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  “I did. But it didn’t work.”

  “Why?” he railed.

  Dong enunciated each word one at a time, “Because there was no malign spirit to exorcise.”

  Incredible – all this time and he wasn’t possessed! Bolin puffed out his cheeks. Out of all the outcomes he had imagined, he had not expected this one. “I suppose I should feel relieved but I don’t. I still have to face my bad dreams, my visions, nightmares and the voices. They’re as real as my hand.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Dong said. “But believe me; I have the ear of the gods. This robe is full of power and in all the exorcisms I have done, the charm never fails.”

  “I-I, don’t understand,” Bolin stammered. “Have you come across this kind of thing before?”

  Dong let out a long, slow hiss and said, “No I haven’t. But I have heard it does happen on rare occasions. I am sorry I was unable to help. Here, take this amulet, it may help.”

  “Thank you,” Bolin said. He was confused. If he wasn’t possessed, what were these visions? And what about the voices? Would the amulet quieten them?

  He headed for the gate. As he stepped beyond the threshold, a sharp pang shot through his forehead, doubling him up in pain. He thrust his palms against his temples. The wind gusted amongst the reeds and the trees and a man’s voice insinuated itself into the creases in his soul, whispering,

  “Help me. Release me.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The Zhongguo

  Depending on the karma being planted,

  we harvest the corresponding transmigration.

  He who feels, corresponds; he who is the cause, becomes the effect.

  This is the Law of Tao which no man can escape.

  To free himself from the transmigration cycle, a man must become the Tao itself.

  TAOIST SCRIPTURE

  Ru was playing in their small garden while Luli sat at her writing desk. She moved her calligraphy brush over the paper. She was crafting ‘Zhongguo’, the two-character word for China. The Chinese character ‘zhong’ comprised four independent brush strokes. The character looked like an arrow hitting a target in the ‘middle’, from which it derived its core meaning. She added the descriptive character ‘guo’, meaning kingdom – hence Zhong-guo, Middle Kingdom.

  Encapsulated in one word – Zhongguo – were the three ideas: that China was the kingdom in the middle of the earth, that it was a gateway between Heaven and the rest of the world, and that the Han people were a bridge between Heaven and the peoples of the world. Whenever any divine ch’i flowed from Heaven, it first appeared in the Zhongguo. Above all others, the gods favoured the Middle Kingdom and her Han people. Both were chosen to fulfil a special purpose on earth. And one day, one day soon, Luli would join that special purpose and help summon divine ch’i not only to the Zhongguo, but to the whole world.

  That was a noble idea, but her attention was drawn by the jerky, uneven nature of her brush strokes. They lacked her usual subtlety and finesse. Something was wrong and it wasn’t her. She decided to check the day’s almanac. She rifled through the charts, her eyes following the deft movement of her index finger, along row and column, until she found the relevant entry.

  It indicated that today was a good day to receive a visitor.

  Would that be Dong, she wondered? The Abbot often sent her parcels of food and bundles of firewood, but rarely visited himself. Perhaps her neighbour Bolin? But he never came to see her, because when he did call, it was for Ru. Of late, Bolin had joined the conscripts working on the wall, so she hadn’t seen much of him.

  So long as it wasn’t that vile Bao. The man was dangerous and always abusing his senior position. She’d heard about his dreadful antics at the White Mulberry Inn the other day. She wasn’t surprised. She was a widow and even if she admitted it herself, she was still pretty – not youthful pretty, but elegant pretty. Bao would often pester her for a kiss and a cuddle and sometimes more. She was having none of that! What a gross apology for a man.

  Then it must be Feng. Twice, she had called on his house in the Yamen. The Lady Lan had asked her about some letters for him. He would be along to collect them sooner or later.

