by Katie Zhao
That was like me saying I’d learned swordplay after swinging a baseball bat a few times. “Ren, you have a natural talent.”
His face fell, as though I’d insulted rather than complimented him. “I wouldn’t call it that. Mr. Fan always said the crossbow was for sissies. Real men fight with swords.”
“That’s silly. Who cares as long as you’ve got the upper hand in a fight?”
He gave his weapon a dismal look. “I want to make my father proud, though. Even if I’m cursed. Mr. Fan said my father was the greatest swordsman he ever knew.”
My breath hitched. “Was your father a … warrior?”
“Nah. He was a businessman. My father traveled a lot. He met her on one of his travels.” Ren pulled something out of his back pocket: a small, weathered photograph. The young woman’s beauty hadn’t faded with the age of the picture. She smiled up at us through waves of long, black hair, her almond-shaped eyes twinkling with mischief. “That’s my mother.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“Of course. Where do you think I get my good looks from?” Ren threw me a grin, and suddenly, the resemblance he had to his mother was shocking. “It’d be nice if I found my mother before the Lantern Festival. Get to spend our first Lunar New Year together.”
“You’re sure she’s alive, then?” I asked, and immediately wished I could take the insensitive words back. “I’m sorry—”
Ren shook his head with a small smile. “I don’t know, but I’ve got to tell myself she is.”
For a long moment, I didn’t speak. When I finally found the words, I said, “Maybe we can find another temple and pray for the gods to reunite you with her.”
No response. Yay for Faryn’s sucky suggestions.
I looked over at Ren—only to find him fast asleep. His white hair flapped in the breeze. I’d never seen him look so peaceful.
We rode on for a few more days, strong winds and rain clouds delaying our progress. But we pressed forward, and the dragons followed closely behind. Just like before, we took turns sleeping in shifts.
I knew I needed to prove myself, so I didn’t want to take another shortcut and pray to the gods for teleportation. Besides, something told me that had been a one-time thing.
Even with the weather delays, there was still a week until the Lantern Festival. We were making good time. But we’d gone through our supply of beef jerky and trail mix, leaving me cold, miserable, and hungry.
So when Alex turned around and said, “Jiě jie,” in a sickly sweet voice, I had no patience. Alex never addressed me with honorifics, except for that one time I sat on him and refused to get up for hours. Besides, wasn’t he still mad at me for solving the third riddle?
“Jiě jie,” my brother repeated, “can I see your spear for a second?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so. Besides, you couldn’t carry it even if you tried.”
My brother’s face fell. “I’m not weak.”
“Alex, I didn’t mean it like that. Of course you aren’t weak. But literally nobody can carry Fenghuang except me.”
He sat back and huffed. “It’s not fair. You get this awesome weapon, and I’m stuck using a plain old sword.”
“How can you say that?” I demanded, my guilt morphing into anger. “That sword belonged to Ba.”
My words must have struck sense back into Alex, because he fell silent. For a moment. “When Chuangmu said we don’t share the same blood … do you … I mean …” He swallowed. “Sorry. I just wanted to use Fenghuang. To check. That we’re, you know …”
“You don’t have to check anything,” I said fiercely. “You’re my brother. Obviously.”
But Alex’s expression remained uncertain, and his eyes grew red-rimmed before he ducked his head. He couldn’t really believe Chuangmu’s words. Could he?
“I mean, it would explain a lot,” said Alex.
“Alex, we’re tired and not thinking straight. Don’t worry about it. Really.”
I flashed him a weak smile, out of desperation to connect with the brother whom I’d once understood as well as myself.
Alex nodded, though he still didn’t look too convinced. “Guess we’ll find out when we find Ba and ask him. He’ll have a lot of explaining to do.”
“Yeah,” I said. If we even find him, I didn’t add.
“He left us, his precious children, with Mao and her horrible cronies,” Alex went on.
“To hunt demons,” I pointed out. “It was his duty.”
