Chapter 76

At the end of the eleventh month, with the first snow of winter, Qi Qian'er came out of the mill-room close on nine in the morning, and there was Fourth-Moon waiting for her, all smiles, a padded gown held out in her arms.

Fourth-Moon was a round-faced girl, with a lucky, cheerful look to her. Seeing Qi Qian'er come out, she gave the gown a shake and came up to wrap her in it, and as she tied the cords she whispered her mistress the morning's news.

"Madam, that one over there ran barefoot out of the house first thing today, and swore she'd dash her head to death outside the old lady's door! She'd have the old lady give back Miss Xique and the little master too. Then the fourth master came home..."

The masters had no use for the fourth branch, so there was no looking for much respect from the servants below either.

Qi Qian'er thought the girl sweet, telling her little tales, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Of the eight maids the She household had sent over, Qi Qian'er had come to lean on Fourth-Moon most. The truth was she'd no fondness for the meek, honest sort. She liked a girl with a lively mind, quick and clever and merry the year round, and Fourth-Moon was just such a little thing. So Qi Qian'er had raised her a grade, and the month before had raised First-Moon and Second-Moon over at the old lady's, whom the old lady had grown used to, by a few hundred coppers a month as well.

The servants who came from the She household drew two wages, one off the She family's books and one off this side. Girls like First-Moon out in the world drew eight hundred coppers at the most.

Wrapped in the padded gown, Qi Qian'er set off with Fourth-Moon.

Seeing Qi Qian'er go out, Jixiang's wife came smiling into the mill-room and took a sack to gather up the flour. It was the young mistress's dutiful gift. The master of the house, in the palace, waited on just this to eat.

Out of the back courtyard, Qi Qian'er took the hand-warmer Fifth-Moon brought her, cradled it in a soft cloth, and asked Fourth-Moon as she walked: "What did the fourth master say? Did he go and make trouble over at the old lady's?"

Fourth-Moon shook her head: "As to that, Madam, no. But it seems some great thing has happened over there. The fourth mistress is wailing away at home now, saying she's done with living. Your servant didn't hear the whole of it. Thinking Madam would be coming out, I hurried back first."

Coming to the front-courtyard gate, Qi Qian'er saw Seventh-Moon and Eighth-Moon carrying in armfuls of fresh flowers, and Chunfen and Xiaoman and the rest lined up, each bearing a pot of greenery in toward the house.

In this fine snowy weather it was always a good thing to have such gay fresh flowers to suit the season. The sight pleased Qi Qian'er, and she said: "This weather too, it's hard on them."

Since the end of autumn, there was no telling what had got into that Manager Ping of the Little Immortal Garden. He'd taken to sending word to the house every ten days. Not that he came himself. He sent his steward to bring fresh flowers to Guard Lane every tenth day.

The flowers were delivered door to door up the lane, so that Doctor Cheng's household and the fourth branch had theirs too, and no one was slighted.

Each time it was four kinds of leafy plants, and eight bunches of cut flowers.

For this small perquisite, of all the girls Dani and Erni had learned flower-arranging best under Zhang Wanru, and could now choose the vase to fit the shape of the bloom.

She Jixiang came last, and hearing Qi Qian'er's question said with a smile: "Yes. They say they were cut for Madam in the flower-house at the very hour of sunrise, all picked from the finest sun-facing sprays."

That said, he came up to Qi Qian'er with a sly look and murmured: "Madam had best go over to the old lady's. If you don't, this old servant rather thinks First-Moon will be along to fetch you directly."

Now what was the matter this time? Qi Qian'er's face knotted up. She carried her hand-warmer out and off toward the lane's end. She'd not reached it when she saw idlers in knots and clusters at the tail of the lane, and going closer, saw the fourth branch's gate ringed with a crowd of the old aunties, and out of it came Madam Qiao's wailing, fit to tear the heart.

"...bitter, oh, I've wailed my way to the seventh gate, and there the Golden Cock has barred the road. Good food and drink I scatter, the five grains I throw down. I call to you, Golden Cock, stand aside, oh..."

Seeing Qi Qian'er stand there and not stir, Madam Huang and Madam Zhou and the rest gave sheepish smiles and each made off in a hurry.

Mm. Full-fed again, the lot of them. In the days when their three meals fell short, you never saw them out gawking at a show.

When the crowd had scattered, Madam Qiao's wailing came pouring out unchecked. Listen close, though. Oh? This was a mourning-wail? Wailed all the way to the seventh gate already?

