Chapter 44

Qi Qian'er hadn't slept all night, yet in the morning she was full of strength. Coming out of the mill-house she didn't even feel the cold, and, spirited, wanted less than ever to sleep.

Heaven and earth lay all silver-white. Standing in snow that swallowed half her shins, she looked up at it a while and muttered: "Mm, wind and snow across two lives. Gate behind gate, all white with snow. Tsk. Too many rooms is a bother too. Never mind, at least it saves the cotton clothes. Another expense spared, and glad of it."

She was truly full of gladness, feeling that let the deep winter freeze as it would, she carried a February spring-wind about her, warm as a fox-fur cloak.

And with a whole body of strength and nowhere to spend it, she'd found it a use: this compound had far too many rooms, and she'd never been able to clean them all before.

Now, no fear of that. She had strength to spare. She found a broom and a rag, and from the front court to the back, twenty-odd rooms, every corner and cranny, roof-beam and stable, wherever she could reach, she went over three times, and scrubbed even the mule's and donkey's hooves bright.

She moved fast. At speed she was like a shooting star wheeling by. Cleaning the hen-coop in the lower rooms, she frightened the hens into laying early, and they huddled trembling in a heap.

All through this cleaning, whenever her body flagged the least bit, she circled the qi as she pleased, gave the earth back the bad breath in her and drew fresh from the ground.

At last she'd scoured even the pot-bottoms bright with wood-ash, and with nothing left to do, she took a flat-headed wooden rake and, as the whim took her, went up onto the roof.

On the roof she spread her arms and sighed, pleased: fine snow, flying catkins that don't cling to the clothes. A lovely woman climbs the jade terrace. With hair, a body's refined. My learning's thin, but I can string together a line or two of verse. Of course none of that matters. What matters is I've hair now, so I'm a lovely woman, and if I wanted to fly this minute, I could.

She felt she could fly off with a brim-full pot of water and think nothing of it.

Some people are born making their own sense of things. She reckoned she could, and so there was no could-not. Heart-method, body-method, let it all go hang.

Qi Qian'er shoved the thick snow off the roof, and with the whump, whump of it landing, Doctor Cheng came wobbling out of his house, clutching his head.

He tilted his head up, dazed, a good while before he found her, and froze.

This dazed physician who so often praised Qi Qian'er's virtue stammered at last: "This, this is no way to behave. How, how did you get on the roof? Too much, truly too much!"

And, looking at that reckless glee of hers, and her doggerel verse that fair insulted the sages' books, he thought of his senior sister, and found she wasn't without her merits after all. At least she didn't climb roofs, and her hand at the seasoning-pot was, in fact, not bad.

Thinking of yesterday's colleagues' envious praise, Doctor Cheng couldn't help a small sweet smile.

He was chuckling to himself when a voice came at his ear: "Little A-Ning, what are you so pleased about? Is the wine not out of you yet? Shall Little Fish mix you some sobering pills?"

At the east-room lattice, the little grand-aunt was watching him, curious.

Doctor Cheng hurried up to greet her: "You're up early, little grand-aunt."

But the little grand-aunt said, grave: "Not early. At home we rose at the fifth watch. It's you who've grown slack."

"You're right to scold me. Bear with it a little longer. Once things are settled tomorrow, I'll lay in the medicine-hall's stock for you, and we'll be as we were."

At that the little grand-aunt only smiled and shook her head, and passed a pouch out through the window.

Doctor Cheng took it, opened it, and found a bag of thumb-sized night-pearls.

What, why these?

Grief flashed over his face. A long moment, and he said, his voice trembling: "These, aren't these your pearls?"

They were the founder's first-birthday gift to his best-loved little daughter, his precious treasure.

But the little grand-aunt smiled, unbothered: "The White family's pearl is dead." She looked at the ceaseless snow and said: "There, Little A-Ning, from now on, call me Xue-gu, Snow-aunt. I'll take the surname Snow, and make a clean end of it."

