The Dragon and the Stars

by Derwin Mak

  “Do you have the cinnabar?” his wife asked.

  “Yes. It’s still in the pouch.” Zhou Liang showed her, fingering the hard lump of rock with one hand.

  His wife looked dubiously at the large bulge. “The shaman said to stick it down its throat?”

  Zhou Liang sighed and fished the cinnabar out of the pouch. It was a rough texture and reddish-purple, like a pomegranate seed. “Do you think we could use a pair of chopsticks to push it down? I’ll get queasy if I feel its teeth.”

  “I’ll get them,” his wife said. She came back a moment later with a pair of large cooking chopsticks and put them in his free hand. “Come. Let’s get it done.”

  Zhou Liang squatted down next to the fox, using the chopsticks to pry its jaws open. Its teeth were small sharp nubs of white, and its tongue lolled out, pink and long.

  As Zhou Liang pushed the cinnabar down its throat, he tried not to imagine how it’d feel to have a rock pushed against the tender flesh of his own mouth. The thought made him hurry, and he pressed hard with the point of his chopsticks. The cinnabar’s rough edges broke skin and a thin trickle of blood pooled out of the fox’s mouth.

  “Hurry,” his wife cried. “It might wake up if you’re cramming it in like that.”

  “It’s going to wake up if you’re screaming in its ear, too,” Zhou Liang whispered back.

  From beneath his hands, the fox’s body began to twitch madly. Husband and wife jumped back in surprise and Zhou Liang threw down his chopsticks in his haste to retreat.

  The fox jerked around, rising to its feet and moving erratically.

  “Kill it,” his wife shouted.

  Zhou Liang grabbed his walking stick and gave the fox a hard whack on the head. But in his panicked state, he struck too hard a blow, sending it rolling across the kitchen floor and into the fire pit.

  As the pair watched in horror, the fox twisted and writhed atop the hot coals. Its fur burst into flames and it shrieked in great agony, sounding uncannily similar to a young woman.

  The shrieking awoke their daughter from bed. She came bleary-eyed into the kitchen.

  “What’s going on?” she asked, looking confused and frightened.

  “It’s nothing. Your mother was trying to butcher one of the chickens and it accidentally ran into the fire.”

  “Wouldn’t she break its neck outside?” their daughter asked.

  “No. Go back to bed.” Zhou Liang’s wife hustled their daughter out and shut the kitchen door before the girl could get a good look inside.

  The fox’s shrieks had died down by then. Zhou Liang grabbed a pair of wooden cooking spoons and tried to pull the body out of the fire to no avail. It had burnt unnaturally fast. An animal would have taken several hours to reduce to ash but the fire had consumed the fox demon as if it were paper.

  “What do we do now?” Zhou Liang’s wife wrung her hands.

  Zhou Liang stood in front of the fire pit, staring mutely at the mess of ashes that was his future. There would be no amulet for Mistress Fei. There would be no dowry for his daughter. There would be nothing but ruin for his house.

  “I don’t know.”

  The two spent the rest of the night huddled around the fire pit trying to come up with a plan.

  In the morning, Zhou Liang stood bravely in front of Mistress Fei’s chamber. He had the guard announce his arrival like every other day and added the caveat of having the solution to his mistress’s worries.

  As soon as the guard made his announcement, there was a flurry of activity as all of Mistress Fei’s maids were ordered out of the room. Zhou Liang walked in, smiling wide and trying to show confidence.

  “You’ve found a way to help me?” Mistress Fei turned the jade bracelet on her left wrist back and forth in nervousness.

  “I believe I have,” Zhou Liang said. “I need your full trust in the matter, though. This endeavor holds great danger.”

  Mistress Fei frowned. “I will not be a party to assassination. I’m trying to get the duke’s attention, not the county magistrate’s.”

  “No, no. It’s nothing like that. Here, let me show you.”

  Zhou Liang scooted closer, plopping himself on a stool next to her and putting his cosmetics box down on her bed. He opened one of the small wooden trays and took out a round jar.

  “Look at this.” He opened the jar and showed her its contents. It was a fine black powder with a pearly sheen.

