[For background to this story, read the preceding story “Qiezi.”]

A cleaver and a silver tael given to her by her father were all that weighed down the sack hanging from her shoulders as Qiezi forded the river. Now on the opposite bank on agile feet she scarcely needed to halt her pace except that she was hungry, the family meal aborted by the unfortunate events of the past hour. Expressionless yet alert, darting like a cat, she stopped and squatted to turn over the undersides of rocks and logs for termites and grasshopper and darkling beetle larvae to place on her tongue. They would do for now and she washed it all down with sweet osmanthus flowers and dandelions, stems and all, and river water from cupped hands. The sustenance glowed inside her and she got her energy back. As it grew dark, she slowed her pace and listened. The forest was almost cacophonous in its myriad sounds. The way she angled her head suggested they appeared to her as images positioned in a three-dimensional ink painting, with darker strokes in the foreground and lighter strokes in the background. There were no human figures in the painting; had there been, she would have removed them by repositioning the painting.

Her knowledge of the territory quickly brought her to where she wanted to go, a familiar clump of bamboo stalks. They ranged from her upper arms to her calves in diameter and she felled the thickest of them, wielding her cleaver like an ax with a few blows on either side. Hacking the tops away and shaving off the branches, she worked from memory, reconstructing what she had observed on the river.

She must have felt fortunate indeed even to be able to observe anything on the river, for she was the only grown girl in the village allowed to wander alone, the only woman apart from her mother who was physically capable of wandering alone rather than carried on someone’s back or hobbling along with a cane. Those villagers who hissed and snickered at her ugly “duck feet” wouldn’t last a day out here alone. Had she had a normal upbringing, I expect her mother had told her, she might have been of some use married off to a wealthy man. With proper lotus feet, she could have driven him to ecstasy by removing her bindings and letting him smell the odiferous stubs as he washed and caressed them in rose water, or not even wash them before taking them one by one into his mouth, like the male actors in opera troupes are rumored to do with each other’s member, and then stick that long big toe of yours into his filthy hole so he could be taken like a woman, a pleasure more delirious than taking a woman and available only to wealthy men. That’s the only good thing lotus feet are for and that’s how you might have been of some use. As for the other village girls, their lotus feet would find no male orifices to work their way into, no purpose apart from the brutal one everyone understood but never acknowledged: to keep you and your broken feet bound to the spinning wheel and the loom. How lucky you and I are to be mountain women!

Having lined up enough poles on the ground to match in length her height with arms extended and half as much in width, Qiezi lay down exhausted and fell asleep, cleaver in hand.

In the morning she dragged the poles down to the riverbank and lined them up flush, the straightest in the middle. From the soil along the eroded bank she pulled out the long thin roots of a pine tree and used these to tie two short bamboo poles crosswise to the parallel ones, looping them over and through and yoking them together as tightly as she could, into the semblance of a raft, if only it would work. Hooking it to a thick tree root with more root cord, she pushed the raft into the water. It floated. She tried climbing aboard but it tilted and she fell off. When she managed to board it, her weight submerged the raft below the water. She needed more poles, more tightening, more work, but her hands were numb and bruised. She foraged again for sustenance and rested. The day was already spent. The overcast sky would soon shroud her in pitch darkness, preventing travel down the river in any case. It would have to wait for moonlight.

The next day she cut two more lengths of bamboo stalk and added one to each side of the raft, while loosening the cords and readjusting the poles to fit yet closer together. It could not but work this time. The sky was clear and the moon was out. She got on the raft, but what she had not counted on was the extra weight from her sack, as light as it was, and the steering pole. The raft held—just below the water’s surface. She cursed and gazed back toward the bamboo grove. Further widening the raft meant another day’s work—and lost time. Grimly she stared ahead and pushed off anyway.

