It’s well-known that Big Brother Wang is not a man of compassion and is famous for his secret torture chamber—which gang doesn’t have one? So he won’t be gentle when he questions his rival’s son to find out what happened to his father. Maybe he’s as dead as Confucius, but Wang needs to be a hundred percent sure.
So maybe as you read this, Harvard boy Lung Jinying is screaming with pain in his enemy’s torture chamber.
I felt my throat tighten as I read this. I had assumed that Jinying would be devastated by the events at the villa’s shoot-out and my escape, but never imagined he would be subjected to the monstrous cruelty of Big Brother Wang! I first thought to go back to Shanghai to try to ransom him. But was it already too late? The newspaper I was reading was dated more than a month ago. That meant we’d both been in Shanghai, but just “rubbed shoulders” past each other! If Wang’s men had really kidnapped Jinying, then the picture of Jinying’s fate wouldn’t be pretty. I should go back to Shanghai to rescue him, but how? I might get killed before I even had the chance.
But it was quite possible that Rainbow Chang had made up the whole thing. Jinying’s diary had said he was going to Hong Kong, so I doubted he would pause to attend an opera. But there was no way to know what had really happened. I was left with no choice but to go back.
I wracked my brain trying to come up with a plan to save Jinying. To return to Shanghai was now doubly dangerous. Rainbow, at least, knew I’d been back, and Miller was no longer there for possible protection. I could not do this alone, and the best help I could get was Shadow. She wasn’t in great shape—she walked slowly and stiffly—but she could get around and her help would be better than none. She owed me that much for paying her hospital bills. Besides, I would pay her a lot more than the circus did if she’d go back to Shanghai with me.
20
Fortune-telling
I decided to visit Shadow at Kowloon’s Walled City and try to convince her to come back to Shanghai with me. This old area was famous for being lawless; the police never came here. As a result, unlicensed doctors, prostitution, gambling, and drugs were rampant. It was said that if a foreigner came in here, he would never be seen again. Used to gangsters as I was, this place scared me, so I brought several new knives just in case.
No taxi would enter here, so I was let off by the entrance. I paid the driver, got out, then walked in and turned left where Shadow had told me that the Shen’s Circus dormitory was located. Everywhere I looked there were rows of run-down flats “decorated” with colorful hanging “banners”—clothes, underwear, blankets, and bed sheets dripping onto the sidewalk. Wherever there was an empty lot, shacks were perched on top of each other like piled-up corpses. Only because I did not want the locals to know I was a stranger in the city did I not place my handkerchief across my nose to try to block the stench of rotten meat, vegetables, and even human excrement.
Next to the street were crude stalls selling daily necessities—cigarettes, eyeglasses, mahjong tiles, chopsticks, incense, paper money, Guan Yin statues, as well as unsavory-looking fruit and fly-covered meat. I continued walking and passed a church, a school, a Buddhist almshouse, and most popular, a mahjong den. Next was an alley with stalls of all sorts of fortune-tellers: I Ching “scholars,” palm readers, physiognomists, four-pillar fate calculators, bamboo-stick manipulators, bird-tellers…
Despite the dripping laundry, I watched with curiosity as the masters harangued their clients, mapping out fates while their believers listened with pricked ears and intense eyes. In the tense air, questions and advice were punctuated with “oohs,” “aahs,” and “aiyas.”
As I was passing the last stall, an old man waved frantically. I turned around but didn’t see anyone else near me. I resumed walking and he waved again. I smiled and pointed to myself; he nodded his head. This living “immortal” must have already witnessed more than eighty Springs and Autumns. But had all these changing seasons taught him wisdom, or suffering? Maybe neither, judging from his mindlessly happy expression.
I went up to him. “Master, were you waving to me?”
He made a gesture. “Yes, who else?”
I could not help being curious. “But why me?”
He gestured for me to sit on a small wooden bench across from him.
“I don’t need to have my fortune told.”
“Ah, miss, but you do. We all need to be told our destinies—they will come sooner and later. Miss, you look different from the people here. You’re an outsider, I don’t just mean in this city, but in life.”
Wah, how did he know this? What else did he know about me?
The corners of his lips lifted to attempt a genial smile, revealing a big black hole. Either his business was not good enough for him to afford false teeth, or maybe at this age he didn’t want to bother. Despite my skepticism, I found myself already seated on the bench.
When he spoke, I could almost hear the wind soughing in and out of the dark hole. “Miss, young as you are, there’s already been lots of trouble in your life, especially your love life.”
I blurted out, “How do you know?”
He pointed to his banner inscribed with the characters shen-suan, “Heavenly Diviner.” “That’s my job. I’m a fortune-teller and I know secrets that others don’t.”
Now he pointed to a bamboo cage where a small yellow bird hopped around and darted glances at me with its tiny black eyes.
The master smiled. “Miss, please let her out to taste some fresh air and enjoy moments of freedom while she tells your fortune.”
Though in the past I’d dismissed the idea that a bird can foretell a person’s fate as ridiculous, I found myself mesmerized by the man and the bird.
So I agreed.
“Good. Now tell the bird what you want to know.”
“But—”
“Miss, you don’t have to say this aloud, just silently to the bird. She listens better than most humans do.”
I cast a quick glance at the small bird, now released from its cage and hopping around happily on the table.
“Master, how can she hear my thoughts?” I wondered if there’s a way to tell if the bird was really a she?
“Miss, animals are more spiritual than we humans. Just think of your questions.”
Of course, my worry was whether Jinying, Jinjin, and Gao were alive and well. And where I could find them.
When I finished asking, the master whispered something to her like an old friend. The bird immediately hopped from the desk to a pile of yellow envelopes. She seemed to study them, then twisted her head this way and that before grasping an envelope with her tiny red beak and pulling it out. The master gave her a seed and whispered to her, after which she willingly hopped back into her cage.
He opened the envelope, took out a card, and laid it on the desk for me to read.