​​         Chinese Stories in English ​  

Opposite Shore (Page 9)
Stories printed in The Other Shore《彼岸花》作家网*选编|冰峰*主编
Page citation and link to Chinese text noted after each story.

                                         1. The Ferryman               3. We Want to Read Your Book          4. Three Willows Islet
                                         2. Planting a Forest                                                                           5. Mom and Sis

1. The Ferryman (摆渡人)
Ma Xinting (马新亭)

      Landlord Zhu spent a lot of time and money building a big boat. He named it "Spirit Vessel", by which he meant that it was a gift from God. To his surprise, though, the reality turned out differently. From the time it was launched, the boat would yaw either to port or starboard after sailing only a short distance, or it might slant off to one side when the wind blew and the waves rose in the middle of the river. Once it almost capsized, and thereafter no one dared ride in it. Some people even claimed a river monster had attacked it. Landlord Zhu hired skilled craftsmen to repair it several times, all to no avail.
      Someone suggested to Landlord Zhu that he should hire someone to sail the vessel. Since he’d tried everything else, he went ahead and posted a help wanted ad offering a high salary for a ferryman. Lots of people saw it, but after they asked around about Landlord Zhu's boat, they all shook their heads and left.
      A few months later, Landlord Zhu heard that someone had come to apply for the job. He was ecstatic and quickly ordered that the applicant be brought in to see him. He sipped a cup of tea while he looked the fellow up and down, noting his strong build and bright eyes. He asked, "What's your name?”
      "Peaceful Feng."
      Landlord Zhu took another sip of tea and continued, "I posted that help wanted ad for a ferryman several months ago, but no one dared apply. I guess you must have some special skills."
      Peaceful thought for a moment before replying, "If you want me to work on your vessel, you’ll have to agree to one condition."
      Landlord Zhu perked up. "What condition?"
      "Rename the ship Spirit Dragon".
      "Why?"
      "The river twists and turns the same way a dragon moves,” Peaceful answered, “and like a dragon, it never straightens out. That’s why you should change the name to Spirit Dragon. Besides, I was born in the Year of the Dragon, so how could I do with anything else?"
      Landlord Zhu nodded slightly before agreeing. "Go ahead, take some people and try it out!"
      When he got to the riverbank, Peaceful untied the ropes and leaped onto the bow. He manned the oars and the boat slowly pulled away from shore. Soon it reached the center of the river where the wind was strong and the waves high. One moment the boat was riding the crest of the waves, then it was hidden below the waves, and then thrown up into the sky. Peaceful kept the vessel steady and sailed against the wind and waves towards the other side of the river. After a while, he brought the boat back safely from the far shore.
      The locals spread the story like it was a miracle. They said the boat was indeed a spirit dragon. It would capsize when others sailed it, but would sail without incident when Peaceful was aboard. Many people begged him to teach them his special skills, but he always smiled and said, "I have none."
      One day, Landlord Zhu called Peaceful to come visit him. "Tell me the secret of your amazing skill." He smiled as he asked.
      "I grew up on the water,” Peaceful replied as he poured tea for Landlord Zhu. “Whether you live in the mountains or by a river, you have to use local resources to make a living. Every man in our area knew how to row a boat and knew the water. They were all master sailors. Also, the boat you built is too big. No one around here has ever taken such a big boat onto the river. I really don't have any special skills. Nothing to be amazed about!"
      Landlord Zhu laughed. "You’re afraid I won’t need you anymore if you reveal your secret, so you’re keeping something back and not telling me. Right? Don't worry, I’m not that kind of person."
      "I’m not keeping anything back, Landlord Zhu. Really, I’m not,” Peaceful said anxiously.
      Landlord Zhu waved his hand. “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s OK. Just keep doing a good job with the boat.”
      No one believed that Peaceful was telling the truth. He was a stranger from some other place, and the locals were jealous and envious that an outsider had earned so much money by officially becoming the ferryman. Some covertly asked around about him, some surreptitiously kept an eye on him, and some tried to get him drunk so that he’d tell the truth. They all wanted to learn his unique skills.
      Peaceful wasn’t just a skilled boatman, though. He also helped the elderly, children, sick people and pregnant women to board and disembark the boat. Sometimes he put out fruits and vegetables for the passengers to enjoy while being ferried across the river. If someone forgot to bring money for the boat ride, he’d pay the fee for them and let them pay him back when they remembered.
      One morning Peaceful was ferrying a group of youngsters and adults to the north bank of the river. Not far from shore, a child sitting by the side of the boat stood up and was blown overboard by a gust of wind. People screamed as the youngster splashed into the water, but they didn’t dare attempt a rescue because the wind was so strong and the water so fast. Peaceful somersaulted into the river. He didn’t surface for a long time, but eventually he carried the child to the side of the boat. The passengers dragged the youngster aboard, but when they tried to pull Peaceful out of the water, he slipped away....
      A few days later, while the villagers were mourning his loss, Peaceful returned safely to the village. When people asked him how he’d been saved, he said he’d made it to shore by holding onto a large tree that floated by.
      No one tried to learn Peaceful's unique skills after that. They all felt he was the most suitable ferryman for the vessel, and they couldn’t do without him. But some still wondered, with such good skills, why didn't he work as a ferryman in his home village? Why had he come to their town? He smiled and said, “I made a mistake and it’s difficult to go home. I was homeless, so I came here to ferry people to the other shore, and to ferry myself to another life.”
      Gradually people forgot he was an outsider. He operated the ferry year after year, shuttling between the north and south docks from sunrise to sunset.... His son took over when he could no longer do the job, and when his son got old, his grandson became the ferryman....

