That human waste. How could he say such words? He wanted to put the bloodbath of Nanking behind and forget it like it didn’t even warrant an afterthought?
The fire she had planned hadn’t even begun, but her rage was burning inside her.
Good thing Little Yin entered to inform Shen Yi that the feast was about to begin. Wen-Ying couldn’t bear to listen to any of this anymore.
Shen Yi tapped Liu Kun on the arm. He got up and invited his guests into the dining room.
Takeda waited for everyone else to walk ahead of him, then glanced up at Wen-Ying. She held up her hand and waved her fingers. His expression remained unchanged, but the tenderness in his eyes sparked a different kind of fire inside her. Silently, she vowed to herself. She would have a future with this man. She would fight their oppressors to the end for a future where he and she could live the life of freedom they deserved.
She closed her hand and held it to her heart, then opened it toward him. Takeda smiled. A barely noticeable smile only she could see. He turned his gaze away and left with the others into the dining room. When they were all gone, Wen-Ying sneaked back to the stairway from where she had come and scurried back to rejoin the troupe.
Chapter 12
The feast lasted almost two hours. While Wen-Ying and her group waited, no one tried to make conversations. The weight of what they were about to do was enough. She had already taken a chance by wandering the house alone and eavesdropping on the conversation in the drawing room. One more false, extraneous move, and the entire plan could fall apart.
To make sure no one forgot what they had to do, she showed the floor plan of the house to her team one more time, directing them with her finger to the spots, doors, and windows where they must set the fires.
The make-up artist was retouching the paint on the Peking opera singers’ faces when Little Yin came in to tell them the audience was ready for their act to begin. The singers, all dressed now in their sparkly, elaborate costumes, went to take the stage along with the drummer and the three musicians.
Wen-Ying, still disguised in her make-up and wig, but dressed in an opera singer’s white long-sleeved undershirt and white trousers, followed them to the door. She watched the performers and musicians walk through the corridor into the dining room, and caught Huang Jia-Ming peeking out from the kitchen door. He gave her a hand signal to let her know his part of the operation would start right now. Wen-Ying nodded. Stealthily, he led two Tian Di Hui members, dressed as kitchen staff, out to the hallway and knocked on the door to the food storage closet. Three more members came out, all dressed in fake Japanese army uniforms.
Her pulse racing, Wen-Ying watched as Huang, with Ah Green in one of the fake uniforms following close behind him, went toward the servants’ exit at the back while the others dispersed to different exits of the house. Huang opened the door. The Japanese guard outside barely turned his head before Huang shot a bullet into his temple. The guard fell and Huang quickly dragged his body inside into the food storage closet. Ah Green grabbed the soldier’s rifle and took his place, then closed the back door.
A drip of sweat fell down the side of Wen-Ying’s face. She raised her hand to wipe it away, then stopped when she remembered her face was covered with makeup. She took a deep breath instead. She must remain calm. Everything, including her makeup, must stay in place and on course.
“I’ll go see if the others need help,” Huang whispered as he passed her. From the dining room, the singing voices of the performers squealing their duet of a confession of love sounded surreal given the deadly tasks they were here to commit.
Her body tensed as a rock, Wen-Ying waited. She only had a brief moment to relax when she saw Huang and the other shooters return before the duet finished. Huang gave her a thumbs up and hurried back into the kitchen with his team. A round of applause resounded as Little Yin peeked out from the dining room and called for the guqin player, who was up next.
The woman who played the guqin stood up. As she exited the room, she paused and said to Wen-Ying, “It all depends on you now.”
She didn’t wait for Wen-Ying to respond. The Peking opera singers and their accompanying musicians returned to the corridor and the guqin player went into the door from which they had come. Back in the room, the opera singers quickly shed their costumes. Leaving behind the drummer who still had to perform for the mask changer, they, the three musicians, the make-up artist, and the costume manager all headed to the servants’ exit for their escape. Bao Gong, who had been watching everything from the kitchen door, waved his hand frantically at them and mouthed the word “hurry” as they passed by.
