Not a single living soul was now left on the opera stage, abruptly stained by rivulets of multihued blood, while beneath the stage members of the audience were emerging from their Maoqiang trance. My poor subjects scrambled madly to get away, bumping and shoving, wailing and roaring, a chaotic mass of humanity. I saw the Germans up there lower their weapons, glum smiles on their long faces, like a red thread of sunlight poking out from behind dark clouds on a bitter cold day. The shooting had stopped, and once again I experienced mixed feelings of grief and joy. Grief over the destruction of Northeast Gaomi Township’s last Maoqiang opera troupe, joy over the Germans’ lack of interest in turning their guns on the fleeing commoners. Did I say joy? Gaomi County Magistrate, was there really joy in your heart? Yes, there was, great joy!
Puddles of actors’ blood merged and flowed to the sides of the stage, where it streamed into wooden gutters that were intended for rainwater runoff, but now served to channel blood off the stage and onto the ground. After the initial cascades, the flow slowed to a drip, one large drop of heavy, treasured blood on top of another——drip, drip, drip, heavy, treasured . . . the Heavenly Dragon’s tears, that’s what they were.
The common folk made their escape, leaving behind a field littered with shoes and cat clothing crushed beyond recognition; among the litter were bodies trampled in the stampede. My eyes were riveted on the two gutter openings, which continued to send drops of blood to the ground—one drop splashing on top of another. No longer blood, but the Heavenly Dragon’s tears, that’s what they were.
————
9
————
As I was returning to the Academy grounds from the yamen, a half moon on the nineteenth day of the eighth month sent cold beams earthward. I stepped through the gate and spat out a mouthful of blood; a brackish, saccharine taste filled my mouth, as if I’d overindulged in honeyed sweets. Liu Pu and Chunsheng were worried.
“Laoye, are you all right?”
Brought to my senses by the sound of voices, I looked at them and asked:
“Why are you two still with me? Get lost, go away, stop following me.”
“Laoye . . .”
“You heard me, I said leave me alone; get lost, the farther the better. I don’t want to lay eyes on you again. If I so much as see you, I’ll break you in two!”
“Laoye . . . Laoye . . . have you lost your mind?” Chunsheng could hardly get the words out through his sobs.
I unsheathed the sword at Li Pu’s waist and pointed it at them, the glint of steel as cold as my tone of voice:
“Father’s dead, Mother’s remarried, now it’s every man for himself. If you two retain any good feelings from the years we have been together, you will get out of my sight. Come back sometime after the twentieth to collect my body.” I flung the sword to the ground, where it clanged loudly and sent waves of sound into the night sky. Chunsheng took a couple of steps back, then turned and ran, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until he was out of sight. Liu Pu just stood there, head down, frozen in place.
“Why aren’t you leaving?” I asked him. “Go in and pack some things to take back home to Sichuan. When you get there, don’t tell anyone your real name. Tend to your parents’ graves and stay away from all local officials.”
“Uncle . . .”
That gut-wrenching word brought on a torrent of tears.
“Go on,” I said with a wave of my hand. “You have to look out for yourself; now go. There’s nothing for you here.”
“Uncle,” Liu Pu repeated, “your unworthy nephew has been thinking about many things in recent days, and I cannot help but feel deeply ashamed. Everything that has happened to you, Uncle, is my fault.” He was tormented. “I dressed up to look like you so I could yank out Sun Bing’s beard, which was why he left the troupe, married Little Peach, and had two children. If he hadn’t married and become a father, he would never have clubbed the German engineer to death, and none of this would ever have happened . . .”
“You foolish, worthy nephew,” I cut him off. “Everything proceeded according to fate’s plan, not because of anything you did. I’ve always known it was you who plucked Sun Bing’s beard, and I know you did that on behalf of the First Lady. It was her attempt to plant the seeds of hatred toward me in Sun Meiniang and to put an end to any romantic liaison between us. I also know it was the two of you who smeared dog droppings on the wall, because you were afraid that an illicit relationship with one of my subjects could ruin my official career. What neither of you knew was that Sun Meiniang and I were fated to meet in this place because of what happened in our past three lives. I bear no grudge toward you or toward her. I bear no grudge toward anyone, for we were all acting in accordance with our fates.”
