The Bonesetter's Daughter 精彩片段：
DESTINY
The orphanage was an abandoned monastery near Dragon Bone Hill, a hard climb up a zigzag road from the railway station. To spare the donkey, Mr. Wei made me walk the last kilometer. When he let me off and said good-bye, that was the start of my new life.
It was autumn, and the leafless trees looked like an army of skeletons guarding the hill and the compound at the top. When I walked through the gate, nobody greeted me. Before me was a temple of dried-out wood and peeling lacquer, and in the bare open yard stood rows of girls in white jackets and blue trousers, lined up like soldiers. They bent at the waist— forward, side, back, side—as if obedient to the wind. There was another strange sight: two men, one foreign, one Chinese. It was only the second time I had seen a foreigner so close. They walked across this same courtyard, carrying maps, followed by a troop of men with long sticks. I was afraid I had stumbled upon a secret army for the Communists.
As I stepped over the threshold, I nearly jumped out of my skin. Dead bodies in shrouds, twenty or thirty. They stood in the middle of the hall, along the sides, some tall, some short. Immediately, I thought they were the Returning Dead. Precious Auntie had once told me that in her childhood some families would hire a priest to put a dead body under a spell and make it walk back to its ancestral home. The priest led them only at night, she said, so the dead wouldnt meet any living people they could possess. By day, they rested in temples. She didnt believe the story herself until she heard a priest banging a wooden bell late at night. And rather than run away like the other villagers, she hid behind a wall to watch. Kwak, kwak, and then she saw them, six of them, like giant maggots, leaping forward ten feet into the air. What I saw I cant say for certain, Precious Auntie told me. All I know is that for a long time afterward, I was not the same girl.
I was about to run out the door when I saw the glint of golden feet. I looked more carefully. They were statutes of gods, not dead people. I walked toward one and pulled off the cloth. It was the God of Literature with his horned head, a writing brush in one hand, a valedictorians cap in the other. "Why did you do that?" a voice called out, and I turned around and saw a little girl.
"Why is he covered?"
"Teacher said he is not a good influence. We should not believe in the old gods, only Christian ones."
"Where is your teacher?"
"Who have you come to see?"
"Whoever arranged to take Liu LuLing as an orphan." The girl ran off. A moment later, two lady foreigners were standing before me.
The American missionaries had not been expecting me, and I had not expected them to be Americans. And because I had never talked to a foreigner, I could not speak, only stare. They both had short hair, one white, the other curly red, and they also wore glasses, which made me think they were equally old.
"Sorry to say, no arrangements have been made," the white-haired lady told me in Chinese.
"Sorry to say," the other added, "most orphans are much younger."
When they asked my name, I was still unable to talk, so I used my finger to paint the characters in the air. They talked to each other in English voices.
"Can you read that, can you?" one of them asked me, pointing to a sign in Chinese.