Despite Wang Chong's auspicious day and suona performers, Wu Xianggui told him that White Peony wouldn't be marrying him. Wang Chong thought she was joking, and asked, "If White Peony doesn't marry me, then who will she marry?"
"She'll marry Wang Tu."
Wang Chong still thought she was joking. But Wu Xianggui told him clearly that she was not joking, "Ask her if you don't believe me."
Wang Chong repeated his mistake, still thinking that what White Peony wanted was unimportant. He said, "White Peony was engaged to me when she was eight. She can only marry me."
"Even if she was engaged to you at the age of four, the fact that she will marry Wang Tu won't be changed."
"How dare you!"
"It's fixed whether I dare or not. I was going to ask my uncle to choose an auspicious day. Now you tell me that the third day of the twelfth lunar month is an auspicious day, so I don't have to bother."
Wang Chong was exasperated. His neck thickened with prominent veins. His mouth and nostrils were not enough to vent his stomachful of anger.
However, Wu Xianggui was calm. "White Peony said you gave her betrothal presents for the engagement. I'll get them for you. Take them when you go back," she said.
Of course Wang Chong took nothing back. He couldn't let go like this. He couldn't even wait for a chance when Wang Tu came home late. The next day, he intercepted Wang Tu by the river and beat him fiercely. Wang Chong's two helpers were his cousins who lived in the upstream reaches of Flower River. After beating Wang Tu, Wang Chong said to them, "Go back. I'll call you if necessary." Then he left too.
As such a thing had happened, Wu Xianggui had no choice but to pay attention to it. She asked Zhu Daxiu to borrow two servants from the Huangs upriver to go to Wang Chong's house for revenge. However, Wang Chong was not at home and neither was his father. "Do they think it's over since they've run away?" Wu Xianggui asked the two servants. They chuckled and kicked the door open. They then proceeded to trash Wang Chong's two houses. Everything was destroyed except the heavy stone water vat. After that, Zhu Daxiu took back Wang Chong's land and disqualified his family from tenant identity.
One of Wang Tu's ribs was broken. "Do you think White Peony is worth enduring this pain?" Wu Xianggui asked him.
"Of course. White Peony is a person and I only have a broken rib."
But Wu Xianggui still wanted to confirm White Peony's value.
She went to find Banyan (half an eye), who had a reputation as the best fortune-teller in the Flower River area. Unlike most people, he only had half an eye. Perhaps it was easier to tell fortunes with the light of half an eye than with two.
After making her decision, Wu Xianggui looked at White Peony in a special way. White Peony sensed something in this look. She seized the chance of serving Wang Tu a decoction to ask him, "What's she planning?"
"She wants to know whether you can give birth to a lot of sons for me," he smiled.
"I promise I can."
Wang Tu couldn't help laughing. "She doesn't believe you. She believes Banyan," he said.
A new danger had suddenly arisen, and this was good for White Peony. She had been ill at ease, fearing that what she had gotten so easily was unreal. The fact that Wang Chong beat Wang Tu made the matter more real. And Wu Xianggui's visit to Banyan gave it an even stronger sense of reality. These events helped her to make sure that the goal was in sight, although this was not their original intention.
That night, White Peony visited Banyan.
She walked alone through the darkness as leisurely as a cat. In order to pass undetected, she didn't even take a torch. Before long, she knocked at the door of Banyan's house. Banyan only had half an eye, but he lit a lamp. White Peony entered and became clearer in front of him. He was scared. "It's deep in the night. Why are you here?" he asked. From his expression, he seemed to see a ghost instead of a girl.
White Peony said, "Aunt Xianggui is going to bring me to visit you and have my fortune told tomorrow."
"If this is so, you don't have to come at midnight. You can come tomorrow."
White Peony took out her hand and asked, "Look. Will I have a son?"
"It's too dark to see clearly. You don't have to be so impatient. Come tomorrow. Aunt Xianggui will bring you here."
"I can give birth to sons. I know I can."
"That's not necessarily so. It depends on your destiny."
"Please tell Aunt Xianggui that I can give birth to more than one boy."
"I should be honest ... I live on this."
"If you treat me kindly, I'll be good to you. If you do me a favor, I'll remember you all my life. But if you do Aunt Xianggui a favor, she will only give you money."
"How can you give me more than Aunt Xianggui can? Even if you marry Wang Tu, you'll just be a concubine without any power."
Without thinking, White Peony took off the bracelet which had been put on by Wang Tu three days ago and handed it to Banyan. She said, "Keep this for me. I'll buy it back with money when I marry Wang Tu."
Banyan examined the bracelet with his weak sight and grinned, "Fine, go back and rest assured. I will deal with Aunt Xianggui."
White Peony had achieved her expected goal. Her anxiety and fear were finally gone.
Now that Banyan had told her White Peony was destined to have five sons in the future, Wu Xianggui could be in no doubt about her value. She began to prepare wholeheartedly for the third day of the twelfth lunar month, and personally tailored the wedding costumes for Wang Tu and White Peony.