“Uncle . . .” Li Pu fell to his knees and, his voice breaking with sobs, said, “please accept your unworthy nephew’s obeisance!”
I went up to him and raised him off his knees.
“Now this is where we say good-bye, worthy nephew.”
I turned and headed to the Tongde Academy parade ground.
Liu Pu fell in behind me.
“Uncle,” he said softly.
I looked back.
“Uncle!”
I walked back to him.
“Is there something else you want to say?”
“I, your unworthy nephew, want to avenge my father; I want to avenge the Six Gentlemen and my Uncle Xiongfei. By doing this, I would also extirpate the hidden evil that imperils the Great Qing Dynasty!”
“Do you plan to assassinate him?” I stopped to think for a moment. “Is this a deed to which you are irrevocably committed?”
He nodded decisively.
“Then I can only hope that you have better luck than your Uncle Xiongfei, worthy nephew.”
I turned and once again headed to the parade ground. This time I did not look back. The moon cast its light into my eyes, and I suddenly had the feeling that my heart was like a garden in which countless flowers were ready to bloom. Each of those blooming flowers was a rousing Maoqiang aria. Long and lingering, the arias swirled rhythmically in my head so that all my movements were musically cadenced:
Gaomi Magistrate leaves the yamen, heart full of sorrow~~meow meow~~autumn winds and cold moonbeams and loud drumbeats herald the morrow~~
The moon cast its light on my body, and on my heart. You moonbeams, how bright you are, brighter than I’ve ever seen before, and brighter than I’ll ever see again! I followed the path of moonbeams with my eyes, and what I saw was my wife lying in bed, her face as white as paper. She had dressed in ceremonial attire—phoenix headdress and tasseled cape—and laid a last note on the bed beside her. “The Imperial Capital has fallen,” she had written, “the nation is lost. A foreign power has invaded the country and partitioned the land. I have been graced by Imperial favor in all its majesty. I cannot live an ignoble life, on a par with the animals. A loyal minister dies for his country; a chaste wife dies for her husband. These virtues have been praised down through the ages. Your faithful wife has gone on ahead and is waiting for her mate to join her. Alas and alack, my sorrow is endless.”
My beloved! Knowing the path of righteousness, you have taken poison for the sake of our land. You have set a glorious example for me~~I have chosen to take the same route, for I too cannot live ignobly~~my death has long been planned. But my work is not yet finished, and I cannot die before the end of the story is told. Wait for me at Wangxiang tai~~once I have done what I set out to do, I shall join you and the emperors of old~~
The parade ground was overlaid with a solemn stillness; the moon soundlessly spilled its beams on the ground. Owls and bats cast gliding shadows from above; the eyes of feral dogs flashed on the edges. You pilferers of putrid flesh, are you waiting to feast on the bodies of those who lie where they died? No one has come to collect my subjects’ bodies, which lie in the moonlight waiting for the sun’s rays. Yuan Shikai and von Ketteler are engaged in revelry, drinking good wine and enjoying fi
ne food brought to them from sizzling woks in the yamen kitchen. Are you not worried that I will put Sun Bing out of his misery? You must know that if I want to go on living, Sun Bing will not die. What you do not know is that I have no desire to go on living. I want to follow my wife’s lead and sacrifice myself for the Great Qing Nation after ending Sun Bing’s life. I want it to be his dead body that is the focus of your rail line ceremony, to let your train pass by a Chinese corpse as it rumbles down the track.
