"Thank you for your kindness," said Xing Xing. "I'll ride in back."
"With the smelly birds?" said the man in surprise.
"I like them," said Xing Xing, and she threw her sack in among the crates of birds, then had an instant of panic when she realized that if the man wanted, he could take off before she climbed up, and she and her sack would have been parted just like that. She practically threw herself into the cart, knocking askew a stack of crates and making the birds inside squawk furiously, which sent up a din from all the other crates as well.
"What's inside the sack that you value so much?" asked the man.
Xing Xing knew he wouldn't believe her words. So she opened the sack and took out a date.
The corner of the man's mouth twitched upward. "Green dates are of no use to anyone."
"My stepmother likes their bitterness," said Xing Xing. It wasn't a lie, not really. And it offered an irrefutable explanation.
The man shrugged and slapped the back of the ox with his switch. They rolled down the road.
The crates Xing Xing had knocked into held hens, and one held a cock with a crimson comb. But other crates held ducks and geese and swans and quails, the less fortunate headed eventually for people's ovens and the more fortunate for people's private pools, which, like bamboo groves, were abundant the farther south you went. Still others held songbirds, for almost every home Xing Xing had ever visited had a songbird or two in a cage. Her own home had always had songbirds and often mynas. But somehow when the last one died, Stepmother hadn't gotten around to replacing it. Xing Xing had been grateful for that when she'd brought home the blind raccoon kit. How mistaken she'd been. That cage would never house another songbird, for Stepmother had smashed it to pieces and thrown it in the dung heap.
Xing Xing snuggled herself down among the lowest crates. It was stiflingly hot there, nothing like the windblown perch she'd longed for on a riverboat, but at least she was out of the sun.
A hen clucked, and an egg rolled from her onto the bottom of the crate. Xing Xing stared at it. Fresh raw eggs were delicious, and she hadn't eaten since early morning. This bird merchant clearly didn't sell eggs, for there were no boxes of eggs in the cart. And the hen was certainly destined for someone's cooking pot, so she'd never get a chance to raise the chick. That meant no one in the world would miss that egg if she ate it. And Stepmother was wrong—Xing Xing would hurry in her errand no matter what; she didn't need hunger to rush her along. On the other hand, that egg belonged to the man, and surely he would eat it if he knew it was there.
The cart must have hit a gully in the road, for it bumped extra hard. The egg smacked against the side of the crate and cracked. All its goodness slowly oozed out, enjoyed by no one.
After awhile another hen clucked and another egg settled on the bottom of the crate.
Xing Xing worked at the knotted string that held the crate door closed. The bird merchant was smart—he'd wet down the knots. These strings were meant to hold tight until they were cut. But Xing Xing's hands, like her feet, were small, with thin, agile fingers. After a long while she managed to open the crate door. She reached in and grabbed the egg.
A hen pecked her hard and screeched, then the whole crate was screeching.
"What's the problem back there?" called the man.
"No problem," answered Xing Xing, hiding the egg under her cocked knees.
The man stopped the cart. She heard him say, "Get in the back." The next thing Xing Xing knew, the slave boy had climbed in beside her. The rope around his waist was now tied to a side support on the cart.
The boy looked at her. He was as skinny as she was, and his clothes were as tattered. Plus, he was younger. And then there was the matter of that rope. Xing Xing decided it wasn't much of a risk to take. She put the egg in her lap and tapped a hole in one end with her thumbnail. She sucked out half the inside. Then she passed the egg to the slave boy. He finished it and threw the shell out the back of the cart.
That egg was good. And now her stomach woke up and called for more food. She looked around at the other crates. The boy looked too. They shared a duck egg, then another hen egg. Then the boy looked in Xing Xing's sack. He took out a green date and ate it. "Won't you vomit from eating green fruit?" whispered Xing Xing. The boy grinned and ate another. Xing Xing grinned back. After all, she'd seen the size of the medicine jars in Master Tang's house; there were way more than enough dates in her sack to fill as many jars as the wandering doctor might have.
