Chapter 20

In the camp the bells at the beasts' throats rang crisp and clear, from morning to noon to dusk, as the clear blue sky slowly stained to grey.

A few women came back from the stream, wooden basins of washed clothes in their arms, each leading her fortune by one hand — talking to her sheep in a voice as tender as if she were calling her own child.

"Now child, don't you go running off — mind those camp folk don't catch you and turn you into mutton stew tonight, hee-hee!"

They laughed together and slowly moved off into the distance...

Cook-smoke rose over the camp, and the salt-smell from the big pot of stew drifted slowly out, setting off a chorus of swallowing.

Mealtime came. Meng Wanquan ran back to camp, drew his own portion, and carried it out himself for the old lady; with nothing left for himself, he cadged a mouthful from this bowl and a mouthful from that, and one round about was already half-full.

Doctor Cheng, feeling sorry for the fool, gave him his own portion of fine-grain steamed cake; and Meng Wanquan, loath to eat it, took it out and gave it to the old lady, who tucked it into her bosom to keep for Qi Qian'er to eat when she came back...

Seeing the old lady so distracted and out of sorts, Meng Wanquan had ached for her all day and felt guilty all day; so he went back to camp again and, a pinch from this fellow's pouch and a pinch from that, scraped together half a pouch of tobacco for her, came back and packed her a full bowlful, and comforted her: "If you're tired, go on back — I'll wait here."

The old lady looked at him and put to him once more the question she'd already asked a good few dozen times: "Wanquan, tell me — they left at the meal hour; what hour is it now?"

Without the least impatience, Meng Wanquan said: "The late-afternoon hour."

The old lady smacked her lips, puffed out a mouthful of smoke, and smiled: "This hour already, is it? She'll be back soon, then. It's nothing — we'll just wait. That child doesn't know you well; if she comes back and there's not one familiar face at the crossroads watching out for her, she'll feel so forlorn..."

Meng Wanquan nodded, and looked off into the distance with her, asking slowly: "Is she really so good?"

"Good!" The old lady nodded with certainty: "She~ said she'd care for me in my old age."

The old lady's voice was full of a settled ease, sure of things now; just to say it aloud seemed to lend color to the empty clouds.

Meng Wanquan was glad too, and said with a smile: "That's good, then — a dutiful one."

"Mm, it is good..."

The old lady's brow and eyes were all smoothed out. She knew, and was certain, that the one she now waited for would surely come back — come back whole and entire, with never an arm or a leg missing.

A few fast horses came from far off, their riders working the whip, and swept whistling into the camp-ground, the very earth trembling; and just at that moment, Madam Qiao came along, from far off in the manor.

Madam Qiao walked to the ancestral hall's gate, made a show of her hot soup-noodles, handed Xique'er — the little one on her back — to another woman to mind, and only then, swaying gently, made her way with mild steps toward the big willow.

When she'd come up close, she didn't speak to the old lady first, but said with a light laugh to Meng Wanquan: "Wanquan's here too, I see."

She always had a sure touch with men — especially these rough fellows who'd gone years without seeing a woman, their nerves forever strung tight; they could least of all stand up to gentleness, as though one glimpse of it could draw out of these hard men every kind of tenderness and pity, and bend them to her every wish.

And so it was with Siniu: thrown against her, he melted; he'd wind his body tight into her very bones and flesh, and even in sleep he had to be fumbling at her chest — the way a son, startled awake in the night with a wail, reaches out a hand and finds his mother, and only then can sleep the night through.

The man often sobbed in the night, and she'd soothe him like a child, holding him to her breast and patting him, over and over: Silang, Silang, don't be afraid, Silang... Silang, Mother's here...

And the man would softly sob and call for his mother, and sink back into deep sleep.

Sometimes even Madam Qiao couldn't work it out: Chen Siniu's own mother was right next door, so why was it always on her that he went looking for his mother?

Then one day she heard a passing remark from the old lady, and understood in a flash.

That day the old lady had said to someone: Back home in the old days, I was as gentle a soul as you'd find; ask Siniu sometime — when he and his brothers were up to mischief, could I ever have brought myself to give them so much as a slap?

