Peach Blossom Paradise

by Ge Fei

  “You’ve already killed five of the six leaders, is there anyone left to kill you?” Xiumi asked.

  The stable boy didn’t reply. His lips had already reached her breasts. The tongue that licked her sweat was hot, though the breath he drew was cold. He avoided touching her nipples at first, not because he didn’t want to, but because he didn’t dare. He fumbled around, obviously unsure of what to do. Xiumi felt herself grow dizzy. Her eyes glazed over, and her body stiffened like a drawn bow. Locking her legs straight, she pushed her toes as hard as she could into the baseboard of the bed as her body filled like a stream flooded with meltwater in the spring.

  “I couldn’t have killed them back then . . . couldn’t have even imagined it. I couldn’t look Number Five in the face, so how could I think of killing him? Besides, I couldn’t have done it if I wanted to. He burned me with his pipe, made me drink horse piss and eat horse shit plenty of times. I wouldn’t try to kill him just for burning me once.”

  “Then why—ouch . . . gently—then what . . . what exactly happened?” Xiumi asked. She actually kind of liked this young stable boy. His body smelled like mud and fresh hay.

  “That was the day I met Dapples.”

  “Dapples?”

  “Yeah, Dapples. He’d traveled from a long way away. He came to Huajiashe to tell fortunes for people.”

  “Does he have a sixth finger on his left hand?” Xiumi asked.

  “How did you know that? Do you know him, Sister?”

  Of course Xiumi knew him. Zhang Jiyuan had mentioned this mysterious figure in nearly every page of his diary. He obviously harbored some grand, secret mission. Now it seemed he had arrived in Huajiashe.

  “He showed up dressed as a Taoist priest who could tell your fortune for a fee, but that was just a disguise. He’s really one of the heads of the Cicadas and Crickets Society. They planned to attack Meicheng, but didn’t have enough people, especially those who could use Western weapons, so he found his way to Huajiashe, hoping he could persuade the leaders to join him. Number Two was still in charge back then. When he heard what they wanted to do, he asked Dapples why the hell they wanted to attack Meicheng. Dapples said, ‘In order to establish the Great Unity.’ Number Two snorted and replied that Huajiashe had already created the Great Unity, and Dapples could crawl back to wherever he came from.

  “After Number Two slammed the door on him, Dapples went to Three and Four, but they all said the same thing Number Two did. It must have been hard for Dapples; he had orders from his superiors to find support in Huajiashe, and it wouldn’t have been easy to have to go back with nothing to show for it. So he started wandering around the village, trying his luck, and ended up at Number Six’s house. He tried to get Number Six to listen to his whole speech on revolution, but Six had an awful temper. He hadn’t even finished talking when Number Six said, ‘Revolution, revolution, go revolve on your mother’s cock!’ and kicked him in the crotch so hard his feet left the floor. Dapples crawled around on the floor for a while and hissed at Number Six: ‘If I don’t get a pound of flesh for this, you’ll never be rid of me, you wait and see!’ Number Six just laughed at that, then ordered his people to strip him naked and toss him out. So not only did Dapples not make any friends, he was shamed in public and had to walk away naked.

  “He returned again this spring, wearing his priest outfit, carrying a tortoiseshell drum and performing the fortune-telling act. He had also grown a beard, so no one recognized him. That day I had led the horses to the lake for a drink. I saw him walking back and forth along the shore, like he’d lost something. I asked him what he was looking for, and at first he wouldn’t tell me, but when it seemed he really couldn’t find it, he asked me if I’d seen a golden cicada. I thought he was playing a joke on me; cicadas are everywhere in the summer, swarming in the trees, but whoever heard of a golden one?

  “He paced along the shoreline for a while, then sat down on the sand and watched me water the horses without saying anything. Then he stood up again, walked to the pier, and boarded a boat. I watched the boat weigh anchor, raise its sails, and set off, heading south. If he had continued on, nothing would have happened, but although the boat faded into the distance, it then started to grow bigger again. He had made the pilot turn around. Once it moored, he hopped off the gangplank and walked straight for me. He asked me, ‘Young man, is there a tavern in Huajiashe?’ I told him yes, that we even have two. He narrowed his eyes and looked me over carefully, then said, ‘Young man, I think we were fated to meet each other. How about I buy you a cup of ale?’

