Third Daughter straightened her neck and replied, ‘I want a family, and I want to be able to hug a man at night while I sleep, as my sisters do.’
Fourth Wife You thought for a while, then asked, ‘What kind of man do you want?’
Third Daughter replied, ‘I want a wholer, not a cripple or a one-eyed freak. I want a good man, not the kind who would make me go into the fields to harvest corn.’
Stone You said, ‘Daughter, don’t you know what you are?’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘What is she? Whatever she is, she inherited it from your family.’
Stone You said, ‘Can she find a wholer?’
Fourth Wife You spit on the ground and snorted. ‘We can look for a wholer, and if we can’t find one, we can look for a semi-wholer. You can go to each village on the mountain ridge and find a suitable man for our Third Daughter to marry.’
At this point Third Daughter looked at Fourth Wife You in surprise, and exclaimed, ‘Ma, you’re crazy too, and talk to people who don’t even exist.’
Fourth Wife You said, ‘Daughter, go pick some corn. If your brother tugs at your clothing again, you can slap him. After the fall harvest, and after we have planted the next crop, I’ll find you a good family to marry into. I’ll find you an even better husband than either of your two sisters have.’
Third Daughter’s eyes widened in surprise. Her mouth trembled and her cheeks turned bright red.
She hopped over toward the depths of the corn field. Immediately, the sound of harvest rippled across the ridge, like a river overflowing its banks. There was the smell of autumn and of corn stalks being trampled, which mixed together like smoke, blanketing the sky and the earth.
The mountain ridge was left completely bare after the hectic autumn harvest. The corn stalks had all been cut down and left to dry at the head of each family’s field so that they could be used as kindling in the winter. In the bare fields along the mountain ridge, some people had already begun ploughing the earth and planting the next wheat crop, while others, because they had neither ox nor plough, had no choice but to take a shovel and do it by hand. Fourth Wife You led Third Daughter and Fourth Idiot to hoe the fields the first day. At one point she went into a gully to pee, and when she returned she found that her daughter had unbuttoned her shirt and was giggling as her brother sucked her breasts.
Fourth Wife You simply stared. She knew she couldn’t delay in finding Third Daughter a husband, so she picked up her spade and immediately took her children home, then proceeded to lock her son up in a room. This was a small garden in the village, and the entire courtyard was filled with piles of corn and post-harvest smells and shadows. The house had three main rooms and two side rooms. The three main rooms included two bedrooms in which Fourth Wife You and Third Daughter each had a bed. Of the two side rooms, one was a kitchen and the other was Fourth Idiot’s bedroom. The window in the latter bedroom had a wooden frame that was built right into the wall. When one of her children had an episode, Fourth Wife You would lock them up in this prison-like room. The door was two inches thick and was made from a combination of ash and persimmon wood. When the door was locked from the outside, there was absolutely no way of opening it from the inside.
Fourth Wife You locked Fourth Idiot up in this room. He climbed up to the window like an aggrieved criminal and began shouting, ‘Ma, Ma! I didn’t have an episode. My mind is completely clear. I won’t touch my sister’s nipples anymore, OK?’ Fourth Wife You ignored him, and instead changed into a freshly-washed fluorescent blue shirt and combed her hair in front of the window with a wooden comb. She removed several cold buns and placed them on the kitchen counter, then put half a bowl of noodles on the corner of the cooking counter. Finally, she brought Third Daughter over to the kitchen doorway, pointed, and said, ‘Your mother is going to find you a family to marry into. At noon you can cook a bowl of noodles, and you and your brother can each have two steamed buns. You can hand your brother a bowl of noodles through the window.’
Fourth Wife You asked, ‘Can you do that?’
Third Daughter replied, ‘Yes, I can.’ Then she added, ‘Ma, find me a good family to marry into. Find me a wholer.’
Without another word, Fourth Wife You went into the courtyard, collected half a bowl of crushed rocks, then handed the bowl to Fourth Idiot through the window, saying, ‘Count these rocks. If you count them right, I’ll let you out. If you count them wrong, you can continue stewing inside.’ Then she walked out into the street.
She passed a middle-aged woman nursing an infant. ‘Fourth Wife You, where are you headed on such an important day?’
Fourth Wife You replied, ‘A relative is sick, and I’m going to visit.’
The woman asked, ‘But aren’t you planting wheat? It’s important to plant the wheat.’
Fourth Wife You replied, ‘My relative’s illness is terminal, so I really need to go, even if it means not planting the wheat.’
Fourth Wife You didn’t tell the woman that she was actually trying to find a family for her daughter to marry into. Her four idiot children had made her infamous throughout the Balou Mountains. No one in the neighbouring villages called You Village by its actual name; they all called it Four Idiots Village. The residents of You Village complained that those from other villages were rude and that Fourth Wife You had ruined their village’s reputation. Several years earlier, when Fourth Wife You was looking for husbands for her two elder daughters, the villagers leaked the secret of her daughters’ illness, and no one would have them. Fourth Wife You had proceeded to stand at the eastern edge of the village and shout at the top of her lungs,
‘Hey… I want everyone to listen carefully… I’ll fuck your ancestors, I’ll dig up their graves. You’re trying to keep my two elder daughters from finding husbands. You told everyone that my family is full of idiots, but when did this family of idiots ever keep you from screwing around, or keep your elders from kicking the bucket? Now, everyone listen to me… from this point onward, my children will marry whomever they choose, and whoever says otherwise will get sores in their mouths, run pus from their gums, get cancer of the throat, and after they die their graves will be dug up by grave robbers and their bones will be left out to be devoured by wild animals!’
Fourth Wife You moved to a pile of shit in the centre of the village and cursed, then to a tree stump on the western side of the village and continued to curse. She cursed in all directions as she walked from one end of the village to the other. The door to every house was open, and people’s heads popped out like eggplants along the edge of the fields. But by the time she finished cursing at the western end of the village, and turned around to head back, the doors of every house were tightly shut, and the street was completely empty. The chickens and pigs were so terrified that they cowered in nooks and crannies.