The current was strong enough to move her along at a good pace. But it also caused her to turn in circles and get stuck along the banks. She got better at controlling the raft with practice but steering it was even harder than building it! Her arms were about to give out when she discovered she could zigzag down the river by letting the raft drift until the bank loomed up and then pushing off again. After several hours, a drumbeat in the distance signaled the start of the fifth watch. She was approaching the walled town: the danger zone. It’s unlikely the nightwatchman and his lantern would notice anything but that possibility had to be minimized. As she approached the bend of the river and the dock just beyond, she aimed toward the river’s far side, placed the steering pole beside her and lay back flat on the raft, half in the water. No frightful voice called out and she coursed past.

In a few hours it would be dawn. Sleep was out of the question. She had to keep an eye on the raft. There was also the matter of where to ditch it. Traveling in daytime made her visible. On the other hand, the further she went the more anonymous she would be. But she was also in unfamiliar territory. At some point she would have to make her way among people who didn’t know her. She would be no less safe than if they did know her, given general hostility toward the unheard-of phenomenon of a young woman traveling alone. There would be only one recourse, to patch together a robe and shave her head to look like a Buddhist nun. She must have been wondering about her parents, who were escaping south on foot and should already have made it into Sichuan by now. They knew people there and would manage. She would manage. But as prepared as she was for surviving alone, she was nonetheless still in shock, a stunned creature drifting on a raft.

The dawn brought mist and shrouded the river. She heard voices but couldn’t see them and they were looming up. A man screamed. “Look, she’s floating on the water,” he said. “It’s a ghost, gliding on the water!”

“No, it’s not a ghost, you idiot,” said another. “She’s pushing a raft. See, it’s just under the water. She’s sitting on a raft.”

Their sampan came into view. “Who are you?” they said.

“Who are you?” said Qiezi.

“Your raft isn’t holding up. You need help. Here, we’ll help you.”

“No, I can manage.”

“You made this raft yourself? It won’t last another hour.”

“I’ve been on it since yesterday.”

“It won’t last, I’m telling you,” said the first man. He was young and stared at her open-mouthed.

The other man looked several decades older and was bearded and his hair had a Taoist topknot. “Where are you going?” he said.

“Ankang.”

“Ankang, in that? You’ll never make it! The river widens up ahead and you’ll flounder and drown.”

“You know the area?”

“Of course. We live here.”

“I need to find a place to stop off and rest.”

“Come on our boat and join us. Just let the raft go. It’s useless.”

“No, it’s my raft.”

“Let her hitch it to the boat,” said the elder. “Come in the boat and dry off. You’ll get sick in the water like that. Are you hungry?”

“Yeah.”

“Get her some fish cakes.”

“Thanks. I need to get to Ankang.”

“We can take you halfway there. To Flowing Water. From there you can keep going downriver or go by land.”

“How far to Flowing Water?”

“About a day.”

“Overnight?”

“Yes. You can sleep with us,” said the younger.

“Don’t frighten her. He means you can use our mat. We’ll leave you alone. You can rest now if you want. We’re busy fishing.”

“I don’t want to get off in the town. Is there another place you can drop me?”

The elder laughed. “Of course, such a beautiful girl alone in public isn’t safe. But how can you survive all by yourself?”

“I’m from the mountains,” she said between bites of fish cake.

“A mountain girl. What’s your name?” said the younger.

“Mantuoluo.”

“Mantuoluo. What kind of name is that? A tribal name?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought so. Your dark complexion. And your unbound feet. Are you Miao? From Sichuan?”

“Yeah.”

“What are you doing alone?”

“That’s my business.”

“Family trouble, I bet,” said the elder.

“We can take her to the pagoda.”

“What pagoda?”

“There’s an old abandoned pagoda on the way to Flowing Water. You can shelter there.”

“That sounds good.”

“You look exhausted. Lie down under the awning and rest. We should reach the pagoda before the first watch this evening,” said the elder.

“You sure I’m not taking you out of your way?”

“No. We cover this whole area.”

