The door opened and Li Kao walked into the study. He drank three cups of wine, one after another, and then he sat down across from me and took the little bronze bell from his belt and gently rang it.
We listened to the beat of a drum, and then the beautifully trained voice of a young woman began to chant and sing the story of the great courtesan who grew old, and who was forced into the indignity of marrying a businessman. A second ring of the bell produced a lively tempo, and the hilariously pornographic tale of Golden Lotus. A third ring brought sarcasm and suppressed rage, and the story of Pi Kan, who was put to death because an idiot emperor wanted to see if it was true that the heart of a wise man is pierced by seven openings.
We had a flute that told fairy tales, a ball that showed funny pictures, and a bell that sang Flower Drum Songs. And we were supposed to exchange them for feathers.
Li Kao sighed. He replaced the bell in his belt and poured another cup of wine.
“I am going to complete this task if I have to unscrew the roots of the sacred mountains, hoist a sail on top of Taishan, and steer the world across the Great River of Stars to the Gates of the Great Void,” he said grimly. “Ox, the slight flaw in my character has proved to be a godsend. When I run into something that is really foul, I can counter with the potential for foulness that resides in the depths of my soul, and that is why I can go into a place like the Cavern of Bells and come out of it with a song on my lips. You, on the other hand, suffer from an incurable case of purity of heart.”
He paused to consider his words carefully, but I was ahead of him.
“Master Li, it would take twenty tons of Fire Drug to pry me loose from the quest,” I said as firmly as I could, which was not very firmly. “Besides, we'll have to try to get to the Key Rabbit, and that means Lotus Cloud, and I will happily battle a tiger for the honor of hopping into her bed.”
To my astonishment I discovered that what I had said was true. It was amazing what a tonic the thought of Lotus Cloud was, and I stared in wonder at hands that were no longer shaking.
“I will battle a regiment of tigers,” I said with real conviction.
Li Kao looked at me curiously. We sat in silence while the sound of two fighting cats drifted into the room, and then the sound of Auntie Hua going after them with a broom. Li Kao shrugged and reached out and pressed a finger to my forehead, and quoted Lao-tzu.
“Blessed are the idiots, for they are the happiest people on earth. Very well, both of us will commit suicide, but it's Ching Ming and you must honor your dead. We'll leave in the morning,” he said.
I bowed and left him to his thoughts. I took some food and wine from the bonzes’ pantry and went out into the bright sunshine, and I borrowed a hoe and a rake and a broom from the tool-shed. It was the most perfect spring imaginable, glorious weather for the Festival of Tombs, and I made my way to my parents’ graves. I raked and pruned and swept until their resting place was spotless, and then I made an offering of food and wine. I had saved the tassels and ornaments from the fine hat that I had worn during our visit to the Ancestress, and the silver belt with the jade trim and the gold-spattered fan. I placed the tassels and ornaments and belt in the bowl that I used for special offerings. Then I knelt to pray. I asked my mother and father to send me courage so that I would not disgrace my ancestors, and I felt much better when I had finished. Then I got to my feet and ran toward the eastern hills.
Centuries ago the great family of the Lius had ruled our valley. The estate still stood at the crest of the largest hill, although the house was seldom visited by the owners now, and gardeners still maintained the famous park that had been lovingly described by such writers as Tsao Hsueh Chin and Kao Ngoh. I knew it like the back of my hand, and I crawled through my secret tunnel in the high wall into a gardener's paradise. The ground was shimmering with yellow chrysanthemums, and the hills were thick with silver poplars and nodding aspens. A stream arched down the side of a cliff in a foaming waterfall that splashed into a bright blue lake. The banks were lined with flowering peach, and chiching trees with violet flowers growing directly from the trunks and branches, and behind them was a shady bamboo grove, and then the pear trees, and then a thousand apricot trees that were flaming with a million scarlet blossoms.
