The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox

by Barry Hughart

  Now and then she comes to dance for me in my dreams. I do not believe that many men are so honored.

  Faster! the drums thundered. Faster! Faster! I danced faster, and then my swords got all tangled up as I attempted Tenth Dive of the Blue Heron, and I backed into a log upon the path and tripped and fell. The beautiful ghost leaped over me and her swords flashed out to remove my hide from my nose to my toes, and she landed on the other side. The drums stopped instantly. Bright Star shook her head dazedly, and then her eyes widened with wonder and hope as she realized that the log that had tripped me had been placed directly in front of the door, and it was still partly open, and she had leaped right through the gap.

  Li Kao and Henpecked Ho came running up the path as the dancing girl slowly turned to her captain. He was a tall, handsome ghost, and in life he must have been very heroic because he was able to turn from Bright Star and lift his clenched fist in the soldier’s salute, and to hold it for the full seven seconds before he swept his dancing girl into his arms. Then the ghosts faded away, and the flute faded away, and the door faded away, and the cover returned to the well, and the weeds returned to the path, and we were looking at a bricked-up patch in a wall.

  The hands of Master Li and Henpecked Ho were dripping with blood, and I looked like something that the cat had dragged from a slaughterhouse. We made a rather bedraggled group for such solemn ceremonies, but we doubted that anyone would mind. At Henpecked Ho’s workshop we cut paper silhouettes of the happy couple. We burned paper money for the dowry and food for the guests, and we spilled wine upon the ground. Henpecked Ho spoke for the bride, and I for the groom, and Li Kao chanted the wedding vows, and when the cock crowed we thanked the newlyweds for the banquet and let them go at last to the bridal bed. Thus Bright Star married her captain, and Henpecked Ho’s gentle heart was finally at rest.

  “All in all,” said Master Li as he helped me limp down the path, “it has been a rather satisfactory evening.”

  A Brief Interlude For Murder

  As soon as my wounds had healed, Master Li suggested that I should take another stroll through the gardens with Fainting Maid, with her father and himself as chaperones, and Ho and I were quite surprised when he led the way up the path toward the old well and the bricked-up patch of wall. Fainting Maid was in good form.

  “Roses! My favorite flowers!” she squealed, pointing to some petunias.

  Master Li’s voice was as sweet and smooth as warm honey. “Beautiful roses indeed,” he cooed, “but as Chang Chou so charmingly put it, women are the only flowers that can talk.”

  Fainting Maid simpered coyly.

  “Stop!” cried Master Li. “Stop right here, with your exquisite feet against this mark in the path! Here the light strikes you perfectly, and never has your beauty been more breathtaking.”

  Fainting Maid posed prettily.

  “Absolute perfection,” Master Li sighed happily. “A lovely lady in a lovely setting. One can scarcely believe that so tranquil a spot could have been the scene of tragedy, yet I have heard that here a door was locked, and a key was stolen, and a handsome young man and the girl who loved him lost their lives.”

  “A stupid soldier and a slut,” Fainting Maid said coldly.

  Her father winced, but Li Kao at least partially agreed.

  “Well, I’m not so sure about the slut, but the soldier was stupid indeed,” he said thoughtfully. “He was honored with the opportunity of marrying you, O vision of perfection, yet he dared to prefer a lowly dancing girl. Why, he even gave her a valuable jade pendant that should rightfully have been yours!”

  I was beginning to sense a certain menace behind Li Kao’s beaming smile.

  “I would imagine that it was the first time in your life that you had been denied something that you wanted,” said Master Li. “You know, I find it rather odd that Bright Star wasn’t wearing the captain’s pendant when they fished her body from the water. She would scarcely have paused to take it off before seeking a watery grave, unless, of course, she wasn’t seeking a watery grave at all. Meaning that somebody hired a pack of thugs to lock a door and steal a key and murder a dancing girl.”

  His hands shot out and jerked a gold chain from Fainting Maid’s neck, and up over her head. At the end of the chain was a jade pendant, which he bounced in the palm of his hand, and I realized with a sick sense of shock that I had seen it twice before. First between Fainting Maid’s breasts in the carriage, and then in ghost form between the breasts of Bright Star.

