Shengming ignored me and squinted at his bowl instead. “Empty. Pig-Fart, pour me another!”
Pig-Fart’s face contorted and he unleashed his fist straight at Shengming’s face.
Miraculously, the blow did not connect. In his drunken stupor, Shengming toppled backward off his stool, landing with a crash. Almost as swiftly as he fell, he staggered to his feet and looked around in confusion. “I seem to have misplaced my bowl.”
Horse-Face roared and tossed me with one hand onto the next table, startling the patrons. Grabbing a stool, he hurled it at Shengming, but by stupendous luck, my sworn brother swayed just enough for it to sail harmlessly past his ear.
I rolled off the tabletop just as customers scurried to the edges of the room to avoid the brawl. By now, Ox-Rump had jumped into the thick of the fight, but Shengming still seemed oblivious to the danger. Pig-Fart barred the way, Horse-Face grasped to catch hold of Shengming, and Ox-Rump sought to pummel my blood brother into the dust. Yet Shengming was a drunkard on a singular mission: stumbling haphazardly left and right, he sidestepped punches that could break his jaw, somersaulted between Horse-Face’s tree-trunk legs, all so that he could regain his feet in front of the owner’s wife and snatch the pot of wine from her.
I could not believe my eyes. What I had taken for luck had not been that at all, but well-disguised fighting skill. Was this Zui Quan, Drunken Boxing? If so, how could Shengming have learned it?
The wiser customers had long fled, while the not-so-wise at least had the presence of mind to take cover.
“All at once,” Horse-Face shouted, and they converged on Shengming. Horse-Face grabbed high, Pig-Fart tackled low, and Ox-Rump circled behind. Their concerted effort paid off: Shengming could not avoid them all. As they struggled to hold my sworn brother, who fought back with supernatural strength, the pot of wine he dropped in the heat of battle rolled to a stop at my feet.
“My wine!” Shengming reached toward me even as his three attackers brought him down.
I picked up the ceramic pot, not sure what to do with it. Diplomacy hadn’t worked, and I had no love of violence. But to save Shengming’s life—
“Love wine like life,” Shengming shouted.
I felt as though the sky and earth had turned upside down and upended me into a vat of heavenly wine. I had to drink, drink, drink lest I drown.
The phantom wine coursed through me, warmed me, oozed from my pores. Like a spirit, it wore my skin like silk. I was at the mercy of the ghost’s whims and thirsts; it lifted the pot of wine and pressed my lips to the ceramic. The spirit stole my voice and spoke in a liquid slur: “Aaaaaah, at last.”
Anguish darkened Shengming’s face. “No, don’t take Ruolin! Can’t you just leave us alone?”
Oh, now he recognized me.
I tried calling his name (Shengming!), but the words echoed in my head like a holler into an empty vat.
The spirit winced with my face. “Don’t shout.”
The brutes must have sensed Shengming weakening. “Hold him. He won’t have a face when I’m through,” Horse said to Ox and Pig. He let go and began rolling up his sleeves.
I, or rather we, took drunken steps and smashed the container of wine over the back of Horse’s head. The oaf went limp and fell forward on top of Shengming, but the unwelcomed guest in my body cared only that the pot had cracked open, and held it up so the stream of Shaoxing rice wine poured straight into our mouth.
With Shengming trapped under Horse’s weight, Ox and Pig released their holds on him and grabbed for us-both, but our knees gave out and we fell out of their grasp flat on our ass. The better fighter of the pair, Ox tried to kick us, but thanks to the spirit’s Drunken Boxing we-both pushed off the ground and tottered backward. None of Ox’s strikes landed.
I caught the stink of feces above the reek of wine.
Look out. I cried in my mind’s voice.
The spirit heard and ducked us-both beneath a punch from behind, spun around to face the reeking Pig and sprayed a mouthful of wine into the fat man’s eyes. Blinded, Pig swung wildly at us, but we merely stepped aside and slapped the man silly.
Roaring in anger, Ox grabbed a stool and swung it at us-both, and would have hurt us but for someone catching his foot. Shengming had somehow freed himself from under Horse and tripped Ox! Using Ox’s own momentum, we-both sent him crashing into Pig. They fell together into unconsciousness.