I followed the path around the moon terraces, and then turned off to a rough trail that led down through deep gorges with creepers and moss-covered great gray rocks. The trail dropped sharply down to the darkness of a cypress grove, where a quiet stream rippled past the Sandbank Harbor of Blossoming Purity, and I crawled beneath some low bushes and untied a small boat. I climbed in and pushed off, and drifted down a long winding gorge where willows bent their branches to brush the water, and spirit creepers wound over rocks, and clusters of fruit like red coral peeped beneath frost-blue foliage.
When I had tied the boat to a tree trunk and picked up the trail again, it climbed toward bright clearings where winding brooks sparkled in green meadows, and always I reached hills or rocks that blocked the view and then opened to even more beautiful vistas on the other side. The path climbed steeply through masses of boulders toward a great glorious rock that reached to the clouds, and on the other side was another gorge that was spanned by a narrow wooden bridge. Then the path climbed again, and suddenly leveled to a small ridge where orchids grew, and orioles sang, and grasshoppers chirped in the bright sunshine. Far below I could see my village, spread out like a picture from a book.
At the end of the ridge was a willow grove. I slipped inside to a small green glade where a single grave lay among the wildflowers.
The head gardener's daughter was buried there. Her name had been Scented Hairpin, but since she had been a shy, quiet girl, who was timid with strangers, everyone had called her Mouse. She had the most beautiful eyes that I had ever seen, and she had not been timid when we played the Hopping Hide and Seek Game. Mouse almost always lasted longest and became the queen, and she had also not been timid when she decided that some day we would be man and wife. She had fallen ill when she was thirteen. Her parents had let me hold her hand on her deathbed, and she had whispered the last words of Mei Fei: “I came from the land of Fragrance; to the Land of Fragrance I now return.”
I knelt at the grave. “Mouse, it is Number Ten Ox, and I have something for you,” I said.
I placed the gold-spattered Szech'uen fan in her offering bowl, and I prayed, and then I sat on the grass in the golden sunlight that filtered through the leaves and told her my story. I could not explain it, but somehow I knew that Mouse wouldn't mind the fact that I was in love with Lotus Cloud. I poured out my heart and felt it grow lighter, and the sun was setting as I finished. The breeze always picked up at the approach of evening, and I stayed to watch the willows.
Mouse's heartbroken father had used his art to honor his daughter. The wind sighed through the trees, and the willows began to bend, and then one branch after another reached out and gently swept the young girl's grave.
That night I had a very strange dream. At first it was a tangle of images: Henpecked Ho weeping with a silver comb in his hands, and Bright Star dancing down the path toward a door that always closed, and Miser Shen praying to his daughter, and the Hand of Hell and the Cavern of Bells. Again and again I fled from a great golden tiger mask, and then I ran through a door into a world of whiteness, milky and soft and glowing, and I felt comfortable and safe. Something was forming in the whiteness. I smiled happily, because Mouse had come to see me. She carried the Szech'uen fan, and her beautiful young eyes looked fondly at me.
“How happy I am,” she said softly. “Ever since we held hands and recited the Orphan's Song, I knew that you would fall in love with Lotus Cloud.”
“Mouse, I love you too,” I said.
“You must trust your heart,” she said gravely. “Ox, you have grown very strong. Now you must use all of your strength to touch the queen before the count reaches forty-nine. It must not reach forty-nine, which can mean for ever and ever and ever.” Mouse was fading bac
k into the milky whiteness. “Is not a thousand years enough?” she said faintly, as though from very far away. “The birds must fly…. The birds must fly…. The birds must fly….”
Mouse was gone, and for some reason I knew that it was important for me to understand the glowing whiteness around me. Suddenly I understood that the world was white because I was inside a giant pearl, and with awareness came awakening, and I sat up and blinked in the morning sunlight.
