Chapter 10
Ten
Entrenched
The days pass in a happy blur, filled with games, and laughter, and so much kissing. Ah Lang even manages to rein in Lord Aengus’s windbaggery by sharing stories of growing up with Brother Zhu, the only topic where Lord Aengus is more content to listen than to speak.
On our last day before arriving in Paris, Tony and I sit together in my room. I’m working on a painting of Gigi, Ah Lang and Tony sitting together at a cafe and sharing a laugh. Tony, as usual, is sitting on my bed, reading.
‘Have you ever thought about the future,’ I ask. ‘I mean, our future?’
He looks up from his papers. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know . . . I’m yaojing. You’re mortal.’
Soft fingers tip my chin up. Tony gazes down at me. ‘What’s brought this on?’
I fiddle with my brushes and paints. ‘I had an odd conversation with Big Wang about immortality and my vampire heritage. It got me thinking about us, about our differences.’
Tony laces his fingers through mine and pulls me over to sit with him on the bed.
‘I won’t deny we have some challenges ahead of us.
We come from very different worlds. At the same time, it feels as if we’ve known each other for many lifetimes.
’ He traces my wrist, carefully avoiding the jade bangle.
‘We are connected by the threads of Fate. I have Queen Mother of the West’s qi protecting me.
Both those things give me faith we will find a path forward.
And we are very fortunate to have many elders we can ask about our options when the time comes: Big Wang, Lord Black, even Queen Mother of the West.’
I nod. All true. ‘But compared to me, your time in this world is short.’
The look he gives me is pure Bullhead. It is what it is.
‘I am mortal,’ he says.
‘But what if you could be immortal?’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘There are various paths to immortality.’ I list them on my fingers. ‘There’s the elixir of immortality, Queen Mother of the West’s immortality peaches, there’s cultivating your qi through meditation . . .’
He chortles. ‘They used mercury extensively in those elixirs. Heavy metal poisoning is an unpleasant way to die. As for Queen Mother of the West’s peaches, the last person who ate them without permission was imprisoned under a mountain.
I also don’t want to spend hundreds of years meditating in a cave.
I’d miss you too much. There’s no way I could focus.
I am comforted to know at the end of my life, a ghost ferry will take me to yin Shanghai’ – his eyes go soft – ‘where you’ll be waiting to greet me. ’
My heart twists at the thought. ‘No, that’s – no.’ I shudder.
It sounds wonderful, but that’s not the reality. When he moves on to his next life, it’ll be me who’s left behind, heartbroken, grieving for eternity.
I shake my head. That won’t be our future, my future.
‘What if you could become vampire?’ I wouldn’t ever have to watch you cross the Naihe Bridge, wondering when or even if I would ever see you again.
‘Do you know how to do that?’ There’s a warning in his tone, but I’m too focused on convincing him to pay it any mind.
‘No, but we could look for the answers together. The books all say—’
‘The stories make vampires out to be cruel, debauched seducers out to destroy all that is good and pure. Why would you put stock in them?’
‘There are seeds of truth in stories,’ I say, echoing Big Wang. ‘The ones about hulijing being yang-sucking seductresses, for example.’
The quip earns me a half-hearted chuckle. ‘Perhaps.’ He cups my cheek. The warmth is comforting. ‘I’ve done a lot of reading about vampires and I can’t reconcile the lore with the Lady Jing I know.’
A tenderness for this mortal pinches my heart. ‘You’ve been reading about vampires?’
‘Yes. Not only novels, but also historical reports and treatises.’ He grimaces. ‘Deeply unpleasant and rooted in fear and ignorance. If there are seeds there, I hope they are few.’
‘But—’
‘A wise old dragon once told me I must embrace the Cosmos in order for the Way to show me a path.’ He grins, as if I should be amused.
When I’m obviously not, he exhales and shakes his head.
‘Jing, I want to live my life to the fullest. I like you very much and want to spend time getting to know you, finding out what kind of future we might have together. We have time.’
I wonder though, do we? ‘I’m only saying we should talk things through, really understand our options. How you view the ghost ferries isn’t—’
‘I am mortal, Jing,’ he says with a touch of impatience. ‘It’s not an option, it’s reality.’
‘Why won’t you even consider immortality?’
His gaze cools, and he takes his hand from mine.
‘I would never ask you to be something you are not. Your vampire and hulijing heritage are part of you. They make you who you are. My mortality is part of who I am. There is an order to things and dying is a natural part of that. I think in this, we’ll have to agree to disagree.
’ He stands, smooths out the wrinkles in his trousers, doesn’t look at me. ‘We should join the others.’
I’m taken aback by how entrenched Tony is in his beliefs. For a mortal with rare access to other realms, how is it not obvious to him that the realities of my realm are just as natural as the ones in his?
For now, I let him have his way.
He must be more annoyed than he lets on because he doesn’t try to sit with me during dinner, and allows Lord Aengus to monopolise my time. I feel bad about raising the issue and try to catch his eye so I can apologise, but he doesn’t give me the chance.
