Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

Though Shadow had sometimes upstaged me, it was painful for me to observe her present debilitated state that was likely the end of her performing career.

But despite my concern for her, I was once again becoming preoccupied with my own worries and the need to seek out Jinjin and his father. This was why I had left her in the dorm rather than inviting her to stay with me. Though I felt guilty about this, I needed to come and go without explaining what I was doing.

I thought I would start by looking for news about Lung and the gangs in the Shanghai newspapers, and, I hoped, some about Jinying. But how to find Shanghai newspapers in Hong Kong? After some thinking, I realized there must be a Shanghainese association or the like in the British Colony. A quick perusal of the phone book revealed one in Causeway Bay, a busy district close to Wanchai where I lived.

Once I had made sure that Shadow was settled as comfortably as possible in the dorm, I took a rickshaw to the Shanghai Association, which turned out to be on the third floor of a dilapidated building. I climbed the stairs and entered the smoke-filled sitting room. Inside were elderly people chatting, listening to the radio, playing go, and reading newspapers. I saw that one elderly man was reading just what I had hoped to find—the Leisure News —which published Rainbow Chang’s column. I sat to wait patiently for the man to finish so I could read it.

Just then a younger man came to me and asked, “Miss, can I help you?”

“No, but thanks. I just passed by and came up to take a look.”

“But there’s nothing here for a young person like you.”

“I’m looking for a place for my uncle from Shanghai to hang out. “

“All right, then take your time to look around,” he said, and returned to sit behind a desk.

Finally, when the man finished the newspaper and put it back to the rack, I took it and sat down to read. I found nothing about the events that interested me, not surprising since they had occurred several months ago. But I saw that in back there were shelves piled with old newspapers, so I grabbed a stack and started to work my way through them, page by page. Finally, I found what I was looking for:

Since the big shoot-out at the villa of Master Lung, head of the Flying Dragons gang, he and his Harvard lawyer son, Lung Jinying, have not been seen, nor has Lung’s petite aime, Camilla, shown her pretty face in public. But it seems that Jinying could not suppress his love for opera because two days ago he was spotted at the performance of Madame Butterfly at the Shanghai Theater. Though almost hidden in the corner of the back row, he was detected by the Red Demons, who grabbed him as he was sneaking out the back. At least that’s what one of my Pink Skeleton girls heard from an intimate acquaintance.

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.

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.