Strange Beasts of China, page 19
He looked at me. ‘Do you love him?’
Did I love him? A question I’d never considered, until he asked it. How piercing it sounded.
I looked blankly at this young man. I’d always thought he was just a young man, but all along he’d seen through everything, perfectly clearly. Now he took my hand and asked again, ‘Do you?’
‘I don’t know,’ I replied. Love? Still? After all that? Forget it.
My heart was a tangle.
He sighed and pulled over a chair. ‘Sit.’
I obediently did as I was told.
He let me go, reached under his shirt collar, and pulled off the red string from around his neck. A pendant dangled from it, something like jade but not jade, warm and glistening.
He placed it in my hand. ‘This is a family heirloom, a protective amulet. I’d feel safer if you had it. Bad things keep happening to you. Maybe this will bring you good fortune.’
Something prickled in my eyes, and my vision blurred. I shoved it back at him. ‘No, I can’t take…’
I broke off.
They say the end of the year is hard to get past – no sooner has one wave subsided when the next arrives.
The pendant lay in my hand, emitting a faint yellow glow. A tiny, unprepossessing thing – no one else would have paid it any attention, but I recognised it. This was one of my professor’s most treasured possessions, a relic from an ancient god-beast. I’d seen its data file in the lab, and had asked him if I could have it – it was so pretty. He’d laughed at me. ‘It may be pretty, but there’s only one of these in the world.’
‘So what if there’s only one?’ I pouted.
‘I’ve already given it to someone,’ he had to confess.
‘Who?’
‘Someone very important to me.’ With that, he turned and walked away, which meant the subject was closed forever.
I’d thought of this moment just a few days ago, on my way to the lab. The years slipped away. I could still see his retreating back, and the treasure he must surely have given my mother – who could be more important to him than her?
Instead, unexpectedly, he’d given it to Zhong Liang! Before I’d even met him. Why?
I only hesitated a moment before wrapping my fingers around the fragment of beast bone, clutching it tight so it bit into the tenderness of my palm. ‘Thank you,’ I said to Zhong Liang.
Thank you. The man before me was looking at me, I was certain, the way my professor must have looked at my mother all those years ago, when he was as young as Zhong Liang now. She was such a beautiful woman, with soft, clear eyes. He must have fallen in love with her right away.
But they hadn’t ended up together. In fact, neither of them ever mentioned the other. Why? No living person knew the answer to that.
Zhong Liang smiled at me and tweaked my nose. ‘Do as you’re told and put this on. I’d feel better if you did. It’s very auspicious.’
I felt an enormous pain in my heart, as if it were being drilled into. He walked me to my building. When I said I’d go upstairs on my own, he hesitated a moment before acquiescing. ‘Have a good sleep, and I’ll take you out tomorrow. I know someone running a toy fair. Plenty of stuffed animals. We could go have a look, and I’ll buy you anything that catches your eye. How about that?’
I tamped down the wild beating of my heart and smiled. ‘Fine.’
He smiled too, and reached out as if he wanted to stroke my cheek, but didn’t. As he left, he said, ‘Bye! I hope you won’t miss me too much.’ Then he spun round, striking a Schwarzenegger pose, and growled, ‘I’ll be back.’ I could have strangled him. The security guard was staring at us.
Seeing my nauseated face, he left satisfied.
I forgot to call the lift, and just stood there, watching his back recede. There was an unfamiliar melancholy about him. He was tall and skinny, with very short hair, both hands in his pockets. No wonder I’d absent-mindedly mistaken him for my professor.
Again, the devil made me open my mouth and call his name. My voice was very soft, so of course, he didn’t hear me. Just as well.
I turned and went upstairs. The fragment of beast bone around my neck, which had been icy-cold, gradually warmed up. I still wasn’t used to wearing it, and it jabbed against my skin from time to time. In the lift, I looked at my face, now strange to me, existing only for the sake of my mother. As far as he was concerned, the face of a girl he’d once loved.
Not my face.
This wasn’t my face.
Once again, I burst into loud sobs.
