'They did not want to bring me with them, but they were more afraid to leave me alone, so Mother grabbed my hand, and we ran down the path, through the cold mist to the house of Wai Fan. The air felt different to me as we ran, not the way it usually did, and I could smell something strong that I did not like. We were running south, away from the open end of the valley, but it felt as though we were running north, and I knew that some thing had happened to my sense of direction.
'When we reached the house there was already a crowd, and Mother left me outside with Father and the other men and children, and went inside with the women. I was too afraid to talk or ask any questions---all of the children were--but I understood from what the fathers said and the few words I could hear from inside that all three sons of Wai Fan had been killed by the cup hugirngsi.
'We stood, waiting. The air became even colder, the bad smell stronger, and then we saw it, floating down the path in front of the house in the mist: the cup hugirngsi. Father whispered and said it was Chun Li Yeung, who had died the year before, and someone else whispered that it was Ling Chek Yee, but I saw something that no one else saw, and I did not say anything because the figure I saw floating through the mist was not the corpse of anyone we knew. It was not a corpse at all. It was not human. It had never been human. It was a different creature entirely older than any human corpse could have been. A monster. It looked at me and saw me, and it knew that I saw it for what it was. And then it disappeared into the mist and was gone.'
'What did it look like?' Sue asked.
'You do not want to know.' . 'Yes, I do.'
'No, you do not.' Her grandmother was silent for a moment, staring not into space but into time. Sue said nothing, waited for her grandmother to continue.
Finally the old woman did, and her voice was sadder, softer. 'I knew after that that I was different from every one else, that I had Di Lo Ling Gum. The knowledge comforted me, but it also frightened me. I talked about it to my father and mother, to the wise men of the village, hoping that someone could teach me, train me, tell me what to do, but there was no one in Cuangxun who understood
'I had thought, I had hoped, that the cup hugirngsi would go away after that, after killing the sons of Wai Fan, but it did not. It remained in the hills, feeding off the hong mau, growing stronger. In the day, the men went looking for it, hunting it. In the night, we all stayed locked in our houses. A baby was taken from one of the young women in the village. One of the hunters did not return. The land itself began to die. The trees dried up, and the bamboo, and the rice in the fields. There were no more animals to be found. One old man, Tai Po, wanted to offer a sacrifice to the cup hug'irngsi, believing that would appease it. He suggested that we offer a virgin to the monster but I knew this would not work, and I said so, and because of my power they believed me.
'In the end, we decided to leave. Father thought that it would be better to begin a new life in Canton than remain in Cuangxun or anywhere in Hunan. Several families left at once, ours and six others.
I do not know what happened to those who remained behind.
'We survived. In Canton, I found a teacher. I learned the ways of spirits and tse mot. I learned how to protect against the cup hug'irngsi, but I never again saw one.'
The wind outside had stopped, and the house seemed suddenly quiet, too quiet. 'There are such monsters, Susan. There always have been. There always will be.'
Sue shifted uncomfortably against the backboard. She did not know what to say. She did not exactly believe in vampires, but her grandmother's story had frightened her, and she could not say that she entirely disbelieved it.
Her grandmother patted her hand. 'We will speak more of this later, when you are not so tired. We know what is out there, and it is our responsibility to make sure that it is stopped.' She stood and moved away from the bed, walking into the darkness.
It is our responsibility to must make sure that it is stopped. What did that mean? Sue wanted to ask, but her grandmother was already out of the room and closing the door, and she knew that she would have to wait until morning for an answer to that question.
She listened to her grandmother return to her own bedroom. She remained sitting, no longer tired. She heard her parents talking in their room down the hall, their voices little more than low, muffled mumbles. Had they been talking before? She'd thought they'd been asleep. She held her breath, trying not to make any noise, but though she strained to hear what they were discussing, she could make out nothing.
She sat in the darkness, still clutching the edge of her sheet, staring out toward the curtained window, feeling cold. She was not sure whether or not she believed her grandmother, but she had to admit that ever since she'd gone to the school that night she'd felt something in the air, an indefinable sense of wrongness, the impression that everything was not as it should be.
Maybe her grandmotlr was right. Maybe she did have a touch of Di Lo Ling Gum. She lay down again, her head sinking into the fluffy pillow.
She thought back, trying to recall if she'd picked up on any supernatural vibes at any time in her life, but could not.
She fell asleep soon after, and she dreamed of a rotted corpse, blood dripping from its grinning lips, floating through fog in a Chinese mountain village, searching for her, calling her name .... The next day, at the restaurant, Sue tried to stay as far away from her grandmother as possible, making an extra effort not to be alone with the old woman. She felt bad about it, ashamed, but in the clear light of day the talk of D/Lo Ling Gum and the cup hugirngsi seemed down right silly. She felt embarrassed for her grandmother and found herself wondering, guiltily, if perhaps the old woman's mind was slipping.
By lunchtime, the kitchen was almost unbearably hot and humid. The ventilation system was on, but her father was cooking on four woks at once, as well as deep-frying two orders of shrimp, and the air, recycled or not, was sweltering.
Sue took the plastic bowl of chopped onions from the back counter and handed it to her father.
'More chicken,' he said in English.
She hurried across the palleted floor and opened the oversize freezer, taking out the bag filled with sliced breasts that he had prepared that morning. She passed by John, who leaned against the counter and stared up at the TV. 'Why don't you help out?' she asked.... He grinned at her, raised his eyebrows 'Father!' 'John, help your ' sister'
'Why do I always have to do all the work? It's not fair. She gets to spend all day at that dumb newspaper, and I have to stay here and do everything.'
'You do nothing around here,' Sue said. 'I could have five other jobs and still help out more than you do.'
'Stop arguing,' their father said in Cantonese. 'Susan, you help me.
John, you help your mother out front.'
'John!' ..... 'Have fun,' Sue said in English
'Susan!'
John stormed out of the kitchen, and Sue turned back toward her father.
He was scowling at her, but she could tell from his eyes that it was an act, and as he flipped the shrimp onto two plates, he was smiling.
John returned a few moments later, polite, humbled, and obsequious. He lightly tapped her shoulder. 'Sue, greatest sister ever to walk the face of the earth--'
She smiled. 'What do you want?'
'Trade with me. Let me work in the kitchen. There's a guy from my science class out front, and I don't want him to see me.'
'Why?'
'Because.'
'Because why?'
'Mother's trying to talk to his parents.' :'
The past came rushing back in a wave of emotional recognition, and Sue nodded, understanding what her brother meant without him having to spell it out. She too had been embarrassed by her mother, by her father, by everything her parents did or said, a magnification of the mortification all teenagers felt in regard to their parents' behavior. She had spent most of her grammar school years trying to deny any association with her family.
She recalled even being embarrassed by their yard, wondering why her father had chosen to draw attention to himself by imposing his own artificial conception of nature on the desert instead of adapting to the local terrain