The boy seemed spurred on by Xing Xing's grin. He picked up a hemp stalk that was lying on the floor of the cart. "Want to make a bet? Do you think bad sounds or bad sights frighten chickens the most?"
Xing Xing never made bets, of course. Besides, she knew nothing about chickens. They'd never owned them because Father didn't like their smell. "I have nothing to bet with."
"Come on, you have to have something more than green dates."
"Nothing. I swear."
"All right, then. I'll just put on a show for you." The boy got on all fours with his face very close to a crate. He made a terrible monster face at a hen. The hen ignored him. He flapped his hands on both sides of his head as he made the face a second time. Still, she ignored him. The boy smiled at Xing Xing. Then he looked back at the hen and chewed noisily on the hemp stalk. Crack crack crack. Xing Xing laughed in amazement: It sounded just like a cat eating a chicken, cracking its bones. The chickens in the crate went wild, clucking like crazy things.
"No more of that," shouted the driver.
The slave boy took a small box out of his pocket. He opened it and held it before Xing Xing's face. Translucent rice-colored insects crawled over one another, their short forelegs and long hindlegs intertwining. The boy popped a few in his mouth and raised his brows at Xing Xing. She had never eaten anything live before; she shook her head no. He put the box away, settled back, and closed his eyes, a grin still on his face.
After several hours Xing Xing heard singing. She got to her knees and looked out at a rice paddy, where men worked naked in the waning sun, their backs glistening with sweat. A water buffalo dragged a platform that the men stacked rice stalks on. They were harvesting already. At this rate, maybe they'd even get three plantings in this season.
At the edge of the paddy black-necked cranes walked on stilt legs. They were a common sight at rice paddies; they came to feed on frogs. But Xing Xing spied an uncommon sight too: a cream-colored head, then two neck collars—one green, the other tan, and both with black stripes. It was a golden pheasant. She stood, steadying herself by holding on to a crate. She smiled as she watched the bird poke along, trailing that black tail with gold speckles, until it was out of sight. Then she sat, happy. A pheasant was a good omen for a rice harvest. And maybe that one was a good omen for Xing Xing, too; maybe this journey would end well.
Soon after they passed the paddy, the oxcart turned off the main road onto a country path. What was going on? Xing Xing felt sure that this wasn't the way to the town.
She got to her feet "again and unsteadily looked out over an orchard of apple trees as the cart bumped along. "I have to get off," she called to the driver. "I'm going to the town on the main road."
"We're practically there," he called back. "But a man can't sell fowl in the evening. There's a place up here where I like to spend the night, so I can wake early and get into town as the market opens. A girl like you shouldn't be out on your own at this hour, anyway. Your stepmother must not care too much for you." He laughed. "But you're in luck—we'll stop up here a little ways and share a meal. And you can spend the night with me."
"Thank you," said Xing Xing, and she squatted, out of his sight. Her fingers worried the cloth of the date sack. People were basically good, despite the pirates on the seas and the brigands in the mountains. Kong Fu Zi's teachings were clear on that. And what would happen would happen; fate ruled the cosmos. Xing Xing knew all this. But Father had told her that some people were fated to use their heads. And wasn't a fish fated
to hide under a lily pad when a shadow crossed her path?
When Xing Xing was sure the driver had turned his attention back to driving, she crawled past the slave boy to the back of the cart. He made no move to stop her. She wished she had something to give him to show her gratitude, but all she had were dates, and he'd already eaten his fill of them. She bowed deep to him. Then she threw her sack over and jumped after it.
She hit the uneven ground hard, bruising both knees and reopening the gash in her arm she'd gotten when she fell from the jujube tree that day the raccoon had attacked Wei Ping. She looked over her shoulder at the cart, expecting that the thud of her fall would have made the driver stop. But the cart kept going. She grabbed the sack and ran back along the path. On both sides now were fields with alternating rows of turnips and cabbages. If she heard the cart slow down, there would be nowhere for her to hide. She ran as fast as she could toward the apple trees, looking back often, as the sound of the wheels grew fainter.
