‘Get away!’
‘I am his daughter! I am!’
Something about her tone made the guards examine her closely.
‘She does look familiar,’ said one.
‘No harm to ask,’ offered another. ‘We might get punished otherwise.’
So saying, he vanished into the palace, returning with the news her message had been delivered. Yun Shu squatted across the road. The hour bell of the nearby Buddhist monastery chimed. Finally, a maid entered the gatehouse. Yun Shu felt a rush of joy. Pink Rose, older now, her face more careworn, but still her friend! Yun Shu had stepped forward eagerly until Pink Rose’s expression suggested a need for caution.
‘Where is my father?’ she asked.
The maid took her arm, weeping silently.
‘Why did you come?’ she sobbed. ‘A message reached Golden Lotus from your husband’s family. How could you, Yun Shu? Everyone knows your disgrace.’
Yun Shu blinked, exhausted and bewildered. ‘What disgrace?’ she mumbled.
‘Is not casting spells on your Mother-in-law a disgrace?’ asked Pink Rose. ‘You must go somewhere else. Your father won’t see you now. He is away down south in any case.’
This seemed so terrible Yun Shu could not accept it. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong!’
‘Golden Lotus sent me to say you are no longer the Salt Minister’s daughter,’ said Pink Rose. ‘Oh, Yun Shu, why could you never act like other girls?’
Dabbing her eyes, she hurried back into the palace, leaving Yun Shu swaying on the street. She had stumbled blindly away, not caring where she went.
Did fate bring her back to Monkey Hat Hill? Her only intention had been to reach the cliffs and throw herself off. Yet passing Deng Mansions, Yun Shu paused, wondering if Teng still lived there, whether he might help. She remembered his betrayal at the ruined watchtower and pressed onwards, reaching the Hundred Stairs. Step by step she climbed, each taller than the last. If she had not known oblivion lay at the top, perhaps she would have lain down and given up.
Only at the brassbound gates of Cloud Abode Monastery did Yun Shu allow herself rest. The gates were firmly closed: locking out the world and its cruel, illusory sufferings.
She sat for a long while, head bent over her knees, occasionally staring at the rooftops of the half-deserted city. As her strength returned she knew it was time to find the cliff – and have done with it.
There came a sound of bolts; the high doors of the monastery creaked open. A
lady stood framed by daylight, dressed in yellow and blue robes. Yun Shu shrank back. The lady seemed familiar, known in a lost life.
‘Lady Lu Si!’ she croaked in wonder.
The Nun of Serene Perfection looked down at her.
‘Why, it’s Teng’s little friend!’
Those simple, kindly words broke Yun Shu’s strength. Her head span and she fell back towards the oblivion she craved. Except a hand steadied her before she could topple down the Hundred Stairs.
The snow had stopped when Yun Shu woke. She lay beside the cold fire-pit in the shrine room of Sitting-and-Whistling Pavilion. A dawn of clear skies, night’s sorrows and laden clouds having blown far away.
Throwing aside her heavy blanket, she went to the door and looked out across Mirror Lake. A pale blue sky framed the Holy Mountain, Chang Shan. Though snow clung to the pines and bamboo round the lake, it was already melting.
In a fervour to begin her transformation to Perfection, Yun Shu hurried to the statue of Lord Lao and bowed deeply. Then she sat cross-legged, her heels pressed to guard her warmest place. She clapped her teeth thirty-six times and breathed through her nose gently. Though a novice in the Great Work, Yun Shu tried to visualise the Dao’s eternal energy rising through her spinal column. She raised her hands in the prescribed manner, all the time seeking to form a Pearl of Immortality from her inner force. But try as she might, the golden elixir remained elusive. She sat quite still, slumped in defeat. Someone worthless could never attain the Pearl. Let alone decapitate the Red Dragon.
And so the ch’i energy she had garnered through meditation, the life force that breathes and flows through all things, seeped away in grief.
Yun Shu feared she would never have cared about becoming an Immortal if her marriage had been different. If the Zhongs had welcomed her into their family with respect and kindness. If she had children, warm and demanding, to fill her days and heart. In short, if she possessed that precious elixir and magical transformation lost utterly, bitterly, since her mother died: love.
