The Concubine's Daughter by null Page B

awaits you and your little sister.”
    “She is Crabapple and said to be a fox fairy—but she is also welcome as part of our family.”
    “Then she is welcome to ride in the imperial palanquin, and I will be her servant.”
    Stacks of woven baskets and piles of bamboo carrying poles stood outside the shed. Pebble chose two baskets and a pole, tossing them to Li-Xia.
    “Always pick the lightest baskets and the oldest pole, one that bends like willow and is easy on the shoulder. Throw them into the cart and climb after them. The silkworms are hungry today.”
    The first strong rays of sun gleamed on Giant Yun’s wide shoulders as, harnessed to the shafts by leather straps, he trotted along the winding pathway.
    It took only a short time to reach the rows of mulberry trees, but to Li-Xia it was a magic journey, climbing higher until she could look down upon the river and the endless world beyond. They entered a grove where bamboo ladders reached into leafy branches, as thick with cocoons as snowflakes on a winter bough.
    “Welcome to the gardens of of the silkworm. Follow us and do as we do. Let us begin to fill our baskets. When they are full, we empty them into the cart and Yun takes it down. He will take a dozen loads before he returns to his hut to catch an eel or a catfish for supper.”
    From this moment—as the mui-mui arrived at the hilltop like a flock of chattering birds—as she looked down upon the valley swept clean with early light, baskets swinging from her shoulders—Li-Xia rejoiced in her first piece of pure gold.

    At the entrance to each of the four huts stood a shrine to the Tu-Ti, the earth god that watched over Ten Willows. Each farm had its own earth god, and the Tu-Ti expected nothing less than a small shrine containing an altar upon which the five ritualistic objects must be correctly arranged: two vases for flowers, two candlesticks, and a brazier for burning gold and silver paper. In return, the deity would attend all important events, from births to weddings and funerals, birthdays and festivals.
    Made of mud bricks and no bigger than a dog kennel to protect itssanctity from intruders, it housed the clay image of Tu-Ti, who was believed to hear all gossip and to bring down a terrible judgment upon any sign of dissidence. Flowers were changed and a joss stick lit each morning to preserve the prosperity of Ten Willows and its generous master; to bless the cocoons so that they numbered as many as stars in the summer sky, and snowflakes on the winter bough; and to pray for the fattening of the silkworm through the honest work and gratitude of the mui-mui .
    Behind the huts, the pigs and goats were kept in pens, and a pathway led through rows of cabbage, melon, and white radish. A moment’s walk away, a pit had been dug for refuse and sewage—a putrid place of scavenging dogs that only the larn-jai would approach.
    In the center of this makeshift camp stood a stout post, with an iron triangle bolted to it, and beneath it a pair of rusty leg irons set in stone. It was here, Li-Xia was told, that punishment was carried out. Beside it, a giant gingko tree spread its ancient limbs, its branches throwing a constant shadow; worshipped as the spirit tree, paper prayers fluttered among its branches, spelling out crimes and begging forgiveness and mercy, written by those who had suffered the horror and humiliation of the rings.

    Days turned into weeks and weeks into months. With the help and guidance of Little Pebble and her newfound family, Li-Xia had found her place in the ramshackle home of the mui-mui . She filled her baskets with cocoons as quickly as any other. And when the work was over, Crabapple joined her sisters in catching eels with twisted strands of silk and a fish-bone hook, then stewing them in a pot with herbs and wild mushrooms. She learned how to fashion a hair comb from the head bone of a catfish, and where to find duck nests in the rushes and frogs along the riverbank ablaze with