I staggered up to the Ascension Platform. Sun Bing’s Ascension Platform; Zhao Jia’s Ascension Platform; Qian Ding’s Ascension Platform. A lantern hung high above the platform, identified as belonging to the Main Hall of the county yamen. My gaze took in the listless yayi standing like marionettes at the platform’s edge, red-and-black batons gripped tightly in their hands. An earthenware pot in which herbal medicine stewed sat atop a small wood-burning stove directly beneath the lantern, sending steam into the air and spraying ginseng fragrance in all directions. Zhao Jia was sitting beside the stove, his narrow, dark face lit up by the fire’s light, his arms wrapped around his knees, on which he was resting his chin. He was staring intently at the flames licking out of the stove’s belly, like a youngster lost in dreams. Xiaojia was leaning against a post behind his father, legs spread apart to accommodate a container of sheep’s intestines, which he was stuffing into steaming cakes before cramming them into his mouth as if he were alone up there. Sun Meiniang was leaning against another post across from Xiaojia, her head lolled to the side, her face hidden behind a mass of uncombed hair. Looking more dead than alive, she had lost every vestige of her once-graceful bearing. I was able to distinguish the hazy outline of Sun Bing’s face behind the gauzy curtain. His low moans told me that he was barely hanging on. The stench of his body was drawing hordes of owls to the site, where they soared in the sky directly above, the silence broken by their frequent chilling screeches. Sun Bing, you should be dead by now, meow meow, that Maoqiang opera of yours is a fount of myriad feelings, and now the sound that has such complex implications—that meow—has actually made a wild dash out of my mouth, meow meow. Sun Bing, it all happened because I was so muddleheaded, blessed or cursed with a soft heart, always cautious and indecisive, a mind too cluttered to see through their cunning scheme. Keeping you alive cost the lives of too many of Northeast Gaomi Township’s residents and cut Maoqiang opera off from its future. Meow meow . . .
I woke the club-wielding yayi out of their stupor and told them to go home to sleep, that I would take care of things up on the platform. I’d just taken a heavy load from their shoulders, and they scooted down the plank, dragging their clubs behind them, as if they feared I’d change my mind; they vanished into the moonlight.
My arrival sparked no reaction from the two men up there, almost as if I were nothing but an empty shadow, or a minor accomplice. Well, they’d have been right, because that’s exactly what I was, one of their accomplices. I was trying to decide which of them to stab first when Zhao Jia picked up the medicine pot by its handle and poured its contents into a black bowl.
“Son,” he said with authority, “are you done eating? If not, finish later. I want you to help me pour this down his throat.”
Xiaojia, ever the obedient son, got to his feet. His monkey-like clownish airs had largely receded after what had happened earlier that day. He smiled at me, then parted the gauzy curtain of the enclosure, exposing Sun Bing’s body, which had shriveled considerably. His face had gotten smaller, his eyes bigger; I could count his ribs, and was reminded of a dead frog I’d seen down in the countryside, nailed to a tree by mischievous children.
Sun Bing moved his head when Xiaojia opened the curtain and began to mumble:
“Hmm . . . hmm . . . let me die . . . just let me die . . .”
It was a stirring snippet of speech, and it gave my plan even more cause and meaning, for now Sun Bing no longer wanted to live, having finally comprehended the sinful nature of trying to stay alive. Plunging my knife into his chest would grant him his wish.
Xiaojia willfully thrust an ox-horn funnel designed for medicating domestic animals into Sun Bing’s mouth, then gripped his head to hold it steady and let Zhao Jia slowly pour in the ginseng. A gurgling sound emerged from that mouth, emanating from deep down in his throat, as the mixture slid into his stomach.
“What do you say, Old Zhao,” I said in a mocking tone from where I stood behind him. “Think he’ll live till tomorrow morning?”
Suddenly on his guard, he turned and said, a bright, piercing light in his eyes:
“I guarantee it.”
“Granny Zhao is the author of a true wonder in the world of humans!”
“I could not have reached the pinnacle of my profession without the support of my betters,” Zhao Jia said humbly. “I cannot lay claim to achievements made possible by others.”
“Zhao Jia,” I said with a chill to my voice, “don’t be too quick to claim success. I do not think he will survive the night—”
“I will stake my life on it. If Your Eminence will grant me another half jin of ginseng, I can keep him alive another three days!”
I laughed out loud before reaching down and extracting a razor-tipped dagger from inside my boot. Knife in hand, I leaped forward to plunge it into Sun Bing’s chest. But the chest it penetrated was not Sun Bing’s. Seeing what was about to happen, Xiaojia had thrown himself between Sun and me. He slumped to the ground at Sun Bing’s feet when I pulled my knife out. Blood spurting from the wound seared my hand. Zhao Jia released a plaintive cry:
“My son . . .” He was disconsolate.