Alex whirled on me. I probably should’ve kept my mouth shut. “Sure, demon hunting is important and all, but we’re his kids! How can duty be more important than—”
The chariot jerked and dipped downward, stealing the words from Alex’s mouth. The horses pulled us through a cloud, and the mist forced me to close my eyes.
“We’re getting closer to Longma!” Moli shouted. As if she thought he’d actually hear her from up here, she added, “Longma, where are you?”
When the chariot leveled, we spotted a green sign far below that read: WELCOME TO WASHINGTON, D.C.
“Hey, look down there,” Alex shouted, pointing at a rectangular white building below. He seemed to have forgotten about his anger as he flipped through Ba’s notebook. “I think that’s the entrance to Diyu—wait, no, that’s just the White House. Never mind.”
We soared above the rooftops after the dragons. Tall, glassy buildings, fancy shopping malls, and bustling restaurants lined the streets. The horses led us into the heart of the city, where traffic itself was a demonic beast. Stationary cars lined the streets from the Capitol Building to the Washington Monument. Drivers leaned out windows and shouted at each other. It looked worse than trying to get into a department store on Black Friday.
The dragons coasted above the city, streaks of red, blue, white, green, and yellow that weaved in and out of the skyscrapers.
The red dragon halted in midair. Then it dove. The horses followed it, spraying our faces with the mist from the clouds. Here, there were no reporters in the streets, just pagoda-shaped buildings that marked another Chinatown. The dragons circled a small, derelict-looking tan building from high above.
They kept a careful distance from the city, snorting and shaking as if they didn’t want to get any closer.
The red dragon looked me square in the eye. A great evil that has not stirred for centuries lies down there.
A shiver ran through me, and my heart rate sped up. If even the dragons were frightened, exactly what lay in store for us?
I guess I’d find out. Steeling myself, I commanded, “Go, dragons. You’re dismissed. I’ll only call if I need you.”
Good luck, Heaven Breaker.
The dragons shot back in the direction they’d come from.
Great. What was I, a one-woman demon-slaying service?
Moli brought the chariot down on a street just outside Chinatown. She stopped us in an empty parking space. “Keep your eyes peeled for Longma. He’s here. I can sense it.”
“And Ba,” Alex added, but only loud enough for me to hear. “Maybe.”
My heart leapt into my throat. But there was no sign of our father—or anyone—nearby.
“There’s something else here.” Alex’s words, combined with a gust of wind, sent shivers down my spine.
“This isn’t right,” Moli protested. “Why is this Chinatown so deserted, too? It’s the Lunar New Year, for crying out loud. Did those strange attacks we saw on TV do all this?”
The wind blew harder. The horses snorted and stomped their hooves. A piece of paper flew up from the ground and into Ren’s face. He spluttered and peeled it away.
Again, I couldn’t shake off the sense that someone—or something—was following us. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck. My skin prickled. But there was nothing, nobody, in the vicinity.
We disembarked from the chariot. Everyone drew their weapons. I clutched my spear in front of me, ready to strike at the first sign of dang
er. Chinatown reeked in a familiarly foul way—like King Yama’s unwashed tighty-whities, maybe.
Ren grabbed my arm. “Do you guys smell stinky tofu and pickle juice, too?”
“Worse,” said Moli. “I smell knockoff Chanel.”
A rock clattered behind us. I whirled around and pointed my weapon at the source of ancient evil—a little old lady in a sun hat, carrying a grocery bag in her right hand and pushing a walker with her left.
The others sighed in relief. I lowered my weapon.
The old woman smiled through crooked teeth. “My, what beautiful creatures. It certainly is Year of the Horse.” The woman drew closer, and I saw that her shopping bag was filled with oranges. “You’re deities, aren’t you?”
We looked at each other, unsure how to break it to a sweet old lady that we were just as mortal as she was. But the woman took our awkward silence as confirmation.
“I knew you’d come to save this town one day,” she said, clapping her weathered hands together. “Everyone tells me the youth are beyond saving, but I know better. I’ve prayed and brought offerings to the deities every day for sixty-eight years.”
Alex said, “That is … a lot of food.”
Moli placed the woman’s hands into hers. “We, the deities, greatly appreciate your loyalty.”
