Chapter 29: Have You Finished? I’m Tired
In the depth of night, Dong Ci was aroused from her sleep by a knocking at the door. She got up and opened the door, and then she saw Ji Jing in red clothes hang herself by the neck with a rope. She was dead with both hands down naturally and her eyes rolled back. Her clothes were redder than her overhanging tongue and her facial expression was horrible.
Ji Jing’s hair was so long that it reached to her knees. Dong Ci thought that Ji Jing could use her long hair as a tool to hang herself instead of the rope. Although Ji Jing had killed herself, Dong Ci had a lingering fear.
When a woman liked a man, she would miss him terribly and couldn’t restrain the impulse to see him. When she was dating with him, she couldn’t restrain the impulse to have a deeper exchange of body and soul with him. So, if you followed her out several times, you could easily find out who her lover was. Ji Jing’s lover was a thin and withered man who ran a dyehouse in the town. He had deep-set brown eyes and long eyelashes. Ji Jing often took some white cloths to the dyehouse to dye. She liked green and purple. These two colors were not suitable for most people, but Ji Jing looked beautiful in green or purple. If Ji Jing was not in Nima Mansion, she must be in the dyehouse or be on the way to the dyehouse. Her maid, Yan, was well disposed towards Dong Ci, so she told Dong Ci everything about Ji Jing.
‘You can keep nothing a secret from your maid,’ Dong Ci thought.
Ji Jing and her lover went into a room on the ground floor of an inn. Outside the window the weeds ran riot. Dong Ci squatted in the weeds with two leafy, big branches in her hands and a hat made with twigs on her head. ‘I look like a tree,’ she thought.
The sun was high in the sky, blazing down on her. Fortunately, the big branches and the hat shaded her from the sun. Dong Ci was holding up the branches with a triumphant smile, like a proud lizard.
She looked through a leak in the window and saw clearly what happened in the room. ‘Maybe I can use him to deal with Ji Jing,’ she thought to herself.
Dong Ci waited a long time outside. In the room, Ji Jing and her lover were making love in different postures. Dong Ci got tired of their uncreative love-making postures. She had got up early this morning in order to follow Ji Jing. At noon, she had gone to Autumn Wind Teahouse and bought some snacks. Dong Ci had a bad habit of sleeping after meals. Looking at the man moving up and down on Ji Jing, Dong Ci felt sleepy, as her eyelids drooped. She leaned against the wall and gradually drifted into a light sleep.
After a short nap, she felt refreshed. The sound of gasps and moans was wafted to her ears from the room.
“Have you finished? I’m tired.” Ji Jing’s moans died away because she was exhausted.
The man said, “What’s the hurry? The sun hasn’t set yet.”
Things will develop in the opposite direction when they become extreme, no matter how much pleasure they have brought you. For example, when you were hungry, eating could make you happy; however, you might die from overeating. When you were thirsty, drinking water could refresh you; however, consuming too much water would put you at risk of a potentially life-threatening condition known as water intoxication. When you were sleepy, sleeping was a good way to regain your energy; however, too much sleep would make you feel dizzy and cause a lot of health problems. For another example, when you had sex with your lover, endlessly thrusting would scrape the skin off your private parts.
That man said, “I will show you how strong I am.”
It was finally over. The man grunted in relief as his body trembled, feeling the convulsions of the orgasm suck him dry. He lay down on the bed, exhausted. Outside the window, Dong Ci also felt tired from crouching in the weeds for such a long time.
Ji Jing got dressed and left in a hurry. Dong Ci pushed the door open and went in the room. The man looked at Dong Ci and asked, “Who are you?”
Dong Ci strewed the bed with banknotes and said, “Come to Nima Mansion this afternoon and tell Nima everything. Only in this way can you live on. If you refuse to do that, I will personally tell Nima what happened between you and Ji Jing. By then you will lose the money and even your life.”
“Who the hell are you?” The man sprawled on the bed without trousers.
“It doesn’t matter who I am. I’ll wait for you in Nima Mansion. You’d better think carefully before you make a decision.” Dong Ci cast a glance at Ji Jing’s lover’s magnificent, erect penis.
