Chapter 2

Ye Mingzhen’s home stood below a low hill behind the mountain.

A few sparse bamboo stalks grew beside the hut. He had planted them himself.

Carrying pastries from Sister-in-law Qing, I walked awkwardly for a long time before reaching his door.

I had resolved to apologize properly.

At the threshold, my courage failed.

Perhaps I should return tomorrow.

Perhaps I should eat first.

Just as I turned, a tremendous crash came from inside, as though the family’s only valuable wooden table had been overturned.

A woman screamed hysterically.

“I feed and clothe you! Why will you not go to the Imperial Academy?”

Truly, I did not mean to eavesdrop.

But the voice was too loud, almost impossible to believe it came from Ye Mingzhen’s chronically ill mother. High and hoarse, it wheezed like a bellows—a mother’s wail after grinding her heart and blood to dust.

“Ye Mingzhen, oh, Ye Mingzhen! That year, so many people wanted you as an apprentice. They offered me gifts and land, but I refused! I said I had only one son and would not let him sink into obscurity. For years I scrimped and embroidered through the nights until I ruined my eyes and my health—and now my own son has betrayed me!”

Only harsh breathing broke the silence inside.

At length Ye Mingzhen said, “Mother, I will go.”

He pushed open the door, met my stunned gaze, and hurried away.

I searched the hillside until I found him in a patch of short foxtail grass.

Afraid of upsetting him, I asked nothing and merely blew two tunes on a leaf.

Night gradually fell.

A broad, fine-boned hand settled on my head.

“When I am gone,” Ye Mingzhen asked, “will you be able to study?”

“Yes. I will listen to the teachers and Master Deqi.”

“That is good.”

That is good.

Those were the last three words he left me.

I did not see him again for ten years.

After his departure, Master Deqi removed my little desk and seated me in Ye Mingzhen’s place.

With a stern face, he said, “Boru left you his brushes, ink, paper, and inkstone. From now on, settle your heart and stop playing.”

I touched the desk as if his warmth remained there.

“All right.”

From then on, I stopped roaming.

When other children invited me to watch dogs fight, I waved them away.

The teachers marveled. “A girl, and she truly can apply herself.”

My answer was steadily improving work.

Then I placed first in the school examination.

Master Deqi studied my essay for a long time.

For the first time, he looked carefully at my neatly combed childish hair and callused hands.

Then he sighed. “Little Jin, if only you were a boy.”

I did not understand. Would becoming a boy somehow improve my essays?

After class, he kept Sister-in-law Qing behind.

“If you do not want this child to hate you later,” he told her, “do not let her continue studying.”

She was silent.

The adult world was complicated. Love and hatred tangled together there. People worried over what had already happened and hoped for days that might never come.

On the country path home, she held my hand.

“Little Jin, do you want to study?”

I looked at the low foxtail grass and remembered Ye Mingzhen’s earnest profile over his books.

“I do, and I don’t.”

“Wanting is wanting, and not wanting is not wanting. How can there be a second answer?”

“Then I still want to.”

“Why?”

“Someone said learning brings wisdom. It lets him protect his mother from abuse and seek justice for all the women and children under heaven.”

“Little Jin.” Tears streamed down Sister-in-law Qing’s face as she embraced me. “Those are things only men are allowed to do.”

I remained in Master Deqi’s school after that day.

But I found that the teacher treated me differently from the other pupils.

He corrected my work, but never urged me to improve.

Stroking his goatee, he would say with satisfaction, “For you, this is already enough.”

He made me memorize texts but would not explain the subtle principles in the Four Books.

I was troubled by these small differences until a person finally enlightened me.

He was a fleshy-faced fat boy, poor at his lessons and not impressive to look at, yet enormously proud.

“I am male. I can sit the imperial examinations. Can you?”

In that instant, I understood the gulf between us.

He, Ye Mingzhen, Master Deqi—all possessed one supreme advantage.

They could sit examinations organized by the court.

A man might have an empty belly and the mind of a straw sack, yet being male qualified him to compete.

And me?

I was a girl. Where was my road?

Confused, I ran home to ask Sister-in-law Qing, but took the wrong turn and rushed into the house next door.

A painted matchmaker sat smiling, while my weeping sister stood behind her.

Mother sat on a stool. The woman who could outtalk anyone now had nothing to say.

My sister saw me, ran over, and shoved me hard.

“You! It is all because of you! If you had not gone to Sister Qing, you would be the one sold as a child bride today!

“I’m marrying today. Are you happy now?”

My sister was to marry.

Huizhou had never been like other places.

Southern Anhui was mountainous, and men made their living by traveling far away to trade.

Who, then, cared for their parents and children or managed the family estate?

Only women.

Many prosperous families acquired child brides early for their sons.

It did not matter if the girl was much older, so long as she could run the household. Once she married and bore a son, the husband would kick her aside and leave.

The people under heaven entrusted their lives to farming; the people of Huizhou entrusted theirs to commerce.

Huizhou merchants sojourned everywhere. If lonely, they kept several pretty concubines elsewhere.

