The Corpse Reader Read Online Free Page B

more than pleased to have youback as my assistant. I said the same to your father; I talked about your prospects. He won’t budge. I’m truly sorry.”
    Cí didn’t know what to say.
    There was a clap of thunder in the distance. Feng slapped Cí on the back.
    “I had big plans for you, Cí. I even reserved you a place at the university.”
    “Imperial University?” Cí was wide-eyed; this was his dream.
    “Your father didn’t tell you? I thought he would have.”
    Cí thought his legs might collapse. He felt utterly cheated.



3
    Judge Feng was needed to help interrogate some of the village residents, so he and Cí agreed to meet again after lunch. Cí wanted to visit Cherry, but he needed his father’s permission if he was going to miss work.
    Before he went into the house, Cí commended himself to the gods and then entered without knocking. Startled by Cí’s return, his father dropped some documents, which he quickly gathered from the floor and put in a red lacquer chest.
    “Shouldn’t you be out plowing?” he asked angrily, shoving the chest under a bed.
    Cí said he wanted to visit Cherry, but his father wouldn’t hear of it.
    “You’re always putting pleasure before duty.”
    “Father—”
    “She’ll be fine. I have no idea why I let your mother talk me into letting you two get engaged. That’s girl’s worse than a wasp.”
    Cí cleared his throat. “Please, father. I’ll be quick. Afterward, I’ll finish the plowing and help Lu with the reaping.”
    “Afterward? Perhaps you think Lu goes out in the fields for a nice stroll. Even the buffalo is a more willing worker than you. When is afterward, exactly?”
    What’s going on? Why is he being so tough on me?
    Cí didn’t want to argue. Everyone, including his father, knew full well that Cí had worked tirelessly the last few months sowing rice and tending to the saplings; that his hands had become callused reaping, threshing, and panning; that he had plowed from sunup to sundown, leveled the soil, transported and spread the fertilizer, pedaled the pumps, and hauled the sacks of produce to the river barges. While Lu was off getting drunk with his prostitutes, Cí was killing himself in the fields.
    In a way he hated having a conscience; it meant he had to accept his father’s decisions. He went to find his sickle and his bundle, but the sickle wasn’t there.
    “Use mine,” said his father. “Lu took yours.”
    Cí gathered up the tools and headed to the fields.

    Cí hurt his hand whipping the buffalo. The animal roared at the treatment but then pulled as though possessed in a desperate attempt to evade Cí’s blows. Cí clung to the plow, trying to push it into the sodden earth as the rain poured down. He whipped the beast and cursed, furrow after furrow. Then a thunderclap stopped him in his tracks. The sky was as dark as mud, but the suffocating heat was unrelenting.
    Suddenly there was a flash of lightning and an earth-shuddering boom. The buffalo cowered and tried to leap away again, but the plow held fast in the ground, making the animal fall on its hindquarters.
    The buffalo was flailing in the water now, trying to get to its feet. Cí heaved but failed to help it up. He loosened the harness andhit the beast a couple of times, but it only raised its forehead out of the water as it tried to escape the punishment. Then Cí saw the terrible open fracture in its hindquarters.
    Dear gods, what have I done to offend you?
    Cí approached the buffalo with an apple, but it tried to gore him with its horns. It tired itself out writhing and bellowing, and rested its head to one side for a moment, dipping a horn in the mud. Looking in its panic-stricken eyes, Cí sensed it was trying to convey that it wanted to escape its crippled body. Snot streamed from its huffing nostrils. It was as good as meat for the slaughterhouse.
    Cí was stroking its muzzle when he was grabbed from behind and pushed into the water. Lu, brandishing a staff, stood over