IBGSW Chapter 173
Unspoken Understanding
What role had Kuai Si’s wife played in all this? What had she done to help Fourth Madam Zhuang?
Zhao Fusheng’s thoughts turned, and she thought of one key figure.
“Kuai Man... Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter?”
“Yes, my lord.”
Kuai Si’s wife admitted it readily.
“That girl was Fourth Madam’s heart and soul, the one thing she couldn’t bear to leave behind.”
“With her there, Fourth Madam kept hesitating and couldn’t bring herself to go.” As she spoke, her eyes slowly filled with tears.
“Women are foolish. A child is a piece of flesh torn from your body.”
Before, Fourth Madam Zhuang had been sustained through the hardships of life by guilt over Kuai Jumin’s death. It was ironic that the goodness in her nature had become the trap that held her.
After her daughter was born, the child became another invisible cage.
“The outsider pressed her several times to leave the girl and go with him.” She sniffled softly and spoke in a low voice.
“She couldn’t bear to,” Kuai Er’s wife said. “But she should have thought about it. She was still young. She could have had plenty of other children someday. No need to waste her whole life in this mire.”
Kuai San’s wife wept too. “Our village is a rough place. The girl is a child of the Kuai family, flesh and blood. She couldn’t take her away.”
Things had already gone far beyond what anyone expected. Everything that should and shouldn’t be said had been said, and when the four sisters-in-law laid their hearts bare, they discovered that all four were involved.
Kuai San’s wife’s worries eased, and she said, “To put it bluntly, if she eloped on her own, the worst she’d get is gossip behind her back. Sixth Uncle and the others know what kind of life she had. They wouldn’t pursue her.”
“They might even be glad she escaped,” Kuai Er’s wife put in.
At that, the others fell silent for a moment.
The torches on the wall lit the room in a dim yellow glow. A strange, unspoken understanding flowed through the room.
What had been an eerie, menacing night took on a touch of warmth from this peculiar, somewhat forbidden topic.
After a long while:
“But if she took a child of the Kuai family’s blood and ran off with a man, that would be different. The village couldn’t afford the shame. They’d find a way to drag her back!”
Fear and tension showed on the women’s faces as they spoke.
“If she were dragged back then, she’d be dead.”
“So Fourth Madam Zhuang couldn’t bear to leave her daughter, the affair came out, and the villagers captured her and drowned her in the river, and her malignant ghost revived?”
Or...
“She couldn’t leave her daughter, and was caught when she tried to take her along?”
Although the actions of the four Kuai sisters-in-law had been unexpected and had added sparks of humanity to the bloody truth behind this ghost case, the final result was unchanged. Fourth Madam Zhuang’s luck had not lasted to the end.
“No!”
Kuai Da’s wife shook her head, clenching her teeth.
“The outsider talked her round for a long time. In the end she... anyway, in the end she agreed to go.”
She looked at Kuai Si’s wife.
“Fourth, you tell it.”
Kuai Si’s wife nodded.
“I knew she couldn’t bear to leave Man... that little girl. So I planned to get the girl away and hide her on the day Fourth Madam left, so she wouldn’t see her, and Fourth Madam wouldn’t soften and change her mind.”
Tears sparkled in her eyes, but the corners of her mouth turned up.
“I’d made up my mind. Without her mother, that girl would be a daughter to all four of us. We’d raise her well in Fourth Madam’s place.”
“She’s a child of our Kuai family, and when she’s grown we’d find her a good husband’s family. We’d never let her meet a wretch like Old Five the way her mother did.”
The others joined in. In other words, it was an unspoken consensus among the four sisters-in-law.
“What went wrong in the end?” Zhao Fusheng sighed and asked.
“Man... Man...” Kuai Si’s wife opened her mouth several times but couldn’t recall the name of Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter, and finally gave up. “The little girl vanished. I couldn’t find her...”
The four sisters-in-law had been frantic that day. They’d dropped their work that morning and searched everywhere for Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter.
“She’s so small, and the village is only so big. Where could she have gone?” Kuai Si’s wife wiped her tears with her sleeve. “There are ponds and wells in the village. I was afraid she’d fallen into the water with nobody watching her. I couldn’t think of anything else.”
Kuai Da’s wife said, “Fourth Madam couldn’t find her daughter either, so she forgot about the outsider and went nearly mad searching.”
“That dog Huaide is no human being.”
Kuai San’s wife suddenly burst into curses.
“That cursed dog, that son of a plague, deserves to be beheaded! When he saw Fourth Madam looking for her child, he stuck to her. He threatened her, said he knew about her scandal, said if she gave in to him he’d keep it quiet for her, and from then on nobody would be any wiser and everyone would be better off!”
