A Flower’s Shade (30 page)

"That would be letting her off too easily, to just go away like that." Xiaoyun ground his teeth, saying grimly, "If she toys with me, let me tell you, I will not spare her."

"Master Xiaoyun, you mustn't talk like that." Huaifu feigned great anxiety, although his words doubtless only further inflamed Xiaoyun, for Huaifu now knew how best to provoke him. Ever since he had entered the Great Estate, Huaifu had never spoken this much, he had never had such an easy tongue. Xiaoyun, in a state of mental distraction, was already on the edge of explosion as Huaifu slowly continued, "That's what your sister is worried about as well, but you mustn't do anything rash. I know that your pride can't swallow the insult, but since we've come this far there's no need to speak in anger. To tell the truth, sometimes I'd like nothing better than to put a knife in my cousin, too, but I could never do it—alas, in her eyes, we're nothing but two dogs. We treat her well, but she will always treat us like dogs, ordering us around like her houseboys."

"I'm neither a dog nor a houseboy." Xiaoyun shouted, in agony.

Huaifu's words had produced the foreseen effect, there were things that did not need to be said twice.

Xiaoyun's face was gloomy. He suddenly turned around, intending to march out, when Huaifu stopped him with a shout and said, with the air of conveying a great secret, "Xiaoyun, do you know why my cousin was so anxious to get engaged?"

Xiaoyun waited for the next thing Huaifu would say.

After a moment, Huaifu said, "She's expecting!"

T
he last downpour of summer was falling, with rumbling thunder and streaks of lightning. It was dusk, but so dark and gloomy that it could have been night already. Miss Yu was copying Ode to the Stone Gates and had just arrived at the word "destiny" . In Ode to the Stone Gates, this character's vertical stroke was worth careful consideration. She wrote the character several times after another, always dissatisfied with the last stroke. A clap of thunder outside badly startled Miss Yu. Following the thunder, Xiaoyun entered in a state of great agitation, appearing with the suddenness of a ghost in front of Miss Yu. Just as the last echo of the thunderclap was disappearing, he asked Miss Yu coldly, "Tomorrow is the happy day, isn't it? So I've come today to offer you my congratulations."

Miss Yu did not know that Xiaoyun had been standing beneath the Mystery Chambers for a long time. She seemed completely unaware that Xiaoyun had already turned into a man thirsty for revenge and catharsis, a man who had been twisted; a destructive, morbid youth. She did not know that a kind of hatred, long suppressed, was welling up from the depths of Xiaoyun's soul. She did not know that she was playing with fire, that to continue on this way was an unpardonable mistake. A great danger was approaching Miss Yu, but she was totally unaware of it. Miss Yu pretended that she had not heard Xiaoyun, a smile flitted across her face, and she continued to immerse herself in the calligraphy. The rain pattered down, and a feeling of overflowing joy was in Miss Yu's heart. For her, the game was now entering its most entertaining phase.

Xiaoyun had been further aggravated by Miss Yu's attitude, and was looking at her in anger. Miss Yu took a peek at his expression, and then could not help putting down her brush and asking laughingly, "Since I shall be announcing my engagement tomorrow, why didn't you wait until tomorrow to offer me your congratulations?" Xiaoyun said, "Why should I wait until tomorrow? I'm an impatient man, and I couldn't wait." Miss Yu said, smugly, "I've been waiting for days for you to come fight with me. Since you're an impatient man, why wait until today to come? Don't you know that I've been waiting for you for days? Where did you go off to?"

"You were waiting for me?"

"Who should I be waiting for?"

"How should I know? A woman as romantic as yourself falls in love with every man she meets. You could wait for anyone, and since tomorrow is the day of your engagement, how can anyone tell whom you might be waiting for?" Xiaoyun's face was as red as though he had been slapped, and he went on mercilessly, "On a night like tonight, can it be that you were in the mood to wait for me? Were you thinking of me? Did you want to get me in bed one more time?"

Miss Yu did not at all want to argue with Xiaoyun, but they seemed destined to fight every time that they met. She really could not countenance Xiaoyun's biting accusations. Lightning flashed, and the rain fell in torrents. Miss Yu said coldly, "I'll think about whoever I want to, and I'll go to bed with whomever I want, and I'm afraid no one can do a thing about it." Xiaoyun's expression was almost one of horror, he ground his teeth, and his eyes fixed on the tray with the opium things on the opium bed's little table. Miss Yu's words were even more startling for him than the thunderclap. He murmured, "Do you remember what you said once? You said—you said that you would make me hate you, hate you all my life…Let me tell you, now that you've achieved this goal—but no, you will never achieve this goal, why should I hate you all my life?"

