“You are a fine young man. Mrs. Yi is right about you.”

“I have to leave now.”

“You can come again during the day. Don’t be shy. Look at the lily turf. It loves you.”

As Mr. Yi walked home, a chicken broke free of the coop. It was walking calmly in the moonlight. What was going on? Was it looking forward to being caught by the weasel? Mr. Yi put it back into the chicken coop. He made sure the coop was closed tightly. When he did this, the chicken made a terrible noise, as if a weasel was biting its neck. Mr. Yi shook his head with a wry smile: things were so ridiculous.

“Why didn’t you just let it be?” Mrs. Yi said to her husband with a smile.

“You heard it all? The longer I live, the more complicated I become.” Mr. Yi was a little depressed.

“For people living in Yun Village, it’s better to be a little complicated. I heard Gray whistling all the way home. Let’s get some more sleep.”

They fell asleep almost at the same time, but not sound asleep. They both walked in the darkness, and both saw the moon, the boars, and the pale gray lake shining in the moonlight. It was not often that the two of them had the same dream, maybe once or twice a year. They called it a link dream. A link dream was sheer happiness, because you always felt that a person was next to you, and this person saw what you saw, and you remembered where the other person came from in the previous dream.

The chicken made noise again outside the house, as fiercely as before. It was probably just a drill. The bird liked to amuse itself. But this time, neither person in the bedroom heard anything, as they were falling into a deep sleep.

* Author’s note: Mrs. Yi has forgotten that Mia is married.

7
The Turning Point in Mia’s Life

Mia was not from Yun Village. She lived in Deserted Village in a neighboring county. The name didn’t fit the village, for it was lively and the villagers were very close to one another. The doors of all the houses were open during the day, so it was easy for villagers to visit back and forth. Mia was a sensitive woman. For many years, though she lived in a congenial family where her husband loved her, her son clung to her, and her sisters were close to her, she had somehow felt that this life was not right for her or that it was even toxic. She had recently been imagining that her husband, Lohan, was planning to walk out on her and their young son, and run off with another woman. Of course she had never talked about her fears with others in the village. All day long so many people dropped by that she had little time to think about this. The anxiety lingered, however, and at times she stared at her husband in despair, finding it difficult to hide her feelings.