Since he and all the other hands knew that the young master had leprosy, they did not enter the western compound unless it was absolutely necessary, and then only after spraying mouthfuls of wine over their bodies. Uncle Arhat believed that sorghum wine was an effective disinfectant for all kinds of dangerous germs. When Shan Bianlang’s bride entered the compound three days earlier, no villagers were willing to assist, so naturally he and an old distillery hand were left to help her out of the sedan chair. As he held her arm and walked her into the house, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, seeing her delicate bound feet and her plump wrist, as big around as a lotus root, and he couldn’t stifle a sigh. In the midst of his shock over the murder of Old Man Shan and his son days later, the image of Grandma’s tiny feet and full wrist appeared and reappeared in his mind. He didn’t know if the sight of all that blood made him sad or happy.
Uncle Arhat whipped the big black mule, wishing it could sprout wings and fly him to town. He knew there would be more excitement to come, since the flowery, jadelike little bride would be returning from her parents’ home tomorrow morning on her donkey. Who would be the beneficiary of the Shan family’s vast holdings? Things like that were best left to Nine Dreams Cao to decide. After having overseen Gaomi County for three years, Cao had earned the sobriquet ‘Upright Magistrate’. People talked about how he dispatched cases with the wisdom of the gods, the vigour of thunder, and the speed of wind; about how he was just and honourable, never favouring his own kin over others; and about how he meted out death sentences without batting an eye. Uncle Arhat smacked the mule’s rump harder.
The mule flew west towards the county town, pounding the ground with its rear hooves when its front legs were curled up, then stretching out its front legs and curling its rear legs. The movement produced a rhythm of hoofbeats that belied the seemingly chaotic motion. Dust flew like blossoming flowers in the glinting light of the horseshoes. The sun was still in the southeastern corner of the sky when Uncle Arhat reached the Jiao-Ping-Jinan rail line. The mule balked at crossing the tracks so Uncle Arhat jumped down and tried to pull it across. But since he was no match for the animal’s strength, he sat down on the ground, gasping for breath and trying to figure out what to do next. The sunlight hurt his eyes. He stood up, wrapped his jacket around the mule’s eyes, and led it in a circle a few times before crossing the tracks.
Two black-uniformed policemen guarded the town’s northern gate, each armed with a Hanyang rifle. Since it was market day in Gaomi County, a stream of pushcarts, peddlars with carrying poles, and people on mules and on foot passed through the town gate. Ignoring the traffic, the policemen busied themselves leering at pretty girls passing in front of them.
Uncle Arhat led his mule onto the main street of town, paved with green cobblestones that clattered loudly under the mule’s shod hooves. To the south, the huge market square was jammed with people from every trade and occupation, haggling over prices, shouting and carrying on, buying and selling everything under the sun.
In no mood to get caught up in the excitement, Uncle Arhat led the mule up to the gate of the government compound, which looked like a dilapidated monastery, its tile roofs covered with yellow weeds and green grass. The red paint on the gate was peeling badly. An armed sentry stood to the left, while to the right a bare-chested man supported himself with both hands on a staff resting in a smelly honeypot.
Uncle Arhat bowed to the sentry. ‘Sir,’ he said, ‘I need to report to County Magistrate Cao.’
‘Magistrate Cao took Master Yan to market,’ the sentry replied.
‘When will he be back?’
‘How should I know? Go look for him at the market square if you’re in such a hurry.’
Uncle Arhat bowed again. ‘Thank you, sir.’
Seeing that Uncle Arhat was about to walk away, the bare-chested man sprang into action, churning his staff up and down in the honeypot and shouting, ‘Come look, come look, everybody, come look. My name is Wang Haoshan. I cheated people with a phony contract, and the county magistrate sentenced me to stir up a honeypot…’
Uncle Arhat and the mule entered the crowded market square, where people were selling baked buns, flatcakes, and sandals. There were scribes, fortune-tellers, beggers using every imaginable ploy, peddlars of aphrodisiacs, trained monkeys, gong-banging hawkers of malt sugar, knickknack vendors, storytellers with tales of romance and intrigue, dealers in leeks, cucumbers, and garlic, sellers of barber razors and pipe bowls, noodle sellers, rat-poison merchants, honeyed-peach sellers, child vendors – yes, even a ‘child market’, where children with straw markers on their collars could be bought or sold. The black mule kept rearing its head, making the steel bit in its mouth sing out. The sun was directly overhead, blazing down on Uncle Arhat, drenching his purple jacket with his own sweat.
Uncle Arhat spotted the official he was looking for at the chicken market.
Magistrate Cao had a ruddy face, bulging eyes, a square mouth, and a thin moustache. He was decked out in a dark-green tunic and a brown wool formal hat. He carried a walking stick.
Caught up in resolving a dispute, he had drawn quite a crowd. Instead of forcing his way to the front, Uncle Arhat led the mule out of the crowd, which blocked his view of what was going on, then mounted up, giving himself the best seat in the house.
A little runt of a man was standing beside the tall Magistrate Cao, and Uncle Arhat assumed it must be the Master Yan to whom the sentry had referred. Two men and a woman stood cowering before Magistrate Cao, their faces bathed in sweat. The woman’s cheeks were made even wetter by her tears. A fat hen lay on the ground at her feet.
‘Worthy magistrate, your honour,’ she sobbed, ‘my mother-in-law can’t stop menstruating, and we have no money for medicine. That’s why we’re selling this laying hen… He says the hen is his…’
‘The hen is mine. If the magistrate doesn’t believe me, ask my neighbour here.’
Magistrate Cao pointed to a man in a skullcap. ‘Can you verify that?’
‘Worthy magistrate, I am Wu the Third’s neighbour, and this hen of his wanders into my yard every day to steal my chickens’ food. My wife’s always complaining about it.’
The woman screwed up her face, without saying a word, and burst out crying.
Magistrate Cao removed his hat, spun it around on his middle finger, then put it back on.
‘What did you feed your chicken this morning?’ he asked Wu the Third, who rolled his eyes and replied, ‘Cereal mash mixed with bran husks.’
‘He’s telling the truth, he is,’ the man in the skullcap confirmed. ‘I saw his wife mixing it when I went over to borrow his axe this morning.’
Magistrate Cao turned to the crying woman. ‘Don’t cry, countrywoman. Tell me what you fed your chicken this morning.’
‘Sorghum,’ she said between sobs.
‘Little Yan,’ Magistrate Cao said, ‘kill the chicken!’
With lightning speed, Yan slit the hen’s crop and squeezed out a gooey mess of sorghum seeds.
With a menacing laugh Magistrate Cao said, ‘You’re a real scoundrel, Wu the Third. Now, since you caused the death of this hen, you can pay for it. Three silver dollars!’
Wu the Third, shaking like a leaf, reached into his pocket and pulled out two silver dollars and twenty copper coins. ‘Magistrate, your honour,’ he said fearfully, ‘this is all I have.’
‘You’re getting off light!’ Magistrate Cao said, handing the money to the woman.
‘Magistrate, your honour,’ the woman said, ‘a hen isn’t worth all that much. I only want what’s coming to me.’