  Mistress Fei closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Zhou Liang. Makeup is not going to work this time.Were you listening at all when I explained the problem?”

  “I did. I even went to a shaman to get you help.”

  Mistress Fei’s face wrinkled in disgust.

  “The powder’s special. It’s made from crushed pearls mixed with the ashes of a fox demon. If I apply it to your lips, you will be able to talk with the fox demon’s wit.” Zhou Liang spoke slowly so she could digest it all.

  “What do you mean ‘the ashes of a fox demon’? Where did you find a fox demon? Did the shaman sell you this?”

  “No.” Zhou Liang stood up in annoyance. “I mean, no, mistress.” He got his feelings under control and sat back down. “It truly is the ashes of a fox demon. Please, just trust me in this. All will be well.”

  Mistress Fei gave him a hard look. “Expect the worst if this goes wrong.”

  “Everything will be all right,” Zhou Liang said. He turned his concentration to applying her makeup.

  The next morning, Zhou Liang was seized from his house by the duke’s guards. He felt his face burning with shame as he was dragged through the streets past the other villagers. Some of them laughed at him in amusement while others just looked surprised.

  He wasn’t a hated man, but he wasn’t popular either. Some resented him for his easy life. He had been handsome in his youth, and some villagers surmised the duke’s ladies had paid him for services rendered aside from cosmetics.

  Zhou Liang tried to concentrate on what was important.

  What had gone wrong? Had a different facet of the fox demon manifested itself? Maybe it was the wicked side of the fox’s tongue that had come out. Maybe she had gone mad with possession.

  He had no way of knowing. He thought using it as lipstick would salvage the ashes, but apparently they failed. The shaman had only mentioned using the fox’s body to make amulets, nothing about its ashes.

  Maybe he should have abandoned Mistress Fei for another lady. It’s not as though it would have been impossible to find more work. Zhou Liang began to examine why he hadn’t left her. Was it really the money?

  He’d always had a love for the female face, for its grace and delicacy. There was a promise hiding there in the shadows of the cheekbones, a rich vista waiting beyond the eyes that beckoned him onwards, asking him to discover what new wonders could be found with brush and powder.

  And Mistress Fei was his muse. He didn’t care if she had no talent for chess or calligraphy. Not with a face like that. Hers was a canvas on which he could paint his dreams. It wasn’t even the prettiness per se; it was more the adaptability of it, the dramatic angles. Suffice to say, Zhou Liang found it hard to pull away, and now he was paying for that mistake.

  The guards dragged him into the duke’s dungeon and threw him in a dirty cell. He begged them to explain what had happened, but they didn’t say a word. He began to wonder if he would catch some dreadful sickness from lying in such squalor before his thoughts inevitably turned to his poor wife and daughter. What would they do without him? He couldn’t remember if there was enough money left for his wife to go back to her parents’ village.

  These dark thoughts were playing in Zhou Liang’s mind when he heard a rustle of rich fabrics. He sprang up from his crouch and pressed his face against the bars.

  Mistress Fei stood outside. She had a furious expression on her face.

  “What has happened?” Zhou Liang asked.

  “What happened? I was made a laughingstock is what happened,” Mistress Fei said.
“The lipstick you gave me was black.” Her voice rose in anger. “That damned girl from the east even had the gall to make a joke of me. She said, ‘I do believe Mistress Fei has confused her eyebrows with her lips.”’

  Zhou Liang was mortified. He’d had a fleeting moment of doubt when he had mixed the lipstick, but there was nothing he could do. He had tried to make a red pigment blend with the ashes, but they came out a dreadful muddied brown. He thought maybe with the pearly sheen it would at least be presentable, almost like a black lacquer.

  “You’re lucky I didn’t throw your wife and daughter in here with you. I will at least spare you that,” Mistress Fei said. “You served me well these past years, but not anymore.”

  “Did you feel any change at least? Any quickening of wit?” Zhou Liang asked.

  “Oh, enough about the fox demon already. You’re such a silly twit.” Mistress Fei began walking away.

