Red Sorghum

eye, and her face paled. She shook her head in silence.
    ‘They are your husband and your father-in-law. They have been murdered!’ Magistrate Cao shouted.
    Grandma reeled before collapsing to the ground. The crowd surged forward to help her up, and in the confusion her silver combs were knocked loose, releasing clouds of black hair like a liquid cataract. Grandma, her face the colour of gold, sobbed for a moment, then laughed hysterically, a trickle of blood seeping from her lower lip.
    Magistrate Cao banged the table again. ‘Listen, everyone, to my verdict. When the woman Dai, a gentle willow bent by the wind, magnanimous and upright, neither humble nor haughty, heard that her husband had been murdered, she was stricken with overpowering grief, spitting a mouthful of blood. How could a good woman like that be an adulteress who plotted the death of her own husband? Village Chief Five Monkeys Shan, I can see by your sickly pallor that you are an opium smoker and a gambler. How can you, as village chief, defy the laws of the county? That is unforgivable, not to mention your tactics to defile someone’s good name, which adds to your list of crimes. I am not fooled in my judgements. No disciples of evil and disorder can evade the eyes of the law. It must have been you who murdered Shan Tingxiu and his son, so you could get your hands on the Shan family fortune and the lovely woman Dai. You schemed to manipulate the local government and deceive me, like someone wielding an axe at the door of master carpenter Lu Ban, or waving his sword at the door of the swordsman Lord Guan, or reciting the
Three Character Classic
at the door of the wise Confucius, or whispering the ‘Rhapsody on the Nature of Medicine’ in the ear of the physician Li Shizhen. Arrest him!’
    Soldiers rushed up and tied Five Monkeys Shan’s hands behind his back. ‘I’m not guilty, I’m innocent. Your honour, Magistrate . . .’ he shrieked.
    ‘Seal his mouth with the sole of your shoe!’
    Little Yan drew out of his waistband a large shoe made just for this purpose and smacked Five Monkeys Shan across the mouth three times.
    ‘It was you who murdered them, wasn’t it?’
    ‘I’m innocent I’m innocent I’m innocent . . .’
    ‘If you didn’t do it, who did?’
    ‘It was . . . oh my, I don’t know, I don’t know. . . .’
    ‘A few minutes ago you had it all figured out, and now you say you don’t know. Use the shoe sole again!’
    Little Yan smacked Five Monkeys Shan across the mouth a dozen times, splitting his lips, from which frothy blood began to ooze. ‘I’ll tell,’ he muttered tearfully, ‘I’ll tell. . . .’
    ‘Who’s the murderer?’
    ‘It . . . it . . . was a bandit, it was Spotted Neck!’
    ‘He did it on your orders, didn’t he?’
    ‘No! It was it was it was . . . Oh, Master, please don’t hit me . . .’
    ‘Listen to me, everybody,’ Nine Dreams Cao said. ‘Since assuming office as head of the county, I have worked hard to stamp out opium, outlaw gambling, and annihilate bandits, and I have had notable success with the first two. Only bandits remain a serious problem, running rampant in Northeast Gaomi Township. The county government has called upon all law-abiding citizens to report incidents and expose offenders in order to bring peace to the land.
    ‘Since the woman Dai was legally wed into the Shan family, she may assume its possessions and wealth. Anyone attempting to take advantage of this poor widow, or scheming to deprive her of what is legally hers, will be charged with banditry and disposed of accordingly!’
    Grandma took three paces forward and knelt before Magistrate Cao, raising her lovely face and calling out:
    ‘Father! My true father!’
    ‘I am not your father,’ Magistrate Cao corrected her. ‘Your father is there, holding the donkey.’
    She crawled forward and wrapped her arms around Magistrate Cao’s legs. ‘Father, my true father, now that you’re the county magistrate, don’t you know your own daughter?Ten years ago you fled the famine with your little girl and sold her. You may not know me, but I know you. . . .’
    ‘My goodness! What kind of talk is that? It’s a bunch of nonsense!’
    ‘Father, how’s my mother? Little Brother must be about thirteen now. Is he in school? Father, you sold me for two pecks of red sorghum, but I held your hand and wouldn’t let go. You said, ‘Little Nine, when Father has turned things around