Shaking his head, he huffs a frustrated, ‘Ai.’
I’m at a loss. ‘I really don’t understand what you mean.’
He puts the wenxiang cup on the table. Frowns at it. Picks it up again. ‘Well, you see, I know... I mean, I knew...’ Big Wang blinks at his hand, as if surprised to find a cup in it. He puts it down again. ‘You see...’ His voice fades.
My heart pinches to see confident, laid back Big Wang so out of sorts. I can’t pull the words from him, all I can do is wait. He decides to pour hot water into the teapot and restart the whole ritual. But I can tell his heart’s not in it. He stares at the tea swimming in the gongdao cup, as if lost.
Gently taking the cup, I complete the remaining steps, pouring the tea into our wenxiang cups, topping it with the pinmin cup and flipping them upside down. The familiar steps are comforting; an anchor in the chaos. This must have been how Big Wang felt, all those times when it was him waiting for me to stammer out whatever was weighing on my mind. I hand him the pinmin cup. The tea shimmers a golden amber.
‘You see, I was worried... I mean, the vampires... I—’ His gaze catches on mine for a brief second – enough to make myscalp prickle – before returning to the steaming pinmin cup on the table. He downs the tea like it’s a shot of baijiu.
Almost a century has passed since Big Wang adopted me. In that time I’ve seen many emotions cross his face. Exasperation most often, followed by frustration and anger. The ones I hate – disappointment, reproach. The ones I secretly like, even though I say I don’t – amusement, delight. But just now, there was something in his eyes I have never seen before: fear.
I pat his hand, hoping to encourage him. ‘You wanted to tell me something about vampires?’
He swallows, squares his shoulders, lifts his chin, but it takes a little longer for him to meet my eye. When he does, he’s holding tight to his mahjong face. The only emotion I can sense is anxiety.
‘Yes.’ He glares at me. ‘No. I mean, have you never wanted to know more about your vampire heritage?’
I’ve never really thought much about my heritage; it seems a waste of energy to dwell on things over which I have no control, or on things I can’t change. Rarely, if at all, do I think about the father who abandoned me. As I do whenever a subject feels uncomfortable, I opt for flippant. ‘I’ve readVarney the VampireandDracula,but it seems like a bunch of imaginary dog fart.’
‘The books are right about garlic and silver,’ Big Wang says. ‘Both those things hurt you. It stands to reason it could be right about other things, too.’
I consider the possibility, then dismiss it with a scoff. ‘The books also say vampires can’t go in the sun, have no reflections, and turn people by biting them. I don’t combust in sunshine, I have a reflection, and if biting people turned them, half your North Wind division guards would be vampires by now. I’ve brawled with enough of them as a kid. Before I learned my sword forms, biting was my go-to move. Besides, there’s also the obvious fact thatI’mvampire and I wasn’t turned, I wasborn.’
‘Stories always contain seeds of truth,’ he insists. ‘Think of the folktales about yaojing.’
I turn the conversation around in my head, trying to figure out what it is Big Wang isn’t saying. He knows something about vampires... he mentioned folktales and seeds of truth right after I raised how vampires are made.How vampires are made. My eyes widen. ‘You said you know something about vampires?’
Big Wang fumbles the cup in his hand.
I called it! ‘You know—’
He cuts me off, voice pitchy. ‘Would Tony consider becoming vampire? Becoming immortal?’
‘Wait – what?’ This conversation is giving me whiplash with its sudden pivots. I know so little about vampires, any concrete knowledge is exciting. But my curiosity about vampires being made is a theoretical one. Tony as a vampire? I laugh. ‘That’s ludicrous. He’d never want to be an unnatural creature. Drinking blood? Hideous fangs poking through his gums? Stinking like a corpse? Manifold gratitude, but no. I like him just as he is.’
Big Wang stares at me for a long time, his eyes glinting red. Shock, if I’m parsing his expression right.
Finally, he says, ‘Is that how you think of yourself? That you’re unnatural and hideous? For someone with such a keen sense of smell, you should know very well you smell nothing like a corpse. Drinking blood is no different to the yang qi drunk by many a yaojing. Anyone who judges you is a hypocrite. But Little Jing, ask yourself why your first reaction to Tony as a vampire was to repeat insults others have thrown at you. This isn’t who you are.’
When he puts it that way, I’m ashamed and embarrassed by how easily the old insults tripped off my tongue. It’s my turn to heave a big sigh. ‘I just don’t want him to suffer like I did.’
Big Wang winces, which makes me feel like a huge rotted turd.
‘You took good care of me,’ I say, but he waves away my reassurance.
‘If your friends agree to accompany you, I won’t insist on any other guards.’ He has that odd unfocused look again. He lifts the pinmin cup to his lips and sips, not noticing it’s empty. ‘You might be surprised by how much you like Paris.’ The usual red gleam in his eyes is strangely dulled and he gazes at me with the most peculiar expression. ‘Don’t have so much fun you forget to come home,’ he says and shoos me from his office.
Seven
Hand Delivery
I shove my hands in my pockets and kick at a pebble on the pavement, pondering my strange conversation with Big Wang. He’s never been overprotective before, but puzzling out the point of that confused jumble of questions is only giving me a headache. I decide to leave it for now. I head towards Custom House to see if there’s any mail for me.
Big Wang tweaked the design of Custom House when he had it built. Having been to mortal Shanghai and seen the original, I like ours better. We have the same majestic columns on the facade, but tucked inside our version is the original single-storey gatehouse with its grey waved tiles and smiling eaves. The blend of the familiar and the new is comforting.
The entrance hall is dominated by a long counter spanning the width of the room. Behind it is a floor-to-ceiling wall of cubbyholes hung with rolling ladders that each cover a section of twenty or so columns of cubbies. Clerks with baskets tied to their waists move up and down the ladders, which themselves glide side to side as the clerks busily sort bundles of joss money and other joss items into the cubbies. The ladders clack loudly every time they reach the end of their section. With a shove, the clerks send the ladders gliding in the opposite direction. Back and forth, up and down,clack clack clack,like a giant abacus. By early evening this place will be teeming with ghosts collecting the money and care packages sent to them by their living relations, but for now it’s quiet. Most visitors to yin Shanghai keep late hours.