Qiezi curled up on the dirty straw mat, her sack hooked through her arm, and fell instantly to sleep.

She had been out for who knows how long when singing startled her from her slumber. She looked around in confusion. The sun was on the other side of the sky; she had drifted off for most of the day. The younger was humming a tune.

“Oh, she’s awake,” said the elder.  

The younger turned to her and sang:

When the beauty was here, flowers filled the hall.
Now the beautiful woman’s gone, the bed lies empty;
Only the rolled-up embroidered quilt sleeps there.
It’s now three years and I can still smell her scent:
A scent departed yet still lingering,
A woman departed yet not returning.
Yearning yellows the falling leaf,
White dew beads the green moss.

“What are you singing?”

“A poem, called ‘Long Yearning.’ Haven’t you heard of it? You must know it. It’s by Li Bai, the famous poet from the Tang Dynasty.”

“How would I know that?”

“You don’t know any poetry?”

“Of course, she doesn’t know any poetry,” said the elder. “What mountain girl can read?”

“I can read.”

“How can you read? I can’t even read,” said the younger.

“How do you know poetry then?”

He tapped his head. “It’s all in here. Memorized. I hear poems and remember them.”

“Where did you learn to read?” the elder asked Qiezi.

“The apothecary taught me. But he didn’t teach me poetry.”

“Really.”

“You must be very smart,” she told the younger.

“I can’t read and even I know poetry,” said the younger. “But you can read and you don’t know any poetry. I can teach you. Here’s another poem. It was written by the Huizong Emperor in the Song Dynasty for his concubine:

Drinking wine together in the glow of the nephrite lamp,
I think back on our embrace, it felt so good. But it hurt, oh it hurt.
I gently pushed him away.

The younger grew more animated as he spoke, mimicking the lines with bodily gestures:

Now I hear him tremble and I blush with shock.
We thrust up against each other.
We become crazy, together as one, arms clasping, lips meeting, tongues entwining.

“I don’t understand,” said Qiezi.

“That isn’t poetry,” chuckled the elder.

“Fuck your mother. It’s a famous poem! Now here, let me demonstrate it. Stand up. I’ll recite it again and show you.” The younger embraced her. “Now push me away when I say, ‘I gently pushed him away.’”

Qiezi pushed him away. The younger pretended to tremble and shudder, rubbing and grabbing his groin. He then threw his arms around her and tried to kiss her. As Qiezi repelled him again he grabbed her shirt and her breasts slipped out.

“What are you doing!” she gasped, pulling her shirt down.

“You’re not playing your part! You have to continue. You have to kiss me with your tongue,” he said.

“Who says I want to play your part?”

“He’s just playing with you,” said the elder. “Relax.”

“Yeah, don’t worry,” the younger said with a laugh, sitting down. “I’m just joking with you.”

“You’ve both been drinking.”

“Here, have some spirits,” said the elder, handing Qiezi his bowl.

Squatting with them, she took a sip. “That was very rude of you,” she said to the younger. “Don’t do that again.”

“What? Now, hold on. You’re telling us what to do? After rescuing and feeding you?” yelled the younger, standing up.

“That’s not the way to behave toward a young lady, raising your voice like that,” said the elder. “Use gentle words.” He went back to gutting the fish they had snagged. “Just play along with him. Though of course, he does have a point. You should show some appreciation for our generosity,” he continued, running the blade of his cleaver along her shirt, splitting the seam and opening it along the side. “These rags of yours are barely holding up. You need a new set of clothes.”

“They’re all I have,” she said, holding her shirt in place.

“What did we just tell you about showing some appreciation? Take your hand away!” said the younger, ripping Qiezi’s shirt open. He also had a cleaver—hers, she realized, taken from her sack.

“We’ll get you a new shirt back in town if you stay with us. And these pants too,” said the elder as he hooked the edge of the cleaver under her sash.

“Please don’t cut my sash. I’ll take it off.”

