Starry River of the Sky (9 page)

Madame Chang beamed and began the story.

T
HE
S
TORY OF
W
ANGYI’S
W
IFE

A
fter WangYi shot down the suns, all hailed him as a great hero. The sky, earth, and seas echoed with his praises, and the people gave him every honor imaginable, including proclaiming him emperor.

But there was an even greater reward given to him. The Queen Mother of the Heavens, impressed by WangYi’s deeds, requested a visit. When WangYi arrived at the Heavenly Palace, he was awed by its golden splendor and gave the Queen Mother his greatest respect and reverence. Well pleased by WangYi’s humble deference, the Queen Mother decided to give him an unimaginable gift. It was a pill of immortality.

“It is not ripe yet,” the Queen Mother told him when he opened the intricately carved box made from a golden peach pit. Inside was a slippery, round object—rather like a large frog’s egg.

“Right now it is soft and clear,” the Queen Mother continued. “But it will turn hard as jade and then white like the moon, until finally it will become gold like the sun. When the pill is gold, it is ready, and if you swallow it then, you will never die; you will achieve immortality.”

Scarcely believing his good fortune, WangYi thanked the Queen Mother profusely and returned to earth. He hid the pill in his arrow case and told only his wife of its existence.

Then WangYi began to rule the people of the land. But gradually, as years passed, he became spoiled by all the admiration and glory. Slowly, he began to see everyone as his slaves and servants, existing only to do his bidding. Knowing that immortality waited for him, WangYi finally believed he should be treated as a god. He became proud and hard, demanding that his every whim be satisfied. He brutally punished anyone who displeased him, without more thought than if they were ants waiting to be crushed.

And through all this, WangYi’s wife watched, grief-stricken, as the husband she loved changed into a cruel and selfish ruler. Again and again, she would plead for the punished and try to calm WangYi’s arrogant anger. But before long, he did not even hear her gentle words.

Oh, how wretched her life became! How she despaired and wept! The shining gold of the palace could not brighten her misery, and her heart was heavy even as she wore delicate silk as fine as cobwebs. She shut herself in her rooms, unable to bear the sufferings WangYi was causing.

One late afternoon, in her unhappiness, WangYi’s wife took out the poor cotton robes she had worn before WangYi had been made emperor. As her tears fell, she found the arrow that she had taken from WangYi’s case, so long ago when he had shot down the live suns. Quietly, she went to return the arrow to the case.

But as she placed the arrow back, something seemed to flash at her like a flame. It was the golden box.

Almost immediately, she knew what it was. What else could be in such a wondrous golden box—carved with nine chrysanthemum flowers and gleaming in such a way that it could only be made from the pit of a peach of longevity? With trembling hands, she opened the box and stared at the white and glowing pill of immortality.

She could almost feel the power of the pill vibrating in her hands.
If WangYi becomes immortal
, she thought,
he will be emperor for all eternity.
She shuddered as she thought of him now, vain and pitiless. The pill was his and it did not belong to her, yet if he kept it his cruelty
would continue forever. He would never forgive her, but “I can’t let him take the pill!” she cried.

She threw the pill on the ground and stepped on it. She pounded it with a jade vase. She thrust it in a bowl of water. But the pill remained unharmed, smooth, and radiant like a lustrous pearl. It could not be destroyed.

And it could not be hidden safely either, WangYi’s wife realized. If she hid it, he would search and search until it was found, not caring whom or what he destroyed until he got what he wanted.

Night had fallen, and she heard the heavy footsteps of WangYi coming for her. She fluttered around the room like a trapped butterfly, but as the clear light of the pill shimmered, she suddenly knew what to do. So when WangYi opened the door, she stood waiting for him with the shining pill in her hand.

He stared at her, surprised and speechless. And in that moment of shock, she put the white pill in her mouth and swallowed.

A searing pain swelled inside her as if she was being filled with a vicious poison. Her skin tightened, choking her, and her eyes closed as she fell to the floor,
gasping. As she put her hands on the floor to lift herself, she was horrified to see that they had become mottled, wrinkled… and webbed! They were the hands of a toad!

When she looked up at WangYi, through his look of revulsion and fear, she could see her reflection in his eyes. It was not just her hands that were toadlike—she herself had been transformed into a giant toad.

WangYi, finally recovering from his astonishment, gave a shout of anger and started toward her. In terror, she jumped out the door and into the courtyard and the cool night air. As WangYi chased her, she leaped away with all her strength.

