by Cole Reid
Master Song was a teacher with great ability but pupils didn’t come like Xiaoyu. There were things that Master Song could teach Xiaoyu but some things the boy wouldn’t learn. Master Song did not fault Xiaoyu for his hardheadedness because the boy had been selected. Xiaoyu had no choice in the matter. Master Song had trained many serving in the Moons’ ranks but never a Jade Soldier—not even a candidate. Master Song could not be too rigid with Xiaoyu because he had never seen anyone walk the same path. He usually thought hardheadedness interrupted learning and tried to root it out. But he was suspicious about Xiaoyu. He had a suspicion that grew into a hypothesis. Xiaoyu’s hardheadedness was his saving grace. The boy would pass from candidate to Jade Soldier for no other reason than that he wanted to. Xiaoyu wouldn’t accept any other outcome. Still, Master Song’s warnings came true. Xiaoyu continued to knock his opponents unconscious making it harder to find opponents for him. By the time Xiaoyu turned twelve his average opponent was between the ages of fifteen and sixteen. The fights were getting more difficult and the fighters were more skilled. Age had everything to do with it and it worked both ways. Xiaoyu was growing stronger and his fights became more intuitive. The decision was made that Xiaoyu’s path as a Jade Soldier candidate should start to change venues. He had spent two and a half years training and sparring and the Moons were happy with his progress. Mr. Cheung and the Stocky Man were regular audience members at Xiaoyu’s fights. Xiaoyu had good technique but what they admired most was the boy’s maturity. His maturity wasn’t a singularity. Watching him fight once wasn’t enough. The more they watched the more they realized Xiaoyu wasn’t beating his opponents; he let his opponents beat themselves.
The Moons gave Xiaoyu a week off from training. He knew something was approaching, he could feel the tremors in the ground beneath him as he lied in bed. The Moons had given him time off before, just after he received the Mark. Time off had never been for his benefit. The Moons had always given it to benefit themselves. Uncle Woo and Mr. Cheung were too efficient to just give Xiaoyu a week’s holiday. The Moons were charming in their tobacco ways, but they were still organized criminals. Criminals understood some things were better accomplished when certain people weren’t around. Xiaoyu knew he was afforded a holiday so he could be kept out of the way. It didn’t bother him. He stretched in the mornings and before bed and spent his days ordering food and watching TV. On the fifth day of his vacation, he had a surprise visitor.
The knock wasn’t subtle but it was brief, as if the person on the other side wasn’t used to waiting or considered himself above it. Xiaoyu opened the door to an awkward moment. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize the man standing in front of him it was that he saw him from a different angle. The last time Xiaoyu saw Deni Tam face-to-face, he was almost ten years-old. Now, he was twelve years-old and stood almost eye-to-eye with Deni. Deni was only three centimeters taller than Xiaoyu—maybe less.
“I have something for you,” said Deni. Xiaoyu paused before the idea came to him that Deni wanted to come in. Xiaoyu waved Deni inside the room that was his home, without saying anything. Deni’s head did a full panorama of the room. The Moons’ chief executive was curious to see how a would-be Jade Soldier lived. He observed everything forgetting his manners like an adolescent. He opened the rice cooker that sat on the dresser to see that it was well-used but clean. The room didn’t comport itself like the room of a pre-teen, neither did its occupant. The room was functional not fashionable. Missing were posters of martial arts stars that were common for boys Xiaoyu’s age—especially those who studied martial arts. Where Deni expected to see a poster of Enter the Dragon or Drunken Master was standard wallpaper. All walls in the room were bare. Xiaoyu had even taken down the prints that previously hung on the wall: one of a Spanish cavalryman; the other of volcanic peaks reminiscent of Hong Kong. The two prints had been laid to rest under the bed for more than two years. Xiaoyu himself didn’t know why he had taken the prints off the walls. If asked, he would have said they weren’t necessary. The room had nothing fantastic, everything in the room had to have a purpose. Xiaoyu stood next to his bed wondering why Deni had come—everything in the room had to have a purpose.
“You said you had something for me,” said Xiaoyu snapping Deni out of a quasi-trance.