“Let us help you.” The elder proceeded to sever her sash and pull her pants down off her hips, before tossing her clothes in the water, along with her sandals. “You won’t be needing these anymore. Now that’s more like it. A wild mountain girl in her natural state.”

The younger was already leaning back under the awning with his pants down. Qiezi removed a fresh bloody tube from between her legs, squatted over him and the elder in turn. When they were finished, they told her to stay put under the awning.

“When will we reach the pagoda?” she asked.

“Who said you’re going to the pagoda?” said the elder. “Don’t you want your new set of clothes?”

“Can’t you just let me off at the pagoda?”

“Can’t you just shut up?”

“You said you would. I’ve been cooperating with you.”

“She’s starting to get annoying,” said the younger. “You’ll be lucky if you make it as far as the pagoda. Should we tell her?”

“Tell her what?” said the elder.

“You know, that we have to kill her.”

“That’s hardly been decided. We may have some use for her. At least until tomorrow.”

“I want to be of use to you. I can cook for you. I can gather all kinds of vegetables and herbs.”

“Who asked your opinion?” said the younger, slapping Qiezi in the face. “She’s already a nuisance—a dangerous one. We’d better kill her now.”

“I’ll scream.”

“So what? No one will hear you.”

“Someone surely will. It’s only early evening. My body will be discovered downstream and you’ll be prime suspects when you dock.”

“She can’t be seen with us on the river,” said the younger.

“That’s only a problem in the daytime,” said the elder. “I’d like to have another go at her tonight. Such a precious creature. We’re not going to find the likes of her again.”

“Why don’t you take me to the pagoda and leave me there? You can tie me up so I won’t escape. You can do anything you want with me.”

“I told you to shut up!” said the younger.

“Keep your voice down. People may hear us,” the elder admonished him. “Let’s keep her for a few hours while I think about what to do. No more word from you,” he warned Qiezi, pointing the cleaver at her, while the younger guarded the other side of the shelter. “Or we’ll send you and your raft adrift after slitting your throat.”

“I’m not going to cause any trouble—”

“Didn’t we just tell you to shut up?”

“Yes, you did. But I’m not afraid of you. Let me join you. As a fisherwoman. I want to learn about that. I can teach you about foraging.”

“Hold it!” said the elder. The younger was about to strike Qiezi with the cleaver. “Not one more word out of both of you! Take the pole and steer for a while. But go slowly,” he told him.

The sampan hovered on the water as darkness gathered.

“Here, you take the pole. I’m feeling tired.” As the younger reached over to hand the elder his pole, he tripped and fell.

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know. I feel sort of dizzy.”

“I don’t feel very good myself. Was that a bad batch of fish cakes?”

“They’ve been okay until now.”

“I don’t have any more strength either. Let’s lay low and tie up the boat at that bank over there.”

The two men stayed where they were, immobilized.

“Let me help you,” said Qiezi, taking the pole herself and stepping onto her raft.

“Get back under the awning, if you don’t want us to kill you.”

“I think it’s the other way around.”

“Whadd’ya mean?” said the younger, lifting up his head from the floor of the boat, his speech slurred.

“You should be grateful you have someone to bury you.”

“What are you talking about? Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“What’s happening to us?”

“You were right, she’s a ghost,” said the elder. “Where are you taking us?”

“To the pagoda.”

“No! It’s haunted! Take us to the Buddhist temple.”

“Where is that?” said Qiezi.

“Ten li further downstream. This side of the river. You can see it through the trees. Help us!”

“You won’t make it that far,” she said to him.

The elder’s eyes widened in shock. “You’re a spirit from the haunted pagoda!”

He crawled after her with the cleaver. Qiezi knocked it out of his hand with the steering pole, sending it into the water. He flopped onto the raft and drowned, his face in the water. This forced her off the raft and into the water. She climbed onto the sampan, smacking the younger on the head with the pole until he released his grip on her leg.

