“You never told me,” I said softly.
“When I find Xu Shengdian,” he said, “I am going to rip his intestines out through his asshole and stuff them in his mouth.”
“That is a memorable way to put it, Sifu.”
“Enough, Li-lin. I’m not your Sifu. You’re my daughter.”
It felt unreal to hear him say this; it left me stunned, speechless. After all these months of wanting nothing more than to be welcomed back into his life, the moment had finally arrived, the culmination of so much longing . . . and I felt nothing I would have expected. Not joy, not relief, but not numbness either. Shocked, overwhelmed, the love and hurt of a difficult lifetime, a child still—after all these years—clinging to the father who carried her from their ruined home. “How, then, should I address you, if not as Sifu?”
“Supreme Virtuous Master of the Shadowless Kick, Who Vanquished 10,000 Demons,” he joked. “But ‘Father’ will do.”
It made me want to sob. I didn’t know what to say. “It is an honor,” I said, stiffly, but I was not yet emotionally prepared to call him by that term again. “I am waiting for an eyeball to tell me ‘There are Three Treasures.’”
“I have no idea what you are talking about, Ah Li.”
“Perhaps someday we will sit and talk, and then I will tell you of strange matters. But for now, there are powerful enemies that must be vanquished. The only person who can stop them is the Supreme Virtuous Master of the Shadowless Kick, Who Vanquished 10,000 Demons,” I said. “And a novice will assist him, if he accepts her help.”
He nodded, looking pleased. “Do you know where Xu Sheng-dian’s altar is?”
“I do not,” I said. “There was no sign of an altar in his quarters; no ritual apparatus, no idols, just a few technological marvels.”
Father gave a brisk nod, and muttered some sacred words while he scattered some more blossoms into the swirling water. “Ji, ji, ru, luling,” he said, quietly, and we both knew what these closing ritual words meant: I was free of the love curse, and it was final. No remnant of it would come creeping back. Once again my father, larger than life, rescued me from a demon I could not fight on my own; once again, his daughter owed him a debt beyond anything she could possibly repay.
“Wait here, Ah Li,” he said, and stood, preparing his weapons.
His steel weapons. A paper-thin sword that shimmered when it moved, with an edge sharp enough to bisect a falling blossom.
“You mean to kill him, Sifu?”
“If I can find him,” he said. “Go downstairs and rest.”
“Downstairs?” I could hardly believe it. In my experience, the past is past, and no one ever sleeps in a bed they left behind.
Yet when I descended the rickety back stairs, I found our quarters unchanged. The same little, dim room; my cot exactly as I’d left it. The only differences were of cleanliness, and even these were small: dust on my cot, soot smudged over the lamps. My father was not an untidy man, but his mind was accustomed to greater matters than smudges.
Mine was not, so instead of lying down on my old cot, I dusted the room where I’d lived for so many years, and wiped soot from the walls and ceiling. It would take me a billion years of these small labors before I could hope to repay him for everything he did for me.
Just after I finished cleaning, I heard him return through the front door. It amazed me how I could identify his steps out of all other gaits. I ascended the little staircase.
From the sour look on my father’s face, I knew he had not found his prey. “Xu Shengdian’s quarters were empty,” Father told me. “I asked around. Apparently he went to the infirmary, where they treated injuries on his face, his stomach, and his leg, and they let him go. He was seen strolling across Columbus.”
“To the Barbary Coast district,” I said.
Father nodded. “The equipment of a Gong Tau practitioner is not easily concealed. Urns and idols, animal carcasses, live snakes, and such. He has money and friends and he’s a sneaky bastard, so he probably has a secret room in the Barbary Coast, where he stores his altar. I’d guess he went there now. The fiend is smart enough to know you’d come to me.”
“Sifu, he mentioned a stable he rents, outside of Chinatown, to store his automobile.”
My father looked up from his purifying waters. “He owns an automobile?”
I nodded. “A Duryea Motor Wagon.”
