As Sleepyhead’s younger sister, Cross-eyed Beauty, walked past my litter with a large head of cabbage, she cast me a flirtatious look. Her hands were red from the freezing cold, and as she passed in front of Widow Zhao’s stand, the widow’s hands began to quake violently. Their gazes met, and mortal enemies’ eyes turned red. Not even the sight of the woman who had killed her husband was enough for Widow Zhao to violate the snow market ban on speaking. Yet I could see that her blood was boiling. Widow Zhao possessed the quality of letting nothing, not even rage, keep her from her work. After filling a large white ceramic bowl with the first rack of buns, she placed it in front of Heavensent, who stretched out his hand. It took Widow Zhao a moment to figure out what he wanted. She smacked her forehead apologetically, then reached into a jar, removed two large purple pungent stalks of garlic, and laid them in front of him. She then filled a small black bowl with sesame-flavored chili sauce and placed it too before Heavensent as a special treat. The reed-mat peddlers looked on with disgruntled expressions, censuring her for toadying up to Heavensent Zhang, who slowly and contentedly peeled the garlic as he waited for the buns to cool. Then he placed the white, unpeeled stalks on the table in a row by size, like a column of soldiers, now and then reaching down to switch one or two to make a perfect column. He didn’t start eating – more like inhaling – the buns until my litter had been carried way over to the cabbage market.
A tiny hut stood silently at the base of the pagoda, one devoted to no particular god or deity. The subtle fragrance of burning incense wafted out the door. A large wooden cauldron standing in front of the incense burner was filled with virgin snow. Behind it was a wooden stool – the “Snow Prince” throne. Taoist Men lifted the gauze curtain that separated the silent hut from the outside, walked in, and covered my face with a piece of white satin. I knew from his instructions that while carrying out this duty I was not to remove the veil. I heard him slip quietly out of the hut, so that only the sounds of my soft breathing, my faint heartbeat, and the tiny sizzle of burning incense remained. Gradually, I heard the gentle crunch of snow as people walked toward me.
A girl with dainty steps walked in. All I could see through my veil was the outline of a large girl whose body reeked of burnt pig bristles. Not likely a girl from Dalan, and quite possibly from Sandy Ridge Village, where a family ran a handicraft business of making brushes. But wherever she came from, the Snow Prince was obliged to be impartial. So I stuck my hands into the snow in the cauldron to cleanse them of impurities. Then I stretched them out to her. The custom was for all women wanting to bear a child in the coming year and those who wanted milk to fill their young, healthy breasts to lift up their blouses and expose their breasts to welcome the outstretched hands of the Snow Prince. It happened just as it was supposed to: two spongy mounds of flesh pressed toward my icy hands. My head spun as warm currents of joy passed through my hands and quickly suffused my body. The woman panted uncontrollably as her breasts brushed my fingertips and then, like a pair of heated doves, flew away.
I’d barely felt the first pair of breasts, and now they were gone. My disappointment gave way to desire as I thrust my hands back into the snow to cleanse and purify them once again. I waited impatiently for the arrival of the next pair, which I was not going to let get away so easily. When they came, I grabbed them and wouldn’t let go. They were small and exquisite, neither too soft nor too firm, like steamed buns fresh from the oven. Even though I couldn’t see them, I knew they were snowy white, smooth, and glossy, their tiny tips like button mushrooms. As I grasped them, I said a silent prayer of good wishes. One squeeze: May you have pudgy male triplets. Two squeezes: May your milk gush like a fountain. Three squeezes: May your milk be as wonderfully sweet as morning dew. She moaned softly before pulling away, to my considerable disappointment. My feelings plummeted, and shame set in. To punish myself, I buried my hands in the snow until my fingertips touched the slick bottom. I didn’t pull them out until the numbness reached halfway up my arms. The Snow Prince raised his purified hands in benediction to the women of Northeast Gaomi Township. I was feeling glum until a sagging, shifting pair of breasts brushed up against my hands. They cackled like stubborn hens as fine bumps rose up on the skin. I pinched the two weary nipples, then pulled my hands back. Rusty puffs of air from the woman’s mouth penetrated the gauzy veil and struck me on the face. The Snow Prince does not discriminate. May your wishes be fulfilled. If you desire a son, may you have a boy; if you desire a daughter, may you have a girl; and may you possess all the milk you desire. Your breasts will be healthy always, but if it is a return to your youth that you desire, the Snow Prince cannot help you.
The fourth pair of breasts were like explosive quails, with brown feathers, unyielding beaks, and short, powerful necks. Those unyielding beaks kept pecking at the palms of my hands.
Two hornets’ nests seemed hidden in the fifth pair of breasts, for they began to buzz the moment I touched them. The surface heated up from all the insects trying to break out, making my hands tingle as they bequeathed their blessings.
That day I fondled at least a hundred and twenty pairs of breasts, gaining layer upon layer of feelings and impressions of women’s breasts, like turning the pages of a book. But the unicorn shattered all those crisp impressions. She was like a thrashing rhino, an earthquake rumbling through the storehouse of my memory, a wild bull crashing into a garden.
I had stretched out my hands, by then swollen and all but desensitized, intent on carrying out the duties of the Snow Prince as I awaited the next pair of breasts. I heard a familiar giggle, but there were no breasts. Red face, red lips, tiny dark eyes – all of a sudden, the face of this flirtatious young woman floated into my mind’s eye.
My left hand touched the fullness of a large breast; my right hand touched nothing, and at that moment I knew that single-breasted Old Jin had arrived. After coming perilously close to being shot following a mass-struggle session, this flirtatious widow, who ran a sesame oil shop, married the poorest man in the village, a homeless beggar named One-eyed Fang Jin, and was now the wife of a poor peasant. Her husband had one eye; she had a single breast. It was a match made in heaven. Old Jin wasn’t really old, but word of her unique style of making love had made the rounds among the village men, and had even reached my ears on several occasions, although I didn’t understand much of what I heard. As I was cupping her breast with my left hand, she grabbed my right hand and brought it over, until her unusually full breast weighted down both hands. Under her guidance, I felt every inch of it. It was a lonely mountain peak spread across the right side of her chest. The top half an easy, relaxing slope, the bottom half was a droopy hemisphere. Hers was the warmest breast I’d ever felt, like a vaccinated rooster, so hot it nearly sparked. It was smooth and glossy, and would have been more so if not for the heat. The end of the droopy hemisphere jutted out like an overturned bowl for wine, tipped by a slightly upturned nipple. It was hard one second, soft the next, like a rubber bullet; several drops of a cool liquid stuck to my hand, and I was reminded of something said to me by a diminutive villager who had traveled to the south to sell silk: he said lusty Old Jin was like a papaya, a woman who oozed white fluids the moment she was touched. Since I’d never seen a papaya, I could only imagine that they were an ugly fruit with a deadly attraction. The discharge of the Snow Prince’s sacred duties was gradually taken off course by Old Jin’s single breast. My hands were like sponges, soaking up the warmth of her breast, and it seemed to me that my fondling brought her contentment as well. Grunting like a little pig, she grabbed my head and buried it in her bosom, where her overheated breast burned my face, and I heard her mutter softly, “Dear boy… my own dear boy…”