Chinese text from 《彼岸花》at p. 87. Also available here.
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2. Planting a Forest (种下一片林)
Ma Xuequan (马学全)

      River An picked up his shovel. Spring had arrived, so he started planting trees.
      He’d hated planting trees to the max when he was a child. His father planted trees every spring, going out to dig every morning when he got up. River and his sister Chime had to load the cart with saplings and pull it to the place where his father was digging the holes. Then, as their father instructed, they’d put one sapling in each hole.
      One time River and his sister plopped their butts down on the sand after hauling the saplings. Their father came over with a warm smile on his face and asked if they were tired. They both nodded. Their father told them to go home if they were tired, and since they seemed to have been pardoned, they jumped up and ran towards the cart. Their father laughed as he watched them go.
      When they got home, pushing the cart, their mother asked them to take a pot of water she’d just boiled to their father. River claimed as an excuse that he hadn’t finished his homework. His sister glared at him fiercely but picked up the kettle and left. River took out his homework book and bent over the table, but on the sly he read a comic book he'd borrowed from a classmate. His sister came back after a bit, and their father got home a long while later.
      After lunch, his father put on his straw hat and was about to go out, but he turned back at the door and asked whether River or his sister would come with him to plant trees. The two kids looked at each other and the girl said she had to do the laundry, so the old man declared that River would come along today and Chime tomorrow. River made a face at his sister as he followed his father out the door.
      River straightened a sapling and his father filled the hole with shovelfuls of soil to bury the roots. After stomping the dirt down firmly, they moved on to the next one. They planted half the land in one afternoon, and his father and sister spent half the next day finishing the rest. His father watered the saplings a few days later with water let into the canal. The trees grew leaves and branches, and got taller and stronger day by day.
      Their father cleared another piece of land for trees in the spring of the following year. River and his sister were quite upset about it but their father didn't care. He leveled any land that needed it and dug the necessary holes, and on weekends he took River or his sister in turn to do the planting.
      There was a large piece of wasteland outside the village. River's father leveled some of it and planted trees every year. Before he knew it, he’d planted hundreds of acres. The saplings grew bigger day by day and eventually became a forest. Sparrows, magpies and other birds lived in the forest, as well as pheasants and rabbits. The villagers all said that River's father had done well. The environment around the village had improved since the forest was planted, and there were fewer sandstorms.
      River's father got cancer a few years ago. Treatment was expensive and everyone said he should sell the trees to pay for it, but the old man said he couldn't bear to do that. His illness became more and more serious until he eventually passed away. Before he died, he held River's hand and told him over and over that the forest must be preserved.
      The family lived close to the city and as the city expanded over the years, it soon reached their village. The urban construction department expropriated land for the expansion and took a fancy to the family’s forest to build a park. Compensation for loss of the forest made River a millionaire. He went to his father's grave after he received the money and kowtowed three times.
      It didn’t take River long to begin acting like a rich man. When he felt good, he’d invite some friends to a restaurant for a meal. By the time a year had gone by, his thin body had ballooned to a sphere and he walked with a duck-like gait. He was generous and often had a group of cronies around him. Within two years, his savings had shrunk.
      One morning he unexpectedly felt short of breath. He panicked and went to the hospital for a checkup, which revealed problems including high blood pressure and blood lipids. The doctors advised him to control his diet and exercise more. He realized that he’d done nothing but eat, drink and be merry for the past two years. He’d either driven his car or taken a taxi whenever he went out, never walking even five hundred meters.
      A friend who sold building materials encouraged River to invest in the business. He was reluctant to become a businessman, so the friend suggested that he buy shares in his company as a passive investor. He wouldn’t have to participate in management and could just wait for dividends to roll in. River followed the advice and invested money in his friend's company.
      He visited the company on occasion and his friend always served him good tea and expensive cigarettes. The friend always said business was good and he’d just received a big order. River was glad to hear that and waited for the year-end dividend, but when the time came, the company abruptly closed down. River called his friend but his phone was turned off. He called again later but it was still turned off. River waited a few more days, but his friend's company still hadn’t reopened. He ultimately received news that the company had gone bankrupt and his friend had been arrested.
      River was so worried by the loss of a large sum of money that he couldn't eat or sleep. Half of his hair turned white in a few days. He felt sorry that he hadn’t honored his father’s wishes.
      He went for a walk in the park that used to be his father's forest. Walking among the tall trees reminded him of planting the trees with his father when he was a child. He felt both happy and sad. He overheard people talking about how the trees had been planted by a farmer named River, to whom the government had paid a lot of money. Someone said that River’s father had planted the trees, but then got sick and died young, so his son got the money. Someone else said the son was lazy and didn't want to work, so the money was probably frittered away. River was ashamed and hurried out of the park.
      When spring came, River got the idea to plant trees. He contracted a piece of wasteland and put saplings in the ground, one by one, just as his father had done. He felt refreshed and in a better mood after a day's work.
      When asked what he planned to do with all those trees, River just smiled and didn't answer.
      He’s been planting trees for several years now. He sees the trees as his children and feels joy whenever he looks at them.

