by Liu Zhenyun
“Qin Yuhe, you’re no damned good,” the attendant cursed.
Her sympathetic words endeared her to Xuelian.
“It was a sham divorce. How did it turn real?” Xuelian wondered aloud.
To Xuelian’s surprise, the woman replied:
“I wasn’t talking about your divorce.”
“What were you talking about?” Xuelian was confused.
“Qin Yuhe is a rotten guy. In January he came to use the toilet when he was drunk. It’s a pay toilet. I get a percentage of the fee, and my family depends on this toilet. But he refused to pay the measly twenty fen, saying he worked at the plant and didn’t have to. When I chased after him, he hit me and chipped one of my front teeth.”
She opened her mouth to show Xuelian; sure enough, she had a chipped front tooth. Back when they were first married, Xuelian had thought he was a reasonable man, so it came as a shock that he’d be so different after the divorce. She had misread him.
“I didn’t find him today,” Xuelian said. “If I had, I’d have murdered him.”
That didn’t shock the attendant. “Murder’s too good for that bastard,” she said.
“What do you mean?” a stunned Xuelian asked.
“You murder a man, and he lies dead on the ground. It’s over in minutes. If you ask me, what that son-of-a-bitch deserves isn’t death, but tormenting. He remarried, so if you want to work out your anger, then torment him. Make it so that death’s too easy and living’s too hard.”
That was an eye opener. So there actually are even better ways to punish someone, Xuelian realized. Murder only complicates matters. Tormenting him till he doesn’t know which side is up and his family is splintered could take a matter that had been turned upside down and flip it right side up. Not just in regard to what was turned upside down, but for the fundamental logic in turning matters upside down. Xuelian had taken her child to the fertilizer plant intending to murder Qin Yuhe and left with the intention of legal action. And the woman who’d figured out what to do was a gatekeeper for people wanting to relieve themselves. She’d borne a grudge against Qin Yuhe over a chipped tooth, but without intending to, had saved his life.
3
The second time Li Xuelian met Wang Gongdao was in a courtroom. Wang, who was in his judge’s robes, had just adjudicated a complicated property case. The parents of the two brothers of the Chao family on East Street had died when the boys were still young. When they grew up, the brothers invested in a hot-and-spicy soup shop at a busy intersection, opening their door each morning at five o’clock. In time they had a thriving business. But then, the year before, the elder brother had married, introducing a third person into the sibling mix, and trouble followed. A feud culminated in a clamor to divide the family property. Everything but the shop was easy: 50/50. But both brothers wanted to hold on to the shop, and neither was willing to give in. Which brought them to court.
Wang Gongdao greeted the elder Chao brother, who had been a primary school classmate. Then he turned to mediating the dispute. Whoever was willing to pay the other brother a certain sum of money, he suggested, could retain ownership of the shop. Elder Brother agreed, but Younger Brother raised a new issue. For the two years following the marriage, he said, his brother had stopped getting up early, so opening up each day had become his responsibility, and he demanded that the first order of business was for his brother to pay him for his efforts. But what about the eight thousand yuan we spent to repair your stomach ulcer last year? Elder Brother replied. Back and forth it went, until the brothers appeared to be on the verge of fisticuffs right there in the courtroom. Seeing that his mediation had failed, Wang declared the court out of session, withholding final judgment for another day. Younger Brother would have none of that:
“If you hadn’t brought up my stomach operation, we could have settled this amicably. But since you did, we can deal with the shop later. Now it’s all about my operation, and no one’s leaving this courtroom till we get to the bottom of this!”
By this time he was hopping mad. “I got an ulcer in the first place because of the anger they caused.”
“Your ulcer operation,” Wang Gongdao rushed to make clear, “is outside the bounds of this case.”
To everyone’s surprise, Younger Brother lost his head, rushed up to Wang, pointed a finger at him, and declared:
“I know you two went to school together, Wang, and if you engage in favoritism, you won’t get off easily! He rolled up his sleeves. “Just so you know, I fortified myself with a couple of drinks before I came here today.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Wang asked. “You’re not threatening to hit me, are you?”