  She pulled the lapels of her robe and rubbed her hands together. In a cup, she fingered a dozen bronze cash and a silver tael. Her finances were good. The Po Office business brought her a steady if unspectacular income. While it was over thirty years since the Hongwu Emperor had thrown the Mongols out, people were wary of the uneasy peace with them. Villagers in a border fortress like Shanhaiguan lived in daily fear that the blue wolves would swarm out of the northern steppes and re-occupy the Zhongguo. In the shadows of an uncertain future, people were cautious, but that failed to deter them from abiding by the traditional belief in soul transmigration.

  Since the Song Dynasty, donors had left Po or soul envelopes for their successors and even passed on IOUs. Of late, the Great Ming Code had confirmed that financial debts were transferable in that way, so a soul donor could pass on their financial debt to the person who inherited their soul, a debt the latter would be liable to pay in full. Luli earned a fee from everyone who left a Po envelope with her, providing her with a profitable livelihood.

  She put away her cup of money, tidied her writing desk and wandered into the herb garden. There she was pleased to find a few brave shoots nudging up through the cold earth. When they flowered, she’d need them to treat her growing list of patients.

  “Yay!” Ru let out a muted shriek of pleasure from the end of the garden.

  What had he found now? A snail? A dead bird? She rushed down the garden path to share her son’s delight. He was playing with sand and gravel. He loved making towers and battlements, like the Shanhaiguan fortifications, and then knocking them down.

  The boundary of their property was marked by a low stone wall. It was made of the same stone as the fascia of the Shanhaiguan section of the Great Wall and constructed in a similar manner. Ru was kneeling next to the wall and was moving his finger along the folds of a near-vertical crack in the stone.

  He was trying to show her something.

  “What is it?” she asked, tousling his hair.

  She looked again, this time, with a wide angle in her eye, out of her whites.

  “Yes,” she shouted with glee. “I see it. I see her.”

  It was there.

  The profile of a face.

  Ru ran his finger up and down the seam in the stone, highlighting the woman’s profile. How many times had she glanced at the wall and not seen that profile? A young woman’s face: proud forehead, puckered lips and dainty chin. It was there, in front of her, if she’d only had the eyes to see. Hah. And she was meant to have yin-yang eyes. Did Ru have them as well now?

  She patted him on the back, “Thank you for showing me.”

  He flashed a quizzical look.

  “No,” she replied, “I don’t know who the woman is or was, or how her profile became embedded in the stone.”

  He hadn’t finished. He ran the flat of his palm along the vertical part of the boundary wall, from left to right and then looked up at her with a broad beaming smile. He repeated the action, moving his flat palm over the wall’s vertical surface in the same direction as the last time, removing it and then beginning again at the same place. He was stroking the wall, as if he was smoothing the coat of a dog or cat.

  Wait a moment. Then she realised what he was doing.

  When she was a callow apprentice, she remembered how Jin had shown her how stonemasons built a wall by finding and using the Tao patterns in the stone, a feat they achieved by matching blocks hewn from the same part of the quarry. This in turn allowed them to align the same blocks in the wall, in much the same way as carpenters would join the similar pieces of wood in a table to maintain the flow of ch’i in the grain. When she looked closer, the stone in the wall had a subtle grain that ran through it
and in the same direction as the woman’s profile was pointing. How curious? That was the way the ch’i ran through the wall and that was what he was showing her.

  “What a clever boy.” She kissed him on the forehead. He squirmed like all sons do when kissed by their mothers and tried to rub it off. She knew he was pleased both with his discoveries and that he had communicated them to her.

  “Well, Ru,” she said. “I must have gazed a thousand times at this wall and never noticed the currents of ch’i, let alone which way the currents ran. What a brilliant son I have!”

  He broke into a smile that meant more to her than all the riches in the Emperor’s treasury. But how strange were these faces in the wall?

  CHAPTER 14

  General Tiande’s Letters

  The bird flies high in the sky to avoid being shot by arrows.

  The mouse burrows into the earth to escape predators.

  Don’t you even have as much understanding as these two creatures?