Chinese text from 《彼岸花》at p. 90. Also available here.
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3. We Want to Read Your Book (想读一本你写的书)
Yuan Shangqiu (原上秋)

      Bang, bang, bang. Young Chen and Young Lin chatted with the house’s owner, an old man with a kind face, while they were working. They were more than happy to work for such a fellow.
      Chen asked the old guy, “What do you do?”
      “I worked at a newspaper, but I'm retired now.”
      “You must’ve been a supervisor.”
      “Director of Supplements.”
      Chen and Lin pondered over the matter. “What’s a Supplements Department? There must be a Main Publication Department if there’s a Supplements Department…. "
      The old guy's house was in very poor shape. He’d hired Chen and Lin through the government’s Human Resources Market with the idea of renovating it. They didn’t have a contract. They’d just quoted a price and the old man agreed.
      The old fellow was retired and spent his days at home, but he still kept an eye on current events, a habit he’d developed on the job. If his head wasn’t stuck in a book, it was buried in a newspaper.
      Chen commented, “You really work hard.”
      The owner replied that only one of his eyes works now. The other one couldn't see anything.
      The young men stopped what they were doing and came over to check out the old guy’s eyes. One was indeed completely white. Chen asked, "Can't you see anything at all with it?"
      "Nothing at all."
      They sympathized with him. They hadn't expected that the old man could read books and newspapers every day, and look at the world, using just one eye.
      Bang, bang, bang. The young men worked hard, and the old guy would siddle over to chat with them when he wasn’t reading. He inquired about their parents and whether they’d started their own families. He wanted to know about the joys and sorrows of leaving home to find work, and how the harvest had gone back home. They each told him about their own situations.
      As they gradually became familiar with one another, they became friends.
      Once they’d become friends, the young men started doing more things around the house, but they always acted respectfully. They brought their teacups into the old man’s study during breaks. Many books filled the bookshelves, but Chen and Lin only looked at them and didn't touch. They drank the good tea the old man made for them and sighed, "So many books…." He told them that the top two shelves were literary classics and below them were books he’d written himself.
      Chen and Lin were surprised. “Bright... Virtue… Liu? The one they call Virtue Liu?”
      “That’s me.”
      Virtue Liu had authored more than a dozen books, including "Life in the Vernacular", "Focus on the Red Lantern" and "Peeking at the World". He explained that "Life in the Vernacular" was an anthology of columns he’d written while he was at the newspaper; and he wrote "Peeking at the World" after he’d become blind in one eye.
      Lin, who was two years younger than Chen, suggested Virtue could make some money by writing a TV series. Chen patted him on the shoulder and said he was talking out of turn. They stayed a proper distance from the books but kept looking at them respectfully.
      Chen asked, “What’re these books about?”
      "Reflections on life." Fearing they didn’t completely understand, he told them a story from one of the books: A warrior asked an old Zen Master about the difference between heaven and hell. The Master deliberated and said, "You’re a vulgar person. I don't have time to discuss it with you." Contempt filled his voice.
      The warrior went ballistic. He drew his sword and yelled, "Nonsense, old man! I’ll kill you with one stroke of my sword."
      When the Master patiently said, "This is hell," the warrior suddenly got the point. He calmed down and sheathed his sword, then bowed to thank the Master for his instruction.
      The Master continued, "And this is heaven."
      Virtue explained that good and evil are encapsulated in one concept. There are no good people or bad people in the world, only good events and bad events.
      “Interesting.” The young men were fascinated by what they heard.
      Bang, bang, bang. For a long time, Chen and Lin kept their noses to the grindstone. They seemed to be mulling over the story of the warrior and the Zen Master.
      One day Chen and Lin came to work late. They both complained that they shouldn't have drunk so much the night before. Virtue smiled and commented, "So, you like to hoist a cup or two."
      Chen answered that they’d been away from home for many days and felt a little homesick. They always drank a bit when they got homesick. Lin interrupted and said he missed home more after drinking.
      They didn’t have much energy for work that day because they’d drunk a lot of cheap booze. Virtue asked what kind of alcohol they’d drunk. They named many brands, all of which were low-quality hooch available at small restaurants, and bemoaned the fact that they couldn’t afford anything better. They said that one day, after they’d made a lot of money, they’d definitely buy a bottle of the good stuff, Moutai, to see what it tasted like.
      When they finished work that evening, Virtue brought out a bottle of Moutai and gave it to them. He said he usually didn't drink, but this bottle was given to him by a friend. It was the only bottle he had left.
      Chen and Lin were delighted. They took turns holding the bottle to examine it. They said it’d be great if they could drink Maotai back home.
      They finished the renovation a few days later, and everyone was pleased with the work. Virtue paid them their wages, and the young men trembled as they silently counted the money. They took the money and left without saying anything.
      Once they were out the door, they found a shady spot and counted the money again and again. Lin took the reins and pushed Chen, "Let's go. He has eyesight problems to begin with, so no one can blame us if he overpaid us."
      Chen got angry. He felt it’d be unfair to Virtue for them to just leave.
      They headed back to Virtue’s house to return the extra two hundred yuan he’d given them. They also wanted to ask him for two books, one for each of them, which included the fascinating stories he’d told them.
      Virtue saw them from his balcony. He thought they must be here to return the extra two hundred yuan. They didn’t realize it was a bonus he’d intended to give them but hadn’t explicitly mentioned.
      When Virtue greeted them at the door, they looked up at him and noticed that his good eye seemed to have gotten better. It was brighter and more spirited than before.

