Gazing at the Partridge kneeling at his feet, World’s End thought of his younger self and how similar he’d been to this fellow.
Having heard the whole history of the Partridge’s mountain-moving tribe and their predicament, he made up his mind to help. In the first place, as a Buddhist, he could hardly stand by and do nothing now that he knew the secret of the Zaklaman descendants. Second, he was growing quite fond of this young man, who’d confessed frankly that he wasn’t sure if he’d obeyed the rules, a rare act in a society where morality was going downhill. World’s End had a lot of secret knowledge and skills to pass on. Why not to the Partridge?
The monk raised the Partridge to his feet and said, “Even if you only got the grave garment as the cocks crowed and the candle went out, that doesn’t mean you didn’t follow my instructions. I said you had to stop after these events had taken place, but I mentioned nothing of during.”
The Partridge’s heart was filled with joy, and he bowed again in thanks. “Please accept my worshipful devotion, oh great master. It is three lifetimes of good fortune to be received by you and share in your wisdom.”
World’s End hastily stopped him. “None of that here. We gold hunters have never believed in these hierarchies, unlike the mountain movers. We’re all equal. I’ll pass my knowledge on to you, and you’ll pass it to someone else. Any reverse dipper using the techniques of gold hunting, and following the principles of our clan, is automatically one of us. It seems to be destined that I will tell you my secrets, but we will not speak of master or disciple. We are simply of the same clan now.”
Even after that speech, the Partridge insisted on bowing deeply, then stood with his hands respectfully clasped, preparing to receive instruction. World’s End was delighted to have acquired this robe, which he planned to ceremonially burn while chanting prayers, in order to allow the dead woman to gain happiness in the afterlife.
The only harsh words he had to say were about the Partridge’s treatment of the cats. Even if they had inconvenienced him, he ought to have made sure they could get out before sealing the tomb behind him, possibly trapping them in. He shared many Buddhist philosophies with his new pupil, urging him to act with kindness, and to always show mercy to his opponents, rather than fighting to the finish. This way, he would build up good karma.
While the Partridge respected the monk a great deal, he found this a bit preachy. They were just some cats, after all—what was the big deal? But he bit his tongue and tried to be patient, nodding along to the sermon instead.
World’s End went on in this vein for quite some time before he finally exhausted the subject and moved on to the meat of gold hunting. He explained the various traditions and practices one by one. The rules he’d listed before had been extremely abbreviated, and now he went into them in detail, until the Partridge understood them inside and out.
Reverse dippers aren’t really people, more half human and half ghost entering ancient tombs to seek treasure while regular folk are sound asleep. They might take one day or ten to find their way into a grave, but once they’re inside, the ironclad rule is that the coffin cannot be touched after a cock crows. Once the world of daylight asserts itself, the kingdom of night must retreat. As the rhyme goes, “Gold hunters hide from sunny skies, stop work once the rooster cries.” There’s no way around it.
After entering a tomb, gold hunters always light a candle in the southeast corner of the chamber before raising the coffin lid. This is, first, to prevent poisonous fumes from building up and, second, because an agreement was reached millennia ago between the living and the dead: If a candle goes out, that means the treasures in the grave are not to be touched. If you insist on helping yourself anyway, then you’d better be prepared to face the consequences. If your fate is strong, you might well be able to pull this off, but it’s still a route fraught with danger. Nine out of ten people who try this lose their lives. Seeing as the world is full of ancient tombs bursting with precious items, it seems silly to risk your life over some baubles the deceased aren’t ready to let go of yet. Most gold hunters choose to follow this rule and leave well enough alone if a candle flame goes out on them. Besides, an extinguished flame is often a sign that a corpse is about to transform into something undead, and it can also mean that a curse has just been activated. The lighting of a candle is one of the main things that distinguishes gold hunting from other branches of reverse dipping, and there are very good reasons for this practice.
