Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
I looked at her anxiously, not knowing what to do.
She no longer seemed as fragile as she once had.
A smile curved her lips. She beckoned me closer to whisper.
What she told me made me cover my mouth in astonishment.
“Don't worry, Sister. Just do as I say.”
I nodded dazedly.
From that moment, my doubts fell away.
All I wanted was to save her.
The next day, before the banquet even began, men crowded our gate.
“How much longer? I've been here since before dawn!”
Mother hurriedly told me to bring out the bowls.
Their fragrance made the men salivate.
“One bowl,” she said, lifting her eyebrows, “and you'll feel like strong young men again.”
“Then you'll enjoy the cellar more than paradise!”
They eagerly paid her extravagant prices.
Even the old scrap collector brought out all his savings and pushed to the front.
They devoured the pudding.
Not a drop remained.
Then they fought to get down to the cellar.
The village women couldn't control their husbands. They stood at our gate shouting abuse.
Mother ignored them.
Money was all she wanted.
From sunrise to sunset, so many men crossed our threshold that they seemed to wear it lower.
Some rushed back upstairs in disarray, demanding another bowl.
Mother hugged her money bag, grinning from ear to ear.
“Forget one miserable gold bracelet. This could buy a whole set of jewelry!”
“Let's see how Widow Kang competes with that!”
Kang wasn't at her doorway arguing today.
Her precious son was home again.
She was probably busy cooking and washing for him.
Pretending I needed the toilet, I stole a look through the cellar door.
My sister leaned calmly against the wall, eyes closed.
The men were entangled in their own delusions.
That reassured me.
She wasn't being hurt.
When they finally left, they were scarcely steady on their feet.
They smelled faintly of soybeans.
Their faces were pale.
Yet the greed and satisfaction remained.
They kept praising Mother's skill.
I glanced furtively at them and laughed to myself.
Mother saw them off contentedly.
“Clean up in there. I'm going to bed early.”
She took her thick stack of notes into her room.
Gathering bowls in the courtyard, I suddenly noticed two were missing.
That wasn't right.
I'd just seen them on the table.
At the same moment, the gate next door slammed shut.
Suspicion stirred.
Kang?
But the pudding was supposed to be for men.
What use would she have for it?
A faint, eerie light glowed from the cellar.
Remembering my sister, I hurried down.
Mother had been so busy making money that she'd forgotten to lock the door.
Fortunate for me.
Inside, my sister was curled on the floor, writhing in pain.
Pale gold light shone from her body.
I rushed over and took her hand helplessly.
The moment I touched her, she began to settle.
“Sister... I'm all right.”
Her pupils flickered between gold-white and black.
Eventually the light faded.
A strange force gathered around her, struggling to break her bonds.
It fell just short of snapping the chain around her neck.
“Some more of my strength has come back.”
“You're the best person to me.”
She'd always been quiet and honest, rarely affectionate like this.
Mother had tormented her body beyond anything human.
It wasn't like an ordinary person's anymore.
Even the soul inside it was different.
I looked at the girl before me and stroked her face.
“As long as you get better, I'll do anything.”
Our house remained busy for only a few days after the banquet.
Then fewer and fewer men came.
Mother stood at the gate, her expression sour.
When a man passed, she called warmly, “Brother Xu, coming for tender tofu tonight?”
He waved vaguely and walked straight into Kang's courtyard.
Mother glared.
“So the widow thinks she can steal my customers?”
Furious, she stopped other men on the road.
They smiled knowingly.
“Widow Kang's not what she was.”
“Half your price, and no worse to look at.”
Smacking their lips, they went next door.
For several nights, Kang's house blazed with light.
Secretly, I was pleased.
Fewer men in our cellar meant less suffering for my sister.
She'd taken in plenty of vital essence at the banquet. Her body had recovered considerably.
If Kang could lure every man in the village away, so much the better.
A few days later, a scream like a pig being slaughtered split the night next door.
It woke the neighborhood.
When people pushed open Kang's gate, they found her standing in the courtyard, hair disheveled, pointing into the house in terror.
Inside, a man lay on the bed.
The flesh on his legs had crumbled away, leaving white bones.
He trembled, trying to pull himself up by the bedframe.
Two more pieces fell off.
His whole body seemed as fragile as Mother's tender tofu.
Mother seized her chance.
“The widow must have used some evil art to make herself so attractive!”
“She did this to him!”
The men were frightened.
Quite a few had visited Kang recently.
The man on the bed was close to fainting with pain. No one dared move him.
One touch might make him fall apart.
Kang stammered.
“This has nothing to do with me. It was because I ate—”
Before she finished, frightened women began shouting outside.
Other men were turning soft and crumbling at home with their wives.
The affliction spread like an epidemic.
Soon, every man in the village lived in fear.
Mother quietly returned home.
She took a cloth bundle from a cabinet, shut her door, and stayed inside.