“It hasn’t reached that point,” Younger Brother said, his face white with anger. We’ll see if it does!”
Wang Gongdao shook with anger. “I am not a part of this dispute,” he growled. “I’ve got no stake in it. I’m trying to help, and you’re threatening violence.”
He banged his gavel. “Thugs, you’re a couple of thugs!”
He ordered his bailiff to throw the two brothers out of his courtroom. Li Xuelian wasted no time in rushing up to the bench.
“Now it’s my turn, Cousin.”
Still in an ugly mood in the wake of the dispute between the brothers, Wang did not recognize her at first.
“Your turn for what?”
“My divorce,” she said. “That matter I spoke to you about at your house. I’m Li Xuelian. You told me to come back in three days. Well, that’s today.”
Now Wang knew who she was, and his thoughts migrated to her from the Chao brothers. He sat down behind the bench and reflected on what Li had told him. He heaved a sigh.
“What a nuisance.”
“Who’s a nuisance?”
“Everybody is. I’ve thought this case of yours over, and there’s no easy solution. First you. You’re divorced but you want to get divorced again, yet to do so you have to prove that the first divorce was a sham. Then you need to get remarried, so you can get re-divorced. Now wouldn’t you call that a nuisance?”
“Nuisances don’t bother me,” Xuelian said.
“Then there’s your former husband. What’s his name?”
“Qin Yuhe.”
“If he were still single, we might be able to manage. But he’s already got a new wife. If we can prove that your divorce was a sham, and you want to marry him again, he’ll have to divorce his present wife or be guilty of bigamy. Then you two will get remarried so you can get re-divorced. Wouldn’t you call that a nuisance?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
“And don’t forget the court. This is unprecedented. What looks like a single case in fact involves several legal actions. Passing judgment on each of them, from one divorce to another, would take us right back to the beginning, like walking in circles. Wouldn’t you call that a nuisance?”
“Dealing with legal nuisances is your job, Cousin.”
“But that’s not the real issue.”
“Then what is?”
“Let’s say your divorce from Qin Yuhe last year was a sham. Well, that makes it a major nuisance.”
“Why’s that?”
“If your divorce was a sham, any sensible person can see that you wanted a divorce so you could have a second child. That would put you under suspicion of making a mockery of family planning. You know what family planning is, don’t you?”
“It means you’re allowed only so many children.”
“It’s not that simple,” Wang replied. “This is national policy, which makes it quite serious. If it’s determined that you two were involved in a sham divorce, they’ll look into your and Qin Yuhe’s background, which would involve your child. You think you’d be lodging charges against someone else, but you’d really be lodging them against yourself. And in the end what that means is, you’d be lodging charges against your own child.”
That stunned Li Xuelian. She thought for a moment.
“Could she receive a death sen
tence?”
“Nothing like that,” Wang said with a chuckle.
“How about me?”
“Not that either. It would be something administrative, like a fine or the termination of public employment. But that would be sort of like ‘the egg breaks when the hen flies off,’ wouldn’t it?”
“But a broken egg is what I want,” Xuelian said. “A fine doesn’t worry me, nor does losing public employment, since I don’t have that. I sell soy sauce in the market, so the worst they can do is tell me to stop. That son-of-a-bitch Qin Yuhe is a public employee, and I want him fired.”
Wang Gongdao scratched his head.
“If you won’t take no for an answer, my hands are tied. Did you bring your complaint with you?”
Li Xuelian handed it to Wang. It had been prepared by Old Qian’s Law Offices on North Avenue, and had cost her three hundred yuan. Three sheets at a hundred yuan per. Xuelian had complained about the cost.
“This is a big case,” Old Qian had said with a glare, “a very big case. Your complaint has several components,” he added, “but I only charged you for one. So please, no gripes about the cost. Break this down and you’ll see I lose money.”
