White Peony took Aunt Pear Flower's place completely. Aside from babysitting, she cooked, fed the pigs and dogs, washed clothes and cleaned for the Wangs. Red Apricot was too young, so Wu Xianggui asked her to herd the cows. The five cows of the Wangs had been herded for many years by Li Shitou, the youngest son of Li Heshui. Now Wu Xianggui asked Li Shitou to go to the fields with his father, and for Red Apricot to herd the cows in his place.
White Peony was very satisfied with this result.
Because of her satisfaction, White Peony worked wholeheartedly. Wu Xianggui soon found that she worked harder than Aunt Pear Flower ever had, and she was even better than Aunt Pear Flower at some jobs. Moreover, she was more patient than Aunt Pear Flower with Peony, Wu Xianggui's eldest daughter. The 13-year-old Peony was spoiled and had many bad habits. Not a day went by when she did not torment others with her various tricks. In the past, Aunt Pear Flower often turned to Wu Xianggui when Peony caused trouble. Although Wu Xianggui was not always on her side to rescue her from a standoff, she turned to her anyway. White Peony was different. If Peony said that White Peony had not washed her clothes properly, White Peony would wash them again and do as she asked until Peony found it boring to make trouble. At the table, if Peony criticized the food and asked White Peony to cook something else for her, White Peony would cook without a word until Peony was satisfied. From this, Wu Xianggui drew the conclusion that White Peony was very honest.
As White Peony was such a good girl, Wu Xianggui was bound to like her. She assigned her some work related to privacy, such as emptying the chamber pot. She had never asked others to do this from the day she became a child bride to the day she managed household affairs as the authority figure of the Wangs. She had accomplished this by her own efforts. It took a good while to become the master of the house from a child bride. During this period she gradually handed over affairs to others. Now she only did some needlework, such as stitching leggings for Wang Tu. Her leggings could be stitched by others, but she had to stitch Wang Tu's leggings herself. Aside from needlework, emptying the chamber pot was the only thing left. She stopped others from meddling because she thought it was taboo for a woman.
As White Peony was an honest and dutiful girl, and Wu Xianggui was getting older, it was not out of the question to make some changes. One morning Wu Xianggui told White Peony, "Go to my room and empty the chamber pot." White Peony showed no dislike towards this new job. She was even irrepressibly excited. Soon after coming to the house, she began to encounter Wang Tu deliberately. For example, she tried to buy time when feeding his dog, hoping he would come to see the dog and bump into her. She filled Wang Tu's bowl with less rice so that she would have a chance to refill it once or twice. But there were limited opportunities to approach him because Wang Tu didn't like staying at home. Wu Xianggui's decision gave her a good reason to approach him. Besides, he got up late, so she had many opportunities.
With her heart pounding, White Peony walked into the room of Wang Tu and Wu Xianggui. The room was filled with a strange smell which irritated some of her senses but pleased others. The chamber pot was under the bed. The bed had carvings and an attractive mosquito net on which Wu Xianggui had embroidered a pair of mandarin ducks. Wang Tu was curled up sleeping soundly with his face facing outward. White Peony felt like jumping onto the bed. She took the chamber pot and left quickly.
White Peony wanted to go back but the chamber pot had to be emptied in the toilet, and she couldn't take it inside until it got dark. She gawked at it for a while, as though she saw Wang Tu in the wry-mouthed ceramic pot. However, as she lingered, Wang Tu came along. He couldn't find the chamber pot when he woke up, so he had to go to the toilet. Finding that White Peony was there, he was taken aback. As he was ready to turn around, she caught up with him. He asked, "You're done?"
She answered, "Yes."
He was ready to go to the toilet, but he asked, "Is it you who empties the chamber pot?" "Uh-huh," White Peony said. She felt that a burning tongue was licking her face, which irritated her face but gave her heart a lot of comfort.
"Ha-ha, you're a little girl!"Wang Tu laughed.
"I'm not so young," she replied.
Wang Tu went inside. His voice came out from the door and window covered with shabby sacks, "Ha-ha, how old are you?"
Hearing the sound of water, White Peony walked away quickly.
That night, White Peony put the chamber pot back under the bed and passed Wang Tu as she was coming out. He was going to the room to sleep. He talked about White Peony after he went to bed. "Did you ask the little girl to empty the chamber pot?" he asked Wu Xianggui with a casual air.
"Yes. Anything wrong?"
"No. I mean if you didn't ask her to do so, she definitely wouldn't dare."
White Peony had been thinking about catching Wang Tu's attention since she first came to the Wangs. For the relation between men and women, her petty trick seemed insufficiently clever. She was too young. At first, she thought she had taken a stride towards success by taking the job of emptying the chamber pot. She had been doing so for a long time, but Wang Tu never looked at her in earnest. She wouldn't have known how to open up a new situation but for Wang Tu's hint.
