Ping had known that was the case, but now that someone had said it aloud, it did sound like a lonely life.
“It’s a matter of trust,” Ping continued. “Trusting Danzi, trusting myself. You don’t always need to know your destination when you set out on a journey.”
“Did you sell all your silk?” Ping asked Jun the next morning. “Are you going home to Lu-lin?”
“Yes, I’ve finished my business, but I’m not going home. If you will allow me, I’d like to travel with you. As a companion, if you’re so sure you don’t need help.”
The sound of wind chimes filled the air.
“Yes!” Kai said. “Jun can come with us. Help us to find the dragon haven.”
“Won’t your family be worried about you?”
“I’ve sent a message along with the gold Hou-yi paid me for the first bolt of silk. My father will arrange the transport of the rest of the silk.”
“You don’t owe us anything, Jun. There is no need for you to stay away from your family on our account.”
“It’s because of my family that I’m here, Ping,” Jun explained. “They want me to make amends for their deception. I’m not a Dragonkeeper, I only pretended to be for a few weeks, but my ancestors were Dragonkeepers. They failed in their duty.”
“It wasn’t their fault. It was Lan and his father who took the job from them.”
“Their job was to protect the dragons, and themselves, from devious people like the Lans. My parents think that their previous bad luck with the mulberry trees was because of their ancestors’ failure. They told me that as soon as I had arranged to sell the silk, I should try to find you and help you in whatever way I could, so that they can continue to benefit from the dragon’s luck.”
Ping didn’t say anything.
“It’s all about trust, Ping, just as you said. Can you trust me?”
Her second sight wasn’t giving her any warnings. She had few enough friends.
“I can trust you.” Jun smiled.
“Good.”
“I’m not wandering around completely without a plan,” Ping said.
She took out the silk square and showed it to Jun.
“I can see the Great Wall and the Yellow River,” he said, peering at the map, “but where are you meant to go?”
“It doesn’t say. Not directly anyway. It’s written in a secret code. See here,” she pointed to the characters that said Dragon’s Lament Creek. “That’s not a real place. It’s directions. You have to say it aloud to find its true meaning. It really means ‘seek westward’.”
“And this one,” he read out the words aloud, “Qu long xiang. What does that mean?”
“It means ‘go to the long village’. But until yesterday I didn’t know which long it was supposed to be. It could have been Bright Village, Hazy Village, Basket Village, Rising Moon Village. All I knew was that it was somewhere in the west, probably in the mountains.”
Jun still didn’t understand.
“The jade jewellery was made in a place called Long Xiang,” Ping explained. “Long also means the sound that jade pendants make when they clink together. Tinkling Village, that’s where we’re going now.”
“Does that ‘we’ include me?”
“Kai wants you to come,” Ping said. “And I still haven’t fully deciphered Danzi’s map. Two minds are better than one.”
“Three,” Kai said. “Three minds.”
Ping laughed. “Three minds.”
They soon left behind the irrigated fields that clung to the Yellow River. The countryside became dry again. Few people seemed to live in that remote part of the Empire, so Kai only occasionally had to use his mirage skill or create a cloud of mist to conceal himself. The narrow road was little more than a track which wound along a valley between meadows that should have been carpeted with green. Instead the fields were parched and brown. It was more than two months since Ping and Kai had left Yan. It was now early summer. The spring rains had failed again. There was no chance of rain for many months.
“Does Jun want to play?” Kai asked. “Remember how we played together before?”
Ping told Jun what he had said.
“I can’t think of a game we can play while we’re walking, Kai.”
“Hide-and-seek?”
“What did he say?”
“He wants to play hide-and-seek.”
“That would slow us down too much.”
“Play ball?”
“We haven’t got a ball, Kai,” Ping said. “He loves to tell the story of our adventures. It’s a pity he can’t talk to you.”
Jun blushed and Ping wished she could have taken back her words. They had only reminded Jun of when he had pretended to understand Kai.
Straggling, dried-up melon vines were growing alongside the road. They were last year’s crop. Since they hadn’t been picked, Ping suspected they wouldn’t be any good to eat, even if they weren’t months old. Jun had in mind a different use for the melons.
“Perhaps one of these would do as a ball, Kai. We might be able to kick it to each other.”
He pulled a melon from the vine and gently kicked it along the ground. Kai immediately raced after the ball and kicked it with his left front paw. They kicked the melon back and forth as they walked, until the melon hit a rock and smashed. The flesh inside was rotten and smelt terrible.
That night Ping cut a piece from the corner of her bearskin and, with the fur on the inside, fashioned it into the shape of a ball. She used dry grass to fill it and laced it together with a leather thong.
The next day Jun and Kai spent hours kicking and tossing the ball back and forth. Kai never tired of the game. Whenever Jun tried to stop, the dragon begged him to keep playing.
“Let Jun have a rest from the game, Kai,” Ping said. “I’d like to talk to him occasionally.”
Kai’s spines drooped.
“Tell me more about your family, Jun,” Ping said. “How are your sisters?”
