偵探小說連載 KungFu Masters 17

Chapter Sixteen

 

Mr. Chang and Lois took the China Airline from JFK Airport in New York. Two cars were packed with the people from two families, Lins and Changs, eight in all. They all wanted to see Mr. Chang and Lois off as though they had started on a star trek and would have been back after traveling some light years--especially Mrs. Chang who could not restrain her tears. Mrs. Lin was much better, only her eyelids looked a bit red. Mr. Lin stood by his wife's side, watching, and Tricia and Sally gave Lois a hopeful weak smile as Lois turned to look back once more. Alida waved when they went through customs and hollered after them, “Buy me something special from China!”

It is the first time that I have the chance to travel to China, Lois rejoiced in her speculation. I was born and brought up in America, which is a multicultural country. Its inhabitants are mostly immigrants or the descendants of the former immigrants; all are guests. Only the native Indians are hosts. Yes, almost all the people in America came from other countries, but they love America all the same, for its democracy and freedom. If there ever comes a day that all other countries in the world become free and democratic and wealthy, too, no more immigrants will come to America; maybe, some people in America will migrate back into their original countries.  Let's help to make it come true. She was really the “Think Globally, Act Locally” type.

 

***

 

It was twilight. The jet plane lifted above the clouds and raced towards the retreating sun as if it would overtake the giant fireball falling gradually below the western horizon. The sky was clear, transparent and azure. Lois looked down from the small window beside her seat, but only saw fluffy cotton clusters like the undulating wave-crests on the ocean.  A woman of middle age with heavy makeup sat behind her, watching the whitecaps, too.  Sometimes, out of the corner of her eye, Lois noticed that the woman stole her glance towards her, but when Lois turned to look directly at her, the woman pretended focusing her attention at the dusky sky outside, seeming a little nervous. No. It's my detective job that always makes me too sensitive and over-skeptical.  Forget it.

Soon dinner was served.  Food on the plane was just like food in the hospital, never encouraging appetite. Lois was luckily not fastidious. So she finished every bit of it, deeming it only as a source of energy. What if I were on a deserted island?  It would be a dainty then.  Mr. Chang was happy seeing how Lois had a good appetite as he shoveled his share of food into his mouth, just swallowing it without much chewing. He didn't want to linger on its taste.  He doubted if the garbage from a restaurant would have a better taste.

At nightfall, Lois sat straight in the seat, exercising her chi for one hour, and then leaned back and fell asleep. Mr. Chang practiced chi for some time, too, before he slept.

When the plane arrived in Shanghai airport, they were carried by the human current to the carousel for their luggage, only a suitcase for each. Lois was not a fashion girl and men never traveled with much luggage. They waited outside the terminal building for a taxi to take them to the hotel where Mr. Chang had had his lodging five years before on a visit to China for some personal business. The traffic was slow in the downtown area in Shanghai. So many people on the sidewalks, back to chest, chest to back, like bumper to bumper car traffic in America. The human flood would push you forth, even if you didn't want to. If you were at the curbside and wanted to enter a shop you just caught sight of, you would have to change “human traffic lanes” among the throngs, and it was not exaggerated that it was more difficult than cars changing lanes on the American highways, even in rush hour. Some people had to step down from the curb and walk in the street, which was already teeming with vehicles, most of which were bicycles, because in China bicycles were still a main personal means of transportation. Though the official speed limit for cars in the downtown area was thirty kilometers per hour, if you could go at ten in the most crowded streets like Nanking Road, you were lucky. And the hotel they were to stay at was located right at the east end of Nanking Road. So imagine how long it took them to reach their destination from the airport, which was situated in the west suburb of the biggest city in China. The only comfort was that they were not in a hurry. They had plenty of time on hand. It almost became a benefit for them to have an opportunity to view the sights on both sides of the streets in the slow traffic.  But at the cost of more fare, because it was counted by the time, not by the distance.

When they approached the reception desk of the hotel, the girl behind it looked up with a neutral expression on her face. She seemed tired and still sleepy, giving a small, suppressed yawn with her right hand covering her mouth. If she was seen yawning by a nasty fellow employee who could report to the manager, she would be in trouble. It looked like she was not enthusiastic about her work.  She neither greeted them, nor even smiled as Mr. Chang mentioned that they had a reservation. She just checked a book and gave them the key.

“Can you tell us what our room number is?” asked Lois politely. The girl remained silent, only pointing to the plastic piece attached to the key with the room number burned on it. Lois couldn't help doubting whether this girl was temporarily mute owing to some kind of throat disease, or unbelievable enough, that the management would hire a mute girl as the receptionist. If so, she must be the daughter of the manager. Such things happen in China.

