We shut all the tiny roosters inside my rooms, making sure to latch the windows tight so they don’t find a way to escape. Then I follow Old Zao down the stairs.
The mouth-watering scent of steaming mantou and xiao long bao meets me on the landing. When Old Zao slides open the kitchen doors we walk into huge billowing clouds of steam. Braziers line the left wall of the kitchen, where layered bamboo steamers sit atop boiling pots of water.
Old Zao grabs two small bamboo baskets and moves to the long wooden table in the centre of the room, their pale skin turning bright red from the heat. They dab at the sweat trickling down their neck with their handkerchief. ‘This heat. I’ll be glad when autumn comes.’
On the table are two blue-and-white bowls, one large, one small, next to a pile of dough pieces dusted with flour, each about the size of my thumb. The larger bowl contains the minced pork and ginger filling, the smaller is full of cubes of dark almost black jelly. Congealed mortal blood.
I perch on a stool beside Old Zao. Using a bamboo rolling pin, they roll the dough pieces into perfect circular wrappers, thinner at the edges, thicker in the middle. They glance at me as they work but say nothing. I know Old Zao is biding their time, waiting for me to calm enough to listen.
They chopstick a dollop of filling into the wrapper, top it with a black cube. With practiced hands, they fold the dough edges together into fine pleats. Their fingers move too fast for me to count, but it’s a point of pride for Old Zao that they fold eighteen pleats in each dumpling. For good luck, they say. There is no food in Shanghai that can beat Old Zao’s famous xiao long bao, freshly made for me with mortal blood. My tummy rumbles in agreement.
Old Zao nods, as if my stomach has given them a sign. ‘The only person who can restore the roosters is Big Wang. You’ll have to talk to him.’ Their hands fly between filling and dough. They fill the first basket with perfectly formed dumplings and move on to the second.
‘I’d rather bathe in the Whangpoo river than ask that jerk-face.’
‘Now, now, don’t be disrespectful.’ Old Zao throws a few more dough cubes onto the table and rolls out more wrappers. ‘Big Wang has been very good to you. And he cares for you, Little Jing.’
I scowl at the table. ‘Then why is he always humiliating me?’ The memory of being forced to kowtow to that bitch rises up my gorge until I taste bile.
‘I heard about that mafan with Lady Soo.’ Old Zao pauses in their work. ‘You need to be smarter, Little Jing. You’re too—’
‘Stupid. I know. You don’t need to tell me.’ My eyes go hot again but I blink hard.
‘Don’t put words in my mouth,’ Old Zao says gently. ‘I was going to say too emotional. You let your hurts rule your head. You should know by now how devious Lady Soo is. Learn from that.’
‘She’s a rotted bitch.’
Old Zao shakes their head, putting another perfectly formed xiao long bao in the basket. ‘Think of it like a game of kanhoo. You will never win if Soo is always able to read your hand. I thought you’d have better mahjong face than this.’
That got my attention. I love kanhoo. I play most days with Lady Gi; winning things off her gives me great satisfaction. Sometimes I lose but not often. Lady Gi is a terrible loser and her tantrums are almost,almostmore enjoyable than the actual win.
In fact, the thought of whipping Lady Gi’s arrogant pigu in kanhoo later tonight banishes some of the dark clouds. I’m not ready to admit to Old Zao that they’re right, as usual.
‘He always sides with her,’ I mumble instead, unable to stop the petulance creeping into my voice.
Old Zao side-eyes me, before returning their attention to the now filled bamboo baskets. They pop the baskets on top of a small pot of boiling water.
‘All he ever wants from you is for you to give him face, to make him proud. Is that so hard?’
I frown. ‘How am I supposed to do that? Nothing I ever do is good enough. He’s always ashamed of me. I’m always the one who gets punished.’
Old Zao shakes their head. ‘Silly melon. You’re too forthright. He indulges you so much and you never see it. You should apologise to him.’
‘For what?’
‘Isn’t he doing a big presentation at the plenary session today?’
A surge of guilt slides up my throat, drowning my retort.
Old Zao continues, ‘When you show filial piety in public, you show everyone that Big Wang is a good guardian. You give him face. But when you throw tantrums and set a minister on fire—’ Old Zao sucks their teeth. ‘You show everyone that not only is Big Wang a poor guardian, but that you respect him so little as to think nothing of making him lose face before everyone, even the atoning ghosts.’
‘Big Wang doesn’t give a piss-fart about me,’ I mumble.
Old Zao gives a look that makes me squirm. ‘His ministers all told him not to make that deal with your mother. That taking you in would only bring Hell and him mafan. Everyone knows how bitchy those hulijing can be. But he would not hear a word of it.’
A pang of guilt hits me, sour and hot. ‘That’s not how I heard it.’
‘And who did you hear it from, I wonder?’
