The Moon Opera by Bi Feiyu

him to hear, but she wasn’t fooling anyone. He sighed too, but softly. Something was wrong, something was definitely wrong. He thought he could almost see the end of life.
    Miangua began to feel nostalgic about the past, and when a person does so, it can only mean that something is nearing its end. He and Xiao Yanqiu were not a good match—like a pigeon settling into a magpie’s nest. He’d come into her life when she was in dire straits. Now she was going back on the stage, becoming a star again. Where does Chang’e fly except up to the heavens? Sooner or later she would soar back into the sky, and it wouldn’t be long before their home was turned upside down. He was reminded of her abnormal behavior over the past few days and could only sneer at the dark night.
    Xiao Yanqiu took the last two tablets the following morning and sat at home waiting quietly. At nine, she went to the hospital with a stack of sanitary napkins. The doctor told her to take more tablets, this time three little white hexagons. She swallowed them all and walked around for a while before again sitting down to wait. The spasms began slowly, with increasing frequency. Bending over in the chair, she panted.
    “What are you sitting here for?” the doctor said sternly when he came out. “It takes four hours. Go outside and run around or jump or do something. Don’t just sit here!”
    So she went downstairs, but the pain was so intense it felt as if something were gnawing at her insides. It was becoming unbearable, and she wished she could find a place to lie down. Not daring to go back upstairs, she knew as well that she could not hang around the hospital entrance, in case she ran into someone she knew; that would be too great an embarrassment. So, unable to hold out any longer, she decided to go home. Their place was empty, as were all the flats in the building. And as she stood in the living room, recalling what the doctor had said, she decided to jump, to stir things up a bit. So she took off her shoes and leaped into the air; her heels landed with a thud, frightening and energizing her at the same time. She listened intently before jumping again and landing with another thud. Encouraged by the thumps on the floor, she kept it up. The more she jumped, the greater the pain; the greater the pain, the more she jumped. The jumps accompanied the pain; the pain accompanied the jumps. She leaped higher and higher, and her spirits soared. A singular sense of contentment and relaxation spread over her; this was an unexpected reward, and an unforeseen pleasure. She took off her coat, laid it on the floor, and leaped and twisted as if her life depended on it. Her hair came loose and flailed wildly in the air, like ten thousand gesticulating hands. She felt an urge to shout, to scream, but knew it wouldn’t help if she did. By this time she had forgotten why she was jumping. Now she was just jumping, jumping to hear the thuds, jumping to feel the floor groan beneath her feet. Xiao Yanqiu was deliriously happy. She rose into the air; she was flying. Finally, physically drained, her last ounce of strength used up, she sprawled on the floor as tears of happiness flooded her eyes.
    Downstairs, a shopkeeper wondered what all the noise was about. Sticking her head out the door, she muttered, “What’s going on up there?” Her husband, who was counting cash, grunted without looking up, “Renovating, I suppose.”
    Around noon, the pearl slid from Xiao Yanqiu’s body. With the bleeding the pain stopped, and with the disappearance of the pain she was more relaxed; she experienced an intoxicating relief. Exhausted, she lay down on the bed to savor that intoxication, the respite from pain, and the fatigue. Intoxication took her to a different realm, the respite from pain brought understanding, and the fatigue was itself a sort of beauty.
    She fell asleep.
    Xiao Yanqiu slept for a long time and was visited by fragmented dreams, disconnected bits and pieces, like