The Witching Snakes pt 27

While Bai Suzhen is Trapped in the Leifeng Pagoda. Xu Xian Writes Her Letters

Read Part 26

The Grieving

Dearest Bai Source of all my joy,

It's been a year since Dream Dragon came into the world. The memory of our son's birth saddens me still. I allowed Fa Hai to take you. At my door I see you as you were, not trapped at the Leifeng Pagoda. If I live for a hundred or a thousand years, I would feel only the living death of not hearing your voice. The Dragon Boat Festival came and went. Spiteful monks burned paper icons of you and your sister. Fa Hai shouted about tearing you from me as if he was the hero. He even offered me a role.

I refused him but I cried and he interpreted my tears as he wanted. No matter what he says, I have no regret. They want me to hate you, they want me to forsake you and curse you. Constantly their small lives and their beliefs harass me.

I am sorry that I am so weak. I am not recognized in the street as the husband of the great woman who saved them from the plague. They curse your name and I remain silent. They call me a dust barbarian. My heart freezes.

The West Lake is beautiful. Often under the bright moon, I take our umbrella across the lake. I dress in proper merchant attire. I sell medicines. I speak little to the customers. I am just waiting. One word about the woman that once saved them, one note of appreciation for what you did and I would cry happy. Every week I go to the Leifeng Pagoda. I feel my heart boiling.

They sing a song of a snake who loved a mortal so much she became human; they try not to sing it near me. It's a bitter and nasty tune. The snake ends up eating the human. I sometimes wish that I had known that you were a snake from the outset, but then I remember my past weakness. I would have feared you too much to love you. Then I would have been truly wretched.

One year has separated the living and the dead and no one has heard from Greenie. I have stopped thinking about you every minute, but I can never forget. The lonely pagoda could be a thousand li away and I would still crawl to you. In every dream, you sit at a little window and welcome me home. I was wandering and you were tending the shop. I see you dancing; you are covered in dust. The grave is calling.

Will the pagoda fail? Will the spirits ever allow you out? Can we find a world without greedy monks? A thousand lines of poetry bring me to your prison. The moon shines bright. Pines guard your tomb.

I have become a decrepit hermit with dull black hair and fragile knees. Our son has a happy red face. I feel so alone. My hair falls limp and the wind is slapping me. I worry that our son will become a drunk or a bandit or a monk. I smile at my neighbors as they speak evil.

I miss you. Please come out. Please come home.

Xu Xien