Before we lie to each other, we always have to successfully lie to ourselves.
“When did you find out?”
“When I realized that I always felt extra sleepy after drinking the milk you gave me.”
My father doesn’t know that although the drugs could put me to sleep, they couldn’t stop me from waking up in the middle of the night to find the pale woman. No matter how soundly I slept, sometime during the night I’d be awakened by some force, and, like an object in midair tumbling to the ground, I’d come to be by the side of the pale woman.
If you didn’t want others to know that you had a mad wife, why didn’t you just seal her inside solid walls?
If I asked him this question, he would surely reply that he did it for me. He didn’t want others to know that I had a mad mother.
I don’t think so. I’m not going to let him get a chance to say this.
“Drink this. You haven’t been getting enough sleep.” I bring out a glass of warm milk from the kitchen and put it in front of him. I look at him solicitously.
He drinks it down. I knew he would. No matter what I had put in it, he would have drunk it.
Anything would be better than having to face me like this.
“When did she start to say those crazy things?” I sit down in front of him, my hands gently covering his trembling knees.
“She was always different, even when we first met. She said she heard strange voices. She was always very interested in the exact time and place of people’s births. She disliked some people for no reason at all. I just attributed those to harmless quirks. But then you were born, and she—” He looks up at me, and continues only with some effort. “She calculated your fate by the astrolabe, and said that you were a child destined to alter the talk of the stars; you had to be protected. She became more and more deranged—”
“You got scared.”
“I don’t know if she’s really crazy. Some things have come to pass the way she predicted. No, I wasn’t scared of her. But you didn’t see how others were looking at us.”
He knows I’m not crazy, the pale woman had said once. I remember her expression as she said it. I remember other things, as well.
Before he closes his eyes, I ask my last question. “Did you stop loving her a long time ago?”
“No, not at all. I love her. Always have.”
That is the worst of all possible answers.
Thanks to that glass of warm milk, he falls asleep before he could begin to cry uncontrollably. Of course he loves her. For her, he had installed the one-way glass so that she could watch that TV in the living room, always left on. More important, the pale woman could see me through that mirror.
But Daddy, you really have given me the worst answer.
5.
My name is Tang Jiaming.
I don’t have a father, and no mother either. I can change the talk of the stars; that is, I can change fate.
Tomorrow morning, I’m going to get to school on time. I’ll continue to pretend to be a student as if nothing has happened. I’m not going to pretend to be like the others, and I’ll never allow anyone to hurt me again. I’m going to be myself, completely. Once you know how to change fate, this is not difficult.
The pale woman should be happy. I believe her, and I’ll fulfill her prediction. I’ve copied her astrolabe, and I’ve tried to move her stars. As my first experimental project, she died. I didn’t want her to die, but I don’t need an excuse to absolve myself. There’s no question I killed her. Still, she should be happy.
Zhu Yin will make up with me. That’s what her stars say. The stars also say that she wants many other things.
At the next full moon, nude pictures of Lina will appear in the inbox of every student. That night, Lina’s stars will become utterly fragile. She’ll want to die; she’ll hang herself from the tallest pole in the school, where her nubile body will swing in the wind like a leaf.
On that night, the fragrance of her feminine body, the smell of death, and the stench of her excrement will attract Zhang Xiaobo to her corpse. He’ll be like some lost worker bee, confused by the smells, hovering around the dangling girl. Even death won’t be able to completely stop the cinnamon aroma of her body. She’ll be so entrancing. Especially then. Serene, calm, a chocolate sea calling to him.
If not for fate, why would he pass by just then? If not for fate, how could he have been able to light the fire in the gale?
Xiaobo will loosen the rope and let Lina down. Her body will still be warm, filled with the scent of summer. Her natural, tanned skin will glow and be filled with the elasticity of youth. He’ll be especially attracted by her round, smooth legs, covered by her excrement. On that night, he’ll experience unprecedented levels of hunger and obsession, his blood boiling in his veins. Death will swell his blood vessels, will make him feel harder and stiffer than he’s ever felt. By the time his hands reach into her blouse, greedily kneading those chocolate breasts, he’ll no longer be an insect driven mad by the rotten stench of the corpse flower. He’ll no longer be lost. He’ll have encountered himself. He’ll lick those purple lips, and then gently wind himself around that tongue, again and again, tirelessly. That will be how he confirms who he is. He’ll understand what he fears; he’ll know what he yearns for; he’ll know himself.
My frail lover, come to me. We’ll be bonded together on a foundation of evil.
From now on, you can blame me the way you blame fate.
I am your star.
As I smile at the mirror, I know he’s looking at me from behind it. He’s now trapped in the cell he built himself.
On the table is the meal I prepared for him. “This is made from the flesh of the pale woman. You’ll be eating the same thing for a few years.” I told him the truth, and now I’m waiting here, patiently, on the other side of the mirror. I know he’ll start eating sooner or later.
He’ll think that I’ve moved his stars, making him eat it.
But he’ll be wrong. I haven’t moved his stars at all. From the moment of his birth, his stars have said that he’ll consume the pale woman.
“When you move the stars, you change fate. When you move the stars, you also break them. Don’t move the stars lightly.”
Those were the pale woman’s final words to me before she died.
Many stars have been broken tonight, and many more will break in the future. Even so, the sky will never be completely dark.
There will always be a star that remains eternally lit. A star that doesn’t need my guidance.
HAN SONG
Han Song is often described as one of the China’s most influential older science fiction writers (along with figures like Liu Cixin and Wang Jinkang). He has won many awards and published multiple novels as well as collections of short fiction. Few of his works, however, have been translated into English—something I hope will be remedied soon.