“I have dreamed of driving one someday,” Father said. “But I will never be able to afford one. Did Xu really earn that much money from gambling?”
“He couldn’t have earned that much from the tongs alone. Winnings on that scale would have gotten him barred from entrance. But there are other forms of gambling, like betting on the horses at the Bay District track.”
“Li-lin, Xu Shengdian is a jiangshi, a dead man going forward, hopping stiffly to his grave; he just doesn’t know it yet,” my father said. “It’s only a matter of time before I kill him for what he’s done. For everything he’s done. But there are other aspects of this situation that we still need to know more about.”
“Such as?”
“The Ghost Magistrate, Ah Li. Who is he? I need to learn more about his unsanctioned Investiture and decide whether or not to prevent the seating of a new City God. I’m not sure what I can do at this point.”
“When Xu Shengdian commissioned the paper effigy without a face, Sifu, he must have told you the name of the man he was marrying her to.”
“That was him?” my father said. “His name was Kang Zhuang, a minor court official from the Song Dynasty. He had a reputation for having a hand in every affair of the palace. Xu Shengdian said he was an ancestor.” My father paused for a long moment, looking off into the distance. “Aiya,” he said, “I burned many other offerings for Kang Zhuang as well, over the last few months.”
“Such as?”
“Xu Shengdian commissioned all these beautiful Song Dynasty buildings from the papercrafter. Towering paper pagodas, grand carriages, magnificent palatial structures of many stories with sloping slate roofs, crafted from paper; city walls, elaborate walkways, gardens, a bridge shaped like a rainbow, a bath house, a fine restaurant, an inn, all from paper; elegant paper furniture, sumptuous mosaic roads, ornately beautiful clothing, and more . . . . What could this Ghost Magistrate be doing with so much property in the afterlife?”
“Constructing a yamen,” I said. “Xu Shengdian has been working with the ghost of a Song Dynasty bureaucrat, sending him the materials to build an entire compound in the spirit world, with all the grandeur and Imperial spectacle the Song Dynasty was known for.”
“You’re saying it’s here? In the spiritual manifestations of this country, there is a yamen, a miniature city built around a palace full of Song Dynasty architectural splendors?”
I nodded. “What else did you burn for him?”
“Ships,” he said. “Docks. Stilted houses. A locomotive and train cars. Wagons, carriages, and litters. Let me think . . . .”
“Armies?” I asked. “Warships? Cannons?”
“None of that, child; do you think that I wouldn’t have grown suspicious to see paper offerings gear up for war? No, these things were just . . . .”
“Beautiful,” I finished. “Papercrafter Yi is a superb artisan, and he paints so many amazing details onto each item. I imagine you looked forward to Xu Shengdian’s visits, when such an affable man came carrying another one of Papercrafter Yi’s resplendent, Song Dynasty masterpieces.”
“They were lovely, Ah Li; if you had been here, you would have delighted to see them.”
“I would have wept to see them go up in flames,” I said.
“Sometimes it felt like a loss to me too,” he said. “Brilliant replicas of some of the most magnificent architecture in Chinese history, gone into smoke.”
“Not gone,” I said. “They have been established and situated in the spirit world. And I think I know where.”
“Where is Kang Zhuang, Li-lin? I must speak with him, as
soon as possible. Call it an interview or an interrogation, but I need to talk with him and decide whether he’s suited to become our Tudi Gong.”
“He’s being Invested by a child-killer who tried to enslave my soul; is that not enough evidence to reach a decision?”
“It tells us that Xu Shengdian is a monster, and a dead man,” my father said, “but no. It gives us no insight into this ‘Ghost Magistrate.’”
“One would think a centuries-old ghost would choose better company,” I said.
“Did you, Li-lin? Before Xu Shengdian revealed himself, did you consider him untrustworthy? Or did you think him charming, generous, and witty?”
“I grant that you have a point,” I said. “The Ghost Magistrate could have been manipulated unwittingly as well.”
“The answer will only be determined by speaking with Kang Zhuang. So where is he, Li-lin?”
