Decoded Read Online Free Page A

Decoded
Book: Decoded Read Online Free
Author: Mai Jia
Pages:
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Buddhist, Young Lillie started to feel the beginnings of a plan germinating in his mind. He took the woman straight into Mrs Rong’s prayer chamber and there, wreathed in incense and accompanied by the sound of her tapping a wooden fish, Young Lillie and Mrs Rong began their discussion. Mrs Rong said, ‘Who is she?’
    ‘A woman.’
    ‘Whatever it is that you want, you had better make it quick, because I want to get on with reciting my sutras.’
    ‘She’s pregnant.’
    ‘I am not a doctor, what do you want me to do about it?’
    ‘She is a very devout Buddhist and grew up in a nunnery. She isn’t married, but last year she went to Putuo Mountain to pray to the Buddhist statue there. When she got back, she discovered that she was pregnant. Do you believe her?’
    ‘Does it matter whether I believe her?’
    ‘If you believe her, then will you take her in?’
    ‘What happens if I don’t believe her?’
    ‘If you don’t believe her, I will throw her out onto the street.’
    Mrs Rong spent a sleepless night, and the Buddha was no help at all in making up her mind. However, at noon, just as Young Lillie was pretending that he was getting ready to throw the woman out of the house, she suddenly made her decision. She said, ‘She can stay. Amitabha Buddha, bless his holy name.’

Taking Up The Burden
1.
    I spent every holiday for two years on the railways of southern China, travelling the country to interview the fifty-one middle-aged or elderly eyewitnesses to these events; it was only after having compiled thousands of pages of notes that I finally felt able to sit down and write this book. It was my experiences of travelling round the region that meant that I came to understand why the south is different. In my own personal experience, after arriving in the south, I would feel as though each one of my pores was tingling with life – breathing deeply, enjoying every minute, my skin became smoother, even my hair seemed to become more glossy and black. It is not difficult to understand why I decided to write my book in the south
    – what is harder to understand is why having moved there, my writing style also changed. I could clearly sense that the soft air of the south was giving me courage and patience in my writing – a task which I normally find extremely troublesome; at the same time, my story began striking out in new tangents, just like the lush growth of a southern tree. The main protagonist of my story still has not appeared yet, though he will soon arrive. In one sense, you could say that he is already here, it is just that you have not seen him; in the same way that when a seed begins to sprout, the first shoots are invisible below the surface of the well-watered soil.
    Twenty-three years earlier, the brilliant Rong Youying had gone through appalling suffering to give birth to the Killer; everyone must have hoped that such a thing would not happen again. However, a few months after the mysterious woman went to live with the Rongs, history repeated itself. Because she was so much younger, the mysterious woman’s screams had a redoubled power, like a knife shrieking against the grinder. Her screams floated through the darkened mansion, making the flames of the lamps flicker and dance, making even the flesh of the crippled and dazed Mr Rong creep. First one midwife came and went and then another, sometimes they emerged to swap one cloth for fresh one, but each one left the room with the heavy stench of blood clinging to her body and splashes of blood everywhere, like butchers. The blood dripped from the bed down onto the floor, only to spread across and out over the doorsill. Once out of the room it continued to seep into the cracks between the dark stones set into the path, and on until it reached the roots of a couple of old plum trees growing amid the mud and the weeds. Everyone thought that those blackened plum trees in the overgrown garden were dead, but that winter they suddenly burst into flower –
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