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

a leisurely smoke and listening to opera, not someone inflicting the cruelest form of punishment on a man, meow meow . . .
    The stake finally broke through Sun Bing’s skin just above his shoulders, making a small tent of his collar. My dieh’s original idea was to have the stake emerge from Sun Bing’s mouth, but for someone who had sung opera all his life, a stake through the mouth would have ended that possibility, so he decided to have it emerge from between his shoulder blades. I laid down the oily mallet, picked up my knife, and cut open the collar of his shirt. Dieh signaled me to keep pounding, so I picked up the mallet and swung it another ten or fifteen times, meow meow , until the same length of stake impaling Sun Bing was visible top and bottom. Sun Bing’s howls continued without weakening. Dieh examined the points of entry and exit, in each of which a trickle of blood had stuck to the wood. A contented look spread across his face. I heard him breathe a huge sigh of relief. I did the same, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
    Meow . . .
    ————
    9
    ————
    Under Dieh’s direction, four yayi lifted the pine plank, with my gongdieh on it, off the rack and carried it carefully up the Ascension Platform, which was taller than the rooftop of any house in town. The platform was next to the shed, connected by a long, gently sloping ramp of rough wood and some logs to make it easy to negotiate. And yet the four strong men were sweating profusely, leaving damp footprints on the wood as they climbed. Sun Bing, who was strapped tightly to the plank, was still howling, but he was losing his voice, and his energy level was dropping fast. Dieh and I followed the men up the ramp to the spacious top of the platform, whose new flooring smelled refreshingly of pinesap. A three-foot-long crossbar of white wood had been attached to a spot just below the top of a thick pine pole that had been erected in the center of the platform, creating a frame that looked like the cross I’d seen at the Seventh-day Adventist Church.
    The yayi gently laid down the plank to which Sun Bing was attached and retreated to the side to await further instructions. Dieh told me to cut the leather straps holding Sun Bing to the plank. His body immediately expanded, and his limbs flailed wildly, but that was the only movement the stake would allow. So as not to completely sap what strength he had left and, at the same time, to protect against injury to his internal organs, with me looking on, Dieh had the yayi pick Sun Bing up and tie his legs to the dark pole and his hands to the crossbar. He was now standing upright in the center of the platform, but only his head enjoyed freedom of movement. Out came the curses:
    “Fuck your old granny, von Ketteler——fuck your old granny, Yuan Shikai——fuck your old granny, Qian Ding——fuck your old granny, Zhao Jia——fuck your old granny——ow——!”
    Black blood streamed from his mouth and ran down onto his chest.
    Meow meow . . .
    ————
    10
    ————
    Before walking down off the platform, I took a look around, and my heart suddenly seemed to contract, so violently was I having trouble breathing, meow . . .
    All four sides of the parade ground were packed with people, bright sunlight glinting off their heads. The only reason for that, I knew, was that all those heads were wet with sweat. Sun Bing’s curses merged with the pigeons soaring above us and spread out in all directions, like waves rushing to the shore. Soldiers—foreign troops and Yuan’s government troops—stood as motionless as posts amid the crush of local residents. There was someone on my mind at that moment, meow , know who that was? I searched among the onlookers. Found her! Two burly women were gripping my wife by the arms, and a tall woman was holding her tightly around the waist to keep her from taking even one step forward; she could only leap backward. I heard her cry out in agony, a knife-edged sound as sharp and as oily green as a bamboo leaf.
    My wife’s wails threw my mind into upheaval. There was no denying that my feelings toward her had decreased after Dieh came into my life, but I’d had strong feelings toward her before that. She used to let me suck on her breasts even during the daytime, a thought that got an immediate response from my little pecker. Meow meow , I recalled how she said: “Go on, go to your dieh, go ahead and die in your dieh’s room!” When I wouldn’t move,