Read Online God of Luck by Ruthann Lum McCunn - Free Book Online
Authors: Ruthann Lum McCunn
Tags: General Fiction
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I’d be impatient to return to the worms themselves. And while my parents and brother celebrated the end of a season, I’d be eagerly anticipating the next.
I still did. Indeed, during the three months our worm-house stood silent, my sisters-in-law liked to joke that I paced and fidgeted like an addict deprived of her opium. When at last it thrummed with life again, my husband’s brothers would ask him:
“Does Bo See take care of your worm this tenderly?”
“Is your worm neglected now that she has charge of thousands?”
Despite their teasing and grousing, my brothers- and sisters-in-law always placed the well-being of the worms before their own, and they taught their children to do the same. Without exception, then, every member of the family old enough to work labored as diligently as I did to ensure our worms’ contentment. For they understood that the less satisfied our worms, the poorer their appetities and the quality of their cocoons, hence the family’s profit. Moreover, the moths that emerged and the eggs they laid would be inferior, affect- ing the family’s income through several generations of worms. Should our worms, weakened from eating too little, sicken and perish, so would the family.
Fourth Brother-in-law, in doubling the family’s worry and leaving us short of his hands as well as Ah Lung’s, clearly had not followed his own teaching when catching a fastboat for Canton. Had I thought for a moment that my presence would contribute to my husband’s rescue, though, I would have jumped into a boat, too.
AFTER FOURTH BROTHER-IN-LAW’S arrival in Canton, Moongirl, through the husband of a patron, secured the help of a mandarin in finding mine.
This mandarin—forbidding and stiff as his black lacquered hat and high-collared, brocaded robe—had lost his only son to pig-traders, and he’d since executed all kidnappers caught within his jurisdiction no matter how heavily their families or associates weighted pleas for mercy with silver ingots, how much the wretches themselves soaked the earth with their tears. He also committed his personal wealth as well as the resources of his office to looking for stolen men.
Promising to scour the vicinity and outlying areas for Ah Lung, the mandarin counseled Moongirl and Fourth Brother-in-law to extend their search beyond his authority to Macao, the loading point for devil-ships. He provided them with letters of introduction to appropriate officials; passage on a speedy fire-driven boat; even the protection of a barrel-chested lieutenant armed with a sharp-edged broadsword.
The captains and crews of riverboats were sometimes overcome by man-stealers posing as passengers or in attacks launched from vessels alongside. So braves armed with muskets patrolled the deck of the fire-driven boat, and the lieutenant’s sword-hand never shifted from his weapon’s hilt.
His other hand waving off fiery-hot cinders and throat-searing billows of smoke, the lieutenant grimly jutted out his chin, directing Moongirl’s and Fourth Brother-in-law’s attention to the rotting hulks, secluded bays, and grassy islands that were once the refuge of opium smugglers, now pig-traders; the stone forts—embowered by shady banyans, flowering acacias, and dense bamboo groves—from which soldiers hunted them down.
The lieutenant hawked his disgust, spit over the railing. “Evil-doers are like autumn leaves. No sooner are some swept away, then more take their place.”
To Moongirl, the river—muddy with silt—smelled as much of earth as water, and as the fire-boat chugged past junks and sampans, the deck pulsed beneath her feet like a live animal, reminding her of the buffalo she and Ah Lung had ridden as children, the games of hide-and-go-seek they’d played.
Suddenly he felt very close, and she wondered out loud whether Ah Lung might be hidden beneath an awning or in the hold of a nearby boat.
The lieutenant dismissed the possibility. “More likely your brother’s
I still did. Indeed, during the three months our worm-house stood silent, my sisters-in-law liked to joke that I paced and fidgeted like an addict deprived of her opium. When at last it thrummed with life again, my husband’s brothers would ask him:
“Does Bo See take care of your worm this tenderly?”
“Is your worm neglected now that she has charge of thousands?”
Despite their teasing and grousing, my brothers- and sisters-in-law always placed the well-being of the worms before their own, and they taught their children to do the same. Without exception, then, every member of the family old enough to work labored as diligently as I did to ensure our worms’ contentment. For they understood that the less satisfied our worms, the poorer their appetities and the quality of their cocoons, hence the family’s profit. Moreover, the moths that emerged and the eggs they laid would be inferior, affect- ing the family’s income through several generations of worms. Should our worms, weakened from eating too little, sicken and perish, so would the family.
Fourth Brother-in-law, in doubling the family’s worry and leaving us short of his hands as well as Ah Lung’s, clearly had not followed his own teaching when catching a fastboat for Canton. Had I thought for a moment that my presence would contribute to my husband’s rescue, though, I would have jumped into a boat, too.
AFTER FOURTH BROTHER-IN-LAW’S arrival in Canton, Moongirl, through the husband of a patron, secured the help of a mandarin in finding mine.
This mandarin—forbidding and stiff as his black lacquered hat and high-collared, brocaded robe—had lost his only son to pig-traders, and he’d since executed all kidnappers caught within his jurisdiction no matter how heavily their families or associates weighted pleas for mercy with silver ingots, how much the wretches themselves soaked the earth with their tears. He also committed his personal wealth as well as the resources of his office to looking for stolen men.
Promising to scour the vicinity and outlying areas for Ah Lung, the mandarin counseled Moongirl and Fourth Brother-in-law to extend their search beyond his authority to Macao, the loading point for devil-ships. He provided them with letters of introduction to appropriate officials; passage on a speedy fire-driven boat; even the protection of a barrel-chested lieutenant armed with a sharp-edged broadsword.
The captains and crews of riverboats were sometimes overcome by man-stealers posing as passengers or in attacks launched from vessels alongside. So braves armed with muskets patrolled the deck of the fire-driven boat, and the lieutenant’s sword-hand never shifted from his weapon’s hilt.
His other hand waving off fiery-hot cinders and throat-searing billows of smoke, the lieutenant grimly jutted out his chin, directing Moongirl’s and Fourth Brother-in-law’s attention to the rotting hulks, secluded bays, and grassy islands that were once the refuge of opium smugglers, now pig-traders; the stone forts—embowered by shady banyans, flowering acacias, and dense bamboo groves—from which soldiers hunted them down.
The lieutenant hawked his disgust, spit over the railing. “Evil-doers are like autumn leaves. No sooner are some swept away, then more take their place.”
To Moongirl, the river—muddy with silt—smelled as much of earth as water, and as the fire-boat chugged past junks and sampans, the deck pulsed beneath her feet like a live animal, reminding her of the buffalo she and Ah Lung had ridden as children, the games of hide-and-go-seek they’d played.
Suddenly he felt very close, and she wondered out loud whether Ah Lung might be hidden beneath an awning or in the hold of a nearby boat.
The lieutenant dismissed the possibility. “More likely your brother’s
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