The Golden Lotus, Volume 1

by Lanling Xiaoxiaosheng

  “Ah,” Jinlian said, “here is the purple cord talisman. With this the priest dedicates the child to Guanyin. And here is a silver necklet with a medal attached, and eight characters engraved upon it. How nice the baby will look when he puts it on. And on the back is the child’s name—Wu—something —Yuan.”

  “That is the name the priest gave him,” Qitong said. “Wu Yingyuan.” “Yes, the character is Ying,” Jinlian said. “But the priest is certainly impertinent to change the baby’s surname.”

  “That’s what you think,” Yueniang said. She asked Li Ping’er to bring Guan’ge, that they might see him dressed in his monastic habit. But Li Ping’er said: “He has just gone to sleep and I don’t like to disturb him.”

  “It will do him no harm to wake him up,” Jinlian said, and Li Ping’er then went to bring her son. Jinlian, who could read, took the parcels of red papers, pulled out the texts, and in one of the documents discovered that after Ximen Qing’s name, only those of Wu Yueniang and Li Ping’er were mentioned. There were no others. This made her jealous.

  “Look how that obstinate scoundrel arranges people in ranks and classes. Isn’t it clear that he has his favorites. This paper mentions only one and the rest of us are left out. We don’t count. We are pushed on one side.”

  “Is the Great Lady mentioned?” Meng Yulou asked. “Oh, it would be a joke if she were not there,” Jinlian said.

  “There is nothing the matter with it,” Yueniang said. “If it mentions one of us, that is enough. Just because we have a regiment of women in the house, there is no reason why everybody’s name should go down. The priests would laugh.”

  “We are no worse than anybody else,” Jinlian said, “we all took the same length of time to come into the world.”

  Then Li Ping’er brought Guan’ge.

  “Give me the clothes and I will dress him,” Yulou said. Li Ping’er held the child while Yulou put on him the hat, the necklet and the two strings. The baby was frightened, closed his eyes, and, for a long time, held his breath. Yulou put on the little monastic dress.

  “Take these papers and some paper money,” Yueniang said, “and go to our domestic chapel and burn them there.” Li Ping’er did so.

  Yulou held the baby and played with him. “Now that you are wearing these clothes,” she said to him, “you are a little priest.”

  “A little priest indeed!” Jinlian said, “rather the Great Omnipotent himself.”

  “Why do you say a thing like that?” Yueniang said seriously. “You must not talk in that way in the child’s presence.” Jinlian was abashed and said no more.

  The wearing of these new clothes seemed to frighten the child and he began to cry. Li Ping’er came back, took him and undressed him. While she was doing so, he soiled her dress.

  “Oh, you good little Wu Yingyuan,” Yulou said, laughing, “if you’re going to make messes, you must have something to sit on.”

  Yueniang bade Xiaoyu take paper, and put things to rights. Then the child lay on his mother’s breast and went to sleep. Yueniang distributed all the cakes and invited Aunt Yang, Aunt Wu, and old woman Pan to come and eat the food that had been sent from the temple. It was growing dark.

  The day before, Ximen Qing, in preparation for his sacrifice, had taken no meat or wine. Now, Jinlian, who had been unable to celebrate her birthday at the proper time, waited for him to come back from the temple that she might offer wine to him. She went and stood at the gate. About sunset, Daian and Chen Jingji came riding back. Jinlian asked Jingji if Ximen was returning.

  “I don’t think so,” Jingji said. “When we left, the service was not over. They had only begun it, and I don’t see how they can finish before the first night watch. Priests never let people go without a struggle. They want to thank the Gods and drink a cup of wine.”

  When Jinlian heard this, she said nothing but went to Yueniang’s room in a bad temper. “I have just come from the gate,” she said. “There I saw Brother-in-law Chen come back on horseback. He says that Father will not be here yet because the service is not finished. He himself came back before the others.”

  “That is all right,” Yueniang said, “we shall be more at our ease. Tonight we will listen to these two nuns talking about religion and singing hymns.”

  Chen Jingji pulled the lattice aside and came in. He was a little tipsy.

  “I have come,” he said, “to pay my respects to Fifth Mother.” He turned to his wife and asked her for a cup.