To the surprise of them both, her jumps brought her deep into the sky—higher than the palace rooftops and the mountain peak—into where the sky turned into the Starry River. The stars glittered around her like fireflies, and the night water clasped her with welcoming waves, but she was too frightened to understand what had happened. She could still hear WangYi’s cries of fury, and her transformation into a toad had confused her.

In the distance, in front of her, she saw a round, glowing object as smooth and as white as a pearl.
Another pill!
she thought, bewildered.
I’ll swallow that one too.

She jumped toward it, her silhouette darkening its surface. But instead of swallowing it, she landed on it. For it was the moon, and her new home.

“But even as a toad,” Madame Chang finished, “she was still herself on the inside. The pill she had swallowed just transformed her appearance.”

“Did she always stay a toad?” Peiyi asked, wide-eyed.

Madame Chang smiled faintly. The sadness that Rendi had seen earlier in her eyes returned, and he looked at her curiously. “Many believe that as WangYi’s wife lived on the moon, the pill slowly ripened inside her,” she said. “And one day, when it was finally gold, she changed back into a woman and became the Moon Lady.”

“The Moon Lady?” Rendi asked. He vaguely remembered hearing that name before and had a sudden vision of his mother tilting her head toward the moon with her
eyes closed. “Doesn’t the Moon Lady make wishes come true or something?”

“They say the Moon Lady can hear your most secret wish and grant it,” Madame Chang said. “It may be a wish so secret that you don’t even know you have it.”

“Is your secret wish to turn back into a rabbit?” Mr. Shan said playfully to the toad, the coins tinkling as he rattled them. “You’ll have to go to the moon!”

But there is no moon now
, Rendi thought.
Without it, can the Moon Lady still grant wishes? Does she wish the sky would stop crying and the moon would come back? Would she grant my wish of leaving the Village of Clear Sky?

Rendi walked down the shady side of a twisted street; even the scant protection of shadows was welcome in the searing sun.
I’ll just get some water at the Half-Moon Well, and then I’ll pack up my things at the inn and leave
, he thought. The swinging sound of his mended buckets on his new carrying stick echoed against the crumbling stones of the empty ruins.

However, the ruins were not completely empty. In front of him, Rendi saw a figure at the Half-Moon Well. As he
drew closer, he recognized Mr. Shan. He was on his knees, gazing into the well.

“Mr. Shan?” Rendi said, putting his buckets down. “What are you doing here?”

Mr. Shan did not seem to hear him and continued to look into the well. Rendi saw the toad, also at the well’s edge, its bulging eyes gazing into the hole. Rendi kneeled by them and tried to see what they were looking at. All he saw was darkness and the slight shimmer of light on the deep water.

“Is something wrong with the Half-Moon Well?” Rendi asked.

“Half moon, it was not a half moon,” Mr. Shan mumbled, as if he hadn’t heard. “It was a full moon. I need a full moon to see.”

And still without looking at Rendi, Mr. Shan put his hands on the wall that split the well in half and pushed down with a surprising force.
Crack! Crack!
The remains of the dividing wall crumbled and fell. Dry dust misted up into the air like steam, and the splashing noises of rocks falling filled the air. When all was quiet, the well was a round circle.

Rendi’s mouth was also a round circle. He had struck that same wall with all his might, cracking his stick and breaking his buckets. All his efforts had not even loosened a single stone, yet Mr. Shan had knocked it down with a single push of his wrinkled, aged hands.

But Mr. Shan did not seem to be aware that he had done anything extraordinary. He peered again into the well. The reflections on the dark water sparkled up beams of light. The toad croaked a groan.

“Did you drop something down there?” Rendi asked after taking a deep breath and hiding his surprise.

“No, it’s not in this water,” Mr. Shan said, his eyes clouding over. “It’s in a different water.”

He’s confused again
, Rendi thought, and before he could be annoyed, he remembered Madame Chang’s patient smile. “Mr. Shan,” Rendi said, more gently than he ever had before, “I don’t think there’s anything in there.”

Mr. Shan put the toad in his pocket and pushed himself up with his walking stick. “Yes, now there’s nothing,” he said, nodding in his absentminded way. “Don’t jump in.”

“Don’t worry,” Rendi said, amused. “I won’t.”

Mr. Shan’s eyes seemed to clear, and he peered at Rendi,
the power of his gaze hitting Rendi like a falling stone. Rendi’s smile faded, and a strange, discomforting feeling came over him, as if he had walked into a gray, clammy mist.

“Good,” Mr. Shan said, nodding. He gently patted Rendi’s shoulder. “Make sure you do as you say.” And then Mr. Shan turned away.