When a country wife wails the dead, she starts from the first gate before King Yama, the Home-Gazing Gate, and wails her way on from there. The custom runs much the same everywhere. Wail how you please, on the seventh day the kin who see the dead off must go through the whole of it.

Qi Qian'er listened a while and thought: the grudge between the old lady and this fourth daughter-in-law was past all untangling now. Here was Qiao begun to wail the dead for the old lady. And what was it for today? Was it that the Matron Dai her father had sent kept too strict a rein? Or was Qiao pressing the old lady with her own life again, over the children?

The fourth branch's affairs she could not be troubled to ask after. She'd make them no better and no worse. After all the times Qiao had beaten the old lady on the sly, the old lady would never in this life be reconciled with her. And what backing had the old lady now? On the strength of the Xique business, she'd taken the fourth branch's two children clean away to raise herself.

Whether that was revenge, or only trouble she was making for herself, there was no telling.

Never mind. Let the elders settle the elders' affairs themselves.

Madam Qiao's wailing was too desolate to bear. Not wishing to hear it, Qi Qian'er went into the old house. She came into the east room and saw a vase of gay flowers already set on the old lady's kang-table. There sat Xique, her face bound in cloth, tracing red characters with a little brush. Her mother was wailing loud enough to shake the sky, and the child sat there dead-faced and unmoving, her wrist steadier than any child's had a right to be.

The sight of her drew a sigh from Qi Qian'er. That bright little imp of a Xique, who'd once had a word for everyone, would not be coming back, she thought. And the fourth uncle's son, Chen Lanting, lay at the hired Xie wet-nurse's breast, smacking as he suckled.

Seeing Qi Qian'er come in, the old lady coughed, and Third-Moon, who'd been teaching Xique her red characters, gathered the child up, and the Xie wet-nurse set her robe to rights and made her bow to Qi Qian'er, and the whole troop of them went off with a rustle to the west side-room.

It was warm enough there. There was charcoal in plenty.

Chen Siniu was on duty at the Firewood-and-Charcoal Bureau now, and though the family still heated its kang, it never used dry brushwood anymore, only the very best charcoal, and all of it bought by the old lady for the whole house at her own cost.

The room was warm as warm. When Qi Qian'er had loosed her padded gown, the old lady said to her: "Come here. Sit by me."

Qi Qian'er slipped off her shoes and went over, and when she'd tucked a little quilt round herself, the old lady said, unable to hide her excitement: "So you've heard?"

Qi Qian'er made a face: "I've only just come out of the mill-room. What would I have heard? I got to the lane-mouth and heard the wailing next door. The old aunties were ringed round it a good few deep, no shame in them at all. There's not a day this while she doesn't wail a few times, and they never tire of gawking. And it's not as though you never let them carry a child back for her to see!"

The old lady gave a snort of pure satisfaction: "Hmph! The Bodhisattva herself says a body must honor its parents. Whoever's unfilial gets a disaster for it, and the Bodhisattva sees it all clear as clear. Amitabha, I'm not cursing her, mind. I only wish her well. I pray to Guanyin the whole day long to keep everyone safe and well! I'm only saying, this is the karma the Bodhisattva sends, and you must bear it. That's true, isn't it?"

Qi Qian'er asked, puzzled: "What are you talking about? All this about the Bodhisattva, out of a clear sky. Granny, I don't follow you."

The old lady had always patience with Qi Qian'er. Hearing her grumble she took no offense. She was fair bursting to be excited, only the Bodhisattva surely wouldn't allow her to gloat, so she had to hold it in, poor thing, and only pointed next door: "Word your fourth uncle gave her this morning. Her first man, and the one son she had left, died lifetimes ago! Died! Dead!"

That gave Qi Qian'er a start. She looked at the old lady, astonished: "Dead? What's dead? Who's dead?"

The old lady gave her a slap: "Not so old, and gone soft in the head? Madam Qiao, of course. She came to your fourth uncle later, didn't she. All these years, the money she got out of our house, hasn't it all gone to prop that side up? Now, the other day your father sent a Matron Dai over to teach her the rules, and the Matron Dai said the papers between your fourth uncle and her must be seen to, or the family's line stands on no proper footing, and it won't do.