After the failure of her practice, Yun Shu could not settle. She noticed the flask of wine intended as a sacrifice for Lord Lao and shame-facedly poured what remained over his feet. Then she considered all the unhelpful food she had eaten recently. One rarely turned to a creature of pure spirit with a full belly!
But one of the Twelve Rules was Avoid all melancholy, fear and anguish. Yun Shu knew she must do something to elevate her mood, and resolved to thank the old woman who had provided her basket of supplies.
The path to Ou-Fang Village was easy to find as it shadowed the river, up past a sluggish waterfall and meadow where a herd of short-horned deer fled into the bushes, their speckled rumps rising and falling.
She came upon Ou-Fang Village quite suddenly and straight away distrusted the place. Perhaps it was the impression of squalor created by huts of damp mud, straw and thatch. In such a woody country it seemed strange no better building materials could be found. Maybe it was the sight of barefoot, hungry children, their faces streaked, their matted heads harbouring generations of lice. Considering a river ran through the village, there seemed no excuse not to wash.
The contrast between her clean, neat appearance and the surrounding dirt attracted immediate notice. Heads poked from windows as she picked a careful path up a street paved with liquid dung, lifting the hem of her skirts. A little way into the village she passed an old man loitering in his doorway. At the sight of her he fingered a lucky charm, as though she might be a hungry ghost in disguise.
‘Venerable sir! Where may I find the old woman Muxing?’
This question deepened his suspicion. He spat and gestured at a house opposite. Yun Shu felt his eyes upon her back as she crossed the lane.
Though small, Mother Muxing’s house displayed more pride than most in Ou-Fang Village. It possessed clean roof tiles and its own compound, complete with a crude gatehouse. A tiger’s fanged skull hung above the entrance. As Yun Shu reached up to touch it, the little girl from yesterday ran round the corner.
‘Hey!’ cried the girl. ‘It’s the new Aunty! Grandma, come and look at the new Aunty!’
For a moment no one stirred in the house. Then a large-breasted woman with blue tattoos on her cheeks and extravagantly piled hair emerged. Yun Shu recognised her as one of the Yulai tribe who originally occupied this land, long before the Han Chinese came.
Mother Muxing glanced up and down the street, displeased to find a Nun of Serene Perfection outside her gate. ‘Hssss! What are you doing here?’
Yun Shu frowned. ‘I came to thank you for sending food. And to make myself known.’
The Yulai woman sniffed.
‘You’ve done that all right – and not just to me.’
Yun Shu felt her superiority slipping. After all, was not Mother Muxing a servant of Cloud Abode Monastery? Should she not speak with more respect to an Initiate of the Dao? She remembered the little girl’s warning.
‘Perhaps you refer to Hornets’ Nest?’
A troubled smile crossed Muxing’s tattooed face.
‘Him and a few others. Best for pretty young girls not to parade around. I’ll accompany you home.’
She bustled back into her house, reappearing in a cloak and heavy wooden-soled shoes. Yun Shu noticed two young men in the house, eating their midday meal and watching with open interest through the doorway.
‘I must tell you,’ said Yun Shu, ‘my duties here include finding out what happened to my predecessor. Perhap
s you can help me?’
Mother Muxing seemed not to hear the question.
Yun Shu followed the waddling woman through the village. Heads hastily withdrew from windows at the sight of Mother Muxing, who chuckled to herself, making a deep-throated, hoarse sound.
The ill-matched pair halted suddenly where the path re-entered the woods. A large heron blocked the way, regarding them with cold, hungry eyes. In its long beak, a beautiful, glinting trout wriggled. An upward tilt of the beak gulped the fish in one.
Mother Muxing muttered a charm against misfortune, using the dialect of the Yulai, while Yun Shu rubbed her own lucky amulet and prayed to Xi-wang-nu, Queen Mother of the West.
The heron stretched its wings lazily and flapped away.