He continued to moan incoherently as the naked girl pushed down the river looking for the pagoda. By the time she spotted it, he was silent.

Qiezi lashed the raft and the sampan to a tree by the riverbank and gathered the remaining fish cakes and cleaver. The elder’s body was the heaviest and it took all her effort to drag him up the footpath and into the pagoda. The younger’s body was lighter, but as she pulled him over the sampan’s edge she slipped and cut her foot on a sharp rock in the water. Her foot bleeding profusely, she managed to get the second body into the pagoda. She went back down to the water to clean her foot, grabbed two more items, the steering pole and the elder’s flask of spirts, and dragged herself back to the pagoda, careful not to soil the gash. She then stripped the corpses of their clothes. The younger’s she wore. The elder’s she spread out on the stone floor to lay on, while tearing off a strip to tighten around her injury to staunch the bleeding. Her back to the wall, she poured the strong spirits on the wound and waited for the bleeding to stop, gobbled down the remaining fish cakes, and sobbed herself to sleep after the long day.

In the morning, she hunted for medicines. She was looking for the three-to-seven-years plant, so named for the time it took to mature, shavings from whose ginseng-like root placed on the wound would heal it fastest. This was not at hand, so the more abundant crow’s head would have to do, whose purple-hooded petal resembled the prepuce over her own yin button. It was so poisonous she had to grab it by another plant’s leaf to avoid contact with her fingers; lightly as a feather she passed it over her gash. As there was no time to weave a new pair of sandles—both men had been barefoot—she grabbed several taro leaves as big as lotus leaves, wrapped them around her foot and secured them with root string. Now a bit more ambulatory, using her bamboo pole as support, she looked around for more essentials, one in particular, her loadstone the golden ocean flower, needed to keep her mind clear; the last of her supply had been hastily tossed off the sampan. If she could find the yellow celestial seeds flower with its eerie blood-red veins or the human-shaped root of the even rarer mandela flower, which itinerant doctors sold at outrageous prices, they would also serve, but none did she see.

Back at the river, Qiezi got in the sampan after separating it from the raft and headed downstream. Soon she ran into another pair of fishermen, haggard-faced types who drew up alongside her, dispensed with niceties and reached over to drag her into their sampan. She slammed her cleaver down on the boat’s edge, missing a wrist but lopping off a finger. As the man squealed in pain, with a surge of energy she swung her steering pole around and smacked the other man hard on the groin, and pushed off against their boat. Fired by adrenaline, she sped through the water. Their sampan stayed away. Eventually she spotted the temple. Securing her boat at the bank, she limped up the path.

She entered the courtyard. No one was about the modest compound. Perhaps the monks were out begging for alms, or in lunching or napping. It was early afternoon. She peered into the nearest hall. A tall young monk with strong eyebrows was sweeping. At first he waved her away. Looking more closely, he came up and stared at the strange young creature with a bamboo pole, horrid rags drooping from her and foot wrapped in leaves. “What do you want?”

“Something to eat,” said Qiezi.

“You can’t eat here. Go to the women’s monastery.”

“I’m in a bad situation. Just give me something to eat and I’ll leave. And I need a robe.”

“What happened to you?”

“I was attacked by fishermen down on the river.”

“Whose clothes are these?”

“Never mind.”

“You’re so young. I thought you were an old beggar woman. I’ll get you a bowl of rice gruel but you can’t stay here.”

“Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”

“I have reason enough not to tell anyone. Go wait outside the gate.”

Her hands were still shaking from the latest encounter on the river as she downed the gruel.

“How bad is your foot?”

“I know how to take care of it. Please, I need a robe.”

“There are no robes here for women.”

“Any robe is fine. You can see these clothes won’t do.”

“Go to the nunnery.”

“I have something to tell you. This has to be a secret. There are two dead men up the river. I can show you where they are.”

“Oh heavens. I’ll go summon the yamen runners and you can lead us there.”

“No. Only you.”

