The House of Life 1

by Vann Chow

  “No way!”

  “Yeah, have always liked it,” the man said.

  “He got locked up here for burning down a temple. There were forty memorial tablets in it, each belonging to one dead fellow.”

  “Crime against the dead,” Chad murmured under his breath.

  “Pheww. It was nothing,” the guy said, as if it was something to be proud off. “I have done worse.”

  “He’s a pyromaniac. They should institutionalize him,” one of them suggested.

  “What do you mean by setting anything on fire? Like the Human Torch in Fantastic Four?” Chad asked. Nobody answered.

  “What four?” Finally someone asked.

  “Never mind. This is fucking awesome,” Chad said. “So what’s yours?” He asked the next guy.

  “He is psychic.” One of the twins answered for him.

  “They have been trying to proof me wrong from the very first day.” He was the man who won the gambling bets earlier. “So far they have only been pouring money into my pocket.”

  “What do you do with all that money in this hellhole anyway?” Another twin said. “There’s nothing here for you to buy.”

  “Respect. How about that?” The psychic retorted.

  “How about the two of you? What can you guys do?”

  “I am the son of the warrior. My father won many battles for Yuan,” the older twin said with an air of dignity.

  “And I am his twin. Our father was the second-in-command military advisor for Emperor Kublai Khan.”

  “Just cut it out. He’s not asking about your hereditary. He’s asking about what you two do. Besides, a moderner like him won’t have a clue what you are talking about anyway. Yuan Dynasty was ancient history,” the arsonist said.

  “It must have been, what, eight hundred years ago?” The Psychic said.

  “Seven hundred and fourteen years,” the older twin replied.

  “Seven hundred fourteen years, five months, six days and one hour and twenty-three minutes ago our emperor passed away,” the younger twin said. “The king was a great man. Our father served him till the end. It was a privilege for our family to have served him.”

  “Damn, you guys are old,” Chad said.

  “And pretty useless around here,” the arsonist said.

  “What did you say? You son of a peasants, do not cross the line with your imprudent insulations!” The younger twin said.

  “Ha-ha. What can you do with me? We are on the same boat. We are all prisoners of the same ward.”

  The younger twin straightened his back to look at the arsonist. He was infuriated.

  “Don’t worry. They are always like that. Our nobilities aren’t very well received here,” the older twin explained to Chad.

  “So what can you do? Tell me,” he asked.

  “Well, I can balance.”

  “What?”

  “I can balance anything. With my hands, my head, my legs. Ten times my weight? Not a problem. I don’t know why the hell guards would have a supplement wine for this kind of skills but that’s what I’ve got.”

  “Well, good for you,” Chad said sarcastically. “Your outfit matches your power very well.”

  “Thank you.” The older of the twin replied, not getting his sarcasm. “That criminal over there burnt down my old suit. I had to take whatever we can find around here. Stuff that people left over when they leave.”

  The arsonist stood which his back against the wall of the cave, giggling uncontrollably.

  “I have a super memory. Nothing ever got forgotten. It helps with navigations for them out there, I guess,” the younger twin said.

  “The hell guards, he meant,” his brother added.

  “What did you two got locked in here for?”

  “Just think about the numbers of people they’ve killed when they were alive,” the Psychic said.

  “Shouldn’t they be sent to a high security prison? With eternal burning fire and all that?” Chad said. “This farm is more like a youth detention center. If we took something by accident and got sent to the same prison a murderer was put in. I would be very pissed off.”

  “It is a temporary place for us. We can appeal the decision of the regional Celestial Court and take it to national Celestial Court. But they only review cases every two hundred years. Our court date is scheduled on the 9th of August eighty-four years later. So they wanted to keep us here until that day.”

  “Jesus. That’s a long wait. Mine will be in two days, they said.” Chad told them.

