“Long gu,” Kai said excitedly, after they had left.
Ping nodded. She wrote two characters in the earth. They read ‘deaf merchant’. Ye Long Gu also meant ‘visit the deaf merchant’.
It only took two enquiries to find the home of the deaf merchant. No one seemed to know his real name, he was just known as Lao Longzi—the old deaf one. Even though he had lived in the village for more than 50 years, he was still considered a stranger. He lived in the last house in Earring Street. The small house was so dilapidated, it was hard to believe it could still stand. Rain had washed away part of one mud-brick wall, lengths of wood propped up another. The wind or birds had carried away a good deal of the straw thatching from the roof.
“There doesn’t seem much point in knocking on a deaf man’s door,” Ping said to Kai.
She pushed open the sagging door and entered a courtyard. A few herbs and vegetables were growing in a garden bed. Three skinny chickens pecked at the hard earth. A very old man was sitting on a bench in a patch of sunlight on the other side of the courtyard with his chin resting on his chest. His gown was patched and darned. His hair was pure white and tied back loosely in a plait. A walking stick leaned against the bench at his side. He didn’t notice them enter.
Ping went over to him and very gently touched his hand. The old man wasn’t startled. He slowly raised his head and smiled at her as if he wasn’t at all surprised to see a young woman standing before him. Ping took out the silk square and opened it up. She spread the map on the old man’s lap. He peered at the markings for a long time.
“I don’t think he understands the writing,” Ping said to Kai. “His eyesight might be bad as well as his hearing.”
She took the mirror from her pouch and held it out to the old man. He reached for it with his left hand. His fingers were as stiff as twigs, but he managed to take hold of it. He ran a crooked finger over the dragon design and mouthed a word. Ping leaned closer. “What did you say?”
The faintest sound came out of the old man’s mouth. “Danzi?” he whispered.
“Did you hear that?” she asked Kai.
“Didn’t hear anything,” Kai said. Dragons don’t have good hearing.
The old man’s claw-like fingers reached out and grabbed a fold of Ping’s gown. “Danzi?” he repeated.
Ping shook her head. The old man thought she was a shape-changed dragon. “No,” she said, though she knew he couldn’t hear her. “I’m not Danzi, but I’m looking for the dragon haven.”
The old man stared at his image in the mirror.
“How can we tell him what we want?” Ping said.
“Kai knows.”
She saw something shimmering just out of the corner of her eye. Kai was turning back to his true dragon shape. The old man looked up from the mirror and gazed at the young dragon.
“Lao Longzi,” said Kai. Ping could hear his words in her mind. “My father wants me to go to the dragon haven. Can you tell us where it is?”
The old man’s lips were so thin they barely existed. He seemed unable to form a smile, but his cloudy eyes brightened. He reached out and touched Kai’s scales. Tears filled his eyes.
“Dragon haven,” he breathed.
He had heard Kai’s unspoken words. He was a Dragonkeeper.
The old man was staring at Kai. “Who is your keeper?”
Ping could hear his words as well, but his voice was just a whisper.
“Ping is Kai’s keeper.”
Lao Longzi looked at Ping. “A girl?”
“I was Danzi’s Dragonkeeper,” Ping said.
“So was I,” Lao Longzi said. “Is Danzi …?”
Ping stared at the old man. Kai reached out and touched him with the pads of one paw.
“Danzi has gone to the Isle of the Blest,” Ping replied. “He asked me to take Kai to the dragon haven. Can you tell me where it is?”
“Secret place,” the old man said. “Must never be written down or spoken aloud.”
Ping held her breath.
“Long Gao Yuan.” The words echoed in Ping’s mind. “Dragon Plateau.”
“Where is it?” Ping’s heart was beating fast.
“I’ve never heard of a female Dragonkeeper,” he said.
Speaking those few words seemed to have taken all the old man’s energy. His head sagged onto his chest again. Ping and Kai waited, but he didn’t stir. She took the silk square from his hands, then they left the courtyard.