Chinese text from 《彼岸花》at p. 96. Also available here.
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4. Three Willows Islet (三柳洲)
Huang Sanchang (黄三畅)

      Three scholars were walking on the bank of the Zi River in Hunan on a spring day in the early Ming Dynasty. They were headed for the provincial capital to take the imperial civil service examination, but had to walk because their families were poor and they couldn’t afford to take a boat or hire a carriage. When they came to a place called Nine Dragons River, they saw willow trees by the riverside that had just sprouted. The buds were half the size of a grain of rice, and the wind blew the branches gently on the clear blue surface of the water.
      One of the scholars, the Honorable Mr. Wu, proposed, "The scenery’s pleasant, my friends. How about we rest here a while?" The other two agreed, so they sat down on a boulder on the bank.
      They were about to compose poems when a farmer carrying a hoe appeared. He greeted them politely and suggested they might as well go to his house for tea while they rested. His tone was quite friendly, so the three scholars followed him to his thatched cottage by the river.
      The home-grown tea was rather bitter at first but presently turned sweet. Two sips refreshed them. The farmer then brought out a plate from the kitchen and said it was homemade Sheh cake, made by mixing the stems of the Sheh vine which had been soaked in water with glutinous rice flour. The Sheh vine was named after a local god. He invited them to have a taste.
      The cakes were orange-black, kidney-shaped, and steaming slightly. The steam had a unique fragrance that smelled delicious. The scholars were hungry, too hungry to care about being polite, and quickly downed three cakes each.
      They thanked the farmer and, as they were about to leave, the farmer brought three coarse cloth packages out from the kitchen and handed one to each of them. He said there were more Sheh cakes inside. He asked them not to think he was stingy, because the cakes were really all he had to give. The scholars were truly grateful.
      The farmer walked with them back to the riverside. The Honorable Mr. Wu said, "My brothers, since the common people are this kind, we must be honest and upright and serve them wholeheartedly if we do become officials!" The others replied that if they weren’t upright servants of the people, their consciences couldn’t bear it and they’d be condemned throughout the land!
      The farmer declared, "You’ve just articulated the greatest hope of us ordinary people!"
      A willow branch brushed The Honorable Mr. Wu's face. He took it gently between his fingers and said, "Brothers, now is a good time to plant trees. Let's each plant a willow to show our determination!" The others agreed. They each broke off a twig from a willow tree and planted them on a sandbar separated from the river’s main course by a small stream. The Honorable Mr. Wu planted his at the upstream point of the islet.
      The farmer nurtured the three plantings over the years and they all survived. They gradually grew thicker and taller until their branches could brush the water. The sandbar came to be known as Three Willows Islet.
      More than ten years passed in a flash. One year in early spring, the farmer, nearly fifty years old by then, went to Three Willows Islet to fertilize the trees. He found that the tree at the head of the islet was still dormant, unlike the other two, which had already grown new buds as big as rice grains. “What’s going on?” He asked himself, as if asking the tree. Its branches fluttered in the wind, but seemed rigid. The farmer still fertilized it.
      When he was about to leave for home, he saw several people walking to the point at the lower end of the islet. They were pointing here and there, making drawings and laying out lines in the sand.
