Chapter 7 The Man Who Knows Everyone
THE MAN WHO KNOWS EVERYONE
Thirty-three years ago …
Kowloon Walled City is an experience.
Half an hour after Mei Chi arrives at the Walled City, someone tries to rob her, only to give up in disgust when they realize she has nothing at all to steal. Her bracelet is so small, so cheap, it doesn’t even register to a thief.
Later, two men try to drag her into an alley, pawing at her dress.
The fact that she is covered in Li Fan’s blood doesn’t deter them.
The first one she kicks so hard between the legs that he faints, the refrain Catch him running through her head.
The other man rips out a fistful of her hair before she manages to escape.
After that, she lurks in open spaces, afraid of the side alleys and quiet streets. Afraid of every man or stranger.
A bad day, certainly.
Then nighttime comes, and that is worse.
At first, Mei Chi feels cautious relief at seeing the streets empty.
Children dart indoors, called inside by uneasy parents.
Adults run from work or errands, fleeing home.
Even pickpockets and tough men and phoenix girls are nowhere to be seen, having disappeared to houses where they peer out anxiously from spirit-warded windows.
Before long, the only people left on the Walled City streets are the drunk, the opiate-fuddled, and the homeless.
Alone in the quiet, she finds a doorway to crouch in, dirty and still famished, desperate enough to drink from a rancid puddle on the concrete steps.
It tastes the way sewage smells, and upsets her belly.
By the time she looks up again, it is fully dark.
In these early days, the Walled City is merely a squatter’s ground.
Much of it is old fort buildings; once regal, now grotesque and old.
Shacks and ramshackle shelters are beginning to fill the free spaces, but it has not yet knifed upward in looming, unstable towers.
And so the transition from day to night is starkly noticeable, because the sky is actually visible.
As the sun drowns itself under the horizon, the first ghost comes creeping out, an odd frog-like man who breathes fire. Mei Chi has an understanding of ghosts but no memory of seeing one; her limbs freeze rigid, and she cannot even run for fear.
There is no refrain running through her head, no urge to commit inexplicable violence; she is prey, here. Not predator. The ghost rampages down the street, chattering inanely to itself while she huddles in the doorway, petrified with quiet terror.
Soon enough, the narrow sidewalks fill with the riotous dead: Ghosts with bony faces and iron needles for hair, ghosts with multiple heads, ghosts with stinking, bulbous growths that ooze pus or acid.
Ghosts with pinprick mouths and distended bellies, whistling hideously as they beg for food they cannot eat.
Ghosts who have taken on animal traits, with claws or gills or spikes.
Ghosts who look normal, yet their flesh is lighter than mist. Ghosts who are pools of inhuman darkness, ghosts with exploded bodies or bleeding eyes, ghosts who swing from lampposts by their own viscera, ghosts whose heads detach or whose necks unwind like ribbons, ghosts heaving with diseases and scabs, beautiful ghosts with white hair and red dresses who scream like air raid sirens.
Ghosts who look like little old ladies or fragile young children until you touch them on the shoulder and they turn around, ravenous of tooth and shrieking with demonic fury.
Ghosts, ghosts, ghosts everywhere.
Spirits flow and tumble and streak through alleys, over railings, up concrete steps, in gutters and in sewers, from rooftops and electrical lines, clawing or baying at warded windows and protected doorways, coming after the unlucky living to cause torment or even death.
It is malice, but undirected malice; the wild, flailing trauma of many thousands of lives cut short through mass-scale violence. When the ghosts cannot find humans to torment, they turn on each other, bigger ones shredding smaller ones.
For these are the years of war and devastation, when the distressed dead far outnumber the peaceful dead, and threaten to outnumber the fearful living.
Even in Hong Kong, which has seen less death than other big Chinese cities, the slaughter is leaving its mark.
And the Japanese occupiers naturally do not want vengeful spirits hanging around.
They banish what they can, but there are too many for even them to exorcise; the rest are effectively chased away by wards and protective fu talismans.
With nowhere else to dwell, the ghosts flee to the Walled City, the place where laws and good intentions come to die and unlucky girls get lost in the shuffle. Kowloon is awash with supernatural violence; all of Hong Kong’s collective spiritual pain is compacted into a single, decrepit district.
Before long, an ashen-faced ghost with half its head missing spots Mei Chi, alone and frightened and very much lost in the shuffle, and comes lumbering over.
