Buying the train tickets to Beijing took out a huge chunk of our savings, but there was no option. Our small town was no place to pursue gold hunting. With a small bag packed, the jade piece safely tucked away in one pocket, and the rest of my cash in a bundle, I said goodbye to my weeping mother and promised to stay safe. My father kept his back turned, and I left with a heavy heart, hoping he would change his mind when I returned successful.
The train chugged through the night toward the capital city, and I could barely sleep for thinking what awaited us there. I’d never gone outside my home province before, so I relied on half-remembered tales of my grandfather’s wanderings for guidance. The next morning, we asked directions, and a short bus ride later, we had found our way to Pan Market, the place to go for antiques. All we found was an assortment of old vases, decrepit watches and clocks, three-inch-long embroidered shoes for bound feet, valueless bronze money, snuffboxes—objects most people had lying around the house. Still, in the midst of this plenty, my discolored little jade moth seemed too insignificant to bring out.
Kai, though, had something special: a jade amulet he always carried with him. He’d inherited it from his father, who’d liberated it from a bandit’s body during his time in the army in Xinjiang. The jade piece was oddly shaped and ancient-looking, covered with pictographs that might have been a map or some archaic language.
I’d seen that amulet many times. Kai had shown it to me because I knew a lot about antiques through my grandfather’s stories. On this one, though, I drew a blank—nothing like it was mentioned in the manual.
Seeing the antiques stalls, Kai was ready to offer up his jade for appraisal, but I grabbed his arm. “This is the only thing you have to remember your father by. Don’t part with it so quickly—we’re not desperate yet.”
Casually lingering by stall after stall, fingering the merchandise, we came to one where the goods seemed a notch above the garbage everyone else had. The old guy running the place had a weathered face. A single gold tooth gleamed incongruously in his mouth. We got to chatting, and he told us he was from Hainan Island. His dad had been a craft finder, so he had enough old artifacts with him to start a small antiques stall.
“Craft finder”—wasn’t that just a fancy way of saying he’d gotten the stuff out of tombs? Other people might not have noticed, but I hadn’t been brought up on my grandfather’s stories for nothing.
Innocently, I asked, “So your father was a gold hunter in his time. Tell me, did he ever encounter any big dumplings?” In our lingo, a dumpling was a corpse that had been preserved particularly well, with no sign of decay. A big dumpling, well, that would mean trouble, a body that was zombified or demon-possessed, something unclean, like the creature we’d encountered up in the hills.
At these words, Gold Tooth instantly sat upright and looked at me with a great deal more respect. He asked courteously if my associate and I would like to go for a meal of boiled mutton, his treat. He quickly packed up his cart and shepherded us to a hotpot restaurant swarming with customers. What space wasn’t taken up by humanity was full of fragrant steam and the babble of different dialects.
We found an empty corner table and wedged ourselves in. As we ate, Gold Tooth opened his mouth wide and tapped on the tooth. “Young gentlemen, this gold tooth—it’s white Buddha gold, plucked from a dumpling’s mouth. I couldn’t bear to sell it, so I kept it for myself.”
What kind of thing was that to talk about halfway through a meal? Trying to change the subject, I told him about some of my grandfather’s adventures, which seemed to impress him.
In turn, Gold Tooth spoke about his father and how he had relied on the Luoyang shovel to detect treasures—this was a technique that involved sticking a spade deep into the soil, pulling it out, and then sniffing it to discover what lay beneath. I joked that his father must have been a bit of an amateur. My gold-hunting ancestors wouldn’t have dreamed of using anything as vulgar as a spade—they could simply glance at the ground and know what it held, particularly if the feng shui was good.
Gold Tooth listened to me prattle on. “Young master Hu,” he eventually said. “I’ll admit, you seem to know what you’re talking about. Even at my age, I feel I’ve learned something from you. It’s rare to meet someone so young who possesses your knowledge. What a shame you aren’t putting it to good use.”
