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“You look beautiful,” she said.

I saw before me the person whom I loved above all others. Still, I was troubled by whatshe had said before we came down the mountain about my pitying her for hercircumstances. I didn’t want to leave without explaining myself.

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“I never thought you were”—I struggled to find tactful words and gave up—“less than Iwas.”

She smiled. My heart beat against her hand. “You said no lies.” Then, before I could say anything else, I heard my husband’s voice calling me. “Lily! Lily! Lily!”

With that, I ran—yes, ran—downstairs and outside. When I saw him, I fell to my knees and put my head at his feet, so embarrassed I was by how I must have looked andsmelled. He lifted me up and enfolded me in his arms.

“Lily, Lily, Lily . . .” My name came out muffled as he kissed me again and again, oblivious that others watched our reunion.

“Dalang . . .” I had never before spoken his name.

He took me by the shoulders and pushed me back so he could see my face. Tears glistenedin his eyes; then he pulled me close again, crushing me to him.

“I had to get everyone out of Tongkou,” he explained. “Then I had to see our children safely on their way. . . .”

These actions, which I didn’t fully understand until later, were what changed my husbandfrom the son of a good and generous headman to a much-respected headman in his own right.

His body trembled as he added, “I looked for you many times.”

So often in our women’s songs, we say, “I had no feelings for my husband” or “My husband had no feelings for me.” These are popular lines, used in chorus after chorus, buton that day I had deep feelings for my husband, and he for me.

My last moments in Jintian went by in a blur. My husband paid the butcher a handsome reward. Snow Flower and I embraced. She offered me the fan to take home, but I wantedher to keep it, for her sorrow was still near and all I felt was happiness. I said goodbye toSnow Flower’s son and promised I would send him some notebooks to study men’s writing. Finally, I bent down to Snow Flower’s daughter. “I will see you very soon,” I said.Then I got on the cart and my husband flicked the reins. I looked back to Snow Flower,waved, and turned toward Tongkou—toward my home, my family, my life.

Letter of Vituperation

throughout the county people went about rebuilding their lives. Those of us who survivedthat year had experienced too much, first with the epidemic and then with the rebellion.We were depleted— emotionally, and by the numbers of those we’d lost—but grateful tobe alive. Slowly we gained weight. Men went back to the fields and sons returned to themain hall for study, while women and girls retired to their upstairs rooms to embroider and weave. We all moved forward, invigorated by our good fortune.

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Sometimes in the past I had wondered about the outer realm of men. Now I vowed Iwould never venture into it again. My life was meant to be spent in the upstairs chamber.I was happy to see my sisters-in-law’s faces and looked forward to long afternoons spentwith them in needlework, tea, song, and story. But this was nothing to how I felt uponseeing my children. Three months was forever, in their eyes and in mine. They had grownand changed. My eldest son had turned twelve while I was away.

Safe in the county seat during the chaos, rotected by the emperor’s troops, he hadstudied very hard. He had learned the sup

ppreme lesson: All scholars, no matter where theylived or what dialect they spoke, read the same texts and took the same exams so thatloyalty, integrity, and a singular vision would be maintained across the realm. Even farfrom the capital, in remote counties like ours, local magistrates—all trained in anidentical manner—helped people to understand the relationship between themselvesand the emperor. If my son stayed on this track, one day he would surely sit for theexaminations.

I saw Snow Flower more that year than since we were girls. Our husbands did not try tostop us, even though the rebellion still raged in other parts of the country. After all thathad happened, my husband believed I would be safe in the butcher’s care, while thebutcher encouraged his wife’s visits to my home, knowing she always returned with giftsof food, books, and cash. We shared a bed in each other’s homes, while our husbandsmoved to other rooms to allow us time together. The butcher dared not object, followingmy husband’s lead in this regard. But how could they have stopped any of it—our visits,our nights together, our whispered confidences? We had no fear of sun or rain or snow.“Obey, obey, obey, then do what you want.”

Snow Flower and I continued to meet in Puwei for festivals as we always had. It was goodfor her to see Aunt and Uncle, whose lifetime of goodness within the family had earnedthem love and respect. Aunt was beloved as a grandmother to all her “grandchildren.” Atthe same time, Uncle was also in a better position than he had been when my father wasalive. Elder Brother needed Uncle’s advice in the fields and in keeping the accounts, andUncle was honored to give it. Aunt and Uncle had found a happy ending that no one couldhave imagined.

