To express their gratitude for the boiled water and other conveniences we supplied and, far more importantly, for the Bird Fairy’s successes in freeing them from their cares and worries, the pilgrims from the oceans left a burlap sack filled with dried fish for us upon their departure. We were moved more than words can say, and saw our visitors all the way to the river. It was then that we saw dozens of thick-masted fishing boats at anchor in the slow-flowing Flood Dragon River. In the long history of the Flood Dragon River, no more than a few wooden rafts had ever been seen on the river; they were used to cross the river when it flooded. But because of the Bird Fairy, the Flood Dragon River had become a branch of vast oceans. It was the early days of the tenth month, and strong northwestern winds sliced across the river. The seagoing people boarded their boats, raised their patched gray sails, and sailed out into the middle of the river. Their rudders stirred up so much mud that the water turned murky. Flocks of silvery gray gulls that had followed the fishing boats on their way over now followed them back the way they’d come. Their cries hung over the river as they skimmed the surface one minute and soared high above it the next. A few even entertained us by flying upside down or hovering in the air. Villagers had gathered on the riverbank, initially just to gawk; but they now added their voices to the grand send-off for pilgrims who had come so far. The boats’ sails billowed in the winds, their rudders began to move back and forth, and they headed slowly down the river. They would travel down the Flood Dragon River all the way to the Great Canal, and from there to the White Horse River, which would take them to the Bohai. The trip would take twenty-one days. This information was part of a geography lesson Birdman Han gave me some eighteen years later. The visit to Northeast Gaomi Township by these pilgrims from distant lands was a virtual reenactment of the sea voyages of Zheng He and Xu Fu centuries earlier, and constituted one of the most glorious chapters in the history of Northeast Gaomi Township. And all because of a Bird Fairy in the Shangguan family. The glory dispersed the clouds of gloom in Mother’s breast; maybe she was hoping that some other animal fairy would make an appearance in the house, a Fish Fairy, for instance. But then again, maybe she wasn’t.
After the fishermen were back on their boats, an eminent guest showed up. She arrived in a sleek, black Chevrolet sedan, with hulking bodyguards, armed with Mausers, standing on each running board. She was escorted by clouds of dust from the village’s dirt road. The poor bodyguards looked like donkeys that had been rolling in the dirt. The sedan pulled up to our doorway and stopped. One of the bodyguards opened the back door. First to appear was a pearl and jade head ornament, followed by a neck, and lastly a fat torso. Both in terms of figure and expression, the woman looked exactly like an oversized goose.
In strictest terms, a goose is also a bird. But however elevated her status, when she came calling on the Bird Fairy, courtesy and reverence were expected. Nothing escaped the Bird Fairy, who knew everything in advance, so no hypocrisy or arrogance could be tolerated. The woman knelt at the window, closed her eyes, and prayed softly. Her face was the color of rose petals, so she hadn’t come for relief of an illness; jewelry sparkled from head to toe, so she hadn’t come to seek riches. What could a woman like that be seeking from the Bird Fairy? A slip of white paper floated out through the hole in the window; when the woman opened it up and read it, her face turned as red as a rooster’s cockscomb. She tossed several silver dollars to the ground, stood up, and walked off. What was written on the slip of paper? Only the Bird Fairy and the woman knew.
Visitors continued to throng to our place for days, and then they stopped. By the time the cold winter set in, we had eaten all the dried fish in the burlap sack, and once again Mother’s milk carried the taste of grass and the bark of trees. On the seventh day of the twelfth month, we heard that the largest local Christian sect would be opening a soup kitchen in Northgate Cathedral. So Mother and we children, bowls and chopsticks in hand, walked all night with groups of starving villagers into the county seat. We left Third Sister and Shangguan Lü to watch the house; since one of them was more fairy than human and the other less human than demon, they were better prepared to put up with hunger. Before leaving, Mother tossed a handful of grass to Shangguan Lü. “Mother,” she said, “if you are able to die, do so quickly. Why suffer with us this way?”
It was the first time any of us had taken the road to the county seat. By “road” I mean only that we followed a little gray path formed by the footprints of man and beast. I couldn’t tell you how that rich woman’s car had made it to our village. We trudged along in cold starlight, me standing up on Mother’s back, the little Sima heir on the back of Fourth Sister, Eighth Sister on the back of Fifth Sister, my sixth and seventh sisters walking by themselves. As midnight came and went, we heard the intermittent cries of children in the wilderness all around us. Seventh Sister, Eighth Sister, and the little Sima heir also started to cry. Mother shouted her disapproval, but even she was crying, and so were Fourth Sister and Fifth Sister, both of whom suddenly tottered and fell to the ground. But as soon as Mother picked up one and went for the other, the first one fell again. And so it went, back and forth. Finally, Mother sat on the cold ground, along with all the others, huddling together to keep warm. She shifted me around to the front and put her cold hand under my nose to see if I was still breathing. She must have thought that either the cold or hunger had taken me from her. I breathed weakly to show her I was still alive. So she raised the curtain over her breasts and stuffed a cold nipple into my mouth. It felt like an ice cube slowly melting in my mouth and turning it numb. Mother’s breast had nothing to give; no matter how hard I sucked, all I managed to draw from it were a few wispy strands of blood. It was cold, so very cold! And in the midst of that cold, mirages floated in front of the eyes of the starving people around us: a blazing stove, a pot filled with steaming chicken and duck, plate after plate of meat-stuffed buns, all that and green grass and lovely flowers. In front of my eyes were two gourd-sized breasts, overflowing with rich liquid, lively as a pair of doves and sleek as porcelain bowls. They smelled wonderful and looked beautiful; slightly blue-tinged liquid, sweet as honey, gushed from them, filling my belly and drenching me from head to toe. I wrapped my arms around the breasts and swam in their fountains of liquid… overhead, millions and billions of stars swirled through the sky, round and round to form gigantic breasts: breasts on Sirius, the Dog Star; breasts on the Big Dipper; breasts on Orion the Hunter; breasts on Vega, the Girl Weaver; breasts on Altair, the Cowherd; breasts on Chang’e, the Beauty in the Moon, Mother’s breasts… I spat out Mother’s nipple and gazed up the road a ways. A man holding a tattered goatskin torch high over his head came bounding toward us. It was Third Master Fan. He was bare to the waist, and amid the acrid stench of burning animal skin and the glare of its light, he was yelling, “Fellow villagers – do not sit down, not under any circumstances. If you sit down, you will freeze to death – come, fellow villagers – keep moving forward – to keep moving is to live, to sit down is to die -”