Wang Gongdao took the complaint from her.
“Did you bring the filing fee?”
“How much?”
“Two hundred.”
“That’s less than I gave the lawyer. It’s worth two hundred to solve my problem.”
With a glance at Li Xuelian, Wang Gongdao headed out of the courtroom. “Pay the fee at the bank and then go home and wait for a letter.”
“How long will I have to wait?” she asked his retreating back.
Wang thought for a moment. “Once your complaint is in the system, it’ll take at least ten days to get a ruling.”
“I’ll come see you in ten days, Cousin.”
4
Over those ten days, Li Xuelian accomplished seven things.
One: she took a bath. Obsessed with the idea of murdering Qin Yuhe, she’d gone two months without bathing, ever since the birth of their child, and had begun to smell bad, even to herself. Now that her problem was about to be solved, she visited the public bath, where she soaked in hot water for two full hours, working up a sweat and getting puffy before lying down on the wooden platform to be scrubbed. The bath cost five yuan, the scrubbing another five. In the past she’d always scrubbed herself, but this time she happily spent five yuan to have someone else, a squat, overweight woman from Sichuan with strong hands, do it. The moment she started in, the woman gulped in surprise.
“I haven’t see this much caked-on grime in years!” she said.
“Scrub me good and clean, Cousin,” Xuelian said. “Something big is about to happen in my life.”
“Getting married?”
“Yes, I am.”
The scrub-lady examined Li Xuelian’s belly.
“You look about the age for this to be your second marriage,” she said.
“Yes, it is.”
Reflecting on her comment, Xuelian was satisfied that she was telling the truth, for the whole purpose in taking Qin Yuhe to court was to marry him again and then re-divorce him. When she walked out of the public bath, she felt pounds lighter, a spring in her step. Old Hu the butcher spotted her as she walked by. Like a fly smelling blood, he threw down the slab of meat he was cutting and ran after her, in his haste forgetting to leave his cleaver behind.
“Hey, Babe, hold up. I thought you needed help beating up Qin Yuhe. What happened?”
“Take it easy,” she said. “He’s off in Heilongjiang.”
Hu stared at Xuelian, whose face was rosy; her hair, which was piled atop her head, was dripping wet after the bath. Her full post-partum breasts gave off a milky smell that seemed to envelop her entire body.
“What say we carry out the second half of the arrangement now, my dear?” he said as he drew near.
“No, we’ll do it the way I said—we get together only after the beating.”
Truth is, a beating was no longer necessary. Only days before, murder—and not a beating—had been the plan. Now both had been replaced by the act of tormenting. But Xuelian did not dare reveal that to Hu, not knowing what he might do, since his thoughts were on what followed the promised beating.
“Waiting around to beat the man is getting to me,” Hu said. “I really think we should take care of our business, then I’ll go to Heilongjiang and kill him for you.”
Since now even a beating was no longer necessary, murder was a non-starter. So, with an eye on the cleaver in his hand, Xuelian said, “We’ll have no more talk of killing. Do that and you’ll get a bullet in the head.”
She reached out and rubbed his chest.
“We’re in no hurry, Old Hu. Impatient people don’t get the hot tofu.”
Old Hu, hand pressed against his chest, was hopping up and down.
“That’s easy for you to say, but I’ll fold up and die if this goes on much longer.”
He pointed to his eyes.
“See that? They’re bloodshot from a lack of sleep.”
He paused.
“We keep delaying, and if I don’t murder Qin Yuhe pretty soon, I’ll have to murder somebody else.”
Li Xuelian patted him on his muscular shoulder.
“We’re in no hurry, Old Hu,” she said, trying to comfort him. “Revenge will be sought, but the time is not hot. When the time has turned hot, revenge will be sought.”