The more I think about his answers and his reasonings though, the more annoyed I become.
What kind of future might we have together?
The worst though is him telling me how much comfort I will be to him when he makes his final trip to yin Shanghai.
And me? What comfort will I have? Mourning for eternity for a man who, even if we were to cross paths, would only see me as a stranger.
After dinner, I head back to my room but Gigi hooks her arm through mine before I can escape. ‘Time for kanhoo,’ she sings.
She manoeuvres me into the lounge. Ah Lang is already at the bar pouring a pinky peach concoction into a line of delicate crystal coupe glasses. The sight of them make me nauseous.
‘No more Goddess Gis for the love of Tian!’ I say. ‘Please, make something else, Ah Lang. It’s the only cocktail we’ve been drinking this whole trip.’
Gigi tosses her hair. ‘Well, I suppose we can drink something else, since it’s our last night. Brother Zhu named one after you, too. Darling, make a few Lady Jings for us.’
Gigi ends up drinking most of the Goddess Gis herself, while I drink the Lady Jings.
Ah Lang makes a valiant attempt to provide a steady stream of cocktails, but he can’t keep up.
Eventually, Gigi fetches an armful of Maotai, dumping the distinctive white-and-red bottles onto the chair beside her.
She cracks one open and pours us each a cup before fishing out a deck of kanhoo cards from her water sleeve.
‘Arrright, ugly, time to get your pigu beaten by the Goddess of Kanhoo!’ she says.
I knock back the baijiu, wave the cup at her for more. ‘You’re so full of dog fart,’ I say, though the words are starting to slur.
The fifth, or maybe it was the sixth bottle, finally numbs my annoyance with I-wanna-be-mortal Tony Lee.
Empty bottles of baijiu litter the table and the floor around us. I squint at my cards. They double then blur, and the rotted numbers swim around.
‘Aiya, stop moving,’ I whisper to my cards. ‘We’re gonna whip that Lady Gi’s pigu and sweep up every last trinket on the table.’ I giggle to myself, and discard a card.
Gigi’s face is pink as a peony. ‘I can hear you, you drunkard.’ She sways and draws a card. The edges of her dainty lips tense.
I tsk loudly. ‘You need to work on your mahjong face. You didn’t get the card you wanted, did you?’
‘Pish. You think you know everything.’ She lays down a meld of three cards.
‘You think you’re so smart.’
‘Not think, know.’
I gesture for Gigi to fill my cup. At some point we’re treated to an impromptu duet – Ah Lang strumming his pipa to Lord Aengus crooning corny love ballads.
Lord Aengus’s singing voice is surprisingly pleasant – it’s hoarse and throaty, like he’s gargling gravel.
I thought I-wanna-be-mortal Tony had slunk off to his room but for some reason he’s sitting in the corner with that kissable face of his pretending to be deeply engrossed in paperwork. Bah.
Gigi hiccups, attempts to fill my glass and then her own, spilling most of it on the table.
‘Focus, Gigi. No wasting good jiu.’
She leans forward, and licks the table. ‘No waste, see?’ She looks at me, then breaks out in peals of laughter. ‘Your face, Jing!’ she wheezes, unable to continue because she’s laughing so hard.
‘May sherrr,’ I slur. I snatch a card from the pile, and lay down two melds.
She sobers at my play, her giggles finally subsiding, but the grin remains.
‘Quit messing around and play your hand, Gigi,’ I say.
Gigi discards, and I snap up her card. I toss my discard and reveal my hand. ‘Suck eggs, you loser! Admit I’m the Goddess of kanhoo!’ I crow as I do a little victory shimmy.
Gigi rolls her eyes. ‘I declare Lady Hu Xian Jing the Goddess of kanhoo. Are you happy now, Jing? You are such a baby.’
I sweep my winnings off the table into my sleeve. Gigi bet one of her hairpins I’ve been eyeing for ages. And gold ingots! I’m going to – I freeze. Sniff the air. There’s a scent that shouldn’t be here.
‘Do you smell that?’
Gigi lifts her nose. ‘What?’
I stand, tracking the scent. It’s strange – dry, sickly. Like desiccated roses and camphor. And then I hear an unfamiliar voice, quiet as a breeze. ‘Ah-teng.’
It’s coming from the corner of the ceiling. As I stare, there’s a shift in the air, like the shimmering of a heatwave.
‘Someone’s here,’ I say at the same time as a deafening explosion rocks the carriage.
One moment I’m standing, Gigi’s hand on my arm, the next, I’m weightless. There’s a ringing in my ears, but otherwise all is silent.
Chairs and bottles and kanhoo cards hang mid-air, Gigi too, her bright yellow dress fanned out around her like rays of sunshine. The surreal tableau would have had a peaceful quality if not for Gigi’s expression – eyes wide with fear and alarm.
In a blink, gravity remembers us. The floor rushes upwards, slams into my side. Bottles and glasses explode around us, making the air sparkle as if sprinkled with diamond dust. A huge vase slams into my cheek. I see stars and then nothing.