Today the young woman next door was so pleased she called out again from the roof: "Cloud-tresses, cheek-scent, a slanting sweep of, of, aiya, my hair's growing back!"

The little grand-aunt folded her arms and laughed.

But the pouch in Doctor Cheng's hands shook. He looked at Snow-aunt: "What, what do you mean by this?"

Snow-aunt lifted her face and cocked her head, watching next door with curving brows: "We can't very well live worse than that young woman, can we? Take these, sell them off. As she said, best get a little land to keep a house on. Our family will fill up with life again, sooner or later. Go into the city tomorrow and buy two handy servants. Little Fish and I are useless to the bone, truly. We've let it all fall on A-Ning."

Doctor Cheng knelt slowly in the snow and murmured: "It's I, it's I who am the useless one."

But Snow-aunt cut in before he finished: "No ambition is good, no ambition is a fine thing! If not for your want of ambition, we'd likely have nowhere safe to lay our heads. Your founding master said: when a man walks into a dead end, first he must see clearly how much he's worth, and if he's worth little, he first accepts his lot. I accept mine! Little Fish must accept hers, and A-Ning, you must accept yours!"

"Yes. I accepted it long ago!"

Qi Qian'er finished clearing the roof-snow and made the food. Yesterday she'd carried the food-box and basket over to the old lady, so today she could only cradle a bowl of gruel and tuck two eggs into her breast.

Barely out her own gate, she saw two cart-ruts before it, just filling with snow. She frowned, followed them to the old courtyard at the T-junction, and found the ruts turned in, sure enough, next door's.

Gone again? Where to?

Just as she pushed open the old courtyard's gate, Xique's laughter came from within.

Qi Qian'er paused, then stood in the yard, bowl in hand, and called: "Granny, I've brought breakfast!"

The old lady's voice came out: "Come in! No, no outsiders now!"

Qi Qian'er carried the bowl in, first fed the stove-pit a few big sticks, and only when the fire was strong lifted the curtain into the east room.

But once inside, she was stopped short.

A whole noseful of decay. In one night the old lady had aged more than ten years, not one black hair left on her head.

All that time she'd tended her, and the flesh she'd so hard-won onto the old lady's face had fallen away into the old mean lines again. Crowned with silver hair she couldn't see, the old lady leaned against the kang-cabinet, every hope gone out of her.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come in, she still braced herself, held it in, and greeted the younger with a smile: "Come, have you. No need to trouble first thing in the morning. I can see to myself with any little thing."

Xique, in a cloth suit patched neatly all over, was rolling about on the kang.

Her mother had likely said a great many unseemly things. Seeing Qi Qian'er come, she rolled up and cried: "Ah, ya! Ah! Here! Here!"

Stumbling, she rolled straight into the quilt over the old lady's legs, not daring even to show her head.

Qi Qian'er shot the child a look, half cross, half laughing, and said to the old lady: "Hear that, isn't it just like the wolf-hag's come?"

The old lady rolled her eyes at her: "Talking nonsense!"

Qi Qian'er dragged over the mended kang-table, set out the bowl, and laid the two eggs on it: "Eat a little, quick, while it's hot."

The old lady glanced and reproached: "Why two? Save one for Scabby when he's home!"

Qi Qian'er didn't take up that thread. She climbed onto the kang, opened the window to air the room, then went out to boil water and set briskly to tidying the room and sweeping the yard.

Now and then she looked up and saw, at the half-open window, Xique holding an egg, eating it and staring at her with big eyes.

When Qi Qian'er put on a fierce face, the child would fake-cry and go tattling to the old lady.

Tsk, grown up, this one would be a sly thing too, well-practiced at playacting.

Should she get in a couple of extra slaps now, while the girl was small?

When she'd tidied and come back in, the old lady had risen after all, made her own bed neat, and gathered yesterday's food-box and basket together by the kitchen door.