"So! Your fourth uncle sent someone off to Qiao's old home, and there it was. Her first man and her boy died long ago! Cut down by the rebel troops. And all the money she's squeezed out these years has gone to keep her first mother-in-law and her two brothers-in-law of that house! The man he sent came back and said they've built a great mansion over there. Hmph! And on the strength of what do they raise a great mansion? On what they pared off our house, that's what. I'll speak no venom before the Bodhisattva. I'll only say a retribution's no more than her due, eh?"

Qi Qian'er was astonished through and through, and thought: but this never happened in the last life. Madam Qiao had gone on smooth as smooth, the wealthy mistress to the end... No, that wasn't right either. That side forever wanting money, the day would come it couldn't be hidden. Only, back then she and the old lady counted for nothing, so why would Qiao show them such a face?

Thinking on it, she'd likely wept over it in secret then too, and borne it, and got through in the end.

The old lady at her side wanted to say it served her right, and wanted to say it was a retribution, but she feared Guanyin would see, so she held it in, most pitifully. Having got that satisfying breath down at last, she said coldly: "It's not that I curse her, Qian'er. But you tell me, isn't she wicked? Paring money off our own dead to prop that side up. I'll grant she was a good mother. But are our house's children worth nothing? What was our Xique before? She was all bounce and dash! And what is she now?

"A simpleton! Can I not hate her? And she'd lay hands on our children still? I'll go to the devil with her first! From this day she may bear all she likes. This old woman can afford to raise them. Let her bear a hundred, I can raise them all! But that low slave shan't have one of them in her hands. Let her wait and see!"

Xique's face had been raked with a dozen and more deep bloody furrows, and Madam Qiao could bear even that to curry favor with the great. And the marks on the child's body besides. When the old lady had the child brought over and looked, she fainted dead away on the spot.

The child's body was one mass of green and purple bruises. When Madam Qiao later made her uproar over wanting the children, there was a reason not a house in all Quanhou Street took her side. They all felt this woman was not fit to be a mother.

And now here it was. The ones before gone, the one after gone. Qiao had struggled and struggled to this, and it had all come to nothing. What had she been after all along?

First-Moon brought up some crisp fried wafers. Next door the wailing was so wretched that Qi Qian'er could not eat over such a grievous thing. The old lady, for her part, held nothing sacred. She picked one up and ate a couple of bites before she said: "Old Madam Tao came again last night."

At that Qi Qian'er's face filled with distaste: "Why is she everywhere?"

But the old lady said: "Aiyo! What's wrong with her? If it weren't for her, Xique would still be down the black pit. A body must have a conscience. When someone's been good to you, you keep the kindness in mind, or the Bodhisattva won't forgive you. It's how a person should be. Someone does you one part of good, and you couldn't give them ten back, only a fool gives ten, but we'll give three. And on the strength of those three, she'd like to put in a word for the Yang family. So, so let her put it in, then?"

Mm? Now that wasn't right. There was a soft, wheedling flavor to the old lady's words today.

Qi Qian'er looked at her old lady with a queer look, and the old lady dared not look back at her. She fingered a wafer and said: "They say, they say it's ten thousand taels in settlement. And I do think, well, Doctor Cheng says his medicine works, and given more time the marks might not even show. When the little girl's grown and puts on her powder and paint, no one will see a thing! Find her a good family then, and even if we send her off with five thousand taels of dowry, our Xique won't want for a fine husband, eh?"

Qi Qian'er was so angry she laughed, and asked: "And the other five thousand?"

The old lady said, bold as brass: "To get her little brother a wife, of course!"

The Yang family had had wretched luck. In this founding reign of the Great Liang, twelve censors had joined names to impeach Yang Shisheng, vice-magistrate of Qingfeng, for falsely claiming imperial kinship and for keeping a lax house. It counted as a bold stroke.

The Emperor knew who Yang Shisheng was, and stripped his whole house of its offices then and there.

Only then did Yang Shisheng and his sons learn that the womenfolk of their inner quarters had made them a great and bitter enemy in the back rooms.

And what sort of people were the Chens? The fourth Chen might be a good-for-nothing, but it was hardly for the women of an inner court to look down on him. Well! Their granddaughter, bullied one after another by the Yang young ladies, no soul alive could bear that. The house's own ancestor was living yet. That gate-marquis of the Chens was She Qingling's foster-son for his old age, the man the Emperor bade sleep in the outer hall night after night, the most trusted man under heaven. And what was this Wen-shi, when it came to it?

From the end of autumn, that Chen Dasheng could not come home. When the family longed for him, they could only drive a cart to Yanjing to see him.

Over one mad nun, the palace women were all lodged outside now, and even the old Dowager gave up her nest this time and went to hide in a temple.

