After Zhao and his apprentice received their gruel, they too crouched by the side of the road, and as Zhao ate, his eyes remained on the man who had caught his attention. He was grasping his delicate ceramic bowl tightly in both hands, obviously for the warmth it afforded. The beggars and city poor all around raised a din as they slurped their gruel. He alone ate without making a sound, and when he was finished, he covered his bowl and his face with one of his wide sleeves. Zhao could not say for certain why he did that, but it was worth a guess. And he was right. When the man lowered his sleeve, Zhao could see that the little bowl had been licked clean. The man stood up, put the bowl back inside his robe, and headed southeast at a quick pace.
So Zhao Jia and his apprentice followed the man; that is to say, they too set out for the Board of Punishments. The man took long strides, his head tilting forward at each step, like a galloping horse, and Zhao and his apprentice had to trot just to keep up. Later, when he thought back to the occasion, he could not say what had motivated him to follow the man, who, as it turned out, slipped and fell as he was turning into a narrow lane near a hot-pot restaurant; his arms and legs were splayed on the ground, and his blue bundle went flying. Zhao’s initial reaction had been to rush over and help him up, but thoughts of the trouble that might cause held him back; so he stopped and watched to see what would happen. The man was having a hard time getting up, and once he was on his feet, he managed only a few steps before falling again, and this time Zhao could see that he was rather badly hurt. So, handing his bowl to his apprentice, he rushed over and helped the man, whose face was beaded with sweat, to his feet.
“Are you hurt, sir?” Zhao asked.
Without replying, the man took a few steps, supporting himself with his hand on Zhao Jia’s shoulder, his face twisted in pain.
“It looks to me, sir, that you are badly hurt.”
“Who are you?” the man asked with obvious suspicion.
“I work in the Board of Punishments, sir.”
“The Board of Punishments?” the man said. “If that’s true, how come I don’t know you?”
“You don’t know me, sir, but I know who you are,” Zhao said. “Tell me what you would like me to do.”
The man took a few more tentative steps, but his body gave out and he plopped down on the snowy ground. “My legs won’t carry me,” he said. “Find some transportation to take me home.”
————
2
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Zhao Jia flagged down a donkey-drawn coal cart and accompanied the injured official to a broken-down little temple outside Xizhi Gate, where a tall, lanky young man was practicing kungfu in the yard. Despite the cold, he was wearing only a thin singlet; his pale face was beaded with sweat. As soon as Zhao Jia helped the official into the yard, the young man ran up. “Father,” he shouted, and burst into tears. Icy winds whistled through the flimsy paper covering the windows in the unheated temple, where cracks in the walls were stuffed with cotton wadding. A woman sitting on the chilled kang was shivering as she spooled thread. She looked like an old granny, with a sickly pallor and gray hair. Zhao Jia and the young man helped the official over to the kang, where, after a respectful bow, he turned to leave.
“My name is Liu Guangdi,” the man said. “I passed the Imperial Examination in 1883, the twenty-second year of the Guangxu reign, and have been the director of a Board of Punishments Bureau for several years,” the man said in a genial tone. “This is my wife, and he is my son. I must ask Grandma to excuse the humble place we call home.”
“You know who I am,” Zhao said, embarrassment showing on his face.
“Truth is,” Liu Guangdi said, “our jobs are essentially the same. We both work for the nation and serve the Emperor. But you are more important than I.” He sighed. “Dismissing several Bureau directors would have no effect on the Board of Punishments. But without Grandma Zhao, it would no longer be the Board of Punishments. Among all the thousands of national laws and statutes, none is more important than those upheld by your knife.”
Zhao fell to his knees and, with moist eyes, said:
“Excellency Liu, your words have moved me deeply. In the eyes of most observers, people in my line of work are lower than pigs, worse than dogs, while you, Excellency, esteem our work.”
“Get up, Old Zhao, please get up,” Liu said. “I won’t keep you any longer. One of these days we’ll sit down over something strong to drink.” He turned to his son, the gaunt young man. “Pu’er, see Grandma Zhao out.”
“I cannot let your honorable son . . .” Zhao was clearly flustered.
The young man smiled and made a polite gesture with his hands. Zhao Jia would not easily forget his fine manners and humility.