“You may want to see this,” I said, handing him the train schedule.
He looked it over for a minute. “Most of this is gibberish, Ah Li. ‘Five Elements Mountain’ is a tool for imprisoning powerful spirits, but ‘Fourth-Floor Embassy’? ‘Swampy Bottom’?”
“I believe it is a train schedule,” I said.
He scanned the page once more, and his face blossomed into wonder. “Yes,” he said, “that is it! This is the route for some kind of spiritual train. Ah Li, this is fascinating.”
He spent a minute studying the sheet, absorbed in the discovery. “The second-to-last stop on the route is labeled ‘Ghost Yamen,’” he said, tapping that phrase with one well-trimmed fingernail. “Imagine, a government compound for ghosts. I believe that is where we will find this Magistrate, and his Song Dynasty buildings.”
I nodded agreement, and for once I did not feel inclined to frown at the fact that I’d already reached the same conclusion. After Xu Shengdian’s hex, I wanted not to make decisions, plan things, or take charge, perhaps ever again. Father would lead and I would follow, and I did not resent the situation.
“The question is,” Father said, “how can we get there? These stops along the way must correspond with locations in California, outside the city.”
“Even if we find where they correspond in the physical map of California, getting there would be difficult,” I said. “On foot, it could take us weeks.”
“If only there were some way we could take a ride on the phantom train itself,” he said. A moment passed before I realized he had arranged it so I could answer an unasked question.
“There might be people I could ask,” I said. “But is this really the first step we should take?”
He looked at me. “You want to go after Xu Shengdian, right now,” he said.
“After what he did to his wife, after what he tried to do to me, I want to close his corpse’s eyes.”
“I understand this, Li-lin, but he won’t be easy to find.”
“If I had your support, I would gladly hunt him like a rodent hiding under the floorboards. I would bang on every corner until he came out and we could kill him.”
“Li-lin, how long do you think that would take?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Maybe a week or two. He can’t stay hidden forever.”
“And the red rat said the Ghost Magistrate would be Invested as our City God, when?”
“Tomorrow,” I said, and the decision fell into place with a solid inevitability, like chains locking shut.
“We need to go to the Ghost Yamen tonight,” he said. “It cannot wait.”
“But the death of the ‘Gambling God’ can be postponed another day,” I said. “Very well. But please understand that I will also be traveling to the Ghost Yamen in pursuit of a mission of my own. You need to get to know the Ghost Magistrate; I need to find the faceless girl and free her.”
“Is she so important, Li-lin?”
“To me she is,” I said. “I won’t allow any harm to come to her. I will try to get Ghost Magistrate Kang Zhuang to release her into my custody.”
“How do you intend to do that, Li-lin?”
“Through diplomacy and bribes,” I said. “I will offer to burn paper replicas of gold and jewels for him if he lets her go; if he’s after something other than a hoard of riches, I’ll find what he wants and offer him his heart’s desires.”
“You won’t do anything foolish, Li-lin? You won’t try to seize her by force?”
“I won’t make a mess,” I said. “I will go now, and try to find where and how we can board this spirit railroad.”
I decided to gather some supplies before I sought out spirits who might be able to tell me about this phantom train. I started by going to Papercrafter Yi’s place to commission a few items. His shop had no storefront. Entering through a boot factory that smelled of hot leather and human sweat, I walked past a long table where a few dozen men worked at different stations, each man cutting, folding, shaping, and gluing leather, or hasping laces and lacing boots. The rhythm of pounding mallets did not coalesce with the rhythm of snipping scissors; their labor made a din, not a song.
At one side of the room, Mr. Yi stood, sorting through the drawers of a large cabinet. He seemed to be trying to organize sheets of paper in a huge variety of colors and sizes, but every adjustment he made only made it all look more chaotic. He saw me coming and he smiled, showing the big gap between his two front teeth.
“Miss Xian,” he said, and the warmth and welcome in his voice made something soften in me. Mr. Yi had come to America like most other people, eager to earn money by mining or working to construct the railways, but he discovered he could earn a better living from the family trade he’d learned as a child.