  “I told him that the tavern wasn’t a place an ordinary stable boy could frequent. Dapples slapped me so hard on the back my knees went weak, and said, ‘Why do you always think of yourself as a stable boy? Haven’t you ever imagined becoming Huajiashe’s chief some day?’

  “Hearing him ask that question out loud scared me. If it had come out of my mouth and someone had heard me, I’d lose my head. So I started making excuses to leave. I lied and said that Number Five was waiting to get his horse back, because he needed it for a long trip. When Dapples saw me move away, he said, ‘Not so fast, let me show you something,’ and he took his bundle off his back. I thought he really was going to show me something, but when he opened the bundle there was only a shiny dagger inside. He put it to my stomach and whispered forcefully to me: ‘Either we team up and kill the leaders here and you take over, or I will end your life with this blade right this minute. It’s up to you.’

  “Big Sister, I only want to be with you. Why does my heart hurt so much? The more it hurts, the tighter I want to hold you, but the tighter I hold you, the more it hurts, and I just feel like crying. I don’t want to be chief. I just want to be able to see you all day, every day.

  “So I gave up and followed him to the tavern. I tied the horse in the grove of trees next to the building, and we went in and drank quite a bit. There were too many people inside, so it wasn’t a good place to talk. He didn’t say anything, just toasted me a lot and gave me many looks, as if he was telling me not to be afraid. After we got really drunk he lead me into a grove of trees, and we sat down in a sunny spot. I wasn’t as afraid of him as I had been before; I guess that’s why they call it ‘liquid courage.’ Dapples filled his pipe and lit it, then passed it to me. I took a couple of puffs, and my heart kind of settled down.

  “Dapples started explaining things to me. He said that no one was born ready to be an emperor, but if you dreamed of being one, you could be one. If you dreamed of being chief, you could be the chief. And if you only dreamed about being a stable boy . . .

  “ ‘Then you’d feed horses your whole life,’ I finished.

  “That made Dapples happy. He said, ‘See, I knew this kid had some brains!’ After a pause, he told me, ‘You know, being the chief is a pretty good life. You can have whatever you want and do whatever you want.’ That reminded me of something. I told him that the village had just kidnapped a girl—I meant you, Big Sister—and if I could be the chief, could I make her mine? Dapples said, ‘Of course, of course she’d be yours. You could screw her eighteen times a day and spend every minute next to her, and no one would ever say no.’

  “He also said, ‘Not only would she be yours, but any woman in the whole village could be yours if you wanted.’ I said that I didn’t want any of the village woman, only the one they recently kidnapped. Dapples laughed and said, ‘Well, that’s your choice.’ Hearing him say that, especially after all the drink we had, I felt like I really could do it. But there were six leaders, each strong and capable, and they had bodyguards and servants—how would we be able to kill them? ‘No need to worry about that,’ Dapples said. ‘We’re in the shadows and they’re in the light. Even if there were twice as many, we could still kill them all. Besides, you wouldn’t need to do any of the killing—I’ll bring people in for that. You just need to show us in and talk to us before you do anything.’ Then he cut his own hand with a
knife and passed it to me to do the same. I cut my hand and we shook.

  “Then he said, ‘Now that our blood flows together as one, you are an honorable member of the Cicadas and Crickets Society. There’s no going back for you, either. If you desert us, betray us, or leak any information, I’ll flay you alive and stretch your skin to make a drum that I can beat on for fun.’

  “He made me take an oath. I repeated the words back to him without thinking. Then he reached into his bag and pulled out four silver ingots. Heaven help me—whole ingots, not just loose silver pieces. I’d only seen one of those before in my whole life. My mother fished it out of the bottom of a box after my father died so we could pay for his coffin. She had saved it for years. When Dapples pulled out four of them at once, I knew he was no ordinary guy, and he really wasn’t joking about killing the leaders. He said, ‘Hold on to these for the time being. They’ll come in handy when the time is right.’ Then we parted for the night.

