Year of the Golden Dragon (23 page)

Hong Mei bent her head down and said, “She killed the parents of the heirs when she tried to take your jade from their home. That is where she got the scroll.”

Black Dragon roared. “The Ching woman possesses the same bad blood of her ancestor, the wicked Empress.”

“Esteemed Black Dragon,” Hong Mei said. “We escaped Madam Ching by using Master Chen’s box. She wanted us to use your precious jade to lure Noble Black Dragon to her. She wishes to trap Venerable Black Dragon in Beijing so that she can prove to the world that dragons exist.”

Hong Mei cringed as Black Dragon fumed, forcing fast clouds of steam from his nostrils.

“Black Dragon cannot be held against Black Dragon’s will,” he said. “Like the Empress, the Ching woman understands nothing of others, be they human or animal. The only thing the Empress cared about was herself. She, too, killed those who stood in the way of what she lusted after.” Black Dragon spat onto a pretty flowering tree in a pot beside him. It crinkled as if burned by acid. “The Ching women are disgusting creatures.”

“Virtuous Black Dragon? May I ask a question?”

Black Dragon nodded sagely.

“Did Master Chen’s box bring the heirs and me to Xian so that I would have the opportunity to warn Revered Black Dragon about Madam Ching?”

Hong Mei watched Black Dragon sneer. “Black Dragon is not afraid of a Ching. In fact, she might make a tasty appetizer. Is she nice and fat?”

Hong Mei gulped. “Does Magnificent Black Dragon wish for us to return to Beijing now, or wait until it is safer?”

Hong Mei saw Black Dragon frown.

“Miss Chen is brave – but not as bright as a Chen should be. Why would young Chen and the heirs go back to Beijing?”

“Wasn’t that the promise?” she stuttered. “That we should meet Considerate Black Dragon at the river – at Enduring Black Dragon’s familial home in the capital city?”

She watched Black Dragon shake his head and a smile began to curl his black lips. But this time, Hong Mei saw that it was not an evil grin, but one that was human-like, as if he thought she’d said something funny.

“Master Chen made the box to keep Black Dragon’s jade safe, but it also helps in the discovery of truth. The truth box takes humans to where they are meant to realize a truth they need to know. Part of this journey is for the heirs, and another is for you, Miss Chen. But if young Chen fails in lessons of history, it will not be easy.”

Black Dragon snorted. “I hope that you will prove your worth as an heir, though female, Young Chen. I truly wish that you do not let Black Dragon, and countless others, down tonight.”

He tossed Master Chen’s box at her.

Hong Mei caught the case and watched Black Dragon saunter away.

When he was out of sight, Hong Mei slumped down beside the bush Black Dragon had spat on. She could see where he’d burned some of the leaves and flowers. How ironic, she thought, looking more closely at the plant. The shrub was
mei-hua,
also called
hong-mei,
the one she’d been named after. It never failed. Even in the coldest season it still bloomed.

Hong Mei looked up and saw a sign with black characters written on it. She had been right. This was a café for the visitors to the Emperor’s tomb. She doubted it would be open today, the day of New Year’s Eve, no matter how significant the place was to Chinese history.
Lessons of history
…of course! She shook her head at her own stupidity. When the prophecy was made, “the capital” meant Xian. Beijing wasn’t the capital two thousand years ago.

Hong Mei needed to get back inside and tell Ryan and Alex they didn’t have to go back to Beijing. A sudden thought struck her. Had Madam Ching made the same mistake? Hong Mei paused, thinking hard. The woman had clearly told Hong Mei to bring the heirs to Beijing. Now, here they all were in Xian – with Madam Ching hundreds of kilometres away.

Hong Mei looked at her watch: 15:18:36. She threw back her head and laughed to the sky. Madam Ching had no idea where they were, and they had plenty of time. It was 8:42 in the morning and she was starving. She still had to convince Ryan to complete what they were sent here to do, but surely she could do that over some breakfast. She’d heard somewhere that a way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. Hong Mei blushed. Where had that come from?

She set off to find her way back to the Emperor’s heirs.

Chapter 20

A Filial Farewell

“Ryan? Are you awake?”

“Hmm?” Alex heard the muffled sound of his brother’s voice.

It was dark and smelly under the tarp, but at least it was warm. He and Ryan had fallen asleep while waiting for Hong Mei to come back. Jet lag. Sometimes it wasn’t such a bad thing.

Alex threw back the stiff cover from over his head and breathed in the dusty, chilly air. He looked up at the windows at the top of the hangar-like structure and saw that it was getting light outside. He shivered. It was cold in this place. No central heating in tombs, he thought with a half-laugh.

Shivering again, Alex wished he was wearing his own clothes. The blazer Madam Ching had made him wear to that dinner wasn’t as warm as his Roots jacket. That one had a hood. He guessed he’d seen the last of it. He pulled the scratchy tarp up around his neck and listened to Ryan’s snoring.

Where was Hong Mei? If it was morning already, she’d been gone a long time. Maybe she couldn’t find her way back to them. Or maybe the sound they heard had been a security guard and she’d been arrested for breaking and entering. He didn’t want to think what Ryan was going to say when he woke up.

He felt around beside him for Master Chen’s box. Not feeling anything but the ground, he pulled back the tarp and searched for it. Where was it?

“What are you doing?” he heard Ryan mumble.

“Uh, nothing.” How was he going to tell Ryan that Hong Mei hadn’t come back
and
the box was gone? Had she been lying? Was she really on Madam Ching’s side?

Ryan sat up and took his glasses out of his blazer pocket and put them on. Smoothing his hair he looked around. “Where’s Hong Mei?”