“I was just thinking about you, Miss Xian,” he said. “To be precise, I was thinking about your husband.”
“Go on, Mr. Yi?”
“You and your father are always burning paper clothes for him,” he said, stroking his hair with an excited gesture. “But there were two things that boy loved more than anything else, and those were martial arts and you.”
I found myself embarrassed, blushing; it was such a sweet thing to say. I dipped my head in respect.
“So, why all the clothing?” he asked. “Rocket was never some kind of peacock. Here, let me show you what I’ve been designing.”
He pushed some pages in my direction, showing plans and drawings. I didn’t know how to read the marking, the chicken-scratch notations, but it was clear that certain lines were for cutting, others for folding, and it all added together to—
“A weapons rack,” I said.
“The Eighteen Weapons!” Mr. Yi clapped his hands together in enthusiasm. “When they are built and burned, Rocket’s spirit will be able to practice every possible combination of weapons forms in the afterlife! Long weapons and short, hard weapons and soft . . . . He’d simply love that, wouldn’t he?”
“Yes, Mr. Yi,” I said truthfully. “He would. And how much would it cost me?”
“Cost is irrelevant,” he said. “Perhaps a hundred dollars. I’m sure you’ll come up with it.”
I stared at him. He was asking for me to lay aside months’ worth of savings. Yet there would be a portion of my husband’s soul in the afterlife, not the most conscious portion, but a dim version of himself, which continued to perform each day’s actions. It continued to eat, to dress, and to sleep. The soul fragment with my husband’s full intelligence and heart would have reincarnated, but there would still be a remnant of him with a house and fields in the afterlife, near the Yellow Springs, where some day a remnant of me would join him. The thought that this portion of my husband would be able to practice the kung fu he loved made me giddy.
“I will come up with the money,” I said. “But I came here to commission a simpler item, and I will need it today.”
The excitement on his face slid away, and he looked at me sourly. “I have other work to do at the moment, Miss Xian. Other clients are lined up. Unless you’re asking for something really interesting?”
I told him what I neede
d. He rubbed his hands together, gave me a broad, gap-toothed grin, and said, “You Daoshi always ask for the most interesting things!” Swift and efficient, with artistry and an economy of gesture, Papercrafter Yi took a stack of papers, a brush, and a dish of black paint, and his ingenious hands began to fold and roll.
Exiting through the boot factory, I trudged uphill toward Portsmouth Square, in search of answers. A few scattered raindrops wet the boardwalk and spattered my robes.
My father needed me to find a way to ride the phantom train. My seagulls had not come when I summoned them, and Mao’er would be difficult to find. This left me with one more person I could ask, one man familiar with both the ways of the living and the ghost roads.
A man who bluntly told me he didn’t want to see me again.
I walked down the Flower Lane, approaching Portsmouth Square, where the bright petals blazed, clean and gorgeous. This was the edge of Chinatown, the only span of our twelve blocks without storefronts, restaurants, or barbershops. A few warehouses stood across from the park. One floor of one warehouse was rented out by a few dozen Buddhists, who lived there as in a monastery.
I found it hard to believe that all this crisis had begun to intrude into my life only yesterday; but this is the nature of the catastrophic, it consumes everything. It eats your time and when you’re done putting out fires, you realize you’ve grown old and all you have to show for it is the fact that you have not stopped surviving yet.
I turned a corner and saw him, a burly man with a shaven head, balancing a wooden pole over his shoulder, with a basket full of fruits and vegetables dangling from each end. I watched him for a little while. The vegetable seller was not human. A tiger in the shape of a man, Shuai Hu aspired to transcend the animal aspect of himself. In search of enlightenment, the beast became a Buddhist, forswore aggression, and sought to change his nature; he sought to become human.
I watched him now, toting his heavy baskets. I admired his dedication, so much. There was also a degree of pleasure in watching the motions of his bulky shoulders and strong arms.
The Girl with No Face Page 17
