Shang means “Difficult Birth.”) This time he had to stand the lonely vigil at the monastery while the other monks enjoyed the festivities.
“Somebody is sure to toss a torch into a barn,” Master Li predicted direly.
“They'll be lucky if one cottage remains standing,” said Brother Shang, who was beginning to cheer up. “Family feuds will erupt all over the place! Broken skulls will be beyond counting! Mark my words: This date will be marked in black in the annals of the valley.”
We left the poor fellow to his self-pity, a very useful emotion, and started down the hill to the village. The Feast of Hungry Ghosts has been my personal favorite ever since I began traveling with Master Li, since I am almost certain to become a hungry ghost myself. (It honors, among others, those who have died in distant and desolate lands, or whose bodies have been mangled beyond recognition.) I was slightly surprised to see that Master Li was on his best behavior. As the visiting dignitary he was required to pass judgment on the wines of the valley, and I was prepared for the worst when he approached the reeking pots and uttered the formal “Ning szu che hou t'uen,” which means “I'm ready to die; I'll try it,” but he only took a small sip of each vitriolic product and praised all without restraint, even the brew that spilled on the ground and killed two lizards and three square feet of grass.
The abbot kept the formal prayers and ceremonies mercifully brief, and I was delighted when the hit of the early going turned out to be Brother Shang. He couldn't attend, but he had spent the winter carving and tuning tiny bamboo flutes and he tied them to the tails of the monastery's pigeons and sent them flying over the village to serenade us with a bawdy song called “Chu Chang's Chamber Pot.” The abbot said something about disciplining the impious rogue, but his heart wasn't in it.
The dancing started, which meant the fights would start shortly, and I was very disappointed when Master Li decided to slip away and walk through the hills in the moonlight. His feet led him to the destroyed area of Princes’ Path, and he stood there for several minutes, rocking on his heels with his hands clasped behind his back.
“Ox,” he finally said, “what was wrong with the analysis of the situation that I gave to Prince Liu Pao?” he said.
“Sir?”
“I was trying to reassure him. I wish I could reassure myself,” the ancient sage said gloomily. “It's perfectly clear that crooks dressed in motley stole a manuscript and frightened a monk to death. After that, everything begins to run amok. A weird compelling sound is heard precisely as the crooks make their escape; some mysterious substance kills trees and plants precisely where they place their sandals. If it was a coincidental collapse of a tunnel and the release of old acids, as I suggested to the prince, it's the kind of coincidence that deserves priests, prayers, and an elaborate theology. If it wasn't a coincidence, why would crooks waste effects like that on the simple theft of a manuscript? They could walk off with the Imperial Treasury if they felt like it, or pilfer the emperor's undergarments while he was wearing them. My boy, this affair makes no sense at all.”
I said nothing, of course, but I noted that the old man was enjoying every moment of his confusion. He had feared that all he had to work with was a simple burglary, and now he was praying for a puzzle that could baffle the judges of Hell. He wiped off a flat rock and sat down beneath the stars. Just below us on the hill we saw tiny flickers of light moving through the woods. Little girls have large maternal instincts, and they take the Feast of Hungry Ghosts very seriously, and they were making their rounds with small lanterns made from candles inside rolled lotus and sage leaves. I could feel ghosts all around us, moving toward the warmth of the sweet singing voices: You are not alone, the girls sang, you are not forgotten, we care and understand, our own lives are but a candle flame from yours:
I wiped my eyes. The moonlight was shining upon Dragon's Left Horn and the ancient estate of the Lius, and I wondered how the Laughing Prince could have enjoyed torturing and murdering little girls like these. Apparently Master Li was thinking the same thing.
“I have a theory about the late lunatic lord,” he said. “Ox, what occupation is most closely linked to insanity?”
“Emperor,” I said promptly.
He laughed. “I can't argue with that, but I meant a commonplace occupation.”
I scratched my nose. “Making felt?” I guessed.
“Precisely,” said Master Li. “Felt is cured by immersion in mercury. People in certain trades—hatters, for example—practically swim in the stuff, and it's almost certain that the Laughing Prince drank it.”
“Sir?”
“In his youth he had been a promising scientist,” Master Li explained. “Sooner or later he was bound to experiment with the Elixir of Life. The formulas are beyond counting, but they all contain the common ingredient of cinnabar, and cinnabar is simply mercuric sulphide. For years I've been warning about mercury, but nobody listens. The reason is that the effect is cumulative and gradual, and one needs to live as long as I have to see the pattern.”
He hopped to his feet and began demonstrating expressions and body movements.
“It attacks the nervous system, and eventually produces tics and twitches and spastic movements, like this,” said Master Li, and he did a strange jerky series of steps that was oddly appealing. “I am most definitely thinking of the Laughing Prince's irresistible little dance step,” he said. “As the poisoning progresses, it leads to outbursts of hysterical laughter and fits of murderous rage, and the final result is insanity followed by death. Ox, it's perfectly possible that the crimes of the Laughing Prince were caused by experiments intended to achieve immortality by drinking cinnabar—not very dramatic, perhaps, but more people have been massacred because an emperor's sandals didn't fit properly than because he received a sign from Heaven, and whenever I hear a high priest howl for divine retribution, I suspect acid indigestion.”
He jigged around the grass some more, and then he stopped and looked closely at me. “Acid indigestion?” he asked.
It wasn't that, but I couldn't explain what was bothering me. Something was wrong with the night. I doubt that city people would have noticed it, but I am pure country, and my nerves tingled at the tiny hesitation in the chirping of crickets. An owl stopped a hunting call halfway through. There was a tentative sound to the rustling of small night creatures. Something strange and unnatural had entered the Valley of Sorrows, and I realized that I was holding my breath.
When it came, it was only a small vibration. Then the vibration grew more pronounced, and I saw Master Li look around sharply. Then the sound came. I can't describe it. Nobody could. It was like nothing on earth, yet like everything, and my whole body shuddered with an agonizing sense of loss, but with yearning and hope as well—as though I had once lost something very precious and the memory was returning, and also a hope of finding it again. Can I say that the sound had notes to it? If so, they were as simple and direct as the first three tones of the scale, with the third tone drawn out:
Kung… shang… chueeeeeeeeeeh…
That's the best I can do, and it hit me so hard I wept, and I held my heart as though it would break in half.
“Ox? What's wrong with you?”
“The sound!” I sobbed. “Master Li, surely you hear the sound!”
“What sound?”
Kung… shang… chueeeeeeeeeeh…
