by Kylie Chan
John rose, his voice mild. ‘Ah Qing, think carefully before —’
Qing Long cut him off. ‘You should be thrown from Heaven! Do you know how many of us are signing a petition to the Jade Emperor?’
‘Gold,’ John said, ‘go and check this with the Celestial bureaucracy, please? Find out the details of the petition.’
‘My Lord,’ Gold said, and went out.
‘Come now, old friend, there’s no need for this,’ John said, closing the office doors.
The Dragon moved to John, quickly embraced him and kissed him on both cheeks. Then he moved back to the doorway and yelled, ‘Don’t tell me to calm down!’
He came to me and patted me on the back. ‘Don’t look like that. I know what I’m doing.’
‘What are you doing?’ I said.
‘It’s a petition to have him thrown from Heaven and you executed,’ Qing Long said, lowering his voice so that only we could hear. ‘Based on the argument that you’re an agent for the Demon King and he let you into his household fully aware of it.’
‘That’ll be thrown straight out of court, because we have proof that I’m not an agent for the Demon King.’
‘Precisely,’ the Dragon said. ‘And no other petitions can be put forward while this one is grinding slowly through the wheels.’
‘Brilliant,’ John said. ‘I owe you.’
The Dragon moved back to the door to yell again. ‘I will see you thrown from Heaven and this bitch executed. Any Sovereign is better than you — hell, I’d rather serve the Demon King himself. You have failed, Turtle.’
The doors flew open to show a large group of horrified spectators standing outside.
Jade stormed in to stand in front of the Dragon and glared up at him, furious. ‘You are petitioning to have the Dark Lord thrown from Heaven?’ She looked from the Dragon to me. ‘And Lady Emma executed?’
‘Lady Emma no more,’ the Dragon said, glowing blue against her green. ‘They are a disgrace to the Celestial and need to be removed.’
‘Come on, everyone, there’s no need to fight like this,’ I said, closing the doors again.
Jade took the Dragon’s hands in hers. ‘I’ll marry you,’ she said. ‘I’ll come and live with you in the East. Anything. Just don’t do this to them, please. Haven’t they suffered enough?’
His expression softened as he gazed down at her, holding her hands for a long moment. ‘And now she says yes,’ he said with heart-breaking gentleness.
‘He doesn’t mean it,’ I said. ‘He’s creating a dummy petition that will automatically fail so that no real ones can go up.’
Jade’s mouth opened into an ‘O’ and stayed there.
He lifted her hands. ‘Will you still say yes?’
She didn’t reply; she just threw her arms around his neck, pulled him down and kissed him hard.
I had to interrupt them after a couple of minutes. ‘Uh, we can’t leave you two alone without opening the doors. And then everybody will see you.’
They broke apart and gazed into each other’s eyes for a long time, still holding each other.
‘Is that a yes?’ the Dragon said.
‘Let me think about it,’ Jade said. She turned and went out of the office, closing the doors behind her.
‘I will do this!’ the Dragon shouted. ‘The Winds will have a new Sovereign and you will return to Hell!’
‘I think that’s enough,’ John said.
The Dragon quickly embraced both of us and left. We could hear him shouting as he made his way through the crowd.
‘There goes a true friend,’ John said as he returned to sit behind the desk. ‘Gold is on his way back with the petition.’ He smiled slightly. ‘He says it will be thrown out of court. What a shame.’
Gold and Amy’s wedding was held midwinter, and the day was clear and bright. The dragons resident on the Mountain had ensured that the weather was fine for the wedding of one of their own. The Mountain’s paths and courtyards were cleared of snow, but the trees, roofs and peaks were covered in a white blanket. Jade had decorated the Hall of Purple Mist for the wedding ceremony: it was bedecked with wide red ribbon with rosettes on every corner and pillar holding gold ‘double happiness’ circular motifs.
Gold was in human form, wearing a Mountain uniform, with red ribbons draped across his chest and held with a rosette in the middle. He waited at the top of the stairs with John and the parents: my stone in human form, and Amy’s mother and father. Amy’s father, a dragon, was in human form: a short, round middle-aged Chinese man with a jolly smile. Her mother was human, an art gallery owner from Sydney; she was slender and elegant in a beautifully tailored pale blue suit. My stone had outdone itself; it wore a green embossed silk Chinese robe, which highlighted its pale European skin and shock of white hair.
