by Vann Chow
“Please trust me, I know what I’m doing,” he said.
“Your brother, your insolent, uneducable brother…” Master Siu propped himself up in pain as he tried to say something about Ken. There were splattered of blood and dark bruises all over his face, arms and legs.
“I know. I know…” Michael stopped him from finishing his sentence and stroked his back in an attempt to comfort him. “Let’s give him a chance…”
“Another chance?! How many have I given him? He’s never satisfied with the privilege he was born with. — And we’re now ruined. Who’s going to give the Chamber another chance? Who’s going to give you another chance? You’re his brother. Blood brothers!” The master was so angry he spat blood and fainted in his arms. Black and White Commissioners attempted to fly over but found that they couldn’t even lift their feet off the ground inside this cursed jail cell.
Pulling up his sleeves, Michael reached out his hands and spread his palms while muttering spells only audible to him, attempting to use the blue force field he so often conjured up when he wanted to apply magic. But nothing except tiny blue sparks spluttered from his fingertips before fizzling out.
Quickly, Michael searched in his pocket for a small snuff-box and pull out a brown pill sitting on a cushion of yellow silk. He wrapped the pill in a piece of green leaf, also fished out of the same pocket, and popped it under the master tongue.
“The Hui-yun Soul Recalling Pill could only help so much,” Michael said. “Elise, please help them!”
Elise wrinkled her nose at the commanding tone of the young man and sat grumpily on the floor. She pulled out the sutra and leafed through it with her trembling hand for anything that might bestow her healing power, and soon she found not one, but seven of them. “How’d I know which one to use?!” She said, exasperated.
“Just try one!” Black Commissioner bent over to grab the two corners of the sutra opened to a page titled The Prana Mudra, the Healing Power of Life, and held it up at eye level for her. “And try it on Miss Chamomile first,” he added. Elise pouted, knowing the meaning behind his words.
“I’m sorry, Chamomile!” Elise said, “I hope this will help you!” Then she joined her little finger and ring finger of both hands with her thumbs and chanted, ‘Sooo-hummmm’, as was written on the pages.
Suddenly, Chamomile stirred and in the next second, she bolted upright, looking about her in confusion. It was born not out of the sudden awakening, but from the violent shaking of the walls of the cell they were in. It was as if an earthquake had hit the building. A loud buzzing noises enveloped their hearings. Everyone covered their ears instinctively to shield themselves from the ear-splitting quality of the buzz.
“What’s happening?!” Elise, too, broke the mudra in panic, for she thought she had cause the quake herself. Michael, of course, knew better.
“Our rescuers are here!”
Before he finished the sentence, the front wall of the room they were locked up in crumbled to dust, revealing the ugly face of a man with unusually large, red eyes in an impressive black and red cape floating in front of their eyes, a pair of highly veined wings as tall as the man himself flapping behind him. A swarm of what appeared to be human-shaped flies dove into the cell and lifted Chamomile off the ground. She let out a scream and fainted once more as the army of flies carried her out.
“It’s your turn next,” Michael said to Elise. “General Diptera is on our side. Now go!”
Elise looked at Michael incredulously, and in a moment of hesitation, Wuzha had already stormed through the cell door from the other side with his soldiers. With rifles on their shoulders, they shot at the swarm of flies around her, their bullets causing dangerous sparks just above her head, near her face and over her shoulders. She stood frozen on the spot not knowing what to make of the situation.
“Don’t hurt your Miss!” Wuzha shouted. His man immediately switched their targets to Michael and the General Michael referred to as Diptera. White and Black Commissioner surged forward to charge at the Manchurians soldiers, their long, awkwardly bent arms whacked the guns off their hands and knocked them all down. White unfurled his bloody tongue and picked a group of them up with it. Black opened his black-hole-like mouth and let White feed him the souls of the Blue Bannermen who screamed their final screams before they were muted for eternity.
“How dare you tricked me!” Wuzha condemned Michael. He grabbed Elise by the hand and retreated together into the foyer. A new group of Blue Banner soldiers leaped out from the shadows to protect them from their assailants. These zombie-like sentries were jumping towards them with their hands outstretched, their heads jerking left and right uncontrollably. Some didn’t have an eye and some lost a finger. All of them were glossy eyed.