Who are you? I shouted at the spirit.
We-both smiled and struck a wobbly pose, hands seemingly cupped around invisible vessels of wine.
“Who am I?
I’m thirst and craving, the loosened tongue;
I’m all troubles fled, fast friend and quick anger;
I champion folly, sing melancholy songs;
I’m the Spirit of Wine, God of the Drunken Fist:
I am Yǒu Shén!”
When we-both began giving that mad speech, the tavern fell deathly silent. Those who could sneak out, did. Only Shengming took the courage to speak to us-both.
“Yǒu Shén, spare Ruolin, please,” he pleaded, still sounding drunk. “I do not care whether I take the exam, but he must. He’ll go as far as the palace exams, I know it.”
Thank you, First Brother, I tried to say, but my mouth would not obey.
The spirit heard me, however. “It’s me you should thank. Life as a bureaucrat is a fate worse than death! You know what life’s true pleasures are? Flowers in heaven, wine on earth; lanterns red, spirits green,” Yǒu Shén said, quoting two proverbs.
Those are fleeting, selfish joys that lead only to shame! I cried. When Shengming and I become Doctors of Letters, we will bring honour and security to our families.
As the owner picked up pieces of broken ceramic and bamboo, a whimper escaped his lips, only to grow into a scream. “Look what you did to my tavern, you sons of bitches! Get out!”
Yǒu Shén blinked and surveyed at the damage. “Huh, I guess we made a mess.” We-both bent over Ox-Rump and searched him, and laughed when our fingers closed around a pouch full of coins. We-both tossed it to the owner. “This ought to pay for it, Old Boss.”
“The exams—” Shengming protested.
“Forget them,” Yǒu Shén said. He slung our arm around Shengming, our weight bearing down on his shoulders. “Come, let us find another place to drink away the night together!” With Shengming in tow, we-both lurched toward the door.
“I’m so sorry, Second Brother, I was just after a drink to calm my nerves, not this,” Shengming said, his voice full of remorse. “You must write the exam. If you find the chance, run.”
We stumbled across the granite road to a different restaurant, but news of our fight spread ahead of us through the shops on Taiping Jie, and we were turned away at the door. Yǒu Shén shrugged and tried the next, but we were met with the same refusal. The spirit was growing upset.
“Yǒu Shén, try the one with the birdcage outside,” Shengming urged. “They’re rivals with Old Boss Tao.”
Listen to him, I said. We need to get out of sight before the city guard arrives.
Though drunk, Yǒu Shén heeded our advice. When we entered the new restaurant, the sweaty owner welcomed us with a smirk. “Honoured guests! Eat, drink on the house . . . so long as you don’t smash up my place like you did Tao’s.”
“Wouldn’t think of it,” Yǒu Shén said, pinching the owner’s cheek. “You, sir, are the soul of generosity.”
“Er, thank you?” The man ushered us through the half-empty restaurant to a table hidden under the stairs. As promised, he kept the wine flowing, and we-both kept guzzling. But Shengming would not drink.
“You must. Two drunks together are better than a drunk alone!” Yǒu Shén said, and laughed.
Still, Shengming refused. Even when Yǒu Shén forced the cup to his lips, Shengming kept his mouth shut and turned away in disgust.
Yǒu Shén sneered. “Won’t do. Love wine like life!”
With the proverb uttered, I felt the spirit le
ave my body. But before I could rejoice, a pounding headache and a sudden fatigue hit me. Although the world was still spinning around me, my head felt somewhat less muddled.
Shengming, on the other hand, closed his eyes and began to swig like a thirsty fish.
This was my chance to escape, I realized, but could I abandon Shengming, even though he wished it? Five years ago, we would have been content to drink our lives away. But the triumphs of the Song Army against the Jurchens in the north had returned stability in this province, allowing Yuelu Academy to reopen years ahead of expectations. We decided then to devote ourselves to scholarship and make something of our lives. I could not leave him like this.
Yet this spirit would hold us prisoner for his own amusement. I understood the logic behind Shengming wanting me to run: having one of us take the exams was better than neither of us taking them. I did not like the thought of abandoning him, but I could not let his noble sacrifice come to naught.