He flung the bowl in his hand at my head; I too let out a plaintive cry when the hot, fragrant liquid splashed on my face. The sound still hung in the air as Zhao Jia crouched down, like a panther about to pounce, and flung himself headfirst at me. His skull struck me flush in the abdomen, sending me flying, arms flailing, to the platform floor, face-up. He wasted no time in straddling me and digging his seemingly soft, delicate hands into my throat, like the talons of a bird of prey, at the same time gnawing on my forehead. Everything went dark as I struggled, but my arms were like dead branches.
Zhao Jia’s fingers loosened their grip at the very moment I saw my wife’s face above Wangxiang tai, and he stopped gnawing on my forehead. I rolled him off me with my knee and struggled to my feet. He lay on the platform floor, a knife in his back, his gaunt face twitching pitifully. Sun Meiniang stood over him, a dazed look in her eyes. The muscles in her pale face were quivering, and her features had shifted; she looked less human than demonic. The moonbeams were like water, like liquid silver; they were ice, they were frost. I would not see such brilliant moonbeams ever again. Looking past them, I believed I could see the worthy nephew of the Liu family suddenly appear in front of Yuan Shikai and, in the name of his father, and of the Six Gentlemen, and of the Great Qing Nation, draw a pair of shiny golden pistols, just as my brother had done . . .
My mind reeled as I got to my feet. I reached out to her. Meiniang . . . my beloved . . .
She screamed, turned, and ran down the plank. Her body looked like a mass of moldy cotton floating through the air, as if weightless. Was there any need for me to go after her? No, my affairs were coming to an end, and we would have to wait to meet again in another world. I pulled her knife out of Zhao Jia’s back and wiped the blood from the blade on my clothing. Then I walked up to Sun Bing and, with the light from the lantern and from the moon—the former was a murky yellow, the latter bright and transparent—looked closely into his tranquil face.
“Sun Bing, I have wronged you in so many ways, but it was not I who plucked out your beard.” With that heartfelt comment, I drove the knife into his chest. And when I did, brilliant sparks flew from his eyes, producing a bright halo around his face, brighter than the moonlight. I watched blood flow from the corners of his mouth, along with a single brief statement:
“The opera . . . has ended . . .”
Author’s Note
> As this novel was taking shape, friends asked me what it was about. I had trouble coming up with an answer, though I tried. Not until a couple of days after I handed the final manuscript in to my publisher, and I could breathe a sigh of relief, did it occur to me that it is all about sound. Each chapter title in the first and third parts—“Head of the Phoenix” and “Tail of the Leopard”—is in the style of speech of that particular narrator: “Zhao Jia’s Ravings,” “Qian Ding’s Bitter Words,” “Sun Bing’s Opera Talk,” and so on. In Part Two, “Belly of the Pig,” I employ an objective, omniscient narrator, though in fact it is in the style of a historical romance whose narration follows the oral tradition, complete with chorus—again, at bottom, sound. It was sound that planted the seed for the novel and drove its creation.
Twenty years ago, as I set out on the road to becoming a writer, two disparate sounds kept reappearing in my consciousness, ensnaring me like a pair of enchanting fox fairies and, in their persistence, often putting me on edge.
The first of those sounds—rhythmical, resonant, powerful, evoking a somber, blue-black color, weighty as iron and steel, and icy cold—was the sound of trains, specifically those on the historic Jiaozhou-Jinan line, which has linked the cities of Jinan and Qingdao for a century. For as long as I can remember, gloomy weather has been the backdrop for train whistles that sound like the mournful, drawn-out lowing of cows: hugging the ground, they pass through the village and enter our houses, where they startle us out of our dreams. They were followed by the crisp, icy sound a train makes as it crosses the majestic steel bridge over the Jiao River. Back then, the two sounds—the whistle and the wheels on the bridge—coalesced with the overcast sky and humid air to merge with my emotionally starved, lonely youth. Each time I was awakened by those two sharply contrasting sounds in the middle of the night, my head filled with vivid images from tales of trains and railroad tracks told to me by people of all kinds. They first appeared in the guise of sound, followed by visual forms as annotations of sounds. Put another way, the visual images were mental associations with sounds.