He sighed and seemed to make up his mind about something. He told us he had a friend who might have a job for us—in fact, good fortune must have made us show up at his stall that day, just when this friend needed someone with our skills to help him carry out his expedition into the Taklimakan Desert. Of course, Kai and I were immediately interested. Especially when Gold Tooth explained that his friend was the legendary archaeologist Professor Chen of Peking University and that this expedition was being financed by some American millionaire. It was a chance to make my parents proud.
We arrived at the university, where Gold Tooth swept past the security guards and led us straight to Professor Chen’s office. My first sight of the professor took me aback: he was far older than I’d expected. I had doubts that this living fossil was strong enough to head into the second-largest desert in the world.
Next to the professor was his assistant, Hao Aiguo, a typical scholar—hair as messy as a bird’s nest, thick glasses perched on his nose. Gold Tooth explained why he had brought us here.
Mr. Hao sized us up. He dispensed with any polite words and launched straight in. “This is completely irregular, of course,” he said. “But the fact is, we need your skills, and most of all your expertise with feng shui. If you aren’t rock-solid on that point, well, there’s the door.” He looked directly at Gold Tooth and added, “I don’t care who recommended you. How old are you boys, anyway?”
“Twenty-five,” I snapped, stepping on Kai’s foot to keep him quiet. “We’re older than we look.”
Professor Chen seemed to find his assistant’s words too harsh. He’d been good friends with Gold Tooth’s father, who frequently brought him artifacts to evaluate. Hastily, he stood from his sofa and tried to make amends, smiling and nodding. “It is indeed rare to find two young men who know how to cross the great Taklimakan Desert,” he told us. “Bookworms like Mr. Hao and I need strapping guides like you to show the way. The thing is, what we’re looking for lies buried far below the desert’s yellow sands. And the Peacock River, which once flowed abundantly, dried up long ago, so we can’t rely on it to trace our route. What Mr. Hao is asking is, can your feng shui knowledge help us in this regard?”
Of course I recognized what he needed—the version of feng shui known as bending the sky. I’d never actually put it into practice, but I wasn’t about to tell them that. Scratching my head bashfully, I smiled ingratiatingly. “Honored Professor, I hate to boast, but you are fortunate to have found us. I don’t know where I should start….”
I spewed out my bellyful of knowledge, everything I remembered from the manual. I knew it inside out. Mr. Hao, who must have assumed I was some poor relative of Gold Tooth trying to bluff my way in, began to look at me in a different light.
“…and as for the grave, it’s not a simple matter of pinpointing its location. This branch of study is about the triangulation of earth, sky, and humanity.”
I babbled on, describing how feng shui shows us the continuity in death of what we experienced in life, how all good and bad fortune comes straight from the dragon’s veins. Our goal might be buried beneath ten centuries of sandstorms, but sky and land leave their traces, and one who knows how to read them can ferret it out.
As I completed my breathless recitation, Professor Chen leaped to his feet again, this time applauding. “Comrade Hu, well said! The heavens must have opened their eyes to our need, sending you along just at the right time. Xinjiang has indeed gone from lush green fields to desert over the last thousand years or more. The grasslands and rivers are completely gone, buried beneath the unforgiving sand, and we’d have no hope of finding these Silk Road tombs without
the art of feng shui. This is the most effective way. I’d like to formally offer the two of you a place on our expedition team.”
Hao Aiguo came over to shake our hands warmly, all the while apologizing. “So sorry. We academics are far too suspicious,” he said. “I should never have questioned your abilities.”
I said nothing, but in my head I was chuckling. It was a good thing they’d stopped me just then, as I couldn’t have gone on much longer without showing how little I understood. Still, I figured with my knowledge of Grandpa’s manual, I stood as good a chance of finding that tomb as anyone.
Just as I was feeling pleased with myself, a young woman walked into the room. Professor Chen rushed to introduce us. “This is Miss Yang from New York,” he said. “She’ll be paying the expenses for our trip. Naturally, she’ll be joining us on the expedition. Although tender in years, Julie Yang is already one of National Geographic’s most highly respected photographers.”
I shook her hand and tried to remember how Americans greet each other. Didn’t it go something like “Har…har…harloh?”
