No.1 took the new oil boat downriver,leaving Nuo-

song behind at home.The old ferryman thought that since No.2 had sung the time before,he would sing again in the days to come.After nightfall he made a point of getting Cuicui to listen for songs in the night air.The two of them sat indoors after supper.Because their home fronted on the water,long- legged mosquitoes began buzzing at dusk.Cuicui lit bundles of wormwood inccnse and shook them in every corner of the house to drive avay the insccts.After shaking them until she thought the whole house was thoroughly smoked,she put some on the Hoor in front of her bed before siting on a little wooden stool to listen to Grandpa tell his stories.The subject finally tureed to singing,about which Grandpa was quite eloquent.Finally,he asked Cuicui,jokingly

"Cuicui,the songs in your dream lifted you up the cliffs to pick saxifrage;if someone really sang to you from the cliffs across the stream,what would you do?”

Cuicui answered him in a similarly humorous vein:“I'd

listen to him,for as long as he could sing!"

“What if he sang for three years and six months?”

“If his voice was good,I'd listen for three years and six

months.”

“That's not fair.”

“Why not?Wouldn't he want me to listen to him for a

long time?"

“They say that when you cook food,you want someone to

eat it,and when you sing,you want someone to listen.But if

a person sings to you,it's because he wants you to understand

the meaning of the lyrics!

“Grandfather,what meaning?”

“His true heart,of course,which wants your affection!

If you don't grasp what's in his heart,would it be any better

than listening to a songbird?”

“And what if I did happen to understand what's in his

heart?"

Grandpa slapped his thigh and laughed:“Cuicui,you're

a smart girl and your grandfather is plain stupid.If I speak a

little too bluntly,don't get mad at me.I'll throw caution to

the wind and tell you a funny story.No.1,Tianbao of River

Street,made the chariots move;he had a go-between pro-

pose matrimony.When I told you about it,you didn't seem

too willing,am I right?But if he had a younger brother who

adopted the horseman's move and sang to you to win your heart,what would you say to that?”

Startled,Cuicui lowered her head.She didn't know how

much of this story might be real,or who made it up.

Grandpa said:“See if you can come up with an answer- which one do you prefer?"

Forcing herself to smile,Cuicui replied softly,and some- what pleadingly:

“Grandfather,no more of your humor.”She stood up.

“Suppose it were not just a story but the truth?”

“Grandfather!”Cuicui wallked away as she answered.

Grandpa said:“It was in jest!Are you angrty at me?”

Cuicui could hardly be angry at him.When she got to the door,she turned the conversation toward something else: “Look how big the moon is,Grandfather!”She went out- side and stood still in the bright and open air.After a time, Grandpa came outside to join her.Cuicui sat down on the great boulder-warmed by the hot sun during the day,it was radiating its spare heat now.Grandpa said,

“Cuicui,don't sit on the hot boulder or you'll get blisters.”

But after feeling the rock,he sat down on the crag,too:

The moonlight was very gentle and a thin white mist Hoated on top of the stream.It would have been the per- fect time for somcone to sing from across the creek,and to be answered from the other side.Cuicui thought about the

funny story her grandpa had told her.She was not deaf,and

Grandpa had madehis meaning quite clear.What did it mean

if one of the brothers made the horseman's move and spent a

night like this singing to her?She remained silent for a long

time,as if waiting to hear such songs.

She sat there under the moonlight;she really wanted to

be sung to.In the end,no sound came from the opposite

bank other than the light drone of field insects.Cuicui went

into the house and groped in the darkness for the luguan reed

pipe.She brought it back out into the moonlight and began

blowing on it.Feeling that her playing was not very good,she

passed it to Grandpa.The old ferryman put it to his lips and

played a long tune that softened Cuicui's heart.

She sat beside her grandpa and asked:

“Grandfather,who invented this little musical instrument?”

“It must have been the happicst person on earth,because

happiness is what it gives;yet perhaps the world's unhappiest

person,too,because it also makes people unhappy!"

“Grandfather,are you unhappy?Are you angry at me?”

“Not at all.Having you by my side makes me very happy.”

“What ifI ran away?”

“You wouldn't leave your grandfather.”

“But just suppose I did.What would you do?”

“In the remote event that you did,T'd go looking for you

in this ferryboat."

That brought a chortle from Cuicui

Phoenix Rapids,Puncture Vine Rapids,aren't the

worst to rage:

Just go downstream and there is still the Tiwirling Chicken Cage;

But Twirling Chicken Cage yet lacks the most

ferocious foam

The waves at Green Foam Rapids are big as any home.

“Grandfather,could your ferryboat make it through all those rapids on the River Yuan?Didn't you say that the river in those places is like a madman,simply unwiling to listen

to reason?”

Grandpa said,"Cuicui,by the time I got there Fd be a madman myself.What would I have to fear from broad rivers and giant waves?”

Cuicui thought it over a litde,seemingly in carnest,then said:“Grandfather,I wouldn't leave.But would you?Might someone carry you off?”

Grandpa didn't answer.He felt that he had nothing to fear from the law and the officials.Death was the one shing that might take him.

The old ferryman got to thinking about what would hap- pen when death carried him away.Staring blankly at a star in the southern sky,he thought:“Shooting stars come only in the seventh and eighch months of the year.Might my death

come then,too?"He also thought about his conversation with No.l on River Street that day,about the mill that was to be the dowry of the gitl from Middle Stockade,and about No.2—about a lot of things.He felt a litle uneasy at heart.

Suddenly,Cuicui asked:“Grandfather,wont you sing a

song for me,please?”

Grandpa sang ten songs.Cuicui listened by his side,her eyes cdlosed.When he finished,she said to herself:."I've picked

saxifrage again. ’

The songs Grandpa sang for her were the very songs they

heard the night of her dream