  “Tell me, dear child, do you always wear this next to your sweet little heart?” Master Li asked, smiling as warmly as ever.

  Henpecked Ho was staring at his monstrous daughter with horror and revulsion, and I suppose that the expression on my face was similar. Fainting Maid decided that Li Kao was the safest.

  “Surely you do not mean to suggest—”

  “Ah, but I do.”

  “You cannot possibly suspect—”

  “Wrong again.”

  “This incredible nonsense—”

  “Is not nonsense.”

  Fainting Maid turned red, turned white, clutched her chest, reeled and screeched, “Oh, thou has slain me!” Then she lurched two steps back and six to the left and disappeared.

  Li Kao gazed at the spot where she had vanished. “Captious critics might tend to agree with you,” he said mildly, and then he turned to her father. “Ho, you are perfectly free to hear whatever you choose, but what I hear is a magpie that is imitating the sounds of a scream and a splash.”

  Henpecked Ho’s face was white, and his hands trembled, and his voice was unsteady, but he never flinched.

  “Clever little creature,” he whispered. “Now it is imitating the sound of somebody screaming ‘Help!’”

  Li Kao linked arms with Henpecked Ho, and the two of them strolled up the path while I trotted nervously behind.

  “What a talented magpie,” Master Li observed. “How on earth can it manage that sound of thrashing in the water, and the gurgle that sounds strikingly like somebody sinking down into a deep pool?”

  “Nature is full of remarkable talents,” Henpecked Ho whispered. “Yours, for example.”

  “There is a slight flaw in my character,” Master Li said modestly.

  When we returned an hour later I judged from the silence that the talented magpie was no longer with us.

  “I think that I had best remove this mark from the path, lest busybodies wonder why it is precisely two feet in front and six feet to the right of an old well from which somebody has rashly removed the cover,” said Master Li. “Ready?”

  “Ready,” I said.

  “Ready,” said Henpecked Ho.

  We rent our garments and tore our hair as we raced back toward the mansion.

  “Woe!” we howled. “Woe! Woe! Woe! Poor Fainting Maid has fallen into a well.”

  Li Kao and I were viewed with suspicion, but since the girl’s own father had been with us there could be no question that it had been an accident.

  It Was A Grand Funeral

  Li Kao was delighted that he had been able to murder somebody who thoroughly deserved it, and his reason for murder was that the Ancestress, in her own inimitable way, was deeply religious. An example of her piety was the immense mausoleum that she had erected for herself assuming that someday she would condescend to join the gods. It was a giant iron pillar more than a hundred feet high, with the burial chamber in the center and the message that she wished to preserve for posterity engraved in huge characters above the entrance. If the history of the Ancestress is lost in the passage of time, I imagine that the scholars of the future will be rather puzzled by her epitaph.

  HEAVEN PRODUCES MYRIADS OF THINGS TO NOURISH MAN;

  MAN NEVER DOES ONE GOOD TO RECOMPENSE HEAVEN.

  KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL! KILL!

  Another example of her piety was her fondness for lohans. I don’t mean the statues of Buddhist saints, such as the 142,289 that can be found in Lung-men. I mean re
al lohans.

  A real lohan is a saintly monk who has given up the ghost while seated in the meditative mudra. This is considered to be a sign from Heaven, and when the deceased is discovered contemplating his navel, with his legs crossed, the soles of his feet turned up, and his hands lying limply upon his lap with the palms up, his body is carefully wrapped in layers of burlap. The burlap is treated with successive coats of lacquer and the finished product is a real saint whose preserved body will last for centuries. (If the lacquer is properly applied and the body is placed in water, it will last forever.) Such lacquered lohans are extremely rare, but the Ancestress possessed no less than twelve of them. Those with nasty minds suspected that more than one of the saints had been peacefully contemplating when an agent of the Ancestress slipped a knife between his ribs. This may or may not have been true, but the Ancestress was unquestionably proud of them and brought them out for all great ceremonial occasions.