  “Soon they really did come in handy. Dapples made me give the first one to Wang Guancheng’s governess. When she received it, she looked at it closely, weighed it in her hand, and bit one corner. Then she smiled and said, ‘With this, I could take you up a mountain of swords or through a sea of fire faster than a horse could carry you.’ Dapples brought in five guys to kill Wang Guancheng, sneaked them into the village at midnight, and I escorted the governess to meet them in one of the boats. She said the best time to carry out the plan was early in the morning. Wang Guancheng usually locked his door in the evening before he went to bed, so no one could get in. Dapples said they could lift the tiles on the roof and come down through the rafters. After a lot of discussion, they still decided to strike when he went into the courtyard at dawn to practice his martial arts. They didn’t expect the governess to slip in early while he was washing his face and cut him down with the ax she had hidden in his room. How the old lady mustered that kind of strength is a mystery. So yeah, it’s fair to say we killed Wang Guancheng.

  “Dapples left again with his people after that. He said we’d wait a week or two, then take down another one. He said it was the safest, surest way to do it. The chief’s death threw the whole village into chaos and sowed fear in everyone’s hearts. But who would suspect a stable boy like me? So we took advantage of the confusion to poison Number Two, chop up Number Five, and scare Number Three into running off. We knew Four and Six would be the hardest to deal with, because their defenses tightened as the bodies piled up. We didn’t expect that they’d go after each other before we went after them. Big Sister, why are you whimpering?

  “Sister, my dear Sister, what’s wrong? You’re scaring me; I can see the whites of your eyes. If something’s wrong, just tell your stable boy. Tonight we’ll be husband and wife, and I’ll do anything you say from this day on. I’ll love you and only you. Now I’m the chief and you’re my queen. We’re leading an attack on Meicheng next month. Dapples says they have about three hundred people, and if you add a hundred and twenty from Huajiashe, we can definitely take the city. And then we can move into the magistrate’s mansion and live in comfort. Dapples says that even if we don’t succeed, we can hide in Japan until things settle down. Do you know where Japan is? Dapples says he’s never been there either . . . Sister, what’s wrong with you? What are you yelling for? Sister, loosen your grip a little . . . when you hold me that tight I can’t breathe!”

  Part Three

  LITTLE THING

  1

  THE PRINCIPAL stepped out from behind a black lacquered screen, a careworn expression on her face. The cold light of the poorly lit room barely illuminated the wooden chair and makeup table, the screen, the carved wooden bed, and the long side table set with flower vases, making everything look as hard as iron. Only the silk fabric draped loosely over her body emitted softness. A single step and her clothes parted the air with a swishing sound. Her face was as pained as her sigh; even when she hiccuped, you could smell the sadness on her breath.

  Tiger couldn’t see her face clearly. It rippled and changed like the moon reflected in water, or like clouds passing over a wheat field. Still, he could feel her piercing gaze watching him.

  “Tiger, come over here.”

  The Principal called his name in a near whisper. She didn’t look at him but faced her vanity mirror as she arranged her hair in a high bun. Tiger drew near her. Her robe wasn’t white, but apricot yellow, embroidered with tiny flowers. The intoxicating scent of powder hung in the air.

  “What happened to your face?” the Principal asked, still without looking at him, a silver hairpin in her teeth.

  “I got stung by a wasp yesterday.”

  “You’ll be okay,” she said, smiling coyly. It was the first time Tiger had ever seen her smile. “I’ll squeeze a little milk for you to put on it, and the swelling will go away.”

  Wait . . . what? Tiger started. Had he misheard her? He stared at the Principal blankly, his heart pounding. But, but, but . . . The Principal reached under one arm and deftly released a silver button at the top of her green-hemmed robe, from which she brought forth a milky breast.

  “Principal . . .” Tiger shivered in fear, then suddenly felt himself falling.