The cart was practically even with another field now, one high with wheat. It was far off, but the path was so straight that if the driver looked back, he'd surely see her.
Xing Xing ran, panting. She came to the apple trees, and at that very moment a cry went up from the slave boy. He pointed out into the wheat field that the cart was now passing by, shouting, "She jumped out and ran that way!"
The man stopped the cart and stood on his seat to get a better look. But he didn't look into the wheat field; he looked back up the path, right at Xing Xing. She ducked into the apple orchard and dashed from tree to tree in the direction of the main road. Branches tore at her skin and clothes.
Chapter 14
There is an order to guidance. A ruler guides a subject. A father guides a son. A husband guides a wife. An elder guides a younger. A friend guides a friend.
Xing Xing pressed her cheek into the mud of the riverbank, saying these things to herself in a silent litany inside her head. She couldn't actually speak, because her teeth were clamped down hard on the strings of the date sack that was hanging over her shoulder. She was in water from her chest down, but her hands clung to bits of bramble that allowed her to hug the bank. She heard a cart pass on the road. If she lifted herself up, she would be able to see the road easily, because it ran parallel to the riverbank just a little ways uphill from her, and she could check to see if it was the same oxcart she'd just run away from. But she didn't lift herself up. She didn't dare move. She hardly dared breathe. Xing Xing didn't know how to swim. And her grip on the brambles was weakening. At any moment she could get washed away and drown in the Han River. Who knew the river would be so deep even at the edges?
She stared at a bramble leaf just a breath away from her. At this distance she could study every detail of the leaf. A principle of order guided the pattern of veins in that leaf. In every leaf. In everything on earth. And had not Stepmother said her ancestors would protect her? Certainly, it was Xing Xing's job to protect Father, not vice versa. But her other ancestors should be looking after her, guiding her. Somehow they had guided her to this very spot. She must trust in their wisdom.
The mud crumpled from her weight, and the bramble in her right hand came loose. Xing Xing slid downward. But before her face went underwater, there was something cold and smooth under her feet. Had she hit a rock ledge?
She sidled along whatever was underfoot till she came to another, larger bramble, sticking out of the bank. She grabbed it with both hands and pulled herself out, sopping, onto the riverbank. She lay there for several minutes, the date sack at her side now, letting the fact that she had escaped, that she was still alive, become real for her.
There was no one on the road as far as she could see in either direction. She took off her dress—curling to hide her nakedness in case anyone should appear on the road—wrung it out as hard as she could, then put it back on. In this heat it would dry on her back. She walked along the water's edge toward the town.
A plumed egret alighted on a boulder in midstream. Of all the birds, the plumed egret was Xing Xing's favorite. She often mimicked its walk just for fun. It stood tall and white, its black legs straight, its head tilted. The yellow beak moved slowly from one side to the other, but it couldn't be searching for fish, up high on the boulder like that. Egrets are waders. A breeze came up, ruffling the bird's feathers. It turned and faced into the wind. Its feathers lay flat again. Perhaps the bird was a messenger from her ancestors, who she was quite sure now were guiding her. Maybe they were warning her to pay attention to the prevailing winds.
Xing Xing ran to the point on the bank closest to the egret. She was going to call out her thanks when she saw the big fish. Her beautiful fish. It had to be. There were no other fish white as snow, white as pear blossoms. Like in Mei Zi's poem. And in her own poem. She wished she had something to feed it. The fish swam three times around the egret's boulder, each time returning to the bank near Xing Xing. Then she disappeared.
Could she have been a dream? Though the river near Xing Xing's home emptied eventually into the upper regions of the Han River, there was no direct connection between the spring-fed pool and the river. Xing Xing hoped the fish was a dream, for she wasn't sure that a real fish would be able to swim back upstream when Xing Xing returned home. And she was very sure that any fisherman who saw the beautiful fish would go after her with zeal. She loved that fish. She wanted her to live forever.