The Partridge absorbed all this. From here on, he would say goodbye to mountain moving. He was a gold hunter now.
World’s End pulled two gold charms from his pocket and said, “Knowledge alone makes you only half a gold hunter; you also need to have at least one of these in order to fully enter the clan. This pair is more than a thousand years old. They belonged to me and one of my colleagues. We pulled off quite a few big jobs together, but he was killed twenty years ago by a nail trap during a reverse dip in Luoyang. Ah, those were heady times…but best not to bring it up now. These charms are yours to keep, and as long as you abide by the rules, you have every right to call yourself a gold hunter for the rest of your days.”
The Partridge reached out with both hands to receive this gift. He hung the charms with pride around his neck, where they could rest against his skin. Again he bowed to World’s End.
The monk asked more questions. He wanted to know about the ancient village, the ghost-hole, the eye of the divine, and finally, the treasure cave in the Western Xia Kingdom.
After hearing the explanation, World’s End nodded slowly. “As for this eye of the divine, I’ve heard a little about it. It’s also known as ‘phoenix gall.’ They say the Yellow Emperor left it behind when he ascended to the heavens, though others believe it comes from a thousand leagues beneath the ground, that it is a gift from the Earth Mother, or that phoenix breath hardens into this stone. In any case, it’s in the shape of a giant human eye and might be one of the true marvels of this world. Initially buried with Emperor Wu at Maoling, it was later liberated by the Scarlet-Browed Army, who declared that the Maoling grave goods belonged to the people. Who would have thought they’d end up in the hands of the Western Xia?”
The Partridge replied, “Your humble servant has seen many of my tribe wither and die in unspeakable agony, thanks to the curse of the ghost-hole. For generations, we’ve been told that this was the result of a long-ago mishap, when a prophecy told of an eye-shaped jade that could look into the ghost-hole. In their ignorance, they created a false eye of the divine, and when they attempted to use it to pierce the depths, they brought upon themselves a curse that could only be broken by finding the true eye. From then on, every single one of us has been engaged in a search for this mysterious artifact. We’ve poured our souls into the hunt, to no avail. Finally, I tracked down the information that it had entered the possession of the Western Xia, and the Mongols had sought it there, but because the kingdom’s treasures were in a secret hiding place, they weren’t able to find it either. The legend tells us of a Western Xia city known as Black Water. A temple near this city, once part of its border wall, is known as Black Water River Meets the Sky. A great minister of the Western Xia, Hu Jing, was passing by Black Water one night when he saw in the sky, ten li from the city, three stars blazing and purple mist drifting between the clouds, and he decreed that the fortification beneath this omen should be turned into a temple, where he hoped to be buried after his death. Unfortunately, he didn’t get his wish when he was assassinated, and so the mausoleum readied for him stood empty. When the Black Water River changed its course, the city that shared its name was swallowed by the desert, and humankind abandoned it. As the rampaging Mongol hordes entered the kingdom, the last Western Xia emperor decreed that all the remaining wealth, the rare treasures and precious artifacts, should be concealed in this vacant tomb. The eye of the divine would have been among them. Everything aboveground in that region has long been e
radicated, and only mystical methods can now tell us where this temple once stood.”
World’s End nodded. “Black Water City lay beyond the Helan Hills, against Green Mountain at one end and the Jade Belt at the other. This is a region rich in feng shui. The Western Xia absorbed the energies of previous dynasties to grow on a vast scale. They were a people heavily influenced by Buddhism but also steeped in folk traditions, so their graves are of an unusual design, hard for those who came after to penetrate. The lost language of the Western Xia might resemble the writing of the Central Plains, but it is far more complicated.”
The Partridge gave a quick nod. “Then a few years ago,” he elaborated, “explorers from the west worked together with local thieves to rob Black Water City of its ancient treasures. They unearthed seven Buddhist towers and took their contents, including many sacred texts in the Western Xia language. These might have included a record of the eye of the divine’s hiding place, but these manuscripts have been taken out of the country now, and we have no way of reading them. If only we could find a reference to the Black Water River Meets the Sky Temple somewhere, that could tell us everything we need to know—and save a lot of trouble.”