  THE BOOK OF CHUANG TZU

  The long, disconsolate shadows of dusk accompanied Feng as he followed Qitong through the busy alleys of the Yamen. He had waited until then because he didn’t feel safe in broad daylight. He had decided to walk in preference to taking the sedan chair, as everyone would recognise it and it would draw unnecessary attention to his movements.

  An old street vendor selling kindling and firewood winked at him with mischievous intent. Did he know him? Or did his father – no, adoptive father? Oh, it was so confusing. His new identity was like an ill-fitting garment.

  He felt anonymous amongst the heaving market crowds. He turned around and for an awful moment wondered if someone was following him. No, that was absurd. He was nervous and suspicious. Did people know his true identity? That question nagged at his soul like a demon out of the hell of Yama. What difference would it make anyway? He was a member of a branch of the imperial family rebelling against the incumbent Emperor. No one knew that, except him and his mother and… who else?

  Either way, he was a high profile, legitimate target for the Emperor. In no way could he afford to be naive about his newfound position. The Shanhaiguan Fortress was the centre of the military might of the Prince of Yan. As soon as the prince turned his considerable forces against his nephew’s, everything changed. From private conversations with the prince’s vassals, Feng knew that many harboured reservations about supporting their liege lord. Some argued that it was immoral to defy an incumbent Emperor. And what if they were defeated? Their ancestors would pour bad karma on them and their families. Shun had gone to extreme lengths to avoid torture, so Feng was well aware that the Emperor’s spies had already infiltrated the garrison. He had to tread on egg shells. Pulling his hat over his head, he followed his house boy through the crowds.

  Qitong walked in front of him, holding up a lantern. Feng felt safer in the shadows of the ministry buildings. The streets of the Yamen were bustling with petty officials and their obsequious retainers. Men scuttled by with yokes over their shoulders, balancing heavy loads for their masters and mistresses. Sedan chairs passed this way and that, each more important than the other, jostling for every last morsel of space. A scruffy street vendor was peddling a thick concoction of pumpkin soup and dumplings. The aroma was warming, but he had no appetite. Not for food, anyway.

  He wanted Tiande’s letters.

  As he passed by, a beggar grabbed the hem of his robe and cried, “Cash for a crust, Master. Help an old soldier, would you?”

  For fear of catching something nasty, he usually never bothered with vermin. A twinge in the man’s tone of voice made him pause and he asked, “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before?”

  “In a past life?” the man asked, in all sincerity.

  “No, not that,” Feng said with cold derision. Qitong hurried back with the lantern. In the light, he could see the beggar was a bearded fellow in a tatty black turban. “I know. It was outside the banquet hall the other day.”

  “The Jinyiwei moved me on,” the beggar complained and spat liberally on the ground. Then he added, “You know, your father often helped me.”

  “Hah! I don’t believe you,” Feng said and with a gesture of contempt, turned away.

  “You’re Park’s son, aren’t you?” The beggar called after him.

  “I am,” he admitted, swallowing the contradiction. “What’s it to do with you?”

  “Nothing sir, nothing at all. Just saying. So sorry for your loss. All the beggars are. See, he was good to us, your father.”

  Maybe what he was saying was true, although Feng had never seen Park stop and talk to beggars.

  “You seem to know me, but who are you? What do they call you?”

  “I am Kong, Beggar King,” the man said, bowing with reverence.

  “Left your crown at home?” Feng said.

  “No sir, don’t wear a crown,” Kong replied. “Nor do I have a home.”

  Feng felt pangs of guilt and delved into his pocket. He dropped a string of bronze cash into Kong’s mud-besmirched hands.

  “Thank you kindly, sir,” he murmured, rubbing his hands around the coins like he’d been given the keys to Heaven. “You’re as generous as your father, may his spirit find its way home.”

  A crowd surged by and jolted Feng out of the conversation. He remembered his purpose. Besides, he had heard enough. Cheered by this odd encounter with a gentleman of the road, he went on his way.