Qi Qian'er went into the east room and found the old lady with one hand steadying the ever-toppling Xique, saying nothing, staring into space.

So Qi Qian'er sat down quietly, found the old lady's sewing-basket, and made shoes for her, keeping her silent company.

A person's life has more pits and hurdles than you can count. Meet a thing, and sooner or later you understand: no one can help you. In the end you weather it yourself.

No telling how long she'd kept her company, when the old lady asked at last, a thread of anger in it: "Look at the state of me! I doted on you for nothing, you, you won't even ask me?"

Qi Qian'er said, low, without looking up: "How would I ask? Of your four sons, only this one's left. Flesh dropped from a mother's own body. He can be a lump of dog-muck everyone scorns and treads on, and still you alone shield him. I'm not fool enough to step into a thing where I'll please no one, whatever I do."

At that the old lady grew angrier and slapped the kang-table: "What are you saying? Dog-muck, is it? That, that's your fourth uncle!"

Seeing her talking, Qi Qian'er looked up: "How is it the little one's come over?"

The old lady smiled bitterly: "Sent over first thing this morning. He said he'd take some letter, to see an uncle or whoever in Yanjing, to find a man up above. And he said Qiao gets things done, and they'll leave off the Ministry of War's trade from now on. He showed me a letter. I couldn't tell what it was."

Qi Qian'er cut in: "A recommendation letter?"

The old lady nodded: "Yes, see an uncle! Aiyo, my ancestors! The Chen house is dying out, a pack of country mud-legs scratching food from the dirt. Where's he an uncle in Yanjing? How has the man no shame! See an uncle, why not fetch home a father while he's at it!"

Here again was a thing unlike the last life. Never mind, she was in this state herself. She'd not think of others' business.

Still, Qi Qian'er was curious, and asked: "And who's fourth uncle's sponsor?"

The old lady blanked a moment: "What, what's that? A sponge?"

"Oh! I mean, who did fourth uncle the favor, who wrote him the letter!"

"Oh, that. Fourth says his old officer sent him to Yanjing to see the uncle."

"Oh, and where's this Yanjing uncle posted?"

"Some money-sluice at the Ministry of Works, I couldn't follow it. Anyway, this old woman doesn't believe him, an official of the Emperor's, handed him for calling the man 'uncle'? Cheating me again."

The old lady grumbled on, waiting for Qi Qian'er to answer, and got no answer, but saw Qi Qian'er's brows and eyes curving in a smile.

Here I am so wretched, and she smiles? Cross, she asked, stiff: "What are you smiling at?"

Qi Qian'er blinked: "Nothing. Just, with fourth uncle turned to a civil post, he'll not have to stake his head anymore. That's one worry off you."

The old lady snapped back at once, sharp: "It'd suit me fine if he died out there!"

But Qi Qian'er looked at the old lady's weather-beaten face, and after a while sighed softly: "You'd never bear it. A babe a foot and three inches long, eighteen years' labor, a mother of a hundred still frets for her eighty-year-old child. Flesh of your flesh, watched into growing through hardship after hardship, bad as he is, could you throw him away? He's the one left. Ease your heart a little. Eat what there is, drink what there is."

Hearing no retort, Qi Qian'er looked up, and saw the old lady already weeping, sitting there shaking all over, every hope gone, her lips gone white.

Qi Qian'er's heart lurched. She knew some word of hers had struck home. She set down the basket and made to go steady her, but the old lady, with all her strength, scrubbed hard at her own face, unable to speak, and cried: "You, you! Get out! Out with you!!"

Qi Qian'er set down the basket to go, and behind her the old lady called: "Xi, Xique!!"

Qi Qian'er turned, wrapped Xique in the quilt, and hurried out with her.

The moment she heard her granddaughter-in-law shut the door, the old lady could hold it no longer. She threw herself on the bed and wept aloud, wept and wept, and choked, and held it in, and found no ease.