They hurried back to the elder’s house. Ping gabbled the news to Jun. Kai was making an excited gonging sound. Jun couldn’t understand either of them.
“Slow down,” he said.
“Lao Longzi told us the name of the dragon haven,” she whispered. “It’s called Long Gao Yuan.”
“And where is it?”
Ping’s excitement melted away like snow in spring. “He didn’t tell us that. I don’t think he believed I was a true Dragonkeeper.”
Kai wanted to pack their bag and run off to find Dragon Plateau immediately. Jun tried to calm them both down.
“We don’t want to rouse the villagers’ suspicions. As far as they’re concerned, we’re imperial officials buying jade jewellery. We’ll leave tomorrow morning as planned and say we are returning to Xining.”
“You’re right,” Ping said. “Lao Longzi has kept this secret for many years, we mustn’t let anyone know our destination.”
“That will be easy,” Jun observed with a crooked smile. “Even we don’t know where we’re going!”
Ping did some qi exercises to calm her, while Jun spread out his purchases. He had had to buy more jewellery to keep the jade carvers happy.
“You have nearly enough to start your own jade business,” Ping observed.
“I might give them as gifts.” He held up a lovely hair clip. “I think my mother would like this piece. My sisters will like the earrings.” He picked out a pendant in the shape of a dragon hanging from a leather thong. “But this one is for you.”
“I can’t take that,” she gasped. “It must be worth a fortune.”
The dragon carved on it was nothing like a real live dragon. It was delicate and curved. Its body was marked with spots, and its horns, talons and knee hair were all carved as delicate curls. It was beautiful.
“I knew it was yours the moment I saw it,” Jun said, reddening. “Please take it.”
He slipped the leather thong over Ping’s head. It was Ping’s turn to blush. She studied a stain on the floor.
“Thank you.”
Ping went back to Lao Longzi’s house later that afternoon. The old man was sitting exactly where they had left him.
“Can you tell me where Long Gao Yuan is?” Ping asked. “I have to take Kai there.”
The old man opened his eyes but didn’t reply.
“It’s what Danzi wanted.”
Lao Longzi slowly raised his head. “In the mountains.” One of his twiggy fingers pointed towards the north-west.
Ping waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t.
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
Lao Longzi shook his head.
The evening was spent at a long and drawn out meal with Master Cai, listening to him recount the special skills of his children. Then his wife entertained them by playing a zither and singing very badly. The night passed as slowly as water dripping through a crack in a bucket.
Ping was up before dawn, packed and ready to go. She had changed back into her worn trousers and jacket. Kai couldn’t eat his breakfast. They set out before the sound of the jade workers’ tools could be heard. The perplexed elder stood at the doorway yawning in his nightgown as they thanked him for his hospitality, and promised to send a large order once they had shown their samples to the Emperor. They walked back the way they had come until they were sure they were well out of sight of the village. Then they stopped.
“So where are we going?” Jun asked.
“To the mountains,” Ping replied.
Jun sca
nned the horizon. “There’s a lot of them.”
Ping sighed. “We’ll have to hope that the white dragon finds us again.”
“Look,” said Kai. He pointed a talon into the morning mist.
Ping could make out what she thought was a large grey rock in a meadow. Then she saw the rock move. They edged closer. It wasn’t a rock, or at least not all of it was. It was a person sitting on a rock. The person stood up. Ping couldn’t believe her eyes. It was Lao Longzi. He leaned heavily on his walking stick as he shuffled towards them.
“I will take you to Long Gao Yuan,” the old man whispered. “If Danzi chose you as his Dragonkeeper that is all the recommendation I need.”
Lao Longzi pointed his stick away from the road into the hills to the north-west. The old man didn’t look like he could take five steps on level ground, let alone walk many li over mountains.
He looked at Jun. “Is the young man accompanying us?” he asked.
Ping heard the question in her mind. “Yes,” she replied.
“That is good,” he said.