“Ptui! Ptui! Ptui!”
Kuai Er’s wife spat hard, too.
“He tried to take advantage of Fourth Madam. She screamed for help and scratched his face to shreds. I rushed into Old Five’s house, and he still tried to turn it around and blame Fourth Madam.”
Kuai Huaide hadn’t succeeded.
But then he thought about how he’d looked after Fourth Madam Zhuang these past years, treating her like something that was already his, and even lent Kuai Wu money for wine for her sake, and now he was deep in debt.
He was nearly thirty and still unmarried. His reputation in the village was ruined. Sixth Uncle had wanted to arrange a match for him, but no decent family would marry a daughter into his home.
And now it had come to this. Fourth Madam Zhuang hadn’t been won, and it was that outsider living in his own house who’d gotten the benefit.
Why?!
Others could have an entanglement with her, so why couldn’t he?
He hated himself for letting a wolf into the house1, and hated Fourth Madam Zhuang for her wanton ways. The more he thought about it, the angrier he got, until he no longer cared about the consequences and wanted to cause a scene, to burn everything down with himself in it.
“Huaide got his courage from drink, and after I cursed him off, he went to Sixth Uncle’s house and reported Fourth Madam for adultery.”
Kuai Er’s wife said this with a look of regret.
“Sixth Uncle didn’t believe it. He had Huaide tied up, and at the same time quietly sent Changshun’s wife to our place to tell Fourth Madam.”
“Wait.”
Zhao Fusheng, hearing this, suddenly realized something.
She stopped Kuai Er’s wife’s account and looked at her, her gaze growing deep.
“Fourth Madam Zhuang’s affair with the outsider. You all knew about it. Did anyone else in the village know?”
When she finished the question, all four daughters-in-law lowered their heads.
After a long while, Kuai Er’s wife suddenly gave a short, scornful laugh.
She steeled herself, lifted her head, and met Zhao Fusheng’s eyes directly.
“What does my lord think?”
This ghost case in Kuailiang Village was getting more and more interesting.
At first Zhao Fusheng had thought the villagers of Kuailiang believed in the clan, acting stupid and fierce and cruel, cold and spiteful. But digging deeper, she found that not everyone was purely evil. Good and evil in human nature were mixed together, and in the end they had brewed a great disaster.
Zhao Fusheng sighed.
“So the village had been whispering about it for some time.”
As Kuai Er’s wife said, paper can’t hold fire2.
Since the affair between Fourth Madam Zhuang and the outsider had caused gossip, then Sixth Uncle, Kuailiang Village’s true authority, surely had some idea.
What would this village elder, who had many years ago created that unhappy marriage out of a moment’s pity, choose to do about the rumors?
When Kuai Huaide reported Fourth Madam Zhuang for adultery, Sixth Uncle had him tied up and beaten, and sent his eldest grandson Kuai Changshun’s wife to warn Fourth Madam Zhuang in advance.
That gesture was very telling.
“Sixth Uncle tied up the troublemaker Kuai Huaide, and at the same time sent his eldest grandson’s wife with a warning,” Zhao Fusheng summarized, looking at Kuai Er’s wife.
“He was hinting that Fourth Madam Zhuang should leave quickly.”
“...”
Kuai Er’s wife’s eyes slowly turned red.
The other three sisters-in-law wept quietly, without a sound, but none of them disputed Zhao Fusheng’s account.
Faced with the scandal, the village’s first choice had been to play deaf and dumb. That was the village’s good side.
Sixth Uncle’s actions showed the unspoken, kind-hearted side of a clan elder’s care for his people.
So why had things reached the point where they still ended in irreversible disaster?
What had gone wrong along the way?
Zhao Fusheng’s expression was sharp. After weeping silently for a long time, Kuai Er’s wife drew a long breath, raised her brows, and lowered her eyelids to hide the despair in her eyes.
“When Changshun’s wife came, she said Sixth Uncle planned to hear the case at dusk.”
The sequence of events that day: In the morning, Kuai Si’s wife wanted to hide Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter so Fourth Madam could leave Kuailiang Village at ease. The girl vanished and everyone searched all-out for her. Near noon Kuai Huaide lost his reason and tried to take advantage of Fourth Madam Zhuang, and was stopped by Kuai Er’s wife. Unwilling to let it go, Kuai Huaide grew angrier and angrier and in a rage reported the affair to Sixth Uncle. Sixth Uncle had the troublemaker Kuai Huaide tied up so he couldn’t interfere, and at the same time sent his eldest grandson’s wife with a warning.
