After some thought, he picked up the blanket and went into the bedroom. Niu Yueqing had turned off the light, so he undressed and went into the bathroom to wash, then groped his way into bed. She had rolled the blanket around her, but he forced his way in and climbed on top. She neither resisted nor displayed any reaction, so he got going quietly. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 52 words.] Doing his best to seem eager, he pretended to be aroused. He tried to kiss her, but she clamped her teeth together and rolled her head back and forth. “I’ll tell you a story about an impatient man eating quail eggs cooked with spinach,” he said lightheartedly. “He picked at an egg with his chopsticks, but it rolled to the side, so he tried again, and this time it rolled to the other side. After five or six attempts, he lost his patience, knocked it to the floor, and squashed it.”
She laughed. “You can squash me if you want.”
“All right. Everything’s fine. A husband and wife patch things up in bed after a fight.”
“So you’ve thought it through and found your conscience?” He held his tongue. “I’d have lost all faith in you if you hadn’t come to me tonight. Now that you’re here, I’ll let you off the hook and forget about what has happened. But I’ve learned my lesson, and I know I have to keep an eye on you. I want you to break off all communication with Tang Wan’er. I’ll accompany you when you go to her house, and she is not to come here without my permission.” He remained silent while continuing what he was doing under the blanket.
“You’re in good shape tonight, but I’m not, so tell me another story.” She pushed him off her. He lay in the dark for a while, since he had no story to tell her, and then got up to turn on the light, saying they could watch a video.
“An adult video?” she asked as he inserted a tape, immediately filling the screen with lots of action.
“You call those humans?” she asked. “They’re animals.”
“Many intellectuals have these in their houses, for husbands and wives to set the mood. What do you think? Does it work for you?”
“Turn it off. It looks awful.”
He turned the TV off and got back into bed. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 36 words.] “Did you and Tang Wan’er do it this way?” she asked. He fell silent again, but she persisted.
“No more talk of that,” he said. “If you want to make love, talk like you do.”
She tried to keep quiet, but blurted out, “No. This is no good. I keep thinking about what you two do together, and it makes me want to throw up.”
He stopped in mid-action, climbed off, and shed silent tears.
. . .
One morning Niu Yueqing was putting clothes out to dry on the balcony when the pigeon landed on the windowsill. Always fond of the little bird with its white feathers and sweet, cooing red beak, she put down her washbasin, picked up the bird, and laid it in her hand. The folded paper on its toe ring caught her attention. “I want you,” it read, with a lipstick mark over the words. She froze as she realized it was a message from Tang Wan’er asking for another tryst. After tying the pigeon down with string, she waited in the living room for Liu Yue to return from buying cooking oil.
Niu Yueqing locked the door the moment Liu Yue got in. She placed a small round stool in the middle of the living room, fetched a leather duster from her bedroom, and told the girl to sit down.
“Let me put the oil in the kitchen first. There were so many people on the street today, I couldn’t get through, so I yelled, ‘Oil here, oil here,’ and a little space finally opened for me.”
“I told you to sit down.”
“What’s the matter with you, Dajie? I’m not going to sit down.”
That earned her a whack from the leather duster. She cried out with an ugly look, “You hit me!”
“Yes, I hit you. I’m the mistress of the house and you’re the maid. You colluded with a cheap woman to deceive me, so why can’t I hit you? Even if the mayor were here, he wouldn’t stop me. Tell me, how many times has that cunt been here? And how did you make the bed and get everything ready for them? How did you keep watch for them?”
Still thinking that the mistress was simply jealous, Liu Yue said, “How would I know what happened between them? I was just venting my anger when I mentioned it, but you took it seriously and stirred up trouble in the house. Now you’ve hit me for no reason. I may be a lowly maid, but I’m human, too. You really hurt me. Do you want to kill me? Even if you don’t respect me or my peasant parents, I’m a member of the mayor’s family. What gives you the right to beat me?”
Niu Yueqing brought over the pigeon and threw the note at Liu’s feet. “This! You stay home all the time, feeding the pigeon and receiving notes, so you must have played a role in their trysts. If I didn’t beat you, what would you expect me to do? Thank you? Show you respect?” Niu Yueqing hit the girl with each outburst of anger, raising welts on her arms and legs. Liu Yue groaned inwardly, aware that Niu Yueqing now knew everything. Feeling sheepish, she softened her tone as she reached out to grab at the duster. “What does what they did have to do with me?”
“How did it start? Tell me everything today or I’ll keep hitting you, and I’ll tell Dazheng and his mother. If they still want you, you can carry on your dirty deeds at City Hall. If they don’t want you, then you can take off those clothes and go back to the hills of northern Shaanxi.”
Liu Yue sobbed and told Niu Yueqing about how Zhuang and Tang Wan’er made love in the house, how he went to see her at her place, how the pigeon delivered messages that had her lipstick mark on them, sometimes even pubic hairs. In order to please Niu Yueqing and lessen her guilt, she told her everything, even things that hadn’t happened. Niu Yueqing had had her suspicions, which had fueled her imagination, but Liu Yue’s confession gave her such a vivid, detailed picture of what had gone on that she wished she hadn’t asked. Weighed down by what she learned, she felt so helpless that her blood pressure soared and caused her to twitch; the room seemed to spin.
“God,” she cried out, “I’ve been blind and deaf. They’ve been doing all of that, and I’ve been in the dark.” Opening her eyes wide, she spread her hands and asked in a quivering voice, “What do I have left, Liu Yue? I’ll tell you. I have nothing, not a thing.”
Liu Yue got down off the stool and knelt before Niu Yueqing. “I wanted to tell you, Dajie, but I’m just a maid, and I didn’t have the nerve to bring it up. Besides, would you have believed me if I’d told you back then? I helped by making it easy for them, I did. I’m truly sorry. Hit me, beat me to death.”
Niu Yueqing threw down the duster and held Liu Yue in her arms as she wept, begging the girl to hate her. She had wanted to frighten her and hit her only because of her reluctance to tell the truth. “Please forgive your poor dajie. Can you ever forgive her?”
“Of course,” Liu Yue said, and she too began to cry.
Niu Yueqing gradually calmed down. She wiped her own tears before drying those on Liu Yue’s face.
“I’ll go with you, Dajie, and rip that slut’s face off.”
“What is she, anyway?” Niu Yueqing shook her head. “A tramp who abandoned her husband and son to run away with another man, whom she then betrayed by seducing another man, a whore who loses all sense when she sees a man. I would soil my hands if I did that. Besides, people might hear about it, and everyone would know that your Zhuang Laoshi was having an affair with her. That would ruin his reputation and make her look good. He has so many admirers who can only dream of meeting him, while she slept with him. Moreover, you’ll be marrying Dazheng soon, and I wouldn’t be able to face their family if a scandal like this broke out. He did break my heart, but I still have to do my best to save him, even if he’s intent on throwing away his future, his career, his fame, and his reputation. I put up with all the arguments at home because if they had occurred outside, he’d have flung caution to the wind and insisted upon being with the slut. That would have finished him. It was hard getting to where he is now, and all I want is for him to turn over a new leaf and stop seeing her. You mustn’t let any of this reach anyone else’s ears. Don’t say a word when I confront him; pretend you don’t know anything. But you have to think about me. Let me tell you this: you and I have to keep this predilection of his in mind and keep a close eye on him. Do you know what I’m saying?”