Unconsciously, Xiaoyun had put his hand in his pocket, and taken out a snuff bottle. Thereupon, he was startled by his own action, and wanted to put the snuff bottle back again, but then he reconsidered, and decided he might as well let Miss Yu see it. "Do you know what this is? Have a good look. This is the poison I used on your brother. You won't believe me, but I've carried this poison with me for many years, I've always kept it on my body." He slowly twisted open the lid and tipped some powder into his palm. "I just need to mix this stuff into the opium pill—"

Miss Yu grabbed the snuff box, examined it indifferently, and also tipped some of the powder into her palm, holding it under her nose to sniff it. A look of great malice shot through Xiaoyun's eyes. He looked at Miss Yu, grabbed her hand, and snatched the snuff box back again. Miss Yu said, "Why did you want me to look at this? Were you really trying to frighten me?" She really couldn't believe that Xiaoyun would do something to harm her. "A person won't do the same stupid thing twice. Even if he wanted to, he wouldn't dare. Besides, if you really were going to poison me, I'm not afraid. Why not? Because you like me, you love me, and I like you too, I love you. Nobody will harm the one he loves, nor can anyone be harmed by the one she loves."

Miss Yu's words only pained Xiaoyun more deeply. In torment, he said, "Even now, you can say that? You still say that you like me, that you love me? Even now, you still want to play the I-love-you-you-love-me game?" His fingers were trembling, and he tipped some of the white powder into the opium box, using the needle to mix it. As he mixed it, he said, almost as though he were talking in his sleep, "So you're still lying to me, still toying with me. Why are you Zhens all like this?" He seemed to have turned into a fifteen-year-old youth again. The fat prostitute was ogling him once more.

At a loss, Miss Yu looked at Xiaoyun, beginning to realize that perhaps she had taken her joke too far. Xiaoyun was like a man in a dream, living a delusion, "You all treat me like a houseboy. Not in your dreams! As for me, never again will I be someone's houseboy, never again!" And as he spoke, he took up a bit of the now fully mixed opium paste on his needle, and placed it over the lamp to vaporize it. His hands were shaking like a man with malaria, "Even now, you dare to say that you like me, that you love me!"

"But I really do love you." Miss Yu looked with passion at Xiaoyun's hand, watching his hands tremble as he vaporized the opium. She didn't know how she could make Xiaoyun come to his senses, how to make him realize that she loved him. His pain filled Miss Yu with a feeling that could not be put into words. "Xiaoyun, I love you." she said, with great tenderness.

"You love me?"

"I love you?"

"You love me," said Xiaoyun, not believing her, shaking his head back and forth.

Miss Yu began to be frightened, and looked at Xiaoyun foolishly. She really was afraid now. She looked at Xiaoyun and said, helplessly, "If I told you that tomorrow I was announcing my engagement, and it was to you, what would you think?"

"What would I think? Put yourself in my shoes, what I would think? Do you think that would make me happy? Flattered, moved to tears? I should have figured out long ago that a woman like you is never true of heart. Even if we were to be married, you would never really like me. You think I don't know that your sudden rush to get married is because you already have a bun in the oven, because you need somebody to stand husband for you, to hide your shame?"

Miss Yu couldn't believe that Xiaoyun would think such a thing. She couldn't believe that Xiaoyun would hold such an opinion of her. "You needn't imagine everyone is such a fool. I'm afraid you don't know yourself whose seed you're carrying." Xiaoyun said, extremely harshly, "Why did you have to be so shameless!" Xiaoyun's pained accusations put Miss Yu to utter shame. It had never occurred to her to use marriage as a way to hide her shame, and it had never occurred to her that the child she was carrying might be anybody else's. Since she loved Xiaoyun so much, the child was doubtless the manifestation of their love for each other.

Xiaoyun was like a man possessed, molding the opium pill over the opium lamp. The opium was already ready, and was hissing above the lamp. Miss Yu felt that her heart was about to break, and she didn't know how she ought to express her feelings to Xiaoyun. "I like you so much. You really don't understand? Xiaoyun, tell me, how can I make you believe that I do like you, with all my heart?"