After they had settled in their respective rooms, they met at the hotel's restaurant for dinner. There were different dining halls to provide different styles of dishes such as Chinese style, French style, etc. They ordered some Chinese dishes. The flavor and taste of Chinese food in China are different from those of Chinese food in America, because the Chinese food in America has been changed to suit the taste of the American people.

After dinner it was still too early to go to bed, though they felt a little weary after the long flight. It was strange that the jetlag was not so obvious when flying from America to China as from China back to America. They took a stroll along the Bund (the name was given by the early British colonists in Shanghai.)--the western bank of the Wangpu River, which splits the city like a watery knife cutting through the face of the Earth. The face of the Earth as a whole is ugly, with upheavals of pimples, deep-cut scars, green hairs and downs everywhere. Salty tears filled its gigantic yawning mouth--the oceans, and other disfigured holes, the lakes. So ugly if you imagine it that way.  How can you expect that its inhabitants will love it and preserve it? If they could, they would bring it into destruction and build a new one to their fancy like a house they don't like.

They sauntered in the growing dusk, glancing this way and that, beholding throngs of people all around. Suddenly a young man came up to them out of the crowd and said in an undertone, “Do you have American dollars that you want to change for Chinese currency?  I can give you a higher rate than the bank.” Mr. Chang rebuffed him. He didn't want to do anything illegal anywhere. Before they could advance a few paces, another young man with a camera and a Polaroid hanging from his neck approached and addressed them. “Do you want to take a picture as a memento?” That was not a bad idea since they didn't bring a camera with them because they were not on a sightseeing tour. The man directed them to a spot with a typical Shanghai scene for the background, shouting to them, “Give me a smile.”

“You should tell us to say cheese.” Lois muttered to herself.

Less than a minute later, they got the picture from the Polaroid and paid him. There were so many young couples, arm in arm, or hand in hand, roaming or hanging around, some sitting on the wooden benches, some perching on top of the dike. One of the characteristics of Shanghai, or of China, is its population, a huge population, too huge for its poor economy, like a destitute family with too many children.

“Let's go back to the hotel,” said Mr. Chang. “We must leave tomorrow for the Temple.  Better to sleep a bit early tonight.”

 

***

 

In Shoalin Temple, Mr. Chang and Lois were shown into the room of the head monk, his eldest brother-in-kungfu. The old head monk, the master who had taught Mr. Chang kungfu, had gone to the better world ten years before at the age of ninety-five. The present head monk was seventy-two. Mr. Chang told the head monk the purpose of their trip here. The head monk, who was clad in a red-and-yellow diagonally checked Buddhist robe, said a prayer first, “Amituofu”, with his hands pressed together and raised before his chest. Then he shook his head, saying, “Sorry, we don't have any medication here in the Temple that can counteract the effect of that kind of poison, but if you can stay here for a few days longer, I'll ask round to see if anyone I know has a Snow-Lotus flower or knows where we can find one.” Then the head monk treated them with a vegetarian meal. During the meal, their conversation slipped back to the good old days, a happy recurrence no one would refuse to enjoy.

“Do you remember Lungming Hua, who came later than you, only stayed here for ten years and left before you?” Seeing Mr. Chang looked baffled, he added, “The one who seemed always hungry and sneaked into the kitchen to steal food?”

“Oh, yeah, I remember him now. We never liked him. He was so selfish and egocentric. Have you heard anything about him?” He put a chopsticksful of mushrooms into his mouth.

“It was twenty years ago that he was said to have burglarized a valuable painting from a museum. Amituofu.”

“How would you have known it? Monks are believed to have no concerns for worldly affairs,” Mr. Chang joked with the head monk. Lois just sat at the table, engrossed in eating, since she knew nothing about the conversation.

“Someone came to the Temple to learn kungfu. He lived in the same village where Lungming Hua had been born. He heard the old people saying that Lungming Hua had had a twin brother, but when they had only been one year old, their parents had died of some disease, amituofu.” He pressed his hands together again, a gesture that always went with the prayer. “And Lungming Hua had been adopted by a family in the same village, but his twin brother was adopted by a family living in a nearby town and the family had been said to have moved to a big city far away a few months later. The twin brothers had never seen each other since then. Lungming Hua couldn't even remember that he’d had a twin brother since they had separated so young.  After the painting was stolen, the police came to the village and the Temple to make inquiries about Lungming Hua.  Amituofu.”

“So, Hua is not his original family name, I guess?”

