Liu Yue began to cry. Zhuang, who was sitting there looking stern, saw that and realized that she was, after all, an outsider. But he also wanted to aggravate his wife.
“No need to cry, Liu Yue,” he said as he banged the table. “Let her do what she wants. One of these days, you’ll come back to the compound and cook for me alone.”
“All right, then,” Niu Yueqing said. “Since you make enough money to hire a maid, you can do what you want. You’re ganging up on me. I can’t criticize my husband and I can’t say a bad thing about a maid, so what status do I have in this house? I’ve brought shame to my ancestors.” Now she was crying, which increased Zhuang’s anger. But before he could blow up, the old lady came out on unsteady feet. Liu Yue went up to help her, but she pushed the girl away and pointed her finger at Zhuang. Her lips quivered, but not a word came out. Zhuang turned, opened the door, and walked out, heading for the apartment in the Literary Federation compound, where he would spend the night.
. . .
Zhuang chose not to return home from the apartment; Niu Yueqing chose not to join him there. Given the standoff, the birthday party was canceled. Liu Yue’s outburst that day had created a rift between her and Niu Yueqing, a development that secretly pleased her, as she had been waiting to see Zhuang’s wife make a fool of herself. She started paying more attention to her appearance. One day, when some fans of literature dropped by, she received them properly, without looking too humble or too haughty. A while later, she gathered up some papers Zhuang needed to attend to — important letters, requests from newspaper editors, and invitations to various social functions — and handed them to Niu Yueqing. “These are all pretty urgent, Dajie. Do you want to deliver them, or should I go?”
Niu Yueqing, surprised by how the girl’s mind worked, wondered if maybe Liu Yue was more capable than she. “I don’t want to see him.”
So Liu Yue went to the compound. Zhuang was naturally happy to see her, taking note of how neatly she had arranged the letters and documents, how bright her clothes were, and how nicely she had made herself up. Taking her hand, he chatted with her for a while, then asked her to make something for him to eat before she headed back. Thereafter, she traveled between the two places. Niu Yueqing was upset with Zhuang, but he was her husband, after all, so she did not voice her view on Liu Yue’s trips; rather, she bought what he liked to eat and quietly left it in a basket for Liu Yue to take along.
During this time, Tang Wan’er also made several visits to the compound, frequently enough that the guard, Granny Wei, could remember the young woman with the lovely eyes and easy smile. Once she even asked Zhuang if Tang was an actress, prompting him to change their meeting place to the House of Imperfection Seekers. On this day, the sun came out after a brief rain, turning the air humid and stiflingly hot. Zhuang waited at the house for Tang, but she didn’t show. So he took out a pair of binoculars they had bought together to enjoy a view of the city and trained it on a building across the way. It was the dormitory for female workers at an embroidery factory. Eight young women with pretty eyes and nice teeth stayed in one room. They had likely just gotten off work, for they were washing up, dressed in shorts and bras. Three of them were engaged in horseplay. Engrossed by the scene, he was surprised to see a sheet of newspaper held up to the window with large words in ink: “Shame on you.” Red-faced, he lowered the blinds and went back inside, where he spotted a note under the door. He picked it up and saw that it was from Tang, who had slid it in earlier that day. He had overlooked it when he came in.
“Good news: Zhou Min says the deputy governor in charge of cultural affairs has stepped down and that the head of the Propaganda Office wrote ‘To be resolved by the Department of Culture’ on the announcement, so the magazine has stuck to their decision to print it as written. Jing Xueyin objected, and Zhong Weixian said that in that case they wouldn’t print it. So it doesn’t appear in the latest issue.” She had added: “I can’t come today. A friend of Zhou’s came from Tongguan with news from home, and Zhou Min and I have to feed him. I stopped by on my way to buy groceries. Forgive me.”
Zhuang let out a sigh. So the deputy governor was out. What good timing. Niu Yueqing wanted a birthday celebration to drive out bad luck, but how can a birthday do that? And now something good has happened without a celebration. What a shame Wan’er can’t be here; otherwise we would drink a toast to that. He fantasized about what they would do, and as his fanciful thoughts took flight, something stirred between his legs. He took off his clothes to take care of himself. ☐☐ ☐☐ ☐☐ [The author has deleted 48 words.] He reached the height of his fantasy and came; then, when he wiped it off with the note, he discovered more writing on the back: “Bad news: Zhou Min said that Meng Laoshi has gone blind in one eye.”
Zhuang was staggered. He quickly dressed, washed his face, and rushed out, heading for Meng’s house.
Meng had indeed lost sight in one eye. It was a highly unusual circumstance: everything looked fine on the surface, and he felt no pain or itch. He just could not see with that eye. Not in the least upset, he said with a laugh, “I found out yesterday morning when I woke up. I went to the doctor, but the exam didn’t show anything. Zhidie, don’t try to pull one over on me anymore, because I’m now a one-eyed wonder.”
Feeling sorry for the man, Zhuang said that one visit wasn’t enough, that Meng should go see more doctors.
“Not even the King of Medicine, Sun Simiao, with his magical healing powers, could do anything. You know why this happened? I’ve made some progress in my study of Master Shao’s Magic Numbers. Let’s give it a try.”
He took a leather case out from under a table. It was filled with three thread-bound books. “You were born at eight o’clock on the evening of July twenty-third in 1951, weren’t you? Now, wait. I’ll come up with a series of numbers, and you can look them up in these.”
Zhuang was in a fog as Meng wrote out three four-digit numbers. Following the instructions, he flipped through the books to come up with three poems:
One: Cut up goose down when a northern wind blows
Plum blossoms in snow and the bamboo is brighter than ever
The birthday is the seventh month of the intercalary year
And he was born on the twenty-third day
Two: The lost wild goose misses its flock, and tears fall freely
The siblings have different spans of life
Three brothers, each has his own destiny
One suffers a blow and loses his life early
Three: Father was born in the year of the boar and died young
Father and mother are constantly at odds
With the two parents, he loses the father first
While he will see longevity enjoyed by his mother
Speechless after he read the three poems, Zhuang cried out: “I can’t believe there’s such an incredible book. Everything about my life is recorded there.”
“You didn’t believe me when I told you about it before.” Meng closed the book and continued. “This is the most magical of the many books derived from The Book of Changes. It was lost for millennia, and even some of the finest practitioners of divination have never heard of it. According to Abbot Zhixiang, the Huangcheng Library in Xijing once held a copy. Kang Youwei came to visit, asked to see rare treasures that were scattered around the city, and walked off with a few pieces. When the library and the Yunhuang Temple found out that he’d taken an ink stone and a volume of sutras, they wrote to the provincial military governor, who sent a man after Kang. He rode his horse all the way to Tongguan before catching up with him and demanding that he return the stolen items. The incident shook up the whole country. But later they realized that one book was also missing, and after checking the catalogue, they learned that it was Master Shao’s Magic Numbers, a long-sought-after book that no one was able to find. They knew Kang must haven stolen it. No one knew what happened to the book after Kang died. Two years ago, someone with unusual talent in Taiwan claimed to have a whole set of the magic numbers, but he didn’t have the decoding system; he traveled to thirteen provinces in search of it, but wound up empty-handed. I’ve got it right here.”