The fire was dying out, returning the compound to darkness and the stars to the sky, although a few cinders remained in the pile of leaves. When water was dumped on the hot spots, white steam and glowing cinders rose dozens of feet into the air. The men stood, buckets in hand, casting large shadows on the ground.
‘Don’t be sad, Master. Financial losses, lucky bosses,’ said the voice of reason.
‘Heaven has no eyes… Heaven has no eyes…’ Shan Tingxiu mumbled.
‘Let the men go inside and get some rest, Master. They have to be up for work early in the morning.’
‘Heaven has no eyes… Heaven has no eyes…’
The men staggered into the eastern compound. Yu Zhan’ao hid behind the screen wall as the clatter of buckets on carrying poles moved past him, followed by silence. Shan Tingxiu stood in the gateway mumbling, but finally began to lose interest and carried his tile crock back into the compound, the two family dogs leading the way. Clearly exhausted, when they spotted Yu Zhan’ao they merely barked once or twice and headed for their pen, where they plopped down and didn’t make another sound.
Yu Zhan’ao could hear the big mule in the eastern compound grind its teeth and paw the ground. The three stars had moved to the western sky, so it was after midnight. He braced himself, gripped his sword, and waited until Shan Tingxiu was a mere three or four paces from the door, then rushed him with such force that he buried the sword in his chest, past the hilt. The old man flew backward, his arms spread out, as if he were taking off into the air, before falling on his back. His tile crock crashed to the ground and blossomed like a flower. The dogs barked listlessly a few more times and took no more notice. Yu Zhan’ao withdrew his sword, rubbed both sides of the blade on the old man’s clothes, and turned to leave. But he stopped himself.
After dragging Shan Bianlang’s body out into the yard, he removed some rope from a carrying pole at the base of the wall, tied the two frail corpses together at the waist, then hoisted them up and carried them out to the street. They hung limply over his shoulder, their dragging feet making pale designs in the dirt, the blood seeping from their wounds leaving red patterns on the ground. Yu Zhan’ao carried the bodies over to the western inlet, whose glassy surface reflected half the stars in the sky. A few sleepy white water lilies floated gracefully like sprites in a fairy tale. Thirteen years later, when Mute shot Yu Zhan’ao’s uncle, Big Tooth Yu, there was hardly any water at this spot in the river, but these lilies were still there. Yu Zhan’ao dumped the bodies into the water with a loud splash. They sank quickly to the bottom, and when the ripples died, the sky once again owned the surface.
Yu Zhan’ao rinsed his hands, his face, and his sword in the river, but no matter how long he washed, he couldn’t remove the smells of blood and mildew. He then headed down the road, forgetting all about retrieving his rain cape from the Shan compound. When he’d travelled about half a li, he turned into the stand of sorghum, and immediately stumbled and fell. Suddenly realising how tired he was, he rolled over on his back, oblivious to the dampness, and gazed at the stars until he fell asleep.
5
FIVE MONKEYS SHAN, knowing there was something fishy about the fire that night, seriously considered getting up and helping to fight it, thus carrying out his responsibilities as village chief. But Little White Lamb, the voluptuous opium peddlar, wrapped her arms around him and wouldn’t let go. Two bandit gangs had once fought over this girl, with her fair skin and moist, captivating, suggestive eyes – what is called ‘fighting over the nest’ in bandit parlance. She was a living sign that the war being waged by Gaomi County Magistrate Nine Dreams Cao was far from won.
In 1923, Nine Dreams Cao had been serving the Northern Warlord Government as magistrate for nearly three years, and his ‘three torches’ were blazing. For him the earthly scourges were banditry, opium, and gambling, and the only way to put the world in order was to annihilate bandits, stamp out opium, and outlaw gambling. His favourite punishment was a beating with the sole of a shoe; hence his nickname, Shoe Sole Cao the Second. A complex individual for whom the words ‘good’ and ‘bad’ are woefully inadequate, he was involved in many important ways with my family, so it is appropriate to include him in this narrative as a link to what follows.
In two years of draconian decrees, Nine Dreams Cao had achieved considerable results in his rampage against the three scourges. But Northeast Gaomi Township was a long way from the county seat, and behind the scenes gambling, opium, and bandits flourished as never before.
Five Monkeys Shan slept till dawn with Little White Lamb in his arms. She awoke first. After lighting the bean-oil lamp, she stuck a silver pin into an opium pellet and thrust it into the flames. Once it caught fire, she stuffed it into a silver pipe and handed it to Five Monkeys Shan, who curled up in bed and inhaled for a minute or so. A tiny white dot glowed on the pellet. After holding his breath for two minutes, he exhaled streams of thin blue smoke through his mouth and nostrils, just as one of the Shan family’s hired hands banged frantically on the door and reported: ‘Village Chief! Terrible news! Murder!’
Five Monkeys Shan accompanied the hired hand into the Shan compound, with several other men on his heels. Then he followed the trail of blood to the inlet at the western edge of the village. The crowd behind him swelled.
‘The bodies must be at the bottom of the river,’ he said.
No one made a sound.
‘Who’ll go down and drag them up?’
The men exchanged glances, but said nothing.
The emerald-green water was smooth as glass. Water lilies floated placidly on the surface, with scattered dewdrops sticking to the leaves nearest the water, as moist and round as pearls.
‘One silver dollar. Now who’ll go?’
Still no sound.
An acrid stench rose from the inlet, and an unimaginably foul red glare emerged from a puddle of purplish blood in the reeds at the water’s edge. The sun rose above the field, white at the top and green at the bottom, sizzling like a chunk of partially fired steel. A line of black clouds above the horizon of sorghum tips stretched far off into the distance, so level you’d think your eyes were playing tricks on you. The inlet sparkled like a river of gold, broken only by the water lilies, which seemed otherworldly.
‘Who’ll go down for a silver dollar?’ Five Monkeys Shan asked in a booming voice.
The ninety-two-year-old woman from our village told me, ‘No man would have dared go into an inlet filled with the blood of a leper, not even for his own mother! If he did, he’d come out infected. If two went in, they’d both come out infected. Not for any amount of money… All that evil was caused by your grandma and your granddad!’ I wasn’t happy with the old hag for placing the blame on Granddad and Grandma, but as I looked at her clay-pot head I just smiled weakly.
‘Nobody’s willing to go down? Not a fucking one of you? Then we’ll just let father and son cool off in the water! Old Liu, Arhat Liu, since you’re the foreman, go into town and report this to Shoe Sole Cao the Second.’
In preparation for the trip, Uncle Arhat Liu wolfed down some food, followed it with half a gourdful of wine, then led out one of the black mules, tied a burlap bag over its back, and mounted it. He headed west, towards the county town.
Uncle Arhat wore a sombre expression that morning, from either anger or resentment. He was the first to suspect that something terrible had befallen his master and the master’s son following the suspicious fire. Up at the first light of dawn, he was surprised to note that the western compound gate was wide open. He spotted blood on the ground as soon as he walked into the yard, and more of it inside the house. Even in his confused state he knew that the fire and blood-letting were linked.