“Who are you?” cried Pretty Ping.
“My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character,” he said with a polite bow. “This is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox.”
“But what are you doing in my bedchamber?” cried Pretty Ping.
“I am paying my respects, and my client is preparing to spend the night,” said Master Li.
“But where is Miser Shen?” cried Pretty Ping.
“Miser Shen is preparing to spend the night with a goat.”
“A goat?”
“It will be a very expensive goat.”
“A very ex… What are you doing?” cried Pretty Ping.
“I am undressing,” I said, because I had been well brought up and I would never dream of contradicting so venerable a sage as Li Kao. Besides, I had been told to obey him by the abbot, who was praying for my soul.
“I shall scream!” cried Pretty Ping.
“I sincerely hope so. Ah, if I could only be ninety again,” Master Li said nostalgically. “Ox, flex a few muscles for the young lady.”
Pretty Ping stared at me, as Li Kao turned and trotted back down the stairs. I grinned back at a young lady whose family had fallen into the clutches of a usurer, and whose beauty had condemned her to the embraces of an elderly gentleman who was equipped with a pair of glittering little pig eyes, a bald and mottled skull, a sharp curving nose like a parrot's beak, the loose flabby lips of a camel, and two drooping elephant ears from which sprouted thick tufts of coarse gray hair. Her luscious lips parted.
“Help,” said Pretty Ping.
The noises downstairs suggested that Miser Shen was acquiring a goat, some castor oil, and a load of garbage, and Pretty Ping and I took the opportunity to get acquainted. In China when young people wish to become acquainted they usually start by playing Fluttering Butterflies, because there is no better way to get to know somebody than to play Fluttering Butterflies.
“Eat!” Miser Shen screamed to the goat.
After young people have become acquainted it is customary to warm things up with the Kingfisher Union, because it is impossible to engage in the Kingfisher Union without becoming close friends.
“Gold!” screamed Miser Shen.
A cup of wine is then called for, and a discussion of relative merits that is usually resolved in favor of Hounds by the Ninth Day of Autumn.
“Eat!” screamed Miser Shen.
The young gentleman then plays the lute while the young lady dances in a manner that would cause a riot if performed in public, and they inevitably become entangled in Six Doves Beneath the Eaves on a Rainy Day.
“Gold!” screamed Miser Shen.
Now that friendship has been firmly established it is but a step and a jump to become soulmates, and the fastest way to become soulmates is Phoenix Sporting in the Cinnabar Crevice.
“Eat!” screamed Miser Shen.
This will lead to wine, love poems, and a return to Fluttering Butterflies, but slowly and drowsily, accompanied by giggles, and so it goes in China until the dawn, when somebody might calm down enough to consider testing the purity of gold coins.
“What is that appalling stench, O most perfect and penetrating of partners?” yawned Pretty Ping.
“I fear that it marks the approach of Miser Shen, O beauty beyond compare,” I said sadly, as I climbed out of bed and pulled on my trousers.
“And what is that angry noise, O most tantalizingly tender of tigers?” asked Pretty Ping.
“I fear that Miser Shen is arming his seven half-starved servants with clubs, O rarest of rose petals.” I sighed, as I collected my sandals, tunic, jade-embroidered silver girdle, fine tasseled hat, and gold-splattered Szech'uen fan.
“Merciful Buddha! What is the ghastly thing that is oozing obscenely through my doorway?” howled Pretty Ping.
“I fear that it is a mound of goat manure, beneath which you should find Miser Shen. Farewell, O seduction of the universe,” I said, and I jumped out the window to the street below.
Li Kao was waiting for me, well rested after a pleasant night with Fat Fu and One-Eyed Wong, and he appeared to approve of the sparkle in my eyes. I bent over and he hopped up upon my back, and then I raced through the streets toward the city walls while behind us Miser Shen screamed, “Bring back my five hundred pieces of gold!”
6. A Winsome Damsel
Our path toward the house of the Ancestress ran through steep mountains, and most of the time Master Li rode upon my back. Sea sounds filled the immense sky as the wind blew through tall trees—pine surfs, as the poets say—and the clouds looked like white sails that were gliding across an endless blue ocean.
One day we climbed down the last mountainside to a green valley, and Li Kao pointed ahead to a low hill.
“The summer estate of the Ancestress should be on the other side,” he said. “To tell the truth, I'm rather looking forward to seeing her again.”
He smiled at a memory of fifty years ago.
“Ox, I hear that she's put on a great deal of weight, but the Ancestress was the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen in my life, and the most charming when she felt like it,” he said. “Still, there was something about her that rang warning bells in my mind, and I was quite fond of old Wen. I was in high favor after the affair of Procopius and the other barbarians—I was even allowed to approach the throne on an east-west axis, instead of groveling up on my knees from the south—and one day I sidled up to the emperor and said with a sly wink that I had arranged for us to spy upon some newlyweds who were about to consummate the happy union. Wen was something of a voyeur, so we tiptoed to my suite and I opened a small curtain and pointed a pedantic finger.
“ ‘O Son of Heaven,’ I said, ‘it would appear that marriage to a certain kind of female can have unfortunate side effects.’
“The newlyweds happened to be praying mantises,” said Master Li. “The groom was happily engrossed in copulation, and right on cue his blushing bride craned her pretty neck and casually decapitated him. The groom's hindquarters continued to pump away while the bride devoured his head, which says something about the location of his brains, and for a moment the emperor had second thoughts about wedding bells. But the Ancestress got to him and I was exiled to Serendip, which was quite fortunate because I wasn't around when she poisoned poor Wen and began massacring everyone in sight.”
We reached the top of the hill and I stared down in horror at an estate that resembled a vast military fort. It covered almost an entire valley, and it was surrounded by high parallel walls. The corridors between them were patrolled by guards and savage dogs, and everywhere I looked I saw soldiers.
“I understand that her winter palace is really something,” Master Li said calmly.
“Can we really get into her treasure chambers and steal the Root of Power?” I asked in a tiny frightened voice.
“I have no intention of attempting such a thing,” he said. “We'll persuade the dear lady to bring the root to us. Unfortunately that means that we will have to murder somebody, and I have never truly enjoyed slitting the throats of innocent bystanders. We must pray that we will find somebody who thoroughly deserves it.”
He started down the hill.
“Of course, if she recognizes me, the funeral will be ours, and for once she will abandon the axe in favor of boiling oil,” he said.
In the last town of consequence Li Kao made certain arrangements, such as purchasing an elegant carriage and renting the largest suite in the inn, and then he went to the town square and tacked one of Miser Shen's gold coins to the message board. I assumed that it would be stolen as soon as we turned our backs, but he drew