That was it, that was it. The mother in Siniu's memory was the gentle countrywoman she'd once been — not this Old Madam Chen, hardened by war into something fierce as a demon.

From then on Madam Qiao grew shrewder: she learned to cook to the old lady's flavor, learned the way the old lady did the housework... and now Chen Siniu couldn't do without her.

Today, as ever, she called out to Meng Wanquan, all gentle and warm... No soldier in the camp could hold out against that.

---

Off in the far grass, a few crickets were singing away, merry as could be.

In the past, when Meng Wanquan met Madam Qiao he really would go bashful, and respectful too; and on account of the old lady's "mistreating" her, he'd more than once quietly slipped her something to help out.

But today was not like before. Madam Qiao turned on her gentleness, yet Meng Wanquan — as though Heaven and earth had struck him dumb — didn't so much as turn his head, and left Madam Qiao hung out to dry just like that.

Madam Qiao stood there awkwardly, her calculations thrown off their stride. After a moment she gave a helpless little laugh again and said to the old lady: "What's all this, now? Old lady, come and look — I've made you fine noodle soup. See here, that last little bit of sesame oil left at home, I've drizzled every drop of it in for you. Have a taste? Taste whether it's any good."

At that the old lady finally turned her face to give her a glance; she said nothing, but took the noodle soup all the same and set it aside...

The grain was partly hers to begin with — why shouldn't she eat it?

Madam Qiao looked at the bowl of noodle soup, looked at Meng Wanquan, thought of the women watching from a distance behind her, and hated it all in secret; she drew out the washed-white handkerchief from under her collar, dabbed at sweat that wasn't there, and still kept her light and easy smile.

She laughed a few times, and when no one answered, said: "Ai-ya, look how late it is — has Wanquan eaten? If not, my own portion's still untouched, keeping warm on the fire — shall I? Shall I bring it over for you?"

Meng Wanquan made no sound — and dared make none.

Casting about for a way to save face, Madam Qiao looked off into the distance and said: "Ai-ya, look how late it's got — quick, let the old lady have something hot; the old lady won't eat, and you, her foster grandson, don't even coax her... That Qian'er really doesn't know any better either... I don't like to say it, old lady, but you're awfully trusting. What of the world has she ever seen — a slip of a girl, muddle-headed, and if she's tricked by someone before she knows it, that's no small thing. It's a whole pack of unmarried soldier-men out there, and she's not even wedded yet..."

In the old days the old lady had to fight with Madam Qiao every single day; she'd curse her and hit her, but in secret it was she who came off the worse in the hidden dealing. A blunt, straightforward old woman was no match for a county merchant's daughter, and every time she was left with a bitterness she couldn't speak; so she grew all the more spiteful in her ways — whenever there were people about and Madam Qiao dared put on her act, the old lady would seize the crowd's presence to strike her.

There was one thing the old lady had never told a soul: Madam Qiao hit her too — pinched her with a killing grip, always waiting till no one was near to pinch the flesh under her arms and maul the flesh along her thighs. At her age she could hardly go out and strip off her clothes to show anyone.

The times were queer like that — no human feeling, no rules; gods wouldn't watch and ghosts wouldn't touch it; elders were elders no longer, and a person no longer a person.

The old lady knew herself: it was all bluff and bluster, barely enough to keep hold of her own things. But she was old; on the mornings she ached all over and couldn't rise, she knew that one day she'd keel over with a thump, and from then on fall into Madam Qiao's hands.

And so the old lady had carried a thought all along: if the day ever came that she fell, she'd find a way to end herself — she'd not suffer a single day's cruelty, half a day's shame.

But now it was different. Ever since that child Qian'er had come yesterday, she knew someone would look after her, and she no longer meant to fight with Madam Qiao; now even one more word to Madam Qiao made her sick.

She could no longer bear to look at that fresh, dewy, false Bodhisattva face, to watch those thin lips flicker their forked tongue, day after day swallowing her down.

Only now that she was safe did the old lady let herself truly face the thing she'd never dared touch before: that in fact she'd been afraid of her... yes, afraid.

