Barry Hughart - The Story of the Stone

“Ox, I wondered when things were going to get exciting,” Moon Boy said, and then he leaned over and threw up.

Now we were in the Sixth Hell, where sacrilege is punished, and the torments we stared at didn't make it easier to control our stomachs. Finally we made it to our feet, and I picked up the state umbrella, which had fallen in front of me. We took deep breaths and started out again, marching arrogantly in our armor of Neo-Confucian superiority. Master Li avoided confrontations as we reached boundaries. The Seventh Hell punishes those who violate graves or sell or eat human flesh, and the Eighth Hell is for those lacking in filial piety, and I have no intention of describing the terrible things we saw. (I will, however, strongly advise against winding up in the Eighth Hell so long as Neo-Confucians are in charge.) Master Li could no longer avoid confrontations at the border of the Ninth Hell. The only way to get to the Tenth and the Great Wheel was to go right through the palace of the Ninth Yama King, and Master Li was thinking deeply as we approached the walls where long lines of sinners shuffled toward their doom, weeping gray tears.

“Goo-goo-goo.”

“Ox, did you hear that?”

“Goo-goo-goo.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goo-goo-goo.”

“Great Buddha! It's the entire congregation from the Eye of Tranquility,” Master Li exclaimed.

Indeed it was, and he walked up the line peering at faces.

“Hello, Hsiang!”

“Hello, Li Kao. What are you doing here?” the toad asked mournfully.

“I was about to ask the same of you,” said Master Li.

The toad shook his fist in the general direction of Peking. “Those cursed vendors!” he yelled. “Kao, it occurred to the greedy bastards that gentlemen in search of salvation should mortify the flesh, so along with worms they began selling cheese.”

I shuddered. Like most Chinese I find cheese disgusting, and I could well imagine that eating the stuff would be mortification of the first order.

“Cheese killed all of you?” Master Li asked skeptically.

“Well, no,” the toad said. “Competing vendors began selling raw sea slugs.”

Master Li shrugged. “I prefer them minced and steamed with eels, but they shouldn't have done much more than make you throw up when they squirmed in your stomach.”

“Well, you see, Li Kao, they came from the bay where the boys deposit the night soil,” the toad said sadly.

“You didn't eat them!” Master Li exclaimed in horror.

“We lived through that, but then the vendors began stuffing the sea slugs with the cheese.”

Master Li turned pale, and Moon Boy and I turned green.

“I remember it precisely,” the toad groaned. “It was the double hour of the cock on the third day of the eighth moon when a homicidal vendor came up with the idea of peddling all his wares at the same time, so he began stuffing the worms into the cheese inside the sea slugs.”

“Jade Emperor, preserve us,” Master Li said. “I assume that the next thing you knew, you were shuffling toward the basilica of the God of Walls and Ditches.”

“The god was furious,” the toad sniffled. “Nothing in the Register of Life and Death covered the combination of worms, cheese, and sea slugs, and since we had prematurely departed from the red dust of earth, we were sentenced to the Ninth Hell.”

“Goo-goo-goo,” the codgers chanted, hoping that Heaven could still see them release worms from jars.

“Look at the bright side,” Master Li said soothingly. “In three years you'll be allowed to return in ghost form, and you can haunt the vendors as much as you like.”

The toad turned purple. “You don't know those vendors!” he shouted. “They'll stuff our ghosts inside the worms inside the cheese inside the sea slugs and call it the Four Fetid Flavors of Suffering Serenity and make a goddamn fortune!”

Master Li's eyes moved to the gate ahead. The demons were the most ferocious we had seen, and the devils were obviously high officials, and we weren't going to get very far with a badge of office and a state umbrella. A side gate led to a garden of gray flowers, and Master Li bent down and slipped his lock picks from the false heel of his left sandal.

“Hsiang, are you going to give up this easily? No, by all the gods!” Master Li exclaimed. “You've been treated most unfairly, and surely Heaven will hear your plea if you all put your hearts into it. Where's His Holiness? There you are! Come on, men. One last grand effort!”

“Goo-goo-goo,” the codgers chanted timidly, but the saintliest of them all was made from stronger stuff.

“I pray to the Heavenly Master of the First Origin!” he bellowed. “I pray to the Heavenly Master of the Dawn of Jade of the Golden Door! I pray to the Queen Mother Wang! I pray to Chang-o and the Hare! I pray to Mother Lightning and the Master of Rain and My Lord Thunder and the Earl of Wind and the Little Boy of the Clouds!”

“Goo-goo-goo-goo-goo!” cried the codgers, gaining a little backbone.

Master Li bent to the lock of the side gate, hidden by the crowd. His Holiness obligingly drowned out the scrape of the pick.

“I pray to the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak! I pray to the Princess of Streaked Clouds! I pray to Kuan-yin and Kuan-ti and the Eight Immortals! I pray to Lady Horsehead and King-of-Oxen and the Transcendent Pig and Prince Millet and Hun-po Chao, patron deity of the armpits!”

“Goo-goo-goo-goo-goo!”

The lock snapped open and we slipped through the gate and closed it behind us. The noise faded as the line shuffled on toward the palace. We saw that there was a series of small gardens, each secured by a locked gate, and we would have to get through seven of them to reach the side of the palace. Master Li swore under his breath as he tackled the next lock. None of the picks was the right size, and he had to work with infinite care and patience. At last it opened and we raced through the next garden. The lock on the second gate was easier, but the third one was almost impossible. Master Li broke two picks and was trying to get leverage with a third when we heard footsteps crunching over gray gravel. It sounded like the approach of an elephant, and Moon Boy slipped back through the shrubbery to take a look.

“Got it,” Master Li whispered.

The gate swung open. We left it ajar for Moon Boy and ran through the next garden to the fourth gate. The crunching footsteps had stopped. Then I heard a noise that made the hair lift on my head.

A demon was angrily sniffing the scent of living flesh. The sound indicated something huge and horrible, and we heard a growl like muffled thunder. Master Li worked furiously on the lock, but it was another difficult one and when the footsteps started toward us I knew we'd never make it through in time. I picked up a large gray rock as a weapon and slipped back through the bushes, and when I parted some branches and peered out I had to stifle a howl of horror.

This demon was enough to terrify the great Ehr-lang. It stood at least ten feet tall. Its muscles looked like rolls of steel piled together, and its talons could rip tigers apart, and its fangs might have come from one of those creatures found frozen in Mongolian glaciers, and its nostrils were sniffing furiously, and its red eyes were blazing with blood lust. I was paralyzed. As I stood there like a statue, I suddenly realized I wasn't alone. Moon Boy stood across from me, mostly hidden by gray leaves, and he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. In ten more steps the monster would reach a clearing where it could see the gate and Master Li, but Moon Boy was sauntering out to the path. The demon stared. Fangs glittered; talons lifted to strike.

Moon Boy smiled—the gray sky blurred and produced a patch of blue. Moon Boy smiled wider—two gray flowers strained to produce pink blossoms. Moon Boy reached high up and tickled the terrible creature beneath its chin.