  He opened his eyes to find himself lying on the long slope of a grassy hill. He had put out the Principal’s horse to graze. The sun had already transformed into a red fireball that shimmered between the trees. His torso was damp with sweat, and the breeze from the mountains chilled him. For a brief moment, he stayed immersed in the dream, his head clouded and his heart racing.

  If it’s true that everything comes from somewhere, then where do dreams come from? Tiger wondered. It felt as if the Principal’s dark, powder-scented bedroom floated somewhere high among the clouds, and he had slipped and fallen all the way down into the waist-high grass on the hillside. Could the process possibly be reversed? Could he wake to find himself back inside a dream, with the Principal undoing her buttons and flashing that alluring smile . . . ? Tiger’s fantasies made him nervous. The chirping of crickets, the blood-soaked forest below him, and Black Dragon Temple, crouching like a bullfrog among the trees, felt illusory.

  Tiger got up from the grass to pee. Gazing down the mountainside, he could see the new roof over the temple. No monks had lived under that roof for generations; the temple once served as a temporary shelter for traveling priests and beggars. There used to be a pond in the front courtyard, and an earthen opera stage next to it where troupes from Anhui and Hangzhou performed. After the Principal returned from Japan, the temple roof was retiled and the outer wall restored. Two side wings were added, and the whole place renamed Puji Academy. Tiger still hadn’t seen any students there, only crowds of unfamiliar, bare-chested men who went in and out as they pleased, humming as they walked, and practiced with weapons inside the temple.

  Little Thing sat on an old horse on the public road behind the temple. He was kicking his heels and clucking his tongue insistently, but the horse didn’t move, turning his head sweetly up at the sky as if thinking about its own problems.

  Most of the villagers called him Little Thing, though most of the elders called him Little Master. Some less well-intentioned people called him Little Bastard behind his back. He had shown up at Puji with the Principal as a two-year-old, barely able to talk, sleeping soundly inside his wrapping on the porter’s back. Old Madame Lu said he was a foundling the Principal had adopted on her way home, and most of the villagers believed her. Still, as the child grew to three, then four, the Principal’s likeness became clearly evident in both his facial features and his personality. Someone in the village let loose the rumor that the child might have been the product of the robbers’ “firing squad” at Huajiashe.

  The local tutor Ding Shuze always took an active interest in other people’s business. Once, when Tiger and Little Thing were playing by the river, Ding Shuze ambled over to them with his cane and squatted down beside Little Thing. He took the child’s h
and and asked, “Do you remember who your father is?” Little Thing shook his head and said he didn’t know. “Then do you remember your family name?” Little Thing shook his head again and said nothing. “How about I give you a name, then?” Little Thing neither agreed nor refused, and continued to kick the sand on the shore.

  “This town we live in is called Puji, so let’s just call you Puji. Puji’s a good name; if you end up being prime minister one day, it’ll sound grand. And it’s a perfect dharma name if you become a monk,” Ding Shuze said with a chuckle. “And you can take your grandfather’s family name, so you can now be Lu Puji. Don’t forget it.”

  People still called him Little Thing.

  The Principal never paid any attention to him, even when she passed him on the street. Little Thing didn’t dare call her Mama, so he called her Principal along with everyone else. Madame Lu loved him the most, and never called him Little Thing; to her, he was “Little Deedlydo,” “Heart’s Blood,” “Little Fartypants,” “Little Cotton Ball,” “Little Foot Warmer,” and so on.

  •

  “I’m kicking him as hard as I can and he still won’t gallop. What’s going on?” Little Thing called to Tiger in frustration as the latter descended the hillside.

  “Good thing he won’t. If he really did bolt on you, you’d fall off and smash yourself into mincemeat,” Tiger admonished him in an adult’s tone of voice. “You’re too small to ride yet, anyway.” He grabbed the reins and led the horse toward the corral by the frog pond.

  “I fell asleep just now on the hillside,” Tiger said with a yawn, “and I had a dream.”

  Little Thing wasn’t interested in his dream. Sitting on the horse’s back, he waved his little fists and said, “Guess what I have in my hands?” Before Tiger had time to reply, he opened his fists to show him: a dragonfly, or at least the crushed remains of one. Little Thing grinned stupidly.