Chapter 7
Seven
Hand Delivery
I shove my hands in my pockets and kick at a pebble on the pavement, pondering my strange conversation with Big Wang.
He’s never been overprotective before, but puzzling out the point of that confused jumble of questions is only giving me a headache.
I decide to leave it for now. I head towards Custom House to see if there’s any mail for me.
Big Wang tweaked the design of Custom House when he had it built.
Having been to mortal Shanghai and seen the original, I like ours better.
We have the same majestic columns on the facade, but tucked inside our version is the original single-storey gatehouse with its grey waved tiles and smiling eaves.
The blend of the familiar and the new is comforting.
The entrance hall is dominated by a long counter spanning the width of the room.
Behind it is a floor-to-ceiling wall of cubbyholes hung with rolling ladders that each cover a section of twenty or so columns of cubbies.
Clerks with baskets tied to their waists move up and down the ladders, which themselves glide side to side as the clerks busily sort bundles of joss money and other joss items into the cubbies.
The ladders clack loudly every time they reach the end of their section.
With a shove, the clerks send the ladders gliding in the opposite direction.
Back and forth, up and down, clack clack clack, like a giant abacus.
By early evening this place will be teeming with ghosts collecting the money and care packages sent to them by their living relations, but for now it’s quiet.
Most visitors to yin Shanghai keep late hours.
I head past the collection counter to the special deliveries desk where a wizened old ghost sits, reading a manhua. He wears the standard grey changpao issued to all indentured ghosts working to repay their karmic debt. When he sees me, his face cracks into a toothless smile.
‘Lady Jing, good morning!’ he says. But with his thick Beijing accent, it sounds more like Lady Jing-er, zao-er! His smile fades. ‘Is everything alright? You don’t look yourself.’
‘I’m just tired,’ I say. ‘The Mahjong Council is keeping me busy.’ I look hopefully at the cubbies behind him. ‘Any letters for me today, Da Ye?’
It’s been almost a week since my last letter from Tony.
He smiles kindly. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’
My heart sinks but I try not to let my disappointment show.
Da Ye isn’t fooled. ‘Don’t be sad,’ he says.
‘I’m sure Mr Lee’s next letter will be here soon.
I have something that will bring a smile to that grumpy little face.
’ He pulls a bundle of manhua from his desk – a thick stack of comics all featuring that distinctive waif Sanmao, a penniless Shanghai orphan. ‘I received them just this morning.’
My eyes widen. When I first came across Zhang Leping’s manhua last summer, I was instantly captivated.
Since his Sanmao comic strips are published in various newspapers and magazines, it’s hard to track them all down.
But here was Da Ye waving a stack of paper filled top to bottom with Sanmao strips.
He studies my face and breaks into a triumphant grin.
‘That’s better,’ he says and hands me the comics.
‘My son is very filial,’ he continues, answering my unspoken question.
‘He knows how much I love manhua and made a special request of his artist friends, one of whom happens to be Mr Zhang. These are all of his strips collected in one place. Some of them haven’t been published yet. ’
Da Ye pulls out a second stack of magazines. They’re my collection of Mr Wang comics about a foolish, wealthy old man. ‘They’re as good as I remember.’
‘Thank you, Da Ye,’ I whisper. ‘Ming tian jian.’
Da Ye waves cheerily. His Northern accent makes ‘See you tomorrow’ come out Ming-er tian-er jian-er.
Clutching my bounty, I head to see the pixiu. The Treasury where they live is my favourite place to read and think.
I duck behind Custom House, into Hankow Road – a smaller street where silk advertising banners hang from the stone and wood facades.
I turn down Henan Road, heading towards the North Gate of the old walled city.
The street is a cacophony of colour, fabric banners hang side by side with dazzling neon signs.
Shop advertisements and blessings for ghosts on their journey across the Naihe Bridge vie for attention: ‘Shunhsin Ribbons, Please Come and Visit Us’, ‘Douda Big Sale’, ‘Good Luck in Your Next Life’, ‘Price is Hot’, and ‘Pre-reincarnation Commemorative Gifts Included’.
Another dog-leg, and Big Wang’s Treasury appears around the corner. On a pretty patch of grass sits an imposing stone tower surrounded by topiary pruned in the shape of tortoises, of course. What can I say, Big Wang loves his tortoises.
The sheer windowless walls of the Treasury soar ten storeys high, but it’s all for show.