  “Why should I get you a cup?” his wife said. “Kowtow to the Fifth Lady and I will offer the wine for you. Look at you! You are drunk! It is clear you found this sacrifice a splendid excuse for drinking. Coming back in a state like this!”

  Yueniang asked him whether Ximen Qing was really not coming back, and whether Daian had returned.

  “Father saw that the service would not be finished for some time,” Jingji said, “and as he knew there was no man in the house, he told me to come back, and Daian to stay and wait upon him. The Abbot would not let me go. He pulled me and dragged me about, and gave me two or three great cups of wine. Then, at last, I got away.”

  Yueniang asked him how many people were at the temple. “Uncle Wu, and Uncle Hua, who lives outside the gates, Uncle Ying and Uncle Xie. The two young actors Li Ming and Wu Hui are there too. When the party will come to an end, I don’t know. I only know that Uncle Wu was going home, and that Uncle Hua was not allowed to do so. In my opinion they will spend the night there.”

  Jinlian saw that Li Ping’er was not there.

  “Why do you call him Uncle Hua?” she said to Chen Jingji. “What relation was he to the departed? You ought to know that he should be called Uncle Li.”

  “Fifth Mother,” Jingji said, “you should take a lesson from the country girl who married Zheng En. Keep one eye open and the other shut.”

  “Kowtow and be off, you scamp,” his wife said. “Don’t come here with your scandalous talk.”

  Jingji asked Jinlian to take the proper position. He kowtowed four times, drunkenly, then went to the outer court.

  After a while, candles and lamps were brought and the tables were set. They all ate noodles and wine, and then everything was cleared away. Yueniang told Xiaoyu to close the second door and put a small table on the bed. They all sat in a circle with the two nuns in the middle. They burned incense; then, with only two candles burning, listened to the two nuns telling religious stories. First the chief nun began. She told how the Thirty-second Sage came down from the Western Heaven to the Eastern World. Here he preached the teaching of the Buddha, the sacred doctrine of the Master, and the principle of retribution. She told the story of Master Zhang, a very wealthy man, giving one episode after another, very slowly. She spoke of the nobleman who was converted to the teaching of Buddha, left his house, his garden, and his belongings and went to lead a religious life in the Temple of the Yellow Plum.

  When she had finished these stories, Nun Wang chanted a psalm. Then Yueniang said: “Teachers, you must be hungry, we had better have something to eat.” She bade Xiaoyu bring four plates of vegetarian food and another four plates of buns and cakes, and asked Aunt Wu, Aunt Yang, and old woman Pan to join the two nuns.

  “I have just had something to eat,” Aunt Wu said. “Ask Aunt Yang. She has been fasting.”

  Yueniang put the cakes on small gilded plates and offered them first to Aunt Yang and then to the two nuns. “Take some more, old lady,” she said to Aunt Yang, but the old lady protested that she had had enough.

  “There are some bones on the plate,” Aunt Yang said. “Please, Sister, take them away. I might put them in my mouth by mistake.” This made everybody roar with laughter.

  “Old Lady,” Yueniang said, “this is vegetarian food made to look like meat. It has come from the temple, and there can’t possibly be any harm in eating it.”

  “If it is really vegetarian,” Aunt Yang said, “I will taste it. My eyes are so bad I thought it was meat.”

  As they were eat
ing, Laixing’s wife, Huixiu, came in.

  “What do you want, you rogue?” said Yueniang. Huixiu said she had come to hear the nuns sing.

  “How did you manage to get in, since the second door is closed?” Yueniang asked.

  Yuxiao answered. “She was in the kitchen, putting out the fire.”

  “Then no wonder your nose and mouth are so black. You look like a spiritual drumstick. What use is there in your coming to listen to religious admonitions?”

  The ladies and the maids still sat around the two nuns. When the cakes were done with, everything was cleared away; the lights were trimmed, and more incense burned. The two nuns beat small gongs and began their chanting again. They told how the nobleman Zhang, in the Temple of the Yellow Plum on the mountainside, spent all his days upon his knees listening to the sutras, and all his nights in meditation. They told how the Fourth Sage perceived that Zhang was no common man, so he took the nobleman among his disciples, gave him three precious favors and bade him go to the bank of the River of Foulness, there to find a womb wherein he might be born again. Then they told how the Virgin of a Thousand Pieces of Gold was washing clothes on the bank of the River of Foulness. She met a monk who begged for a place in which to live, and when she did not answer, the monk jumped into the river.