I couldn’t get to sleep that night, turning the bone over in my fingers as my brain buzzed. My professor hadn’t changed one bit, I thought – even now that he was dead, he’d still left me plenty of riddles to ensure I wouldn’t have a quiet life.
I searched online for information about beast relics, and found nothing. So this really was the only one in the world, and probably no one knew about it except him.
I compared the bone fragment with what I remembered of the diagram in the lab, and it matched perfectly. This was definitely it, but why Zhong Liang? My professor had refused to give it to me, but here it was in my hand anyway. I laughed.
I tossed and turned till half past one, then finally I slept. With the bone dangling over my chest, it felt like returning to the past, and I managed a night without dreams.
When I opened my eyes, I didn’t know where I was. Three seconds later, I was groping for my phone, cursing Zhong Liang for phoning me first thing in the morning. Did he want to die?
Even as I muttered the words, I couldn’t help smiling.
The shrill beeping of the phone reminded me of the way my professor used to call me a moron, each time my results were off by so much as 0.001. Like an electronic scanner, his eyes saw all. ‘Pig-brain,’ he would growl. ‘Did you take IQ-reducing pills?’
Each time he yelled at me, his eyes bulged and his voice thickened. The windswept genius, the finest of his generation? All that crumbled in an instant. Later on, I learned to make deliberate mistakes to bait him into screaming at me, to entertain me as I sipped my tea and enjoyed an afternoon snack. When he was done, I’d offer him a cup of tea.
I laughed again, and thought I really should tell Zhong Liang about this, and ask if he’d been similarly tortured, oh, and by the way, I was going to make a big stuffed toy in his image, if that was okay with him. That’s what was in my head as I grabbed my phone and snapped, ‘Why so early?’
But it wasn’t Zhong Liang.
Mr Zhong Kui, whose mighty name caused tremors on both sides of the law, was giving me a morning call. ‘Is Zhong Liang with you?’ he asked.
‘No, he’s not here.’
‘What time did he leave yesterday?’
‘Night.’ I was still bleary.
‘What time?’ A rare display of patience from Zhong Kui.
‘About ten.’
‘Right, thank you, sorry to disturb you.’ He ended the call without waiting for a response.
I sat holding my phone, still not completely awake. It took thirty seconds for the implication to set in. I screamed, covered my mouth, and with shaking hands, phoned Zhong Liang’s home. Engaged. Again. Engaged. Again. Still engaged. I tried his mobile. It was off, naturally.
I couldn’t be still. I dropped my phone, shivering, and stood up. My head swam. I sat back down, took a deep breath, and stood again. Within five minutes, I’d brushed my teeth and dressed, and was rushing for the lift.
‘You’re up early, miss,’ said Fei the security guard, but I was already out the door.
I got a taxi to Zhong Liang’s place. The driver saw the urgency in my face and sped all the way there. I jumped out and rang the doorbell.
Mrs Zhong answered, her usually elegant features for once uncomposed. I clutched at her. ‘Zhong Liang…’
Her face was grey. ‘He’s missing,’ she said slowly.
My dear, precious boy.
Zhong Kui was out. Mrs Zhong and I sat alone in the cavernous living room. The phone was off the hook. ‘They’ll call my private line if anything comes up,’ she explained.
Zhong Liang was missing.
Zhong Kui, who went everywhere and knew everything, said so.
That meant he really was gone. Without needing to ask, I knew that as I’d slept in ignorance, they’d combed every inch of Yong’an, deploying resources and manpower beyond my imagining. And yet, Zhong Liang was missing.
This was no ordinary disappearance. The Zhong family controlled everything, down to the weather itself. It was unthinkable that anyone could be hidden from them in such a tiny city as Yong’an.
I waited with Mrs Zhong in her mansion. She glanced at me from time to time, a hundred emotions in her eyes, changeable as clouds in the wind. First Zhong Ren, and now Zhong Liang. If she’d lunged and sank her teeth into me, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But she was Mrs Zhong, and so she sat sedately, and asked the maid to serve me tea. ‘Zhong Liang often spoke of you,’ she said.
