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  "Even if the daughter wrote the ugly letters," said the pharmacist quickly, "the jars with the other letters and the stamp are counterfeit. They're not under the glaze. The father is culpable."

  "I admit my guilt," said Yao Wang.

  Everyone looked at him now. And again the crowd whispered.

  "When a jar is empty," said Yao Wang in a voice so soft that everyone had to strain to hear, "a poor man reuses it for whatever suits his needs. A label on top of the glaze can be changed to match the new contents, one under the glaze cannot." He bowed deeply. "Poverty. This is the crime I am guilty of."

  "Poverty has never been a crime in China," said the second official, "and our new emperor would be aghast at the idea. He was a peasant himself as a boy. And a beggar, at that. Everything's different now. Government officials are chosen by merit these days, not birth or wealth. I took a civil service examination to get this post." He puffed out his chest.

  "But listen to this lang zhong's accent," said the pharmacist. "He isn't from around here. He's probably not even from this province. He's a wanderer, for sure."

  The first official put the jar he was still holding back into the cart. He rubbed his cheek. "This is a new dynasty. The reign of Hung Wu values national unity over all else. There's no place for pride in one's native locality over pride in the empire. Besides, the man has clearly lived here a long time—his daughter talks just like you or me."

  Yao Wang took a small metal tube out of the cart. "Would you like me to help with that toothache?" he asked the first official.

  The man stopped rubbing his cheek and smiled. "A good diagnostician," he said. "But this is a large town; we have three zhong yis, in fact. My whole family goes to Master Si Ma whenever we have problems."

  "No charge," said Yao Wang.

  "Well, in that case . . ."

  "Wait,"-said the pharmacist. "He's nothing but a lang zhong. He doesn't know anything. He should at least have to pay in copper coins to get out of his punishment."

  "Being a wandering doctor is no crime," said the second official, "so long as he sells state-regulated drugs, which this doctor does. Punishing a man for what he has not been prohibited from doing is inhumane. The matter is settled." Then he turned to Yao Wang. "It seems some people don't want you in town. My advice to you is to leave, the sooner the better. Small villages will be more welcoming."

  Yao Wang bowed. "Wise counsel," he said.

  The crowd watched as Yao Wang set in place the acupuncture needles that would control the pain and then neatly extracted the first official's rotten tooth. Only the pharmacist didn't stay for the show.

  Chapter 17

  "Where do you think you're going?" whispered Yao Wang out of the side of his mouth. He caught Xing Xing by the elbow.

  "Home, of course," said Xing Xing.

  "Your home is my home," said Yao Wang. "Have you forgotten that you're my daughter? So long as anyone in this town is watching, we must stay together."

  "Then you have to come back to my cave," said Xing Xing, "because that's where I'm going. Wei Ping has been waiting long enough." She pulled herself free and took a few steps in the direction of the road out of town.

  Yao Wang muttered angry words Xing Xing was forbidden to say. Then he called out, "Okay, but not that way. To the docks." He took the long handles of the cart in each hand and pulled it behind him; it jingled as it bumped over stones. Sheng walked at his left side. Xing Xing fell into step on the other side.

  Yao Wang stopped at the first boat they came to. "Are you heading upriver or down?" he called to the captain.

  "Up."

  "Then this girl's coming with you."

  "No," said Xing Xing in Yao Wang's ear. "I've never been on a boat. I can't even swim."

  "Quiet," Yao Wang whispered back. "You'll take this boat upriver, I'll take another downriver. It's the best way to travel."

  Before Xing Xing could protest more, the captain spoke, "Not so fast," he said. "We don't generally carry passengers. How much have you got to pay?"

  "Think how striking your sails would be with some fine words beautifully painted on them. This girl is a scribe. She won't disappoint you."

  "Is that so?" The captain tilted his head at Xing Xing. "How did you come to learn such a thing?"

  "My father taught me," said Xing Xing.

  "Well, I see you're taking my advice," came a voice from behind them. The second official stood on the dock.

  "Wise counsel should never be ignored," said Yao Wang to the official.