‘Men cannot be judged by their looks,’ she thought.
At dusk, the man went to Nima Mansion and told Nima the whole story between him and Ji Jing. Nima’s colour came and went as he listened. Finally, he turned livid with rage as he knew that Ji Jing’s stillborn baby was not his. That shameless woman cuckolded him!
Ji Jing knew that she wouldn’t outlive this night. So she hung herself at the door of Dong Ci’s bedroom.
Ju Juxian and Yang Zhen heard Dong Ci’s screams. They got dressed quickly and rushed towards Dong Ci’s bedroom. When they saw Ji Jing’s body blowing in the wind, they were taken aback and exchanged frightened glances. Nima strode to Dong Ci, held her in his arms, and then asked the servants to bury Ji Jing. After that, he said to Dong Ci in a concerned voice, “You must be awfully scared tonight. Go to my bedroom and get some sleep.”
Dong Ci glanced at Yang Zhen.
A cold chill went up Yang Zhen’s spine. At this summer night, the dead woman wore red clothes, her face contorted with resentment. Faint moonlight shone on the corpse and fireflies glowed in the darkness. There was an air of gloom and despair hanging over the courtyard.
Dong Ci didn’t intend to kill Ju Juxian and Yang Zhen. She had forced Ji Jing to death as a warning to the other two women. They two were smart, so they quietly went away from Nima Mansion with a large sum of money that very night.
“Master, you only belong to me now,” Dong Ci whispered in his ears.
As a woman, she enjoyed being possessed by her man; meanwhile, she wanted an absolute possession of him, from heart to soul.
Nima spoiled Dong Ci. She was not afraid of those corpses hanging on iron hooks in the backyard; instead, she provided some good ideas about how to deal with the corpses. For example, she advised Nima to stuff ice cubes and just-washed entrails into the corpses’ abdominal cavities to keep them fresh. She also advised that fingers of the corpses should be heavily salted with pure sodium chloride and then be smoked by sulphur so that they could be delicious and tempting. Besides, brushing honey on to the outside of human flesh during the process of making cured meat was a good idea suggested by Dong Ci. She also thought that the oil extracted from the corpses was a good gift for officials’ wives because applying the congealed oil to the face could make the skin smooth…
“You are a gift from God to me.” Nima held Dong Ci in her arms and said, “I can’t image what my life would be like without you.”
“After my death, please make my body into cured meat and eat it all.” Dong Ci looked at the red rope around her wrist. Its color began to change from red to black. “Master, will you still remember me after you reincarnate?”
“Silly girl. You won’t die. I don’t allow you to die before me. I want you to live the rest of your life with me. Believe me, we will lead a happy life.” Nima undressed Dong Ci and caressed her graceful body along her delicate curves.
There was a burning sensation in her body, which took over her senses and kept her desire alive.This belongs © NôvelDra/ma.Org.
‘Nima, I love you so much,’ she thought.
Nima fell into a sound sleep. Dong Ci gently touched his nose with her fingers and said, “Master, I’m leaving.”
The next morning, Dong Ci’s body was found to be floating face down on the water. Some water spiders jumped on her back. Nima couldn’t believe that Dong Ci had been drowned in such a shallow river. He made her corpse into cured meat and ate it up. ‘She must have turned into a fish. She’s still alive,’ he thought to himself.
Nima took a few new concubines, but none of them could give him a feeling of euphoria as Dong Ci had done.
He often stood at the gate in a trance, hoping that Dong Ci would come back to him.
Afterwards, Nima returned to Tibet alone.
How could Dong Ci die in such a shallow river? It was practically impossible, but in reality, it happened. Nima thought that he would be with Dong Ci until old age, but destiny had different plans. It seemed to be impossible for him to meet her again. Everyone who fell in love had trouble without end.
“May Buddha let us meet in my most beautiful hours.
I have prayed for it for five hundred years.
I hope we can meet in earthly life.”
Black Emissary and White Emissary was waiting for Dong Ci at the entrance to Hell. She walked up to them and said, “Take me back to the human world. I’m tired.”