23. Doctor Death
“The extraordinary effect of the tendrils of the Great Root leads to a basic assumption, and that is that the Heart of Power is indeed the ultimate healing agent in the whole world,” said Master Li. “The Duke of Ch'in would never hide such a thing in a treasure trove where he might have to cross all China to get to it. He would keep it with him, right next to his loathsome skin, and you and I are going to have to murder the bastard and take the root from his corpse.”
We were passing once more through the shadow of Dragon's Pillow, where crows gathered to watch us and make rude comments.
“Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?” I asked.
“We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China,” said Master Li, “is overstocked with deranged alchemists.”
In the city of Pingtu, Li Kao examined the faces of street vendors until he found an old lady with gossip written all over her.
“A thousand pardons, Adoptive Daughter, but this humble one seeks an eminent scientist who may be living nearby,” he said politely. “He is a devout Taoist, somewhat seedy in appearance and rather wild of eye, and there is an excellent chance that his house is placed halfway between a cemetery and a slaughterhouse.”
“You seek Doctor Death!” the old lady gasped, fearfully glancing toward a ramshackle house that teetered at the top of a hill. “None but the criminally insane dare climb the path to his House of Horrors, and few ever return!”
He thanked her for the warning and started briskly up the path.
“Almost certainly a gross slander,” Master Li said calmly. “Ox, Taoists are guided by a rather peculiar blend of mysticisms. On the one hand they exalt sages like Chuang Tzu, who taught that death and life, end and start are no more disconcerting than the passage of night and day, but on the other hand they engage in frantic quests for personal immortality. When a scientific genius becomes involved in the mystical mumbo-jumbo, the result is likely to be a lunatic whose quest for eternal life massacres everything in sight, but such poor souls wouldn't willingly harm a fly. Besides,” he added, “it's a perfect day for a visit to a House of Horrors.”
There I could agree with him. Trees in the cemetery sighed in the wind like a moan of mourners, and behind the slaughterhouse a dog howled horribly. Black clouds muttered dark spells above the mountains, and sulphurous lightning streaked the sky, and the ramshackle house upon the hill creaked and groaned in a rising gale that dripped with a thin, weeping rain. We walked through the open door into a room that was littered with carcasses, and where a little old man with a bloodstained beard was attempting to install a pig's heart into a man's cadaver, while cauldrons burped and kettles bubbled and seething vials emitted green and yellow vapors.
Doctor Death sprinkled the heart with purple powder and made mystical gestures with his hands. “Beat!” he commanded. Nothing happened, so he tried yellow powder. “Beat, beat, beat!” He tried blue powder. “Ten thousand curses, why won't you beat?” he yelled, and then he turned around. “Who you?” asked Doctor Death.
“My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character, and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox,” Master Li said with a polite bow.
“Well, my surname is Lo and my personal name is Chan, and I am rapidly losing patience with a corpse that absolutely refuses to be resurrected!” Doctor Death yelled, and then his face and voice softened until he looked to be as gentle as a snowflake and as innocent as a banana. “If I cannot resurrect a stubborn corpse, how can I hope to resurrect my beloved wife?” he said softly.
He turned toward a coffin that had been set up as a shrine, and tears trickled down his cheeks.
“She was not pretty, but she was the most wonderful wife in the world,” he whispered. “Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice and the herbs that she picked in the woods. She sang beautiful songs to cheer me when I was depressed, and she sewed dresses for wealthy ladies to help pay for my studies. We were very happy together, and I know that we will be happy together again. Don't worry, my love, I'll have you out of that coffin in no time!” he yelled.
He turned back to us.
“It's simply a matter of finding the purest ingredients, because I already have an infallible formula,” he explained. “You use ten pounds of peach fuzz—”
“Ten pounds of tortoise hairs,” said Master Li.
“Ten pounds of plum skins—”
“Ten pounds of rabbit horns—”
“Ten pounds of membranes of living chickens—”
“One large spoonful of mercury—”
“One large spoonful of oleander juice—”
“Two large spoonfuls of arsenic oxide—”
“For the toxin generates the antitoxin—”
“And in death there is life, as in life there is death.”
