Read "Hanging Waters" by Keith West online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE little girl Pai Mei, squatting on her heels in the lean-to kitchen, rocked gently back and forth like a small automatic figure. At intervals the rhythm of her rocking was interrupted by a sob which shook her small body; then she would return again to the endless slicing of beans from the bowl on the mud floor in front of her.
Outside, a gentle wind disturbed the bamboos in the thicket, so that they rustled in the distance almost as silk rustles. The pale moon above the bamboos sent not enough light to show through the paper window against the greater light of the hanging oil lamp in the kitchen, but Pai Mei knew that the moon hung there, for she had just opened the door and glanced out, shutting the door again hurriedly as Ming Nai's querulous voice came to her from the living-room.