That year when Snow Flower and I went to the Temple of Gupo, our thanks wereprofound and deep. We made offerings, kowtowing in thanks that we had survived thewinter. Then, arm in arm, we walked to the taro stand. Sitting there, we planned ourdaughters’ futures and discussed the methods of footbinding that would ensure perfectgolden lilies. Back in our own homes, we made bindings, purchased soothing herbs,embroidered miniature shoes to place at the altar of Guanyin, formed glutinous rice ballsto present to the Tiny-Footed Maiden, and fed our daughters red-bean dumplings tosoften their feet. Separately, we spoke with Madame Wang about our daughters’ match.When Snow Flower and I met again, we compared conversations, laughing at how heraunt was still the same, with her powdered face and wily ways.

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Even now, looking back at those months of spri and early summer, I see how blithelyhappy I was. I had my family and I had my laotong

ngng. As I said, I moved forward. This wasnot the case with Snow Flower. She did not regain the weight she had lost. She picked ather food—a few grains of rice, two bites of vegetable—preferring instead to drink tea.Her skin be-came pale again, while her cheeks refused to fill out. When she came toTongkou and I suggested that we visit her old friends, she politely declined, saying, “Theywouldn’t want to see me” or “They won’t remember me.” I nagged her until she agreedshe would come with me next year to the Sitting and Singing ceremony of a Lu girl here inTongkou, who was Snow Flower’s second cousin twice removed and my next-doorneighbor. In the afternoons Snow Flower sat with me as I did my embroidery, but shegazed out the lattice window, her mind elsewhere. It was as though she had jumped offthe cliff after all, on our last day in the mountains, and was in a soundless fall. I saw hersadness but refused to accept it. My husband warned me several times about this. “Youare strong,” he said one night after Snow Flower had returned to Jintian. “You came backfrom the mountains and you make me more proud every day with the way you manageour household and set a good example for the women of our village. But you—and please,do not get angry with me—are blind when you look at your old same. She is not yoursame in every way. Maybe what happened last winter was too much for her. I do notknow her well, but surely you can see she puts a brave face on a bad situation. It hastaken you many years to understand this, but not every man is like your husband.”

That he would confide this to me embarrassed me deeply. No, that’s not right. Rather, Iwas irritated that he dared to interfere in the innerrealm affairs of women. But I did notargue with him, because it wasn’t my place. Still, in my own mind I had to prove himwrong and m self right. So I looked more closely at Snow Flower when she next visited. Ilistened, really

yy listened. Life had degenerated for Snow Flower. Her mother-in-law hadcut back on her food, allowing her only one-third of the rice required for subsistence.

“I eat only clear porridge,” she said, “but I accept it. I’m not so hungry these days.”

Far worse, the butcher had not stopped beating her.

“You said he wouldn’t do it again,” I protested, not wanting to believe what my husbandhad seen so clearly.

“If he assaults me, what can I do? I can’t fight back.” Snow Flower sat across from me, herembroidery lying in her lap as limp and wrinkled as tofu skin.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

She answered with a question of her own. “Why should I trouble you with things youcannot change?”

“We can shift fate if we try hard enough,” I said. “I changed my life. You can too.”

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“How often does it happen?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm but frustrated that herhusband was still using his fists against her, angry that she accepted it so passively, andhurt that she hadn’t confided in me— again.

“The mountains changed him. They changed all of us. Don’t you see that?”

“How often?” I pressed.

“I fail my husband in many ways—”

In other words, it happened more often than she cared to admit.

“I want you to come and live with me,” I said.

“Desertion is the worst thing a woman can do,” she responded. “You know that.”

I did. For a woman it was an offense punishable by death by her husband’s hand.

“Besides,” Snow Flower went on, “I would never leave my children. My son needsprotection.”

“But to protect him with your own body?” I asked.

What response could she give?

I look back now and see with the clarity of eighty years that I showed far too muchimpatience with Snow Flower’s des ondency. In the past, whenever I had been unsure ofhow to react to my laotong’s unhapp

ppiness I had pressured her to follow the rules andtraditions of the inner realm as a way of combating the bad things that happened in herlife. This time I went further by launching a campaign for her to take control of herrooster husband, believing that as a woman born under the sign of the horse she coulduse her willfulness to change the situation. With only a useless daughter and an unlovedfirst son, she should try to get pregnant again. She needed to pray more, eat the properfoods, and ask the herbalist for tonics—all to guarantee a son. If she presented herhusband with what he wanted, he would remember her worth. But this was not all. . . . Bythe time the Ghost Festival arrived on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, I hadpeppered Snow Flower with many questions that she should have understood weresuggestions for her to improve the overall situation. Why couldn’t she try to be a betterwife? Why couldn’t she make her husband happy in the ways I knew she could? Whydidn’t she pinch her cheeks to bring back the color? Why didn’t she eat more so shewould have more energy? Why couldn’t she go home right now and kowtow to hermother-in-law, make her meals, sew for her, sing to her, do what she had to do to makethat old woman happy in her old age? Why didn’t she try harder to make things right? Ithought I was giving practical advice, but I had nothing like Snow Flower’s worries andconcerns. Still, I was Lady Lu and I thought I was right.