The child bride remained home, serving her parents-in-law, managing the estate, and raising descendants.

Everyone called that a harmonious arrangement.

I had never imagined my sister would live such a life.

Only a family on the brink of starvation should have needed to sell a daughter.

Father was still strong, Mother capable and shrewd. They could plainly survive.

But Father merely smoked his dry pipe in silence.

“Wensheng passed the county child-student examination. We must grease many palms, and we do not have enough money.”

What did a shortage of money mean?

They could not sell the ox; it plowed the fields.

They could not sell the hens; Brother needed nourishment.

The only saleable thing was a passably pretty daughter.

The matchmaker earnestly urged Father, “While she is young, someone still wants her. At fourteen or fifteen, no one will.”

Father clenched his teeth. “It is settled.”

“Fang Deming!” Mother shrieked. She raised a face streaming with tears.

“You are really selling little Fen?”

Father sighed. “There is no choice. Wensheng must study, and the road ahead is long. We cannot simply cut off his future.”

Brother’s future could not be cut off, but Sister’s could be buried?

I felt lost again.

I realized how out of place I was in that room.

I had been born in this shabby one-room house. My first cries had once filled every corner.

If I had remained, would I be the one pushed out today?

My parents’ gazes slid away. They dared not look at me.

My sister wept for a long time, the flower in her hair trembling.

She was beautiful; boys from school often stole glances while she washed clothes. Yet as she cried, I saw only bitterness and pity.

The matchmaker finalized the marriage and made Father sign a contract.

Each side released the other, and each was wished future happiness.

I did not know how I got home.

That night, school recitations mingled with my sister’s wails in my dreams. They spun and shrieked like demons in an illustrated book.

I came down with a high fever.

Sister-in-law Qing summoned Second Aunt Jin, whose maternal family practiced medicine. She had learned something from her father in childhood and treated villagers.

She lifted my eyelids and felt my brow.

“Nothing serious. She must have witnessed something frightening today. Call her soul home.”

Calling back a soul was a custom south of the Yangtze.

When children grew distracted or suffered nightmares, their mothers led them outside and softly called their names.

The first call summoned a wanderer home.

The second begged a distant traveler to return.

The third restored the soul to the body.

The night Sister-in-law Qing called my soul, the moon shone without stars.

The crawling things sensed something and pressed low against the earth.

She called softly, “Fang Jin.”

I did not respond.

“Fang Jin.”

Her second call.

Next door, my sister was still crying. Her tears had run dry, yet the wailing continued.

“Fang Jin.”

She called a third time, her face now wet with tears.

At last I answered and weakly gripped her finger.

“Mother, I am here.”

It was the first time I called her Mother.

I had always called her Sister-in-law and forgotten that this was her first time being a mother too.

At dawn, the matchmaker came to hurry the wedding.

Mother had risen before first light to arrange Sister’s hair.

Before the dew dried, she fetched water from the well beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance and washed Sister’s face.

They said brides washed with that water enjoyed harmonious marriages and happy lives.

Sister overturned the basin.

Her pretty face was cold as frost. “False kindness.”

Even at twelve or thirteen, my clever sister understood real love.

Against clear self-interest, tiny favors to a daughter were duckweed on water; the slightest wind scattered them.

Mother’s mouth twisted stiffly.

Ignoring the toes exposed through her straw sandals, she ran back for another basin.

To make Sister new clothes, she had sold shoes and embroidery made with great labor, then asked capable Fourth Fang to exchange the money for fashionable cloth.

Mother left covering her face, water dripping from her hands.

Perhaps tears had mingled with it, or perhaps the well itself held a mother’s sorrow.

Sister finally washed her face.

She lifted the curtain and came next door to see me.

Powder made her lovelier. A thin layer of rouge lay over her fresh face like a magnificent sunrise.

My sister was beautiful.

She came to apologize.

“Little Jin, I am sorry. I should not have said those things yesterday.”

“It-it is all right.”

I tried to offer adult comfort, but my throat was too tight for words.

The wound already existed. I wanted to soothe it, yet could not turn the page.

Sister suddenly smiled. “It is all right if you resent me.

“Sometimes even I feel resentment.

“Why must we women be born on this land?”

She spoke softly.

“Die to prove one’s convictions; be foolishly loyal and foolishly chaste.

“Leave home and struggle to return; rarely see one’s family.

“Husband and wife seldom meet, and affection grows thin.”

My nose stung, and I nearly cried.

My sister had been such a tender little girl who loved pretty things. In bridal red, she suddenly looked grown.

She gave me the wooden hairpin from her head.

“This is my favorite. When I was little, I wore it while listening outside the school.

“Your sister is useless and cannot give you gold or silver hairpins. I must keep those to survive. The road ahead is dangerous, and I do not know how to live.”

She handed me a box of cosmetics and jewelry.

“If you do not like them, sell them for books.”

Then she left.

I chased her but could never catch the red figure moving faster and faster away.

She was like the vast red sun forever hanging above Huizhou’s green mountains.

The sun blazed beyond the ranges.

Later, she too disappeared into those mountains.