“Why? What—did you kill them?”

“No. I found them dead. Would I be telling you about them if I had killed them?”

“This is a matter for the yamen runners.”

“Come with me now or I’ll run away and you won’t find the bodies.”

“Are you crazy? They will be found without you and you’ll be the prime suspect. You’ll be caught before you know it, assumed guilty and tortured.”

“Come with me now. I’ll show you where they are and I’ll be gone. We can take the sampan upriver.”

“Whose sampan?”

“Get me a robe and come.”

“Are you dangerous?”

“Do I look dangerous?”

The two of them paddled upstream and tied the sampan at the bank by the pagoda.

“The haunted pagoda!” exclaimed the monk.

“You really believe that? Go up into the pagoda and wait for me. I need to wash my foot. Give me the robe. I want to change into it.”

“Don’t change here. You might be seen.”

Qiezi glanced toward the river. “Go up and wait for me.”

He stayed where he was and watched as she waded into the water and submerged herself, scrubbing her hair. What then emerged was no longer the grubby vagrant but something yet more distressing and unfamiliar to his eyes. Her rustic features and dark complexion, easily confused with a coal miner at first glance, was transformed by water and sunlight. The baggy fisherman’s clothes now clung to her like seaweed, and he saw her round hips and bulging bust, and with her disheveled hair slicked back and out of the way, the finest cheekbones, a face of classical perfection, a woman of exceptional beauty. As she lifted her arms to squeeze the excess water from her hair, her wide sleeves dipped open to expose black flames of armpit hair as obscene as anything between her legs. And as she bent down to look at her foot, he glimpsed a hanging breast and its brown nipple through the gap in her shirt.

“Let me see the wound,” he said.

“It’s not getting any worse. I’ll tear more strips from these rags to bind it. Now give me the robe.”

“You’d better change in the pagoda. It’s safer there. I’ll stand outside.”

They entered the pagoda. The monk went up to the naked corpses laid out side by side in the center of the floor; they were intact and there were no signs of mischief.

“This is where you found them?” said the monk.

“I found them in the sampan and brought them here.”

“I wonder if they were poisoned. But arsenic usually blackens the flesh. Their flesh has yellowed a bit, that’s all. How did you discover them?”

“You saw that raft down there? That’s what I was on and I found them drifting in their boat yesterday, already dead.”

“I thought you said you were attacked.”

“I was, this morning on the way to your temple. Another boat of two fishermen. I sliced off one of their fingers when they tried to rape me. I’m afraid they’re going to come back looking for me. If you ever see a fisherman with a missing finger, you’ll know it’s them. Let me change into the robe.”

“What kind of person are you, attracting so much trouble? Are you a spirit? A fox spirit? A witch? Are you real? Change here and let me confirm you are human!”

“Give me the robe.”

He was holding it to his chest and breathing heavily. He extended it to her then pulled it back before she could take it.

“Give me the robe.”

He was breathing so hoarsely he was snorting and losing the power of speech. “No!” he blurted out, more to himself than to her. Shifting his gaze from her to the floor and back to her, he flung the robe down and spread it out, tears dropping from his eyes.

“No, you’ll die!” she said. “I’ll tell you the truth. I am poisonous!”

“How can you be poisonous?”

“I poisoned those two men. That’s how they died!”

“How can you poison me? You can’t poison me. I won’t let you!”

A stronger power had taken over his limbs. He tore open her shirt, stripped her of her pants, and dragged her onto the robe.

“I’m telling you, you will die!”

A witness to this scene looking through one of the pagoda’s windows, had there been one, would have seen a streak of sunlight illuminating the ripped deltoids of a man as he folded back female legs and dug his face between them like a tiger feasting on its prey, silent but for his grunting. He mounted her and worked up to his final spasm before collapsing upon her in sleep. She kept him inside her.

He woke up sometime later. The sun was still out but dusk was gathering. “I have to go. You be out of here soon, before the yamen runners come.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Tired. Drained.”