“Yes, you’re right,” said Deni, “This arrived last week. Sorry I didn’t have time to bring it to you earlier. The front desk called me the day it arrived but I only had time to pick it up yesterday.” Deni handed Xiaoyu a small almost square envelope. In the right corner, were three identical drawings of a man that Xiaoyu thought he had seen before. The man’s hair was colored black and his skin was peach-colored. He had a too-good-to-be-true smile on his face and a microphone in his hand. He wore a sparkling yellow suit that contrasted a pink background. Over his right shoulder was the number 29. Over his left shoulder were three letters written vertically, USA. At the bottom of the picture, was white on black lettering spelling the word: ELVIS. The stamps had six ink stripes over them, obscuring the man’s face slightly. The envelope was addressed to Xiaoyu but sent to an address he didn’t remember, the Harbour Gate Suites Room 912. Something in his mind flickered gently but he still couldn’t remember the Harbour Gate Suites. He looked at the sender’s name for another clue, but saw a name he didn’t recognize—Wendy Lee.
“You don’t remember the hotel do you?” asked Deni looking at Xiaoyu. Xiaoyu looked up at Deni with a blank look.
“That’s where you stayed just after you got your tattoo. That was over two years ago. Remember they wouldn’t let you leave. That was the first time we met,” said Deni. Xiaoyu remembered one thing about the hotel. It was the last time he had written to his sister. His mind fit pieces together and told him Xiaofeng had received his letter and had written him back, not from Beijing from Arizona. Xiaoyu grew anxious but it went unnoticed by Deni. Without any authority, he felt like telling Deni to leave but Mr. Cheung had told him he was to respect tradition. If not for those traditions, he would have had Deni leave under threat of violence. Deni didn’t seem to care. He sat down on Xiaoyu’s bed while Xiaoyu remained standing.
“It’s really a shame that I haven’t been to any of your matches, even your first one. I stay so busy all the time. You know a lot goes into running an organization as large and sophisticated as ours. The trick is to make it look effortless but that only comes much much later. Like a Jade Soldier, by the time you’ve finished walking your path you’ll do things and make them seem effortless. That’s the reason behind all of this…this formality.” Deni put his elbows on his thighs and locked his hands together. He paused before continuing.
“You know we’ve never had a Jade Soldier since Uncle Woo’s been at the top,” said Deni, “A lot of us nowadays haven’t even seen one. I’ve never even met a candidate until you came along. There can only be eight at any given time and to have a Jade Soldier for each Dragon Head all at once has been uncommon since the old days. But us having one is probably a good thing. These clowns these days always think they’re so tough because they came up on the streets of Hong Kong. The idea of having someone who knows the psychology of facing an opponent somehow became passé. All Triads just thought if someone crossed them they’d deal with it. But no, the old ways are not the old ways without reason. To have someone specifically assigned and designed to deal with such offenses is the better way. That I can see clearly. They’re telling me that you’re progressing quite well. They also tell me you’re undefeated. That’s good. In fact, that’s what we need. Seeing that you’ve never been beaten, I’m thinking that we’ll soon put you in the Tank. How old are you?”
“I turned twelve two months ago,” said Xiaoyu.
“Great, I’ll make you a deal. Stay undefeated and when you’re thirteen we’ll really let you have some fun,” said Deni. Xiaoyu nodded just once like he understood, not like he agreed. And his mind stayed fixed on one word he heard Deni say, the Tank. Deni stood up from the bed and shook Xiaoyu’s hand before going
to the door to let himself out—taking the unsettled moment with him. It seemed to Xiaoyu that Deni had purposefully tried to keep him from his letter. He could have easily told about the Tank without sitting down and rambling. Xiaoyu knew he didn’t like Deni from the first meeting, but now he knew he would grow to hate him. Xiaoyu had remembered something that Uncle Woo had said to him when they first met—something he liked. He said Xiaoyu’s understanding of family was most important. By not giving him the space to read his letter, Xiaoyu thought Deni didn’t understand the importance of family. Xiaoyu saw Deni as an irregular member of the Moons—adopted but still a foster child. A thought came to Xiaoyu’s mind that would begin to echo while he was awake—Uncle Woo had made a mistake. Deni was not an adequate successor.