But afraid or not, she couldn't now let the woman fling muck at her Qian'er. Without another thought, the old lady sent that bowl of hot noodle soup straight into Madam Qiao's face.

Madam Qiao gave a shriek. Well, she'd got her wish — the old lady had struck her in front of everyone again; what she'd never dreamed was that the old lady would waste the grain she prized most to ruin her.

Her eyes blurred, her face stinging hot, Madam Qiao wept uglier than she ever had, her mood more violent than it had ever been.

Tonight, come what may, she would have her revenge for this.

Over at the ancestral hall's gate, Xique'er — bound to Madam Qiao heart and flesh — heard her mother crying from far off, and at the sound burst at once into heart-rending sobs.

Guo née Yang, Yu née Wan, Madam Gao and the rest heard it and came trotting over together.

Coming up close, they looked first at the old lady, then at the utterly wretched Madam Qiao, and Guo née Yang, unable to hold back, began to reproach the old lady:

"Old lady! You're getting on in years — whatever Lanxiang's done wrong, you've hit her for it, you've cursed her for it, but the next day doesn't she wipe her tears and carry your food and drink to you all the same, do your washing and mending? This time~ you've gone too far! Scalding-hot stuff like that — how could you, how could you fling it in her face?"

Washing and mending?

Into the old lady's head at once came the early morning she'd gone out and a basin of clothes mixed with dirt and grit had been left blocking the doorway to trip her flat on her face — and if she told of it, there wasn't a soul in this world who'd believe her!

No one would believe her — so what was to be done? Right! Right! Now was not like before.

The old lady offered no defense of herself; she just looked round the circle, until at last her gaze had quieted every last one of the women, and only then said to Meng Wanquan: "Wanquan."

Meng Wanquan answered and hurried over.

Pressing a hand to her chest, the old lady forced a smile and said to him: "That sister-in-law of yours, she's barely turned fifteen — young, and she's been through nothing of the world. I — Granny asks nothing else of you today, only that you give a fair judgment. Will you?"

Madam Qiao's weeping stopped short a moment, then she burst out wailing and made to run for the village; but the old lady knew her tricks far too well and blocked her a step ahead, gripping her arm: "Don't you run! Today I swear it to every god in heaven — you dare run, and I'll dash myself dead on the spot, right here!!"

Meng Wanquan, alarmed: "Granny, what are you saying?"

The old lady looked at him and smiled: "I'm telling the plain truth. If she dares run, she's forcing me to my death; if she'd rather I didn't live, then I'll give her her wish."

A woman of her years, talking so fierce and final — it threw a fright into the whole group at once.

One of the women nearby hurried over to smooth things: "Old lady, you mustn't talk that way — carry on like this and you leave Madam Qiao no way to go on living."

The old lady glanced over, saw it was Yu née Wan, and smiled: "It's fine. If she runs today, then I die and she'll not live either — way out or no way out, it's all cut off regardless. I only want Wanquan to say a fair word — what's wrong with that? Must you let her run off and force me to the end of the road instead?"

"We'll hear it! Hear it! How would we dare not..." they said, one after another.

Meng Wanquan looked at Madam Qiao. The old lady's complaint had landed today; turning it over and over, and setting it against what Madam Qiao had said just now, he saw the woman more clearly through and through.

But he was an honest, sincere man at bottom, and Qi Qian'er's good name was bound up in it, so he didn't repeat what she'd said, only telling the aunties: "Madam Qiao truly did speak with venom, ruining another's good name. She deserves a punishment; the old lady flinging soup at her got off light, if anything."

Those had been words to drive a person to the end of the road.

For the old lady's sake, and out of his own kind heart besides, Meng Wanquan had always done his utmost to look after these dependents who followed the camp; so now that he said Madam Qiao was in the wrong, everyone believed it.

Guo née Yang slowly let go of the hand steadying Madam Qiao and looked at Meng Wanquan: "So that's how it is! But where did all this come from — how did it turn venomous?"

Madam Qiao, all alone and frail — why on earth would she say things to ruin another's name? Venomous? That was a charge Madam Qiao could ill afford.