  “No, no. That’s the regional court. They review cases yearly during this time of July for seven days straight. The living called this the Yu-Lan Festival. You moderners think Yu-Lan means the ghosts are coming back to earth to feast and have fun. That is only the beginning of it. The next five days of the week, millions of appeal cases submitted from hell by ghosts who think they are innocent and should not be condemned there will be reviewed. Those who win the case can go to eternal peace, heaven or Nirvana, whatever you want to call it. Those who don’t will have to return to their place in hell. Well, if over the year their behaviors are good, they got sent to work in one of the low-security correctional facilities like this one. If they get the recommendations from the superintendent, they could appeal their cases to the regional court and get a chance to leave hell…you didn’t know any of these, do you?” He asked Chad, who shook his head.

  “It’s unfair they get to appeal as many time as they want even though they don’t do anything around here. I don’t know how they measured ‘good behaviors’”

  “We served the king of our times.”

  “Of course! You are royalties. I know. Even after you’re dead it helps to be rich.”

  “Wait, so does everyone who came in will have super powers?” Chad asked.

  “Look at those men who carried you here. They don’t look like they have superpowers, do they? The younger twin explained.

  “No, not really.”

  “We all have drunken rice wine,” the psychic said. “By accident, of course. Most people couldn’t handle the side-effects of it. They get dehydrated and died. We are the lucky ones. Somehow it didn’t set off the immunity system of our body. But the warden needed to make sure no one like us gets out of here. So she tried to purge it out of our system thinking that it would work. My body has already absorbed the ingredient though when she sent me one of those spiked meals your friend has. I got such a bad headache the following day that I almost couldn’t get out of the bed. By the third day, the headache cleared and I was healthy as I ever was again. I started to see things before they happened. I was not smart though, because I hadn’t realized what kind of power I possessed, I thought I was just having hallucinations. I mean, being sucked into a place like this from the real world, you wanted to believe that everything is just hallucinations. You know what I’m talking about? I let slipped about the weird images I was seeing to one of the guards. That’s how they found out I still got the power. And I got locked up here.”

  When the psychic had finished his last sentence, Ian’s lips parted. His stomach lurched once which seemed to bring him back to consciousness. He hugged his own waist in an expression of extreme pain and vomited a mouthful of dirty, muddy brown bitter spit. It had a hint of the taste of the soup they let him drank. Slowly his mind started to regain clarity and he heard Chad called his name. He suddenly remembered what happened back in the pagoda guest room and decided that it was probably the safest to not to move.

  “Gosh. Fucking farmer's cheeseburger!” In extreme pain, Ian blurted out the most nonsensical thing a man could ever say. “Carolina juicy...baby back ribs! Fucking thick crusted Bologna and cheese...piz..za.” The tense expression on Chad’s face slipped away almost immediately when he heard Ian's charade of fatty American food.

  “It's a fucking five-way Chilli with extra onions, mustard and cheese. Welcome back, man!” Chad corrected him.

  “Damn, I hate Skyline.”

  “Fuck you.” Chad said
, laughing. It was an old game between the two contrived a year ago during Ian’s visit to the dentist to get his wisdom teeth removed. Chad dared him to not say one word about the pain when he came out and Ian managed to find an alternative way of expressing his feelings.

  The others stared wide-eyed for a second at them baffled at their cryptic exchange.

  Banquet with the Living, the Dead and the Unborn

  The banquet hall was an incredible sight. Up above Elise's head, rows of crystal chandeliers befitting the ballrooms of old English mansion shone brightly, dispelling any sense of anxiety she had about the gloomy parts of the mansion out of her head. She could now see everything and everyone clearly. Guests were settling down at their designated table and were chattering joyfully away with each other. The scene in front of her eyes was that of a big wedding reception or a village's New Year's dinner, where everyone was invited indiscriminately.

