Then, Fourth Wife You abruptly went to sleep.
The next day, she woke up at dawn and saw that the house was still a mess. The only change was that there were now two pools of wet tears in the spot where her husband, Stone You, had lain curled up in a ball all night. She looked over at the two wet patches and said to herself, What’s the point? I still need to do everything myself. She righted the overturned jars, straightened the ancestral tablets, swept the floor, covered the two pools of tears, and took the night soil out into the fields.
Autumn had ended, and the frost had fallen. She cooked Fourth Idiot a fried bun and placed it at the head of his bed, then made a pot of watery soup and left it on the stove.
She took a couple of days to go visit her two daughters.
Second Daughter lived close by, so Fourth Wife You went to visit her first.
Second Daughter lived in a three-room adobe-walled house, and the courtyard was filled with tung trees that had already begun to shed their leaves. The ground was covered in river sand, and when they sprinkled water on the ground and swept up all the dirt and dust, the sand would sparkle in the sunlight. The courtyard walls were made of recently tamped earth, and stood straight and tall. There was a red glow in the air, and a fresh scent emanated from the courtyard, entrancing everyone as though it were early spring. Fourth Wife You thought that, as in previous years, she would be able to smell even from several li away the bitter scent of the Chinese medicines her daughter was brewing, and that after entering the village half the villagers would give her the cold shoulder on account of the fact that she had given birth to four idiot children and married her idiot daughter into this village. This time, they didn’t. Instead, all of the villagers had gone into the fields, and the few familiar people Fourth Wife You did run into simply smiled and nodded to her. As she was walking down the street, at one point she stopped and stood in the sun in front of Second Daughter’s courtyard. She stroked the smooth adobe walls, and looked up at the rows of small tiles lining the tops of the walls. She gently pushed open the door to enter the courtyard, and then stood there silently. The sand got into her shoes and made her feet itch. The steam from the ground had a fragrant smell. She went over to the window and saw that the medicine dregs that had been piled there were now gone, and instead there was a brown stone table surrounded by several stone benches. The sun was shining down, and Second Daughter was drying out the cloth shoe soles she had just sewn. Her daughter had her back to Fourth Wife You, and each time she sewed a stitch she would hold her hand in the air and look over to the right, then run the needle through her hair. Fourth Wife You stood quietly behind her daughter for a while. She was surprised to see her daughter’s hair neatly arranged in a thick braid without a single strand out of place. In thirty years, she had never seen her daughter’s hair so tidy. Fourth Wife You’s heart began to race with excitement. She saw that her daughter’s face was bright red, like the leaves of a persimmon tree after a rainstorm. Her daughter could embroider and sew shoe soles – things she’d never been able to do before the marriage. Now, not only could she apparently do these things, but furthermore the soles she sewed were all tight and even, and on the bottoms she had embroidered a pattern like a woman’s braids. Turning to the sewing kit sitting on the stone table, Fourth Wife You saw that it was made from wicker and smelled of fresh paint. She turned to Second Daughter’s neatly arranged clothes, and noticed that the stitching consisted of a single continuous thread – turning and going straight where necessary, like a path through a mountain range. At this point Fourth Wife You couldn’t help calling out to her daughter.
Second Daughter turned around, and the hand holding the thread froze in mid-air.
Fourth Wife You said, ‘Daughter.’
Second Daughter put down her needle and thread, and immediately stood up. ‘Mother.’
Mother and daughter gazed at one another, as the leaves from the tung tree in the courtyard gently fluttered to the ground.
Fourth Wife You asked, ‘You can make shoes?’
Second Daughter blushed, and said, ‘I want to make a pair of shoes for my brother.’
Fourth Wife You asked, ‘Did you make the clothes you are wearing now?’
Second Daughter looked down at her clothes and replied, ‘Yes, I did.’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘That sewing kit is also yours?’
Second Daughter said, ‘My husband just bought it for me – a home needs a sewing basket.’
Fourth Wife You’s eyes filled with tears. She remained silent for a long time, and then asked, ‘And what about your illness? Are you any better?’
Second Daughter began to sob silently, tears streaming down her face and onto her clothing. Her face, however, continued beaming, a glow of excitement emanating from her cheeks. She said, ‘Mother, I drank an entire cartload of that Chinese medicine, until the dregs were piled as high as a mound of night soil, but it didn’t have any effect whatsoever. Last month, however, my husband brought back a bag of bones he found somewhere, and boiled them with some red dates and crystal sugar. After I drank the first dose I became so excited I couldn’t sleep that night, and after the second I felt as though I could fly. Those bones yielded seven doses in all, and yesterday I finished the final one. After I drank the third dose, whenever other villagers saw me they said my illness seemed almost cured, and by the time I finished the sixth batch my husband said I no longer had the slightest trace of illness. As Second Daughter was saying this, her tears gradually dried, leaving behind only a glow of excitement. When she opened her mouth to speak, it was as if she were opening a sluice gate and letting the water pour out. As the sun began shining on the eastern side of the courtyard, her entire face was bathed in light, as red as though it had been painted. It didn’t even occur to Second Daughter that her mother had walked several dozen li to visit her, and might need to sit down and have something to eat or drink. Instead, Second Daughter continued standing at a distance, chattering non-stop as though she had never before had a chance to speak with her mother. She said that after her illness was cured, she asked her husband countless times whose bones these were and where he had found them. She asked him to go fetch some more, so that her sisters and her brother could take the medicine as well, but her husband wouldn’t say a word. Second Daughter said that her husband had taken several saplings to sell in the township. He had planned to buy a few things and then return, and afterwards the two of them would go to her mother’s house. She added that, before returning to visit her mother, she had planned to finish making this pair of shoes for her younger brother as part of her sisterly devotion to her idiot brother. At this point, Second Daughter picked up one of the shoes and examined it, noting that this one was already finished and that she would finish the other one later that day. She would nail the straps on overnight, and then her younger brother would be able to wear the shoes she had made for him with her own hands. Fourth Wife You’s tears began welling up and she suddenly doubled over, as though she had been standing for too long and needed to stop and rest. She squatted down in front of her daughter and began wailing. She covered her face with her hands as tears streamed down. Her weary sobs became bright, as they flowed through Second Daughter’s house and courtyard and out into the village and the mountain range. In the blink of an eye, the entire world was filled with the sound of weeping.