Jun started to tell Ping how four of his seven sisters had received offers of marriage. As he talked, he absently tossed the ball up in the air and caught it with one hand. Suddenly, Kai launched himself at the ball, trying to grab it while it was in midair. In his enthusiasm, he crashed into Jun and knocked him over.
“Kai!” said Ping. “That’s too rough.”
“Sorry,” said Kai.
Ping decided that since Jun was sitting down, it was a good time for a rest. She sat down too. They drank some water and ate a handful of nuts.
“We must be getting close to Xining now,” Ping said as she inspected the holes in her shoes. “I think it’s time I got out my spare shoes.”
Jun lay back in the sunlight, enjoying the rest.
“Look at that,” he said, pointing up into the sky. “I’ve never seen a bird that size before.”
Ping shaded her eyes. A white bird was circling above them. It had a huge wingspan. Kai, who had been snuffling through the bag looking for jujubes, leapt to his feet. He stared at the bird and made the strangest sound, as if he was happy and scared at the same time.
“What’s wrong, Kai?” Ping said. “The bird can’t hurt us.”
“It’s not a bird,” the dragon told her.
“What’s the matter with him?” Jun asked.
Kai made the same strange sound.
“What did he say?”
Ping’s heart was racing as she peered up into the sky and translated Kai’s words for Jun.
“He says it’s not a bird … it’s a dragon.”
• chapter twelve •
THE TINKLING VILLAGE
“Of course it saw us,” Ping replied.
“It saw the holes in my shoes, it knows how
many nuts we ate.”
“A dragon,” Ping said. “Another dragon.”
She hugged Kai.
“Are you sure, Kai?” Jun asked.
“He’s sure,” Ping whispered.
“Did you know there was another dragon?” Jun asked Pi
ng.
“Not until now,” Ping replied. “But now I’ve seen it, I feel like I’ve always known.”
It seemed so blindingly clear she was amazed that she hadn’t realised it before. Kai would live for more than a thousand years. He didn’t need to spend the rest of his life alone after she died. He needed another dragon. One of his own kind to share his long life with.
While she was at Ming Yang Lodge, she had thought that Kai would need other Dragonkeepers to care for him, when she could no longer do the job.
She had searched for the Dragonkeeper families, hoping to find a man with the three characteristics, young enough to have sons who could take over when she grew too old for the task. Jun had turned out to be an imposter. She’d not found anyone.
Now she knew Kai wouldn’t be living by himself in the centuries after she died. Her heart soared.
“Do you think the dragon saw us?” Jun asked.
“Of course it saw us,” Ping replied. “It saw the holes in my shoes, it knows how many nuts we ate.”
“So why did it fly away?”
“I don’t know,” Ping said. “It’s probably wary of people. I hadn’t dared to hope that we would find another dragon in the world. Now we know there is one!”
She took out the calfskin on which the seer had written the Yi Jing divination. She had been so focused on deciphering Danzi’s map that she had almost forgotten about it. She read aloud the fifth reading. “A flying dragon in the heavens. See the great man.”
Jun peered at the calfskin. “What does that mean?”
“It means everything is unfolding as it should. When I first read that line, I thought it referred to Kai. I didn’t expect him to suddenly sprout wings, but I thought it was like one of Danzi’s sayings—something that said one thing but meant another. I thought it was a way of saying that Kai would mature, that he would ‘fly’ in the sense of succeeding, achieving something. I didn’t realise it meant there would be an actual dragon.” she laughed, “.flying in the sky!”
“But who’s ‘the great man’?” Jun asked. He was a farm boy, not used to riddles and divination.
“I don’t know,” Ping said. “One step at a time. First we must find the Tinkling Village.”
“Perhaps the great man will be there,” Kai said. Excitement radiated from Kai like heat from a brazier.
She nodded. “Yes, he’ll know where this white dragon lives.”
“It can teach Kai how to be a proper dragon.”
Ping fondled his ears. “Yes.”
They arrived at Xining the next day, stopped at an inn and ate a good meal. The traders and travellers staying at the inn were all either on their way to or returning from the Tinkling Village. The jade was mined thousands of li away on the other side of the Kun-lun Mountains, but for more than a century, this one small village had specialised in carving the finest, most beautiful jade jewellery in all the Empire.
Long Xiang was just half a day’s walk from Xining. Kai wanted to leave immediately and walk through the night.
“We’ll wait till morning,” Ping said. “You must be patient. There’s no point in arriving in the middle of the night when everyone’s asleep. Tonight we’ll stay at this excellent inn.”
But Ping was just as excited as Kai. Despite the fact that she lay on a mattress for the first time in weeks, she barely slept.
In the morning. Ping tied up her hair, and put on her travelling gown so that she looked like someone who could afford to buy jade jewellery.
Jun smiled when he saw her. “You look nice,” he said, then stared at his shoes as he blushed.
“You take this.” Ping handed her imperial seal back to him. “We can pretend we are imperial officials inspecting the jade.”
He took the seal and tied it around his waist.
They reached Long Xiang just after midday. It was a village of no more than 20 houses nestled comfortably into the slope of a hill. The village gates were thrown open and traders from all over the Empire and beyond were visiting.