      The farmer remembered that the village leader* had gone from house to house the previous autumn collecting money. Anyone who didn't have money had to take grain to a designated warehouse instead. The money and grain would be used for construction of a dam on Nine Dragons River, as ordered by the recently appointed governor. Could it be that the dam was to be built there?
      The farmer walked over and asked, and learned that that was indeed the case. He was very grateful to the governor. A large stretch of farmland in this area was known as the state’s granary. Farmers relied on river water for irrigation, and a water wheel was the main tool for getting water from the river. It was a laborious process and not overly efficient. Once the dam was built, the water upstream of the dam would be higher and a canal could be dug to let the water flow directly to the farmland. That’s why the people were glad to pay money or grain for the dam, even though they were poor.
      A groundbreaking ceremony for the Nine Dragons Dam was held one day not long thereafter. The new governor, who was in fact the Honorable Mr. Wu, attended in person. He remembered planting willows on the island more than ten years before. After the ceremony, he went to the lower end of the island and saw that the crown of the willows there were lush and green. Their branches swayed and the catkins fluttered in the breeze.
      He remembered he’d planted his willow at the furthest upstream point of the islet and walked there to see how it fared. From a distance, he could tell that something was wrong: where was the lush greenery, and where were the catkins? The branches were bare and looked dead.
      A man carrying a bucket appeared, walking towards the willow from the other side. When the governor arrived at the tree, the man was already watering it. The governor didn’t realize that the man was the farmer he’d met more than ten years before, and the farmer didn’t recognize him either. “Why‘d this tree die?” Governor Wu asked the farmer, as if blaming him.
      “I don’t know, either,” The farmer replied. He continued, “These three willows were planted by three scholars more than ten years ago. I’ve been taking care of them. The other two have been doing fine, but this one hasn’t yet sprouted this spring.”
      What was the reason? The governor thought of a poem, "A thousand trees bloom before an ailing tree," suggesting that death is a natural part of the cycle of life. The thought depressed him. The farmer said, “Since it hasn’t sprouted, I’ll come water and fertilize it in a few days, and hopefully bring it back to life.”
      Lord Governor Wu sighed.
      The farmer got his wish. The sick willow sprouted again when summer came. Lord Governor Wu came on horseback when it was reported to him. He bowed three times to the willow and three times to the sky, and then sighed deeply.
      Few people know the miraculous story behind the tree’s recovery.
      Lord Governor Wu and his accountant had embezzled a large portion of the money and grain the common people donated for construction of the dam. The assets were diverted to their personal accounts in the spring when the grass and trees were growing, but the willow tree didn’t sprout at that time. Later, the Imperial Court promulgated the "Great Ming Code", which stipulated among other things that any official who embezzled more than six taels of silver would be beheaded, skinned and stuffed with straw once he was found out. Several prosecutions were soon announced. Lord Governor Wu was so frightened that he returned the embezzled assets to the public treasury. Only then did his willow tree sprout again.
*Translator's note: The “leader” referred to is the head of the local baojia system. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baojia_system