Nine
Spring came and went. If a phoenix or dragon gliding through the pale blue skies of early summer had circled Mirror Lake, it would have noted several things. That the water below was a shiny eye fixed upon heaven; that it was surrounded by curious formations of limestone peaks, slopes, towers and gullies; lastly, that a young man of twenty-one perched on the highest of the promontories, an easel upon his knee and ink-slate, water and brush at his side.
That same curious dragon might have swooped lower and surveyed the young man’s work. For he was staring out at Changshan, the Holy Mountain, before executing swift, spontaneous brushstrokes. The composition was gathering force when a loud, taunting voice called up from a gully below.
‘Teng! We know you’re up there!’
The artist paused momentarily, struggling to retain the flow of his lines.
‘Teng!’ called a second voice, more insinuating than the first. ‘If you don’t come down we’ll drink your share of the wine tonight!’
The young man on the peak fought for clarity against fresh waves of jeering and a gleeful chant of We can see you! We can see you! Sighing, he cleaned his brush and carefully packed away the painting gear. When he rose, his dark silhouette could be seen for many li around.
Teng had certainly grown since the day he watched the fleet sail from Hou-ming ten years earlier. He was neither tall nor short, feeble nor broad. His features, too, were midway between handsome and plain. Yet his sensitive brown eyes possessed an unusual intensity. Sometimes it was a cold, proud face, for he had inherited the Deng clan’s ancient pretensions.
His expression was particularly scornful as he clambered down to the two young men below, who whistled and pretended to bow. One was burly and the other lithe; both wore the scars of brawls.
‘Your Excellency! How gracious of you to …’ The burly fellow struggled to complete his witticism. His name was Chao.
‘To grace us?’ suggested Teng. ‘That might be amusing. Or how about honour us?’
Chao’s friend, the wilier of the pair, smiled toothily. His name was Hua.
‘I’m still going to drink your share of the wine,’ he said. ‘For dodging work.’
Teng’s eyebrows raised. ‘You usually do.’
Hua nodded. ‘That’s how I like it.’
‘I’ve noticed.’
For a moment they examined him.
‘How come you always want the last word?’ demanded Chao.
Hua roared approvingly and Teng withdrew, more in disgust than defeat. He joined their other companion, a short, sunburned man, ten years older.
‘Any luck, Shensi?’
The wrinkled man shook his head, but continued to glance round. They were in a narrow ravine showing signs of ancient road-building. Except that the road terminated in a sheer wall of collapsed limestone boulders. Teng, who had grown used to interpreting Shensi’s silences, nodded at the rock fall.
‘Could that hide an entrance?’ he asked.
Shensi spat to deter evil spirits who might be listening. Both raised their eyes to the limestone crag above – the same spot Teng had set up his easel. A few shrubs and saplings clung to the slope, otherwise it was unremarkable.
‘There is something odd about this place,’ Teng muttered. ‘Do you feel it, too?’
If Shensi did, he gave no sign.
‘Hey, Teng!’
Chao and Hua had been whispering for a while. Teng could predict their next joke with uncanny accuracy. On this occasion, he chose not to anticipate them.
‘Hear something growl just then?’ asked Chao.
Hua nodded gravely. ‘I heard something. Something creeping. Sounded near.’
Early in their relationship, Teng had made the mistake of admitting to a fear of the man-eating tigers said to roam these hills. He had paid a price ever since.
‘It was near!’ insisted Chao. ‘A sort of growling. Eh, Teng?’
Teng gazed down at Mirror Lake in the valley below. A small, rocky island with a shrine rose a little way from the shore. A plume of smoke snaked up from behind the temple. Then a tiny figure in long robes left the shrine and disappeared round the back. Chao and Hua watched the distant movement closely.
‘Time to go!’ said Hua.
Teng continued to stare. Something about the tear-shaped lake, fed and drained by busy waterfalls, moved him in an obscure way. The lake was a ship of pure, bright water floating on a sea of limestone waves. A ship the imagination might sail upon to wisdom.
They descended the steep, stony road through the hills to Ou-Fang Village. Even there, Chao kept up his favourite joke while Teng washed in the river. Hiding behind a maple tree, he roared and snarled like a tiger. And this, Teng reflected, was before the evening’s drinking games.