The palanquin holding Amy arrived, also decorated with red ribbons and gold ‘double happiness’ motifs and carried by dragons, one in front and one behind, both brilliant crimson with gold fins and tails. Jade walked alongside the palanquin in True Form: a glittering green dragon, four metres long, with gold fins and tail.
Meredith and I were on babysitting duties for Amy and Gold’s little ones. I was holding Richard up to see the spectacle, and he seemed to be enjoying it, crowing loudly with delight at the dragons. Little Jade, in Meredith’s arms, was fast asleep.
The palanquin stopped at the bottom of the stairs and Amy stepped out. The students of the Mountain burst into spontaneous applause when they saw her, and she blushed. She wore a traditional wedding dress: a slender, fitted red silk cheongsam that featured a dragon on one side and a phoenix on the other, each brilliantly embroidered in gold, silver and brightly coloured thread. She wore a similarly embroidered short red silk jacket over the top — against the cold — but had broken with tradition in not wearing a red silk veil over her face. Her hair was pinned up into a bun decorated with red beads and silk flowers.
Jade changed to human form, in a plain green cheongsam, and guided Amy to the top of the stairs. She bowed to John and the parents, then went back down the stairs.
John stood at the front of the terrace to face the gathered crowd, with Amy and Gold on his left and the parents on the right.
‘Amy Wu, child of Richard and Veronica, has agreed to wed the Golden Child of the Jade Building Block.’ He nodded towards my stone. ‘Do you agree to this union, Jade Building Block?’
‘I agree. They are well matched,’ the stone said with pride.
‘Master Richard, Madam Veronica, do you agree to your daughter undertaking this union?’
‘I agree,’ Richard said.
‘I’m not a Madam,’ Veronica said with dignity. ‘And I agree.’ She wiped her eyes. ‘He is a fine young man.’
‘Uh …’ John approached her and said something softly to her.
‘A thousand years old?’ Veronica said loudly with shock. ‘A thousand?’
Gold winced, and Amy put her hand on her forehead.
‘I still agree regardless,’ Veronica said. She glared at Amy. ‘And we are talking about this later.’
John moved back and waved one hand, and ebony Ming-style wooden chairs with red silk cushions appeared behind himself, the stone and Amy’s parents. They all sat. Jade floated up the stairs holding a tray containing four teacups. She gave the tray to Gold, kissed him and Amy on the cheek, said something inaudible to them, then floated back down the stairs.
Amy and Gold held the tray between them and went to stand in front of John. John’s face was full of delight as he accepted the tea from Amy and Gold. They knelt before him, he took a cup and sipped it, then they stood again. They turned to serve tea to Amy’s parents, who sat with their hands on their knees, both obviously bursting with pride.
As Amy and Gold were serving tea to my stone, John’s face went completely ashen and he toppled sideways off his chair.
Amy and Gold stood there stricken. The stone went to John and knelt next to him.
He’s severely injured, the s
tone said in broadcast mode. Get medical help.
Meredith and I raced up the stairs, and quickly handed the babies to Amy and Gold. I pushed my way through to John. His breath was short and shallow and he didn’t seem able to see us.
Someone turned him onto his back and we all gasped: his side was black with blood. I opened the top of his robe to see, but the toggles and loops wouldn’t open far enough. I caught a glimpse of what looked like a burn on his side, but the robe wouldn’t open, and it went all the way down to his feet so I couldn’t pull it up.
‘What happened?’ Meredith said.
‘Don’t worry about what happened, get him to the infirmary,’ the stone said.
A few people lifted him and carried him quickly to the infirmary, the rest of us following. He made a few soft noises of pain as they moved him, and I nearly cried out with him.
‘How did this happen?’ I said as we entered the makeshift ward. ‘John, what happened to you?’
Edwin pushed us aside as soon as John was on the bed. He cut away John’s robe and pulled his cotton pants down slightly over his slim hips to see the damage. One side of his body, all the way down the side of his abdomen, was blackened as if burnt to a depth of two to three centimetres. The skin of his chest and upper arms was covered in shallow cuts, some fresh and bleeding, some half-healed.
I sank into a chair, dizzy with shock.
Edwin hissed when he saw the injuries and quickly put himself in John’s face. ‘Are you in pain, Lord Xuan?’ he said urgently. ‘Do you require painkillers?’
John nodded, his face a fierce mask of concentration.
Edwin turned to the drugs cabinet and quickly pulled out a vial and a syringe. He injected John and then waved us all back. ‘Emma and Meredith can stay. I want everybody else out.’
‘Come on, Simone,’ Leo said.
‘I want to stay with Daddy!’ Simone yelled.
‘I need space to work. I’ll call you back in when I’m done,’ Edwin said, and Simone went out with Leo.
‘Thanks,’ I said, moving to sit next to John’s head and hold his hand. ‘John, what happened?’
He spoke through his teeth. ‘Demon King … playing … with a blowtorch.’
‘Oh, dear Lord,’ Meredith said. She moved closer to John. ‘We can send you down to Court Ten —’
‘No!’ John raised his head then dropped it again. ‘If you kill me now, while the Serpent is in so much pain, I’ll rejoin with it. You have … to keep me … alive!’
‘I’ll do my best, my Lord,’ Edwin said. He put a saline bag on a drip stand and inserted the needle into John’s arm. ‘These don’t look mortal.’
John yelled with pain and arched his back, then threw himself onto the side that wasn’t burnt. He gasped a few times, breathing heavily, then stopped. He flopped onto his back again and I saw that the scorched area had grown. The room filled with the smell of burnt flesh.
‘I can manage,’ he said.
Edwin ran out of the room. Meredith and I sat together, stricken, watching John. Edwin returned with some damp sheets of what appeared to be skin. He sprinkled antibiotic powder over the burns and then put the sheets over them.
‘Thank you,’ John said. ‘I think he’s finished for now. Any more and the Serpent will die too.’
I touched John’s chest, making sure to stay well away from the burns. He was covered in small cuts. ‘He’s been torturing you for a while.’
‘Yes. His timing is impeccable, to do this during the wedding.’
‘Would he know the wedding was on?’
‘The whole of the Celestial is out for it; he’d know.’ He cried out and arched his back again. ‘He just kicked me in the burns. Damn!’ He panted a few times, his eyes closed. ‘He had to open the door to the cage and come inside to do that, but I’m too incapacitated to get myself out. I can’t move worth a damn.’ He relaxed slightly. ‘Whatever Edwin gave me isn’t working too well.’
‘Should he give you enough for the Serpent too?’ I said.
‘No, that’d probably kill me.’ He stiffened and his eyes snapped open.
‘Stay with us, John,’ I said, clutching his hand.
‘I’m trying.’ He smiled but it was almost a grimace. ‘He’s worried now: he may have killed the Serpent. I die, and it’s all for nothing.’ He relaxed. ‘Oh no, just leave me here and let me die. No need to treat it; I won’t hold it against you. No hurry, take your time.’
‘We won’t let you —’ I began, but Meredith stopped me.
‘That’s the Serpent speaking,’ she said.
John continued without hearing us. ‘Feel free to leave the door open when you go out.’ He appeared to be looking at something that wasn’t there, and winced a few times, then breathed out a huge sigh. ‘That’s better. I don’t suppose a painkilling injection would be on offer as well? Sure. Heads. Oh, I hadn’t thought of that; I’ll ask one of the vets on the Celestial and see.’ He came back to us. ‘That is a very unusual feeling. I need to find out what sort of painkillers work on snakes. I won the toss, but human pain relief probably doesn’t work on a reptile.’
‘You should have told us, my Lord,’ Meredith said.
‘I didn’t think he’d take it this far. He was having fun just slicing at me through the bars,’ John said. ‘Getting a blowtorch was a stroke of genius: the flame goes all the way through the cage and I can’t move away from it.’
‘Are you in that close contact with your Serpent?’ I said.
‘When it’s hurting this bad, yes,’ John said. ‘Otherwise …’ His face twisted with pain. ‘Can I explain the details of being two creatures at another time?’
I kissed his hand. ‘Sorry.’
‘Close down your consciousness,’ Meredith said. ‘Rest and heal.’
Simone rushed in. ‘Daddy? Edwin said I can come in now.’
‘Simone,’ John said. ‘I’m in a lot of pain, but I’ll live. I’ll always live, you know that.’
Meredith moved so Simone could sit next to John on the other side. Simone studied the covered wounds closely. ‘What’s this? How did this happen? You were burnt?’
Meredith told Simone silently and she stared at John, stricken. ‘That’s so horrible!’ She jumped to her feet. ‘I am going down there right now to yin that monster!’
‘What with?’ John said with amusement through the pain.
Simone fell to sit again. ‘Give me back my yin.’
He gasped with the effort of speaking. ‘Not until I’m sure you won’t destroy the world.’
‘Well then, you go down and yin him.’
‘The minute I enter Hell, he’ll do something like this again and I’ll be flopping around on the floor helpless,’ John said. ‘Let’s train our army, and when he heads up here we’ll give him a fight he won’t forget.’
She raised his hand. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘Let him rest, Simone,’ I said.
‘Can I stay?’
‘No, go to the wedding, both of you,’ John said. ‘I’m fine. He’s leaving me alone now, and I’ll just be lying here unconscious anyway.’
‘They can finish the wedding without me,’ I said without moving.
‘You need to be there, Emma,’ John said.
‘Shut up and go down,’ I said. ‘Close up and heal.’
‘And we’ll be here when you wake up,’ Simone said. ‘Gold and Amy will understand.’
Of course we understand, Gold said.
‘See? Now do as you’re told and close down your mind,’ I said, holding his hand. ‘We’ll look after you.’
Simone held his other hand. ‘Always.’
‘I am so glad I have you …’ he said, but didn’t finish.
The Serpent lies in a cage of jade,
the demons laugh and poke it.
It does not cry.
The Turtle lies on a hospital bed
unconscious in a haze of pain,
dreaming of being whole.
They want to be one
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and know it cannot be.
GLOSSARY
A NOTE ON LANGUAGE
The Chinese language is divided by a number of different dialects and this has been reflected throughout my story. The main dialect spoken in Hong Kong is Cantonese, and many of the terms I’ve used are in Cantonese. The main method for transcribing Cantonese into English is the Yale system, which I have hardly used at all in this book, preferring to use a simpler phonetic method for spelling the Cantonese. Apologies to purists, but I’ve chosen ease of readability over phonetic correctness.
The dialect mainly spoken on the Mainland of China is Putonghua (also called Mandarin Chinese), which was originally the dialect used in the north of China but has spread to become the standard tongue. Putonghua has a strict and useful set of transcription rules called pinyin, which I’ve used throughout for Putonghua terms. As a rough guide to pronunciation, the ‘Q’ in pinyin is pronounced ‘ch’, the ‘X’ is ‘sh’ and the ‘Zh’ is a softer ‘ch’ than the ‘Q’ sound. Xuan Wu is therefore pronounced ‘Shwan Wu’.
I’ve spelt chi with the ‘ch’ throughout the book, even though in pinyin it is qi, purely to aid in readability. Qing Long and Zhu Que I have spelt in pinyin to assist anybody who’d like to look into these interesting deities further.
Aberdeen Typhoon Shelter: A harbour on the south side of Hong Kong Island that is home to a large number of small and large fishing boats. Some of the boats are permanently moored there and are residences.
Admiralty: The first station after the MTR train has come through the tunnel onto Hong Kong Island from Kowloon, and a major traffic interchange.
Amah: Domestic helper.
Ancestral tablet: A tablet inscribed with the name of the deceased, which is kept in a temple or at the residence of the person’s descendants and occasionally provided with incense and offerings to appease the spirit.
Anime (Japanese): Animation; can vary from cute children’s shows to violent horror stories for adults, and everything in between.
Bai Hu (Putonghua): The White Tiger of the West.
Bo lei: A very dark and pungent Chinese tea, often drunk with yum cha to help digest the sometimes heavy and rich food served there.