Secret of a Thousand Beauties (26 page)

28

F
inally, the train arrived at the station at 11 a.m. My farewell with Ryan was a little tense, but affectionate. Back at the inn I went to my room, changed my clothes, and immediately set out for the mountain, buying some food and candles on the way. It was a long way to the mountain, so I hired a bicycle rickshaw to bring me there.

After we arrived and I had paid the scrawny cyclist, he asked, “Miss, what are you going to do here all by yourself?”

I said, my tone half-joking, “I’m going to jump off the cliff, turn into a ghost, and come back for you, hahaha!”

As expected, he shut up and quickly rode away.

I didn’t begin to climb right away, but stood at the base of the mountain to take in the surroundings. I could see Aunty’s house in the distance, looking forlorn and forbidding, with no people in sight. I decided that this time, when I came back down from the mountain, I would prick up my courage to break in and take a look. Then, I began my ascent, pausing only to make three quick bows to Leilei’s shrine.

As my feet began to crunch on the dry grass and twigs, I imagined Shen Feng when I first saw him, his silhouette set against the morning sun, and his flute’s bittersweet tunes floating to me in the crisp air. He lowered his flute and our eyes met. Then I imagined him hurrying to me, scooping me up in his muscular, revolutionary arms, and swinging me around until I felt dizzy with happiness. After that, I thought of him carrying me inside the cave, gently putting me down, impatiently pulling off my clothes, then taking me passionately. My imagining was suddenly interrupted by a surge of guilt. How could I think about being with another man when my honeymoon with Ryan had barely ended?

So I willed myself to focus on my climb. When my sore feet finally reached the top, reality painted a completely different picture. There was no Shen Feng, nor his beautiful music. Just the morning sun—warm, soothing, but totally impersonal. I hurried inside the cave, only to find it as empty as a poor family’s rice vat.

I lay down on the ground, thinking about Shen Feng. Could Heaven really bring him back to me? Maybe the poster I had seen was an old one and he really was dead. I realized that there must be hundreds of men with this same name in China. That meant that at this moment, there would be many Shen Fengs who were dead and many alive. Could I let myself hope that
my
Shen Feng was among the living? And if he were, what would I do?

I thought of the line from Du Fu’s poem “Tribute to the Hermit Wei Ba”:

I suddenly felt hopeless.

Exhausted, I did not realize that I had fallen asleep until a strange noise awakened me from my deep oblivion. It sounded like a starving animal or a badly injured tiger. My initial thought was to escape. I hadn’t gone through so much to end up as a meal for a wild beast. Then I became even more frightened—what if it was a wandering ghost? After all, this was a haunted mountain where no one dared come, except two outcasts from society—a runaway ghost bride and a wanted revolutionary. Maybe in the past Shen Feng and I had been so consumed by our passion that we never noticed all the hovering beings from the other realm.

But it was still broad daylight, not yet the opening hour for the Gate of Hell to release ghosts into the land of the living. But if what I heard was not a ghost, then it must be an animal. And if it was wounded, it would not be able to hurt me. So I stood up and cautiously felt my way farther into the cave, straining my ears to trace the source of the sound. I lit my candle, but it let off only a feeble light, so I had to advance very cautiously.

As I walked I realized that the cave went much deeper than I had ever realized. Shen Feng and I had always met near the front, where there was some light. The path got narrower as the whimper got clearer and my heart beat faster. My nostrils were ambushed by a faint but nauseating stench, making me feel queasy. Common sense told me I should turn around and run before I got myself into deeper difficulty. But my curiosity and stubbornness kept me poking along. Finally, I saw something—a person, lying on the ground, sick or wounded, it seemed.

The voice was of a man, but without
qi,
as if he had one foot already inside the Gate of Hell.

“Someone . . . here?”

I didn’t respond, but I was sure he could hear my heavy breathing echoing loudly inside the womb of the dark cave.

He struggled to speak again. “If you’re going to kill me, get it over with. . . .”

Though the once-powerful voice was now but a whisper, I had no doubt to whom it belonged.