Xiaoyu sat up in his bed with a head full of puzzle pieces. He wouldn’t be able to sleep before understanding how each piece fit. He had read the letter from the enigmatic Wendy Lee in Tempe, Arizona. Wendy Lee and his sister were closely connected. They were the same person. Xiaofeng had anglicized her name to make herself more adaptable to life at Arizona State University. She had done well in her research module during her year in Beijing, so well her team had placed third overall. The top three teams received a placement in a graduate studies exchange program. Xiaofeng’s program had sent her to Arizona State’s Tempe campus, to study statistics and mathematics as part of her Master’s Program in Economics. She hoped to do well enough to place in the Ph.D. program and continue studying in the United States. Xiaoyu felt a hot spot on the right side of his head. It wasn’t a singular emotion, but many emotions gathered in the same place. The area was getting more crowded. Xiaoyu could feel a surge of sparks flying in reverse fashion—toward the flame. He realized it was frustration. But frustration wasn’t alone, there was also abandonment. Xiaofeng had abandoned him a second time. There was the training. There was the time. There was the Cantonese, the fighting and the tattoo. But Xiaoyu hadn’t forgotten his motivation for coming to Hong Kong; he wanted to earn money, to buy his way to Beijing. It was a month shy of the three-year mark since Xiaoyu had come to Hong Kong. He had earned his way but made no money. He stayed focus on Beijing even when his map to the city became more and more obscure. Now, Xiaofeng wasn’t even in the city; she was in a different country. Beijing was the Mainland but still China. Xiaoyu always thought no matter how many fights, he could fight his way to Beijing, but he had no idea how he would get to the United States. As the hot spot cooled, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go. It seemed that blood didn’t affect the Li family. His blood hadn’t earned him the loyalty of his sister, his uncle or his mother. He saw them all as deserters. Like Uncle Woo said, he understood the importance of family; it was his family that didn’t understand. He told himself he was too old to hold on to an imaginary sentiment and he had never believed in anything imaginary. He was upset at himself for believing his family was real. He clenched his fist together, telling himself he was strong enough to be without them. If a Jade Soldier was meant to protect the Dragon Head, then the Dragon Head and all under him were his family. Xiaoyu told himself he wasn’t like the Li family; he looked out for his own. He was a member of the Moon Dragons more than he was a member of the Li family. In fact, he didn’t feel like holding on to the name Li Xiaoyu. It made him uncomfortable. He felt much more comfortable with his other name.
Xiaoyu’s week off seemed longer with the weight of frustration compounding. At the end of his week off, he was formally told by Mr. Cheung that his matches would stay the same until he turned thirteen, at which point he would be moved to the Tank. The Tank was an easy metaphor. The Tank was at the Kowloon Town Fish Emporium & Market on Tonkin Street. It was on the corner of a busy intersection with many hotels in the area. The Fish Emporium was six-hundred fifty-five meters square of retail floor space showcasing one of the widest collections of exotic fish in Hong Kong. The space also sold delicacies like escargot, sturgeon caviar, swordfish, shellfish and shark. The Tank, however, didn’t refer to the collection of wildlife above; it referred to the concrete wilderness below. The floor of the Fish Emporium was almost a meter of concrete separating the store from the storage space below. The large storage space was originally meant to keep supplies for the store itself. But most of the merchandise swam in the tanks or chilled in the refrigerator room on the ground floor. The owners of the Fish Emporium had long found a better use for the storage space. A utility elevator in the back had been nicely painted and padded to ferry premium customers to the storage space below. The storage space was noticeably bigger than the retail space with an eight-meter high ceiling. Concrete pillars stood like tall Cypress trees on a smooth concrete floor. The ceiling was lined with embedded electrical conduits and bus bars supporting five rows of low bay lights. The middle row was usually the only one lit, leaving 80% of the space in relative darkness. In the exact middle of the space was the Tank. The Tank was a square cage. The cage was a composite of three-meter high chain linked steel with dark green coating. On opposite sides of the cage were steps made of stacked cinder block leading to padlocked entrances to the cage. The cage floor was a wooden platform one meter from the floor. The stage was covered with thin padded floor mats with a black curtain draped over it. Around the Tank was space for fifty steel chairs on each side. The entire array of cage and chairs could be assembled or taken down in under two hours.