  By the time he and Qitong reached the west gate, the night guards were taking over from the day shift. To reach Luli’s house, he had to exit the fortress, a rare experience for him. The only occasions he did venture out of the Yamen were to further hone his sword-fighting skills in the military practice yard, or to accompany his father for a ride into the Yanshan Mountains or along the coastal salt marshes.

  Luli lived in Shanhai village, barely one li beyond the west gate. At this time of year, every one of the three hundred paces was a mud bath from the persistent rain, churned up by the scores of wagons and carts bringing copious supplies to the fortress. He passed a few folks returning to the fortress, clutching paltry quantities of firewood. Not enough for tinder, let alone for the night.

  As dusk settled around them like an ancient pall, he and Qitong approached the old, rickety wooden houses of Shanhai village. A stray dog began barking at Qitong. Others joined in and soon there was a canine cacophony. A black cat scampered out in front of him in pursuit of a rodent. He puffed out his cheeks. Who was more afraid, the mouse or him? He had to pull himself together and he didn’t want to be away for long. His mother – no, his adopted mother – could pass at any time.

  It was dark when they arrived outside the old Po Office. A solitary candle light flickered inside. Feng wondered how karma had transpired to make him sneak through the village like a thief. Was he so scared someone would discover his new identity? A part of him still clung to the belief that he was Park’s son and that this was all a macabre joke. As he clutched Park’s deathbed instructions, that fantasy left him like a fox chased by hounds.

  The clepsydra at the Bell and Drum Tower boomed across the garrison, marking the first night quarter. It dispersed amongst the battlements and towers and the beyond that, the sea, the mountains and the coastal plain.

  Qitong, lantern in hand, knocked on the door. Feng heard footsteps and the door opened.

  “Who’s there? Luli?” he whispered.

  No answer. He could only see a shadowy profile. He heard a grunt.

  “Ru? Is that you?”

  He stepped into a dimly-lit room, bathed in shadows and the strong smell of camphor. His fingers danced on a large wooden box nestling by the entrance where he stood. Someone shuffled across the room towards him.

  “Who is it? What do you want?” Luli demanded.

  “It’s me, Feng,” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “Oh, it’s you
,” Luli replied, like she was expecting him. “It’s dark – and who’s that on the threshold?”

  “It’s Qitong,” Feng said. “He’ll stay outside.”

  “Fine,” Luli replied. “Come on in and sit down. Ru will light a fire.” Luli delved into her sleeves and gave Ru a borer and a piece of wood. With dextrous hands, Ru enticed fire from the kindling and soon a fire burnt brightly in the hearth. Ru glanced up at him, his moon-face round and friendly. Luli lit another candle stub and held it up, sending light and shadows dancing like ancient ghosts across the room. It was full of objects sacred and profane, lamps, cong, bi, pi, cauldrons, caskets, boxes, shelving and calligraphed sayings, drawings and paintings crowded on the walls. A row of chests lined up against one wall, obedient like parade-ground soldiers.

  “Oh, I’m so rude! Ru, make our guest some tea. You’d like some wouldn’t you?” Luli asked Feng, inviting him to sit. He nodded.

  Luli’s face was aglow with a vibrant luminescence and her intense eyes seemed to peer right through him. She appeared younger. Even her movements were lithe and fluid, like a twenty-year-old, not the forty-year-old woman he knew. Either way, the charm of her presence put him at his ease.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do more to help your mother,” she said.

  “You did what you could and I thank you for coming,” Feng said, bowing low.

  “How is she today?” Luli asked.

  “The same. Well, actually, I mean, she’s deteriorating,” he flushed, embarrassed at mixing up his words. He was in two minds, no mistaking that.

  “Boil some of the herbs I left for her and make a tisane. It’ll revive her.”

  “I’ll remind Precious,” he replied with a respectful bow.

  Ru brought the tea and Luli poured him some. He took a sip from a chipped porcelain cup. The tea had a smooth, fragrant aroma. He smiled at Ru and the man-boy slunk behind his mother, coy and shy – nothing new there then.