“You are right.  Amituofu.”

“But how could the police suspect Lungming Hua?”

“It was said that the head guard of the museum recognized his kungfu style as learned from our Temple.  That led the police here and to the nearby villages.  Amituofu.”

 

***

 

It seemed hopeless to procure a Snow-Lotus flower even though they stayed longer. Therefore, they left the Temple after three days. The poison was not crucial to her life at present since she exercised her chi everyday to suppress it.

“It's not an everyday possibility that we can come to China. How about taking a sightseeing tour before we go back?” Mr. Chang suggested, his voice full of concern. He wanted to distract her from her gloomy thoughts, which, though she never manifested them, showed on her sometimes knitted brow.

“It's up to you, Dry Dad.” Lois didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm. Maybe he just wanted to make her happy and forget the threatening wound like a sword hanging by a thin thread overhead.

“Do you like XiAn City? Many dynasties in ancient China set up their capitals there, and so there are many relics and places of renown worth seeing.” Mr. Chang was so resourceful.

“Since I've never been in China before, any place is a new experience for me.”

So they started on their way to XiAn City, back to a time several hundred years ago.

 

***

 

When they were in the city, they joined a group organized by a travel agency. The itinerary listed many places of renown and relics such as Drum Pavilion, Bell Pavilion, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Small Wild Goose Pagoda, the Museum of Stone Tablets, the Tomb of the First Emperor of Qin Dynasty (on the throne: 246 B. C.-210 B. C.), the Vaults of Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, the Tomb of Empress Wu Zetien of Zhou Dynasty (on the throne: 690 A. D.-705 A. D.), the Tomb of Princess Yongtai of Dang Dynasty, and Huaqing Pool, etc.

As it was only a two-day tour, they could not go to all the places. The first place they went to was the Vaults of the Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses, situated about one and half kilometers east of the Tomb of the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty. All warriors, as well as horses and chariots, were lifelike and life-sized, some holding bronze spears, some carrying bows and arrows and others following chariots, all in war array like some kind of phalanx. These warriors were buried here as bodyguards to the deceased Emperor. People in the old times of China believed that when one died his ghost would live in the nether world just as he had lived in the upper world. So his sons would put into the tomb all the clothes, jewelry and utensils he needed in his afterlife in the darkness. If he was an emperor, his sons would in addition have clay warriors and horses made and buried near his tomb to protect him from any danger of being attacked by other sovereign ghosts. The heads of the statues were removable. Statues wearing caps of different shapes were officers of different ranks while those without caps were soldiers.

“We can say without boasting that it is the eighth wonder of the world,” the guide told the tourists, “considering the number, the size and the workmanship.”

“I used to think of the nationwide network of the highway structures in America as the eighth wonder of the world,” Lois said. “Maybe, considering the age, the highway structures should be the ninth wonder of the world.”

“I quite agree with you.” A middle-aged woman smiled at Lois. She was in the same group and introduced herself as Martha Fox. She wore a motley dress and had on heavy makeup, heavy black eyeliner that looked like the eyes of a panda. So many colors on her cried out in contention for attention. She said she came on this tour from America, too, and asked Lois her phone number so that she could visit her when back in America.

“You are a smart girl. I like you a lot. I love to make friends,” she cooed to Lois. Then throughout the trip, she followed Lois like her inseparable shadow or her pet puppy dog.  Lois suspected that she was the same woman who had sat behind her on the plane, but she couldn't be sure since she really hadn't remembered her face clearly.

Next stop was Huaqing Pool, located at the foot of Lishan Mountain. “It was said,” supplied the guide, “that the pool was build for Yang Yuhuan (died in 755 A. D.), the royal concubine of Emperor Yuanzong of Dang Dynasty (on the throne: 712 A. D.-755 A. D.). She often came here to take her bath.” Nowadays the pool is in a small room, made of smoothly polished stone and shaped like a four-petaled flower.

“I like the shower better,” commented Lois.

“Yeah, it's more hygienic,” Martha seconded.

The guide heard her and smiled. “The pity is that there was no shower at that time.”

“You can chisel some holes on the bottom of a bucket and hang the bucket on a pole overhead and fill it with water,” retorted Lois. “You can have a shower that way.” The tourists chuckled and giggled, and the guide couldn't help grinning.  Martha even clapped her hands in approval.

“The original pool was destroyed during the wars waged by subsequent dynasties and the present one was rebuilt later,” the guide informed them. “It is said that before the royal concubine came here from the palace, the guardsmen held up two lines from which cloth hung down to form a passageway on either side so that no one--maybe by chance in the neighborhood--could see or harm her.”