Chinese text from 《彼岸花》at p. 99. Also available here.
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5. Mom and Sis (娘和大妮)
Qiao Zhengfang (乔正芳)

      When Mom once again gave my older sister some pork she’d been holding back, I finally couldn't take it anymore. I screamed, "Why do you always favor her? She's not even your biological child!"
      Sis was momentarily stunned, but Mom reacted quickly. "What sort of nonsense are you talkin’? See if I don’t paddle your behind!"
      I knew I was right and got stubborn. “Fourth Gramma over on West Street told me herself that you guys brought her back from Three Mile Gorge. She was no bigger’n a mouse when she got here.” I gestured with my hands.
      Pow! Mom up and slapped me. “I’m tellin’ you, that’s twaddle.”
      Our relationship with Sis seems to have changed subtly from that day on. Dad had a bad leg, and the family depended on her. She was smart and capable but dropped out of school before graduating from junior high. She could handle farm work well and was also good at sewing.
      After I blew up that day, Mom quietly asked me what Fourth Gramma had said. I looked away in anger, but Mom got a piece of fruit candy and stuffed it into my hand. I told her, “Fourth Gramma said you weren’t happy for the five years since you married Dad. Gramma treated you like a dog all the time. Dad felt sorry for you, so he asked around for a child for you to raise. Gimpy Wu's family in Three Mile Gorge happened to have birthed another daughter and they were afraid they couldn’t afford her, so they gave her to you.”
      Mom looked down and wiped away her tears.
      “Fourth Gramma also told me,” I continued, “you carried Sis all around looking for milk for her. When she looked unhappy, you traded eggs and peanuts to get stuff for her. One time you went to the family that lives by the locust tree in the south end of the village. The woman there said, ‘I don't have time to talk, Lady. My old man’s gonna plant cabbages, and he’s waitin’ for me to dig manure and take it to the field.’ You put Sis down without sayin’ a word, rolled up your sleeves and up and dug manure for them. Right?”
      Mom sighed and said, “I had to. It was our destiny, me and your sister. Such a tiny little thing, my heart melted as soon as I cuddled her in my arms....” She choked up and had to stop talking.
      Sis liked to go visiting those days. Mom stayed up late and sat under a lamp doing needlework waiting for her. One time when Sis came home after one in the morning, Mom looked her in the face with some trepidation. "There’s rice keepin’ warm in the pot, girl,” she said. It’s dark outside. Can you come home a little earlier?"
      Sis looked at the wall and said, absent-mindedly, "I been to Three Mile Gorge."
      Mom stabbed herself in the finger with her needle. After some time, she stammered, "You…. How are your parents?"
      "I went to ask them why they had me but then didn't want me."
      Mom said that people were poor in those days, and they had a lot of kids. Before she finished speaking, though, Sis swung open the doorway curtain and went into the other room.
      One day a young man named Results, a townie, showed up at our place with two bottles of wine and a bundle of peach cakes. He called out, “Father-in-Law, Mother-in-Law” as soon as he came in. Mom spread her arms in surprise and asked, "What’d you call me?"
      "I'm dating your eldest daughter,” he announced, “and I’m here to discuss marriage with you." The whole village knew his father was a gambler, and under his father’s influence, Results had grown up to be a lazy slob.
      “Get outa here, right now!” Mom was furious. “No way is my girl gonna marry someone like you!”