Wang Tu slept with the daughter-in-law of the tenant Zhou Dasuan, so he waived a quarter's rent for him. Zhu Daxiu went to collect the rent and brought back a rent-waiving note personally written by Wang Tu. The note didn't say that Wang Tu had slept with Zhou Dasuan's daughter-in-law, but Zhu Daxiu and Wu Xianggui both knew what had taken place. It was not the first time Wang Tu had done such a thing and written such a note. The Wangs had more than thirty tenants. Such a note had been written before to tenants who had young women. Wu Xianggui was so angry that she almost spat blood when she saw the note for the first time. The people of the Flower River area all knew that the tenants of the Wangs were not afraid of their landlord and even liked him. They cursed Wu Xianggui and Zhu Daxiu every day, but they laughed and joked with Wang Tu. He liked idling about on both banks of Flower River. He sometimes went to his tenants'houses to drink water. If there were young women, he would stay for a while. These young women were not afraid of Wang Tu. After the appearance of the first rent-waiving note, they proposed a condition to him: "You can sleep with me but you must promise to waive my family's rent for a quarter." Wang Tu always readily agreed. The men knew how these notes were obtained, but they didn't blame the young women or Wang Tu. They didn't care for the same reason Wu Xianggui did: a quarter's rent. Those whose rent was exempted didn't care, but Wu Xianggui cared about not receiving that rent. She had scorned the first rent-waiving note. She tore it up and told the tenant that it didn't count. However, Wang Tu wrote another note. Then he told her that she may have the final say on other affairs but he had the final say on that, because it was he and not she who had slept with the tenant's young woman.
After that, the young women put away the sense of shame in their hearts. When it came time to pay the rent, they vied with one another to seduce Wang Tu. As time passed, it became the normal way of things, like the caterwauling of cats in spring and autumn. But Wang Tu was not foolish; he wanted the rent. He understood the young women and himself, and knew how to deal with them. He avoided and stayed far away from them. He went to visit relatives or stayed in the city for half a month. Half a month was enough for Zhu Daxiu to collect the rent of all the tenants. Then he came back. If a persistent woman was still waiting for him, he was willing to trade with her.
When Wu Xianggui cursed Zhou Dasuan's daughter-in -law Jasmine and Wang Tu without scruple, White Peony came up with an idea. She wanted to draw inspiration from Jasmine. She made time to go across the river to visit her. She borrowed a needle from her and took the opportunity to size her up. After she got home, she stuffed cloth balls into her clothes to enlarge her breasts and hips. Stuffing her clothes with cloth balls meant increasing her confidence, and she was full of confidence after doing so. She lingered purposefully when she entered Wang Tu's room again to empty the chamber pot, trying to catch his eye. However, Wang Tu didn't change his behavior at all. He still got up late every day and occasionally opened his eyes when White Peony came close to his bed, but it was no use opening his eyes; it seemed he didn't see her at all.
White Peony was depressed. Although Red Apricot was careless, she sensed her sister's problem this time. The next day, Red Apricot came across Wang Tu by the river and thought that she could help her sister. She was herding cows by the river and Wang Tu was going to go cross the river to play chess in the street. In winter, the river level was extremely low. It was unnecessary to make a detour to the bridge, so Wang Tu chose to go across the river directly.
Seeing Wang Tu approaching her, Red Apricot looked at him without blinking. When he drew near, his dog wagged its tail. Wang Tu cast a glance at her and said in a joking tone, "You herd my cows here? Do you think they eat stones?" Red Apricot was amused and her laughter drew his attention, so he was willing to stay for a while. Red Apricot had been herding cows for his family for nearly one year. This was the first time he noticed that her voice was very special. "Your voice has always been so?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied.
He roared with laughter. Like his other whims, he wanted to study her voice.
"Laugh again," he said.
Red Apricot giggled.
Wang Tu drew a conclusion: "We use one throat to produce sounds and another to swallow, but you use both throats to produce sounds."
He took a step and made ready to leave.
Suddenly Red Apricot thought of her task: she had to ask a question for her sister. "Why do you pretend not to see my sister?"
Wang Tu stopped in a daze and asked, "What did you say?"
"White Peony stuffed her clothes with cloth balls every day in order to draw your attention."
Wang Tu didn't care about what a child said, but he opened his eyes attentively the next day when White Peony went to empty the chamber pot. White Peony saw daylight and stayed longer. Wang Tu noticed that White Peony had changed: she had a good figure. When she took the chamber pot and was about to leave, he suddenly said, "I see."
Stunned, White Peony asked, "What do you see?" "I see you." He said so just to report back to Red Apricot. He was not interested in the cloth balls in her clothes, but White Peony thought it was important. After that, she not only stuffed her clothes with cloth balls carefully, but also imitated the expressions of the young women.
Suddenly, White Peony took the housework lightly. She had to spare more time to go to the river bank and pretend to do chores. In fact, she wanted to learn the postures of the young women in the presence of men. Every time she learned a look or expression, she practiced it the next day. But Wang Tu seemed a little numb, for he only kept his eyes on her for a moment.
Actually, two other people were paying special attention to White Peony: one was Peony and the other was Wang Chong, who had been engaged to White Peony since she was eight.