  Jade explained that this was only parts of the banquet. Guests who were retired celestial court officials or from prominent families could sit indoor with them, also employees of the court and the ghosts of commoners that were going to be recognized for exceptional behaviors were also invited inside to sit at a table. Tens of thousands of hungry ghosts would be feasting around the hundreds of round tables set up instead outside in the courtyard, and the group sometimes grew to even bigger than the mansion's yard could hold, and the party would spill over into park outside where they participants would bring their own tables, chairs and utensils, conjured with their spiritual power.

  Jade had walked her out from the inner mansion into the master's table and sat her there, next to a few cordially dressed younger men and women who introduced themselves as the cousins to Michael and Ken. The master and his sons were busying themselves with last minute preparation behind the long wooden screen that separated the guest hall and the massive kitchen.

  Elise had expected an offensive olfactory attack in the hall cramped full of souls, but she was instead taken surprise by the avalanche of mouth-watering fragrance from grilled meat coming from the nearby kitchen instead. She detected most distinctively the smells of Cantonese food staples red barbeque pork and crispy grilled pork belly. Having sucked in a deep breath of the fragrance from these irresistible delicacies, she felt instantly revived, almost as if she had been given a boost from energy drink. The tone of her skin turned from a shade of dull gray into light pink. Elise held up her hand to observe its change in curiosity, to which one of the women commented with a smile, "There's nothing like the smell of well-prepared pork for Chinese people."

  Elise nodded in agreement.

  "Look at you! Sniffing for food like a dog." The ghost woman who was Michael and Ken's grandmother, her hair and makeup properly fixed and groomed to perfect, had now slipped into a seat opposite to Elise and commented. "Show some manners when you're with us. Otherwise, people would laugh at us for taking in a beggar from the streets."

  Elise frowned at her nasty comment and looked away.

  "Don't mind her," Ken appeared out of thin air and had plopped himself on the seat next to Elise. "Everyone sniffs in the beginning. You'll get used to living like a ghost. Your olfactory sense becomes much stronger than any other senses, because this is how we find and eat food, vital skills to avoid going hungry all the time."

  Ken's comment was well-meant, but Elise wasn't sure whether she was appeased by his words. Food for Chinese ghosts was immaterial, just like themselves. The best, most nutritious food for ghosts are incense, or the smokes produced, and second to it, the smells of cooked food. Grilled food is staple foodstuff for ghosts and is often seen as offering by the living to the dead because grilling would burn parts of the ingredients, making them available to the dead in fumes.

  "Is everyone dead in here?" Elise couldn't help but ask. She felt silly when she heard her own words.

  "I'd rather use the word 'immortal'. Some of us, like Michael and I, could traverse the worlds, and we could take human forms, eat, sleep and feel pain. Are we living? Or are we dead? We were not even born to begin with - - It's hard to put everyone into one category," Ken replied with a smirk, and wiped his hands which were only halfway transfigured from the shape of paws into long, lean human-like fingers. His stomach grumbled loudly, which made everyone around the table giggled. "I hope the banquet starts soon, because I'm starving. And when I'm starving, I don't have enough energy to shape-shift," he explained to Elise who were shocked by the odd shapes of his hands, unable to look away.

  "Dong! Dong!" Loud gongs were heard to reverberate in the hall. Everyone hushed at the signal of the beginning of the banquet. Master Siu's house councils walked in and formed a corridor leading to the front of the banquet hall. Between them, Michael, who was wearing an elegant cheongsam in deep purple color silk embroidered with patterns of silver dragons emerged and greeted everyone. He then stood at the side, took a deep breath, and announced, "I, Celestial Court Hong Kong Region Civil Magistrate Michael Siu welcomes our esteemed guests from all corners of China to the annual Yulan festival banquet at Chamber of Life and Nutrition!"

  His voice echoed in the quickly silenced hall. Everyone got up from their seats. Elise was not prepared for this and almost choked on the warm tea that she was sipping. Quickly she put it down and followed the gazes of the others towards the heaven double doors on the side of the hall. A pair of what must have been celestial guards in heavy armors and dull expression pulled them apart, revealing a procession of men and women in equally elaborate silk clothing with embroidered designs of various Chinese mystical animals and colors representing their jurisdictions. Michael exchanged nods with them, and Ken, on the other hand, averted his eyes from the guests. Their grandmother squeezed her lips together and crossed her arms in impatience. Her reaction made Elise wanted to laugh.

