Somehow Sima Ku managed to lead his troops back to the spot on the river where they had cut holes in the ice with their blue and white flames the morning before. My second, third, and fourth sisters had come out to fetch more water and catch some fish, but the holes had frozen over during the night, as thick as a hand. Second Sister had hacked them open again with her hammer. When Sima Ku and his men reached the spot, their horses rushed up to drink from the river. In a manner of minutes, after they’d drunk their fill, they began to shudder, their legs started to twitch, and they crumpled to the ice, every one of them suddenly dead. The freezing water had ripped their expanded lungs apart.
On that early morning, every living creature in Northeast Gaomi Township – humans, horses, donkeys, cows, chickens, dogs, geese, ducks – felt the power of the explosions off to the southwest. Hibernating snakes, thinking it was thunder announcing the Insect Waking season, slithered out of their caves and immediately froze to death.
Sima Ku led his troops into the village to rest and reorganize, and was greeted by a string of the vilest curses from Sima Ting. But since everyone’s hearing had been so badly affected by the explosion, they all thought he was singing their praises – Sima Ting always had a smug, complacent look on his face when he cursed. Sima Ku’s three wives had pooled every folk remedy and type of medication they had to treat the burned and frostbitten backside of the man they shared. The first wife would apply a plaster, which the second wife would remove to wash the area with a lotion prepared with a dozen rare medicinal herbs, after which the third wife would cover it with a powder composed of crushed pine and cypress leaves, ilex root, egg whites, and seared mouse whiskers. Back and forth it went, the skin on his backside wet one minute and dry the next, until the old injuries were now joined by new ones. It reached the point where Sima Ku wrapped himself in a lined jacket with two leather belts, and the moment he saw his three wives coming his way, he raised his hatchet or cocked his rifle. But while his backside injuries remained, his hearing returned.
The first thing he heard were the angry curses of his brother: “You fucking idiot, you’ll kill every last soul in this village, you wait and see!” Reaching out with a hand that was as soft and as ruddy as his brother’s, with fleshy fingers and thin skin, he grabbed his brother by the chin. Seeing the scraggly, yellow, ratlike whiskers above his chapped upper lip, which was normally shaved clean, he shook his head sadly and said, “You and I are from the same father’s seed, so cursing me is the same as cursing yourself. Go ahead, curse, curse all you like!” He dropped his hand.
Sima Ting stood there, mouth agape, and stared at his brother’s broad back. All he could do was shake his head. Picking up his gong, he walked outside, climbed clumsily up the steps of his watchtower, and gazed off to the northwest.
Some time later, Sima Ku led his men back to the bridge, where they scavenged sections of twisted track, a train wheel, painted bright red, and a bunch of nondescript chunks of brass and iron, all of which they put on display outside the gate of the church as proof of their glorious military victory. With saliva bubbling at the corners of his mouth, Sima boasted to the gathered crowd, over and over, how he had destroyed the bridge and derailed the Japanese cargo train. As he recounted the event, he spiced it up with new details, his tale growing richer and more interesting with each telling, until it had all the excitement and adventure of a popular romance. My second sister, Zhaodi, was his most ardent listener. At first just a member of the crowd, before long she bore witness to the new weapon that had been used; eventually, in her mind, she became a participant in the destruction of the bridge, as if she’d been one of Sima Ku’s followers from the very beginning, climbing onto the piling with him and falling to the icy surface of the river right beside him. She grimaced each time the pain in his backside erupted, as if they shared the same wounds.
Mother had always said that the Sima men were all lunatics. By this time she had figured out what Zhaodi was thinking, and had a premonition that the drama involving Laidi was about to be replayed, and soon. With growing anxiety, she looked into her daughter’s dark eyes and saw the frightful passion burning inside. How could those eyes and those thick, bright red, shameless lips belong to a seventeen-year-old girl? She was like a bovine creature in heat. “Zhaodi, my daughter,” Mother said, “do you realize how old you are?” Second Sister glared at Mother. “Weren’t you already married to my father when you were my age? And you said your aunt had twins when she was only sixteen, both plump as little piglets!” All Mother could do at this point was sigh. But Second Sister was not through. “I know you want to say he already has three wives. So I’ll be his fourth. And I know you want to say that he’s a generation older than me. Well, we don’t have the same surname and we’re not related, so I’m not breaking any rules.”
Mother relinquished her authority over Second Sister, letting her do as she pleased. She seemed calm enough, but I could tell that it was tearing her up inside by the changed taste of her milk. During those days, when Second Sister was chasing after Sima Ku, Mother took my other six sisters down to the cellar to dig a secret path among the turnips to the stockpile of sorghum stalks out by the southern wall. Part of the dirt we dug up we dumped in the latrine and part we carried out to the donkey pen, but most of it went down the well next to the stockpile.
New Year’s passed peacefully. On the night of the Lantern Festival, Mother strapped me on her back and led my six sisters outside to enjoy the lanterns. Every family in the village hung lanterns outside their doors; they were small lanterns, except for the two red lanterns the size of water vats hung by the gate of Felicity Manor, each lit by a goat tallow candle thicker than my arm. The light they gave off flickered brightly. Where was Zhaodi? Mother didn’t even ask. She had become our family’s guerrilla fighter, one who might stay away for three days, then show up unannounced. We were about to set off firecrackers on the last night of the year to welcome the god of wealth when Zhaodi showed up wearing a black rain cloak. She proudly showed off the leather belt wrapped tightly around her narrow waist and the silver revolver hanging heavily from it. In a sort of mocking tone, Mother said, “Who’d have guessed that the Shangguan family would one day produce another highwayman?” She seemed on the verge of crying, but Second Sister merely laughed, the laugh of a lovestruck girl, which brought a ray of hope to Mother that it was not too late to bring her to her senses. “Zhaodi,” she said, “I can’t let you become another of Sima Ku’s concubines.” But Zhaodi just sneered – this time it was the sneer of a wicked woman – and the hope that had flared briefly in Mother’s heart was extinguished.