She can’t even move. There’s nowhere to go; the street is full of more monstrous spirits.
She has no weapons or tricks or anyone to save her.
The ghost hisses something unintelligible, the mouth partly missing, jaw hanging by threads; another victim of war, blown or shot into the spirit world, filled with fury and injustice.
Mei Chi bursts into tears. “Go away!”
The ghost stops. It stares at her in vague confusion, tongue lolling uncertainly. Mei Chi stares back, dumbfounded. For reasons she doesn’t understand, the ghost has listened. Sort of. It is still hostile, yet it hesitates.
That hesitation saves her life—just long enough. A ferocious white beast leaps from the shadows and tackles the ghost to the ground. No, not a beast. A maogui; a ghost cat, huge and corporeal. Lion sized, albeit white and fluffy.
She watches in astonishment as the maogui savages the other ghost, shredding its semi-ephemeral limbs. The mangled spirit gabbles in distress and flees.
The cat turns round and Mei Chi squeaks in terror, sure that she is next.
But to her astonishment, the ghost cat begins to shrink. In moments it is the size of a kitten, small and white in appearance. It snuggles on her lap as if it has known her all her life, and goes to sleep.
It has saved her.
Maogui are not known for doing that.
She sits, stunned and sweating with relief. Dares not move in case the ghost cat changes its mind and eats her alive. It does not.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
The cat opens one eye, blinks at her, shuts it again. Back to sleep. Hardly daring to breathe, Mei Chi tries a tentative stroke along its spine; the ghost cat purrs.
Maogui are widely considered bad luck, but she isn’t going to shoo away a guardian spirit. Especially one that is undeniably adorable when in kitten form, a wisp of soft fluff in a landscape of toothy, gory horror.
“Ghosts should not be so cute. You look like a perfect steamed bao.” Her stomach rumbles. “Or else I am just really hungry.” Even mentioning bao is enough to make her mouth water.
The cat flicks a ghostly tail.
“Where did you come from?” she says. “Why did you help me?”
No answer. He simply nestles into her lap as if he has always belonged. Mei Chi is sure she heard somewhere that ghosts are difficult to talk to, but the cat seems to understand her perfectly. She curls around it, seeking and giving comfort.
Several more times that night, various spirits approach. And almost all of them either walk past her as if she doesn’t exist, or retreat from her uneasily when she tells them to leave. For the few who are stubborn or particularly aggressive, Bao attacks.
By morning, she has not only survived, but also realized that her survival could be a way of making money. Between her ability to speak to ghosts and Bao’s protectiveness when they don’t listen, she can surely be useful to someone.
The difficulty is finding the right client.
She starts knocking on doors, approaching strangers.
How else could one ask for a job? Few people talk to her, most can’t help her.
They have no need of messages or packages sent at night.
After the thirtieth attempt, though, she finds an elderly woman running a shoe shop who suggests seeking out a man called Lau Yik.
No family name, and his address is a cha chaan teng eatery, only a few streets over.
“Who is he?” Mei Chi asks. “What does he do?”
“He is the man who knows everyone. I think he will find a use for your ghost-talking.” The shopkeeper refuses to say anything more about it, and shoos her away.
Bloodstained, barefoot, starving, and broke, Mei Chi stumbles into a room full of smoking, dour men, asking to meet Lau Yik. And claiming she can navigate the streets of Kowloon at night, no less.
One of them comes forward. He is lean and slight of build, with intelligent eyes and greasy hair. “Who the hell are you?”
“Just a refugee,” she says, tiredly. “Please, I was told you could give me work. I can walk the streets safely at night.”
He frowns. “Do you even know what we do here?”
“I don’t care,” she says. “I only want to eat, to live. To survive the occupation.”
“We all want that,” he says, annoyed. “We are part of the resistance, girl. Do you understand what that means?”
“People who fight the soldiers.” She adds, because she is afraid he will think she is a collaborator, “The Japanese chased me into this district. They make everything unsafe.”
He spits. “I want the Japanese out of my city, like we all do, and I work toward that goal with many others. I admit it is difficult to organize at night, but trusting my messages to a homeless beggar is ludicrous.”
“I can do it,” she insists, standing before him in her tattered clothes, her tear-streaked face and shivering limbs. “Try me, pay nothing upfront. You lose nothing if I fail. If I succeed, pay me after!”
Instead of answering, he says, “What’s that accent? Where are you from?”