Bi Feiyu - Three Sisters

Yuxiu was given a room behind the kitchen, facing the living quarters; from there she secretly observed Guo and his daughter as much as possible, waiting for the opportunity to divulge her desire to stay in Broken Bridge. The timing had to be perfect, and she needed to do it just right. She would have one chance, one beat of the drum. If she blew her chance the first time around, there would not be a second. She could not afford to be haphazard.

Sunday. There were no classes, so Qiaoqiao was home. Yuxiu decided to do Qiaoqiao’s hair before lunch, something she did with instinctive imagination and creativity. After Yuxiu gave Qiaoqiao a shampoo, the basin was filled with greasy water. It was disgusting.

Even before she was finished, Yuxiu developed a loathing for this idiotic cunt, who was beneath contempt; she’d have liked nothing better than to shove the girl’s face into that basin of pig grease and drown her. But her fate was tied to the girl, so she forced every finger on both hands to be obedient and docile. After the girl’s hair was clean and dried, it was time for Yuxiu to comb and braid it.

Until now, Qiaoqiao had always worn a single, thick, unattractive braid, which gave her a hard, somewhat imperious look. Yuxiu thinned her hair with scissors, then parted it down the middle and gave Qiaoqiao a pair of small braids, which she coiled up and fastened at the ends. The tips of the braids rested just above her ears and bounced slightly when she moved—a mischievously chic look like that of the typical spoiled daughter of a traitor in the cinema. Without those two braids, Qiaoqiao, who was a bit of a tomboy to begin with, could easily have been mistaken for a boy. But now, thanks to Yuxiu’s grooming, she at least looked like a girl and was clearly pleased with the results.

As she stood off to the side, Yuxiu said in a voice dripping with envy, “I’d love to have hair like yours, Qiaoqiao.” She sounded sad, and once flattery reached that level of emotion, a recipient would have to be made of wood not to be moved. As expected, Qiaoqiao loved the sound of that comment. She beamed, grinning from ear to ear like a clam. All you could see on her face was her mouth. One look told Yuxiu that this was her chance.

She sighed. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could be your personal servant, Qiaoqiao? But no such luck, I’m afraid.”

Qiaoqiao was admiring herself in the mirror, first from one angle, then another, marveling over how nice she looked.

“That shouldn’t be much of a problem,” Qiaoqiao blurted out.

Yuxiu carried on a cheerful conversation with Qiaoqiao during lunch, which sounded strange to Guo Jiaxing, since that wasn’t like his daughter, who was never chummy with Yumi. But she obviously was with Yuxiu.

After losing her mother at such a young age, no wonder the poor girl saw Yumi as the enemy. Guo couldn’t recall ever seeing her in such a good mood, and he was so happy he ate more rice than usual.

As she handed Guo Jiaxing his rice bowl, Yuxiu knew that her moment had arrived.

“Brother-in-law,” she said, “Qiaoqiao and I have agreed that I’m going to be her personal servant. I’ll stay here—but you have to supply three meals a day.” She said it like a spoiled, winsome little girl. But she knew that this was the critical moment and waited nervously for his reaction. Holding his bowl in his hand, he took a look at Qiaoqiao’s head. He had a pretty good idea of what was going on.

As he shoveled some rice into his mouth he mumbled, “Serve the people.”

The words made Yuxiu’s heart lurch. Her hand shook. But she knew that everything was okay. Thinking her sister was joking, Yumi dismissed what had just happened. But Yuxiu turned to her and said, “Well then, dear sister, I’ll stay.”

So it hadn’t been a joke after all. Like a medicinal plaster, the little scamp had found a way to stick around. Yumi didn’t know what to say. Qiaoqiao put down her bowl and left the table, and as she watched the girl walk away, Yuxiu reached over and grabbed Yumi’s wrist, squeezing it tightly as she whispered, “I know my own sister wouldn’t want me to leave.” The real message in this comment was a plea. Yumi knew that, and she still could not abide the way Yuxiu had used her cunning to her advantage. But what could she say in light of Yuxiu’s sisterly comment? She just pursed her lips and shot a glance at Yuxiu, slowly chewing her food as she said to herself, You can’t stay in Wang Family Village, you little whore, so you come here to upstage me with your slick ways.

Yuxiu lowered her head. Everyone present would have been surprised by how fast her heart was pounding at that moment. She was on edge. As she shoveled food into her mouth, her heart leaped into her throat and she nearly choked. Tears threatened to spill from her eyes. I got what I came for, a place to live, she thought. Seeing her sister’s empty bowl, Yuxiu jumped up to refill it. But Yumi put it down and announced, “I’m full.”

So Yuxiu now had a place to live, and though she hadn’t given a thought to how her sister would feel about that, Yumi actually had high hopes for her and was content to let her be on her own. But Yumi found Yuxiu’s budding friendship with Qiaoqiao hard to accept. Guo’s foolish daughter was not easy to deal with, and Yumi realized that she was afraid of Qiaoqiao.

Normally, Yumi feared no one, but now she found that the girl had her exactly where she wanted her. Qiaoqiao was not the calculating type, not someone adept at playing tricks. Not Qiaoqiao. She was openly ruthless and tyrannical. She said what was on her mind and did what she felt like. That was just the sort of person Yumi found difficult.

Yumi recalled, for instance, how Qiaoqiao had come home from school one day shortly after the marriage, and Yumi had tried to show the girl how kind a stepmother she could be. In front of a crowd in the government compound, Yumi greeted the girl. “Back from school already, Qiaoqiao,” she said with a smile as she reached out for the girl’s schoolbag.

Qiaoqiao rewarded her by calling her a “dumb cunt”—hardly expected, especially in front of all those officials.

For Yumi, it was a disastrous loss of face. That night in bed she told Guo Jiaxing what had happened. “Why would she do that?” Yumi asked. “It was as if she’d seen the devil herself.”

Showing a remarkable lack of interest, Guo said in an offhanded way, “She’s only a child.”

“A child? She’s not much younger than me.” Actually, Yumi didn’t say that; she just thought it. This was not something she dared to say aloud. She was disheartened. Barely older than the dense Qiaoqiao, she did what was expected of a stepmother, but her dignity was in shambles and she had gained nothing for her effort. But that’s how parenting works sometimes. When you lose a mate, the natural reaction is to feel you’ve let your child down, and so to compensate, you spoil the child, who then becomes self-indulgent and undisciplined. As Yumi lay beside Guo Jiaxing, her chilled heart was filled with grievances. In the final analysis, men cannot be trusted. They flatten themselves out on top of you to satisfy their desire and exaggerate their emotional involvement. They are calculating in their choice of whom to be close to and whom to keep at arm’s length. A man is one thing before he pulls out and something altogether different after—bitterly disappointing.

Yumi wanted a heart-to-heart talk with Qiaoqiao so she could make it clear that she didn’t expect the girl to call her “Mother.” She knew she could never be the girl’s mother. But she could call her “Aunty,” couldn’t she? And if that was too much to ask, how about Elder Sister? Or she could settle simply on Yumi. But not a peep out of Qiaoqiao.