Sulking, Mrs. Yun began making a commotion with the dishes in the kitchen.
“Just ignore it. Isn’t it the same as if it weren’t here?” Wumei said in a low voice.
She was standing next to the door, her eyes wide open. Mrs. Yun couldn’t figure out what her bright black eyes were saying. She merely thought that her daughter was becoming more and more bewildering.
“What do you mean? It’s obviously in that tree. And we’ve obviously lost two hens.”
“We can raise more chickens.”
With that, she walked away.
Mrs. Yun got goose pimples at the thought of Wumei’s black rings. And so she sighed to herself: “Ah, she’s destined to survive.”
Mr. Yun went to the market with a load of hemp sandals. Mrs. Yun went to the farm to pull weeds. She didn’t ask Wumei to go along.
As soon as she opened the door, she saw it. Now it was coming in the daytime, too. What a cruel thing! What should she do? She thought and thought, but could find no way to deal with the situation. Whatever will be, will be, she concluded. After closing the courtyard gate, she went to the farm.
It was an overcast day. Mrs. Yun kept listening uneasily. If there was any movement, she could run home at once. But nothing happened all morning. When she went home, it had left the tree. For some reason, Mrs. Yun felt that without the owl the tree was a little lonely and was standing there listlessly. Had she been affected by her daughter?
Nothing happened that night.
=
Now Mrs. Yun was sitting in the doorway, stitching soles for cloth shoes, and the gigantic bird was in the tree across from her. The afternoon before, it had pecked a piglet to death — a tragic scene. Mrs. Yun reminded her husband of her father’s hunting rifle. Mr. Yun took the gun in his hands, looked around for a long time, and then put it down again. He said stiffly, “It’s useless.”
“Why? Why?” Mrs. Yun said impatiently, “Nothing’s wrong with this rifle. Last year, Yun Bao killed a lot of wild rabbits with it. It’s a good rifle.”
“Is this a wild rabbit?” Mr. Yun roared fiercely.
“Then, what do you think it is? It’s going to do us in.” Mrs. Yun was furious.
“It is — it is—bah!!”
Mr. Yun went to the kitchen and started the fire.
Mrs. Yun’s eyes blurred as she stitched the soles. It was as if the end of the world was coming. It took a long time for her to compose herself. She saw Wumei walk past the ditch with a basket on her arm. She was cutting pig fodder. She wasn’t the least bit afraid, nor was she concerned about the family’s losses. This child was a little callous. Whenever she told her anything, she said the same thing: “Just ignore it.” But Mrs. Yun noticed that her daughter had changed: when she cut firewood and pig fodder, she no longer went far away, and she seemed to be detouring around that evil bird. Mrs. Yun was a little excited by this discovery. Father and daughter were not ignoring this issue, after all. Could they figure out what to do? As a housewife, she knew she couldn’t make the decision in such a serious matter. She could only worry. When she looked again at the owl, it seemed bigger: it looked like a tiger sitting there.
From the kitchen came the sound of Mr. Yun singing mountain ballads. He seemed emotional. When he was young, he’d been good at singing these ballads. He was an educated person from the city, yet he had voluntarily settled down in the countryside. Mrs. Yun had come with him. Life in the countryside was quiet and dull, but because Mr. Yun liked it, Mrs. Yun subsequently came to like it, too.
Mr. Yun hadn’t sung for a long time. Now, hearing him, Mrs. Yun couldn’t sit still. She ran into the kitchen and started making pancakes.
“Are you making pancakes?” Mr. Yun was a little surprised.
“We have to celebrate!” Mrs. Yun said decisively.
“Oh, good point!”
The pancakes smelled delicious!
Wumei came home, and the three of them sat around the table eating pancakes. Mr. Yun was in a great mood; he even drank a glass of wine. Wumei had some wine, too, and her face glowed red. Looking at Mrs. Yun, she widened her eyes and said: “Are you going to leave us, Mama?”
“What?” Mrs. Yun thought she’d heard wrong. “What did you say?”
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.” Wumei lowered her head and whimpered.
“She’s had too much to drink,” Mr. Yun said. “Why don’t you have a little, too?”
And so Mrs. Yun also took a glass of wine.
Mrs. Yun seldom drank; when she left, she was a little dizzy. Carrying a bamboo basket, she went out to pick beans. She had just reached the turn when she was ambushed. She was aware of a lot of whips lashing her body. Since she couldn’t avoid them, all she could do was roll around on the ground. She wondered if she would die. The bird was on top of her. How had it grown so many whips? Some struck her ruthlessly, as if hacking her body into two halves. She heard her tragic wail spread in the distance. After a while, she fainted; before she plummeted into darkness, she saw a terribly bright fireball.
When she sat up, she was in so much pain that it was like being pricked by needles. She moaned. From behind, someone pulled her up by her armpits. She screamed in pain, but she was steady on her feet. Ah, this was a middle-aged man, a stranger. When she looked at him again, though, she thought she’d seen him before. She remembered: when she was young, there was a handsome young man who had repaired cart tires at the roadside for a living. This one looked much like him, but was much stronger.
Mrs. Yun was a little excited.
“Are you Youlin?” she asked. Her voice quivered from pain.
“Yes. And you’re Xiumei.” As he spoke, his eyes roved. “That evil bird wants to destroy you.”
“How did you happen to come here?”
“Why not? I often do. It isn’t far.”
“Not far from where?” Mrs. Yun looked at him in astonishment.
“My home. It’s nearby.”
“Your home?”
“Yes. Over there.” He was pointing toward the wasteland behind him.
It finally occurred to Mrs. Yun that she’d been leaning against Youlin all along. Was he really that Youlin? Why didn’t she feel at all shy? He supported her weight as she walked, and after she took a few mechanical steps, her pain subsided. Walking west, they crossed the wasteland and came to a vast swale. Mrs. Yun whispered to herself: Did he actually live in the marsh?
“Do you have a job, Youlin?”
“The same as before — fixing tires. That’s all I can do.”
“How can there be anyone in this wasteland who needs tires repaired?”
“There are always one or two. You haven’t noticed them. When it’s nearly sunset, they come over from the marsh.”
“The marsh?! No one can walk in it.”
“They’re light. They can walk over from above.”
At first, Mrs. Yun had been a little excited by leaning against a man she had dreamed of in her youth. Now, all of a sudden, it was as though she’d been splashed with cold water. She wanted to break loose from him, but when she tried, she was pressed even closer to him. Slowly, she began to desire him, but this feeling also frightened her. Her arms lengthened and tightly entwined him.
“Then, can you also walk over from above?” Her voice was trembling.
“Ah. Yes.”
They could see the marsh and an apple tree there. Youlin’s tools hung from a fork in the tree, and the chrome-plated wrench flashed with light. Looking at this scene, Mrs. Yun felt glum. But this didn’t hold her longing within limits.
They sat down to rest under the apple tree. Birds were squabbling fearfully in the marsh. Mrs. Yun noticed a tiny grave with a tombstone on it. Mrs. Yun asked Youlin whose it was and how a tomb could be built in a marsh. Youlin was thinking back on something. After a while, he finally answered, “Him.”