  Jinlian was very sleepy, and her head kept nodding. After a while she went to her room to bed. Then Xiuchun came to tell Li Ping’er that Guan’ge had waked up, and she, too, went away. Only Li Jiao’er, Meng Yulou, Sun Xue’e, old woman Pan and the two aunts remained to listen to the end of the story.

  They were told how, from the river, there came a big scaly fish, and the maiden ate it. Then she went home, and bore a child after ten months.

  By this time Yueniang noticed that her stepdaughter had gone to bed, and Aunt Wu, who was lying on Yueniang’s bed, was fast asleep. Aunt Yang was yawning and the candles had already been renewed twice. She asked Xiaoyu what time it was. “It is the fourth watch,” Xiaoyu said, “and the cock has crowed.”

  Yueniang told the two nuns to take their books. Aunt Yang went to Yulou’s room and Miss Yu to the inner court to sleep with Xue’e. The Abbess slept with Li Jiao’er, and Nun Wang remained with Yueniang. They waited for Xiaoyu to make them some tea and then went to bed. Aunt Wu slept in the inner room with Yuxiao.

  “How did the Fifth Sage grow up?” Yueniang asked Nun Wang. “Did he become a true Immortal?”

  Nun Wang told her how the maiden’s parents drove her from their home, and how she went to Xianrenzhuang where the Fifth Sage was born. When he was six years old, he went to the River of Foulness, recovered his three precious gifts and returned again to the Temple of the Yellow Plum to listen to the teaching of the Fourth Sage. Afterwards he became an Immortal and took his mother with him to Paradise. Yueniang heard the whole story from beginning to end, and afterwards believed even more fervently in the teaching of Buddha.

  CHAPTER 40

  Wu Yueniang and the Nun

  Nun Wang and Wu Yueniang lay together upon the same bed. “Lady,” said the nun, “has any sign of good fortune yet been granted you?”

  “Good fortune!” Yueniang said. “In the eighth month of last year we bought the house belonging to the Qiao family, on the other side of the street from here. I went to look at it, but I slipped on the stairs, and the child, which was about six or seven months on the way, came from me. Since then there has been no sign of another.”

  “If it was seven months on the way,” the nun said, “it must have been well formed.”

  “It fell into the pail in the middle of the night,” Yueniang said, “and when the maid brought the light near I saw it was a boy.”

  “What a sad affair,” Nun Wang said. “But it seems to me not that you strained yourself, but that your womb is not so strong as it might be. It would be much better for you to have a child than any of the other ladies. The Sixth Lady has been here only a little while, and see how happy she is with her child.”

  “Heaven decides whether we shall bear children or not,” Yueniang said.

  “Never mind,” the nun said, “I have a friend called Xue who makes excellent charms and medicine. Last year there was Secretary Chen’s wife. She was well on in years and had never borne a son, though she had several miscarriages. After she had taken my friend Xue’s charms, she had a very fine boy. Everybody was so pleased. But one of the ingredients is very difficult to get.”

  “What is that?” Yueniang asked.

  “First we need the afterbirth of a boy. This must be washed in wine and burned to ashes. Then the ashes must be mingled with the charm and medicine, and, on the Renzi day, in absolute secrecy, so that no evil spirit may interfere, you must swallow them with a little yellow wine upon an empty stomach. After that, all you have to do is to make a note of the date, and you will find that in exactly one month you will conceive. It is always so.”

  “Is your friend a monk or a nun?” Yueniang said, “and where does he or she live?”

  “She is a nun about seventy years old,” Nun Wang replied, “and once she lived at the Dizang Temple. Now she has gone to be the Abbess of the Fahua Temple. She is wonderfully learned. She knows all the religious texts and stories and can preach upon the Diamond Sutra and the sacred doctrine of Cause and Effect. She can talk for a month without exhausting her stock of learning. She only visits families of distinction, and, sometimes when they get hold of her, they will not let her go for ten days or a fortnight.

  “Will you go tomorrow and ask her to come here?” Yueniang said.

  “I will,” said the nun, “and, moreover, I will ask her for the charms and medicine you need. There is only the one thing that is difficult to get, and I don’t know what we can do about that. I think we had better dig up the Sixth Lady’s and use that.”

