He leaned his flushed face close to Pearl’s made-up one and said as if he had just swallowed a fireball, ‘Little Pearl, I know tonight you have to keep Mr. Chan company, but before that, can you …’
Pearl snatched out her fan, flipped it open, then began to fan furiously while half-nudging the young man away with her hip. ‘Yor! When does our famous gifted oil painter pay attention to a plain woman like me?’
‘No, Pearl, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, the lady of my dreams.’
Pearl waved him a dismissive hand. ‘Then you better go to sleep now and I’ll see you later in your dream.’
The man had a trapped expression. Pearl cocked an eye at me while motioning to him. ‘Jiang Mou, let me introduce to you my little sister Xiang Xiang.’ Then she turned to me and spoke commandingly, ‘Xiang Xiang, pay respect to Mr. Jiang, the most famous oil portraitist in Shanghai. So if you’re lucky and behave, maybe someday he’ll be willing to paint you and make you very famous.’
‘Will you, Mr. Jiang?’ I asked, feeling colour rising in my cheeks.
‘If your sister says so,’ Jiang Mou said as his eyes kept moving all over Pearl.
Pearl continued to make small talk with Mr. Jiang while throwing him flirtatious glances and brushing his body with her smooth arms and fingers. Finally she whispered something into his ear and made a dismissive wave, at which the famous portraitist sauntered away like an obedient dog.
Pearl turned to me. ‘Xiang Xiang, now why don’t we start to read again?’
The lantern I’d picked was in the shape of a rooster, its riddle was written in walking-style calligraphy:
Its body can break the bellies of evil spirits
Its breath roars like thunder
Its sound rips up the sky and tears off the earth
But when you look back, it’s already a heap of ashes. (anobject)
I yelled to Pearl, ‘Firecrackers!’
She turned to look at me appreciatively, ‘Good, Xiang Xiang, now read this one.’ She pointed to a phoenix.
Face as beautiful as the crescent moon and ears alert as a night owl’s.
Ten thousand arms reach for ten thousand desperate voices. (a personage)
Again I blurted out, ‘Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, who listens to the cries of the needy and goes to help!’
Pearl cocked an eye at me. ‘Very good, you’re really smart, eh?’ Now she pointed to a lotus. ‘Then what about this?’
Just then a loud explosive sound shattered the air.
‘Oh, my heaven!’ Pearl screamed, ‘someone’s got shot!’
‘How do you know?’
‘This is not the first time that it happened. It’s too terrible. Let’s go find out who’s the lucky one.’ Pearl grabbed my arm and we sped to the source of the sound.
Pearl and I shoved through the hovering crowd and gaped.
What stared back at me was a pair of sad, flickering eyes. They were the same eyes that, from underneath the bamboo grove, had followed my every move.
Pearl sighed, yet her voice didn’t sound very upset. ‘I knew sooner or later something like this would happen to Spring Moon.’
I craned my neck to take a better look and saw the sad-eyed girl squirming and moaning on the ground. Blood oozed from her arm, staining the green sleeve of her dress.
I blurted out, ‘Oh, heaven, we should call the police!’
A coarse voice roared. ‘Who said call the police?!’
I felt my sleeve tugged. Pearl shot me a razor-sharp look to shut me up.
The evening suddenly turned icy.
Coarse Voice laughed an air-shredding laugh. ‘Ha! Ha! Ha! Doesn’t everyone here know that I am the police chief?’
I followed the voice until my gaze fell on the most evil face I’d ever seen. It belonged to a dark, solid man with a prominent jaw protruding from a wide, uncouth face. His eyes were mere slits, with the pupils darting like mice trapped in a narrow trough. His square body, stuffed into a stiff uniform the colour of chicken shit, gave the impression of a corpse.
Then, more to my surprise, nobody – none of the sisters, servants, Fang Rong, Wu Qiang, nor the guests – offered to help the poor girl. Everyone just stood there, their feet rooted to the ground and their eyes trapezing between Spring Moon and the police chief.
While his eyes scanned the onlookers like machine guns firing muted shots, everyone lowered their heads to stare at their shoes. The chief spat at Spring Moon, his saliva spraying in all directions and flickering in the lanterns’ light. ‘Fuck your mother, stinky slut. Has no one taught you never to say no to a police chief? Eh? You stinky stuff!’
Fang Rong shoved away the others and went up to Spring Moon, but to my utter shock and surprise, instead of offering help or comfort, she also spat on her – more vehemently than the angry corpse. ‘You cheap, stupid, short-lived bitch! Don’t I always tell you never say no to our noble guests!?’ Then she turned to the police chief, her lips curling into a grin so huge I feared her teeth might be all squeezed out. ‘I’m so sorry, Chief Che, but I swear to you on the honour of Buddha and Guan Yin and the righteous White-Browed God and all my ancestors that this will never happen again.’
The chief shot Fang Rong a murderous look, while swinging his gun. ‘Is that how you teach your daughters? To play ladies when they’re whores?’
A deafening silence. Fang Rong and Wu Qiang plopped down, engaging themselves in a succession of frantic kowtows.
Mama’s voice spilled fear. ‘Sorry, Chief Che, it’s all our fault. Tonight I promise we’ll whip this slut to death to teach her a good lesson.’
Mama kept apologising, while the police chief kept fuming. He cursed incessantly, his body shivering and his high-booted feet fidgeting. When the cold breeze blew in my direction, a strong stench of alcohol wafted into my nostrils. Everyone remained deadly quiet, intently watching what was going to happen next. It astonished me that, amid this crisis, some sisters looked entertained, as if they were watching a Peking opera comedy.
The chief’s venomous words rolled out across the chill night air. ‘Promise me you’ll whip this slut till her skin blossoms and her flesh rots! And I mean it, you get it?!’
Now Mama and De yapped simultaneously, ‘You have our word, Chief!’
The dark face snorted. His voice slashed the night air like a sword. ‘Huh! If not,’ he swung his gun toward the two kneeling figures, ‘beware of your brains!’
The pitiful duo paraded more kowtows.
Then suddenly, hands shaking, the police chief turned to aim the gun at Spring Moon’s head. A collective gasp resonated in the air. Spring Moon closed her eyes. The pool of blood slowly crept along the ground as if it had a miserable life of its own.
Eager faces, shining with curiosity, excitement, and fear, waited for the ‘bang!’ to climax the evening. I felt my heart almost jump out of my chest.
Just then, to everyone’s surprise, Pearl pushed through the group, stepped forward, and wriggled up to the police chief. The evil-faced stinking