  “Please. Mistress Fei,” Zhou Liang shouted down the hall. “How much longer will I be in here?”

  “Until the duke likes me,” she shouted back, turning the corner and out of sight.

  It was three miserable days in the dungeon. Three days of itchy skin, starvation rations, and unbearable darkness. Even worse was the constant stench of urine and excrement. So it was like a gift sent from above when the guards pulled him out of his cell and took him down to the river to get cleaned.

  He scrubbed at his body happily in the cold, fresh water, using a rough cloth and a lump of soap. They gave him a clean hemp robe and a pair of cheap slippers, and told him to be prepared for a visit from Mistress Fei.

  She came alone and sent the guards away. It began to dawn in his mind that something good had happened. Mistress Fei grabbed him by his hands and held them with great tenderness.

  “Thank you so much, Zhou Liang,” she said. “I’m so sorry I doubted you.”

  “Not at all.” He shook his head. “But what has changed?”

  “Everything,” she said. “That same night I talked to you in the, uh, in the night, the duke came and spoke with me. He asked me what was wrong and why I was trying to get attention by wearing black lipstick. He was very understanding. He told me that I was still his first mistress and not to worry about the new girl.”

  “And then?” Zhou Liang asked.

  “And then, somehow, without knowing how, I quoted a line from one of his favorite poems, and it perfectly fit the situation,” she said in excitement. “It’s exactly the sort of thing he likes.”

  “You didn’t know the poem beforehand?”

  “Not at all. I can’t stand poems. The lipstick worked.”

  “What’s happened since then?”

  “The duke’s been coming night after night. He enjoys talking with me now. I talk about topics that interest him. I have an opinion on politics. It’s all very new and strange.”

  “How often are you wearing the lipstick?”

  “Oh, every night. I don’t wear it in the daytime because I don’t want to make a scene with the court, but the duke said he finds it quite fetching in private.”

  “How much of it is left?”

  “Quite a bit. I don’t think it takes much to work. A dab here, a smear there, and we’re set to talk the night away. Well, some of the night.” Mistress Fei winked.

  “Good. Once you’ve won the duke’s confidence, it would be best if you did not use it anymore. I worry the more you use, the greater the chances of possession.”

  “Possession?”

  Zhou Liang nodded. “Yes. You’re borrowing powers from a fox demon.”

  “But I thought it was dead.”

  “It’s a spirit. I don’t think life or death applies to them quite the same way.”

  Mistress Fei shrugged. “No matter. I’m beginning to understand this talking business on my own anyway. It’s not so hard. Mostly just drop the right phrases here and there and bring up something related when he mentions a new topic.”

  That last thought brought Zhou Liang up short. The old Mistress Fei would never have said that.

  “Do you think I could see the lipstick again? I’d like to try to see if I can make a red pigment with the mix.”

  “You could do that for me?” Her voice was tinged with hunger.

  “I can try.”

  “Do so,” she said.

  Zhou Liang managed to bring back a quarter of the jar. Mistress Fei insisted on keeping a good portion for her own use but thought it’d be worth giving up some if it allowed her to wear the lipstick in the daytime.

  He promptly turned around and gave her an ordinary red lipstick, claiming it was mixed with the fox ashes. She was overjoyed and thanked him a great deal.

  Over the next few months it became common knowledge that the duke had become much infatuated with Mistress Fei. So much so that the other ladies in the court began to wear black lipstick and mimic her mannerisms. His cosmetics business boomed as court ladies sent dozens of orders for his pearly black lipstick. Of course, none of them had fox ashes in them.

  Mistress Fei had not forgotten her debt either. After securing the duke’s affections, she sent a large chest filled with silver ingots. A note delivered by the guards said that it was for his daughter’s dowry and for the comfort of Zhou Liang’s old age.

  It was a prosperous time for the Zhou family. His wife busied herself with the new money. She married off their daughter to a tea merchant’s handsome son and hired builders to construct a large residence for their retirement.

  There was only one shadow that darkened Zhou’s happy heart. It was many months after his daughter had married and he had been invested in his sumptuous new home. Mistress Fei had called him to her chambers to bid farewell.