After they left, Huang and his team quietly began hauling out containers of kerosene. Wen-Ying signaled her team to come forward. Their turn was next.
The opening tunes of the guqin flowed from the dining room into the hallway. The second act had begun.
All at once, Wen-Ying felt propelled by the guqin’s four tones: clear, ethereal, low, and far. Her footsteps in unison with the static, quiet beats. A musical instrument of scholars since the ancient days, the guqin conveyed sounds that could be grasped only by those with the highest minds.
Understanding the guqin posed no obstacle for her. After all, she was the daughter of the Yuan family. The Yuan children were brought up exposed to all four arts of a scholar: guqin music, the game of go, calligraphy, and painting.
For those who could understand it, guqin music would create a void. An empty realm where one’s eyes would open and see clearly the complexities of nature and life in the vast universe. For everyone else, it would mesmerize and hypnotize. Its sounds could disarm them and put them under the zither’s spell. Some said it could even deplete a weak mind and abandon it in a vacuum of delirium, if the performer intended harm.
In this void, Wen-Ying steered her team past the maze of rooms and the corridors, dousing fuel on floors and frames to create their labyrinth of death. In the dining room, the guqin kept its listeners still, encircling them in a musical wall and clouding their minds with forceful plucks of strings, dizzying vibrating chords, and haunting echoes. With the music shielding off the targets in another realm, Wen-Ying and her team carried on. All was going as planned. Even for Yu-Lan. Her delicate hands and slender arms never once gave in as she lifted the containers and poured the fluid of revenge to seal the enemy’s fate.
As they closed their trap, the music’s pace quickened, rising slowly at first but soon broke into a frenzy, high-pitched crescendo.
This was the end, Wen-Ying thought as she led everyone back to the sitting room. Her heart beating rapidly in synchrony to the staccato of pounding musical notes.
Another round of applause. The time had come for the final act.
The troupe leader, dressed in his vibrantly colored costume, cape, and headgear with a wildly painted mask over his face, rose for his turn. For his part tonight, he would play an ancient warrior.
And a true warrior he was, Wen-Ying thought. Being the performer of the last act, his role carried the highest risk. If he faltered, their whole plot would unravel and they would all be discovered. If that happened, they would all be killed. Until he finished his act, their lives were in his hands as much as Wen-Ying’s.
He exchanged one grave, determined look with Wen-Ying before entering the dining room with the drummer.
At the servants’ exit, Bao Gong silently urged the guqin player to leave.
“Thank you.” Wen-Ying gave the woman her parting words. She firmly believed the guqin’s music had given them a protective shield which guaranteed the completion of their second phase.
“Good luck and Heaven help us all.” The woman picked up her instrument and vanished out the door into the dark.
With his team, Huang came out of the kitchen, bearing lighters which they passed on to the rest in the sitting room. All the troupe’s staff were gone now. Only Tian Di Hui members remained, waiting to carry out their final act.
The steady drumbeats began. Taking a calcu
lated risk, Wen-Ying came to the door at the back of the dining room and peeked inside. With their backs toward the dining table and their attention focused on the performer, the audience inside did not know they were being watched. In the front, the mask changer marched in circles. His arm movements and steps in rhythm with the drum. With one, swift swing of his cape over his face, his white mask with yellow streaks on the cheeks vanished, replaced by a gray one with large purple eyes, thick black brows, and purple lips. Another toss of his head and the mask switched again, this time to one that was lime green painted to show an expression of arrogance. Matching his pace to the rolling drumbeats, he shuffled back, then lunged forward. An unexpected nod coupled with a blink of his eyes, and his mask changed again to one of blue with long lips painted in deep red curling upward into a wide grin. Even Kazuki raised his arms and clapped.