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3
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On the first day of the New Year, 1897, Liu Guangdi strode into the eastern side room of the executioners’ quarters, dressed in official attire and carrying an oilpaper bundle. The men were drinking and playing finger-guessing games to welcome in the New Year, and the sight of a senior official walking in unannounced threw them into a panic. Zhao Jia jumped down off the kang barefoot and knelt on the floor.
“Best wishes for the New Year, Excellency!”
The other executioners followed his lead:
“Best wishes for the New Year, Excellency!” they cried out from their knees.
“Get up,” Liu said, “all of you, get up. The floor is cold. Get back up on the kang.”
The men stood up but, hands at their sides, did not dare to move.
“I am on duty, so I figured I’d spend the day with you men.” He opened his bundle, which was filled with cured meat, then took out a bottle of spirits from under his robe. “My wife prepared this meat herself; the spirits were a gift from a friend. See what you think.”
“We would not dare to think of sharing a meal with Your Excellency,” Zhao said.
“It’s New Year’s, so we can dispense with the formalities,” Liu replied.
“We truly dare not,” Zhao insisted.
“What has gotten into you, Old Zhao?” Liu said as he took off his hat and official robe. “We all work in the same yamen, so let’s act like it.”
The other men looked at Zhao Jia.
“Since Your Excellency does us this honor, it is better to accept humbly than to courteously decline,” Zhao said. “After you, sir.”
Liu Guangdi removed his shoes and sat on the communal kang with his legs folded. “You’ve got this nice and hot,” he said.
The men received the compliment with a foolish grin. “You don’t expect me to lift each one of you up here, do you?” he said.
“Go on, get up,” Zhao said. “We mustn’t offend Excellency Liu.”
So the execution team climbed back onto the kang, where they made themselves as small as possible. Zhao Jia picked up a glass, filled it from the bottle, then knelt on the kang and held it out with both hands.
“On behalf of my fellows, Your Excellency, I wish you wealth and promotions.”
Liu Guangdi accepted the glass and drained it.
“Fine stuff,” he said as he licked his lips. “Now join me, all of you.”
Zhao Jia drank a glass and felt his heart bubble over with warmth.
Liu Guangdi raised his glass.
“Old Zhao,” he said, “I am in your debt for helping me get home that time. Come on, men, fill your glasses and accept my toast!”
They drained their glasses with great emotion. With tears in his eyes, Zhao Jia said:
“Excellency, not since Pangu split heaven and earth and the ancient emperors ruled the earth has a senior official actually joined a group of executioners to celebrate New Year’s with a bottle. Let us raise our glasses to His Excellency, everyone!”
The executioners knelt in place, raised their glasses, and toasted Liu, who clinked glasses with each of them and, as his eyes brightened, said:
“I can see that you are all men of indomitable spirit. I
t takes courage to engage in your profession. And nothing celebrates courage like fine spirits. So drink up!”
The men grew increasingly spirited as the level of the alcohol in the bottle dropped. No longer so tense or concerned about where they placed their arms and legs, they took turns toasting Liu, their constraints disappearing as fast as the spirits and the meat. Liu Guangdi, who had abandoned his official airs, picked up a pig’s foot and attacked it with such vigor that his cheeks shone from the grease.
By the time the meat and spirits were gone, they were all fairly drunk. Zhao Jia was beaming; Liu Guangdi had tears in his eyes. First Aunt was sputtering nonsense; Second Aunt was snoring with his eyes open. Third Aunt’s tongue was so thick that no one could understand a word he said.
Liu got down off the kang. “Wonderful,” he said, “this was just wonderful!”
Zhao helped Liu into his boots, and the young nephews helped him back into his official robe and hat. With the executioners in tow, Liu stumbled his way into the room where the tools of the trade were kept. His eyes fell on the sword whose handle proclaimed it “Generalissimo.”
“Grandma Zhao,” he blurted out, “how many red-capped heads has this sword separated from their bodies?”
“I never counted.”
Liu tested the rusty blade with his finger.
“It’s not very sharp,” he said.
“Nothing dulls a blade like human blood, Excellency. We have to hone it before we use it.”
With a laugh, Liu said:
“By now you and I are old friends, Grandma Zhao. If I fall into your hands one day, I hope this blade is at its sharpest.”