  A smaller man in servant’s uniform announced the arrival of the host and his entourage. “Honorable Celestial Court Hong Kong Region Supreme Judge Master Siu!”

  Elise craned her neck to look at the master of the house once more. She could see him now so much more clearly than she did before. Sporting a very beautiful black silk robe with golden dragon and phoenix designs, the master scanned the room and nodded amiably at his guests. He had a very prominent jaw covered by a waterfall of beard. And his eyes were opened wide and alert. It seemed to be able to take in everything within these walls and beyond.

  The master walked toward his seat at the table already half filled with guests and sat down. As soon as he did, herald announced the arrival of a dozen more officials. Elise could barely remember nor understood the importance of their titles, but she counted twenty-one of them. “Honorable Judge Associate Wang from Soul-Robbing Department! Honorable Judge Associate Ban from Scholar Department! Honorable Judge Associate Yu from Interrogation Department! Honorable Judge Associate Jia from Prior Crimes! Honorable Judge Associate from Sentencing Department…” They were all men, all twenty-one of them, and they filled the rest of the tables at the front of the hall set up around the stage and furthest from the outside world.

  “Let the banquet begins!” Michael announced finally. A whirl of servers poured out of the kitchen carrying elaborately garnished dishes of food on their hands and flooded the room. In no time, a feast was laid out on every table. In front of her eyes, twelve courses arranged in expanding concentric circles had been placed in front of her eyes. Their aromas were making her salivate. Instinctively, she closed her eyes for a second to let the combination of sweet, salty, spicy, bitter and sour flavor tickle her olfactory receptors, and she noticed Ken doing the same when she opened her eyes. When everyone started to dig into their portions of food carefully allotted by the attentive servers, Elise followed suit. She was amazed, mesmerized, and on top of that, she was starving. She had completely put her foreign appearance in this place behind her.

  Presently, music started. A Cantonese opera troupe had appeared materialized on stage and Elise hadn’t seen where they came from. The main singer was an attractive w
oman. Her face was painted in a thick sheet of white embellished with spots of crimson rogue on her cheeks. Her arching brows two determining black swooshes. When she danced, which she did without her feet touching the ground as if she was floating in air, the whiskers with pearls at the ends on her headdress danced with her. The lyrics of the song were ancient.

  People chatted less and less inhibitedly at her table amidst the feast. The topic was rather fun to listen to and concentrated on gossips about the guests, which provided the girl with lots of information. Apparently the guests differ every year, and the unexpected appearance of faraway Celestial officials or dropping out of certain prominent invitees almost guaranteed to elicit wild rumors, even in heavenly circles.

  “That’s definitely Judge Long’s new mistress!” A woman said. Her friend nodded, appraising the mistress from head to toe.

  “I had never seen her face in a hundred years!” Her friend said.

  Suddenly, Elise spotted Ken’s ear twitched. His human ears flattened and were transformed in the next instance into that of a dog. In the second that Elise’s blinked, he had completely changed into the dog form once again and was sprinting through the disturbed banquet crowds through the double doors at the front of the hall. Yes, he went through the closed doors, as if neither the doors nor him were matters and they were only particles floating in air, being held together by the weakest of forces that could be broken and mended as soon as those that belonged to Ken passed through in one leaping motion. He disappeared behind them but his barks were still heard. The crowd feel silent in visible panic.

  “What’s going on outside?” Elise asked the girl sitting next to her. She was Ken’s cousin, called Chamomile.

  “I don’t know,” Chamomile said. “I hope it’s not the Qing bandits.”

  “Bandits?!”

  THE END OF PART ONE

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