“A colleague!” Doctor Death cried happily, and he wrapped Li Kao in a bloody embrace. “Tell me, Venerable One, do you know of some better method? This one is bound to work sooner or later, but it has been such a very long time, and I fear that my dear wife is growing weary of her coffin.”
“Alas, I am only aware of the classic formula,” Master Li sighed. “My own specialty is the Elixir of Life, but I foolishly left home without an adequate supply, which is why I have come to you.”
“But how fortunate! I have just made a fresh batch.” Doctor Death rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a greasy vial that was filled with thick purple liquid. “One spoonful after each meal and two at bedtime and you will surely live forever,” he said. “I need scarcely mention to a colleague that the Elixir of Life can occasionally have distressing side effects, and that it is best to try it first on a rat.”
“Or a cat,” said Master Li.
“Or a crow.”
“Or a cow.”
“And if you happen to have a useless hippopotamus—”
“Actually, I was planning to try it on an elephant,” said Master Li.
“A wise decision,” Doctor Death said approvingly.
“A small donation,” Master Li said, piling gold coins on a table between somebody's lymph glands and lungs. “May I suggest that you employ a professional grave robber? Digging up corpses can be terribly hard work.”
Doctor Death looked down at the gold with a strange expression on his face, and his voice was so soft that I barely heard him.
“Once there was a poor scholar who needed to buy books, but he had no money,” he whispered. “He sold everything he had to buy a tiny piece of gold, which he concealed in the hollow handle of an alchemist's ladle, and then he went to the house of a rich man and pretended to turn lead into gold. The rich man gave him money so that he could learn how to turn large pieces of lead into gold, and the scholar happily ran to the city to buy the books that he needed. When he returned he discovered that thieves had broken into his house. They had heard that he knew how to make gold, so they had tortured his wife to make her tell where he had hidden it. She was barely alive. He held her in his arms and wept, and she looked at him but she did not know him. ‘But gentlemen,’ she whispered, ‘surely you do not mean to kill me? My husband is a brilliant scientist and a dear sweet kindly man, but he needs someone to look after him. What will he do when I am gone?’ And then she died.”
Doctor Death turned to the coffin and shouted, “Don't worry, my love! Now I can afford to buy a better gr
ade of corpses, and…” He clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh dear!” he gasped, and he turned and trotted over to the cadaver on the table.
“I did not mean to offend you,” he said contritely. “I'm sure that you will do splendidly, and perhaps it would help if you realized how important it is. You see, my wife was not pretty but she was the most wonderful wife in the world. Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice….”
He had forgotten that we existed, and we tiptoed out and started down the hill in the rain. Li Kao had been quite serious about trying the Elixir of Life on an elephant. At the bottom of the hill was a poor old beast that was used to haul logs to the sawmill, and its master was not kind. There were cruel goad marks on the elephant's shoulders, and it was nearly starved. We climbed the fence and Li Kao put one tiny drop of the Elixir on the tip of his knife blade.
“Do you consent?” he asked softly.
The elephant's sorrowful eyes were more eloquent than words—for the love of Buddha, they said, release me from this misery and return me to the Great Wheel of Transmigrations.
“So be it,” said Master Li.
He gently pressed the blade against an open wound. The elephant looked surprised for an instant. Then it hiccupped, hopped high into the air, landed on its back with a mighty crash, turned blue, and peacefully expired.
We raised reverent eves to the House of Horrors.
“Genius!” we cried, and the thin rain wept softly, and an old, cracked, crazy voice drifted upon the cold wind:
In front of our window
Are the banana trees we planted,
Their green shadows fill the yard.
Their green shadows fill the yard,
Their leaves unfold and fold as if
They wish to bare their feelings.
Sadly reclining on my pillow
Deep in the night I listen to the rain,
Dripping on the leaves.
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