Miss Yang smiled. “Mr. Hu, I happen to know Chinese. Let’s speak in your language. And please do call me Julie.” Who’d have thought she’d have such good command of Mandarin, without even a trace of an accent?
Julie shook hands with Kai, then said she had a question. She’d been listening from next door and was impressed by my qualifications and my knowledge of astrology and feng shui. But she didn’t see what Kai’s credentials were. It was a major undertaking to venture into the desert, and she couldn’t afford to carry any deadweight.
I hadn’t realized Americans could be so blunt. Seeing that this girl didn’t think much of him, Kai pouted. “What’s so dangerous about Xinjiang?” he huffed. “When I was hunting bandits there with my dad, we shot dozens of them at Niya oasis, and I beat up the bandit chief myself. Look, this was part of my haul.” With that, he pulled out his big jade amulet.
Standing beside him, I silently urged him to zip his lips. How could anyone believe his story? The incident with the Xinjiang bandits would have happened when Kai was still in diapers. The closest he’d come to that part of China was eating Xinjiang kebabs.
I was prepared to threaten not to go unless Kai came too, but Julie and Professor Chen were too busy examining his jade amulet to protest further. Their eyes followed it around the room as he brandished it, not even blinking. Gold Tooth was impressed too. “My stout young friend, this is an excellent piece, at least a thousand years old,” he said. “Perhaps as early as Tang. How did you come by it?” Kai puffed up, repeating with gusto the story of his father keeping the jade piece as spoils of a Xinjiang skirmish. Not that anyone was listening to him—they were gazing closely at the carvings on the jade, which Hao Aiguo and the professor identified as Guidong—the language of the tribe we were going in search of! Just like that, Julie agreed to let Kai join the party. She promised us ten thousand American dollars each, and the same again if we managed to find the lost city of Jingjue.
Professor Chen and Julie’s father had been fascinated by the tales of Jingjue City, a prosperous, magnificent metropolis, a beacon of glory in the golden age of the Western Regions. But it seemed some catastrophe had befallen the city, and after the death of its queen, Jingjue vanished altogether. The glories of the past were now buried beneath the golden sands of the desert, with only a few documents left to prove they’d even existed. Legend had it that the queen of Jingjue was the most beautiful woman in the Western Regions, and, like the sun, her appearance would diminish the stars and moon to nothing.
Julie’s father had led an expedition of five Chinese and American scholars in search of this lost city. Despite having undertaken the most thorough preparations before venturing into the sea of sand, not one of them had returned. Having just turned eighteen, Julie had come into her inheritance, and was determined to use the money to retrace her father’s footsteps.
Our goal was to explore and chart the ancient tomb, but also, with any luck, to discover the bodies of those five explorers and give them a decent burial. Julie was a photographer and everyone else in the group an academic, so I somehow ended up as the expedition leader, with Kai as my deputy. It was all settled quickly.
As soon as we were a safe distance from the university, Kai and I burst into loud whoops. Gold Tooth was grinning from ear to ear. “Brilliant performance, young man. You really fooled them,” he said to me.
“What do you mean?” I was a little put out. “That was all hard-earned knowledge.”
“Keep that up and you’ll do just fine. The eggheads just want someone there to hold their hands and keep them from getting lost. As for Miss Yang, that’s a sad case. Her father was a big deal on Wall Street; archaeology was only supposed to be his hobby. Who knew he’d vanish on one expedition, not leaving a single clue, just a massive inheritance for his daughter? She might be American, but he was Chinese, and by our traditions, we bury our dead in our hometowns. Knowing her father is lying abandoned in that scorching desert—of course she wants to get him back.”
“Can we talk about something more cheerful?” muttered Kai. “Or go get more food?”
Ignoring him, Gold Tooth pulled something from an inner pocket. “You two haven’t been in the business long. I don’t suppose you have any mojin charms, do you?” I shook my head. Charms? All I had was half an old manual.