Many of the customers who came to watch cage fights were internationals. They came from Macau, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Australia and all over the Pacific Rim. The Fish Emporium was in the middle of Kowloon. They could stay at the hotel of their choosing and still make it to the Emporium without much hassle. The store upstairs helped to identify the customers who had reserved a seat downstairs. Your ticket downstairs was to purchase over 8,000 Hong Kong dollars of anything except live fish and ask if codename was available. The customers could take their merchandise to their hotel room and return with receipt in hand. They were required to wait in the back to take the elevator. Those who wanted good seats took the stairs. An attendant downstairs took a second look at each ‘ticket’. Like all codes, the codename changed. Each fight had a different codename. If the codename matched the fight and your purchase amount coincided, you received a red stamp of a frog on your receipt. The frog didn’t mean anything, which is why it meant something. An Emporium receipt with an over 8,000-dollar purchase on the night of a fight with a cartoon frog stamped on it was an innocent-looking access to a competitive blood sport. If the store ran out of some desired item, the customer was still required to spend over 8,000 dollars. Very few customers spent over 8,000 dollars especially without buying live fish. The purchase requirements were a multilayered level of secured access; then there was the codename.
The codename was Gregory the night of Xiaoyu’s debut in the Tank. He had ended his twelfth year undefeated like Deni wanted. He fought six other boys before he turned thirteen, five of his fights ended in knockouts. The sixth would have been a knockout but the instructor, knowing Xiaoyu’s reputation, was quick to forfeit the fight when he thought his boy was taking too much punishment. The boy happened to be his son. Master Song had helped Xiaoyu wrap his hands the morning of Gregory. Master Song had specifically requested to see Xiaoyu before his first fight in the Tank. Master Song drove Xiaoyu to a familiar place, the warehouse on Catchick Street—his former home. Xiaoyu felt no emotion seeing the warehouse after more than three years. When he was still nine years-old he had looked at it as a sanctuary. Staying in the warehouse meant he didn’t have to stay in the storage facility with the other boys. But it meant he had to stay alone, a feeling he was used to. Xiaoyu viewed the path of the Jade Soldier as his alone. Looking at the warehouse was looking back in time. The warehouse had been his home in Hong Kong for eight months, but that was only a fraction of time spent on the path. He saw the warehouse as a means to an end, a place to train without thinking about the outside world. The inside of the warehouse was impeccably neat, as it had been when Xiaoyu was a resident.
The warehouse was so organized, it lacked the lived-in feel that Xiaoyu expected. He stood on the front side of the warehouse bathed in bittersweet emotion. He could remember living in the warehouse but didn’t feel like he had. Master Song beckoned him to the far side of the warehouse. The wood dummy was still there.
“Remember what this is?” asked Master Song.
“That’s my opponent,” said Xiaoyu, “All of them.”
“Even your favorite one,” said Master Song.
“They’re all my favorite ones,” said Xiaoyu, “It’s what it means to be me and to be a Jade Soldier. My life would be lonely without opponents.”
“You’re required to have them,” said Master Song, “You won’t be lonely anytime soon.”
“Why did we come here?” asked Xiaoyu.
“I think this is the appropriate place to tell you what I have to tell you,” said Master Song.
“What?” asked Xiaoyu.
“Well, we won’t be seeing each other anymore,” said Master Song.
“OK,” said Xiaoyu nearly emotionless.
“That’s the rule as they have set it,” said Master Song.
“They?” said Xiaoyu.
“The family,” said Master Song.
“It was probably one person,” said Xiaoyu.
“Probably,” said Master Song with a smile, “This is new to everyone, even me. Those of us now have never had a Jade Soldier. They’re constantly looking at the way things were done in the past.”
“They shouldn’t look too far back,” said Xiaoyu.
“Why is that?” asked Master Song.
“It would be a waste of time, they won’t find me there,” said Xiaoyu.