  She sat once more at the back of the room. But unlike the first time, she did not wear the stiff damask robes of a court lady. Instead, she wore vivid red silks that flowed and draped her body.

  Her look had changed as well. No longer was she the plump and rosy girl of before. She was leaner now, more graceful, and her breasts were small and pointed. Her eyebrows rose like bird wings, and her cheeks stood out like contours carved into jade. Her eyes were different too. No longer wide-eyed and innocent, they smoldered with a wild intensity.

  Nor did she have tea and cakes on her table. Instead, she had a large bowl of silken tofu swimming in syrup. He watched as she ate one spoonful after another.

  “I’m going to the capital, Zhou Liang,” she said between bites.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “I expect quite a while. We’re going to visit the emperor. The duke’s nephew wants advice on matters of war, and, of course, the duke will not go without me.”

  “This is excellent news.”

  “Isn’t it?” She smiled even wider. “It will be such fun.” Her eyes flashed green in the light.

  The look sent a hot jolt of desire through his body. She was so much more than a girl with a few daubs of fox wit now. Her very presence swam with sexual energy. His brow was damp, and he resisted the urge to wipe it.

  “Will you be needing my services on your trip then, Mistress?”

  “No, I suppose I won’t. The imperial court’s more formal. I wouldn’t want to cause a scandal bringing a man along for makeup. Besides, I don’t think I have much use for the stuff anymore.” She spoke with carefree leisure, the words sort of skipping along her tongue.

  Zhou Liang bowed his head in silence. In a way, he was relieved. Throughout the ordeal, he had waited for something to go wrong, for the fox demon to possess his mistress, for the duke to catch on to their plot, for Mistress Fei to turn on him. Any number of things could have happened.

  But there was a part of him that grew dim with sorrow as well. His muse was leaving, and there was nothing ahead of him but the humdrum path of a merchant. His cosmetics business left him flush with money, but it didn’t nourish his soul. Only the daily painting of faces would bring him that joy, and now he was bidding farewell to the most precious one of all.

 
Mistress Fei had grown exquisite in a wholly different way. Something fierce and torrid glowed in her face, and Zhou Liang wanted nothing more than to spend an eternity of mornings with her. In his mind’s eye, he was already tracing a new eyebrow design for her, maybe using silver foil to gild her forehead, or adding light purple accents to her cheeks.

  “You may go now.” She waved him off with a hand.

  Zhou Liang wanted to ask for one more session, but he knew it would be too risky. There were boundaries of propriety to be recognized.

  “Thank you for your kindness, Mistress.” Zhou Liang kowtowed thrice and retreated from her chamber.

  Many years later, Zhou Liang had grown soft with age. His business had been combined with his son-in-law’s and transformed into a trading company. It sold tea, cosmetics, textiles, jewelry, anything that was used by the affluent classes. They had also moved, setting up a large estate outside a vast port city to the south. The family was prosperous and well respected. A few years ago, he even witnessed the birth of his grandson, who had kept his wife busy ever since.

  But Zhou Liang had also fallen into decadence. He had taken several concubines, spent long hours smoking opium, and frittered away large sums of money on gambling. He was wasting away in indolence.

  One night, while trying to cure himself of boredom, he rummaged through his old cosmetics box and found the jar of fox ashes. He held it in his hands with a sigh. The porcelain jar still held its lustrous blue glaze despite being caked with dust.

  He unscrewed the lid to look inside and found the lipstick had dried and cracked. He reached in and pinched the makeup, rubbing it between his fingers. The grains were crumbly. Any other time, Zhou Liang would have tossed it out in disgust. This lipstick was special, though. The sight of it brought him back to that day long ago when he stood in Mistress Fei’s chamber.

  As the old man stood there in his storage room, a glimmer of an idea came upon him, and he latched onto it with great fervor. For the next month he was obsessed. He had the servants scour his old workshop clean, demanded that nobody disturb him, and sequestered himself inside. His opium pipe sat in the parlor, cold and unlit, and his gambling companions found new haunts to frequent.