There was no telling what the Emperor was thinking. He only sent word posthaste to Qin She, and did the mad nun no harm. And only to sleep sound at night, Chen Dasheng and his brothers had made up floor-beds in the Emperor's outer hall.

The way of it now was this: whenever Qing Buyi came, everyone got to watch the old sabers strip once in the dead of night. It was truly hard to put a name to. So they laid a ban on all talk of it, and gave out only that the Emperor was troubled by nightmares, and must have his most trusted men to guard him before he could sleep.

Having crossed a house like that, the Yang family grew more frightened the more they thought of it, and cutting Wen-shi into a thousand pieces would not have eased their spleen. But Wen-shi was big with child, so she could not be killed, nor cast off either, and the third Yang son, in a rage, packed her off to a temple to expiate her sins.

The whole Yang house had now but one aim, to quiet the Chen family's anger. They'd laid out a great price over this, a great price by their reckoning, a full ten thousand taels.

There was no knowing what good thing they'd promised old Madam Tao behind it, but she'd come to play go-between and smooth it over. And where had the old lady ever in her life set eyes on ten thousand taels? She'd never had even five.

Qi Qian'er knew of course the old lady's heart was moved, but she said, very grave: "Granny, this business has alarmed so many of our kin, and my father himself has taken a hand in it. If you were to trade it for ten thousand taels, our house could never hold up its head in Yanjing or Qingfeng again. This money we cannot take."

Nor could it go unanswered. That fat wretch could forget ever being a vice-minister's young lord again. The Great Liang was newly founded, and if she did not sit on the whole Yang house's official fortunes a good five years at the least, she'd have lived this life for nothing.

Ten thousand taels of flesh cut living off her, the old lady felt the ache of it. She flung the wafer aside and sat there rather glum.

Seeing her out of sorts, Qi Qian'er held back a laugh and coaxed her: "Granny, in a fortnight Elder Brother Meng weds. The little widow's family sent over the dowry list last night. If you've nothing on, would you go over Brother Meng's match?"

Nothing pleased the old lady like a bit of such bustle. At the word she flung the ten thousand taels clean away, hooked her legs out from under the kang-table, and asked, all eagerness: "It's come already? Isn't it sent on the wedding day itself?"

Qi Qian'er nodded: "By the custom of Qingfeng's east ward, the man's side gives the betrothal-gift, and the day after they send the dowry list."

The old lady pried: "And what betrothal-gift did your Brother Meng give?"

Qi Qian'er answered: "The rebate I'd arranged for him this autumn, all sent over. Three hundred strings."

That gave the old lady a start, and she asked, amazed: "Oh! A widow's betrothal cut by half, and still three hundred strings? Widows are dear things at the Son of Heaven's feet."

Qi Qian'er knew well enough what was in the old lady's mind, and sent Second-Moon to fetch Meng Wanquan. That done, she turned back to the old lady and said: "No one has a head on him like Brother Meng. That widow's own family is down to one old mother, and her husband's house has no one left either. She brings her old mother and two sons into the new marriage, and what she seeks is only a shelter. Setting aside her husband's property, which is kept for her two sons, she can bring five thousand strings at the least in her dowry-chest.

"Say what you like of Brother Meng, that arm of his means his rise in this life comes only to so much. It's for that very arm she marries him. Were he whole, I doubt this Lu-shi would take him at all. Granny, she's a clever one."

The old lady did not follow that, so Qi Qian'er murmured in her ear: "If my Brother Meng were whole, he'd rise in office by and by for certain, and once he rose, that widow might not keep her hold on him."

At that the old lady turned unwilling in an instant: "What of five thousand strings? How much did A-ru's family give? Not to boast, but there's not a bad child in all our Guard Lane! What, is she scheming on our Quanzi now?"

When Chen Dasheng and the rest were away, the old lady had leaned wholly on Meng Wanquan, and the love between the two ran deep.

Qi Qian'er hurried to soothe her: "Granny mustn't turn up her nose at the woman. To my mind, a life's easier with a partner who knows her own mind. Marry one like that Wen-shi of the Board of Rites lane, and I promise you she'll drag three generations down with her. My Brother Meng's head is right here... And besides, if he didn't care for her, would he have run to Qingfeng a whole year? Both sides are willing. What are you flaring up for?"

Qi Qian'er stuck up her thumb to the old lady. The old lady pursed her lips and was just about to say something when the wailing next door stopped short. The old lady cocked her ear and listened a while, then said: "I'd say she's wailed herself out?"

