Folk Song

Two short stories are published in this volume: Folk Song and Sunny Red Melons.

Folk Song
In a dusty farm by the Five Horses River, a mysterious stranger named Ma Wu appears seeking work. The farmhands begrudgingly take him in while the Mistress of the farm looks for ways to make him useful. For the Mistress, her biggest headache on the farm has been the young girl Hong Gu, who is pregnant with the Master s child. Trying to find an end to the humiliating gossip amongst the farmhands, the Mistress forces Ma Wu to marry Hong Gu. Just when the Mistress thinks that she has dealt with this ornery problem, a terrible crisis erupts on the farm when the bandits attack. Soon, a series of revelations and betrayals take place, and the farmhands find that their lives will never be the same again.

Sunny Red Melons
A young boy's life has been shaped around the legend of his dead father, who disappeared from the family farm with Sunny Red melons on his shoulder when the boy was only one-month old. What happened to the boy s father? Was he killed by a jealous neighbor? Was he murdered by the bandits? The question goes unanswered year after year, although the boy's mother stubbornly believes that her former suitor, Uncle Laifu, was the person responsible for the murder. As the young boy grows up, he begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together and discovers that answer proves to be much more elusive and complicated.