At the word, Madam Qiao was closer still to fainting.

The old lady laughed coldly: "She says my grandson's wife had no business going off with a pack of rough men. Well, by that talk — how many years have you all been following along with them? By her reasoning, that'd have to count me in too; the whole lot of us must have lost our virtue long ago. Fine, then! Since none of us are chaste any more, let's all go back presently, take up ropes together, and hang ourselves and be done with it..."

And it was true — never mind Qi Qian'er; in these years of fleeing the war, back before there were carts and horses, when someone was left behind in the dark of night, more than a few of these women had been found by kind-hearted men who'd turned back a dozen li and more to look, and carried them home on their backs.

By the old rules, every last one of them, one and all, might as well not go on living.

Madam Qiao panicked; lowering her no-longer-scalded face, she dropped to her knees before the old lady with a thud and kowtowed: "Old lady, it's that I'm young and green, and I was anxious too — it's been a whole day, and I spoke without thinking... I don't even know what I said. Forgive me, please, please! I truly didn't mean it..."

Madam Qiao's confessions were always thorough; her forehead knocked the ground with a bang, bang.

True, so true — Madam Qiao had followed the camp three years and more herself; if she'd thought it through, wouldn't she have talked herself into the same charge?

The women, having shared hardships together, couldn't help feeling a kinsfolk's bond among them; and just as they were all clamoring at once to make peace, they heard someone shouting something in the distance.

---

As the sky was going dim, Qi Qian'er got back to Quanqian Manor; still a good way off on the road into the hamlet, she stood up on the mule-cart and shouted toward it: "Granny!! I'm back!!"

Chang Lianfang started at her, then laughed: "Sister-in-law's a funny one — it's mealtime just now, the old lady will have gone back long ago."

Qi Qian'er shouted twice more, then sat down, pleased with herself, and said to him: "You don't understand — the old lady's sure to be waiting for me."

Sure enough, she'd not been sitting a moment when someone shouted from the hamlet's entrance: "That's my brother Chang up ahead, isn't it!"

Chang Lianfang laughed and shouted back from his horse: "It is! We're back!!"

"Right you are! The old lady's had me tell you: take it slow, it's getting dark! Mind the road!!"

"Got it! We're watching the road~!!"

And as they talked, they rounded a bend, and Qi Qian'er saw a good many people over by the big millstone under the willow, all looking their way.

Quite a turnout!

When they came up, the old lady's eyes held nothing of the three brimming cartloads; instead, as if she'd found some treasure, she ran up to Qi Qian'er and said: "You — you~ you're back."

And with that she began to cry, crying like someone hard done by.

Her mind at ease, Qi Qian'er went and put her arms around her to comfort her: "There now, there now — I never even stayed out a night, and look at you, missing me this much already?" That said, she cupped the old lady's dry old face and looked it over side to side, then smiled again: "Really missed me?"

The old lady, of all things, went bashful; she spat once and reached out to swat her a few times: "Shameless girl, what nonsense are you talking?" That done, she took the steamed cake from her bosom like presenting a treasure and said: "Eat, quick! Hungry, aren't you? Granny's kept it warm and cozy for you..."

While the two of them were being all loving back and forth, the women, sharp-eyed the lot of them, swarmed over to the carts in a rush.

The first cart was half a load of books and scrolls, and half a load of new bedding of every cloth, piled as high as a person; the second cart held the family's well-crank and a fair lot of iron gear along with crocks of black bean-paste; and the third cart was a jumble of the half-new and half-old — sheepskin jackets, mixed-wood kang-tables and stools — in short, you couldn't rightly tell how much there was, only that... the old Chen house had struck it rich, struck it rich indeed!

A dowry like this was unheard of — the first time any of them had laid eyes on such a thing.

For their cooking they all shared earthenware pots; but look here — iron pots alone, six of them, big to small, and this family had two whole sets.

And this was ironware, no less.

The women's eyes went red with envy; but Qi Qian'er drew the old lady along to the first cart, took hold of a set of new bedding, and said to her: "Granny, look — what's this?"