I slipped onto my hands and knees and scurried toward the exit. I made it across the floor to the threshold when I heard Shengming’s voice: “But Ruolin, my friend, you can’t go yet. We’ve songs to sing!” He shouted the proverb again, and the Spirit of Wine slopped back into me and made us crawl back to Shengming, who was retching up what he had been forced to drink.
As the night wore on, Yǒu Shén would flitter between us, keeping us drunk and bellowing bawdy songs. The spirit would leave me, I would try to flee, but they-both would speak the words of binding and make me Yǒu Shén’s puppet.
Before I knew it, Shengming and I were the only patrons left in the restaurant, with the owner in a corner half-asleep, trying to keep an eye on us. Yǒu Shén was using Shengming to tell me how in life he had been expelled from a monastery for drunkenness.
Then I heard it: in the distance, a cannon-shot.
Three cannon-shots were fired on the morning of the exams. The first came well before dawn to wake the candidates. Shengming and I should be collecting brushes and ink sticks and drilling each other on the Classics instead of drinking ourselves to death in this tavern. In an hour, the cannon would fire again, calling all candidates to the gates of the examination hall. On the third sounding, the great doors would be thrown open. Even if we could make it there, how could we sober up in time to wrestle with eight-legged essays?
No, there was still time. I could hardly think straight, but maybe if I figured out what Yǒu Shén was, I might find a way to break free.
There had been rumours of spirits ever since General Yue Fei returned from the dead eighteen years ago. The Jin barbarians had stolen the northern lands from our Empire, and Yue Fei the hero had fought to reclaim what we could. No one was as loyal as he. But Minister Qin Hui had been a spy for the Jin and framed the General for treason. After his execution, however, Yue Fei’s spirit could not rest. He possessed one of his loyal men and revealed Qin Hui’s treachery, and to this day continued to lead the Song Army against the Jin. They called Yue Fei the Spirit General, for he had led other spirits in the war against the Jin, or so the rumours went. There were many tales of ghostly possession and unearthly powers, but who knew which accounts were true.
I doubted that Yǒu Shén served the Spirit General, but what if they were connected? I had to find out more about the Spirit of Wine. There was another proverb that fit the moment: a cup of wine dissolves complaints. I poured myself and Shengming more wine. “Drink up.”
Yǒu Shén blinked. “Come around, have you?”
I nodded. “You are right, wine is better in the company of friends. What brings you to Changsha?”
“Changsha, is it?” they-both said. “Why’s this place called long sand?”
“Because of the Island of Oranges in the Xiang River here. It is long and made of sand.”
Yǒu Shén laughed and slapped my back. “Makes sense, but which province? All I know is I came north when Shengming called.”
“Hunan. So you were not fighting in the war with the Spirit General?”
They-both burped. “War’s not my love, in case you haven’t noticed. But living, drinking and pissing—speaking of which, where can I—”
The owner must have caught that last bit, for he startled awake. “Outside!”
“Thank you, Boss,” Yǒu Shén said. They-both stood up, tottering. “Help me, Ruolin.”
I thanked the owner as well. With an unopened pot of wine under my left arm and supporting them-both with the right, we left the restaurant and headed for the woods by the river. I was glad for the night air clearing my head.
“You said Shengming called for you?” I asked as we stumbled down an alleyway. “How did he do that?”
“He must have been muttering his tattooed proverb,” Yǒu Shén said. “His need for a drink was great: I could feel it all the way from Guangzhou. Besides, I was in the mood for a new host, and look what I found? Two!”
Lucky us. But Yǒu Shén gave me a clue, one I might have caught earlier had I not been drunk: the tattoos on our arms.
General Yue Fei was a paragon of loyalty. As his legend told, his mother tattooed the words utmost loyalty serve country down his back. In worship of their war hero, soldiers fighting under Yue Fei chose to bear the same tattooed phrase when they came of age. The custom caught on with youth like us outside of the army, but instead of words of loyalty, we took catchy proverbs in their place, be they on our backs or elsewhere on our bodies. The proverb Shengming and I bore must have made us vulnerable to Yǒu Shén’s magic!
