“Master Li, how are we going to murder a man who laughs at axes?” I asked.
“We are going to experiment, dear boy. Our first order of business will be to find a deranged alchemist, which should not be very difficult. China,” said Master Li, “is overstocked with deranged alchemists.”
In the city of Pingtu, Li Kao examined the faces of street vendors until he found an old lady with gossip written all over her.
“A thousand pardons, Adoptive Daughter, but this humble one seeks an eminent scientist who may be living nearby,” he said politely. “He is a devout Taoist, somewhat seedy in appearance and rather wild of eye, and there is an excellent chance that his house is placed halfway between a cemetery and a slaughterhouse.”
“You seek Doctor Death!” the old lady gasped, fearfully glancing toward a ramshackle house that teetered at the top of a hill. “None but the criminally insane dare climb the path to his House of Horrors, and few ever return!”
He thanked her for the warning and started briskly up the path.
“Almost certainly a gross slander,” Master Li said calmly. “Ox, Taoists are guided by a rather peculiar blend of mysticisms. On the one hand they exalt sages like Chuang Tzu, who taught that death and life, end and start are no more disconcerting than the passage of night and day, but on the other hand they engage in frantic quests for personal immortality. When a scientific genius becomes involved in the mystical mumbo-jumbo, the result is likely to be a lunatic whose quest for eternal life massacres everything in sight, but such poor souls wouldn't willingly harm a fly. Besides,” he added, “it's a perfect day for a visit to a House of Horrors.”
There I could agree with him. Trees in the cemetery sighed in the wind like a moan of mourners, and behind the slaughterhouse a dog howled horribly. Black clouds muttered dark spells above the mountains, and sulphurous lightning streaked the sky, and the ramshackle house upon the hill creaked and groaned in a rising gale that dripped with a thin, weeping rain. We walked through the open door into a room that was littered with carcasses, and where a little old man with a bloodstained beard was attempting to install a pig's heart into a man's cadaver, while cauldrons burped and kettles bubbled and seething vials emitted green and yellow vapors.
Doctor Death sprinkled the heart with purple powder and made mystical gestures with his hands. “Beat!” he commanded. Nothing happened, so he tried yellow powder. “Beat, beat, beat!” He tried blue powder. “Ten thousand curses, why won't you beat?” he yelled, and then he turned around. “Who you?” asked Doctor Death.
“My surname is Li and my personal name is Kao, and there is a slight flaw in my character, and this is my esteemed client, Number Ten Ox,” Master Li said with a polite bow.
“Well, my surname is Lo and my personal name is Chan, and I am rapidly losing patience with a corpse that absolutely refuses to be resurrected!” Doctor Death yelled, and then his face and voice softened until he looked to be as gentle as a snowflake and as innocent as a banana. “If I cannot resurrect a stubborn corpse, how can I hope to resurrect my beloved wife?” he said softly.
He turned toward a coffin that had been set up as a shrine, and tears trickled down his cheeks.
“She was not pretty, but she was the most wonderful wife in the world,” he whispered. “Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice and the herbs that she picked in the woods. She sang beautiful songs to cheer me when I was depressed, and she sewed dresses for wealthy ladies to help pay for my studies. We were very happy together, and I know that we will be happy together again. Don't worry, my love, I'll have you out of that coffin in no time!” he yelled.
He turned back to us.
“It's simply a matter of finding the purest ingredients, because I already have an infallible formula,” he explained. “You use ten pounds of peach fuzz—”
“Ten pounds of tortoise hairs,” said Master Li.
“Ten pounds of plum skins—”
“Ten pounds of rabbit horns—”
“Ten pounds of membranes of living chickens—”
“One large spoonful of mercury—”
“One large spoonful of oleander juice—”
“Two large spoonfuls of arsenic oxide—”
“For the toxin generates the antitoxin—”
“And in death there is life, as in life there is death.”
“A colleague!” Doctor Death cried happily, and he wrapped Li Kao in a bloody embrace. “Tell me, Venerable One, do you know of some better method? This one is bound to work sooner or later, but it has been such a very long time, and I fear that my dear wife is growing weary of her coffin.”
“Alas, I am only aware of the classic formula,” Master Li sighed. “My own specialty is the Elixir of Life, but I foolishly left home without an adequate supply, which is why I have come to you.”
“But how fortunate! I have just made a fresh batch.” Doctor Death rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a greasy vial that was filled with thick purple liquid. “One spoonful after each meal and two at bedtime and you will surely live forever,” he said. “I need scarcely mention to a colleague that the Elixir of Life can occasionally have distressing side effects, and that it is best to try it first on a rat.”
“Or a cat,” said Master Li.
“Or a crow.”
“Or a cow.”
“And if you happen to have a useless hippopotamus—”
“Actually, I was planning to try it on an elephant,” said Master Li.
“A wise decision,” Doctor Death said approvingly.
“A small donation,” Master Li said, piling gold coins on a table between somebody's lymph glands and lungs. “May I suggest that you employ a professional grave robber? Digging up corpses can be terribly hard work.”
Doctor Death looked down at the gold with a strange expression on his face, and his voice was so soft that I barely heard him.
“Once there was a poor scholar who needed to buy books, but he had no money,” he whispered. “He sold everything he had to buy a tiny piece of gold, which he concealed in the hollow handle of an alchemist's ladle, and then he went to the house of a rich man and pretended to turn lead into gold. The rich man gave him money so that he could learn how to turn large pieces of lead into gold, and the scholar happily ran to the city to buy the books that he needed. When he returned he discovered that thieves had broken into his house. They had heard that he knew how to make gold, so they had tortured his wife to make her tell where he had hidden it. She was barely alive. He held her in his arms and wept, and she looked at him but she did not know him. ‘But gentlemen,’ she whispered, ‘surely you do not mean to kill me? My husband is a brilliant scientist and a dear sweet kindly man, but he needs someone to look after him. What will he do when I am gone?’ And then she died.”
Doctor Death turned to the coffin and shouted, “Don't worry, my love! Now I can afford to buy a better grade of corpses, and…” He clapped a hand to his mouth. “Oh dear!” he gasped, and he turned and trotted over to the cadaver on the table.
“I did not mean to offend you,” he said contritely. “I'm sure that you will do splendidly, and perhaps it would help if you realized how important it is. You see, my wife was not pretty but she was the most wonderful wife in the world. Her name was Chiang-chao, and we were very poor, but she could make the most delicious meals from a handful of rice….”
He had forgotten that we existed, and we tiptoed out and started down the hill in the rain. Li Kao had been quite serious about trying the Elixir of Life on an elephant. At the bottom of the hill was a poor old beast that was used to haul logs to the sawmill, and its master was not kind. There were cruel goad marks on the elephant's shoulders, and it was nearly starved. We climbed the fence and Li Kao put one tiny drop of the Elixir on the tip of his knife blade.
“Do you consent?” he asked softly.
The elephant's sorrowful eyes were more eloquent than words—for the love of Buddha, they said, release me from this misery and return me to the Great Wheel of Transmigrations.
“So be it,” said Master Li.
He gently pressed the blade against an open wound. The elephant looked surprised for an instant. Then it hiccupped, hopped high into the air, landed on its back with a mighty crash, turned blue, and peacefully expired.