The old lady knew perfectly well what it was, but her mouth wouldn't own to knowing; all delight, she said: "This — what is this, now?"

"New lining, new pattern, new fine cloth — good bedding, new through and through, inside and out. Just take your pick — tonight the two of us are both sleeping under new covers!" And then she said in the old lady's ear: "There's new clothes for you to wear, too."

The old lady was crying for joy. She'd never dreamed of such a thing — how could there be so much? How could there be so much! Heavens — was Heaven going to make her die tomorrow?

She said, stammering: "I don't want it! Don't want it! I've got some, I have! Mine's perfectly good... The last time I had anything this fine was when I married out, when my mother sent me off with a new set in my dowry — and that one wasn't even this thick... Then I brought it to your grandfather's house, where they were so poor the rats ran wild all over the floor, and he couldn't bear to let me use it — locked it away, he did, said it'd be for when a son took a wife. Now tell me, wasn't that old thing wicked? Would I... would I ever live to sleep under something new again in this life?"

Here she thought of something, gave the bedding a fond stroke, and then turned her head and said earnestly to Qi Qian'er: "Qian'er — Granny wants to ask you a favor."

Qi Qian'er, seeing her happy, was happy herself:

"Ask away."

"Then — then you'll give it to me~ I, I'll just leave it with you to keep for now! This new set, and I love the color too — so, so if I'm gone one day, could you use this set for me, for my burial clothes? Would that be all right?"

At that, anger came over Qi Qian'er's face. She had money! She was a woman of means!

She had gold! Great heaps of gold... that she didn't even dare touch, scared half to death of it.

Biting into her steamed cake, one arm around the old lady, she said, as grandly as the Emperor surveying his realm: "What are you thinking of! This? A cotton-cloth quilt for your burial? Aren't you slapping me in the face?"

The old lady, terribly crestfallen, turned to look at her: "It — it won't do?"

"It won't! Don't you go setting your heart on this bit of rubbish! I won't give it to you! You'll just have to bear with it and use it to sleep under for now! Look how much there is here — saving it for the rats to nest in? Look at you, hale and hopping, with a good few decades of living left in you yet! What do you want this for? Never mind cotton — you're the old dowager of a whole houseful of 'fruit' lords, when all's said and done. If you trust me~ then leave this matter to me..."

Moved, the old lady looked at her and said sincerely: "I do trust you!"

Chewing her steamed cake, still with her arm around the old lady, Qi Qian'er made her rounds of the carts one by one: "Come the day! When spring warms and the flowers bloom! When the summer hills turn jade-green! When the red sun greets the autumn! When auspicious snow brings a fat harvest! When this world of ours is settled and at peace — then I'll pay out! I'll spend the finest snowflake-white silver and send men up the mountains to find you good hundred-year timber; planks less than two or three arm-spans round, we won't so much as look at!"

The old lady was not a little frightened; she didn't dare even imagine it, and only trembled: "A thin — a thin — a thin little coffin! So long as it's not cold, that'll do!"

"That won't do — a double one, at least! You're the old dowager of 'fruit' lords, you're entitled to a double. So the outer shell we'll make of carved bluestone — now would that be cold? Never mind rats; a wolf could come and not bite through it!

"Hear me out — I'll have the timber brought back for you, and bring in a first-rate master craftsman from Yanjing to make it; the face of the coffin I'll have done in heavy lacquer and gold powder, and painted with five-colored phoenixes and peonies... but that's for later — I'll not go on about it now."

"Ai... didn't I say — what fine dream are you spinning now? For later, is it?"

"For later — but true all the same! Set your mind at ease. When the day comes that you really are gone, the burial clothes I'll see to as well, head to foot — I'll have thirteen layers made for you, every layer of fine silk and satin; and the outermost layer I'll have of the crane-patterned cloud-brocade that's all the fashion in Yanjing now, bright red, figured and woven with gold. Under your neck I'll set a great jade-porcelain pillow, and to either side of your head — on the left I'll put a fifty-tael silver ingot, and on the right a fifty-tael gold one..."