  "Take good care of them," said the official to the captain.

  The captain looked confused. "Them?"

  "Captain," said Yao Wang quickly, "tell your men to be specially careful as they load my cart onto the boat, so nothing spills."

  "You're coming too?" said the captain. "What about your fare?"

  "I can cure skin blemishes." Yao Wang pointed to a boat worker with open sores on his arms. "And clouding of the eye." He pointed to another worker who looked back blankly from two whitened eyes. "And I can expel worms." He pointed at all the men and laughed. "None of these problems are grave yet. But if you let them continue, it will be far harder to cure them."

  "Is the dog friendly?" asked the captain.

  "Except to those who mean harm to me or the girl," said Yao Wang.

  "I mean to cats," said the captain. "We have our share of ratters on board."

  "He's a well-mannered dog," said Yao Wang. "When do we set sail?"

  So Xing Xing found herself going on her first boat ride, not on a sampan for passengers, but on the deck of a cargo boat, beside an ill-tempered Yao Wang. While Yao Wang treated his patients, who did, indeed, turn out to be all the men on the boat, Xing Xing breathed deep of the river air, invoking its wetness to guide her hand, then painted her calligraphy on an extra sail.

  But it wasn't merchant words, announcing what the boat carried. Not at all. It was a poem. The captain turned out to be a man of letters. When Yao Wang showed his surprise at that, the captain looked offended. "The Mongols have been driven out of China, don't you know that?" he said. "Hung Wu's huge military keeps them outside our borders, so men like you and me can turn our attentions to the finer matters of life."

  He recited to Xing Xing several poems that he had composed. Together they chose the one that she painted onto the sail.

  Wood slipping through waters

  Wind in passion with sails

  Many-layered mountains hold red trees

  Some are gone

  Some have returned

  I grow used to the search for madness

  Though it had no rhyme, Xing Xing liked this poem because it started with such familiar thoughts and ended in such a surprising way. She spent much of the voyage watching for signs of madness in the captain.

  At one point the captain smiled down at her work. He squatted beside her and said, "If you fall into water, you may still be saved. But if you fall down in literary matters, there is no life left for you." She thought this might be a sign of madness, but maybe Mei Zi would be sympathetic to such a thought-poetry was so dear to her. It was possible, at least.

  At another point the captain actually sat on the deck beside her. He held a small bundle wrapped in lotus leaves. She breathed in the clean smell as he peeled away the leaves and offered her some of the salted meat inside. Then he showed her a mirror that he kept in a wooden box. Its frame was carved with all kinds of sea creatures. He made faces at himself in the mirror. Xing Xing laughed. But the captain wasn't satisfied. He wanted Xing Xing to make faces in the mirror too. She showed her teeth. The captain wasn't satisfied. She showed her teeth and pushed her nose to one side with her finger. He still wasn't satisfied. She showed her teeth and pushed her nose to one side and wrinkled her brow and stuck out her tongue. The captain slapped her on the back in congratulations and left her alone to continue with her work. Perhaps that episode was a sign of madness. But then Xing Xing remembered the slave boy in the oxcart making faces at the hen. Wh
o knew what true madness really was?

  The boat tacked back and forth across the river. Whenever there was too long a lull in the breeze, the men took to the oars. And whenever the breeze was steady, the men drank rice ale till they stumbled. When Xing Xing watched them in alarm, Yao Wang told her they were right to drink so much; alcohol kept down gum disease and other illnesses.

  Xing Xing worked hour after hour to make her calligraphy as fine as a poem deserved. It was hard, because she'd never had to make such large lettering before. As she worked she refused to think about the pharmacist's words—the way he had accused Yao Wang of being a charlatan. The balm Yao Wang had given her had to work. There was no other possibility she could bear considering. And she avoided looking at the water, for the fear of drowning clutched her throat. But every now and then she had to peek. A few times she was sure she saw a shadow of translucent silvery white just below the surface.