She wanted to wail something out to vent it, but she knew no way. Then she remembered her own mother, back in her girlhood home, who kept the Daoist faith and would often sit on the field-ridge and weep for an ox.

Her mother's house was poor. How could they have had an ox? And it was strange, it was other households' oxen that died, and each time her mother would go and weep on those people's field-ridges.

A whole life near gone, and the old lady, iron-willed, wouldn't cry, wouldn't cry!

Now that she wanted to cry, she understood her mother at last. Her mother wasn't weeping for the ox, she only wanted a place to loose her pent grief. Without one good howl, there was no living on.

So, calling up the words she'd heard as a child, the old lady truly began to wail-sing:

"Ah! Ah, I, I warn you, people of the world, hear me tell the reason: the bitterest thing in this world is the plow-ox. Oh, Heaven! Spring, summer, autumn, winter, all its strength spent, four seasons' toil that never stops. Oh my Heaven! Plow and harrow forged of iron, a thousand jin heavy. The bamboo whip on its back, ten thousand lashes."

Hearing the old lady cry, Xique was frightened. She struggled her little head out of the quilt and looked toward the room, tears standing in her eyes too.

The old lady had known a great storm was coming, and, fearing to startle the child, had sent Qi Qian'er out with her.

Qi Qian'er stroked her head to soothe her: "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid. Granny's taking a bitter medicine."

The little girl pointed at the room and cried: "Granny, nn, nn, nn!"

"Yes, Granny's crying. Vexed to it by your no-good mother and father."

Before she'd finished, a pair of small hands clapped over Qi Qian'er's mouth. Here was a child not yet three, who couldn't even speak in full, and she wouldn't let Qi Qian'er speak against her mother and father. She understood everything in her heart.

Qi Qian'er pressed her brow to the child's and sighed: "So clean a heart!"

Inside, the old lady sang on:

"The mud hard, the water deep, it can't drag the load. No grass in its belly, and the tears run down. Thirsty, it drinks a little ditch-water at the field's edge, and they shout, move on, don't stop! Oh my Heaven. Hungry, it eats one mouthful of the field's own grain, and the whole house curses the plague-ox. Heaven, open your eyes, such bitterness. Ah, ah."

In the last life this old lady wept too, but she'd never once heard her wail-sing like this.

Qi Qian'er jogged the child round in circles, thinking: yes, that's it, now she has me for company, she can sing it out and vent, wanting someone to ache for her.

And she ached.

"Marrying a daughter, wedding a son, glad events, and with no money they reckon to sell the plow-ox! The land-tax hard to pay in full, the house poor, they pledge this ox. Oh Heaven, be kind, seeing me old now and strengthless, they lead me out to the neighbors for a meat-ox! They eat my heart, they strip my hide, oh Heaven."

The words were so good that, listening, Qi Qian'er was caught up in them, and was just fixing them in memory when her ear caught a number of carts coming to the mouth of the lane.

Her hearing was keen now. A few sounds told her it was Chen Dasheng and the rest come back.

At this hour?

Sure enough, before long Chen Dasheng came into the yard calling: Granny! Granny? Granny! Granny? Granny! Granny.

Qi Qian'er turned and shushed him. Chen Dasheng started, and heard his granny wailing inside, chanting away.

The fellow jumped, and made at once to go in, but Qi Qian'er stopped him: "Don't. Let Granny vent it, or she'll take a bad turn and fall ill."

At the lane-mouth Chen Dasheng had already had a word with Meng Wanquan and knew his fourth uncle was back, so he thought no further. It was surely that pair who'd vexed her.

He knew Qi Qian'er's temper too well. How could she vex his granny?

The fool turned to go in again, but Qi Qian'er stepped back to bar him, and, as she did, tucked Xique into his arms: "Here, hold your little sister. Don't go looking, the pair of them have gone to Yanjing!"