So when I ran out of things Snow Flower could do in her home, I questioned her about her

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time spent in mine. Wasn’t she happy to be with me? Didn’t she like the silk clothes I gave her? Didn’t she present the gifts the Lu family sent to her husband for our continuedgratitude with enough deference that he would be pleased with her? Didn’t sheappreciate that I had hired a man to teach reading and writing to boys her son’s age inJintian? Didn’t she see that by making our daughters laotong we would be changingSpring Moon’s fate, much as mine had been changed? If she truly loved me, why couldn’tshe do as I had done—wrap herself in the conventions that protected women—to makeher bad situation better? To all these queries she just sighed or nodded. Her reaction made me even more impatient. I stepped up my questions and well-considered reasons,until she surrendered, promising to do as I’d instructed. But she didn’t, and the next time my frustration with her was even more pointed. I didn’t understand that the bold horse ofSnow Flower’s childhood had been broken in spirit. I was stubborn enough to believe Icould fix a horse that had gone lame.

my life changed forever on the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month of the sixth year ofXianfeng’s reign. Mid-Autumn Festival had arrived. A few days remained before our daughters’ footbinding began. This year, Snow Flower and her children were to visit us for the holiday, but they were not who came to my threshold. It was Lotus, one of thewomen who’d lived under our tree in the mountains. I invited her to have tea with me inthe upstairs chamber.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I am in Tongkou to visit my natal family.”

“A family likes to welcome home a married-out daughter,” I replied, with the customary nicety. “I’m sure they will be happy to see you.”

“And I to see them,” she said, as she reached into the basket of moon cakes that hung on her arm. “Our friend has asked me to give you something.” She pulled out a long slender package, wrapped in a fragment of celadon-colored silk I had recently given Snow Flower.Lotus handed it to me, wished me good fortune, and swayed down the alley and around the corner.

I knew from the shape what I was holding, but I couldn’t fathom why Snow Flower hadn’tcome and had sent the fan instead. I took the bundle upstairs and waited until my sisters-in-law set out together to drop off moon cakes to our friends in the village. I sent my daughter with them, saying she should enjoy these last few days outside while she could.Once they left, I sat in my chair by the lattice window. Hazy light filtered through thelatticework, casting a design of leaves and vines across my worktable. I stared at thepackage for a long time. How did I know to be afraid? Finally, I peeled back one edge, then another, of the green silk until our fan was fully exposed. I picked it up. Then I slowlyclicked open one fold after another. Next to the charcoal-ink characters we had written the night before we came down from the mountains I saw a new column of characters. Ihave too many troubles, Snow Flower had written. Her calligraphy had always been finer than mine, the legs of her mosquito lines so thin and delicate that the ends wisped into

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nothing. I cannot be what you w’ish. You wont have to listen to my complaints anymore.Three sworn sisters have promised to love me as I am. Write to me, not to console me as you have been doing, but to remember our happy girl-days together. And that was it.

I felt like a sword had thrust into my body. My stomach leaped at the surprise of it, then contracted into an uneasy ball. Love? Was she really talking about love with sworn sisters in our secret fan? I read the lines again, puzzled and confused. Three sworn sisters have promised to love me. But Snow Flower and I were laotong, which was a marriage ofemotions strong enough to cross over great distances and long separations. Our bond was supposed to be more important than marriage to a man. We had pledged to be true andfaithful until death parted us. That she seemed to be abandoning our promises in favor ofa new relationship with sworn sisters hurt beyond reason. That she was suggesting thatsomehow we could still be friends literally took my breath away. To me, what she hadwritten was ten thousand times worse than if my husband had walked in and announcedhe’d just taken his first concubine. And it wasn’t as though I hadn’t been given theopportunity to join a post-marriage sisterhood myself. My mother-in-law had pushed me very hard in that direction, but I had schemed and plotted to keep Snow Flower in my life.Now she was tossing me aside? It seemed that Snow Flower—this woman for whom I haddeep-heart love, whom I treasured, and to whom I’d committed myself for life—did notcare for me in the same way.