Chinese Cinderella Read Online Free

episode of a spring dream. Outside, I could hear the crickets humming in the summer heat and hawkers shouting their wares on the pavement below. How could everything remain so much the same when Nai Nai was no longer with us?
    Nai Nai’s body was placed in a tightly sealed coffin in the parlour. Buddhist monks dressed in long robes chanted their mantras. Ye Ye ordered us children to spend the night and sleep on the floor in the same room to keep Nai Nai company. Third Brother whispered in my ear that Nai Nai was going to push open the coffin lid and wander out at midnight. I was scared and couldn’t sleep. All night, while listening to the monks praying and watching their shining bald heads in the flickering candle‐light, I half yearned and half feared that Nai Nai would crawl out and resume her place among us.
    Next day, there was a grand funeral. Nai Nai’s coffin was draped with white sheets and placed on a hearse pulled by four men. We all dressed in white robes with white headbands for the boys and white ribbons for the girls. Big Brother acted as chief mourner in Father’s absence. Hired professional musicians extolled Nai Nai’s virtues. They tossed white paper coins into the air while making music and singing prayers. The hearse stopped six times for Big Brother to fall to his knees, kowtow and bewail Nai Nai’s loss in a loud voice.
    At the Buddhist Temple, the monks held a solemn ceremony. Amidst hymns and the scent of incense, we burned sundry articles made of paper for Nai Nai’s needs in the next world. There were cardboard beds, tables, chairs, pots and pans and even a mah‐jong set. My brothers fought over a large paper car covered with bright tin foil. I watched the smoke curl up from the sacrificial urn and believed with all my heart that it would regroup somewhere in heaven into useful household utensils for the exclusive use of our Nai Nai.

Chapter Five
    Arrival in Shanghai

    S ix weeks after Nai Nai’s funeral, Ye Ye took Big Sister, Big Brother, Second Brother and me for an outing. To our surprise, our car stopped first at the railroad station. After instructing our chauffeur to wait outside in the car, Ye Ye marched the four of us onto a crowded platform marked with a sign ‘To Shanghai’. There, in a first‐class compartment, we came face to face with Father, sitting by himself. He was dressed in a black suit and black tie. His eyes were red and he had been crying.
    We were delighted and astonished. Big Sister asked, ‘How long have you been back, Father?’ He told her he had just arrived a few hours ago but was planning to leave again almost immediately. He said he missed us and was in Tianjin specially to escort us south to Shanghai. He told us Shanghai was a large port city one thousand miles away and our Grand Aunt owned a big bank there. Father, Niang and Fourth Brother had been living there for one and a half years. Since Third Brother was still recuperating from measles, he would join us later with Little Sister, Ye Ye and Aunt Baba. Being devout Buddhists, Ye Ye and Aunt Baba wished to observe the traditional hundred‐day religious mourning‐period for Nai Nai before leaving Tianjin.
    ‘What about our clothes?’ Big Brother asked.
    ‘Aunt Baba is arranging to have them delivered separately,’ Father replied. ‘If you had taken too much luggage with you, the servants would have become suspicious. It’s important that the servants know nothing about my whereabouts. Otherwise, the Japanese might arrest me. During the train journey, talk to each other as little as possible so you’ll give nothing away. Now, say goodbye to your Ye Ye! The train is leaving in five minutes!’
    Father’s Shanghai house was situated on Avenue Joffre, deep in the heart of the French Concession. It was a big, square, dark‐grey concrete building, just like all the other sixty‐nine houses within the same ‘long tang’, a cluster of houses surrounded by a communal wall. Father’s chauffeur