Big Breasts & Wipe Hips: A Novel

abject cruelty characterized his treatment of his wife. He had no use for either of the children, and whenever he abused Mother, she mused angrily, “Go ahead, you ass, beat me. Neither one of those girls is yours, and if I have another thousand babies, not one of them will have a drop of Shangguan blood running through their veins.” In the wake of her intimacy with Big Paw Yu, she did not know how she could face her aunt again. So that year she did not go home. “They’re all dead,” she said when her mother-in-law pressed her to return home for a visit, “so there’s nothing to go home to.” Big Paw, obviously, could give her only daughters, so she began the search for a better donor. Go ahead, Mother-in-law, Husband, beat me and curse me all you want. Just you wait, I’ll have my son one of these days, but he won’t be a Shangguan, and to hell with you!
    Caught up in these thoughts, she walked on, parting the reeds that all but sealed off the path. The scraping sound and chilled, mildew-laden odor of water plants evoked a pale fear in her. Water birds cried out from the surrounding foliage as breezy gusts swirled among the plants. Up ahead, no more than a few paces, a wild boar blocked her path. Mean-looking horns poked out from the sides of its long snout; tiny staring eyes, surrounded by bristly brows, glared hatefully at her, accompanied by snorts of intimidation. Mother shuddered and awoke to unknown surroundings. How did I get here? she wondered. Everyone in Northeast Gaomi knows that the bandit hideouts are somewhere deep among the reeds. No one, not even armed troops, dares to set foot here.
    Anxiously, Mother turned to head back, but she quickly discovered that human and animal traffic had formed a checkerboard of footpaths, and she couldn’t tell which one had brought her this far. Panic-stricken, she tried several of the paths, but they led nowhere, and she wound up crying over her predicament. Scattered shards of sunlight shone down on the ground, where years of fallen leaves rotted. Mother stepped into a pile of loose excrement, which, though foul-smelling, actually boosted her spirits; it could only mean there were, or had been, people in the vicinity. “Hello!” she shouted. “Is there anyone out there?” She listened as her shouts careened off of densely packed reed stalks before being swallowed up. When she looked down at her feet, she saw coarse vegetation amid the squashed pile of excrement, which meant it wasn’t human after all, but the droppings of a boar or other wild animal. Once again she headed down a footpath, but soon lost heart and sat on the ground, where she cried tears of despair.
    Suddenly she felt something cold on her back, as if sinister eyes were watching from a hiding place behind her. She spun around to look — nothing but interlaced leaves of reed stalks, the top ones pointing straight up into the sky. A light breeze was born and died among the reeds, leaving behind only a soft rustle. Birdcalls from deep in the patch had an eerie quality, as if made by humans. Danger lurked everywhere. All those green eyes hidden amid the reeds, whose tips played host to will-o’-the-wisps. Her nerves were shattered, the hair on her arms stood on edge, her breasts hardened. As all rational thoughts fled, she shut her eyes and took off running, until her feet sank into the shallow water of a pond, startling clouds of dark mosquitoes into the air, and from there straight back to her, stinging her mercilessly; a sticky sweat oozed from her pores, attracting even more mosquitoes. At some point she’d lost her earthenware jar and wire strainer; now she was running to escape the mosquito onslaught and screeching pitifully. As she was about to give up hope altogether, her God sent a savior in the person of the duck peddler.
    With a palm rain cape over his shoulders and a conical rain hat on his head, he grabbed Mother and led her to a high spot in the field, where the reed plants weren’t nearly as dense, and into an awaiting tent. A metal pot hung from a rack over a fire outside; millet was cooking inside.
    “Please, kindly brother,” Mother said as she fell to her knees in the tent, “help me find my way out of here. I am the wife of blacksmith Shangguan.”
    “What’s your hurry?” the man said with a smile. “I don’t get many visitors out here, so at least allow me to play the host.”
    A waterproof dog pelt covered the bed on a wooden platform. “You’ve got