I slipped down to see my sister.
Before I reached the door, her delighted voice greeted me.
“Sister! You're here.”
I peered through the crack as usual.
Her smile was as innocent as in childhood.
She tried to come closer despite the chain.
For a moment...
It felt as though my real sister had come back.
The door kept us apart. I could only ask softly how she was.
“Don't worry. I'm recovering very well. It won't be long now.”
I was truly happy.
Then she lowered her head.
When she looked up, her voice had become more plaintive.
“But Sister, if you really want me back the way I was, there's one more thing.”
“What? I'll find it for you.”
Joy appeared in her eyes.
Gold-white spread across her pupils.
“The essence I took wasn't enough.”
“To break free of Mother completely, I need the Yellow Jade Bean.”
“The Yellow Jade Bean?” I murmured. “Where is it?”
She pointed toward Mother's room.
“Do you mean the jade bean on her necklace?”
She nodded.
Years earlier, Mother had returned from the mountain as though she'd found a treasure.
She shut herself in her room for a while.
When she emerged, a necklace hung around her neck.
The pendant wasn't remarkable.
Only a round bean carved from yellow jade.
She'd told us, “A blessing from heaven. The immortals are protecting us.”
After that, she began making the tofu pudding that no one else in the village could match.
Thinking back, all the strange things happening here had to be connected to that pendant.
“Remember, Sister. You can only help me if you bring me that bean.”
I nodded firmly.
Since the men fell ill, they'd hidden at home, too frightened to seek pleasure outside.
But some disasters couldn't be avoided by hiding your head.
Their flesh ulcerated and fell away.
It didn't kill them.
It only left pain and terror clinging to them, day and night.
And every midnight, people heard soybeans falling.
As though someone were scattering handfuls over their floors and letting them roll.
Turn on the light, and there was nothing there.
Gradually, everyone began saying the village was haunted.
Fear spread.
Only two households were exceptions.
Ours was one.
Mother had been capable of doing that to my sister. Clearly she'd long since stopped fearing spirits or gods.
No one dared visit the cellar now.
Without money coming in, she spent her days in the courtyard complaining to heaven and earth.
The other was Kang's house.
After that night, no one dared enter her courtyard either.
Someone couldn't bear the loss of income.
Her son, Qiangzi.
Unable to get money, he shouted, cursed, and made trouble every day.
“If the village men won't come, go sell yourself somewhere else!”
“I don't care! I'm winning back what I lost tonight!”
“No money? I'll sell you to the gambling den!”
Even I felt a chill on her behalf.
Toward evening, I crept to Mother's door.
She was asleep.
Scissors in hand, I eased inside.
Just as I was about to cut the cord behind her neck, I smelled thick smoke.
It soon filled the house.
I ran outside.
The straw on the side shed's roof was burning.
The flames drove everything else from my mind.
Bucket after bucket of water finally weakened them.
How had it started?
The shed stood right beside Kang's courtyard.
Could she have done it?
Mother woke to the commotion.
Seeing where the fire was, she began shouting.
“Which blind fool set fire to my roof?”
“Too old and ugly for anyone, so you come here to go mad?”
“Find an old man of your own if you're so capable! Give your son a stepfather!”
Kang had been swallowing anger for too long.
She rushed in and attacked Mother.
By the time I'd put the fire out completely, the neighbors had separated them.
Mother straightened her clothes and stalked back into the courtyard.
“One of these days, I'll teach that widow a lesson!”
I'd heard that often enough.
Then I looked back and noticed something wrong.
“Mother, where's your jade pendant?”
She was as alarmed as I was.
We searched the area all day.
No Yellow Jade Bean.
Mother frowned in silence.
Then she set off for the mountain behind the village.
It was from that mountain that she'd brought the pendant years earlier.
I followed.
Under a pitch-black sky, two figures walked along the mountain path, one behind the other.
Mother went farther and farther.
Even the faint starlight seemed to dim.
Only leaves rustled now and then in the wind.
After winding along several paths, she stopped before a cave.
I hid outside for a long time.
She was murmuring prayers inside.
Appealing to some deity for protection, perhaps.
At last, she came out pale-faced and went home.
Curious, I entered.
The light of a newly lit flame flickered in the darkness.
A tall stone statue stood before me.
It depicted a village woman, eyes closed, lifting small round stones in her hand as though to smell them.
Her face was peaceful.
No one seemed to have worshipped here for a long time.
Cobwebs covered everything.
A stone inscription nearby gave me the rough outline of her story.
She'd come from our village many years before.
Clever with her hands, she'd developed a soft, fragrant tofu pudding famous throughout the region.
In a time of hunger and privation, her bowls had fed more than half the village.
They'd nourished countless children.
The villagers had erected this shrine in her memory.
Strange.
I'd never once heard an elder mention her.
I stood beside the statue, feeling around and thinking.
My hand accidentally pressed a raised spot.
Click.