In the eyes of the villagers Taoist Men was half man, half immortal. He moved about secretively with light, nimble steps; his head was bald and shiny, like a light bulb, his white beard bushy thick. He had lips like a little mule’s and teeth so bright they glittered like pearls. Both his nose and his cheeks were red, his white eyebrows as long as a bird’s wing feathers. Every year he appeared in the village on the day of the Winter Solstice to carry out his special responsibility of choosing the “Snow Prince” during the annual snow market – or more appropriately, the Snow Festival. This Snow Prince was required to fulfill sacred duties at the snow market, for which he received considerable material rewards, which is why all the villagers hoped that their sons would be chosen.
I – Shangguan Jintong – was chosen as that year’s Snow Prince. After visiting all eighteen villages of Northeast Gaomi Township, Taoist Men had selected me, proof that I was no ordinary boy. Mother wept tears of joy. When I was out on the street, women looked at me with reverence. “Snow Prince, oh Snow Prince,” they’d call out sweetly, “when is it going to snow?” “I don’t know when it’s going to snow, how could I?” “The Snow Prince doesn’t know when it’s going to snow? Ah, you don’t want to give away Nature’s secrets!”
Everyone was looking forward to the first snowfall, especially me. At dusk two days earlier, dense red clouds filled the sky; on the following afternoon, snow began to fall. Starting out as a mere dusting, it grew into a full-fledged snowstorm, with flakes the size of goose feathers and then downy little balls. Huge drifts of falling snow, one on top of the other, blotted out the sun. Out in the marshes, foxes and a variety of canines cried out, while the ghosts of wronged individuals roamed the streets and lanes, wailing and weeping. Wet, heavy snow pounded the paper coverings of people’s windows. White animals crouched on windowsills, beating the lattices with their bushy tails. I was too restless to sleep that night, my eyes filled with many strange sights; I won’t say what they were, because they would sound too mundane to someone who didn’t see them.
It was barely light outside when Mother got out of bed and boiled a pot of water to wash my face and hands. As she cleaned my hands, she said she was tending to the paws of her little puppy. She even trimmed my nails with a pair of scissors. Once I was all cleaned up, she stamped my forehead with her thumbprint in red, like a little trademark. Then she opened the door, and there was Taoist Men standing in the doorway. He’d brought along a white robe and cap, both made of glossy satin, softly pleasing to the touch. He’d also brought me a white horsetail whisk. After outfitting me, he told me to take a few steps around the snow-covered yard.
“Marvelous!” he said. “This is a true Snow Prince!”
I could not have been prouder. Mother and Eldest Sister were obviously pleased. Sha Zaohua gazed at me with a look of adoration. Eighth Sister’s face was adorned with a beautiful smile, like a little flower. The smile on Sima Liang’s face was more like a sneer.
Two men carried me on a litter with a dragon painted on the left side and a phoenix on the right. Wang Taiping, a professional sedan bearer, led the procession; he preceded his older brother, Wang Gong-ping, also a professional sedan bearer. Both brothers spoke with a slight stammer. Some years earlier, they’d tried to avoid conscription into the army, Taiping by cutting off the first finger of his own hand, Gongping by smearing red croton oil over his testicles to make it appear as if he had a hernia. When the village head, Du Baochuan, saw through their hoax, he pointed his rifle at them and gave them a choice between being shot and going up to the front lines as stretcher bearers, carrying wounded soldiers on their backs, and transporting munitions. They stammered incoherently, so their father, Wang Dahai, a mason who had fallen from a scaffold during the construction of the church and wound up crippled, chose for them. The two men carried their loads with a quick, steady gait that earned for them high marks from their superiors, and when they were demobilized, their commander, Lu Qianli, wrote references for them. But then Du Baochuan’s younger brother, Du Jinchuan, who had gone to war with them, died of a sudden illness, and the two brothers carried his body home, a full fifteen hundred li, experiencing untold hardships along the way. When they arrived, Du Baochuan accused them of killing his brother and greeted them with resounding slaps; unable to say anything without stammering uncontrollably, they took out the reference letters from their regiment commander. Du Baochuan snatched them out of their hands and ripped them up on the spot. Then, with a wave of his hand, he said, “Once a deserter, always a deserter.” All they could do was swallow their bitter feelings. Their tempered shoulders were hard as steel, their legs well trained for their profession. Riding on a litter carried by them was like being in a boat floating downstream. Waves of light tumbled across the snowy wasteland.
A stone bridge stood on pine pylons across the Black Water River. It swayed beneath us, making the roadway growl at our feet. After we had crossed, I turned and saw the lines of footprints on the snowy wasteland. I spotted Mother and Eighth Sister, and all the small children of the family, plus my goat, coming up behind me.
The sedan-bearing brothers carried me all the way to the highland, where I was welcomed by the spirited looks and tightly shut mouths of people who had arrived before us, men, women, and children. The adults wore somber expressions; the children all had mischievous glints in their eyes.
Led by Taoist Men, the brothers carried me up to a square earthen platform smack in the center of the highland, where a pair of benches stood behind a large incense burner with three joss sticks. They placed the litter between the benches, so I could dangle my legs as I sat. The silent cold nipped at my toes like a black cat and chewed on my ears like a white one. The sound of burning incense was like that made by worms as the curling ash fell into the burner and rumbled like a collapsing house. Its fragrance crawled up the left nostril of my nose like a caterpillar and out the right. Taoist Men burned a bundle of spirit money in a bronze brazier at the foot of the platform. The flames were like golden butterflies with wings covered with golden powder; the paper was like black butterflies fluttering up into the sky until they were worn out, and then settling down onto the snow, where they quickly died. Taoist Men then prostrated himself before the platform of the Snow Prince and signaled the Wang brothers to lift me up again. I was handed a wooden club wrapped in gold paper, its head formed into a tinfoil bowl – the Snow Prince’s staff of authority. After choosing me as the Snow Prince, Taoist Men had told me that the founder of the snow market was his teacher, Taoist Chen, who had received his instructions from Laozi, the founder of Taoism himself, and that once he’d carried out his instructions, he’d risen up to Heaven to become an immortal, living on a towering mountaintop, where he ate pine nuts and drank spring water, flying from pine trees to poplars, and from there to his cave. Taoist Men explained in great detail the duties of the Snow Prince. I’d already carried out the first – receiving the veneration of the multitudes – and was at that moment carrying out the second, which was an inspection of the snow market.
This was the Snow Prince’s divine moment, as a dozen men in black-and-red uniforms stepped forward; although they held nothing in their hands, they assumed the posture of musicians with trumpets, suonas, bugles, and brass cymbals. The cheeks of some puffed out as if they were trumpeting loudly. Once every few paces, the cymbalist raised his left hand to shoulder height and pretended to strike his cymbal with his right hand; the silent clangs were carried far off in the distance. The Wang brothers bounced and swayed on springy legs as the citizenry ceased their silent transactions and stood straight, eyes gaping, arms at their sides, to watch the procession of the Snow Prince. The colors of those familiar and unfamiliar faces were enhanced by the glare of the snow: reds like dates, blacks like charcoal briquettes, yellows like beeswax, and greens like scallions. I waved my staff of authority in the direction of the crowd, momentarily sending them scurrying in confusion; their hands now swung wildly in the air and their mouths were open, as if screaming. But no one dared or was willing to make a sound. One of the sacred duties bestowed upon me by Taoist Men was to stop up the mouth of anyone who dared make a sound with the tip of my staff, then to jerk it back quickly, pulling the person’s tongue out with it.