Peony couldn't bear the sight of this. She originally tried to stop White Peony because she could not tolerate the fact that a servant from a poor background had gained benefits before her. When she saw White Peony leap forward and found that they actually made a fool of themselves to help her, bringing her unexpected progress, she regretted that she hadn't joined hands with Wang Chong. But it was too late. Although White Peony was a servant, Peony's father had decided to marry her. And although Peony was the daughter of a rich family, she was unable to stop her father from marrying a girl. It was understandable that Peony should have limited capabilities, but she couldn't stand her mother's resignation. Watching her mother doing needlework skillfully, she put on a disagreeable expression. In her eyes, the high-quality cloth was a roll of dog guts.
"I didn't ask you to help. Why are you so unhappy?" Wu Xianggui asked.
"Help you with this? I wouldn't even if I were beaten to death," Peony snapped back.
Wu Xianggui thought this was funny. She laughed and asked, "Why?"
"I'm not that cheap."
Displeased, Wu Xianggui asked, "Do you mean to say that I'm cheap?"
"Dad is cheap, and you're even cheaper!"
"You can't criticize your father like that."
"Dad is your husband, not your son."
Feeling that she had been pricked by the needle, Wu Xianggui looked at her finger, but no wound was there.
Peony said, "Don't look at it. You haven't been pricked."
"Indeed it was not the needle that pricked me. It was you." She fixed her eyes on the fine thread and her sight followed it unsteadily, as though on tiptoe. But her thoughts ran forward to the end of the thread where she saw the hand of Wu Xianggui, the hand of her fifteen-year-old self.
Wu Xianggui tailored her first wedding dress at the age of fifteen. Strictly speaking, it was not a marriage because the bridegroom was less than one year old. Wang Tu's mother died when he was born. It was said that Wang Tu brought bad luck to his mother.
Wang Tu's father Wang Laozai was not a great man at that time, but he had more than a dozen acres of land. He wasn't rich enough to afford to marry a concubine and hire a maidservant at the same time. After careful consideration, he decided to buy an elder daughter-in-law. He chose Wu Xianggui, raised money and gave it to her parents. She had to marry into the Wangs as soon as the payment was made, so she hurriedly tailored a new dress for herself that very night and used it as her wedding dress.
When she came to the Wangs, she finally realized that she had to be a maidservant first and would only be a bride after her husband grew up.
She would have to wait at least fifteen years.
In order to wait for the day, she looked after Wang Tu and raised him. Wang Laozai was very satisfied with her, especially her housework and appearance. Watching his son growing up day by day, he saw how Wu Xianggui withered from a flower bud. Sometimes he was heartbroken. As a peasant, he couldn't bear the sight of waste. So one day, after drinking up the liquor that Wu Xianggui served him, he said to her, "It would be better for you to marry me." He added, "It will still be many years before my son grows up." He took Wu Xianggui to his bed before finishing the meal. She didn't resist because she thought he was right; it would still be many years before Wang Tu grew up.
After that, Wang Laozai treated her as his wife. He was keen on accumulating real estate. With Wu Xianggui, he didn't have to think about marrying a concubine. As Wang Laocai was dedicated to her, Wu Xianggui secretly shifted her attention. She treated Wang Tu like her son. As Wang Laozai was absorbed in expanding his property, Wu Xianggui invited a teacher to teach Wang Tu how to read and do arithmetic, and she said that Wang Tu would help Wang Laozai manage the property in the future. With this good wife, Wang Laozai did things with great facility. By the time Wang Tu was sixteen, the family's land had increased to more than eighty acres, and the Wangs were among the richest and most influential families.
Wang Tu was sixteen when Wu Xianggui turned thirty.
One day, Wang Laozai suddenly proposed a formal wedding ceremony for Wang Tu and Wu Xianggui. She responded with a puzzled look and tears in her eyes. Wang Laozai wiped her tears and said, "I originally brought you to be my son's wife. Previously, I had been afraid that you would waste time waiting for my son to grow up, and I can't stand a waste of time. Now my son is grown up and he can be your husband. I have done evil things and the Bodhisattva said I have to pay the price in this life. The cow will be confined the day after tomorrow. I will be reincarnated in the calf's body and become a cow that my son will command."
Wu Xianggui didn't take this seriously and regarded his words as prevarication. She didn't have the right to choose who she would be with. All she knew was that a woman's destiny was decided by a man from her birth. As it was so, she had to resign herself to destiny. The next day, she prepared a feast of ten-odd tables with Wang Laozai and performed a grand wedding ceremony with Wang Tu.
Lying in bed that night, Wu Xianggui was absent-minded. Wang Tu asked her why she had become so silly since the wedding. She replied, "I really don't understand why I have to raise a man laboriously before marrying him."
The 16-year-old Wang Tu laughed carelessly and said, "That's quite simple. You're my mother first and my wife when I grow up."
"Do you like me being your mother or your wife?"
"I like both."
"You can't like both."
"You can be my mother sometimes and my wife other times, OK?"
