank, now started sharply out, fading and appearing by turns. Each time she appeared, the water had risen a little further up her body. Gradually the legs beneath the slit of her qipao could no longer be seen; the hips she twisted could no longer be seen; the breasts — not so very full, forced up by the tight binding of her clothes — could no longer be seen. The water passed her neck and spread her hair out on the surface. She raised both hands, her face turned to the night sky, still performing. Soon her head sank beneath the surface too. On the water there remained only her arms, then only her wrists, then only her hands... And then the hands too slowly vanished beneath the water, leaving only a clump of black waterweed. At the very last, with a final ripple, everything was gone. Li Sanjiang took Li Zhuiyuan on his back and hurried off at a hunched trot. Only after they had gone a good distance did he set the boy down, and as he pulled out his cigarette case he pounded his aching old back. Seeing the boy standing there in a daze, he consoled him: "Do as Great-Grandpa says. Just treat it as a dream. When you wake up tomorrow, you'll have forgotten all about it." Li Zhuiyuan nodded obediently, but he felt that he probably would not be able to forget that scene; it would stay frozen in his memory forever. He flicked the ash off his cigarette, and seeing the boy still low in spirits, teased him: "Xiaoyuan Hou, you could think about something that'll cheer you up right away." "Something to cheer me up?" Li Sanjiang pointed with the hand that held the cigarette toward Big Beard's house and answered: "A banquet!"