Alex cleared his throat and said quietly, “She’s not back yet.”

Ryan sat up straighter and looked up at the same high windows Alex had. “It’s morning and she’s not back yet?”

Alex cringed. Ryan was going to lose it when he found out she’d taken the box. How were they going to get back to Hong Kong?

Just then, Alex heard, “Ryan? Alex? Are you there?”

It sounded like Hong Mei. “Here! We’re over here!” he called, but not loudly.

A couple of seconds later, Hong Mei came around the corner and smiled. “I am so glad you are here. I got confused about how to get back to you. I had to use my second sight.”

“Yeah, right,” Ryan said. “You’ve been gone for hours! How confused were you?”

Alex saw Hong Mei’s smile disappear, but she didn’t turn red like she had before.

“I was with Black Dragon,” she said, handing Master Chen’s box to Alex.

“I’m sure,” Ryan said.

Alex watched his brother roll his eyes.

“And I suppose Black Dragon asked you nicely for the jade and you told him we’d be happy to go back to Beijing and return it to him there. Right?”

Hong Mei stood unsmiling, but Ryan’s words weren’t having much of an impact on her as far as Alex could tell.

She turned to Alex and said, “Black Dragon told me the same thing your Uncle Peter told you about the truth box. It takes people to places where they learn an important truth.”

“Oh, really,” Ryan drawled. “Since you took the box, and I don’t remember you telling us you were taking it, what
truth
did you discover with it?”

Alex studied Hong Mei’s face. She was holding up pretty well.

Hong Mei shifted her gaze to Ryan. “I’m not sure, but I think it is that we do not have to return the jade to Black Dragon in Beijing tonight.”

“That’s amazing!” Ryan said sarcastically. “But
I
could have told you that, too. Because Alex and I aren’t going anywhere except for Hong Kong.” He stood up and straightened his clothes. “In fact,” Ryan said, brushing the dust off his jacket and looking at Hong Mei, “we’re headed there right now.”

Alex swallowed. There was no way Hong Mei was going to convince Ryan of anything now. He watched his brother take the peppermint box out of his pocket, and almost immediately his face changed. He frowned, his eyebrows pursed in a look of puzzlement.

“What?” Alex asked.

“I don’t know,” Ryan said, undoing the buttons on his jacket and opening it up. “There’s something in this pocket that I didn’t notice before.”

Alex watched Ryan feel the lining where the pocket was. “Is it an extra button or something?”

“No, it feels like a battery or something has been sewn into the inside of the jacket.”

“A battery?”

“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Like a double A battery.”

Alex looked closer. He saw something blinking in the cloth that Ryan was fiddling with. Was that a light?

“Ryan. Something weird is in there. Take it off.”

His brother quickly removed the jacket and threw it on top of the tarp. Looking at the blazer Alex wore, Ryan asked, “What about yours?”

Alex thrust Master Chen’s box into Hong Mei’s hands and checked his own pockets. He felt two pieces of jade in the left one and one in the right, and – what was that? He felt a heavy, cylindrical object. Quickly unbuttoning the jacket, he pulled it away from his body. He could just make out the same faint red light. He withdrew the jade pieces and passed them to Ryan, then tore off the jacket and threw it on top of Ryan’s. Alex’s breathing had quickened and he took a breath to try and steady it.

Ryan suddenly said, “Ssh. Did you hear that?”

Alex listened. He hadn’t heard anything and was about to say so, when there was the sound of a voice – a female voice – speaking Mandarin.

The three of them stood perfectly still and listened.

It couldn’t be!

Alex looked back and forth between Ryan and Hong Mei.

“She is searching for us,” Hong Mei whispered. “She knows we are here.”

Now came the gruff voice of a man. Alex heard a laugh, followed by a chorus of grunts.

Hong Mei took off the lid of the box. Alex could see that her hands were shaking. She was already reciting the poem. He immediately started saying the poem in English. Speaking quickly and softly, Alex looked at Ryan, who had joined in. The three of them, whispering in English and Chinese, raced through the poem.

They were nearly at the end of the recitation when a man came around the same corner that Hong Mei had turned just a short while before. He stopped and his eyes lit up.

Alex had never seen a bigger person in his life. He was a giant with a shaved head the size of a watermelon.

The man shouted out in Mandarin, “They’re here!”

Alex could hear Ryan and Hong Mei still reciting. He closed his eyes, shutting out the giant, and continued with the last few lines of the poem that he was getting to know so well.

A rumbling sound began and the ground shook as it had before at Madam Ching’s. They were just saying the final words when Alex opened his eyes to see that a Terra Cotta Warrior had come loose from its foundation. It tipped dangerously close to the huge man. He raised his arms in alarm, trying to shield himself from the falling soldier.

Other sculptures started to wobble – horses, standing guards and chariots. Through the swaying army and across the heaving ground, Alex spotted Madam Ching. She glared back at him with icy-cold eyes and started toward them, striding purposefully through falling statues and debris.

Alex felt Hong Mei grab his arm and shout, “Quick! Come with me.”

The last thing Alex saw was a large horse-drawn chariot rolling in front of Madam Ching, immediately blocking her way.

Hong Mei pulled him along to follow Ryan. They ran, dodging tumbling warriors, guards, infantrymen and generals.

Then, as quickly as the turmoil had started, the ground settled and everything stopped moving. Some of the army was in disarray and other parts seemed untouched. It had been just like an earthquake. Maybe that’s what it was, since they obviously hadn’t gone anywhere. They were still in the Terra Cotta Tomb.