“That’s not so bad. Sounds like you got off easy.”
“There were others, but I tried not to know what they were. They seemed to be vampire-based, for what that’s worth.”
“Vampires, you say. I wonder what that was about.”
Emily decided the better part of valor was to play dumb on this topic.
8
The Tiger and the Rabbit
“I read that Yuè tù, the moon rabbit, was sent down to Beijing to save the city from a plague,” Madeira said. “That’s why you see those little statues in front of so many houses, you know, the rabbit in armor riding on the back of a tiger.”
“That’s correct,” said Capt Xu Wanqi, Madeira’s opposite number within the PLA Marine Corps. “Of course, he’s also called Yù tù, or the jade rabbit, probably because of the similar sound, and because everything heavenly is called jade.”
Walking across the campus of the National Defense University, with the massive gate of the parade ground in the distance, their little group of three made no effort to maintain any semblance of a close formation with the other attachés, who had also clustered with their opposite numbers. Men in gray suits shadowed them all at a discreet distance, political ‘minders,’ Emily supposed, though it was by no means clear what their actual assignment might be. Were they tasked with discouraging open conversation, or was their purpose to keep the many cadets who passed by in all directions from interacting with foreign officers?
“So Yuè tù statues are like lucky charms to ward off disease?” Emily asked.
“In a manner of speaking,” Xu said. “If you look at the face of the moon, it’s easy to pick out the figure of a rabbit pounding herbs in a pestle. Naturally, people concluded that he must be a physician…”
“… or maybe a pharmacist,” Madeira said.
“Yes, exactly. Either way, the rabbit became associated with a general sort of cleverness, and later also came to be seen as a mischief-maker.”
“Yuè tù sounds a bit like Hermes. In Greece and Rome, he was venerated as a god of herbs and cures, as well as a sort of god of thieves.”
“Why is he depicted riding a tiger?” Emily asked.
“The tiger is associated with fierce passions,” Xu said. “He’s strong, not crafty, and the ancient traditions must have made use of that idea to suggest that he’s easily manipulated by the rabbit. I think this is all confirmed by the legends concerning the zodiac animals.”
“Are you thinking of the story where the Jade Emperor chooses the animal signs?”
“Yes, exactly. In my family, the story my grandfather used to tell is that the Jade Emperor ordered a competition, and the first twelve animals to cross the finish line had years in the cycle named for them. The rabbit tricks the tiger and crosses before him. But my favorite is the dragon, who comes after the tiger even though he’s the fastest, because he stopped to rescue some people from a fire.”
“How interesting,” Emily said. “In western stories, we think of dragons as evil, and knights often slay them as part of the happy ending. But you think of them as generous spirits.”
“I guess so, but that’s what the ancient traditions were like, when people could still imagine the world as full of good spirits, even if they were mysterious as well.”
“When did that end?” Madeira asked.
“I think probably when Buddhism came to China,” he said, his voice now betraying a somber note. “Worldly renunciation isn’t for people who believe in good spirits, is it?”
“I guess not,” Emily said. “The Jade Emperor doesn’t really fit these times either.”
“How did we end up on this tangent?” Madeira asked.
Xu smiled, and nudged Madeira’s shoulder to get him turned in the right direction to follow the rest of the group. “You were wondering about the ripple effects of demoting the Guangzhou Sword units, and I may have said something about rabbits and tigers. There’s the field-house where the demonstration is scheduled. We better step up our pace or we’ll be late.”
Emily glanced across the parade ground, and noticed several ranks of men and women in athletic clothes running in formation toward the same building, a grand rectangular structure with a red tile roof and a row of small windows near the top. “I think you were suggesting that the Beijing Sword units were originally trained like the rabbit, as an intel-and-recon force, and the Guangzhou units were more like the tiger.”
“Yes, but now the Beijing units are being asked to take on more of the role of the tiger.”
The three of them found a place at one end of an enormous room, roughly the size of a football field, with three large blue mats laid out side by side, each bearing markings for a ring. The other attachés stood in a huddle a few feet away, listening as a Chinese general explained the demonstration that was about to begin. There would be examples of training techniques – Emily hoped they wouldn’t beat each other with wooden boards, as Diao’s men had on the BHR – and then a display of fighting prowess. The general renewed the invitation to the attachés to participate in the sparring session.
One thing Emily appreciated about the training demonstration was its resemblance to scenes from old Hong Kong kung-fu movies, though such scenes were typically set in monasteries, or bandit hideouts. Rows and rows of men and women, all facing forward and performing the same techniques, typically rigid forms that would be the basis of a more fluid style in actual sparring or fighting. She remembered getting up early on weekend mornings to watch them on TV with her father. One other difference she couldn’t help remarking to herself was the lack of a master with long white hair and flowing robes. In this demonstration, a uniformed officer called out the techniques through a megaphone, and two hundred or so soldiers in athletic clothes responded.
Emily nudged Madeira. “They’re very crisp and precise,” she said. “They’ve been doing this for awhile, I think.”
“Most of them have at least three years,” Xu said. “Of course, that’s in addition to any training they may have had prior to enlisting. How does it compare to your SEAL training?”
“This is much more rigid,” Madeira said. “SEAL training puts a premium on endurance and unit cohesion.”
“Don’t you train them for hand-to-hand combat?”
“Yes, we do. But we emphasize deception and surprise rather than technical forms.”
“Oh, I imagine these forms will allow for a good deal of deception and surprise, Woody,” Emily said. She gestured toward the soldiers in the first row nearest to them. “That footwork, and those strikes… have they been trained exclusively in Nanquan?”
“Yes, the Southern Style,” said Xu. “It’s the same program developed in Guangzhou. I’m impressed that you recognized it, Lieutenant.”
“These are elements of what is sometimes called the White Crane. Notice the use of the elbows in blocking and striking… and the stances are not low, and they don’t feature high, spinning kicks. Those would be more typical of a Northern style, I think.”
“I didn’t know you were such an expert,” Madeira said.
Emily shrugged, and tried to look less interested, now worried that she might have revealed too much. “I practiced something like it as a kid.”
The Chinese general made some comments about their training regimen for Jepsen’s benefit, and Redmond spoke into the ear of one of the non-comms. At a word from the officer holding the megaphone, the soldiers broke formation and positioned themselves on the edge of the central mat, forming an impromptu ring. Several men in coveralls appeared in the background and pulled two retractable bleachers out to provide seating for the officers.
“Feng Hu and Song Wongtian,” the officer barked through the megaphone. Once everyone had found a seat, Feng and Song stood in the middle of the ring facing each other, hands clasped in the traditional fist-in-palm posture.
“Feng is the brigade champion,” Xu whispered.
“Whoa, he’s quick,” Madeira said, when Feng struck his opponent three times
in succession. The combination began with a back-fist delivered over a sideways block, his hand smacking Song lightly on the cheek. In the moment of disorientation that followed, Feng flipped his fist down to strike the groin, and then up again to Song’s ear. None of these had been full force blows, though they were enough to stun, and it took Song a moment to regain his composure for another try.
“Flashy, but not enough to finish a man off,” Emily muttered quietly. Her mind raced ahead to plot out what he ought to have done to finish his opponent in a real fight. After the second blow to the head, a fully extended left cross to the same ear followed by a spinning back-fist would have put him on the ground. After that, it would just remain to crouch down and strike him on the back of the head, in the soft spot at the base of the neck. “Inelegant,” she heard from a voice that seemed to speak inside her heart. But how else should she finish a fight starting from such an ill-conceived combination? This felt like an unwelcome reflection, especially since she wondered if she didn’t recognize the voice.
“What about the other fellow?” Madeira asked. “Is he competitive with Feng?”
“He is a very fine soldier, tough and strong,” Xu said.
Song started a second time, kicking low to Feng’s knee, and switching feet to kick higher to his chest. Feng blocked the first kick, and pivoted away from the second in time to sweep Song’s other leg, upending him. When Feng crouched to deliver a final strike, Song managed to scissor a leg over Feng’s head and pull him face down onto the mat next to him. Unfortunately, he lost control and Feng was able to scramble around and deliver an elbow strike to the chest.
Xu and Madeira discussed the next few points, but Emily couldn’t focus on what they were saying. The voice within pulled her away, forcing her to finish their attacks in her mind, to recognize the much more deadly strikes they missed – a chop to the throat, a joint-lock that would allow her to kick through a knee and then pivot into a wheel kick to the back of the head, a flurry of blows to the head and chest that would culminate in three quick strikes to the throat and an upward, finishing strike across the bridge of the nose. She imagined herself smashing Song’s nasal bone and driving shards of the maxillary process into his brain.
These were not her thoughts, and letting them occupy her imagination made her stomach churn. She scanned the room, looking for anything in the faces around her to explain what she was hearing, or imagining she heard. On one side, she noticed Redmond whispering something to Jepsen, and the Chinese general glanced at her, while across the mat, two female soldiers seemed to be staring. Was she just being paranoid, or was she doing something to draw attention to herself? She turned to Madeira and felt relieved to see that he was engrossed in conversation with Xu and seemed to have forgotten all about her.
In the first women’s match, Feng Tu stood opposite a taller woman, long limbs, in a fighting stance, and Emily felt a natural sympathy for the smaller fighter – how could she not, since it was a position she often found herself in, despite her own above average height? A flurry of long range strikes and kicks from Wang Yuanzhe held Feng Tu at bay, but her effort had the air of desperation one sometimes sees in herd animals at the sight of smaller predators. It was only a matter of time before she tired, and Feng Tu – the ‘swift rabbit,’ Emily amused herself thinking about the meaning of her name – found an opening and landed a strike under Wang Yuanzhe’s chin. In the ensuing confusion, she swung her befuddled opponent over her hip and delivered a soft version of the blow that would have finished her.
‘Swift Tiger,’ that’s what Feng Hu means. Emily turned to Captain Xu, her eyes wide with the epiphany. “They’re brother and sister, aren’t they, Feng Hu and Feng Tu?”
“Yes, they are. How did you know?”
“The names, tiger and rabbit, that sounds like a family pattern… and there’s a family resemblance.”
“What about the ‘one-child’ rule?” Madeira asked. “They must have paid a hefty fine.”
“Maybe,” Xu said, in a low voice. “But there were always lots of exceptions to the rule. The rich, or the connected, they always find a way around that sort of thing. That’s one reason the rule has been changed.”
“…not to mention the shortage of women it caused,” Madeira added.
“Yes, that was another unintended consequence.” Xu was now speaking barely above a whisper.
Emily watched with renewed focus as Feng Tu dispatched a second opponent with exacting precision. She was strikingly swift, like her brother, which allowed her to maintain an unruffled demeanor in the ring, and her defense against hand strikes and kicks was formidable. But her offensive thinking seemed more direct than her brother’s – Emily no longer heard the voice pressing her to imagine the path to the kill-strike Feng Hu had been unable to create.
“Are they connected, or rich?” Emily asked.
“Not particularly, but there’s a long military tradition in the family, a few generations, and that earns some consideration, too.”
“I suppose it shows in her focus. Feng Hu had some good intensity, but it seemed more based on passion than discipline.”
Captain Xu laughed. “Just like the tiger. I agree, by the way. Feng Tu is more disciplined, and surprisingly strong for her size.”
“But is she also crafty, like Yù tù?” Madeira added. They all laughed at the reminder of the ancient tales.
“If only you could have seen their older brother in competition, Lieutenant. He was the wu shu champion of the entire southern army.”
A third brother... Emily’s eyes grew wide again at the thought, and images of a tournament five years earlier at Quantico pressed on the edge of her consciousness. It couldn’t be. She tried to review what she’d already seen of Feng Tu’s style of fighting, to search in it for a clue, a sign of resemblance, and a bead of perspiration formed above her lip. Please, please, please… let it not be him.
“What was his name, this older brother?” Her voice seemed to come out of someone else’s body, and she didn’t know how to regulate the volume. Was she shrieking, or whispering? Her eyes scanned the room, and nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. At least, no one was staring at her, so perhaps she hadn’t utterly lost her composure… yet. Finally, she found the wherewithal to draw in a deep breath, and let it slip out again, listening for the sounds of her body all the while, the beating of her heart and the passage of the blood in her veins. Xu’s voice came to her after a moment, at first from a distance, growing closer, until it fit the movements of the lower half of his face.
“Feng Long. He started out in one of the Guangzhou Sword units, and transferred to the Marines. That’s where I met him, as an instructor in a maritime unit. I lost track of him after that, as he seemed to be meant for greater things.”
They don’t know. Emily breathed a little easier, at this thought, but others crowded in after it. Could the entire reason for her assignment to the embassy be a trap? The way it showed up on her doorstep at the last minute… and Michael said the request came from the Chinese. Of course, Ambassador Zhang and Dong Zhuo would have hushed it up, at least from the family and the rank-and-file. But President Liang would surely know all about it… at least, if he’d cared to inquire into his ambassador’s activities.
“What happened to him… do you know?” Emily’s face grew warm as she tried to modulate her expression, to conceal the intensity of her interest in his response.
“I heard a rumor of an automobile accident, though someone in his old unit in Nanjing said he’d received a posthumous medal for service, which suggests he died in action. Sometimes these things remain mysteries.”
In the meantime, the last of the demonstration matches had come to a close, and she noticed Jepsen signaling her to approach. Redmond stood beside him, as did the general, whose eyes seemed to promise some news. Madeira and Xu followed after her.
“General Yang has offered to let you try your hand sparring against his women’s champion, Feng Tu,” Jepsen said.
�
��We have only just learned of your prowess in wu shu, Lt Tenno,” the General added, speaking in Mandarin, and loudly enough to be heard across the field house. “We would be honored to have a demonstration of your skills.”
Emily nodded, and glanced at Feng Tu, who had been standing on the other side of the mat, until she heard her name mentioned. Now she approached, her face a mixture of surprise and perplexity. Was there perhaps a darker emotion lurking beneath those eyes?
“You seem to have hidden talents,” Madeira whispered over her shoulder.
“I’m sure suitable attire can be arranged, Lieutenant,” Jepsen said. “… if you’re willing.”
With so much politeness on display, Emily recognized this invitation as little short of a command. “Of course, sir. I am willing, if Miss Feng is,” she said, in Mandarin. When Feng Tu nodded, her face was knotted into an even more inscrutable expression, Emily turned back to Jepsen. “A word, sir… in private?”
When he stepped a few feet away, Emily fixed him with her eyes. “I don’t think this is a good idea.”
“If you think you’re not up to the challenge…”
“I don’t know what you expect of me here. Do I defeat her, or let her win? What sort of outcome are you looking for, sir?”
“I expect you to live up to the highest standards of the US military. Don’t take a dive, if that’s what you mean. But do you seriously think you can defeat her, Lieutenant? I mean, she looked pretty fierce out there.”
“If only it were that simple. Of course, I can, sir.”
“Then carry on, Marine.”
General Yang motioned to her, and had an aide offer her an athletic outfit, which consisted of sweat pants and a shirt.
“Thank you, sir. That won’t be necessary.” She turned to Madeira and handed him her jacket and shoes – “Hold these for me, Captain.” – then pulled the blouse over her head, revealing several scars, including two sharp ones on her arm and just below the collarbone, and another zippering diagonally along her back, just below the shoulder blade.
Girl Goes To Wudang (An Emily Kane Adventure Book 7) Page 8