In the middle of the night, having consumed too much of Lou Xiaoe’s special "fertility soup," Xu Damao was gloriously awakened by a desperate need to urinate. He rose, relieved himself, and hopped back into bed with the fluidity of a practiced routine.
Lately, Lou Xiaoe had been acting quite manic, forcing Xu Damao to drink that soup every day. Once he finished, she would pull down his trousers, demanding he "pay his grain tax." If Xu Damao resisted, she would berate him, calling him a "barren rooster." Tortured to the point of a nervous breakdown, Xu Damao spent his days wandering the Courtyard with heavy, dark bags under his eyes. Seeing his wretched state, even Shazhu stopped picking on him and would occasionally offer a word of comfort—though, being Shazhu, he would inevitably start bragging about his own son after only a few sentences.
The others in the Courtyard looked at Xu Damao with pity. Unable to bear the contrast between their pity and his own misery, Xu Damao could only find solace in hugging his fellow sufferer, Yan Jiecheng, as they wept together.
Chapter 46