“No, don’t leave me.”

Her legs were wrapped tightly around him, preventing him from getting up.

“Let me go. What we’ve done is shameful, terrible, and I have to return to the temple.”

“Stay with me a while.”

“What’s your name?”

“Mantuoluo.”

“Mantuoluo? The ocean flower?”

“Yes, the golden ocean flower.”

“That’s not your real name. Why did you name yourself that?”

“I need it. The ocean flower. Have you seen any around?”

“I recall seeing some purple ones, but I can’t remember where. Why do you want it? It’s poisonous.”

“Purple ones, yellow ones, white ones, they’ll all do. I need it. My body is saturated with it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve eaten the flower all my life, since I was old enough to go out and wander as a child. I almost died the first time I ate it. But it opened my eyes and I’ve never been without it. I can’t stop eating it.”

“How can that be? How can you eat a poison?”

“It’s not a poison in small amounts. It’s a medicine, and it’s magical. But I’ve eaten so much of it over the years I need more and more. I can’t die from it. I will die without it.”

“What’s magical about it?”

“The plant spirits come to life. They talk to you.”

“Let me go. I have to get back.”

Her legs were still clamped around him and her yin muscles contracted and gripped his member within. “You won’t make it. It’s too late.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me comfort you in your last hour.”

He looked at the corpses and back at her, only now understanding, his eyes widening in horror. “You only slept with them and they died?”

“Stay with me. Love me. Can’t you feel my desire? Can’t you feel how wet I am? This is now the apex of your life, with me. Your life’s work is now complete. Appreciate it! Appreciate me!”

“Why are you doing this to me!”

“You forced me. I told you you would die. You didn’t listen.”

“You seduced me.”

“You wanted me.”

“You’re a witch!” He stood up with her still attached to him. “Get off me!”

“I am not a witch. But you’re going to die. You have to come to terms with it. You can’t run away. You’ll soon collapse. I’m sorry! Let me attend to your body here in the pagoda.”

He managed to extricate the human-sized insect and they both fell on the floor. “No!” he shouted, breaking down in tears. “I don’t want to die.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s your fate.” She wiped the streaming perspiration off his face.

“I have to get back to the temple. I can’t be abandoned here!”

He got up. Grabbing his robe, he staggered down to the river, fell into the sampan naked and tried to push off. She went after him and watched sadly as he got nowhere. “You have to untie the boat.”

“I’m losing strength. Take me back to the temple.”

“It’s too late. If you flee in the boat, you will only drift in circles and no one will see you. Come back to the pagoda.”

At the water’s edge Qiezi sat down with knees pulled up to watch him die. As he slipped into unconsciousness, she donned his gray robe, grabbed the cleaver from the sampan and, using the water’s surface as a mirror, carefully shaved all the hair off her head. She had to make another trip to the pagoda to clean, dress and bandage her foot. She wrapped his body in the other robe, the one he had spread out on the floor, after washing out the blood and semen stains. With its sash she was able to cinch him up the path and into the pagoda. She placed his body next to the other two. His penis was still erect—a death erection.

Now she was a Buddhist nun, if only in appearance. She didn’t know much about the creed aside from cursory visits to temple fairs with her parents. But she knew that even bad people tended to leave nuns alone. The river was a different matter. The sight of a solitary nun in a sampan would have been so odd word would travel fast; and she had had enough dealings with fishermen. She would have to make do on injured foot; reed sandals would be made later. She still had her silver tael, cleaver, and a tin bowl filched from the sampan in her sack, soon to fill up with edibles and medicinals gathered in the woods along the way, worn under her robe.

* * *

MORE FICTION BY ISHAM COOK:
“Qiezi.” Fiction
The Exact Unknown and Other Tales of Modern China
Lust & Philosophy. A novel
The Kitchens of Canton. A novel
The Mustachioed Woman of Shanghai. A novel