Chapter 3
Chapter 3
The Madwoman looked at Wang Dalong. “Bring me the piece of clothing your son loved most when he was alive. And scoop up a handful of earth from in front of your threshold.”
Wang Fei’s father still hesitated, but the village chief clapped him on the shoulder. “Listen to her for now. Go.”
Wang Dalong ran home and returned with the tracksuit Wang Fei had most loved wearing. He also brought half a bowl of earth from outside his door.
The Madwoman rummaged through the pockets covering her clothes–and she had pockets everywhere, making her look like one of those Beggars’ Sect disciples from a television drama.
At last, she pulled out a calligraphy brush and told Wang Dalong to hold it.
Then she lightly pinched its shaft between her thumb and forefinger.
“Little Wu, give me a hand. Pour some water into the bowl and make a slurry.”
She had suddenly called on me.
I looked at my father. He nodded, so I went over to help.
Once the earth from Wang Fei’s threshold had been mixed into mud, the Madwoman guided Wang Dalong’s hand to dip the brush into it. She swept the brush across the tracksuit in several rapid strokes, drawing a symbol that looked half like a written character and half like a picture…
Throughout the process, she held only the shaft between two fingers, yet she moved Wang Dalong’s suspended hand effortlessly.
Wang Dalong later recalled that he had felt like a marionette, as if his hand no longer belonged to him. He could not imagine how strong she must have been.
When she finished, she picked up Wang Fei’s clothes and strode off at astonishing speed.
The villagers had no choice but to jog after her.
My father hoisted me onto his shoulders. I was too young to keep up otherwise.
When we reached the downstream eddy–the place the Madwoman had called Toad Entering the Pool–she muttered words none of us understood and tossed the tracksuit into the river.
The current was fierce there. The moment the clothes touched the water, they raced downstream.
As soon as they reached the eddy, the turbulent crosscurrents and whirlpools caught them. They vanished beneath the surface at once.
People said even ducks and geese that swam into that stretch of river would be pulled under by the whirlpools.
Once the clothes had sunk, the Madwoman sat down on the bank. She plucked a blade of grass, put it between her lips, and appeared to wait for something.
“We wait until dark,” she said without looking back.
It was already dusk. The adults had lit the torches they carried, and only a few minutes later, the sun disappeared completely beyond the western horizon.
At the exact moment it set, I saw something rising beneath the surface of the eddy.
My father’s grip tightened abruptly around my hand. He seemed stunned.
The thing floating up from the riverbed was Wang Fei’s body.
After half a day in the water, his skin had already begun to whiten and swell.
He had not been in long enough to decompose, so the sight was not especially gruesome. Yet an uncanny air clung to him.
Fear closed around my heart like an icy hand. Half a day earlier, my lively friend had been playing beside me. Now he was a floating corpse.
Of course I was frightened. I was only nine.
My father said, “See? I told you a child shouldn’t come along. I told you to go home to your mother, but you wouldn’t listen. What will you do when the nightmares come tonight?”
I had a stubborn streak. His words only made me crane my neck and declare, “I’m not scared!”
The Madwoman dusted off her hands. “All right. Hook the body and pull it over. You can take him home and lay him to rest now.”
The village chief, Wang Dalong, and the others scrambled to use poles and whatever tools they had to hook Wang Fei’s body, draw it in from the middle of the river, and drag it onto the bank.
Wang Dalong sat beside the river with his son’s body in his arms and wept until he was nearly senseless.
Then a thin trickle of blood ran from Wang Fei’s nostril.
I remembered hearing adults say that when a drowned person was recovered and brought before a relative, blood would flow from the corpse’s nose. So it really was true!
I stared at the blood beneath Wang Fei’s nose and at Wang Dalong wailing as he clutched his son. My hand tightened around my father’s.
In truth, I was not afraid…
At nine years old, I was dimly grasping the meaning of life and death for the first time.
The friend who had laughed and played with me only hours before was now a cold corpse, pale from the water.
Wang Dalong wept. The other villagers, including my father, watched the Madwoman and waited for her instructions.
That single act of corpse retrieval had transformed her standing among them.
“Once he calms down, find a place and bury the boy quickly,” she said. “A replacement claimed by a river-log carries plenty of resentment. Earth subdues Water, so bury him tonight. You’re all here already, and there are enough hands to make it easy.”
The Madwoman’s voice was calm, and for some reason it put people at ease.
I stood beside my father and stole a glance at her. She suddenly turned to look at me and smiled.
Beneath her filthy hair, her eyes were surprisingly bright.
Wang Dalong wept over the body for a long time before silently getting to his feet.
No matter how deep the grief, reality still had to be faced.
Since everyone was already present and had not yet dispersed, the villagers decided to carry Wang Fei’s body straight to the mountain behind the village, dig a grave, and bury him.
The sooner it was done, the less chance there was for trouble.
But when we reached the village entrance, something happened.
Wang Fei’s mother, Zhao Wenxiu, suddenly charged toward us with her hair disheveled, shrieking and sobbing like a madwoman. She tore her son’s body out of her husband’s arms.
Then she crouched over the corpse like a she-wolf guarding her cub and refused to let anyone continue toward the mountain.
The village chief could only try to soothe her. “Wenxiu, the dead cannot return to life. The Mad–the Immortal Lady said a replacement taken by a river-log carries resentment of its own. Earth must subdue Water, and he needs to be laid to rest at once.”
That is how people are.
Once you display real ability, everyone praises and elevates you.
The woman everyone had called the Madwoman only that morning was now the Immortal Lady.
Not that I blame the chief or the villagers. It was only human nature…
But Zhao Wenxiu would not listen.
Like a beast that had lost its young, she glared at everyone through reddened eyes–even Wang Dalong–and let out a piercing scream.
“No! I won’t let you throw my son into some hasty grave. He was such a good, innocent boy. His body must lie in repose at home first. Then we need a folk Taoist master to conduct the rites and choose a grave with good feng shui before he can be buried.”
The villagers exchanged helpless looks.
Ordinarily, those would indeed have been the proper funeral customs. But Wang Fei’s situation was different. The Immortal Lady had told them he needed to be buried at once.
My father tried to speak several times, but each time he closed his mouth again. Zhao Wenxiu had lost her son. It was not his place to tell her what to do.
Years later, whenever he mentioned that night, he said that if the river-log had dragged me under instead, he probably would have lost his mind too.
Only the Immortal Lady stepped forward and rebuked her sharply. “Zhao Wenxiu! Look at your son’s calf. The venom of his resentment is already spreading. He must be sealed in a coffin and buried immediately.”
Everyone looked in the torchlight.
She was right.
Several black gashes marked Wang Fei’s right calf, as though some creature with sharp claws had raked through the flesh.
Normally, after a corpse had soaked in the water long enough for most of its blood to drain away, any wound would appear bloodlessly white, the flesh curled outward.
Yet Wang Fei’s wounds were pitch-black. From the depths to the surface, they looked as though they had been saturated with ink.
Worse, black veins like strands of a spiderweb were spreading outward. They had already crept up toward his thigh.