You think that carrying nine sabre coins makes you a rich woman, is that it?’ Wuzhang made no attempt to hide his disdain. ‘If you possessed some unique skill, if you could fly up to the eaves or walk up walls, or if you breathed fire or walked on water, I would take you to see him, and he would reward me. If you could get your frog to wish Lord Hengming a long and happy life, I would take you to see him. Since a Huangdian rooster can lead the way down a road, a Huangdian frog ought to be able to speak. Have your frog say something to Lord Hengming, have it bow to him and wish him a long and happy life, and I’ll take you to Hundred Springs Terrace.’
‘Where do you keep your ears, Elder Brother?’ Binu said. ‘I’ve told you over and over that I am from Peach Village, not Huangdian. This frog comes from Banqiao, not Huangdian. It cannot bow, and it certainly cannot speak.’
‘If it can do neither of those, then you should not go. Not only would you fail to hire the donkey, but when Lord Hengming saw you, he might take a fancy to you. He has bought many women in recent years, some bright and beautiful, some broad in the hip, just right for bearing children, and some handy with needlework. He has kept some for himself and has given others to his retainers. Anything he likes, he buys. If you could cut up pieces of the sky and sell them, he would buy a big piece. Now, do you understand what my employer is like?’
Binu nodded at first but then shook her head. ‘You can say I’m from Huangdian all you want, but I’m not, and since I’m not, I’m not afraid.’ She looked at the resplendent donkey cart; and the more she looked, the more arrogant the donkey seemed, and the more luxurious the canopy seemed. She tried to imagine what the owner of that cart might be like, but her mind failed her. She sighed and gave up trying. ‘Elder Brother, that must be a rich and powerful man whose donkey cart is better decked out than any person could be. Well, I am not interested in hiring that donkey. My feet will take me to Great Swallow Mountain. But I don’t understand why everyone I meet along the way lies to me? They all tell me that Bluegrass Ravine sells large livestock.’
‘That just shows how stupid you are. Large livestock means people, not animals!’ Having lost his patience with her, Wuzhang picked up a whip with his feet, raised it high and brought it down with a crack right above her head. ‘Go on, get out of my way. I’m here to take on a new retainer for Lord Hengming. He’ll be coming down the mountain any minute now, so stop bothering me.’
Binu jumped in alarm, the violent movement causing something metallic in her bundle to clink.
The carter’s eyes lit up. ‘You’re not a woman who lies,’ he said. I can tell that you do in fact have nine sabre coins. Well, I didn’t lie to you either. Go and buy a head of large livestock. Go out of this pass and look down the mountain. You’ll see a place where they buy and sell people. Large livestock is all you’ll find there.’
It was nearly time for the people market to close for the day, now that the sun was setting, but people still lined both sides of the street, the most notable being a cluster of bewitching young women. Given their dazzling, elaborate dress, they had probably come from the northern districts of Blue Cloud Prefecture. Rouge covered their foreheads, cheeks and lips, and they were dressed in colourful blue, peach-red or pastel-green dresses. The sleeves and hems were adorned with diamond patterns, some large, some small; their sashes, decorated with inlaid stones of agate and strips of jade, were tied in butterfly knots, and on the ends hung jade rings, silver lockets or perfume sachets. It must have been their splendid attire that lent them such self-assurance and a palpable sense of pride. Their faces betrayed little sadness over the chaotic state of the world around them. It was late in the day, and potential buyers had yet to show, so the women chattered like birds about to return to their nests for the night, making a racket over one thing or another. Scattered around them were barefoot mountain women in bamboo hats, and a few middle-aged women from a distant prefecture, all wearing simple dark clothing. They stood silently, with downcast looks that befitted their station, as they gazed at horse-drawn carriages travelling up and down the road. Across the way, elderly men and boys sat lazily, cross-legged, several of them asleep, with their heads resting on their neighbours’ shoulders. One boy, unmindful of his station, had climbed a date tree by the road and was shaking the branches with all his strength, even though the dates had been picked long ago; all that fell to the ground were dry dead leaves.
A man sitting beneath the tree shouted, ‘Stop that! You’ll kill the tree that way, and there won’t be any shade left. Then you’ll have to stand in full sun waiting to be sold, and sooner or later that will kill you.’
The threat worked on the boy, who stopped shaking and sat still in the fork of the branches, from where he spotted an unfamiliar woman with a bundle on her head coming down from the mountain pass. A new target had presented itself. Reaching under his shirt, he took out a slingshot and shouted excitedly to the people below, ‘Here comes some new large livestock! Hand me some stones, hurry!’
The others watched as Binu, with a bundle on her head, walked under the tree; the women across the street heard the stones bombard her body, but Binu merely looked up into the branches of the tree and said, ‘You cannot hurt me with your stones. But you had better be careful up there or you might fall and hurt yourself.’ Her warning caught the boy off-guard; he put away his slingshot and said to the man under the tree, ‘I hit her with my slingshot but, instead of scolding me, she cautioned me to take care not to fall out of the tree. The head of this large livestock has a problem.’
Binu stood fast on the dirt road. Since the tree and its surroundings were men’s territory, she could not stop there. But across the road were all those women, whose fancy dresses rippling in the desolate autumn breezes struck her as somehow improper. So she stood in the middle of the road and took a good look at the Bluegrass Ravine people market. The finely attired young women were, at the same time, sizing her up.
‘Why is she carrying a bundle on her head? Isn’t she afraid of crushing her hairstyle?’
‘Hairstyle?’ one of them sneered. ‘It’s a rat’s nest, that’s what it is. Southern women don’t fuss over their hair.’
Another woman’s attention was drawn to Binu’s face. With a combination of envy and ignorance, she said, ‘I didn’t know there were beauties down south too. Just look at her delicate moth eyebrows, her phoenix eyes and her willowy waist, a classic beauty.’
A woman beside her added caustically, ‘Too bad she never learned how to wash her face or apply make-up. She’s actually smeared dust all over her face in place of rouge. Look at the dirt on that face; you could plant crops in it.’
Binu was not immediately offended by the malicious gossip. From Peach Village all the way to Bluegrass Ravine, she had believed that women who congregated at the side of a road must be waiting to be taken to Great Swallow Mountain, and she expected to meet women from other towns who were also searching for their husbands, assuming they could travel north together.
She walked up to a woman in green who was eating flatbread. ‘Are you waiting for a ride?’ she asked. ‘Are you going to Great Swallow Mountain?’
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