“The Western Xia language is mostly indecipherable to us,” cautioned World’s End, “so even if there were such a record, we wouldn’t necessarily understand it. But we know of the three blazing stars and the purple mist, which must refer to some sort of dragon palace—there would surely be a spiritual residue we could uncover with gold divining, even if there are no worldly traces left.”
Gold divining is a branch of feng shui, the most difficult one, because it requires knowledge of both the heavenly arts and geography, using the language of sun and stars to understand the delineations of the Earth. Starting from the basic principles of feng shui and building up, even the most expert student would take five or six years to learn this craft.
World’s End knew that the Partridge was filled with impatience, and so he proposed that they should visit Black Water City outside the Helan Hills together to see if they could get hold of the eye of the divine. Once they’d done that, there’d be plenty of time to learn gold divining.
Hearing that Master World’s End was prepared to intervene personally to help him, the Partridge swelled with gratitude. They quickly made their preparations and set out. Being a monk, World’s End simply changed into his traveling habit. The Partridge, like most mountain movers, went about in the disguise of a Taoist priest—but since it would have attracted too much attention to have a Buddhist and Taoist on a journey together, on this occasion he put on civilian garb, taking on the role of the master’s secular servant.
It’s an arduous trek from Zhejiang to the Helan Hills. Luckily, Master World’s End had a reverse dipper’s hardiness, and advanced in years as he was, he remained nimble and strong. They got a carriage to the Yellow River, where they would catch a ferry that took them as far as Wuxiang Hold, a short distance from Helan.
Waiting for their boat, they looked out at the twists and turns of the river, like a long jade belt winding spectacularly across the landscape. Idly chatting, they got onto events from the past, and World’s End began telling a story from that region.
This was before he’d taken orders, back when he was still a significant figure in the reverse-dipping world. His nickname then was “the Flying Lion” because of his speed and prowess. On one occasion, he was passing through the Green Bronze Valley to the hundred and eight towers in the north. Locals said the river spirits were particularly strong here, and they had to fling some of their possessions from the boat in order to pass.
The Flying Lion had happened to be on a boat transporting scorched earth, making its first voyage along this route. The owner was a miserly salt merchant who ignored the captain’s advice to make an offering. He wouldn’t give up so much as a sack of his cargo, instead scattering a grudging handful of salt into the water.
They’d spent the night just outside Green Bronze Valley. At the inn, an old man with a green hatpin appeared. At the time, everyone wore red pins in their hats, so a green one was very eye-catching. He had a ladle with him and had come to beg for a scoopful. Scorched earth was a highly valuable commodity, so of course the merchant refused to give him any, chasing him off instead.
Compassionate even as a young reverse dipper, the Flying Lion took pity on the old man and used his own money to buy him some scorched earth. This substance could be used instead of lime in coffins as a dehydrating material with a distinctive fragrance—not that the Flying Lion knew what the man wanted to do with it, but he handed it over, and the green hatpin man departed with thanks.
They continued their journey the next day, but when they reached Green Bronze Valley, an enormous turtle easily the size of two or three houses put together, appeared in the river. It rushed toward the boat and overturned it, so the entire cargo sank. Not a single person was harmed. They were all caught in a wave and gently washed ashore. Later on, everyone said it was because World’s End had offered the old man a scoopful of earth that the River God had spared their lives.
The Partridge listened to this story with his mouth agape, marveling at his mentor’s escape from the raging Yellow River itself. So it turned out that compassion brought its own rewards. Then he thought of something else, and said, “I’ve heard that there are a lot of rituals to be followed when taking boats across rivers or oceans. For instance, you can’t talk about sinking or capsizing, because if you mention these things, they will surely happen. There are others—probably as many rules as for gold hunting.”