Chen Dasheng had never held a child. He froze stiff on the spot.

Strange to say, blood is blood after all. In Chen Dasheng's arms, the little thing slowly let out a breath and eased.

Brother and sister looked at each other. Xique studied him a while, then patted his face left and right. Her brother didn't mind, let her hit him, so she suddenly put out a finger and jammed it up her brother's nose.

Chen Dasheng started, nearly dropping her, and heard the old lady let out a great howl inside:

"Oh Heaven, I fear death and cannot say it, weeping bitter tears. The knife cuts through the inch of my throat, cleaves the flesh, draws the gut, breaks the belly and lungs, to cut my liver, scrape my bone, what wrong did I do? I sinned last life and suffer this. They strip my hide to make a drum to beat, a sound to shake heaven and earth and grieve the ghosts and gods. I've borne a thousand bitternesses now, don't you, next life, become, become, go wherever you please, then, I'll not have you the rest of my life, oh my Heaven!"

See, even now, wretched near to death, she still wouldn't have her son suffer in the next life, turned to a plow-ox for his sins.

Hearing the old lady weep so, Chen Dasheng was terrified. He said, his voice shaking: "Is, is there no law? Fourth uncle, fourth uncle, won't you do something? They're flaying Granny alive!"

Qi Qian'er was half laughed into anger. She raised a foot to kick him, then feared he'd go flying and be hard to find, and only explained: "Don't imagine things. Granny's weeping the ox-lament."

Hearing it, Chen Dasheng was more baffled: "We've no ox? When did we buy one? How'd it die?"

A good while later Qi Qian'er said: "In this world, a mother's not much different from an old ox. A lifetime of bitter toil, and dead, they still strip the hide and draw the bone. Granny's hurt to the quick."

But in the last life, how had the old lady borne it?

A thought, and Chen Dasheng saw it clear. He said, a note of pleading in it: "Can't, can't we bring Granny home to live with us? She can't stay by their side."

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes at him: "You needn't tell me! And why are you back?"

"We drew our pay this morning, and with the big snow, the Bureau of Astronomy's word is bad, they say it'll fall a long while, so we hurried back to look in, help clear up."

Before Chen Dasheng finished, Qi Qian'er let out a great cry of her own: "Aiya! Chen Dasheng, you're back? Granny! Stop crying! Your Scabby's home!!"

Inside, the wailing went on, and only louder.

Qi Qian'er curled her lip and called again: "Then we'll go on home! Scabby says the Emperor's issued grain and pay. You cry away! We'll just go set our things down and."

The window-board was shoved violently open, and the old lady, face smeared with snot and tears, shouted out: "You dare! That's my Scabby's money. You, you outsider, you, you two get in here this instant!"

That was a rather quick recovery. Chen Dasheng was struck dumb.

Qi Qian'er, holding in a laugh, pulled him inside.

That was how it was, in the end. Was she to weep herself to death? Weep herself dead, and the beast was still a beast, and he'd be no man either. A man past fifty, was there any hoping the prodigal would turn?

Chen Dasheng went in, wilting, and the old lady grabbed him. Before she'd asked much, aching for her, he blurted out how much he'd been given, how much silver he'd brought home.

Never mind that he'd been in the guard garrison only a few days. The Emperor prized him, and kept him in mind. With the great snow, thinking his house was poorly off, the Emperor had quietly had grain and silver advanced to him ahead of time.

So Chen Dasheng had driven his garrison's cart back, brimming with joy, hauling the pork and poultry, polished rice and white flour, beancurd and pickles, yellow wax and charcoal he'd saved out of his monthly allowance.

Who'd have known that, stepping in his own gate, he'd meet a howling storm, near frightening the honest boy to death.

Chen Dasheng named a whole heap of goods, and the old lady, seeing his hands empty, set to wailing again, wailing of her hard fate, weeping for the ancestors, for Scabby's dead parents, and calling Scabby pitiful, and so on, but her eyes weren't on her grandson at all. They were fixed hard on Qi Qian'er.