“Excellency . . .” It was an awkward moment. “You are an upright, incorruptible official, a noble man of great integrity . . .”
“An upright, incorruptible man deserves to die like anyone else. The slicing death repays nobility and integrity!” Liu sighed before going on. “Let’s say it’s a deal, Grandma Zhao.”
“Excellency . . .”
Liu Guangdi left the room weaving from side to side, watched by the executioners with tears in their eyes.
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4
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As a dozen horns blared their mournful music, the celebrated Six Gentlemen of the Wuxu Reform Movement were lifted down off a dilapidated prison van by a dozen uniformed guards and up onto the elevated execution platform, over which a thick red felt mat had been laid. A fresh layer of dirt had been spread on the ground around the platform. Zhao Jia, the principal “grandma” of the Board of Punishments, was somewhat comforted by the sight of these preparations. He and his apprentice followed the Six Gentlemen onto the platform. The mournful music was persistent and increasingly shrill. The musicians’ foreheads were sweaty; their cheeks had ballooned out. Zhao Jia took a good look at the six distinguished men lined up on the platform, and saw a range of expressions. Tan Sitong’s chin was raised as he looked skyward, a solemn, tragic look on his dark, gaunt face. The face of the young man, Lin Xu, who was next in line, was ghostly white; his thin, bloodless lips quivered. Heavy-set Yang Shenxiu had cocked his square head to one side; drool oozed from his twisted mouth. The delicate features of Kang Guangren were distorted by incessant twitches as he kept wiping tears and snot with his sleeve. Yang Rui, short in stature but full of energy, kept sweeping the area around the platform with his dark eyes, as if hoping to find an old friend amid the spectators. Liu Guangdi, the tallest among them, wore a solemn expression; eyes downcast, he was making a guttural sound.
It was approaching noon. The shadow cast by a fir pole behind the platform was slowly forming a straight line with the pole. It was a brilliant autumn day, with radiant sunshine and a deep blue sky. Sunlight reflecting off the platform mat, the red capes of the official witnesses, the red flags, banners, and umbrella canopies of the honor guard, the officials’ red caps, the red tassels on the soldiers’ helmets, and the red hilt of Generalissimo sent fiery rays of light in all directions. Flocks of doves flew in circles above the execution ground, round and round, filling the air with the whisper of flapping wings and their shrill cries. Throngs of spectators kept a hundred paces away by soldiers craned their necks and stared wide-eyed at the platform, waiting anxiously for the moment to arrive that would excite, sadden, or terrify them.
Zhao Jia was waiting too, waiting impatiently for the supervising official to give the order, so he could do his job and leave the premises. Facing the deeply affecting looks on the six men made him ill at ease. Even though he had smeared his face with chicken blood, which served as a mask of sorts, his nerves were still on edge, and he was actually somewhat self-conscious, as if standing in front of a gaping crowd without his pants. Never before in his long career had he been so unsettled or lost his sense of detachment. In the past, so long as he was wearing red and had chicken blood smeared on his face, his heart was as cold as a black stone at the bottom of a deep lake. He had the vague feeling that while he was putting someone to death, his soul was hibernating in the fissures of the coldest, deepest stone, and that a killing machine bereft of heat and emotion performed the deeds. And so, when the job was over, he could wash his hands and face and be free of any feeling that he had just killed someone. It was all a haze, a sort of half sleep. But on this day he felt as if the hardened mask of chicken blood had been peeled away, like the outer layer of a wall soaked by a rainsquall. His soul squirmed in the fissures of the stone, and a host of emotions—pity, terror, agitation, and more—seeped out like tiny rivulets. When an expert executioner stood on the platform to carry out his somber task, he was expected to show no emotion. If, however, indifference was considered an emotion of sorts, then it was the only one permitted; all others could serve only to ruin a reputation. He did not have the nerve to look at the Six Gentlemen, especially the one-time Board of Punishments Bureau director with whom he had established a unique and genuine friendship—Liu Guangdi. If he were to look into the man’s eyes, in which burned unalloyed rage, his palms would be wet with cold sweat for the first time ever. So he looked up at the doves circling above him. All those flapping wings made him dizzy. The chief official witness—Vice Minister of the Left, His Excellency Gang Yi—squinted up into the sky from his seat at the base of the platform before casting a sideways glance at the Six Gentlemen.