The sound of people carving jade could be heard from outside the walls. There were three streets in the Tinkling Village. Every household was involved with jade carving. Every person played a part in the village’s industry. Each street had its specialty—in one only hair decorations were made, the second only necklaces, earrings were the specialty of the third. Three households specialised in wind chimes, which only the richest people in the Empire could afford. Stalls outside each house were hung with the household’s wares and they clinked in the breeze. That was what gave the village its name. Even the children had their own special task. They gathered dry grass for packing the jewellery so that it arrived unbroken when it was sent to all corners of the Empire.
There was no inn in the village. Traders usually arrived early, made their purchases and returned to Xining in a single day. Kai was so excited he couldn’t keep still, but in the shape of Ping’s little brother, that didn’t seem out of place.
“How do we know who the great man is?” Jun asked.
“The most important man is the village elder,” Ping replied. “Once word spreads that there’s an imperial official visiting, I’m sure we’ll get his personal attention.”
As they strolled around the village, Jun showed Ping’s seal to the villagers, telling them they were there to buy jewellery for the imperial ladies in Chang’an. The villagers were very interested in the unusual white jade that the seal was made of, and no one noticed that the characters said it was the seal of an Imperial Dragonkeeper, not an imperial purchaser. Neither Ping nor Jun corrected them when they assumed that Jun was an important official and Ping was the Empress’s head lady-in-waiting. News of the imperial visitors soon spread and before long the village elder came and invited them to stay for the night in his own home. Ping was sure that he was the great man.
The elder’s name was Master Cai. He wasn’t as old as some of the village elders they had met, and he wore a silk gown as fine as those of the Duke of Yan. His house was a two-storey building with many rooms. There were silk hangings and bronze ornaments more suited to the house of a lord than a village elder. That evening they were invited to eat with Master Cai’s family. It was a lavish meal of four courses. Kai, in the shape of Ping’s younger brother, was sent to bed early.
Ping hinted that they intended to buy many pieces of jewellery for the Emperor’s sister and mother. Though the meal was excellent, Master Cai’s wife found much to complain about to their three servants. After the meal, when Mistress Cai had gone to make sure that the servants cleaned the dishes properly, Ping tried to turn the conversation to dragons. But all Master Cai wanted to talk about was jade. Jun even said that he had been instructed in particular to find a jade dragon. Ping peered into the elder’s eyes, looking for some understanding. There was none.
The next day, Master Cai had arranged a tour of Long Xiang for his guests. They visited many jade carvers. Jun bought a few pieces of jewellery, to keep up the charade. He said they were only buying samples on this journey, but the village elder was getting impatient. He had been expecting the imperial official to spend the Emperor’s gold much more freely. Eventually, Ping decided that the only thing left was to be direct.
“I heard a story as we were travelling that there is a dragon living in the mountains around here,” she remarked casually after they had finished the tour and returned to the elder’s house.
“What nonsense!” Master Cai said. “I’ve never heard such a tale.”
He left them to turn his attention to traders more interested in parting with their gold.
“I think we’ve just about worn out our welcome in the Tinkling Village,” said Jun.
Kai was moping around miserably.
“Look at Father’s silk again,” he said.
Ping took out the silk square.
“There is one more clue that you haven’t deciphered,” Jun said. “Just because you’ve made sense of one line of the Yi Jing reading, doesn’t mean that you should igno
re the map. Perhaps they work together.” Jun read out the final place name. “Blazing Dragon Valley, Ye Long Gu. What else can that mean?”
Ping wrote down other characters pronounced ye that meant sickness, night and liquid. She thought back to all the books she’d read at Beibai Palace, all the characters she’d learned.
“There’s also this one.” She wrote down the character which meant to visit someone who is revered. “Perhaps there’s another ‘great man’ in the village besides the elder.”
Ping and Jun went out to the courtyard and struck up a conversation with Mistress Cai. Ping asked about the history of the village, how it came to specialise in jade carving. The woman didn’t know.
“Is there someone else in the village who might know?”
“There is no one who knows more than my husband,” she said proudly.
“But Master Cai is young for a man of such an important position,” Ping said. “There must be men who are older.”
The woman nodded. “My husband is wise for his years, everybody says so.”
“Who is the oldest person in the village?” Ping persisted.
“Granny Wang is very old. So is Mr Chu. But I suppose the oldest person would be Lao Longzi. He’s an old fool who doesn’t know anything about jade carving. He’s not from around here. He’s not even a craftsman. He settled in Long Xiang and made a living as a merchant.” She spoke the word as if it was an insult. “He used to take our goods to towns in the south to sell, until he got too old to travel. You won’t get anything out of him. He’s as deaf as a stone.”
Ping looked over to Kai, who was sitting in his little-boy shape on the other side of the courtyard.
“Never mind. It’s not important,” Ping said to the woman. She stretched. “It’s a nice day. I think we might go for a stroll around the village.”
“But you have an appointment to see the head carver in Necklace Street,” Mistress Cai exclaimed.
Ping looked at Jun, wondering how she could get away.
“I’ll go and see the necklace carver,” Jun said. “You and your brother go for a walk.”
The woman called for a servant to bring her outdoor shoes. Then she and Jun left the house.