At twilight a wave of monsoon passed over Ou-Fang Village. The rain did nothing to cool the heat. Robes were loosened in the tavern where Chao and Hua held court and the two young bravos bellowed for refreshments. At their call the innkeeper nearly fell over himself.
Teng took his usual seat beneath a thatched porch outside and watched the rain. He could hear Hua berating the innkeeper, threatening to take his custom elsewhere. Significant custom it was. Teng marvelled that so shallow a fellow as Hua controlled so deep a purse. Further proof of the world’s corruption. Of course his companion’s wealth flowed from their secret employer – whose identity, Teng suspected, was no mystery to Chao and Hua.
Rain continued to fall. The two bravos settled down when food and wine appeared. No one offered Teng any and he was too proud to ask. Besides, Shensi would make sure he received a share.
His mind drifted across Six-hundred-li Lake to Hou-ming and back in time. A month ago this dubious expedition had seemed a blessing from Heaven.
Teng had been in Deng Mansions when the merchant had come. He was finishing off a writing class of fifty sweating, itchy, fidgeting boys. The day’s lesson: the character for duty. He had yawned as he addressed the rows of faces; trays of sand and practice styluses on their grubby knees. It was too deliciously ironic. After all, duty was his only motive for playing teacher, certainly not cash; less than half the boys paid their school fees regularly. Yet when Father was too arthritic to conduct the lessons, an increasingly common occurrence, Teng had no choice but to deputise.
‘Up like this. Down like this,’ he instructed, tracing out this most essential of characters on a large square of the cheapest paper.
Then he noticed the merchant. After the class, Teng bowed, assuming the man wished to have his son tutored by Hou-ming’s most illustrious scholar family. The quality of the man’s silks suggested he, at least, might be a paying prospect.
‘You are Honourable Deng Nan-shi?’ asked the man in a soft voice.
‘No, his son.’
The merchant glanced round the schoolroom – once a well-appointed audience chamber, its frescos faded by damp and regret.
‘May one see the Honourable Deng Nan-shi?’ pressed the man.
‘My father is unwell,’ said Teng. ‘If you wish him to teach your son, I would be honoured …’
An upraised hand silenced him. ‘No teaching and no son. Just an offer.’
‘Then I shall see if he will break his rest,’ replied Teng, intrigued.
Deng Nan-shi insisted on his son’s presence during the interview. These days the hunchbacked scholar seemed to gain confidence when Teng was around.
‘Very well,’ said the merchant, ‘but I insist on silence regarding all I reveal.’
And he had an intriguing tale.
He claimed to represent an important gentleman who wished to remain nameless. Yet this gentleman had chanced upon another gentleman, unfortunately now deceased – no need to mention his name either – who had possessed a trifling document the unnamed gentleman would pay generously to have translated.
‘Very well,’ said Deng Nan-shi.
‘How do you define generously?’ asked Teng.
The man laid hundreds of cash coins on the table.
After withdrawing to the library and conferring over the document, which was written in an archaic mode, father and son returned to their guest.
‘The characters are obscure in places,’ said Deng Nan-shi. ‘We believe it is a copy of a much more ancient document, itself derived from one older still. It refers to the Kingdom of Chu in the age of Shang. It laments that all the royal family’s tombs have been robbed, save those in the Holy Region. This being near, let’s see, Eye-look-heaven, almost certainly a place name. Do you agree, Teng?’
His son nodded. ‘It also complains the remaining tombs merely belong to lesser sons, possibly princes. We aren’t sure. The author concludes by mourning the fragility of dignity and fame.’
The merchant listened avidly. ‘Does it say where this Eye-look-heaven place might be?’
Deng Nan-shi had smiled.
‘I discern you do not have a historian’s interest in tombs,’ he said.
The man had huffed and puffed but finally conceded the old scholar was right. He then came to the other part of his proposition. That Deng Nan-shi, or his learned son, sail down the lake to seek these undiscovered tombs. All expenses for the journey would be paid, as well as a tenth share of any profits, and he would hold an honoured position with the other explorers.
‘For they lack someone who can read the ancient characters,’ explained the merchant.
The Mandate of Heaven Page 9