Behind the door in the back, Wen-Ying watched intently the mask changer’s every move as he dazzled with the continuous alteration of faces. Multi-colored masks. Masks of sorrow, anger, surprise, and delight. Masks that looked like a monkey, wildcat, fox, ghosts, devils, and gods.
And then, it happened. The red mask. As soon as he switched, Takeda got up. Making as little disturbance as possible, he departed the room. The other audience’s attention remained fixed on the mask changer.
Not missing a beat, Little Yin hopped to open the door for Takeda. In the process, she flashed a signal to the group waiting in the sitting room.
Immediately, Wen-Ying retreated away from the door and rejoined her group. From the kitchen, faint films of smoke were already seeping out.
Huang shoved a handful more lighters into her palms. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.” She dropped the lighters into the side pockets of her top. The opera singers’ undergarment, it turned out, was perfect for what she needed.
“Be careful!” he said, then returned to the kitchen. In a few minutes, Bao Gong and his wife Ling would be hustling the household staff out under the claim of an accidental fire. Huang and Ah Green would pretend to volunteer to stay behind to put it out so they could convince the staff to leave. They would also set the door of the dining room afire as soon as the mask changer, the drummer, and Little Yin got out.
“This way,” she said to the rest of her group. “We have ten minutes.”
In the corridor, they spread out, each heading to the areas and rooms they were assigned to torch. Wen-Ying herself had chosen to burn the area deepest and farthest away from their escape route. This was what Fan Yong-Hao would have done. He would have placed himself in the spot with the most danger and risk, and he would see to it that everyone else was safe before he secured his own getaway. She intended to do the same.
Passing the front stairwell, she came face to face with Takeda returning from the direction of the washroom. He had gone that way to avoid raising suspicions and was now circling back.
Quickly, Wen-Ying grabbed his arm. “The servant’s exit is back there. Get out now.”
“No.” He put his hand on the back of hers. “I’m going upstairs. I promised I’ll get you a branch of the cypress tree, remember?”
The branch of the cypress tree? Was he joking? “Forget it,” she said. “Just leave.”
“I’ve got time.” He smiled and pushed off her hand, then started upstairs.
“Takeda!” she called after him in a loud whisper. He gazed back down at her and smiled again, and continued his way up.
With no time to lose, Wen-Ying had no choice. She hurried to the front door and threw a lighter onto the kerosene fluid to set it ablaze. In the main drawing room, she burned the frame of every window. As the flames around her grew, she waited, listening for the drumbeats from the dining room to stop. Once the last performers got out, she would set afire the door connecting the drawing room to the dining room, shutting forever one of the three ways of escape for the beasts and demons trapped within.
The last round of applause came. A lighter in her hand, Wen-Ying stood. The heat now swelling around her. Switching on a lighter, she approached the fateful door. A bitter smile spread across her face. “You all can go to hell.” She lit the lighter and threw it against the door doused with kerosene, yanking her hand back before the door burst into flame. To cut off all chances of escape, she lit another lighter and threw it into the pool of fuel at the bottom of the door.
A loud scream of a woman shot out from the other side. Tumbling footsteps, falling chairs, and desperate cries for help. Wen-Ying took a step backward, then another. It would all be over soon. After tonight, everything would turn to dissipating smoke and dispersing clouds.
Her job wasn’t done yet. She turned around and traced her steps back. The curtains on the windows, the paintings on the wall, the wooden furniture, all were now caught in flame. The rising temperature would soon be unbearable. She needed to make sure all her Tian Di Hui brothers and sisters had escaped before the smoke began to suffocate.
Shrieks and shouts now filled the back of the house. She hustled through every room, slamming open each door to check and make sure none of her team was left behind. Sweat dripped from her scalp below her wig. She tore the wig off and flung it to the side. Perspiration soaked the shirt on her back. Her own sweat, mixed with the heavy paint and makeup she had put on to conceal herself, rolled down her eyes and cheeks. She wiped her forearm over her face. Blots of white, red, and black makeup came off, tainting her wide white sleeve.