“I was told,” said Mr. Chang, “that this royal concubine was one of the four beauties in Chinese history.”

“Who are the other three beauties?” asked Lois.

“Xishi in Wu Kingdom, Wang Zhaojun of Han Dynasty and Diaochan during the reign of the last emperor of East Han Dynasty.”

Martha Fox stood aside listening attentively like a primary school pupil.

“There's another story about the Lishan Mountain,” the garrulous guide chattered again, “which goes back to the West-Zhou Dynasty. There used to be a beacon tower on the summit. The beautiful queen, Baoshi, never smiled. The king Youwang, the last king of West-Zhou Dynasty (on the throne: 781 B. C.-771 B. C.), tried every means in his power to make her smile, but his endeavors were all in vain.  He asked her what she liked best when a little girl. She said that she liked to hear the sound of tearing cloth. So the king ordered many scrolls of cloth brought into the palace and had them torn one by one into shreds before the queen, but the queen still didn't smile. Once he took her here. When they sat on top of this mountain, a wonderful idea struck the king. He commanded his men to ignite the beacon fire. The lords hurried here with their troops, banners upheld and unfurled, drums beating and resounding, conceiving that enemies were invading the kingdom again. But when they saw only the king and queen sitting on the mountain top, they looked at one another in dismay and hurried away with banners rolled up and drums muffled. At last the queen smiled--such a sweet alluring smile that made her look amazingly beautiful. The king was happy, too. But later when the enemies actually encroached and the beacon fire was lit, no lords came to the rescue, thinking it was a trick again, just like in the story of 'cry wolf'. As a result, the king was killed and the queen was captured.”

“A sad and stupid story, huh!” Martha sighed sentimentally, stealing a glimpse at Lois, who didn't say anything, but chewed the meaning behind the story. The tourists loitered around the whole place, a beautiful garden with flowers and trees, a pond and pavilions. There are also rows of small bathrooms where one can take a hot spring bath. It was said to be good for one's health. The temperature of the water is just a little higher than that of the normal human body. Almost all the tourists seized the opportunity to enhance their health, but was it worth the cost of the ticket?

The next day they went to the Tomb of Empress Wu Zetian, which lies west of the city. The tomb had not been explored yet.

“Empress Wu was the only Empress in the long history of China.” The talkative guide, once he opened his mouth, would not stop till he finished everything stored in his mind. “In the Chinese feudal society, the status of women was so low that they were required to be dependent on their parents as a girl, on their hu*****ands after marriage and on their sons as widows. It was against the convention and conception of feudalism that a woman could be a sovereign, but Empress Wu managed to be one and maintained her reign for many years. By her order, given before her death, a tall gravestone was put up posthumously at one side in front of her tomb without anything engraved on it.  It is called the Blank Tombstone.  It meant that she would leave it for posterity to inscribe whatever comments they would make on her merits or demerits.” Lois handed him a can of Sprite after his long speech, an appreciation of his endeavors and diligence.

Then the tourists got into the van owned by the travel agency. The driver, alias guide, drove them to the Tomb of Princess Yongtai, which was not far from the Tomb of Empress Wu. Since the tomb was now open to visitors, the guide led the way.

“Princess Yongtai was the granddaughter of Empress Wu,” he introduced. They descended a declining passageway, which had some pretty frescoes on the walls. Two exhibition halls have been built on each side of the tomb in the foreground, in which all the things taken from the tomb are on display; among them the well-known three-colored porcelain camels, horses and figurines of the Dang Dynasty. One large camel is carrying some smaller figurines on its back, its head raised high, and the figurines are all playing musical instruments except one woman in the middle. The guide explained what's what to the tourists and in the end he added, “The woman in the middle is singing and the camel's singing, too.” And laughter rose among the listeners.  Only the princess’s coffin stands in the innermost part of the tomb.

The Museum of Stone Tablets was in the city.  The stone tablets were of different sizes and from different dynasties, a few tablets had stone turtles under them all in one piece.

“The Chinese characters of some articles were written by famous calligraphers of different dynasties and were engraved on the tablets.  Therefore, the learners of calligraphy have often imitated these since then. Chinese calligraphy is also a fine art and always goes hand in hand with Chinese paintings. These tablets are really a thesaurus for Chinese calligraphy to be kept and handed down.”  The guide sounded proud.

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• 中国之行这一章读来好亲切，那熟悉的景点仿佛在眼前浮现。 -婉蕠- ♀ (0 bytes) () 11/10/2010 postreply 11:01:58