Shen Feng.

I dashed to him, knelt down, and reached to tenderly touch his cheek.

“Feng, it’s me, Spring Swallow.”

He stared into my eyes. “Is that really you, my dear wife?”

“Yes.” I wanted to say “husband” but just couldn’t.

Silence passed, followed by soft sobbing reverberating in the cave.

“Feng, are you all right?”

He shook his head. “No, Spring Swallow, I’m dying.”

“Please, Feng”—I put my hand over his mouth—“don’t say bad-luck things, you’re not . . . you’ll be all right.”

Then I felt a sudden panic. Despite all I had seen, I was only nineteen and death had always seemed far away, yet now it was right in front of my eyes. In the flickering candlelight I could barely make out my mountain husband’s face, but I felt his fear.

“Spring Swallow, a revolutionary who tries to reform China cannot be superstitious. So I’m not going to lie to you or to myself. The truth is that I’ll not see this world or your beautiful face much longer. . . .”

“Feng, please . . .”

I touched his sunken face and he took my hand with his skeletal one. What torture was he suffering for his damned revolution?

“Don’t be sad, my wife. At least Heaven has granted us one last chance to meet on this Earth, inside our love cave.”

It must have taken great effort for him to talk, for he was now gasping for air.

“Spring Swallow, please hold me and let me feel you. . . .”

So in the dark, we cuddled against each other, feeling each other’s warmth—and pain.

Long silence passed, and he said, “Please let me see your beautiful face. . . .”

I picked up the candle, then held it up. When I clearly saw Shen Feng’s face I screamed out loud. Not only had he lost all his once-thick and luscious hair, his scalp was covered with burn scars. His cheeks were so sunken that I was sure if I poured water it would form a puddle. Then I saw that he had only one eye left—the other one was an empty socket!

I burst out crying.

“Feng, what have they done to you?”

He reached his emaciated hand to touch my lips. “Don’t be sad, my dear Spring Swallow, for this will soon be over. . . .”

“No! Please stop saying that, I beg you.”

“Don’t feel sorry for me. I did my best for China. And now I have seen you once again. . . .”

I gently covered his lips so he couldn’t continue talking about his approaching death and breaking my heart. But he tenderly removed my hand. No one could resist a tender man.

He was about to say something, but I spoke first. “Feng, let me give you something to eat to help you regain your energy.”

I offered him a bun and some weak tea from my thermos. But to my great sadness, after taking just one bite, he stopped.

“Please, Feng, eat more, please.”

He shook his head adamantly. “I want to hear what happened to you after I left for the revolution.”

This was the question I had been dreading. “I will tell you soon. But I want to hear what happened to you first.”

He didn’t respond. It must be too painful.

So I said tenderly, “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

Of course I wanted to know everything, but I also dreaded hearing more.

“Spring Swallow, I want you to understand me and my goal, but I also don’t want you to suffer because of me. To make it short, I’ve been horribly tortured. My comrade too. . . .”

“Your comrade?”

He nodded, then pointed to a dark, semi-hidden corner. “He too was tortured, but I managed to help him escape with me; but then he died a few days later. I was not strong enough to dig a hole to bury him, so I put his body over there in a cleft in the rock and covered him as best as I could with small stones.”

No wonder there was this stench. I did not want to think about the horrible ordeal my mountain husband and his comrade had gone through. But I was all too aware that his time had nearly run out.

“Feng, let me carry you down and get you to a hospital.”

“No”—he vehemently shook his head—“I’m not going to die in a cold institution—”

“Who says you’re going to die?”

“Spring Swallow, please don’t pretend. Look at me; I’m but a rotten piece of meat, a broken skeleton. You can smell death oozing from my pores.”

He slowly lifted his pant leg and revealed what was underneath—black flesh oozing blood and pus.

I covered my face to hide my tears and willed myself to calm down. “Feng . . . I’m sorry, so sorry . . .”