But these thoughts somehow did not really worry her. Rather, she realized she felt calm again. Things were happening just as they were supposed to happen. She would stay alert and face the wind. "Thank you, Mother," she called. "Thank you, kind ancestors." She walked along the bank, breathing her thanks.
The man in the oxcart had been right; the town was in sight the very next moment. Xing Xing climbed back up to the road and went toward the buildings. It was early evening, but because of the late sun, everyone was still out and about. Children helped women pull laundry down from bamboo poles. The smells of dinner wafted from windows. People rushed around in their last chance to finish chores before evening.
The road transformed quickly into a cobblestone market street. Much of the merchandise resembled common things sold in her own village—vegetables, eggs, meats, fish—as well as newer things she recognized for special health purposes, such as shark fins and bird nests and the claws of nocturnal birds. All were sold by weight—a certain amount of money for each liang. But here she also passed tables laden with paws—thick, black pads on the underside and long, curving claws: bear paws. And paws like hands with amazingly long fingers and fur halfway down the back, from orangutans. She saw shining tiger eyes, and antelope and rhinoceros horns. Toads and river salamanders and all kinds of marine creatures were strung on cords like beads.
Outside a door were stacked cages of puppies and cats and so many kinds of monkeys. Two golden monkeys in adjacent cages hugged each other through the bars. The door had long strips of yellow silk attached to the sides, so Xing Xing knew this was a restaurant, though she'd never entered one. Could the monkeys have possibly known? Xing Xing's eyes stung.
She bowed before each merchant and asked the whereabouts of the lang zhong. Always the fingers pointed her ahead along the main road. She came to an open square with a temple on one end, its rooftop adorned with statues of turtles and fish and snakes and benevolent dragons. Farmers sold animals in the center of the square. Children climbed on the backs of pigs and fell off, laughing. Xing Xing couldn't help but smile. And the man in the oxcart had lied; many people were still selling fowl in cages at this hour.
A dried spotted serpent coiled like a rope around the neck of one very fat man who was shaking a ring-shaped hollow rattle. Beside him lay a big black dog, asleep on its side in the dust. Behind him was a cart with little bells hanging from the corners, filled with piles of small cloth sacks and rows of porcelain jars like the ones she'd seen in Master Tang's house. His face was wide, with a square chin.'This was a lucky face.
Xing Xing bowed low before h
im. "Honorable Doctor," she said, deeply impressed by how much wisdom must be stored in his huge belly.
The lang zhong gave her a quick glance. "You're not sick," he said with a strange accent. "So what's the message, Wet Girl?"
His directness surprised Xing Xing. But then, an important man like him must know the right way to talk about these things. So she answered in kind: "In my sack are goods that will help you, Most Honorable Doctor. In return, I beg you to come to my home and tend to my sister."
"I take it these 'goods that will help me' do not include coins?" said the man.
Xing Xing shook her head. Stepmother had given her no coins so that she couldn't be robbed. After burning all that paper money, Stepmother needed to be superbly careful.
"Doctors have honorable motives," said the lang zhong at last. "We are accountable to a higher power, a supernatural power. Money does not rule us. Nevertheless," he said, "we must eat."
Xing Xing was hungry herself. The eggs had been few and hours before. She licked her bottom lip.
A woman came up and asked the doctor's help for a rash on her arm. He took out a small jade figurine of a feathered creature, mostly bird but part reptilian, and touched it all over. He had the woman touch it too. Then he poured dried leaves from a jar into a square of paper, which he folded securely and handed to her. He told her to burn the leaves and breathe deeply of the smoke. He took her money and sent her on her way.
A man came up next, limping. He described the aches in his bones. The doctor inserted acupuncture needles at strategic points, talking the whole while. The man had brought his own empty jar; clearly, he was used to going to doctors. He got a refill of the elixir he sought and limped off.
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