The actual treasury is on the ground floor, set out in a traditional siheyuan with four long pavilions surrounding an open courtyard where my two pixiu play and sleep.
The tower was built as a space for them to fly in and exercise their wings.
One of the perimeter guards sees me and bows. ‘Lady Jing,’ he says.
His tone isn’t cold, exactly, nor is it welcoming; I have history with this one.
When he first joined the guards, he thought it would ingratiate him with Bullhead if he put me in my place.
He’d poke at all my sore spots: being Big Wang’s indentured servant, being an orphan, having mixed bloodlines, having poor impulse control, pretty much every trait I hated about myself.
Seeing his stupid face enraged me. We were always brawling.
We both had black eyes for months and his arms were peppered with fang marks.
I think back to Big Wang’s words: Would Tony consider becoming vampire .
. . I never put any stock in the novels about vampires turning mortals by biting them.
If those stories were true, this asshole would be vampire ten times over.
I peer at him closely, looking for signs of vampirism. He stiffens at my sudden attention.
‘Show me your teeth,’ I say.
The guard doesn’t move.
‘I’m not going to do anything to you. Just open your mouth.’ I give him a nasty smile, the one that says I’m the big boss’s bitch daughter, so you better do what I say.
He looks at me like I’m a snoozing rattlesnake he doesn’t want to wake and slowly opens his mouth. I huff in amazement. He really did it. Before he can change his mind, I check his gums for the telltale swell of fangs. Nothing.
‘Do you eat a lot of pig’s blood?’ I ask.
His head moves left to right then back again.
‘Any other kind of blood?’
‘Blood makes me queasy,’ he says.
I knew it. Those stories are just stories. There’s no truth to them.
I slip through the double-height red lacquer doors into the treasury and head to the courtyard.
A chittering makes me look up. Cutie, snowy wings spread wide, descends in elegant circles.
Her once tawny mane, now white with age, ripples in the wind.
She lands with a clumsy thump, raising a yellow dust cloud around us.
Cutie’s whole body wiggles, tongue lolling from a wide-open mouth. She huffs like she’s hiccupping, chittering interspersed with high-pitched whistles, and leans heavily against me, knocking me over.
‘I’ve missed you, too,’ I say, pressing my face into her soft fur, inhaling her dry, dusty smell. Her fur-tipped tail whips back and forth, thumping the ground.
It isn’t long before thundering steps come from deep within the western pavilion, and a huge black furball explodes into the courtyard, carrying in her mouth what looks like a bunch of tree branches.
Puffy bowls into Cutie, who caws in annoyance. She drops the branches at my feet and I see them for what they are. Or rather, what they were.
‘Is this what’s left of your new ball?’
Puffy wags her tail, as if proud of the devastation she’s wrought against the wicker ball. Her tail keeps smacking Cutie, who, in annoyance, kicks at Puffy with her back paws. Puffy, in turn, tries to sit her butt on Cutie’s head. They chitter angrily at each other, making me laugh.
‘Sit, Puffy,’ I say. ‘Not on Cutie, okay?’
Puffy reluctantly sets her great bottom on the dirt floor. Cutie stays on her back, her back leg surreptitiously shoving Puffy.
‘Cutie, none of that. You too, sit.’
With a huff, Cutie does as I ask. Now they’ve calmed down, both of them sniff the air. They smell the treats I brought.
Puffy nudges me with her great black head, nosing at the dried squid in my pockets.
Cutie does the same, though they also try to shove each other away.
When I get between them, Puffy decides to run her slobbery tongue up my face, like she’s grooming me.
It’s ticklish and stinky. Cutie won’t be left out and decides the back of my head also needs grooming. I put my hands up in surrender.
‘Okay, okay! Stop and I’ll give you some treats.’
They both sit on their haunches, looking every bit the dignified guardians of the treasury they are meant to be.
‘At least you listen to me,’ I say.
They whinny, as if in sympathy. Settling myself against their legs, I offer them handfuls of dried squid as I recount the morning’s events, finishing with Big Wang’s bizarre behaviour and his question about Tony becoming vampire.
Big Wang claimed that stories all contain a kernel of truth.
The books have the gist right – blood for sustenance, fangs, and preternatural abilities.
Yaojing are incredibly strong, but I’m faster than all the yaojing I’ve come across and my sense of smell is better than the hulijing who are known for their keen noses.
Since my mother’s strengths weren’t anything out of the ordinary, it makes sense to attribute those strengths to my vampire side.