Jia Pingwa - Ruined City

“She’s drunk.” She was already on the floor. Some of the guests rushed over to offer tea and vinegar, but Zhuang said, “She’ll be fine when she sleeps it off. Now that the hostess got drunk first, whoever loses must drink up — no exceptions. Xia Jie, it’s your turn.”

After finishing the vegetarian meal he’d made for himself, Meng Yunfang came out of the kitchen.

“What’s the matter with you all?” he said. “What’s with all those inauspicious expressions? I’ll tell you what, you all take care of yourselves by picking up your cups and drinking toasts to each other. Then I’ll bring you some hot food and rice.”

They stood up and downed their drinks, their faces as red as peach blossoms, all except Zhou Min, whose face looked washed out. Meng brought out a table full of hot food, and when they had eaten their fill, he served a fish soup with dried longans. As everyone reached out with their spoons, Zhuang said, “Yueqing’s performance today was the worst, so naturally she had to get drunk. Now we vote for the best performance and let that person have the first taste of the delicious soup.”

“We won’t object if you want Tang Wan’er to enjoy the soup first, so we can skip your little scheme,” Xia Jie said.

“I didn’t do as well as Xia Jie,” Tang Wan’er said. “As a playwright and drama director, she has a ton of expressions in her belly.”

“Oh, so that’s what’s in there. I’ve always thought her belly was a bit too big and told her to get up early each day to exercise,” Meng quipped.

Xia Jie went over and pinched her husband’s ear. “So you think I’m fat, do you? Got your eyes on some willow-waisted woman? You’d better come clean now.”

With his ear in his wife’s hand, Meng continued to eat. “It’s a sign of love when this wife of mine hits me or yells at me.”

“Let me see which of the men here has the biggest ears,” Wan’er said, with her eyes on Zhuang. The others smiled knowingly. Pretending not to have heard her, he gave the first scoop of soup to Wang Ximian’s wife instead of to Wan’er. Wang’s wife dabbed her lips with a perfumed handkerchief when she was done. She put down her bowl; Wan’er and Xia Jie followed suit and put down theirs. Liu Yue got up to hand everyone a small plate of melon seeds before gathering up the dishes to wash in the kitchen. Zhuang told the guests to do whatever they pleased, including taking a rest in the room across from his study or reading in the study. Wang’s wife asked for a glass of water to take her medicine, saying she had had too much to drink and would rest for a while. Xia Jie wanted to play a game of chess with Tang Wan’er, insisting that Zhou Min come along as their referee. Zhuang and Meng went into the living room.

“I want to talk to you about something, Zhidie,” Meng said. “You gave the material from Abbess Huiming to Defu, who received the mayor’s approval. Now that the nunnery has its property back, they’re planning an expansion, and Huiming has been put in charge. She’s immensely grateful to you and asked me several times to invite you to tea.”

“That Huang Defu is a decent fellow. He should be invited to the nunnery, too.”

“Of course, that would be great. I’m just not sure he’d go,” Meng replied.

“He’d have to go if the invitation was from me.”

“There’s one more matter, an important one, that could be taken care of if he went. The nunnery also wanted to reclaim the area to the northeast, but it currently has a five-story building that houses many families. The mayor did not plan to return it to the nunnery, since it would be difficult to relocate the residents. Huiming has agreed to that decision, with one request about an empty three-room unit. She would like to have it serve as temporary lodging for their secular visitors, but the mayor was reluctant to agree. I’ve given it some thought. If he would give it to the nunnery, who would then let us use it, that would be ideal for anyone who wants a quiet place to write or paint for ten days or a couple of weeks. We could even meet there regularly, as a sort of literary salon. Wouldn’t that be great?”

Zhuang was animated by the suggestion. “Sounds ideal. I’ll talk to Defu. It shouldn’t be a problem.” He lowered his voice. “But you mustn’t tell anyone but writers and artists. Don’t forget that. Not even my wife, or she’d tell visitors to go see me there if I decided to use the place to do some writing.”

“Got it,” Meng said.

“I want your help in something else. Are you really familiar with hexagram divination?”

Meng responded with a swagger, “I’m not very good at the ancient occult theories, but I’m an expert in the common hexagram divination.”

“Keep your voice down. Do one for me if you really know how.”

“What happened? Why do you need divination?” Meng asked quietly.

“You don’t need to know now. I won’t tell you if nothing happens with what I’m thinking. But if it does, then I’ll need your help.”

Meng said they’d need milfoil, the most effective medium in divination. He had a bunch that someone had brought back from Henan for him, but he’d have to go home to get it.

“Are you looking for an excuse because you’re really not that good?”

“All right, then, I’ll use matchsticks instead.” Meng removed forty-nine matches from a box and told Zhuang to put his palms together. He told him to randomly divide the matches into two piles, then he moved the sticks around some more and gathered them up. After taking away the odd one, he told Zhuang to divide the sticks into two piles again. The process was repeated six times, during which he was chanting an incantation the whole time — Yin, Yang, Old Yin, Young Yang. Eventually he looked up at Zhuang and said, “What’s this all about? It’s very complicated.”

“You tell me; you’re the divination master.”

“Judging by what’s been happening in recent years, I’d say your star is on the rise and shines so brightly it could blind anyone, but this is clearly a stagnation symbol. Tell me when you were born.”

Zhuang told him.

“You were born under the water sign and that’s fine. But if what you want to know about is an object, which is wood 木 oriented, put that in a box, 口, and you get the stagnation symbol 困. If what you want to know about is a person 人, put that in a box and you get the sign for imprisonment 囚.”

The color drained from Zhuang’s face, as he said, “Naturally, it’s about a person.”

“That would give you the sign for imprisonment, either jail or sanctions. But luckily you have water in your karma, which, when put alongside the symbol for imprisonment 泅, means you can swim away and be rescued. However, you will be rescued only if you can keep yourself afloat. If not, you could be in serious trouble.”

“This is all rubbish,” Zhuang responded, before getting up to refill Meng’s teacup, his mind filled with trepidation.

. . .

Xia Jie and Tang Wan’er played three rounds of chess, and Tang lost each time. But she refused to accept defeat and insisted on playing more. Then a cry sounded in the bedroom. Zhuang had just added water to the teapot and put it on the stove when he heard it, so he plopped the teapot down carelessly, dousing the fire and sending steam swirling in the kitchen. With no time to pick up the pot, he ran into the bedroom, where a sweat-drenched Niu Yueqing was sitting on the rug atop the bed mat that had slid down with her. By then everyone had crowded into the room to see what was wrong. Still frightened, Niu Yueqing said, “I had a bad dream.”

The others breathed a sigh of relief and laughed.

“You nearly took our souls with you. Not even the meal you treated us to pays for what you just did to us,” someone said.