“What was that you said about saving the town?” Ren asked.
The old woman cast her gaze toward the ground. “Oh, it’s awful. Gangs control every street, rallying around a powerful leader named the Red Prince.”
Alex frowned and squinted. I recognized the look of concentration as one he got whenever he was trying to remember something. “Red Prince. That sounds familiar.”
“Word of his deeds has traveled far and wide.” The old woman shuddered. Then her grimace transformed into a smile as she pulled four oranges out of her bag. “Please, take these as my thanks in advance for saving this town. Oranges are especially good for rejuvenation in the New Year.”
My stomach rumbled. I hadn’t eaten anything in over a day. The plump oranges practically begged me to eat them, but I hesitated. “Why are you here, then, if the Red Prince and his gang have been terrorizing the town?”
Before the old woman responded, Moli and Ren each took an orange, ripped off the skin, and bit into it eagerly.
“No!” Alex and I shouted at once, knocking the fruits out of their hands.
“Why are you …?” Ren didn’t even finish the question before collapsing onto the ground. Moli gasped—and she, too, fell over.
“You evil old woman!” Alex yelled.
The woman gave us a twisted grin and rolled up her sleeves. “That’s Red Prince to you.”
Alex whipped out his sword. I pointed Fenghuang at the woman. I had to do something—knock her out, steal her false teeth, anything. My fingers tugged the hóng bāo and Ye Ye’s slip of paper out of my pocket, my last resort.
But then a blunt, painful force slammed into my head from behind. As the world spun around me, the spear fell out of my trembling hand and clattered onto the ground.
“I’ll take that, thank you very much,” said the old woman. She shrunk to the size of a child and leaned down to admire the golden weapon.
Before I lost consciousness, I blew on the prayer note using the remainder of my breath. Come to Washington, D.C.’s Chinatown, Wenshu and Ye Ye. We’re in big trouble.
The world swam before my eyes. Then they shut, and I fell into a deep slumber.
CHAPTER
19
In my sleep, I cycled through many dreams. In the first, Mao supervised me while I strung paper lanterns from every roof in the Jade Society. Then she turned into the nián, burning the place to the ground and ruining all my hard work.
In the second dream, Ren and I were at a Cindy You concert. I was probably the least excited one there—and he the most. He wore a Cindy You shirt, hat, tattoo, and waved a Cindy You bobblehead through the air. Halfway through her hit song “One Thousand Lives,” Cindy You turned into a hú lì jīng, like Wendi Tian, onstage. That made the fans scream harder.
In my third and longest dream, I was hovering outside a window in a great white castle, gazing upon … Ye Ye, hunched over and reading a scroll at a wooden desk. But he wasn’t the Ye Ye I remembered—not the old, tired grandfather who’d lost most of the light in his eyes. This Ye Ye resembled the portrait of my father. He was much younger and had short black hair, a strong jawline, and a much sturdier physique.
Tears stung the corners of my eyes. My grandfather was doing well under Wenshu’s care, just as Guanyin had said he was.
I reached out to knock on the window—and squawked.
Staring back where my reflection should have been was a brilliantly red bird with an enormous wingspan, long legs, and a peacock tail. A fèng huáng, the namesake for my spear. Shocked, I squawked again. I was a bird, and my grandfather was young and alive. This was definitely a dream.
Ye Ye glanced up from his scroll. His exhausted, bloodshot eyes looked hollow, but when they met mine, they flickered with recognition.
I tried to call out. Ye Ye, it’s me. Your granddaughter. I’m in trouble.
Except it came out as: “Squaaaaaaawk!”
Ye Ye rushed to the window and yanked it open. I tumbled onto a nearby desk and spilled a potted plant. My grandfather untied something from my foot—a note. The prayer note I’d sent him. He unfolded it, his eyes racing across the paper. When my grandfather finished reading my prayer, he crumpled it up and threw it into the trash can.
“Sūn nǚ er,” Ye Ye said. “I promised you I would come save you, but I cannot.”
What? “Squawk?”