“They are corpses! Actual physical corpses! Bewitched, no doubt?” Elise realized.
Wuzha didn’t answer and pushed through the front door that led out to the exterior corridors of the building they were in. Fights had broken out everywhere around them between the Celestial fly-army and the Blue Banners. Behind them, Wuzha could see that the British Governor and his envoy were being released by Commander Diptera as he broke the web of brownish goo with blows of his whips.
Elise looked down to find the steel or wooden roofs of made-shift food stalls below them. Through a tiny crack she could see a single soldier holding the reins of a pair of tall Manchurian black horses with saddles.
“General! Over here!” He waved at them. That was Wuzha’s emergency means of escape.
“Jump!” Wuzha grabbed Elise by her collar and thrusted her down. Unprepared for the flight, she closed her eyes and braced for the impact. She came to a stop when her body impacted on the warm bod, expecting to be the horse or the horseman. Opening her eyes, she was pleasantly surprised to see that it was none other than Ian! They rolled on the floor beside the grunting horses that kicked their feet impatiently.
Wuzha leaped to their side and bellowed, “What in the devil are you doing? Get off my daughter!” He hissed at the British boy who were helping Elise to get up.
A jade stick could be seen pointed directly at his sternum as he rose to his feet. The wielder was, to Elise’s surprise, the bus conductor.
“Ah Sam, don’t you remember me anymore?” The old man asked.
THE END OF PART THREE
Fact and Fiction
In this epilogue, I will share some interesting tidbits with you regarding the story. Each book of the series will contain such epilogue as well for those interested to know more.
While the story describe in the House of Life is fictional, many of the characters and events described in these books are real or inspired by mythologies believed by generations of Chinese as you might have noticed.
Wuzha Sam is a fictional character, although his clan, Wuzha, was not. In Manchurian, the clan is referred to as ‘Ugiya Hala', while in Chinese it is ‘乌佳氏’. They later adapted their surname into a simple Han Chinese Surname of ‘Wu’ or ‘吳’.
In the story Wuzha Sam was once the Major of Jiaozhou until German occupation. This is fictional. However, Jiaozhou, which is part of Tsingtao (Qingdao) was indeed once a German colony (1898-1914), then that of Japan (1914-1922). After the First World War, it was once again restored as a German colony (1922-1938). The Japanese, however, did not give up this area. They occupied it again during the Second World War (1938-1945). When one goes to Tsingtao nowadays, however, there is a distinctive Germanic flavor in the design to the old city. While being colonized was never fun, the occupation of the Germans was mostly viewed in favorable light by posterity as a whole (perhaps to the surprise of most) as opposed to that of the Japanese (to the surprise of none). They improved the conditions of the Tsingtao area by building electricity plants, sophisticated sewer and drainage systems, as well as providing civilians with safe drinking water. And of course, they also helped established the world-famous Tsingdao beer factory. It was said to have been run under the same high quality brewing standards Germa
n breweries in Germany used, in order to provide the beverage for the thirsty soldiers stationed there.
An old photo showing the march of German soldiers entering Tsingtao
Photo of Modern Day Tsingtao
Sir Henry Arthur Blake was the Governor of Hong Kong between 1989 to 1903. The photo below showed him together with famous (or infamous) Chinese General Li Hong Zhang, who was viewed by many as the betrayer of the Qing Empire by negotiating the peace treaties with the British and ceding more land in Hong Kong to them. However, it was also believed that he had proposed to the young Qing Emperor himself that as an old man of seventy at that time, it was better to let him carry the bad name of selling out his country than the Emperor whom he expected to have a long and bright future ahead of him. Unfortunately, there was no bright future for the young Emperor anyway as external aggression and internal revolt torn the country.
Sir Henry Blake himself did not participate in the making of the treaties, although he became the one who had to enforce it as soon as it became effective because of his appointment in Hong Kong.
Photo of General Li Hong Zhang
A large part of this book occurs in or near the Kowloon Walled City, or the Kowloon City Fortress as it was once known as. The ‘walled’ city was now completely knocked down and turned into a park with a historical walk. Only ancient monuments were kept.
Old photo of the Walled City
A model of the Walled City
Continue Reading
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