Lao Longzi lifted one foot an inch off the ground and moved it forward three inches. Then he lifted his other foot. It was going to be a long, slow journey.
• chapter thirteen •
THE SERPENT’S TAIL
“If we walk around the lakes shore
it will be quicker,” Kai said.
Lao Longzi shook his head.
“Too open,” he said.
“We must stay in the hills.”
Ping was convinced that Lao Longzi would collapse from exhaustion before he made it to the foot of the first hill, let alone to its top. But the old man had more strength than anyone expected. He moved slowly but steadily, like an ancient tortoise.
As he laboriously climbed the hill, he didn’t speak. Kai ran ahead and back endlessly. Ping thought that she would burst with impatience.
Jun touched her arm gently. “Not much further now,” he said. “The journey will take its own time.”
Ping had lost interest in the journey. The hills all looked the same. Even the fact that they were covered with mossy grass, dotted with small flowers and watered by streams didn’t please her. Reaching their destination was all that mattered now. Lao Longzi was silent during the day as he needed all his energy for walking, but in the evening, he spoke a little.
The next day was the same, and the next. Each evening, they gleaned a little more information from the old man, word by whispered word. Lao Longzi preferred to speak aloud as a courtesy to Jun, even though it took more energy. His words were like rare gems. Ping turned each one of them over and over in her mind to make sure she hadn’t missed any of its meaning. She had never expected to have the privilege of speaking to someone else who had been Danzi’s Dragonkeeper.
“There were many dragon hunters in those distant days,” the old man said. “They searched all over the Empire for dragons. That’s why some dragons sought out a remote mountain hideout.”
He paused for several minutes while he collected his thoughts and the breath for further speech. “I was Long Danzi’s keeper for more than 70 years.”
Ping looked at the old man. He must have been well over 100 years old.
“Some of that time we spent on Dragon Plateau.” The corners of his mouth turned up in the smallest of smiles. “But Danzi was an adventurous dragon. Life on the plateau didn’t suit his wandering spirit. He left to explore the world. I was happy to go with him.”
Kai sat close to Lao Longzi, barely breathing he was listening so intently.
“Tell me something about Father,” Kai said.
The old man thought for a moment.
“He didn’t like hibernating,” Lao Longzi said. “He would try to sleep but he would wake often, get out of the pond and talk to me and the other Dragonkeepers. He liked to walk in the snow and sometimes he would make a mound of snow and then form it into a shape—a rabbit, a fish, an eagle.”
Kai sat in silence. Ping knew that he was repeating the story in his head, so that he would remember every word.
Ping realised that being the keeper of a wild dragon was very different to caring for the imperial dragons. Being an Imperial Dragonkeeper had been a bad experience for Ping, but in the old days it had been different. In an imperial palace, a Dragonkeeper could marry and have a family. In fact, marriage was encouraged, in the hope that more Dragonkeepers would be born. Dragons needed many keepers over their long lives. It was a safe and secure profession.
Caring for a dragon in the wild made for an exciting life, but it was a task for an unmarried man. It was a dangerous job. Often Dragonkeepers died while caring for their dragon charges—and not all of them died of old age. Some died in mountain accidents, others were the victims of dragon hunters.
One evening, Lao Longzi told them why he’d had to give up his treasured position as Danzi’s keeper.
“My ears failed me,” he said. Ping felt that his sadness had seeped into his bones. “Dragons cannot hear well. Hunters can creep up on them when they are sleeping. Keen hearing is essential for a Dragonkeeper in the wild. Danzi had to look for a younger man.”
Ping remembered Wang Cao, the herbalist from Chang’an, and wondered if he had been Danzi’s next Dragonkeeper.
Day after day they made their way at tortoise speed. As they climbed each hill, they saw before them endless, similar hills. Though they occasionally startled a herd of wild goats or a fox, they never saw another person.
“How many dragons were there on the plateau?” Kai asked.
“Many,” the old man replied.