      Sis came in while Mom was shoving him out. "It’s no concern of yours,” she said morosely. “I'm willing."
      It seemed like Mom had been hit on the head with a bat. Her lips trembled and she held her hands up in Sis’s direction. Sis stuck out her chin as if to protest, with a righteous look on her face. Mom cried out “Ooh,” covered her face with her hands, squatted down and started to cry.
      Just a few days before, Mom had asked my cousin's mother about her son, Peace. She said she had her eye on him as a prospective match for Sis. A good-looking young man of good character, he was serving in the army in Beijing at the time.
      That night, Mom calmed down and wanted to have a heart-to-heart with Sis. She waited all night, but Sis didn’t come home.
      Sis ended up marrying Results. I heard the marriage was arranged by her biological parents.
      Mom was sick and stayed alone in Sis's room for two days. On the third day, she took two red silk quilts from a chest and asked us to give them to Sis. The quilts were embroidered with large fresh peonies and magpies with flapping wings.
      Sis never returned to our home after she got married. Aunties and grannies from the neighborhood often brought us news about her: “She and her husband have a good relationship. That guy Results even puts his arm around her waist in the crowd when they go to the market. Ooh so cute.” We also heard her husband was doing some kind of business in another town and making a lot of money. Mom’s expression gradually relaxed when she heard those things.
      Then Fourth Gramma brought us some bad news. She told Mom, "Your daughter’s bein’ victimized. Results doesn't give her the money he earns and spends it all on drinkin’ ‘n’ gamblin’, instead. She tried to get him to stop, but he got drunk and grabbed her by the hair and beat her nigh unto death.”
      Mom stared with her eyes wide open and we could hear her teeth chattering. She picked up a shovel and went to run out, but Dad stopped her. He said Sis's biological parents had proposed the marriage and Sis hadn’t thought about us at all, so her biological parents should handle the matter themselves.
      Fourth Gramma slapped her thigh and said, “Forget about them. That old pair was head over heels for joy when Results came to visit and brought a lot of gifts. Now he’s victimizin’ your daughter, they’re actin’ like they’re deaf and dumb. No use countin’ on them to take care of it.”
      Mom didn't care about any of that. She rushed off to town, shovel in hand, and found Sis sitting in her yard with her hair disheveled. Results was standing beside her with his hands on his waist. Mom swung her shovel and hit him on the head. "You beast,” she yelled at him, “I had to put up with a lot of crap while I was raisin’ that girl, but I never laid a hand on her. Now you dare do this to her. Either you or me is gonna die today!"
      Results was so scared that he ran out of the yard. Mom chased after him, and everyone in the town came out to watch the fun. When he saw Mom was really out to get him, he looked over his shoulder and begged for mercy while he ran. Eventually all he could do was kneel down and promise to change his ways. He even wrote a letter of guarantee.
      We were all at a loss for words. We never thought that my gentle and weak mother could be so mighty and unrelenting.
      Sis came home three days after this incident. As soon as she entered the house, she knelt down crying and said, "I was wrong, Mom. Can you forgive me?"
      “My girl!” Mom went to her and hugged her, both of them bawling.

Chinese text from 《彼岸花》at p. 102. Also available here.