The words were scarcely out when a serving-woman came running from next door: "Old lady! Old lady! Our fourth mistress is coughing blood."

The old lady's face changed a little. Seeing Qi Qian'er say nothing, she rounded on the doorway and scolded: "She's coughing blood, and what's her man about? He's home, isn't he? What do you come asking me for? Get out this instant!"

This serving-woman was Dame Shi, at Madam Qiao's side, whom Qiao had picked up cheap from a broker for eight strings, the sort who can do anything and is good at nothing.

When Dame Shi had gone off mumbling, the old lady said crossly to Qi Qian'er: "That's blood coughed up for me to see. Your fourth uncle sent her to bring the word, I'll be bound."

Qi Qian'er passed no judgment on her elders, and only asked: "Granny, that business of Qiao raising her hand to you these three years, did you ever tell my fourth uncle of it?"

The old lady's hand, reaching for a wafer, checked. She did not answer Qi Qian'er's question. Even now, come to this, the mother shielded her son.

The two of them were sitting there awkward when someone came into the courtyard again.

Meng Quanzi was got up trim and neat today, a rabbit-fur ear-band on, his hair combed to a shine, in a lake-green old-silk sable coat with padded boots to match, faced in the same old silk.

The old lady had been a little put out at his marrying a widow, but seeing him turned out so trim head to foot, she was won over in her heart.

At his words the old lady snorted a laugh, gave him a glance and scolded fondly: "You shameless thing. A dozen days more and you'll be wed, and now you deign to show your face? Tell me then, where've you been off to these two months? You're not wed yet, and already living at her house making free?

"I'll tell you this, Quanzi. Do that and you've done your bride a wrong. On the strength of that one slight, once she comes, there'll be no one in Quanhou Street will take her for a decent woman."

Xiazhi and Xiaode carried in a brazier, and Meng Wanquan sat and warmed himself a moment, then said with a smile: "How could I? Granny, I went off on a long road. Being a man with a house and a trade now, and the Yu family living right across from me, all of them together the whole day long, so merry, I got to thinking I'd go home and look, in case Heaven had eyes and had left me a kinsman or two. Even a distant one, even far off, that would have done..."

At that the room went quiet, and it was a good while before Qi Qian'er cleared her throat and asked: "And, and how was it? Did you find any?"

Meng Wanquan shook his head with a bitter smile: "Hai, it was too much to hope for! It's all under water. I made my offering from the bank, that's all. Seven or eight li round my old home, it's all water now. Had I a kinsman there, there'd be no getting back to him. Let it go! It was greed in me..."

Not wanting to dwell on it, he pointed at the courtyard next door: "Granny, it's lively by your ear here. Has the fourth uncle come home again, and she's found some new backing and is hollering at you?"

The old lady glared, and said with scorn: "She wouldn't dare! It's Madam Qiao's first man and her son, they're dead! Dead these several years, and only today does she learn of it."

That gave Meng Wanquan a start too, but he put it from him quick, and pointed at the dowry list on the kang: "Granny, isn't it come already? Have a look, do. My bride's a stout one at the waist!"

The old lady tossed her head proudly: "What of a stout waist? My grandson's a proper officer of the court, a seventh-grade lord. Isn't he a match for a widow? Have a look, my eye! I can't read. Have First-Moon read it me. I'll listen."

Before long First-Moon came in and read out the dowry-book to the old lady.

"Five prime shops in Qingfeng's south ward. Land, three hundred and fifty mu. One great mirror figured with the Eight Immortals, one small mirror figured with the Eight Immortals. Two gold-strewn 'hundred sons, thousand grandsons' bed-curtains. Six pairs of great vases for fortune, rank, long life, and joy..."

This was a wealthy widow indeed. She gave no small store of little things in her dowry. Setting aside that her chest-money ran short, the show of it was no worse than Zhang Wanru's, and she came with more than Zhang Wanru besides, a mother-in-law thrown in, and two lively grown sons.

What Meng Wanquan was after, it must be, was still a share of a house's warmth and bustle.

The old lady made no secret of her love of money. Whatever distaste she'd held, hearing this dowry, and with Qi Qian'er's added word that the woman was one who'd sat as mistress in a proper hall, who knew her letters and could run a house, she was easy in her mind.

Old folk fear only that their children won't do well. Of course she wished them well-off, and only with plenty of silver in the house did her heart sit quiet.