  “Why should I hurt others to benefit myself?” Yueniang said. “I will give you some money, and you must try to get another one for me somewhere.”

  “For things like that we must go to the midwives,” the nun said. “I will get the medicine for you, and, if you take it, I give you my word that you will have a baby like a moon that not even ten bright stars can outshine.”

  “Don’t mention the matter to anyone,” Yueniang said.

  “What are you thinking about, my good Lady?” the nun said. “I should never dream of mentioning it.”

  At last they went to sleep.

  Next day, when Yueniang had just got up, Ximen Qing came back from the temple. Yueniang was dressing her hair. Yuxiao took his clothes and he sat down.

  “Yesterday,” Yueniang said, “the Fifth Lady wished to offer wine to you on her birthday. Why did you not come back?”

  “The sacrifice was not over,” Ximen Qing said, “and kinsman Wu had arranged to entertain us to dinner. We stayed all night drinking. Brother Hua, Ying Bojue and Xie Xida were there, and two young actors sang to us. This morning when I came back, Brother Ying and the others were still drinking there.”

  Yuxiao brought tea. That day Ximen did not go to the office. He went to his study, lay on the bed and slept. Pan Jinlian and Li Ping’er dressed their hair and went with the baby to Yueniang’s room.

  “His father has been back some time,” Yueniang told them. “I asked him to have something to eat, but he would not. Now dinner is ready. Dress the baby in his Daoist robes; then take him to the front court and show him to his father.”

  “Let me put on the baby’s clothes,” Jinlian said. “I will go with you.”

  They dressed the child in his Daoist hat with its gold bands, the Daoist habit, with the necklet, the medals and the tiny shoes and socks. Jinlian wished to carry the baby, but Yueniang said: “Let his own mother carry him. Your yellow embroidered skirt might easily be soiled. If the baby wets it even a little, it will be ruined.”

  So Li Ping’er carried Guan’ge, and Jinlian went with them. When they came to the room in the wing, Shutong pulled aside the lattice and came out. Jinlian saw Ximen Qing asleep, his face turned to the wall.


  “How soundly you sleep, you old beggar,” she cried. “Here is a young priest come to pay you a call. Dinner is ready in the Great Lady’s room, and he has come to ask you to go. Get up at once. Don’t stay there sleeping.”

  Ximen Qing had been drinking all night, so that when his head touched the pillow he forgot how high the sky is and how thick the earth. He snored like thunder. Jinlian and Li Ping’er sat down on either side of the bed and put down Guan’ge before Ximen Qing’s face. When he opened his eyes, there was Guan’ge dressed in his priestly robes. Ximen was so delighted that he opened his eyes wide and smiled. He took the child in his arms and kissed him.

  “What a nice clean mouth to kiss the baby with!” Jinlian said. “Now little Master Priest, Wu Yingyuan, spit in his face and ask him over what field he has been toiling like an ox that he is so sleepy he would sleep all day. Yesterday poor Fifth Mother waited and waited for him. But he is so grand he would not come and kowtow to Fifth Mother.”

  “The service finished very late,” Ximen said. “I had to thank all the gods, and we were drinking all through the night. My head is still heavy with wine and I should like to sleep a little longer because I have to go to a party at Master Shang’s.”

  “You ought to have done with drinking for a while,” Jinlian said.

  “He sent me an invitation yesterday, and, if I do not go, he will be annoyed.”

  “Well, if you do go, you must come back at once. I shall expect you.”

  Li Ping’er said: “The Great Lady has had dinner prepared, and some bitter bamboo shoots specially for you. She wants you to go and have some.”

  “Really I don’t feel like eating anything,” Ximen Qing said, “but I will go and have some soup.” He got up and went to the inner court.

  When he had left, Jinlian sat on the bed and put her feet on the warmer below the floor. “This is indeed a warm bed,” she said. Then she touched the mattress and cried: “The bed is quite hot.” On a table was a small stove made of tiles, with a guard about it. She took it in her hands. Then she said: “Sixth Sister, there is a box on that table with some fragrant tablets in it. Give it to me.” She opened the box, took out a few tablets, and, wrapping them in her skirt, put them between her legs to perfume her body.