World’s End was about to reply when the people around them rushed toward the water. The ferry had arrived, so they stopped their conversation, the younger man helping the older on board.
The sky was clear and the sun scorching. They moved quickly over the calm river, not a speck of wind or waves to be seen. There were many passengers, and as neither man was fond of crowds, they tried to find a quiet spot. Leaning against the railing, they watched the passing scenery. Master World’s End pointed out feng shui elements to his new pupil as they came up.
Then, in the middle of a sentence, the Partridge suddenly lowered his voice. “There are ghosts on this boat,” he whispered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Partridge was referring to the handful of white men on the boat. He’d been sneaking glances at them for a while, finding them suspicious. They all clearly had concealed guns, and their luggage was full of shovels, spikes, and long ropes. They huddled together, muttering.
The strange thing was that these foreigners weren’t like any he’d ever encountered before. He’d met quite a few Westerners, and spoke some of their languages, but these men didn’t seem like cautious Englishmen, or stern Germans, or laid-back Americans. They had pale skin and flaxen hair and exuded a gangster-like aura. Where on earth could they be from? Frowning, he examined them more closely, and then he had it: they were Russians.
Could they be on their way to dig up Black Water City’s antiquities? After the Russian Revolution, many people had left the country to live in exile, and quite a few had ended up in China, making a living through black-market dealings.
World’s End, being fairly cosmopolitan himself, naturally understood what the Partridge was driving at. He murmured back, “We’re on a secret mission, and we don’t want to attract attention. Best not to get involved.”
The Partridge replied, “I’m just going over to have a look. If those foreigners plan to steal from Black Water City, that’s close to our target—they might get in our way. We’ll lure them somewhere quiet and finish them off—that’s the safest thing.”
Before World’s End could talk him out of it, the Partridge squeezed through the crowd until he was close enough to eavesdrop. It turned out that of the six people in this group, only five were Russian; the final one was American. The Russians were the descendants of tsarists, currently
engaged in the arms trade. They’d heard that Black Water was full of buried treasures and thought they might try their luck to see if they could make a quick buck there. The American was a young priest who’d spent the last few years doing missionary work in China. During his travels, he’d stumbled upon the ruins of Black Water City. While spreading the word of God elsewhere, he’d gotten talking to these Russian adventurers on the road, and when he happened to mention his discovery, they’d jumped on him and said they had to do some business there, and could he please lead the way back to the city? They’d love to have a look.
Not many people would try to pull a scam on a member of the clergy, and the priest was taken completely unawares. Besides, the Russians barely spoke any English, and the American knew no Russian, so they were able to communicate only in Chinese, which they’d all spent long enough in the country to have learned.
Pricking up his ears, the Partridge noted that every third sentence they spoke had to do with Black Water City. The priest had no idea they were going there on a looting expedition, so he was artlessly describing everything he’d seen, down to the smallest detail. The holy towers were half-buried, he prattled, and full of Buddha statues, every one of them plated in gold and silver, exquisitely crafted. Other figures were carved out of ivory or ancient jade, each more beautifully mystical than the last. It was as if the heavens themselves had created these marvels.
The Russians practically drooled, glugging down vodka from their flasks and wishing they had wings so they could get to Black Water quicker. As soon as they’d dug up these precious items, they’d surely unload them as fast as they could for big money.
The Partridge chuckled grimly to himself. He’d visited these towers himself and was very familiar with the ruins being described. What these foreigners didn’t know was that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, there’d already been an archaeological frenzy from Europeans heading to China, and Black Water had practically been picked clean. The ruins now held nothing but worthless clay figurines and tiles, most of them smashed. The American priest had no appreciation for antiquities and had apparently taken these crudely colored statues to be ivory and the like. To think the Russians actually believed him.
The Dragon Ridge Tombs Page 15
