Rong Xiaolai Uses a “Conception Before the Buddha” Story to Persuade Mrs. Rong to Shelter a Mysterious Pregnant Woman

Young Lillie’s appeal to Mrs Rong turns an uncertain pregnancy into a test of family responsibility, religious belief, and hospitality. He offers her a story of conception before the Buddha, then makes the woman’s immediate shelter depend on Mrs Rong’s answer; after a night of hesitation, she allows the stranger to remain in the Rong household.

A household in decline

The decision takes place in a mansion far removed from its former life. The once-busy Rong residence has grown quiet as its population dwindles, with old people and servants outnumbering the younger members and masters. Weeds obscure the paths, the garden has become wild, and the rear courtyards have turned into a maze. The house’s remaining traces of grandeur coexist with visible neglect. Its remoteness and disorder make it a place where a woman of uncertain background can be concealed, but they also establish the vulnerability of the household into which she is being brought.

The family’s internal balance of power matters to Young Lillie’s plan. Every member of the Rong family’s seventh generation is dead except Old Lillie, who lives far away in the provincial capital. Mr Rong, elderly and incapacitated after a stroke, has lost his faculties and is confined to bed; authority in practice rests with Mrs Rong. Although the pregnant woman may be the Killer’s child’s mother, that possible kinship does not guarantee welcome. Young Lillie must win the consent of the person who can actually decide whether she stays.

The story offered in the prayer chamber

Knowing that Mrs Rong is a devout Buddhist, Young Lillie takes the woman to her prayer chamber and raises the matter while Mrs Rong is preparing to recite her sutras. Mrs Rong’s first questions are practical: who the woman is and what Young Lillie expects her to do. He answers that she is pregnant, then supplies an explanation shaped for his listener. The woman, he says, was devout, grew up in a nunnery, and was unmarried; after visiting Putuo Mountain to pray before a Buddhist statue, she discovered that she was pregnant.

The account is presented as a means of persuasion, not as a verified explanation. Mrs Rong asks whether belief in it matters, and Young Lillie makes the consequence of her answer plain: if she does not believe the woman, he will put her out on the street. The exchange therefore does not establish that the pregnancy occurred as described. It shows Young Lillie placing the question of belief beside the immediate decision to offer shelter, making refusal carry a concrete consequence for the woman.

Hesitation and consent

Mrs Rong does not decide during their conversation. She spends the night unable to sleep, and the Buddha offers no help in resolving her uncertainty. At noon the next day, Young Lillie acts as though he is preparing to send the woman away. Mrs Rong then changes the situation with a brief decision: the woman may stay, followed by an invocation of Amitabha Buddha. Her response joins practical consent to the religious language that has framed the appeal, without confirming that she accepts the story as fact.

The delay gives the decision its weight. Mrs Rong’s initial questions do not settle the woman’s status; neither does the proposed account of her pilgrimage. What determines the immediate outcome is Mrs Rong’s eventual willingness to shelter her, expressed only after a night of indecision and as the threat of expulsion becomes imminent. The woman moves from being a visitor whose place is contested to someone permitted to remain in the house.

Significance of the decision

The episode makes refuge depend on a carefully chosen appeal to the person with authority. Young Lillie cannot rely on the woman’s possible connection to the Killer to secure acceptance, and Mr Rong’s condition leaves Mrs Rong as the decisive participant. Young Lillie instead connects the woman’s circumstances to Mrs Rong’s religious commitments, then forces the practical stakes into view by setting shelter against the street. The scene’s tension lies less in whether the explanation can be proved than in whether Mrs Rong will act despite uncertainty.

Her agreement is limited but consequential: the woman can stay. The neglected mansion that might hide a stranger becomes, for the moment, a place of shelter. The narrative preserves the ambiguity of the claimed conception while making the result unmistakable: a woman with no established place in the family is admitted because Young Lillie persuades its effective head to take responsibility for her presence.