Chapter 4

# Chapter 4

The bandits stayed at our house for one night and could not bear to leave.

But they disliked its cramped poverty, so they set their sights on the Chaste Women’s Hall at the head of the village.

The hall enshrined virtuous women from several nearby mountains and had been built on a grand scale. Years ago, our village chief had competed for the honor, spending several years’ worth of the village’s grain. People were said to have starved to death for it.

Not one man in the village had objected. Even Father, who complained about everything, thought the chief had done splendidly.

The bandits put me on the wagon carrying their loot and took me from our home.

Every three turns of the wheels crushed another corpse.

The bodies lay in every imaginable posture, but all were women.

Not one was male.

The women who had survived gathered at the hall’s doors. They had hidden the previous night and escaped by luck. Now they stood there, fearless of death, refusing to let us enter.

Auntie Niu stood at their head.

Pointing at Mother, who rode the same horse as the chief, she began to howl. “Sin and damnation! How did our village produce a whore like you?”

“Set foot in that hall and heaven will strike you down!”

“When your husband returns, he’ll flay you alive!”

Mother seemed exhausted. She did not answer, only leaned against the chief and whispered something.

He nodded, in an excellent mood.

“Get lost!”

“Or my brothers and I will make sure an old hag like you can’t enter this hall in your next life either!”

The bandits roared with laughter. The women scattered like frightened birds and beasts.

At last, we went inside.

A red sandalwood altar stood beyond the doors, crowded with memorial tablets:

Chaste Maiden of the Li Family. Virtuous Widow of the Wang Family. Chaste Mother of the Zhang Family…

Beside them hung a lofty couplet: Starvation is a small matter; loss of chastity is a grave one.

It was indeed magnificent.

But for all that grandeur, there was not a single bed.

The chief’s brow tightened.

One-Eye rolled his good eye. “Big Brother, I heard they buried all these women in the rear courtyard. The county office paid for the coffins-and that means the finest pine!”

“Dig them up. One plank, one bed!”

The chief brightened and ordered his men to start digging.

But the first fresh grave they opened sent the bandits into a storm of curses.

Pine? It was a paper-thin coffin, short and narrow as a long box, already half gnawed away by rats.

The chief flew into a rage. “Dog-fucking officials! They even steal money from dead women! Shameless bastards!”

I helped carry earth and saw the words on the tombstone.

This chaste maiden had once been a prostitute.

After her mother died, her father sold her to a brothel. That very night, a scholar surnamed Wang took her virginity. He amused himself for several days, left three silver dollars, and never returned.

But she was devoted. She insisted on remaining chaste for Scholar Wang and refused every other customer.

The madam beat her until her arms ached, yet could not change her mind. Finally, she decided to gouge out the girl’s eyes and make her serve as a blind prostitute.

The brothel enforcer had a heavy hand. The girl died screaming beneath it.

After her death, her father ransomed the corpse back to squeeze a payment from the brothel. Then he applied to the county office for a chastity memorial and earned a ten-year exemption from taxes.

I peered cautiously into the grave, wanting to see the chaste maiden’s face.

One glance made me burst into tears.

She had died only recently and had not yet become bones. Her flesh had rotted everywhere, her body was covered in bloody welts, and her limbs lay bent backward, finger bones twisted. Where her eyes had been were only two ragged black holes, alive with gnawing insects.

I threw myself into Mother’s arms. “Mother, I don’t want to be a chaste maiden. It’s too frightening.”

The bandits hooted and pointed at me. “Born with all the right makings, the little slut!”

I did not understand.

Were a whore and a chaste woman the only two paths a woman could take?

Mother covered my ears and smiled at the chief. “My lord, why not split up the memorial tablets?”

“They’re cleaner than coffins.”

The chief showered her with praise. “Clever! A scholar’s daughter indeed.”

And so the hall full of memorial tablets became several creaking wooden beds.

Mother and my sisters-in-law lay down upon them…

And Chunhuazi and I ate our first full meal in our lives.

Incense dust trapped beneath the tablets scattered in every direction, racing toward the windows like ghosts freed at last.