‘Oh.’
‘He seemed to like you a lot. Were you seeing each other?’
‘I don’t know.’
I didn’t know. My mind was blank. Even my professor’s death hadn’t left me this bereft. He was dead, that was settled. His corpse was falling apart in its posh tomb. I hadn’t visited. He was dead. I was so far away from him, and I didn’t know how to get back. There was no way back for us. He was dead.
But Zhong Liang…Zhong Liang…
I stared into space, and tears ran down my cheeks.
Mrs Zhong’s eyes reddened in sympathy. ‘Don’t cry,’ she murmured. ‘It’s a shame your professor is gone, otherwise Zhong Liang would have been fine.’
My professor…An explosion in my head. I fished out the pendant and asked her, ‘Does it have anything to do with this?’
She looked, terror blossomed in her eyes, and she shrank into herself.
Slumping back onto the sofa, she wept. ‘He gave it to you. He actually gave it to you. I told him never to take it off, and he…’
Her eyes shut, and her voice changed. Hoarse and fluttering, she said, ‘Go. No point staying here. Zhong Liang isn’t coming back. My son…’
The living room was dark and narrow. The lone lamp cast elongated shadows on the French windows. Suddenly an old woman, Mrs Zhong said, ‘He won’t be back.’
‘Why?’ A thousand needles were prickling my heart, and still I had to ask.
‘Why…’ She took a deep breath and her eyelids sprang open. Her eyes were large and bright, and she was staring straight at me. ‘I don’t know why. When your professor brought him to us, he said that pendant could never leave the boy’s neck, otherwise he’d be taken from us, never to return.’
She was talking to herself. She started struggling to her feet, then huddled into the cushions instead, and stared at the floor. ‘He was such a beautiful child, you know. I adored him the moment I set eyes on him. So clever, so handsome…’
I was stone. I didn’t hear anything else she said. My professor, now dead, looked down on us like Buddha, eyes half-shut as he regarded the suffering and joy of the mortal world. No matter how far we roamed, we remained in the palm of his hand. His vast shadow pressed down on me. I couldn’t breathe. From very far away, I heard the door open, and saw a man walk up to Mrs Zhong. They spoke in low voices. Then he came over and stood in front of me.
I looked up. Zhong Kui.
I didn’t even say hello. ‘Is Zhong Liang…’
‘He’s not coming back,’ said Zhong Kui. ‘He gave you his pendant.’ His eyes were in shadow, and I couldn’t make out his expression. ‘You should leave,’ he said.
‘Your wife just said…’
‘She said nothing at all.’ Zhong Kui’s voice was perfectly level. ‘You should leave.’ He turned and helped Mrs Zhong to her feet. They moved towards the door.
‘Wait!’ I called after them. ‘Just tell me one thing. Is Zhong Liang the professor’s son?’
They hesitated a moment. Zhong Kui tried to keep walking, but his wife turned and said, ‘No, Zhong Liang was an orphan.’
She stared penetratingly at me, and walked away. Zhong Kui gently stroked her shoulder. She looked so very small.
* * *
—
I WALKED WITHOUT NOTICING MY SURROUNDINGS UNTIL suddenly it was dark. The streets felt eerily festive. Finally, I got to the Dolphin Bar, where the bartender was watching TV like nothing had happened. My story was my story alone. I sighed, drank, and stroked my pendant. ‘Why did he give it to you?’ Mrs Zhong had said.
Why? I wanted to know too. Why, Zhong Liang?
The answer might be very simple, but who understood him, and who understood my professor? There were wheels within wheels, and I was too clumsy to separate them all.
I remembered the first time I saw Zhong Liang, when my professor sent him with that note for me. He wore a checked shirt, and told me he’d read my stories. My first thought was: so, my professor had a new lapdog.
I’d thought he was just a passer-by in my story, but then he showed up again, and again. Were all my juniors doomed?
I didn’t know what was true. My ingenious professor with his theories about everything. You gave Zhong Liang the pendant. You sent him to me. Why?