Ye Ye’s voice was choked with regret, and my stomach dropped down to my toes. “Wenshu is—not the deity I thought he was when I pledged myself to him as his disciple.” Remembering Wenshu’s harsh words from before, I couldn’t help but agree with Ye Ye’s apprehension. “He will not be happy if he knows I’ve come to your aid.”
Please, Ye Ye. You’re the only one who can save us. “Squaaaaaawk!”
Ye Ye stared at my thrashing form, uncomprehending. I guess he didn’t speak Panicked Bird.
A loud knock echoed in my grandfather’s room. His eyes darted to the door. “Be brave, Falun. I cannot save you, but you are strong enough to save yourself and your friends. Now—wake up!” The urgency in Ye Ye’s voice increased. He began shooing me out of the window. “You’ve slept far too long. If you don’t wake up now, the deadline for the immortals’ banquet will pass.”
My heart lurched. We’d only been gone for a week. What was my grandfather talking about?
“The Red Prince put the four of you under a sleeping curse. There’s only one day left until the Lantern Festival.” The knocking grew louder and more insistent, accompanied by muffled words I couldn’t hear. “You must wake up, and when you do, use your spear. But do not let it control you. Is that clear? You must not let Fenghuang control you.”
The knocking grew louder, accompanied by a deep, slow voice. “Liu Jian, have you finished memorizing the Lotus Sutra?”
“N-not yet!” my grandfather shouted, a bead of sweat rolling down his face.
Something wasn’t right. Ye Ye shouldn’t look this panicked about studying under the god of wisdom.
“Liu Jian,” called that same slow voice, “I thought I made it clear that you are forbidden to contact outsiders.”
My grandfather shooed me out the window. Before shutting it, he told me, “There’s no time to explain. I must go. Remember what I—”
A bang interrupted Ye Ye’s words. And then I woke up, gasping, to find myself lying on a scratchy bed of hay. And feeling very, very human.
Reality slowly returned to me. The only light in my musty surroundings came from an open door in front of me.
I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the harsh light. I heard Ren, Alex, and Moli stirring.
“Whooza?” Alex murmured. “Ye Ye, it’s still dark out. Let me go back to sleep.”
Framed in the doorway was a child who looked about nine or ten years old. He had three bushy patches of hair, one in the left, right, and middle of his shiny, bald head. The boy wore a red-and-gold vested shirt and skirt under a flaming red cape. He held a red spear in one hand.
Behind him stood demons who looked like Mafia hit men. They wore shades and leather jackets. The stench rolling off them was unbearable. Stinky tofu, pickle juice, gym clothes, Tiger Balm. Beside me, Ren gagged and shifted closer.
The grogginess vanished from my head when I saw the golden object the men struggled to lift onto their shoulders: Fenghuang.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“The greatest demon lord to walk this Earth.”
Following his boast, the boy stepped closer to us, a smirk on his face.
“Give me back my spear.”
I tried to sit up but found I couldn’t. A sharp pain encircled both of my wrists and ankles. My skin burned as it scraped against rope.
“No, I don’t think I will.” The demon lord reached out a hand and gripped Fenghuang. He yanked—and stumbled, nearly losing his balance. Fenghuang fell off the men’s shoulders and onto the ground. “Why is this thing so heavy?” snapped the Red Prince. He kicked it and then yelped in pain.
“I’m the only one who can lift it,” I said, unable to resist being smug.
“The only human. I’m an immortal, you brat,” spat the demon lord.
“Maybe you’re just weak,” Moli retorted.
Flames danced in the Red Prince’s pupils and from the tip of his spear.
My brother coughed. “Moli, maybe we should be a little nicer to the fire dude.”
A low rumbling noise drifted into my ear. I looked over at a dark corner, my heart pounding frantically. There was a creature with us, tucked away in shadow. Was it friend or foe?
“Untie us right now, little boy. We don’t have time for this. We’re looking for something important. And my father is waiting.” Moli growled at the Red Prince. In a sickly sweet voice, she added, “If you let us go, I’ll even fix your look for you, honey. Your mama really did a number on that hair of yours.”