"How can you make me believe?" Xiaoyun was deeply disappointed, deeply despondent, deeply malicious, he said, obdurately cursing her, "Never, unless you smoke this opium while I watch you, not unless you become like your brother." Xiaoyun's words stunned Miss Yu. She couldn't believe that this was the only way Xiaoyun would let her prove her love—she could not believe it. She stared at Xiaoyun fixedly as though he was a stranger, and suddenly doubted whether she really did love him. Xiaoyun sneered and looked expressionlessly at the horrified Miss Yu: "Afraid? Why should you be afraid? Didn't you say that a person could never be hurt by the one she loved, didn't you want me to believe you? Ah, how could someone like you ever be sincere?"

Xiaoyun threw the needle in the opium tray and walked to the window with the air of an insulted man. He had already exacted a deep revenge upon Miss Yu. Whether or not she really loved him, Xiaoyun felt that he had won his self-respect back. He felt that he had already said everything he ought to say. The rain fell heavily outside the window, and lightning flashed against the sky. He saw that Huaifu was standing like a block of wood beneath the Mystery Chambers. Evidently, Huaifu had been watching them from below, standing there like a ghost. After the slow roll of thunder, Xiaoyun noticed that Huaifu's whole body, sopping wet from the rain, was shivering like a wet poodle's. Just then, Miss Yu, standing behind Xiaoyun, rashly picked up the opium pipe. Xiaoyun seemed to realize that there was something wrong, and slowly, turning around, he saw in a panic that Miss Yu was solemnly holding the pipe.

Xiaoyun shouted, "No! Don't—"

Miss Yu seemed to have noticed that there was something wrong with the flavor, and she also felt that Xiaoyun was trying to stop her. However, Xiaoyun's shout, though meant to put a stop to it, only acted upon her as an encouragement. Like a woman possessed, as though she could not resist the temptation of smoking, she suddenly sucked all the smoke in. Xiaoyun looked at her helplessly, covering his mouth and nose in horror. Miss Yu did not react at all, and after a moment she exhaled the smoke from her mouth and nose.

Xiaoyun shouted wildly, rushed downstairs and sprinted about at random in the dark like a dog who has lost his owner. He fell in the rain, rose up again, and found that Huaifu was standing above him. Both men's eyes were indifferent, as though neither knew the other. An extreme horror gnawed at their hearts like a rat. The rain still splashed down. Huaifu was about to ask Xiaoyun what the matter was, when Xiaoyun ran past him like a madman.

H
uaifu climbed the narrow stairwell of the Mystery Chambers. He stood at the door, but didn't dare to cross the threshold. His heart was thumping, as though he had a premonition that something had happened. Xiaoyun's crazed appearance had led Huaifu to believe that events were developing to his advantage. He didn't dare find out what specifically had happened in the room, he really didn't dare to look. Miss Yu was on the edge of nirvana, she was wearing a beautiful smile, but her smile was gradually changing, growing stiff, exaggerated. Huaifu couldn't believe that this was the cruel conclusion he had been hoping for, he approached Miss Yu, slowly knelt, and in a low, painful whisper called her name. It was very quiet in the Mystery Chambers, and Miss Yu's lips were trembling, but she could make no sound. Huaifu threw himself on Miss Yu's knees and began to wail pitifully. Miss Yu seemed still to be intoxicated, slurring her speech, she said, "What are you crying for? Don't cry, don't cry."

No one was ever to learn what Miss Yu's thoughts were before paralysis set in. No one could have imagined the extent of the pain. Miss Yu seemed for a long time merely to be submerged in the numbness of opium, half-smiling, staring foolishly in front of herself. In the Great Estate, it seemed as though the great wide boards had again been laid down, to even out the ground. This formed a thrilling red path, but not a soul was on it. The air echoed with the voices and firecrackers of a marriage engagement, an extended joyful bustling. Yet only Miss Yu could see this scene of splendor, and she smiled as she looked upon it. Finally her lips stopped trembling.

The engagement ceremony, originally set for the following day, had to be postponed for the next day, at dusk. Although the news of Miss Yu's paralysis had already made the rounds of the small town, few of the Zhen clansmen in faraway Yaoshan were aware of it. Once more, as at the funeral of Old Master Zhen, everybody rushed to be present, crowding in formidable array into the Estate, crushing into the magnificently decorated Great Hall. It was a thoroughly ridiculous engagement ceremony, and many of the attendees had only come in order to avail themselves of an opportunity to stuff themselves with good food. As the ceremony, so long delayed, finally began, seventh Grandfather's eyes opened wide with astonishment, and the other representatives of the clan seated at his sides, also began to stare.