Two: she changed her hairstyle. After seeing Old Hu off, Xuelian went to a beauty shop. It was time to lose her ponytail in favor of short hair. She’d have to face Qin Yuhe if she was going to torment him, and an argument could spiral out of control. It had happened before. Long hair was easy to grab; short hair was not. That would give her the opportunity to spin around and kick him in the balls. She emerged, hardly able to recognize herself with short hair. That was a good thing. It was time for a new Li Xuelian.
Three: After leaving the beauty shop, she went to a clothing store, where she spent ninety-five yuan on a new outfit. Wang Gongdao knew what he was talking about when he said this was no simple case, that it was, in fact, several cases in one. How long such a trial would take was anyone’s guess; during the course of the trial, she’d be in the public eye daily, and mustn’t look like a slattern. She hated the thought of appearing to be a woman scorned, for that would make it hard to explain away the sham divorce of the previous year.
Four: She spent forty-five yuan on a pair of high-top athletic shoes with sixteen eyelets on each side, hugging her feet closely when she pulled the laces tight. She examined herself and liked what she saw. To torment him she’d also have to torment herself, since what she had in mind would require lots of walking.
Five: She sold off an old sow, along with a pair of piglets. She’d need the money for the trial, and wouldn’t have time to tend to the animals. No sense worrying about pigs when human affairs were still up in the air. But she didn’t sell them to Hu, the local butcher, afraid that might complicate things. Instead, she took them to a butcher in the next town over, a man by the name of Deng.
Six: She took a bus some fifty li to entrust her two-month-old daughter to a schoolmate, Meng Lanzhi. Originally, she’d planned to leave her daughter with her brother, Yingyong. But not after the way he’d run off to Shandong when she’d sought his help in murdering her husband. He was not dependable. He’d known he could depend on her if he was in need, but when the tables were turned, he’d been a disappointment. There’d be no more brother-sister issues of reliability after this. Xuelian and Meng Lanzhi had not been particularly close in school; in fact, there had been some bad blood. All because they’d had their eyes on the same boy. But he’d gotten chummy with a girl two grades ahead of them, which left them both in the lurch. The ensuing heartbreak turned them into lifelong friends. When Li Xuelian showed up with her daughter, Meng was also nursing a child—that was made to order. No need for Xuelian to go into the details of why she was leaving her da
ughter with Meng, since her situation was a hot topic throughout the area.
“I won’t have to worry about her if she’s with you. I’ll spend the next two months tormenting him, until either the fish dies or the net breaks. I ask you, would you do what I’m doing?”
Meng shook her head.
“Then do you agree with people who think what I’m doing is wrong?”
Again Meng shook her head.
“Why’s that?”
“You and I are different,” she said. “I can put up with a lot, you can’t.”
She rolled up her sleeve. “See here, this is where Old Zang hit me,” she said, referring to her husband. “A person can put up with stuff all her life or not. I’m a coward, but I respect people who aren’t. You’re stronger than me, Xuelian.”
Xuelian threw her arms around Lanzhi and wept. “After hearing you say that, I don’t care if I die doing this.”
Seven: She prayed to the Bodhisattva. That thought had not occurred to her at first, but on the bus ride home after dropping off her daughter, she passed Mount Jietai, where a Buddhist temple housed a statue of the Bodhisattva. She was attracted first by a sutra chanted over a loudspeaker. Then she spotted people, men and women, young and old, climbing the mountain to burn incense at the temple. Xuelian, who believed that her plan was foolproof, suddenly thought of something she’d neglected to consider, and that was the presence of deities in the world. After shouting for the driver to stop, she got off and went straight up the mountain. Visitors swarmed the temple and its grounds, entry to which required a ticket. She bought one for ten yuan and a bundle of incense sticks for five more. Once inside, she lit the incense, raised it over her head with both hands, and got down on her knees in front of the statue amid a crowd of kneeling believers. Everyone else was praying for something good to happen; Xuelian alone prayed for something bad to occur. She closed her eyes and intoned:
“Great and Merciful Bodhisattva, please see that this legal matter ends in the destruction of Qin Yuhe’s family.”