  In the days that followed the demise of Fainting Maid mourners gathered from all over, and the most illustrious erected sacrificial tents along the road that the funeral procession would take to the cemetery. They brought private orchestras, and even troupes of actors and acrobats, and there was a great deal of socializing among the nobility. More and more people poured into the estate, including countless bonzes who were employed by the Ancestress to pray day and night for her soul, and the affair rather resembled a festival.

  The great day dawned with a drizzle. Clouds hovered overhead throughout the morning and early afternoon, and it was hot and humid with a sulphurous smell in the air. Henpecked Ho, who had willingly agreed to help us, muttered grim warnings about evil signs as he walked from count to marquis to duke. Shaggy black beasts with eyes like fire had been seen in the woods, said Henpecked Ho. Servants had seen two ominous ghosts—“A woman in white and a woman in green!”—who had warned of demons, and when a search was made of the pleasure pavilions the carving of a demon had indeed been found with an iron band around its head and a chain around its neck. A bronze candelabrum had floated through the air beside the Lake of the Fifth Fragrance: “With seven flames!” hissed Henpecked Ho, and I hope that no one will judge that sweet old man rashly when I report that at the funeral of his daughter he was having the time of his life.

  A great roll of drums signaled the approach of the funeral procession. First came outriders in double rows, followed by servants waving phoenix banners and musicians playing mournful music. They were followed by long lines of priests who swung lighted censers of gold, and then by the coffin with the sixty-four bearers that designated a princess. As the bereaved fiancée I had the place of honor, wailing and tearing my hair as I walked beside the coffin. Next came soldiers from the army of the Ancestress, who carried an immense canopy of phoenix-embroidered yellow silk, and beneath the canopy were bonzes who pulled twelve bejeweled carts. In each cart, seated in the meditative mudra, was a lacquered lohan.

  The saints were looking down approvingly at the visible signs of piety and grief of the Ancestress. She had opened her treasure chambers to provide suitable offerings to the spirit of the departed, and items of immense value were placed at the lohans’ feet. Of course everyone understood that the Ancestress had no intention of burying her wealth with Fainting Maid, but the display was customary, and it was also designed to make lesser mortals turn green with envy. After the burial gifts came four soldiers who were carrying the state umbrella of the Ancestress, and beneath the umbrella marched her chief eunuch, who was carrying the great crown of the Sui Dynasty upon a silken pillow. Then came the great lady herself. An army of servants groaned beneath the crushing weight as they carried her sedan chair, which was covered with a canopy of phoenix-embroidered yellow silk, with silver bells at the sides and a golden knob in back.

  In case anyone wonders why she used the phoenix symbols of an imperial consort rather than the dragon symbols of an emperor, the answer is simple. The imperial dragons were embroidered all over a large silken pillow, and the Ancestress was sitting on it.

  I will not describe the ceremony of the burial in detail because I would have to begin with the 3,300 rules of chu etiquette, which would send my readers screaming into the night, but I will mention that the body of my beloved had been covered with quicksilver and “Dragon’s Brains,” and that I had been quite disappointed when I had discovered that the latter was merely Borneo camphor.

  Fainting Maid could not presume to share the mausoleum with the Ancestress. Like all other family members she was buried in the common dirt, in order to spend eternity at the great lady’s feet, and I was required to pour handfuls of dirt over my head and wail like a man demented as I hung myself upon the grave, while the aristocracy made critical comments concerning the artistry of my performance. Hooded monks surrounded the grave, banging bells and gongs and spraying incense in all directions. Their leader had his hands clasped piously in prayer, or so I thought until his real hands slipped slyly from his robe and neatly picked the pockets of the Marquis of Tzu.

