Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

his eyes with his hand as he gazed heavenward. The sun had begun its climb in the morning sky; normally by this time I’d have sold off all that day’s fresh pork, and it would be time to slaughter dogs. Having noted the sun’s progress, without looking at me, Dieh said:
    “You can kill the rooster, son!”
    Meow meow~~mew~~
    ————
    6
    ————
    My heart soared when Dieh said that! Meow meow meow , Dieh, dear Dieh, my dear dieh! My seemingly unending wait was over, and the long-delayed moment of excitement had arrived. I selected a razor-sharp paring knife from the knife hamper and showed it to Dieh. He nodded. Then I went up to the rooster, which began flapping its wings; its tail feathers jerked up, and out came a puddle of white excrement. On most mornings at this time, it would be perched on the wall at home crowing loudly, but today it was tied to a post. With the knife held between my teeth, I reached down and grabbed it by its wings and held its legs down with my foot. Dieh had told me this rooster was for its blood, not for eating, so I placed a black bowl under its neck to catch the blood. The rooster, burning hot, was struggling to free its head from my hand. I squeezed hard. Behave yourself, damn it, how am I supposed to do this if you don’t behave yourself? Pigs are stronger than you, dogs meaner, and they don’t scare me, so what makes a rooster think it can scare me? Fuck you. I plucked its neck clean, stretched it taut, and made a pass with my knife. The skin parted. No blood appeared at first, which made me nervous, because Dieh had said that if you kill a rooster prior to an execution and it doesn’t bleed, things will not go well that day. I made a second cut, and this time it worked: purplish blood gushed from the wound, like the stream a young boy makes when he gets up after a good night’s sleep. Splash splash, meow meow . More blood spurted than the bowl could take, and some of it spilled over the side. “There, Dieh,” I said as I tossed the limp bird to the ground, “that does it.” With a broad smile, he waved me over and told me to get down on my knees. Then he plunged both hands into the blood, almost as if he expected them to drink it up. Dieh’s hands come equipped with mouths, I was thinking, and can drink blood. He smiled.
    “Close your eyes, son,” he said.
    I closed them, as he said. I am an obedient child. Wrapping my arms around his legs, I banged my forehead into his knees and sputtered: Meow meow . . . “Dieh Dieh Dieh Dieh . . .”
    Dieh clasped my head between his knees.
    “Raise your head, son,” he said.
    So I did, and I was looking into his impressive face. I am an obedient child. Before I had a dieh, I obeyed my wife, but after that I obeyed my dieh. That thought reminded me of my wife, whom I hadn’t seen for a day and a half. Where had she gotten to? Meow meow . . . Dieh rubbed his blood-soaked hands all over my face, sending a stench much worse than pig’s blood into my nostrils. I hated the idea of having my face smeared with rooster blood, but Dieh had the final word on that. If I didn’t obey him, he’d send me into the yamen to be paddled, five ten fifteen twenty swats from a big wooden paddle that would leave me with a bloody behind. Meow meow . Dieh plunged his hands back into the bowl and smeared more blood over my face. Including my ears. Whether he meant to or not, he got some of it in my eyes, and— ouch !—that stung, meow meow . It also blurred my vision, veiling everything in a red haze. With a mew mew I complained, “Dieh, Dieh, you’re blinding me.” I rubbed my eyes with the heels of my hands and mewed loudly. Everything got brighter the more I rubbed, until the light itself was blinding. Oh, no, that’s bad, meow meow , the magical tiger whisker was working again, meow meow , no more Dieh, in front of me now was a panther. It was standing on its hind legs and dipping its front paws in the blood bowl, staining them red with pearls of blood dripping from the black fur, making it look like the paws were injured. He reached up and smeared blood all over the coarse fur of his face, turning it red as a cockscomb. I was well aware that Dieh’s true form was a panther, so that was nothing to make a fuss over. But I didn’t want the power of that tiger whisker to last and last—just a little while would be plenty. But its power this time wouldn’t fade away, meow meow , and what would it take for things to return to