Now I realized that the rotten smell was not from his buried colleague, but from his leg. I took out the handkerchief, trying to bandage his wound, but he shook his head and pushed my hand away.

“Spring Swallow, this is kind of you, but useless. All that is left for me now is to die in peace, with you. Here on this mountain where we met and became husband and wife, witnessed by Heaven and Earth.”

He reached into his pocket and took out the handkerchief I’d given him as the token of my love, now worn and stained.

Tears coursed down my cheeks as Shen Feng spoke. “Spring Swallow, I’ve always carried your love with me. This handkerchief kept me going during many difficult times.”

He paused to suck in the cave’s stale air, then went on. “If I’m lucky, there’s time for you to tell me what happened after I left for the revolution. For me, there’s not much to say—I failed, was tortured, and am now about to slip into the great Unknown. However, I die believing my revolutionary comrades will someday succeed after I’m gone.”

Shen Feng took another gulp of air. Suddenly his remaining eye brightened, radiating hope. “Against the emperor’s wish, the historian Sima Qian was determined to tell the truth, so the emperor ordered his hand cut off. Sima’s son also persisted in telling the truth and had his hand chopped off too. Later, all Sima’s offspring lost their hands also—until finally the emperor passed away. The truth was finally told because of this family’s courage.”

He looked at me with a brave expression. “Spring Swallow, if we had a son, he’d do the same for the revolution, for China’s future.”

I really didn’t know how to respond to this. How did you reason with a man who admires a family in which their children’s hands were cut off for generations, for a truth no one now can even remember?

He spoke again. “Spring Swallow, when I am gone, please come here sometimes to remember me, to tell me about your life, and recite a sutra for me. Who knows, perhaps somehow I’ll be able to hear you.”

I knew it was pointless to try to stop Shen Feng from saying unlucky things, so I just nodded as he poured out what had been stuck inside him. But I couldn’t stop my tears from flowing, and Shen Feng lifted his emaciated hand to try to wipe them away.

“There are too many tragedies and tears in this world, Spring Swallow. After I’m gone, try to live a simple and happy life. . . .”

I nodded, grabbing his hand and kissing its many scars.

Some silence passed before I blurted out, “Feng, I’m pregnant.”

A few sparks shot out from his remaining eye. “It can’t be mine, can it?”

Of course he knew the baby couldn’t possibly be his, but he still wanted to keep up hope, no matter how faint. I shook my head, but couldn’t say a thing to comfort him.

“Feng, you know it can’t be . . .”

“Then who is the father? Tell me the whole story so I can go in peace, knowing you are safe.”

So I did, but not that I had lost the baby who would have been his son. A boy who might have carried out his father’s patriotic dream. I did tell him about Ryan, that he was good to me, but not that we were married. Strangely, instead of feeling guilty lying, I felt I’d be betraying both Ryan and Shen Feng if I’d told all of the truth. I believed that the lie was a much better “truth” for all three parties—Shen Feng, Ryan, and me.

Shen Feng touched my cheek, then pulled me with the little force he could muster, so I was nestled against his bony chest. He smoothed my cheek and hair, sending shivers down my spine. I knew this would be our last few minutes together.

My mountain husband said, his voice thin as wisps of smoke, “Spring Swallow, listen to me, marry this foreigner as quickly as possible so your baby will have a father and you a husband; then have more babies. . . .”

He paused, then went on, a half smile hanging on his ghostly face. “What’s his name?”

“Ryan McFarland, a missionary from America.”

“So, a foreigner who works in a Western church?”

I nodded. “Feng, in my mind, you’re my true husband, as only our marriage was witnessed by Heaven and Earth.”

I felt I was being untrue to Ryan, but he would never know. Shen Feng was my first, a love match, and I wanted his last time on Earth to be as happy as possible.

His expression broke my heart.

I asked hesitatingly, “Feng, are you . . . all right with this?”

He nodded. “Of course I’m very jealous of the other man, Spring Swallow. What husband wouldn’t be? But even if I could be well and healthy, it’s no life for a woman with a revolutionary as a husband.”