Chapter 3
I went straight to the kitchen.
I had always doubted whether the immortal flesh could truly grant eternal life.
The Grand Astrologer claimed Heaven had sent it down as a blessing for His Majesty.
But… I thought bitterly, the people were destitute now, nine homes out of ten deserted.
If an emperor like this deserved Heaven’s blessing,
then what kind of god was this?
And what kind of blessing had it bestowed?
I had to see the immortal flesh with my own eyes before I made any decision.
…
The kitchen was pitch-black.
I dismissed my maid and entered alone, holding a candlestick.
An indescribable stench filled the room. I retched and remembered the time Father had taken me into town as a child, when we happened upon men dragging a rotting corpse from the water.
It had smelled something like this.
But even that had not been so foul.
My vision nearly blackened. Instinctively, I looked toward a porcelain bowl nearby.
It was covered with a lid.
The stench seemed to be coming from inside it.
After a moment’s hesitation, I walked over and lifted the lid.
There was only a piece of pink flesh in the bowl. Tender buds of tissue showed along the cut surface. It was translucent, with faint streaks of blood visible inside.
It truly looked like flesh freshly carved from an immortal.
This was probably my mother-in-law’s portion. She had eaten half today and saved the rest for tomorrow.
The next instant, I recoiled.
The meat was writhing, swelling and sinking as if it were a beating human heart.
It was still alive?!
Horror and nausea swept through me. Who could have imagined that meat which smelled so delicious when cooked would be so revolting before it touched the pot?
Could eating this thing truly make someone live longer?
I had just backed out and was about to leave when my maid came hurrying toward me.
She held a letter in her hand.
“A letter for you from the master in Luoyang! It came by express courier!”
Fearing something had happened to Father, I tore it open.
Inside was a piece of cloth, apparently ripped in haste from a sleeve. Its edges were still ragged.
In the candlelight, I saw several words written in black with some unknown substance. They smelled faintly of blood.
“Do not eat the immortal flesh!”
Two more words followed, but they were badly blurred.
I could not make them out.
A gust swept through, snuffing the candle.
Darkness swallowed everything.
All I could hear was the flesh pulsing.
Thump.
Thump.
Something had happened in the capital.
It looked as though Father, in a desperate emergency, had not even had time to find paper and ink. He had simply torn off a piece of his sleeve, bitten his finger, and written me a warning in blood.
Frantic as I was, I could not return in person. I could only send someone to the capital at once to find out what had happened.
At the same time, my mother-in-law began to change.
Always gaunt and forever falling ill, she grew fuller by the day.
Much of the gray in her hair turned black. She almost seemed to glow with renewed health.
She also tormented me more and more, keeping me longer each time I paid my respects.
Between that and copying sutras night after night, I slept only one or two hours a day. My legs went weak whenever I walked.
Yet my mother-in-law became ever more vigorous.
Alarm stirred inside me.
Could the immortal flesh truly restore someone’s youth?
But within days, I noticed other changes.
She had never eaten meat, yet at meals she began staring blankly at the meat dishes. As I served her, I clearly saw her gaze fixed upon a plate of roasted mutton.
She used to loathe meat. Even its smell had always made her sick.
Then one day, she told me I no longer needed to pay my respects morning and evening.
She claimed she was ill and feeling unwell.
But she had looked perfectly healthy during the day.
And in the past, such moments had been her favorite opportunities to torment me. She would keep me at her bedside day and night to nurse her.
This time, she merely ordered me to stay away from her room.
More than once, however, I rose in the night and saw lamplight behind her windows.
On the paper panes, a shadow held something in its hands, ripping and chewing while liquid streamed down.
Startled, I tried to get a closer look.
But her old nurse appeared out of nowhere and blocked my path.
“Madam, the old madam has already retired.”
…
Things were growing strange.
Then one day, I was too busy to eat before nightfall and went to the small kitchen to find something for myself.
The Wen family looked wealthy, but little remained of their ancestral fortune.
They maintained a splendid façade, yet in truth could not even afford a resident cook.
The night was deep. Most of the lanterns beneath the covered walkways had gone out. Only a few remained, swaying in the wind.
The shadows of the trees twisted together, gnarled and writhing.
As I approached the small kitchen, I heard a sound.
It was difficult to describe.
Like a dog gnawing a bone, but not quite.
It was wetter, stickier—as if someone had buried their whole face in something.
Greedily swallowing, tearing, chewing.
The kitchen door stood ajar, moonlight spilling over the floor like water.
I crept close to the gap.
A figure in white knelt before the stove, hair hanging loose around her.
On the stove lay a slab of raw meat, bloody and still threaded with sinew, its pink and white flesh dripping blood.
The figure clutched it in both hands. Her entire face was buried in the meat as she bit and chewed with muffled, ravenous sounds.
Blood ran down her chin and dripped onto her white nightclothes, blooming into a broad dark-red stain.
A satisfied whimper rose from her throat.
She sounded like a starving beast.
Terrified, I dropped my lantern. It struck the ground with a clatter.
The white figure went still.
Then she turned her head.
In the dim candlelight, her face looked utterly unfamiliar.
Her pupils were pools of black, her eyes sunken deep. Blood and scraps of flesh packed her teeth, and red liquid spilled from the corners of her mouth.
It was my mother-in-law.