manual on Chinese Poetic Shorthand. Do you know Li Po’s ‘Short Song’?
“Think, my boy, of the benefit to the barbarian’s style if he studied Li Po’s technique and altered his missive accordingly.
“A vast improvement,” I said.
I forgot to mention the venders of soft drinks. These fellows are almost alone in advertising their wares with their own voices, and the reason is that each and every one is convinced he’s but a temporarily undiscovered star of Peking opera, and one of the bastards had crept up behind me and was pointing his gaping maw at both my ears. Along with the rest of it, the result was like this:
“Sha la jen la!”
“Hao! Hao! Hao!”
“Hao tao!”
“Who has made off with my costly silk trousers! My pure velvet loin-cloth!”
“Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!”
That last was a scissors grinder. They advertise by clashing rows of metal discs sewn into the linings of their long, wide sleeves, and the sound has the peculiar quality of cracking the porcelain of your teeth. The latest severed head rolled to the little girls, who didn’t even look up as they automatically raised their legs, and the sweet childish chant continued as the head joined the row of its bodiless colleagues, and I suddenly leaned forward and started to count: “…twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six.” Twenty-six meant Devil’s Hand had just tied the record, and the next would set a new one! I was going to lose my bet unless a miracle happened, but I didn’t mind. In fact, for the first time that day I felt a glow of well-being, because I knew the next prisoner in line all too well. How delightful that the record should be set by Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu!
“Ox, here’s a very interesting comment from Flaccus the Fourth!” Master Li was yelling. “He begins by bemoaning your excessive sensationalism, and then writes, ‘Ut turpiter atrum desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne—’ “
I nudged his arm and pointed, and Master Li arose and adjusted his robes. He stepped to the front of the platform as the bailiffs dragged the prisoner forward, and I could see the old man compose himself and begin formulating suitably dignified Confucian comments to help the hosteler resign himself to his imminent demise. Unfortunately Master Li couldn’t quite attain the proper tone of serene gravity since he had to contend with the mob, the venders, the gamblers, and two little girls clapping hands, and the result was something like this:
“Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu—”
“Six to five! Last chance at six to five! Money-money-money!” howled Gold Tooth Meng.
“Your crimes are debased beyond belief—”
“Whap-whong! Whap-whong! Whap-whong!”
That was a peddler of combs and hairbrushes who advertised by bashing a drum and a gong simultaneously.
“And were it in my power to do so—”
“Soothing syrups chilled with ice!”
“Stop, thief! Bring back the lint from my navel!”
“I would sentence you to the Thousand Cuts—”
“Beginning with your polecat prick and baboon balls, you miserable turd!” Master Li yelled at the top of his lungs.
Further words would be redundant. He waved to the bailiffs, who hauled Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu to the chopping block and kicked his legs out from under him. Devil’s Hand began his breathing exercises and prepared to hoist his sword for the record-breaking attempt, and that was when the first of the extraordinary events that were to entangle us in the affairs of the Eight Skilled Gentlemen occurred.
I wouldn’t have believed anybody could scream loud enough to make the mob in the Vegetable Market shut up and pay attention, or make the Chief Executioner of Peking come to a halt with his sword raised high, but that is exactly what happened. All eyes turned to six figures that were racing into the square through the Gate of Prolonged Righteousness. The five men in the lead had wide staring eyes, faces bleached white with terror, and mouths gaping like coal bins as they emitted one earsplitting scream after another. The sixth figure was the cause of the commotion, and one look was enough to freeze my blood. I had heard tales of vampire ghouls from Auntie Hua since I was five years old, but I had never expected to see one, and this ch’ih-mei, as Master Li later confirmed, was a specimen so classic it could have been used to illustrate the famous scientific study by the great P’u Sung-ling, Recorder of Things Strange.
It had long greenish-white hair growing all over it, tangled and rank, dripping with decaying fungus from a tomb. Its huge red eyes glared like charcoal fires, and its vulture claws dripped with somebody’s blood, and its huge tiger teeth glittered in the sunlight. The terrible thing moved with immense powerful strides and would surely have caught the fleeing men in no time if it had run in a straight line. Instead it weaved and stumbled, clawing the air with impotent fury, and when it ran into one of the vender’s carts I finally realized what Master Li had grasped instantly. The monster was blind and dying. That was what Auntie Hua had always told me: “Number Ten Ox, if you are chased by a ch’ih-mei, run to daylight! The sun is poison to the living dead!”
The old lady had been right. The vampire ghoul stumbled around in circles, and when it started toward the chopping block Devil’s Hand almost twisted himself in half. Instinctively he had started his great sword down