They-both paused in front of a grove of Xiang Consorts bamboos. “Wait here.”
“Of course.” I would not run this time.
They both stepped into the shadows to do their thing, while I considered the puzzle. What was the key to Yǒu Shén’s power?
Then it struck me: his name. He styled himself the Spirit of Wine, but the word for wine was jiǔ, not yǒu. He should have called himself Jiǔ Shén. Why not?
The word yǒu in his name must be the character for the tenth sign of the zodiac, the Rooster. The pictogram for it derived from a wine vessel, and that character still appeared in words tied to wine, like feast, flushed, and drunk.
Only when combined with the strokes symbolizing three drops of water did it make the word for wine.
Could such spirits be tied to particular ideograms, and that they could possess those who bore their tattooed characters?
I wondered if marring the right tattoo would break the hold Yǒu Shén had over me, but I did not have a knife, nor would I trust myself to handle one while drunk. I leaned against the bamboos, frustrated. There must be something I could do!
Yǒu Shén continued to piss somewhere nearby, singing off-key.
The nearby sounds of the Xiang River reminded me of its myth. When Emperor Shun died on this river, his two wives wept tears of blood for their husband, which stained the bamboos and gave them their spots. Unable to live without their husband, they threw themselves into the river and drowned. Ever since, the Consorts had been worshipped as goddesses in this region.
River.
Tears.
Water.
If the Spirit of Wine made me drunk with its power, could I summon the Spirit of Water to sober me up?
It might work. The word for wine needed both the characters for yǒu and shuǐ, represented by three drops of water. But did such a spirit exist? Would it come if I called, and would it help?
I did not know either answer, but I had to try. I repeated the proverb in a whisper, but kept the thought of water in my heart. Cool, refreshing water; raindrops on my tongue; the surging, cleansing river. I begged that the Spirit of Water hear my call, for great was my need in this hour.
My mouth suddenly stopped repeating the phrase, and a new spirit flowed into me, washing away my lethargy and intoxication as she flooded my body. Unlike Yǒu Shén, whose possession of me warmed my belly, Shuǐ Shén cooled and brought me back to my senses.
“I heard your call, stranger,” she said, borrowing my voice.
I, who belong to a younger generation, welcome you, Honourable Shuǐ Shén. But I must beg you to act drunk while I explain, I conveyed. My name is Ruolin, and my sworn brother and I are unwilling hosts to a spirit named Yǒu Shén.
“Ah,” she replied. “The self-styled Spirit of Wine. I know him only by reputation. He is a free spirit, that one.”
Footfalls signaled Shengming and Yǒu Shén’s return.
Please, let him think you are me, I begged. We needed to distract Yǒu Shén long enough so I could tell Shuǐ Shén our predicament. Offer him the pot of wine.
“Old spirit!” she called to them-both in my voice. “Drink?”
“Need you ask?” They-both snatched the pot, broke open the seal, then sank into a lotus position to savour the wine.
Thank you, I said.
I’m listening.
We-both pretended to listen to Yǒu Shén serenading the rabbit in the moon, while speaking to one another in the privacy of my mind. I told her as quickly as I could of the disasters of this night: the imperial examinations, the fight, Yǒu Shén’s forceful carousing.
I am forever in your debt for restoring my better judgment, but might you be able to do the same for Shengming? I asked. Though the first cannon has sounded, we might still make the exams if we could rid ourselves of Yǒu Shén.
You ask much from a stranger, Ruolin, Shuǒ Shén replied. But why should I help you?
Forgive my presumption, I said. I prayed that Water would be nobility to Wine’s baseness. Should you choose not to aid us, I would thank you nonetheless for your kindness in considering my request at all, and seek another way to save my sworn brother.
Honing your skills at flattery, I see. Why don’t you and I escape now? I can stop Yǒu Shén from possessing you.
It is tempting, I admitted. But I am writing the imperial exams for my family, as is Shengming. He and I are sworn brothers and I cannot leave him in Yǒu Shén’s thrall. The guilt would distract me when I write the test, and I would fail everyone I loved. When I dream of what is to come, Shengming has always been there by my side. My conscience will not let me abandon him.
Where The Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy Page 2