And the last part: the case would be heard at dusk.
In other words, dusk was the last moment for Fourth Madam Zhuang to elope.
But she hadn’t seized the chance.
“The ferryman refused to take her across?” Zhao Fusheng asked.
“No.”
Kuai Da’s wife shook her head.
“The ferryman had taken my money. I promised to make up three more coppers later, and that day he would take only Fourth Madam across.”
Her tone was sure, her manner firm.
In her words Zhao Fusheng heard a very important clue, and she looked up at her with a deep, considering look.
Kuai Da’s wife didn’t notice the change in her expression and didn’t realize what her words had revealed. She went on, “My parents’ home isn’t far from Zhuang Family Village. I used it as a pretext. I said I’d heard Fourth Madam was going back to her parents’ home that day and asked her to bring something for me on her way, to hurry her along.”
In Kuailiang Village, Sixth Uncle’s family and the four sisters-in-law, without ever discussing it among themselves, had formed an unspoken understanding out of the good side of human nature, silently urging Fourth Madam Zhuang to leave this mire.
Zhao Fusheng would leave the four sisters-in-law aside.
Sixth Uncle and Sixth Aunt were probably atoning.
Perhaps on the very day Kuai Jumin died, Sixth Uncle’s soul had been imprisoned in a cell called “self-reproach,” tried by his own conscience and morals, and he would never break free, not in this life or the next.
Fourth Madam Zhuang’s suffering deepened his judgment of his own “sin.”
“My third sister-in-law scowled and scolded her, too, said if she had somewhere to go she should hurry up, was she planning to put it off until late at night so she wouldn’t have to come back and work?”
Kuai Si’s wife said it with tears in her eyes.
As she spoke, she smiled and turned to look at Kuai San’s wife.
Kuai San’s wife was wiping her tears with her head down. Hearing Kuai Si’s wife, she burst out laughing despite herself.
“Who told her to stand there dawdling and crying? Can’t leave this, can’t leave that. What’s there to be reluctant about? What’s so good about this house? Broken house? Cracked stove? That dog Old Five?”
“It was us. It was Sixth Uncle and Sixth Aunt,” Kuai Er’s wife said, the corners of her mouth lifting, a gentle look on her face.
“It was her daughter.”
Everyone fell silent at once, then, one after another, wept quietly.
“Then why didn’t she make it?”
Everything was ready, only the east wind was missing.3
Zhao Fusheng wanted to know why so many people’s joint effort to send Fourth Madam Zhuang out of that fire pit hadn’t succeeded.
“She went to the riverbank but didn’t board the boat. When we saw her, she was carrying little Man... Man... the girl back.”
The flame of hope in Kuai Er’s wife’s eyes dimmed, and her face took on a gloomy, sorrowful cast.
“She said she wasn’t going.” Kuai Da’s wife also seemed to age years at once, as if the vitality had been drained from her body.
“Why?”
Zhao Fusheng hadn’t expected Fourth Madam Zhuang to choose not to go herself.
“Didn’t she know what would happen if she stayed?”
“She said she’d found what she wanted,” Kuai Er’s wife said.
The moment she finished, Kuai San’s wife suddenly flew into a rage.
“That wretch! Why didn’t she go!”
The woman who’d been heartbroken just moments ago, who had wept “Fourth Madam,” suddenly turned on her.
She seemed to forget where she was and who Zhao Fusheng was. She stood and paced furiously around the room.
“Why didn’t she go! Why did she stay! That damned woman! Is it because once you’ve had a child and become a mother you forget you’re a person too? Your whole life revolves around the child, you don’t even want your own life?”
“Damn her! Damn her!”
The other three sisters-in-law seemed to have forgotten to calm her down. Each was lost in her own thoughts.
“What did she find?”
No one could answer Zhao Fusheng’s question. In fact, to this day the people of Kuailiang Village still couldn’t figure it out.
Zhao Fusheng thought carefully about the one variable in this affair: Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter.
What had the girl done in this incident? Had she persuaded her mother to stay?
“No.”
The thought had barely formed when she rejected it.
She thought of what Kuai Er’s wife said Fourth Madam Zhuang had said when she came back: that she had already found what she was seeking.
What had Fourth Madam Zhuang pursued all her life?
A happy, fulfilling life? Her daughter’s attachment and needs? A normal husband, a stable home? The first and last guesses could be crossed out. In other words, Fourth Madam Zhuang’s daughter had done something that changed her mind about eloping with the outsider.
“When she came back with her daughter in her arms, besides saying that, what else did she do?” Zhao Fusheng asked.