Glad as the old lady was on this side, she did not know that in the room next door Madam Qiao sat dazed on the floor. Wailed to the last of her strength, she gave a desolate laugh: "Heh. What have I been after, all my life?"

Chen Siniu said nothing. He wrung out a towel with his own hands from the brass basin beside him and wiped Madam Qiao's face.

To give the Chen root its due, it had this one good point. Black-hearted or white, a Chen man who took a wife home would wait on her hand and foot.

Chen Siniu would beat Madam Qiao when he was driven to it, but never had he a thought of casting her out. It was that Qiao had ruined Xique, and cost him so much money, and now everyone looked down on him, and his face was fallen on the ground past picking up, so he'd let it go too!

He only thought... I swear it, from this day the lot of you may wait. When I've risen and made my fortune, I'll grind your faces into the dirt and make you rue it!

This was a coward with a guilty heart and a scheming head, a wretch too craven to do his harm past his own front gate. Whoever pitied him, whoever bore with him, that was the one he bullied, the most craven wicked seed in all the world.

He was Xique's own father, and when the Yang family came bearing ten thousand taels to beg, he dared not take that decision either. Why? Because he could not cross his own mother now. His mother had backing now, and no use for him now, and so from this he knew he'd done wrong, and to win his way back must fawn on the old lady.

Had he a man's spine in him, he'd be greedy out in the open, and say, this matter's done, I'll have that silver! There's solid profit in it too. But he dared not. Unable now to cross the whole family, he could only choke night after night till his heart and liver and lights ached, and at the last, past all bearing, go and beat Madam Qiao, and beating done, turn round and swear to her, I've beaten you, but there was no help for it, don't be afraid, I want you still.

Yes. He'd not cast Qiao off. For without her, nothing in this world was his.

And Madam Qiao must bear it too. She had no road back either.

Madam Qiao took the hot towel and wiped her face, and, all despair, propped herself up on Chen Siniu's arm and sat up. She'd scarcely settled when she coughed up another mouthful of blood.

Chen Siniu could not stand the sight of blood. He shut his eyes and put out a hand for the towel: "I've sent for the doctor. Bear up and don't cough for now. You know I can't look at this. Can't you bear it a moment?"

Madam Qiao looked at Chen Siniu, and looked round the wretched room, and of a sudden she thought: what have I been after, all my life?

And now she thought of her Xique, and of her son they called Lanting. Pressing at the aching, hollowed-out place in her heart, Madam Qiao pleaded: "Husband, I know I've done wrong. Shall I kneel and knock my head to you? I'll go and own my fault to the old lady. Could you go and beg her, and get our children back?"

Chen Siniu's frame shook. Slowly he turned his back to her and put out a hand: "Then, then do you want another hot towel? I'll wring you out another..."

The despair spread over Madam Qiao's face, and at the very depth of it she laughed instead, and the laugh grew and grew, until it broke ha-ha-ha through the roof...

The old lady was in the midst of the dowry when she heard the sound go wrong next door, and said to Qi Qian'er: "Qian'er, that doesn't sound right to me. She's not gone mad, has she?"

No wonder they say the one who knows you best is your enemy. In the room next door, Chen Siniu was backing away step by step, both arms hugged to his chest.

And Madam Qiao, her mouth all blood, a cold grin on her face, bore down on him step by step: "Fourth Brother, we've not one child left. We've nothing left at all!"

Chen Siniu, afraid she'd gone mad, stammered to soothe her: "How can that be? Xique, Lanting, wherever they are they're our children still. How are they gone?"

Madam Qiao would waste no more words on him. She flung herself upon him and pinned him to the bed, and bit down hard on his chin: "Gone is gone! I say they're gone! Gone!"

Chen Siniu took the pain but dared not cry out, for shame, and only pleaded: "You, let go of me, don't bite, it hurts! Gone, they're gone! As you say, as you say... You, let go of me, shall I wring you a towel?"

Madam Qiao let go of his chin, sat up, and pleaded through her tears: "Let's have a few more, Fourth Brother, husband! Let's have a few more children. I know I've done wrong..."

Chen Siniu hesitated, then put out his arms and held Madam Qiao: "Then, then we'll have them... have them if you want to!"

The old lady, having heard out the whole thick dowry-book, stroked the great treasure of it and said to Meng Wanquan with a smile: "Quanzi, you're a truly blessed man. The Guanyin Bodhisattva says it well. Who's meant for who is fixed long beforehand! Isn't that so?"