If one wasn't enough she'd put two — she had money anyhow, hah! Money to spare!

These were all women who'd never seen the land of the rich and grand — some of them had never once been beyond the county town — and where would they have Qi Qian'er's knowledge of the world? Without knowing quite when, they'd all fallen silent, and now followed quietly behind Qi Qian'er and the old lady, listening as though to a grand opera.

In the past Qi Qian'er had had no children of her own, and back then she could only prepare her own coffin and grave-goods for after her death. Having nothing, she was forever imagining — picturing, times without number, the things she'd have when she was gone, and endlessly adding to her own coffin the fine objects she'd never owned.

Whenever she heard, out and about, that such-and-such a family's old lady had this or that in her coffin, she'd add another piece to her own, to amuse herself.

Now at last she had an old lady to play the game with her, and so, well and truly hooked, she began to spin out her dream.

"...On your head! I'll put pure-gold head-ornaments; the hairpins to left and right along your hairline, I'll set them with pearls big as a thumb — yes! And for your face, your face! I'll — I'll get you the finest jade, and find a good craftsman to work it in the best style. Once you're gone, thirteen layers on your body, a jade cicada in your mouth — eyes, mouth, nose, ears, I've seen to every one of them; and those hands of yours mustn't be idle either..."

"Not even my hands are to be idle?"

"Well — why should they be idle?"

The old lady looked at her own cracked, wrinkled hands and said: "By then I'll have kicked the bucket — and still no rest for them?"

Qi Qian'er swallowed her last bite of steamed cake and nodded firmly: "No rest! You've got to be holding something — I'll have you grip a golden ruyi, the kind set with gems of every color..."

Listening off to the side, Meng Wanquan's face twitched: the young wife's boasting was like nothing he'd ever heard. Was this a burial for the Emperor, or the interring of an empress?

Your family's old lady? Thirteen layers, no less? What a waste of good stuff!

Nobody believed Qi Qian'er, and the old lady certainly didn't believe a word of it either — but she loved to hear it. When you're old, what's left to hope for? Only a decent coffin and a proper burial.

She was crying for joy. Even if it was all a dream, it was a finer dream than she'd ever had! She whimpered softly: "So fine? So fine! Ingots for me, even? So fine... and thirteen layers to wear..."

"Thirteen layers at the least!"

"It'll be hot!"

"...You'll be dead."

"Oh — forgot about that, ah-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

Qi Qian'er boasted on without a blush, till the old lady, unable to hold back any longer, took her head in her arms and — never minding her thin hair now — planted a kiss on her forehead.

Once she'd done it she froze; Qi Qian'er started in that instant too; and looking at the old lady, so out of her usual self, the two of them, flustered and bashful, neither knew quite what to do.

"You're — you're this happy?"

She knew that nobody believed the things she'd said.

The old lady laughed: "You, so generous — and I'm not to be happy?"

In two lifetimes no one had ever treated her so tenderly — a kiss, no less — and Qi Qian'er felt awkward inside; flustered in hand and foot, she picked at an iron pot and said: "Then — then you, you look~ whatever you like, take your pick off the carts, anything you please."

At that the old lady burst out laughing, then clapped her hands and stamped her feet, laughing so happily — as glad as if she'd come through all her sufferings and her dead sons and grandsons had all come home.

"Tell me! What were you made from? How did you come to my house? We never planted a phoenix tree~ so how did you come flying in? Eh?"

The old lady wept for joy, and all around came a burst of laughter — everyone truly delighted, feeling this young wife was a rare and winning thing, her every word and move brimming with cheer.

Grandmother and granddaughter were playing away, merry as could be — but there beside them was that dead fly buzzing: Madam Qiao, who didn't like what she heard and came to make trouble.

She was a formidable one too; the sight of all these goods now had her clawing at her own heart and liver — she'd gone half-mad. Her eyes couldn't take it all in; a longing she'd never shown before broke out on her face as she scanned and searched hungrily over everything — right up until Qi Qian'er said the old lady could take her pick of anything?

Impossible! She'd sooner dash her own head open and die today than let her things be handed cheap to the old lady.