  Chapter 18

  Xing Xing ran up the hill toward her cave. She was alone again. The boat had docked at night, and when the crew punted the boat away from the embankment in the morning, Yao Wang, Sheng, and the medicine cart were long gone. Xing Xing had had to spend the entire day following the captain around, because the looks the crew gave her once she was all alone frightened her more than whatever form of madness the captain was seeking. The noisy surging of the river, which had seemed exciting the day before, now seemed almost brutal, the sloughing of the wind almost ominous.

  It was now early evening. Travel by boat against the current was easier than walking, but unfortunately just as slow. She'd been gone so long. The closer Xing Xing got to the cave, the faster she ran.

  She opened the squeaking door. Though the summer light still shone outside, the cave was dark inside. The air was stale.

  "Go away, demon!" screeched Stepmother from behind the bamboo screen around the kang.

  "It's me—Xing Xing," said the girl. She left the door open, and in the dim light it afforded, she made her way through the bamboo corridor and turned into the small area surrounding the kang. A thick stench stopped her as firmly as though she'd met a stone wall. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.

  Stepmother sat with her arms wrapped protectively around Wei Ping on the kang. Their hair hung down stringy. Their eyes burned at her out of haggard faces.

  "Is that truly you?" asked Stepmother in a thin voice.

  "Yes. Truly."

  Stepmother got unsteadily to her feet. "Where's the tang zhong?"

  "He wouldn't come," said Xing Xing. "He said that he'd already been this way and that people in other villages need him now."

  "And the dates?" Stepmother hobbled around Xing Xing, touching her here and there. Her breath reeked so badly that Xing Xing had to fight to keep her nose from wrinkling. "You gave him the dates anyway?" the woman shrieked.

  Wasn't that what she was supposed to do? Xing Xing looked down at her feet in confusion.

  "Lazy girl!" Stepmother smacked Xing Xing on the top of her head. It was not a hard blow, but Xing Xing hadn't braced herself against it, so it knocked her to the floor. "You took all these days for nothing!"

  Xing Xing pulled the small sack of powder Yao Wang had given her from inside the bodice of her dress. "Medicine," she said, holding it up.

  Stepmother narrowed her eyes and put her face close to the sack. Then she snatched it. She sat on the kang, and her trembling hands fumbled with the knot.

  "Hurry," said Wei Ping. She leaned sideways, putting her weight on one hand; with the other, she clutched Stepmother's arm. "Hurry."

  Stepmother picked at the knot ineffectually. Sweat beads formed at her hairline, catching what little light there was. They dripped into her eyes. A brittle note of frustration whistled from between her teeth. Wei Ping poked her finger into Stepmother's arm as the woman worked. Poke poke poke poke— never taking her eyes from the little sack. The two of them seemed demented.

  From her position on the floor, Xing Xing looked around. The chamber pot in the corner of the screened area had overflowed. Pits and cleanly gnawed bones had been shoved into a small pile. The water bucket was empty. The stove fire had gone out.

  She got to her feet and took the sack of powder from Stepmother, who looked at her passive and dumb now, as though the woman were somewhere else, beyond the present, beyond reaction. Wei Ping was still poking her mother, but aimlessly, without a goal. She didn't even glance at her half sister.

  Xing Xing walked outside. She climbed the little steps carved into the side of the cave and rolled the rock from the window, letting the mix of weak sun and moon cascade inside. She went back into the enclosure around the kang and took the bucket and went down to the pool and brought back fresh water. She undressed her half sister and her stepmother, discreetly averting her eyes, grateful to find them both cool to the touch, though noticeably thinner. She washed them thoroughly, but she didn't yet touch Wei Ping's bandages. She dressed them in clean clothes. She scoured their teeth with river sand. She scrubbed the kang. She swept the floor and emptied the chamber pot and washed every surface with rice vinegar. She gathered wood and fanned a fire with the big bamboo fan and got the stove going and made a gruel from rice powder, which she ladled into bowls, then fed them, spoonful by spoonful. She washed their filthy clothes and strung them just outside the door to dry. She went down the hill in what was now the deep of night and picked early wild chrysanthemums and brought them back and boiled them in water. Then she handed Stepmother and Wei Ping bowls full of the yellow chrysanthemum broth and told them to drink.

