a black panther, separated by no more than a couple of yards, sitting on their haunches as they lick the wounds on their shoulders. My mind was awhirl from watching the tiger-panther battle, and I was wild with joy, trembling from fear, and damp with sweat, all at the same time. Nothing had been resolved—no winner and no loser. While they were locked in battle, tooth and claw, I was wishing that I could help my panther dieh somehow, but I never found an opening.
Magistrate Qian glowered at my dieh, a contemptuous smirk on his face. Dieh wore a contemptuous smirk as he glowered at Magistrate Qian. In his eyes, this County Magistrate, who had ordered his lackeys to beat Xiaokui nearly to death, was beneath contempt. Dieh was panther-savage, mule-stubborn, ox-bold. The looks in the combatants’ eyes were like crossed swords, embodying clangs that produced sparks, some of which blistered my face. They held their intense gazes, neither willing to turn away, and by then my heart was in my throat, on the verge of leaping out of my body and turning into a jackrabbit, its tail sticking up as it bounded away, out of the yard and onto the street, to be chased by dogs all the way to the southern foothills to graze on fresh grass. What kind of grass? Butter grass. Eats a lot, hits the spot, too much and it grows a pot. When it returns, in my chest it’s a knot. Their muscles were taut, claws unsheathed from the folds of their paws. They could pounce at any minute and be at each other’s throat. At that critical moment, my wife walked in, bringing her feminine perfume into the room. Her smile was a rose in bloom, petals arching outward, opening wide. Her hips shifted from side to side like braiding a rope. Her original form glimmered for a brief moment, but was quickly hidden beneath fair, tender, fragrant, sweet skin. She knelt down dramatically and, in a voice dripping with honey yet sour as vinegar, said, “Sun Meiniang, a woman of the people, bows down before His Eminence the County Magistrate!”
That bow took the steam out of Magistrate Qian. He looked away and coughed, sounding like a billy goat with a cold: ahek ahek ahek ahek, ahek ahek ahek ahek. It was obviously contrived. I might have been a bit of an idiot, but I was not fooled. He sneaked a glance at my wife, willing neither to look her in the eye nor to look for long. That look was a grasshopper, bouncing all over the place, until it finally smacked into the wall. His face twitched, a pitiful sight, whether from shyness or fear I could not say. “No need for that,” he said; “please get up.”
My wife stood up. “I understand that His Eminence has locked up my dieh, for which he was handsomely rewarded by the foreigners. I have prepared some good strong drink and dog meat to offer His Eminence my congratulations!”
After a hollow laugh and a pregnant pause, Magistrate Qian replied, “As an official in the service of the throne, I must carry out my duties.”
As she exploded in lascivious laughter, my wife reached up and audaciously tugged on the Magistrate’s black beard, then twisted his thick queue—how come my niang never gave me one of those?—and marched him over behind the sandalwood chair, where she grabbed my dieh’s queue and said, “You two, one is my gandieh, the other my gongdieh. My gandieh has arrested my real dieh and wants my gongdieh to put him to death. So, Gandieh, Gongdieh, my real dieh’s fate is in your hands.”
She had barely gotten this crazed talk out of her mouth before she ran over to the wall and had an attack of the dry heaves. The sight nearly broke my heart, so I walked up to shyly thump her on the back. “Have they driven you crazy?” I wondered aloud. She straightened up and, with tears in her eyes, growled, “You fool, where do you get off asking me that? At this moment I am carrying the next generation’s evil bastard for your family!”
My wife’s barbs were directed at me, but her eyes were on Magistrate Qian. My dieh was staring at the wall, probably looking for the fat gecko that often appeared there. Magistrate Qian’s rear end began to shift uncomfortably, like a boy trying to keep from soiling himself. His forehead was beaded with sweat. Diao