I stop. If I do this, she wins. She does not get to taint my sanctuary. I open my hand and the little umbrella slowly unbends. Carefully, I straighten the bent wood, smooth out the delicate pleats of the umbrella and place it on the floor. I stare at it for a long time, even though the tears make everything blurry.
Six
Damned Roosters
The next morning I am rudely awakened by cocks crowing. A lot of cocks crowing. I yank the quilt over my head and try to smother the hoarse, braying sounds. It sounds like a whole flock of cocks has settled in my bedroom. The feathered kind. The other kind do not enter my rooms. First of all, Big Wang would throw me in a vat of garlic as punishment for sullying his good name; secondly, Old Zao downstairs would faint from the scandal. Though they would likely enjoy telling everyone within a five li radius – which means every inhabitant inside the walls of the Old City – once they recovered from the shock.
Anyway, no amorous ghost or yaojing in their right mind would dare approach me for fear of offending Big Wang. Which is a pity. I wonder sometimes how it would be to have a conversation with someone who isn’t myriads of centuries old. My mind flits for a moment to Mr Lee but just as quickly shies away.
The cockerels continue their shrill cries. The noise makes me want to pull out my own hair. I shriek in frustration. I have had enough of the rotted roosters. The influx of ghosts has increased steadily over the past few years, as has the stray rooster population. At first it was novel, it was fun to hear thecocorucohfirst thing in the morning. At first I enjoyed waking up to the far-off cries of a cockerel or two. But now it’s got out of hand.
Twice a month, on the new and full moon, mortals burn joss money that their deceased receive in immortal Shanghai. The latest trend is to also burn joss cocks, origami roosters or sculptures made of cane and joss paper. Just about everyone wants to be reincarnated as a wealthy government official, the crème de la crème of society and power, and some idiot thought sending a big old cockerel along to the deceased in the afterlife would help make this happen. I can’t see how or why because the creatures are the stupidest things in existence. Besides, every ghost, after receiving their influx of funds, is too busy enjoying immortal Shanghai’s gambling houses, music halls, dance halls, restaurants, and bars to pay attention to their pet fowl. The abandoned birds wander off and join gangs of strays which blight the city. No one will eat them or kill them, not even demons, because it’s considered bad luck to despatch a lucky rooster. While I don’t believe in that hooey, I also don’t need to create even more reason for others to avoid me, so I refrain from snapping their scrawny necks. Stupid things.
There’s a loud thump, then something scrabbles and scratches right beside my bed. I yank off the quilt and come face to face with a beady, yellow eye.
For the love of Tian. It’s rooster number two from last night. Yellow neck, orange breast, teal body. How in the Hearths of Hell did it find me? It blinks, silent. We stare at each other, until I think we reach an accord. It pecks at the floor and wanders off – but not before I catch a glimpse of pink in its beak. My umbrella from last night.
I launch myself at the bird. ‘Give that back!’
It lets out an ear-bleedingCOCORUCOHwhile still managing to hold on to the umbrella. I try to grab its neck, but it smacks me on the head with its wings and wriggles from my grip.
‘If you want to live to crow another day, be still or I will rip you into pieces and boil your bones for soup,’ I say, not caring that I’m trying to reason with a brainless paper creature.
The rooster squawks and jumps on my desk, knocking over my brush stand and half-finished watercolours. Rotted turd. I lunge for it, but the thing hops out of reach onto the washing basin, pecking at the porcelain. I chase it back into my bedroom where it jumps onto my bed. It throws me a stink eye, before launching itself upwards.
I can see exactly what the rooster is going to do in awful detail a moment before it happens. I know I can’t reach the rooster in time but still I try.
The rooster hits my web of stars and immediately gets tangled in the fine strands. The idiot bird shrieks and twists, unable to free itself. I finally reach the rooster, try to stop it from ruining the fine web I so painstakingly strung across my ceiling, but it won’t calm. Feathers fill the air as the cursed creature continues to flap and squawk.
The delicate strings snap, the umbrellas fall, and the rooster, in its frenzy, pecks at everything in its way. I try to save my hard-won umbrellas but it’s no use. There is nothing left but shredded pieces of coloured paper and broken bits of wood. I fall to my knees among the mangled remains of my stars. My paintings stare at me. Scenes from happier dreams; but really, what is the use of dreaming, when my dreams are nothing but paper and pulped wood?
The rooster frees itself of the net and struts around my room, seemingly pleased with the destruction. I start to shake. Tears burn my eyes. And then something inside me snaps. I scream and throw myself on the creature. I rip its head off, its wings, grab the long feathers of its tail and rip those out too. It’s a joss creature, not made of flesh or blood. Its insides are more layers of paper. On my knees, I claw at it in a frenzy, tearing out chunks of paper and hurling them across the room. Tears stream down my cheeks and my ears ring but I can’t stop screaming or ripping the thing into smaller and smaller pieces.
Footsteps thunder up my stairs. ‘Little Jing! What’s happened? Are you hurt?’
I can barely make out Old Zao’s voice above the roaring in my head. Warm arms wrap around me, hands on my wrists, forcing me to stop shredding the damned rooster.
‘Stop, Little Jing. Hurting the roosters is bad luck.’
‘My stars—’ I manage to say between sobs.
Old Zao sighs and settles themself on the floor next to me, smoothing the aquamarine silk of their robe over their knees. ‘I’ll help you restring the ceiling. But those are going to be hard to fix.’
At their tone, I look up and follow their gaze to the pieces of rooster sprinkled across my floor. As I watch, the crumpled chunks of layered paper start to rock back and forth on the floor, like corn niblets in a hot pan. They rock faster and faster until they vibrate in place. One – a smallish piece – explodes with a smallpopinto a tiny new rooster. The rooster stares blankly for a moment, then struts directly at me, stopping just short of my knees. It pecks randomly at the floor.
I stare.
The other piecespopone after the other in quick succession. And like the first, they each make their way towards me until I am surrounded by tiny crowing replicas of the original rooster. I shift backwards. The roosters move forward. I stand and cross my room. The tiny swarm follows me like bees protecting their queen.
Oh. My. Venerable. Heavens.
‘What have I done? How do I get rid of them?’ My voice goes scratchy at the end as panic seizes me by the throat. ‘People will see them following me. They’ll know I defiled a lucky rooster.Tian, after last night, they’ll have even more gossip to whisper about me.’
‘This is why you don’t hurt the roosters, Little Jing. They do this.’ Old Zao gestures at the feathered menaces chasing me back across the room. I jump onto my bed, too high for the rotted things to reach.
Frustration wells and the tears threaten again, but Old Zao pulls a red silk handkerchief from a pocket and hands it to me. I glance at them, grateful for their kindness. Old Zao has on their favourite red silk hat and a matching red scarf wrapped around their shoulders. Like many of the oldest yaojing, they sport a dragon beard – a long, thin moustache that falls either side of their mouth like whiskers and trails to their chest and a tapered beard that grows from the very bottom of their chin. They stroke their beard, pensive, glancing at my mostly healed knees and palms. A few reddish scars remain from last night, but they’ll be gone soon too.
‘Dry your tears, Little Jing. Some food will help cool that anger inside your belly. We can figure out how to fix this.’