  Henpecked Ho ran around with wild eyes, babbling about evil spirits and demons, and who could doubt it? Lightning flickered evilly in the distance, and terrible things began to happen. Prince Han Li, for example, was engrossed in a profound theological discussion with one of the hooded monks, and when the prince was next seen he was lying in a ditch with a large bump on his head, divested of his purse, jewelry, red leather belt studded with emeralds, silver-winged cap with white tassels, and knife-plated white mourning garment with a gold-threaded design of five-clawed dragons. Screams and roars of rage were lifting from the pavilions of the wealthy, whose valuable funeral gifts had miraculously disappeared. Lady Wu, whose beauty was said to rival that of the semi-legendary Queen Feiyen, was carried into the bushes by a creature who had no ears or nose, and whose eyes were as yellow as his teeth.

  We all have our little weaknesses, but I must question the judgment of Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang when he abandoned his fellow hooded monks to disport in the bushes with Lady Wu. He missed a great deal of excitement.

  It was obvious that Henpecked Ho’s warning had been correct, and that the funeral of Fainting Maid had been attacked by demons. Only an immediate exorcism could save the lives of one and all, and Henpecked Ho was nothing less than magnificent as he led the Grand Master Wizard and the forty-nine assistants—who had fortuitously arrived with the hooded monks—and soon the cemetery was shrouded by rolling clouds of incense. Henpecked Ho bravely waved the banners that represented the five directions of Heaven, while wizards who wore cosmological mantles and seven-starred tiaras sprayed the graves with holy water. Drums nearly deafened us as Ho and the wizards grappled with invisible demons, swinging peachwood whips and swords that were engraved with the Eight Diagrams and the Nine Heavenly Spheres. They stuffed the nasty demons into jars and bottles, which were stoppered and sealed and stamped with closure decrees that forbade them to be opened throughout all eternity.

  In the middle of all this a miracle occurred that could have converted the most stubborn atheist in the whole world.

  An exceptionally saintly lacquered lohan was admiring the diamond-encrusted imperial sceptre that the Ancestress had placed at his feet, and apparently he feared that the other funeral gifts might be defiled by demons. So he stood up from the meditative mudra and began making a tour of inspection. Bonzes screamed and fainted in droves, and even the Ancestress, who had been screaming “Off with their heads!” turned pale and drew back in fear. The lacquer glinted like dull gold in the sultry light, and the saint appeared to be floating through the clouds of incense as he drifted among his fellow lohans and inspected each gift to make sure that it was safe. The last gift was inside a small jade casket, which the saint picked up and opened.

  “Got it!” he exclaimed happily.

  Unfortunately the light coat of lacquer had wiped fifty years of wrinkles from the lohan’s face, and the Ancestress sat up straight.

  “You!” she screamed. “You and your damned praying mantises nearl
y ruined me with Emperor Wen! Soldiers, seize this fraudulent dog!”

  Master Li took to his heels, clutching the jade casket, and I hopped up from Fainting Maid’s grave and raced in pursuit. The army of the Ancestress ran after us, and the diversion was a godsend to Cut-Off-Their-Balls Wang, who emerged from the bushes and gathered his men and began stealing everything in sight, and confusion degenerated into chaos. Then the storm that had been hovering all day broke with a bang, and lightning and thunder joined the drums of the wizards and the howls of the victims and the blinding rain became an even better cover than rolling clouds of incense. We escaped quite easily and reached our hiding place, a small natural cave in the riverbank. Then we stripped and dried off, and Li Kao opened the casket and held it out to me.

  Inside was the most magnificent ginseng root imaginable. No wonder the Ancestress had included it among her most valuable possessions, as Master Li had foreseen, and the aroma that came from it was so powerful that it made my head spin.

  “Ox, this is truly extraordinary, but the Root of Power in no way resembles the Great Root that Henpecked Ho described,” said Master Li. “Of course Ho doubts that his root was ginseng, and we must pray that this will do the job.”

  I was convinced that the children were as good as cured, and I cannot describe the joy in my heart. The rain soon ceased and the clouds drifted away, and we tiptoed through a thick swirling mist. Henpecked Ho was waiting for us at the entrance to the cemetery, and his eyes were sparkling as they had been when Bright Star passed safely through the door. We started off through the graves, and as we approached the mausoleum of the Ancestress we heard the faint sound of shovels.