And Zhong Liang – you gave me the pendant. Why?
Out of loyalty, having thought through the risks? Or out of love, having thought through nothing?
Do you love me? No one has ever loved me. The man I thought loved me never did, it was never me at all. I’ve lived an illusory life. I don’t know where I came from, and I don’t know where I’ll go. Do you know? Do you love me?
I’m so scared, truly scared. In all the vastness of the city, I don’t have a single blood relation, no family at all. The woman I thought my mother wasn’t actually, and the man I thought I might love was not who I thought he was either. They lied to me. I’m frightened by how easily I trusted you, how I believed you were someone who loved me. I believed everything.
We are strangers to each other. You don’t know my story, and I don’t know yours. We poured our hearts into our own stories, but never shared them with each other.
I couldn’t stop thinking of Mrs Zhong’s final regard. I couldn’t read her face, but there was despair in it when she said, ‘Zhong Liang was an orphan.’
Whose son are you? Where did you come from? Zhong Liang, with your grinning boyish face, your dry humour, my incorrigible Zhong Liang. If you come back, if you sit before me, quietly take my hand, and tell me everything, I’ll love you. I will love you. Never mind if I can’t love you, or I already do.
But they said you wouldn’t come back. Like a promise, they said you’d been taken, because you gave away your pendant.
Who took you?
I drank my beer, bitter and sharp-tasting. This made no sense. The events of the day before unspooled like a movie. The shocking encounter with the returning beast. The murder. The vomit. The returning beast!
Just like that, I was wide awake. The bar was deathly silent, and all the commotion was outside. What day was it? Without taking his eyes off the TV, the bartender slid another bottle of beer to me. ‘Is it New Year’s Eve?’ I asked.
He looked me in the eye. ‘Yes.’ A pause. ‘Aren’t you usually here with that guy?’
‘Which one?’ I downed my drink and smiled.
He smiled back and gave me a thumbs up. Was this a compliment? We both knew the answer to that.
* * *
—
AND THEN IT WAS THE NEW YEAR. THE STREETS EXPLODED with fireworks – the higher-ups had finally lifted the ban. The firework merchants let out the breath they’d held for several years, and started cranking out firecrackers like little bombs. Everyone was off work, roaming around in bizarre outfits, laughing and singing, beasts and humans alike. Yong’an was a colourful city, really just a giant dance floor. If you dared to completely cut loose, you’d be the darling of the gods.
We were all beloved, celebrating through the night, staying out till we were shit-faced.
At their extremes, pleasure and suffering look the same. I looked at the hysterical faces around me, but Zhong Liang’s wasn’t among them.
My professor’s words abruptly came to me: ‘Not one of them is innocent.’
As each firework went off, I stood gaping in the street. What unspeakable beauty, lasting just an instant. Such exquisite work, brighter than the sun and moon, swaggering into view then vanishing – no evidence it had ever been there, as if it were no more than an illusion.
So many people in the city, so many beasts, and not one of them knew me. The newspapers were all shut for the day, and even my overfamiliar editor was anywhere to be found. Not one phone call. I was starting to miss him.
I called Zhong Liang’s house every day and asked if he’d been found. It was always the maid who answered, and each time she told me that he hadn’t.
At night, I sat by the entrance to the underpass, waiting for the returning beast to appear from underground so I could grab him and ask, ‘Have you seen Zhong Liang? Did you take him?’
He wouldn’t dare not confess – I’d inflict on him the worst torments of the Qing Dynasty, till death if necessary. I feared nothing. Had they taken Zhong Liang? If so, was the returning beast who got murdered actually trying to help him?
Knots everywhere I turned, and no one to untie them.
Now I understood how my professor felt. Caring about nothing, black or white alike. I’d lost everything, and only now did I realise I never had anything to start with. What was there to be scared of?
I laughed. If he were still here, I’d call him and he’d answer all my questions. And perhaps he’d add, ‘These are basic facts, you moron, how could you not know?’
If only.
I laughed, dazed. Finally, I stood up and raised my arm to stop a taxi. I was going to Yong’an University.