Ping could feel Kai’s excitement.
“We saw one,” he told him. “A white one. Do you think there will be more on Dragon Plateau?”
Lao Longzi nodded. “I expect to meet some old friends there.”
“Are there any young ones?” Kai asked.
“When I was there, there were none, but two dragons had mated. There should be young by now.”
“Kai can play with them.” He ran ahead, his happy tinkling sounds filling the air. He could barely contain his excitement.
Ping hadn’t dared to think that more than one dragon had survived in the wild. She had only ever dealt with dragons one at a time. Her feelings were confused. It was right that Kai should live with others of his kind, but she wasn’t sure how she would fit into Kai’s new life. If he had dragons to teach him, what would her role be?
Lao Longzi had questions too. He wanted to know what had happened to Danzi, and so Ping told him the story of their journey.
At midmorning the following day, they climbed another mossy rounded hill, identical to the many they had already climbed. But from the top of this one there was a different view. A huge lake lay before them. It stretched beyond the horizon like an inland sea. The hill sloped down towards the edge of the lake like a mossy carpet. More hills surrounded the lake to the north and south, but to the west, the tips of snow-capped mountains were visible on the horizon. Lao Longzi pointed a trembling finger towards the mountains.
“Long Gao Yuan,” he breathed.
“The lake must be nearly 150 li wide,” said Jun as he stared at the vast expanse of water.
“If we walk around the lake’s shore it will be quicker,” Kai said.
Lao Longzi shook his head. “Too open,” he said. “We must stay in the hills.”
Kai asked Lao Longzi endless questions about Danzi and the other dragons at Long Gao Yuan. Each of the old man’s answers was long and slow.
Jun couldn’t hear any of the conversations between the dragon and Lao Longzi.
“Now I know what it’s like to be deaf,” Jun said.
Ping tried to remember to speak aloud so that he knew what she was saying to the old man and Kai, but she sometimes forgot.
When Kai was questioning Lao Longzi, Ping talked to Jun. She enjoyed having a conversation with another person that wasn’t constantly interrupted by dragon sounds. Jun told her about his childhood. His stories of how he ha
d coped with seven sisters made her laugh.
Ping was as impatient as Kai to get to their destination. It had already taken them two weeks to travel a distance that they could have crossed in a few days without Lao Longzi. Creeping through the hills with him would take another week at least.
“Does your second sight tell you anything about Dragon Plateau?” Ping asked. “Can you tell how many dragons are living there?”
A long ragged sigh escaped from the old man.
“Second sight usually only comes to a Dragonkeeper when he has a dragon in his care. When Danzi and I parted, my second sight vanished.”
He turned his watery eyes to Ping. “Does your second sight tell you anything?”
Ping shook her head.
“This is a strange life you have chosen,” Lao Longzi said.
“I didn’t choose it,” Ping replied. “It chose me.”
He surveyed the bleak landscape. “Do you have any regrets?”
“None.”
Ping had one more question for Lao Longzi, though she hesitated before asking it.
“Did you foresee that you would live a lonely life after Danzi left you?”
The old man nodded slowly. “Yes, but I wouldn’t swap my years with Danzi for a more companionable old age.”
He glanced over to where Jun was playing with Kai.
“I have never known a Dragonkeeper to have a companion,” he said.
Ping didn’t understand what he meant at first. “You mean Jun?”
The old man nodded.
“He isn’t my companion,” Ping said, feeling suddenly hot. “He insisted on coming. His family feel that they have to repay a debt. They sent him to assist me. It wasn’t my idea.”
“Kai likes him,” the old man said. “There is no reason why a Dragonkeeper should be lonely.”
“I’ve not been lonely,” Ping protested. “I’ve had Danzi and Kai to keep me company.”
Lao Longzi made no further comment.
The days were long, daylight lasting well into the evening. The old man knew that they were eager to reach the dragon haven. Though he couldn’t increase his walking speed, he was willing to walk from sunrise until sunset.