Mingmei Yip - The Nine Fold Heaven

I woke very early the next morning and quickly left for work. After feeling her need for me, I was even more ashamed of myself for the way I had treated her all these past years. And also for our foolish parents who forced us together.

If only Camilla and I had met before…

When she was pregnant, I had hoped that the baby was mine, but she never mentioned this, so it must not be.

As I set the book down, I noticed a scrap of paper protruding from between the pages. I pulled it out and saw that it was a newspaper clipping with my picture. I realized that I had never given Gao a picture of me.

I murmured to myself in the dingy restaurant, “Gao, please don’t be a revolutionary and get yourself killed. I can’t be your wife, but I still care for you….”

Then I thought of a poem from a thousand years ago:

I felt tears fill my eyes. Embarrassed, I left a few bills on the table and quickly exited the restaurant. I looked up at the sky and silently asked, “Gao, are you still alive?”

But heaven rarely deigns to answer us mortals’ questions.

It would be futile to look for Gao, especially if he’d really joined the revolution. But there were many other ways he might have been killed. Though he would always have a place in my heart, I had to face that the time had come for me to let go and move on. My future was with Jinying, Jinjin, and Peiling. But before departing, I needed to go to the Huangpu River one last time.

The legend goes that there is an ancient tortoise living on the river’s bottom. Once in a while, he’ll rise up to the surface to greet the passersby on the riverbank. Those who are fortunate enough to meet this fabulous animal will attain the same longevity for which it is famous. One can also pray to him for the longevity of loved ones. But only a few are so lucky—the tortoise only appears every thirty or forty years.

I planned to use my “heavenly” voice to lure the tortoise up to the surface to bestow longevity and good luck upon the people I loved. I doubted I would be able to return to Shanghai again, certainly not on the chance of seeing a reclusive turtle.

Once at the riverbank, I went to my favorite spot under the colossal goddess statue. As I was scanning the waves for the tortoise, I began to sing my best tunes from my Heavenly Songbird days: “How Can I Stop Thinking of You”; “Looking for You”; “It’s Rare We Can Be Together”… Today, my songs were tributes to Gao, our hopeless love—briefly rubbing shoulders in this Ten Thousand Miles of Red Dust….

The river, as it had in Confucius’s time, flowed endlessly. But as much as I strained my eyes, no longevity tortoise appeared. So I simply sent my good wishes for my loved ones to the waves as they flowed gently by.

Sadness welled up in me as I thought of all our lives flowing on, like the river. Madame Lewinsky, Shadow, Gao, even Lung and Wang. I felt as if the people I had lost were holes in my heart.

When I finished my solitary singing, feeling drained, I made my way to the main street, planning to take a rickshaw to take me back to my waiting family. When I was waving at the passing vehicles, I saw a street urchin shouting, “Haowai! Haowai!” (“special news,” or “extra edition”).

In my present discouraged mood, I assumed that it must be some bad news about someone I knew. I waved urgently to the urchin, paid him a few cents, took the newspaper, and leaned on a tree to read.

Early this morning, what passersby took to be a simple punctured tire turned out to be a gangster’s revenge shooting.

When the driver got off his bus to check the tires, a black car pulled up and several men emerged holding guns. The driver was ordered to stay where he was. Meanwhile, all the passengers were ordered off the bus—except one.

As the stunned driver and his passengers were waiting nervously on the road by the bus, men began to shoot through the windows. The victim screamed, but the shooting continued until the screams stopped. Then, total silence. The shooters got back in their car and drove away, leaving all the other passengers terrified but unhurt.

The murdered man has yet to be identified. The police suspect the deceased played some role in the recent wars between the Red Demons and Flying Dragons. But no one on the bus will admit to recognizing any of the shooters.

The victim had to be Gao. I couldn’t talk myself out of this dismal conclusion. As I kept reading the brief story over and over, the print began to blur and the newspaper slipped from my grasp and fell to the ground amidst the leftover breakfasts and other litter. I tried to steady myself and stumbled along.

A well-dressed gentleman stopped and asked, “You feeling all right ?”

I feigned a smile. “I’m fine, sir, just some indigestion.”

The last thing I wanted now was to have to make conversation with a stranger.

Not wanting even to deal with a rickshaw puller, I decided to walk for a while. As I passed people and a row of expensive antique shops, I saw something that extinguished my last remaining bit of hope.

To distract myself, I had let my eyes range over the goods displayed in the windows: massive gold bracelets, Ming vases, luminous green jade, carved rhinoceros horns, and many other pricy objects. As I gazed, something sparkling caught my attention. Lying at the bottom of one store’s display window was an object I recognized.

It was the knife I’d given Gao as a token of our love.

A wave of vertigo hit me. With great effort, I steadied myself and went in to inquire. A lanky, fortyish man with a narrow face stood up slowly to greet me.

“Mister, do you like something in our shop window?”

I pointed to the knife.

His bushy brows knitted. “Hmm, sorry, mister, but someone already bought it.”

I asked, unable to hide the anxiety in my tone, “Can I take a look anyway?”

He nodded, took out the knife, and set it on a felt square on the counter for me to inspect. There was no doubt. It was the one I’d given to Gao. The one he’d sworn he’d never part with it, so long as he was alive.

I felt as if my heart was being ripped in two. It took all my willpower not to simply collapse on the floor.

“I’ll buy this.” I hoped my voice was not shaking.

“But sorry, mister, it’s already sold. Why don’t you look at other things here, we have more than five hundred pieces of—”

“If it’s sold, then why is it still in the shop window?”

“Because the customer wasn’t carrying enough money, so he paid me half. He’s coming back soon to pay the rest.”

“All right”—I opened my wallet and took out a thick wad of cash and held it up—“what if I pay you double what he paid and it’s mine?”

He stared at the cash lewdly, his jaw dropping. After a moment, he nodded. “All right. Done.”

I kept the money in my hand, so as not to make it too easy for him. What I really wanted for it was information.

So I asked, “How did you get this?”

And how so quickly, I thought. Gao had been killed just this morning and his bones were still warm. Someone had been in a hurry to cash in on Gao’s tragedy.

The man frowned. “I’m afraid I can’t—”

I cut him off. “Of course you can…” I slapped down two more bills.

He smiled cunningly. “Did you read in the newspaper haowai about the bus shooting?”

I nodded.

“This knife was taken from the dead person.”

“But how do you know?”