Qi Qian'er, helpless, could only roll her eyes and say to Chen Dasheng: "Quick, quick! Bring all your things in and lay them out for Granny. Aiyo, the crooked-hearted work of it. It's a wonder your home country's still on the map!"

Chen Dasheng answered foolishly and ran out and back several times, till the east room was a jumble: half a sack of flour, a sack of polished rice, seven or eight live hens and ducks, a few cloth bags of black charcoal, and two strings of rib-meat.

The old lady's eyes were satisfied now, but her mouth still whimpered its weeping. Qi Qian'er wiped her face twice over with a hot cloth, and still she wouldn't have it, just whimpered on!

She whimpered once at the sight of each thing, and last, when Chen Dasheng set ten bright strings of Yong'an coin on the kang, the old lady drew a hissing breath and let out a wail: "My poor son, my poor Scabby's mother, you raised a son and got no good of it."

So she said, but her hands were brisk enough, raking the coins in to her side.

Qi Qian'er thought: I can fly now. Shall I squabble with an old lady over a few coppers?

Still, damn that Qiao, she was a touch angry after all.

She coughed: "The house's eating and drinking, I'll not keep the accounts anymore!"

The weeping stopped short, and before long a fistful of coppers came flying over, a dozen or so.

"Hmph! And the mule-and-donkey fodder, taken free from the camp, the cheek of it!"

Another fistful of coppers, flung with temper.

"Ai, and I'm not well. I'll need a few doses of medicine to build me up, or your great-grandchild will be lost tomorrow."

Three or five coins came over, cross, then, reckoning she'd gone too far, three or five more.

Qi Qian'er, easy as you please, gathered up a heap, and made to speak again, but the old lady beside her said, savage: "What more do you want? Have I stinted your food? Your clothes?"

Qi Qian'er counted on her fingers: "That's my dowry, and your grandson's not been home to."

Before she finished, a whole string came flying over in fury: "Take it! Oh Heaven! The Chen graves have caved in, caved in! Take it! Take it all! I'll not live."

Pft, worry, my foot. An old lady you could coax round with a few strings of copper.

Qi Qian'er couldn't hold back a laugh, and turned and pushed the whole heap of coin back to her, who was aching over it.

"Only teasing! It's all yours, all yours! I don't want it!"

Seeing the coin heaped back to her, the old lady's heart came clear at last. Yes, she had a back wall to lean on after all.

Even so, she didn't return the money to Qi Qian'er. She opened the kang-cabinet, and said, sheepish: "How much can a body near the grave spend? Not a copper of yours will be short. You're young, Granny will keep it for you."

Qi Qian'er rolled her eyes, and pulled Chen Dasheng out to unhitch the beasts, but heard the old lady say behind her: "Qian'er. From now on, I'll live in this courtyard."

Qi Qian'er's step checked. She turned to the old lady: "Didn't we settle it, I'm to keep you in your old age?"

The old lady's lips worked, and she smiled bitterly: "No need for you. I'm hale in hand and foot! Before you came, I saw to myself. No growing dainty on me now."

Qi Qian'er came back to the kang-side and took her hand: "Did they say something to you over there?"

The old lady patted the back of her hand, helpless: "Say what? What could he say? He wouldn't dare! He's in the wrong! He's no standing and no spine to speak with. It's me, I only think: if I live with you, folk say the whole house is unfilial. If I live with him, I'm wretched in my own heart, and it's hard on you two.

"So let this courtyard be the old house, and I'll live alone! It's fine, truly. Out there they say I'm money-mad, they say I'm a bully, they say I'm mean, well and good. That name, I'll own it! Yes! I own it! I'm a lone wheel that gives way to no one. I've taken a fancy to this courtyard, and I'm not leaving."