“Get out!” she yelled at everyone she found who was looking to escape. Just as she’d thought, no one knew the ways around this house better than her. No one could’ve pointed the others to the quickest route to the only exit left which remained open to the outside.
“Yu-Lan!” She found her friend as she came upon the second doorway to the dining room.
“I did it!” Yu-Lan said. Her face convoluted in both joy and shock. “I sealed this doorway.”
Wen-Ying wiped her sleeve across her face again. The cries for help inside prodded her conscience. Why? Weren’t they only wails and screams of beasts? The heat. The fire. They were clouding her mind.
Biting back her instinct to heed their voices, Wen-Ying grabbed Yu-Lan’s hand. “You have to get out. Now!”
Together, they ran toward the back. From her end of the corridor, Wen-Ying could see Bao Gong, his wife, and their daughter running outside under the moonlight. Beyond the servants’ door leading to the garden, she could see shadows of the household staff who had escaped, still running for their lives.
“Go!” She pushed Yu-Lan ahead, then went to check the sitting room where they had gathered earlier to make sure that no one else was still inside.
Empty. Good. She ran toward the servants’ exit. Huang was still there, waiting. “Hurry! Hurry!” he shouted to her.
Choking from the smoke, she asked him, “Is everyone out?”
“Yes. All our people are out.”
“What about the servants and maids?”
“Don’t know. I left that up to Bao Gong.”
Nodding, she inhaled several deep breaths. Deep within the villa, the enemy and traitors continued their faint, dying cries for help.
“We can seal this door now.” Huang held up a lighter.
“Wait.” She clutched his hand. “Where’s Takeda? Did he get out?”
A shade of hesitation colored his face. “He must have. He was one of the first who got to leave.”
“Are you sure?” She shook his fist. “Did you see him leave with your own eyes?”
“No.” Huang tightened his hand. “I was in the kitchen fanning the smoke pretending to put out the fire, remember?”
They stared at each other, uncertain what to do next.
Wen-Ying looked up the steps behind the back stairwell. Takeda couldn’t still be up there, could he?
She turned her head and gazed out at the confusion and chaos in the backyard. The survivors were running everywhere for escape. Two dedicated servants even found buckets. They ran around, carrying the buckets,
but could find no water.
Could Takeda be among the escapees? He had to be. Where else could he be? Pulling Huang’s hand, Wen-Ying said, “Go see if he’s out there. I’ll wait. If you find him, come back at once and let me know. I’ll seal this door then.”
Huang pressed his lips. “All right.” He gave her the lighter and ran toward the crowd.
At the door, Wen-Ying looked back inside. The flames had spread to the hallway. The flood of fire roared and sparks flew as smoke billowed upward. In a few minutes, this last passage to safety would close, whether she lit the fire to seal it or not.
Go up, a voice inside her urged. Go up and make sure he’s gone.
Hearing that voice, she almost made a run for it. Even if it meant risking her own life. She braced her legs, ready to move. But another voice, the voice of duty, held her back. Their mission depended on her. She couldn’t leave this final exit open and unattended.
Conflict roiled in her mind. Out of the haze of smoke, a figure appeared on top of the back stairway. Takeda! That fool!
No time to waste. “Takeda!” she shouted. “Hurry!”
He rushed down the stairs, waving a cypress branch full of leaves.
“Hurry!” she shouted again. As Takeda made his way down, another figure stumbled out from the other side of the corridor, flames burning on the back of his sleeves like small wings of fire.
The figure looked up. His eyes fixed on Wen-Ying standing at the door. “It’s you! Yuan Wen-Ying!”
Tang Wei?
Wen-Ying’s mouth dropped.
No! She wanted to scream. Or maybe she did scream. She could no longer tell. How? How did he get out?
“I’ll kill you!” He made a mad dash forward.
No! The fire of rage erupted inside her, its blistering light blinding her to everything else except the traitor rushing head on toward her.
The Darkest Hour Page 44