Marianne says, ‘I speak for the matriarch of House Durand. We have long admired the esteemed Yan Luo Wang. Borrowing Lady Jing’s noble light, by your fortune we arrive in Tian and offer ten thousand years of good health to venerable Yan Luo Wang.’
Big Wang makes that non-committal noise, half-acknowledgement, half-grunt. ‘Mmmgh.’
He seems impressed by Marianne’s courtly piss-fart, but he stays silent, bordering on rudeness before saying, ‘Welcome to yin Shanghai. It is an honour to meet Lady Jing’s paternalfamily.’ He bows, not quite as low as they did, but for a yaojing of Big Wang’s rank, he gives them great face. ‘I’ve arranged accommodation for you at the hotel. Tomorrow morning, Jing will lead our delegation to Turquoise Hills. If you don’t mind, we can wait for our reunion dinner until after your return.
‘The Durands are with me. Gigi, Ah Lang, Tony and Little Jing are with Old Zao; you can go home, rest and meet us in the morning. Lord Aengus is with Lord Ma. My attendants will take care of the luggage.’
‘I’ll come with you,’ Tony says to Lord Aengus.
Big Wang gazes at Tony, eyes glinting red. I get a small pang of satisfaction to see Tony swallow nervously as he passes Big Wang to join Lord Aengus and Lord Ma.
We pile into our designated cars and leave the station in a convoy of Big Wang’s Packards, black behemoths gliding through the shadowed streets of Immortal Shanghai.
Old Zao doesn’t immediately ask about Tony. Instead, they update us on all the neighbourhood gossip: the hook-ups, the break-ups, and all the drama in between.
As we rumble along the Bund, passing the Cathay Hotel, Old Zao says, ‘You won’t believe what happened when a certain Minister got caught playing footsie with his husband’s new assistant.’
‘Minister Gu, I bet!’ Gigi says. ‘I don’t blame him. I’ve seen his husband’s assistant, Mr Ke.Sohandsome.’ She fans herself.
Ah Lang gasps quietly, a stricken expression on his face.
Gigi pats his cheek. ‘Of course, no one is more handsome than my Ah Lang,’ she coos, which seems to mollify him.
Old Zao chortles. ‘Why yes, it is indeed Minister Gu. In a jealous rage, his husband confronted him in the middle of the Hall of Harmony when the Council was in full flow, screaming at Minister Gu that Mr Ke washislove, and he didn’t want to share.’
‘Wow,’ Gigi says. ‘The Council hasn’t had anything this exciting happen since Jing took to setting hulijing ministers on fire.’
‘It only happened the once,’ I mutter to the window.
We glide through the North Gate of the original fortified wall of the old city, the Packard barely fitting through the low tunnel.
‘The twist is still to come,’ Old Zao trills. ‘It turns out, Mr Ke is himself already married. His wife turned up at Council that evening, brandishing cleavers, ready to chop Mr Ke into pieces and offer them up as a sacrifice to her ancestors. The Hall had to be evacuated and the North Wind Division called in.’
The Packard rolls to a stop in front of Gigi’s house: a small single-storey dwelling, notable for its clean, simple lines and complete lack of ostentatious detail. There are no jewel-encrusted balconies, no facades dripping with jade, lapis, coral, silver, gold. No carved reliefs, no strings of pearls tinkling in the breeze. The house is understated and elegant, only the gleam of silkwood giving away its Celestial lineage.
Gigi and Ah Lang wave us off.
As soon as we are alone, Old Zao asks, ‘What happened between you and Tony? And why does he smell different?’
I knew the questions would come and spent some time thinking about the best way to answer. The first and most important thing is to ensure Tony isn’t made to feel ashamed for who he is. I say, as nonchalantly as I can, ‘Tony is vampire now.’
Old Zao slams on the brakes, throwing their arm out in front of me. ‘He’s what now?’
Luckily I wore my seat belt. I don’t know a lot about physics, but I’m pretty sure an arm won’t stop me from flying into the windshield.
A couple of rickshaw drivers swerve around us and shout fruity curses about intimate relations with our mothers and with eighteen generations of our ancestors.
Old Zao rolls down the window and leans out. ‘You don’t have the stamina!’ they holler after the drivers, shaking their fist for good measure. ‘Come back here, you rotted egg! I’ll show you who’s gonna—’
I cover my ears and sink low in my seat, trying to block out Old Zao detailing all the things they’ll do to the rickshaw drivers’ mothers’ ancestors, and Tian knows who else. Their tirade is long enough and loud enough for heads to start poking out of windows and doors.
‘Let’s keep driving, Old Zao,’ I whisper. ‘People are staring.’
‘Young ’uns these days have no manners.’ They roll up their window. ‘We are going nowhere until you tell me everything.’
Old Zao is rarely stern with me, but when they are, they are intractable.
My timing is the worst. I should have stalled until we got home, barely five minutes from here. At least I practised how to tell all the pieces of this convoluted puzzle in a coherent way.
