The Nine Fold Heaven (25 page)

32

A Disturbing Encounter and the Other Woman

N
ow that we had Jinjin and Peiling, we decided to leave Shanghai and its dangers as soon as possible. The next step was to book steamer tickets back to Hong Kong.

But there were some loose ends that needed to be taken care of here, since we might never be able to return to China. Most important was drawing out the money sitting in Master Lung’s bank accounts. I now regarded this as taking an inheritance, rather than as theft. With the old master in the world beyond, the money belonged to the young master, Jinying. No doubt if Jinying applied his legal knowledge to taking this to court, we would eventually get the money—if we were not assassinated first, and after substantial deductions for bribing the judge and other officials involved. I had survived by being practical, so I decided to simply take the money and run.

The next day, I used Wang’s chop to sign the documents necessary to transfer the money to the account I had opened in Hong Kong. Of course, the transaction might not have been so smooth had I not slipped a thick envelope across the bank manager’s desk. There was still much more than enough for Jinying and I. So to gain merit for Wang and Lung to get better treatment in hell—and lessen the chance of their ghosts coming back to harass me—I arranged to give substantial sums to charities, including Compassionate Grace and Sacred Heart.

I assumed that Big Brother Wang had already died—the herbalist who sold the toxic herb powder was well-known for the invariable effectiveness of his concoctions. Yet, I could not find any mention about him in the newspapers. Then, shortly before our ship was about to carry us away from Shanghai, I opened the
Leisure News
to read:

I really had to salute the nerve of this gossip columnist, who did not hesitate even to make fun of a dead person. Didn’t she fear his ghost’s revenge, or that she would offend her superstitious readers? How had she come to suspect that Wang’s death had something to do with the fish? Was she about to reveal the identity of the “young couple”? This possibility was yet one more reason to speed up our departure from Shanghai.

Now that Jinjin had come back to his mama, he no longer appeared to scold me in my dreams. But then I had another kind of disturbing dream.

 

 

I woke up from my disturbing dream and decided to see Gao. Now it was his turn to scold me—to tell me he needed to feel my love one more time before he perished. I looked around the room in the dim light. Peiling, my baby, and his father—the man who was my soon-to-be husband—were all asleep.

I buried my face into the pillow so Jinying would not see my tears and ask me to explain. Why had heaven sent me two men, actually three, to love me instead of one? Just to make my life difficult?

The ship for Hong Kong would be leaving that night. After we packed and got everything ready, I decided there was one last thing I must do before leaving. I did not want to spend the rest of my life wondering what had happened to Gao. I would not forget him, even though my life’s path was leading me in another direction.

Of course, I could not tell Jinying about this. So I said, “Before we go, I need to visit Madame Lewinsky’s grave to make an offering to bring peace to her spirit .

Jinying asked, “Do you really have to?”

I explained that, despite the great wrong she had done us, she had taught me to sing, and she had delivered Jinjin and cared for him while she was alive.

Jinying saw I was resolved and suggested that they could all come with me. I replied that it would be too depressing for Peiling to visit the cemetery. Being blind she was very intuitive, so her mind might be affected by the negative
yin
energy. Worse, it would be highly inauspicious to bring our baby to visit a dead person when he had just come back to us.

As I was about to go, Peiling piped up. “Miss Camilla, please don’t leave me!”

“Don’t worry, Peiling, I will never leave you. You are coming with us to Hong Kong.”

She remained silent. Her sixth sense told her something was not quite right. She was correct, because I was not quite finished with the dusty world of Shanghai.

I turned to Jinying. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon.”

Then I kissed Jinying, Peiling, and little Jinjin, who was deep in his dream village. Before Jinying could say anything, I grabbed my purse, then left everyone behind.

As soon as I left the hotel, I went to a small department store, bought some men’s clothes, then changed at a public restroom. After that, I took a tram to the address Gao had given me at Wang’s birthday party. In case there were gangsters there, it would be simpler if they thought I was a man.

It was early in the morning, so there were only a few passengers and I was left alone. But I was so exhausted that I kept dozing off as the tram clanged along. I was in no mood to appreciate the scenery through the window. I didn’t know any way I could soothe my troubled mind.

I knew it was wrong to leave my new, little family to seek my old lover. But I couldn’t just leave Gao without saying a proper good-bye—not after he’d come into my dream with a severed hand. Would Jinying guess what I was up to and be bitter? Would he be suspicious of me ever after? I knew Peiling was terrified that we would leave her, but eventually, she would be able to have confidence in us.

Then, a few minutes into the ride, a horrible thought entered my mind. What about if Gao had been killed during the shoot-out at Wang’s banquet?

I dozed off again, then was awakened by rain sprinkling through the partially opened window. I looked out to see where we were and spotted, in some distance, a dilapidated bus inching forward on the other side of the road, looking like its allotted time in this incarnation was almost up.

Bored, I leaned toward the window to take a better look. I noticed that among the weary-looking passengers who were staring into space, one man was waving frantically toward my tram. Two children near me giggled and waved back. I wondered why this man was so eager to greet strangers on the other side of the road. Even when the children had tired of waving and giggling, the man kept waving enthusiastically. Or perhaps desperately. I wondered if we knew each other, but his face was indistinct through the gray drizzle.

Just then, the tram lurched forward and soon the bus was but a small dot behind us.

Finally, the tram arrived at my station and I hopped off, then walked around looking for Gao’s street. This was a small town with a few dingy shops, a grocery, a barber, a few unappealing eateries. I did not ask for directions, lest it arouse curiosity about me.

After passing a few more shops and playing children, I finally spotted the address I’d been looking for. It was a dingy shack next to a public bath house. A plump, middle-aged man wearing a tattered bathrobe entered, releasing a blast of steam.

I was surprised that Gao lived in such a forlorn area, because I always assumed that Lung had paid him well. I walked to the door of the shack and saw a small poster on the wall. A couplet was printed on faded gold letters against a sun-bleached red background: