The sunshine was gold and lovely. A blur of sunlight was crawling across her bare feet. Mei, however, couldn’t feel any color or loveliness. Mang was criminal and immoral. What Mang had done to her was a crime, and his vulgar behavior an obscenity. But she’d never want to talk about it. For whatever it was shamed her. She cared about chasteness. There had already been too much to endure in those bleak years of washing feet. It was Bing who’d helped her out of the dark. That was why she couldn’t wait to marry Bing. But Bing seemed no longer her shelter. Otherwise, Mang wouldn’t dare do that. She wanted to kill herself. Yet her timidity always seemed destined to shrink the courage of her convictions when cataclysms struck. Dramatically enough, Bing and Mang had given her two or three lifetimes within two or three days. She felt she had died more than twice. Now she was dying of the blazing silence that was going to fl ay her alive.