Wu Xianggui took a deep breath and did not say a word. Wang Tu was not as thoughtful as she was. Since his childhood, he had liked pushing his way into her arms and holding her nipple in his mouth before sleeping, and she was willing to let him do it. But tonight she had a strong aversion, and pushed him away brutally for the first time. He felt rejected, lost his temper and burst into tears. He was only 16 and didn't know how to act like a man. His father shouted outside, and he shouted back that his wife had struck him.
The next morning, Wu Xianggui woke up to find Wang Laozai standing in the middle of the room, watching her. She sat up. He said, "It's not his father but his wife who can make him a man."
Wu Xianggui made no reply. She couldn't tell him how she had felt sleeping with Wang Tu the previous night. Neither could she tell him that the 16-year-old Wang Tu was too young and could not compare with the 50-year old Wang Laozai. But he read her mind and said, "It's temporary. The 16-year-old Wang Tu is getting stronger but at the age of 50, I'm getting old."
He then asked her to boil a pot of water and rub his back while he took a bath. "This is the last time. Just rub my back," he said.
"Invite Barber Li to come and shave my head later," he added.
Wang Laozai died while Wu Xianggui went to invite Barber Li. At dusk, the cow that was twelve months pregnant gave birth to a calf. Wu Xianggui's uncle Mr. Wu held a Taoist rite for Wang Laozai and chanted scripture. When the calf was born, he suddenly stopped chanting. No one told him that a cow was giving birth to a calf, but he went straight to the cow. Wu Xianggui was delivering the calf. The calf lowed to her after its birth. Mr. Wu asked his niece, "Is it a bull calf?"
Wu Xianggui replied, "Yes."
"He actually wanted to be a cow, but the King of Hell didn't allow it."
"Who?"
"Wang Laozai."
Looking at the calf again, Wu Xianggui felt she did indeed see Wang Laozai. She didn't allow Wang Tu to command the calf, and fed it tenderly herself. Young cows should go to the fields to learn plowing at the age of one. Wu Xianggui hired two long-term workers and rented some plots of land to two tenants. The remaining land was plowed by other cows under the guidance of long-term workers. She didn't allow the calf or Wang Tu to go to the fields.
Later, Wang Laozai appeared in Wu Xianggui's dream and said, "I can't atone for my sins if you don't let me go to the fields. I will have to be a calf in another life."
Wu Xianggui had to give the calf to the long-term hired workers.
But Wang Laozai still appeared in her dreams frequently, asking, "How can I pay my debt to Wang Tu if you don't let him command me."
Wu Xianggui said, "You're paying your debt by working hard and helping him to increase the family property."
After that, Wang Laozai didn't appear in her dreams for many years. Several years after Wu Xianggui gave birth to Peony, she hadn't fallen pregnant again. That was when Wang Laozai reappeared, saying, "I hope you give birth to a son for the Wangs." After that, Wu Xianggui was afraid of seeing the young bull. Fortunately, she finally became pregnant and gave birth to a son. A few days after the son was born, the young bull died. On the day that the calf was dying, it cried hard in the cow lot. Wu Xianggui thought that maybe it wanted to see the newborn, so she took the baby to him. When she came to the bull, it stopped crying just as she had expected and looked at the baby in Wu Xianggui's arms, glistening teardrops hanging in its eyes. Finally, two huge teardrops fell down.
It died that afternoon.
Before the death of her youngest son, Wu Xianggui thought that the teardrops of the dying bull expressed happiness. After the baby died of Yuqiu Disease, Wu Xianggui understood that the bull had been expressing sadness as it had foreseen the poor and short-lived destiny of the youngest son.
From that day on, Wu Xianggui always saw the young bull's eyes. Sometimes they were in the branches; sometimes they stood against the wall; sometimes they just swayed in the air. Wu Xianggui hoped to see Wang Laozai in her dreams again. She wanted to tell him that he didn't have to be worried; even though she couldn't give birth to a boy, the bloodline of the Wangs would not be broken.
She told Peony, "You will know someday that you do everything for the one whom you regard as your life."
Peony wept bitterly. She regarded her father as her life, and she was unwilling to let him marry White Peony.
People suddenly find that the attainment of their goal scares them when they finally approach it after tremendous efforts. They doubt whether it is truly the goal that they want. They slow down or even stop at this critical moment. They consider it carefully. They suddenly become loath to part with the things they hoped to abandon in the past, because these things could provide them with references. The third day of the twelfth lunar month was coming. It was the day that White Peony had struggled towards in her life. In the past, it had only existed in as a shadow in her imagination. Now it existed in reality and it was clear. However, for White Peony, it seemed that the day in her imagination was clear while the day in reality was the shadow. She stayed awake, fearing that the quilt and bed were illusions. When she got up in the morning, she went straight to Wang Tu's room to empty the chamber pot. She took the pot to the toilet, then deliberately threw it on the ground. It broke into several pieces with a loud crash. The smell of urine befouled the atmosphere. Having done so, she felt relieved. This meant that everything was real. The approaching day was real, the chamber pot was real, the smell of urine was real, and she was real. And if she truly existed, then the wedding truly existed too.