“Look,” said Gold Tooth thoughtfully, “I wouldn’t normally do this, but something tells me you’ll need these more than I do.” He pressed a couple of small, hard objects into my and Kai’s palms. “Hang on to these mojin talismans. It kills me to let them go, but I know you’ll take care of them. They were my father’s.” When I tried to say something, he waved away my protests. “I can’t have you going out there unprotected. I’m not likely to face any undead in the middle of Beijing, but as for you…Besides, I won’t lie—the old professor’s going to give me a good fee for introducing the pair of you. This is the least I can do.”
Kai and I nodded and put away our new charms next to our black donkey hooves. Hopefully, they’d keep us safe from whatever we were going to encounter—though I was personally hoping there would be nothing more threatening than some sand and perhaps the odd snake!
“Now come along,” said Gold Tooth briskly. “There’s a lot to be done.” He led us back to the market, where we went from stall to stall, buying up all the supplies we’d need for a desert expedition. Julie Yang would be paying for it, after all, so we might as well be well equipped.
Finally, our new friend led us to an acquaintance, a stern-faced lady called Sister Han. After he explained what we wanted, she silently led us to the back of her shop, where a secret trapdoor led to a cellar full of firearms. My eyes were popping open, but I tried to look calm as I selected a couple of rifles for Kai and me, and a small handgun too. I’d borrowed my dad’s police pistol for target practice with tin cans, but this was a whole different set of artillery.
“Ghosts aren’t going to be scared off by bullets, are they?” Kai said, grinning. He was clearly pleased with his new toy.
“There will be more than ghosts where you’re going,” scolded Gold Tooth. “Bandits and wild animals, I’m sure. You must keep your guard up. The desert’s a dangerous place—otherwise why wouldn’t more people live there?”
—
A few days later, Kai and I found ourselves in our own compartment on a train speeding across the wide expanse of the Western Regions.
As my friend snored loudly, I watched the scenery whiz by, the city falling away and the countryside growing scrubby, showing signs of the desert we would soon be in. How incredible—just a week ago we’d been stuck in our village, and here we were heading for the other side of China!
Hao Aiguo stepped into our cabin and almost fainted from the stench of Kai’s feet. “Comrade Hu, the professor would like to discuss a few matters with you,” he told me.
I looked out the window. It was still light, but I had no id
ea what time it was. Throwing on my clothes, I followed Hao Aiguo to the next compartment, where Professor Chen and Julie were studying a map. They waved me to a chair, and Mr. Hao poured me a glass of water.
“Tomorrow we’ll arrive at Xi’an, where three of my students will join us—the final members of our team,” Professor Chen said. “Since you’re the leader of this expedition, there’s something I’d like to talk over with you first.”
“That’s right, Mr. Hu,” Julie Yang added. “The professor and I are thinking we should start at Bosten Lake. From there we can head south along the bed of the old Peacock River. This should lead us deep into the desert, close to where Jingjue City might be. What do you think?”
I laughed inwardly. These academics and rich folk were good at talking, but what they were suggesting would have us walking in circles around the Gobi Desert. Their Z-shaped route was a death sentence—if thirst and heat didn’t finish us off, exhaustion would. I advised them to find a local guide as soon as we arrived at Xinjiang—a far better resource than any number of maps.
At Xi’an, we met Professor Chen’s archaeology students: honest-looking Sa Dipeng, tall and sturdy Chu Jian, and a young woman, Ye Yixin, whom they called Little Ye. There were now eight of us in the group.
When we arrived at Xinjiang, I phoned one of my grandfather’s army friends. He was a native of the province, but he didn’t know any guides. Finally, by asking around, he introduced us to an old herder who might be suitable. His name was Asahati Amati, but he went by the nickname Asat Amat, which means “living map.”
Old Asat Amat, pipe dangling from his mouth, shook his head repeatedly. “No way, no way at all. It’s the windy season now,” he told us. “If we go into the desert, Old Hu is sure to punish us.”
Old Hu—or Allah—was the god the people of the western provinces worshiped. No relation to me, of course. Trying to persuade him, I got Professor Chen to produce his documentation, which said that we were doing the government’s work. Julie Yang butted in to say she was willing to buy all his livestock from him—in fact, she’d double his usual price.
The City of Sand Page 4