  Through all this, Stepmother and Wei Ping obeyed Xing Xing as though they were small children. They now rested docilely on the kang, stretched out side by side, propped on pillows that Xing Xing had taken from Stepmother's bed. Moonlight made them appear ghostly.

  Xing Xing lit enough candles so that she could see well. She poured soy oil into a small bowl and mixed in some of the powder from the sack Yao Wang had given her. She lay clean cloth on the kang, at the ready. And, finally, she sat at Wei Ping's feet and unwrapped the bandages from one, bracing herself against what she might find.

  The white, distorted foot dripped no blood. The bone ends were as exposed as when the raccoon had first bitten the toes off, but they were no longer ragged. They'd been cut straight with the cleaver. Xing Xing washed the foot and rubbed off the fine slough of dead skin. She gently smeared a thin coat of the balm over the entire foot. Then she put a dollop on the spots where the toes were missing. She worked quickly, remembering what Stepmother had said about blood returning to the foot if the bandages were off too long. She folded the foot under, as she'd watched Stepmother do so many times, and bound it tightly in a clean cloth. Then she tended the other foot the same way. Again the two biggest toes were missing, cut cleanly off.

  Wei Ping made no noise as Xing Xing tended her feet. Not even a whimper.

  Xing Xing took the half-empty bowls of chrysanthemum broth from the hands of Stepmother and Wei Ping and told them to sleep now.

  They shut their eyes.

  Xing Xing stood watching them breathe. Until this point she had worked automatically with an unflagging energy. Now it left her. She blew out all the candles but one, which she used to light her way down the hill to the pool. She got on her knees, weary and drained, and leaned forward. She dipped her whole face into the cool water.

  Mother's lips brushed her forehead.

  Xing Xing lifted her head out of the water and opened her eyes. The white fish glowed soothing moonlight. So the beautiful fish hadn't come down the river after all. She had been safe here in the pool all along. Xing Xing let her clothes drop to the ground. She slipped into the pool and held tight to the side. The fish swam under her, smooth and cold, cold and smooth, like what she'd felt under her feet in the river when she escaped from the man in the oxcart. She knew the fish would never let her drown. She let go of the side and went under, then came up and found that if she moved her arms and legs slowly, she could go wherever she wanted—she co
uld swim— and what a wonderful, effortless joy swimming was.

  The two of them circled around each other like white ribbons, making the water swirl behind them. They slid past each other, touching wholly, like mother and child. And at last Xing Xing understood. Oh, she should have known all along: The beautiful fish was the reincarnation of Mother. They were together again, at last.

  They swam till Xing Xing found she was almost falling asleep in the water. Still, she didn't want to leave her fish mother. She never wanted to leave her fish mother. She never wanted this joy to end. She climbed out and slept on the bank. Night air patted her dry. The fingers of one hand dangled in the water, twitching now and then as the fish glided by.

  Chapter 19

  Yao Wang was no charlatan and the spirit of Sun Si Miao must have guided Xing Xing's hand in mixing the medicine, for by the end of a month, scar tissue had formed on both of Wei Ping's feet and she no longer moaned in pain. The girl hobbled like her mother now, going around and around the cave. She had the bamboo screen put outside, she was so sure there were no demons plaguing her anymore. She woke early and she stayed up late, and her energy increased by the day.

  Stepmother, likewise, grew optimistic. She looked with satisfaction at the shrinking size of Wei Ping's feet, and she pulled out the dress she had started making for her months before and worked at finishing it up. She took to going into the village again, to chat with friends and hope for news of a suitable son-in-law.

  One morning when the girls woke, Stepmother was standing in the center of the main room rubbing her elbows in excitement. "I'm going to the furniture maker at the edge of the village," she announced.

  "What for?" said Wei Ping. "I like it better this way. The cave is spacious." She moved her hands around, indicating the spots that used to have furniture. Stepmother had sold anything extra. "Clutter only provides things for me to stumble over."