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

any other splendid forms of punishment?”
    The swine said, “Other than the slicing death, the cruelest form of punishment approved by the current regime, Your Excellency, is cleaving at the waist.”
    Excellency Yuan asked him, “Have you ever performed that?”
    “Once,” the swine said.
    “Describe it for the benefit of the Plenipotentiary,” Excellency Yuan said.
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    2
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    “Your Excellency,” the swine said, “in the seventh year of the Xianfeng reign, your humble servant was a seventeen-year-old ‘nephew’ in the Board of Punishments Bureau of Detentions, serving his shifu, assisting the Grandma at executions and attentively studying his every move and action. The person to be killed by waist cleaving that day was a clerk at the Imperial Treasury, a big man with a mouth so large he could fit his entire fist in it. These clerks, Your Excellency, were master thieves, specializing in silver. Each time they entered the Treasury, they were required to strip naked. The same was true, of course, when they left. But that did not stop them from stealing silver. Can you guess, Excellency, where they hid the silver they stole from the Treasury? They hid it in their grain passages.” The sallow-faced interpreter asked, “What do you mean by a grain passage?” Excellency Yuan glared at the man. “The anus! Keep it short.” The swine said, “Yes, Excellency, I shall.” Throughout the history of the Qing, each year has seen a lessening of the silver in the Treasury, for which many innocent superintendents have died. The idea that clerks might be the culprits somehow never occurred to anyone. Every trade has its rules and customs, just as every family has its way of doing things. Even though the clerks received meager wages, they lived in lavish surroundings, dressed their womenfolk in finery, and displayed ostentatious wealth, all thanks to their grain passages. Now, one can say that such passages are tender spots sensitive to even a stray grain of sand. But those men had no trouble inserting a fifty-ounce silver ingot into them. At home, it turned out, they enlarged the openings to their rectums with sandalwood clubs soaked in sesame oil for years until the wood had turned red and was unbelievably slippery. They came in three sizes: small, medium, and large, and their use proceeded along those lines. The training went on day and night, until the passage was unnaturally wide and all was in readiness to steal silver from the Treasury. But that was a bad day for one of them. The clerk with the big mouth had stuffed three ingots up his grain passage, but while he was being searched on his way out, he grimaced and had trouble walking, as if he were carrying a bowl of water on his head or holding back an urgent bowel movement. The superintendent, suddenly suspicious, kicked him in the buttocks, which by itself was of no consequence. But the man relaxed just long enough for one of the ingots to slide out of his anus. The momentarily dumbstruck superintendent kicked him again and again, and out came the other two ingots. “You son of a bitch!” the superintendent cursed. “What you shoved up your ass is worth more than I make in three years!” The source of the clerks’ riches was a secret no longer. Now when they leave the Treasury, they are required to bend over and have their rectums reamed for hidden treasure. When the report reached Emperor Xianfeng’s ears, He was livid and angrily ordered that all the Treasury clerks be put to death and their property be confiscated. If that weren’t enough, He told Grandma Yu to devise a new means of execution, which was to jam red-hot pokers up their grain passages. All but the big-mouthed man, who was to be cleaved in half in public, a warning to the masses.
    A sea of faces filled the marketplace on the day of the execution, for this was something new and exciting for people who had had their fill of beheadings. The chief witness to this solemn event was Excellency Xu, Vice President of the Board of Punishments. Also in attendance was Chief Justice Sang of the Supreme Court. The assigned team of executioners was up half the night in preparation. Grandma Yu personally sharpened the broadax, while First Aunt and Second Aunt—Third Aunt had recently died—prepared the wooden block, the ropes, and the other things they would need. I had always assumed that a sword was used for this punishment, but Grandma Yu told me that as far back as the