XIA JIA
As an undergraduate, Xia Jia majored in Atmospheric Sciences at Peking University. She then entered the Film Studies program at the Communication University of China, where she completed her Master’s thesis, “A Study on Female Figures in Science Fiction Films.” Recently, she obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and World Literature at Peking University, with Fear and Hope in the Age of Globalization: Contemporary Chinese Science Fiction and Its Cultural Politics (1991–2012) as the title of her dissertation. She now teaches at Xi’an Jiaotong University.
She has been publishing fiction since college in a variety of venues including Science Fiction World and Jiuzhou Fantasy. Several of her stories have won the Galaxy (Yinhe) Award and Nebula (Xingyun) Award, China’s most prestigious science fiction honors. In English translation, she has been published in Clarkesworld and Upgraded, both edited by Neil Clarke. “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight” won an honorable mention in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Translation Awards in 2013 and was selected by editor Rich Horton for his “Year’s Best” anthology.
Xia Jia describes her own style as “porridge SF,” in contrast to the perennial (and, in my opinion, pointless) debate over the distinction of “hard SF” from “soft SF.” (These terms have slightly different meanings in the Chinese SF community than the Anglophone SF community. Generally, “hard SF” in Chinese refers to the inclusion of more technical material.) Her stories in this anthology, “A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight,” “Tongtong’s Summer,” and “Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse,” showcase the range of her style. Reviewer Lois Tilton described “A Hundred Ghosts” as “literary science fiction… where exceptional prose mingles the tropes of SF and fantasy and inform us that such distinctions are not so important.”[6] “Night Journey of the Dragon-Horse” is a brand-new story that has never been published in English.
Besides writing fiction, Xia Jia is also a brilliant translator from English into Chinese. Her translations, like her own writing, are lucid, elegant, and graceful. Her translation of my novella, “The Man Who Ended History,” is in many ways an improvement on the original.
In 2014, Xia Jia became the first Ph.D. in China with a specialization in science fiction. Her academic work on Chinese science fiction has been called groundbreaking, and she has presented her results in China as well as abroad. The critical essay she provided at the end of this book tries to tackle the question of what makes Chinese science fiction Chinese. (Most of her academic work is published under the name “Wang Yao,” as “Xia Jia” is a pen name used mainly for fiction.)
Xia Jia is also a filmmaker, actress, painter, and singer.
A HUNDRED GHOSTS PARADE TONIGHT
AWAKENING OF INSECTS, THE THIRD SOLAR TERM:
Ghost Street is long but narrow, like an indigo ribbon. You can cross it in eleven steps, but to walk it from end to end takes a full hour.
At the western end is Lanruo Temple, now fallen into ruin. Inside the temple is a large garden full of fruit trees and vegetable patches as well as a bamboo grove and a lotus pond. The pond has fish, shrimp, dojo loaches, and yellow snails. So supplied, I have food to eat all year.
It’s evening, and I’m sitting at the door to the main hall, reading a copy of Huainanzi, the Han Dynasty essay collection, when along comes Yan Chixia, the great hero, vanquisher of demons and destroyer of evil spirits. He’s carrying a basket by the crook of his elbow, the legs of his pants rolled all the way up, revealing calves caked with black mud. I can’t help but laugh at the sight.
My teacher, the Monk, hears me and walks out of the dark corner of the main hall, gears grinding, and hits me on the head with his ferule.
I hold my head in pain, staring at the Monk in anger. But his iron face is expressionless, just like the statues of the buddhas in the main hall. I throw down the book and run outside while the Monk pursues me, his joints clanging and creaking the whole time. They are so rusted that he moves as slowly as a snail.
I stop in front of Yan, and I see his basket contains several new bamboo shoots, freshly dug from the ground.
“I want to eat meat,” I say, tilting my face up to look at him. “Can you hunt some buntings with your slingshot for me?”
“Buntings are best eaten in the fall when they’re fat,” says Yan. “Now is the time for them to breed chicks. If you shoot them, there won’t be buntings to eat next year.”
“Just one, pleeeeease?” I grab onto his sleeve and act cute. But he shakes his head resolutely, handing me the basket. He takes off his conical sedge hat and wipes the sweat off his face.
I laugh again as I look at him. His face is as smooth as an egg, with just a few wisps of curled black hair, like weeds that have been missed by the gardener. Legend has it that his hair and beard used to be very thick, but I’m always pulling a few strands out now and then as a game. After so many years, these are all the hairs he has left.
“You must have died of hunger in a previous life,” Yan says, cradling the back of my head in his large palm. “The whole garden is full of food for you. No one is here to fight you for it.”
I make a face at him and take the basket of food.
The rain has barely stopped; insects cry out from the wet earth. A few months from now, green grasshoppers will be jumping everywhere. You can catch them, string them along a stick, and roast them over the fire, dripping sweet-smelling fat into the flames.
As I picture this, my empty stomach growls as though already filled with chittering insects. I begin to run.
* * *
The golden light of the evening sun splatters over the slate slabs of the empty street, stretching my shadow into a long, long band.
I run back home, where Xiao Qian is combing her hair in the darkness. There are no mirrors in the house, so she always takes off her head and puts it on her knees to comb. Her hair looks like an ink-colored scroll, so long that the strands spread out to cover the whole room.
I sit quietly to the side until she’s done combing her hair, puts it up in a moon-shaped bun, and secures it with a pin made of dark wood inlaid with red coral beads. Then she lifts her head, reattaches it to her neck, and asks me if it’s sitting straight. I don’t understand why Xiao Qian cares so much. Even if she just tied her head to her waist with a sash, everyone would still think she’s beautiful.
But I look seriously and nod. “Beautiful,” I say.
Actually, I can’t really see very well. Unlike the ghosts, I cannot see in the dark.
Xiao Qian is happy with my affirmation. She takes my basket and goes into the kitchen to cook. As I sit and work the bellows next to her, I tell her about my day. Just as I get to the part where the Monk hit me on the head with the ferule, Xiao Qian reaches out and lightly caresses my head where I was hit. Her hand is cold and pale, like a piece of jade.
“You need to study hard and respect your teacher,” Xiao Qian says. “Eventually you’ll leave here and make your way in the real world. You have to have some knowledge and real skills.”
Her voice is very soft, like cotton candy, and so the swelling on my head stops hurting.
* * *
Xiao Qian tells me that Yan Chixia found me on the steps of the temple when I was a baby. I cried and cried because I was so hungry. Yan Chixia was at his wit’s end when he finally stuffed a handful of creeping rockfoil into my mouth. I sucked on the juice from the grass and stopped crying.
No one knows who my real parents are.
Even back then, Ghost Street had been doing poorly. No tourists had come by for a while. That hasn’t changed. Xiao Qian tells me that it’s probably because people invented some other attraction, newer, fresher, and so they forgot about the old attractions. She’s seen similar things happen many times.
Before she became a ghost, Xiao Qian tells me, she lived a very full life. She had been married twice, gave birth to seven children, and raised them all.
And then her children got sick, one after another. In order to raise the money to pay the doctors, Xiao Qian sold herself off in pieces: teeth, eyes, breasts, heart, liver, lungs, bone marrow, and finally her soul. Her soul was sold to Ghost Street, where it was sealed inside a female ghost’s body. Her children died anyway.
Now she has white skin and dark hair. The skin is light sensitive. If she’s in direct sunlight, she’ll burn.
After he found me, Yan Chixia had walked up and down all Ghost Street before he decided to give me to Xiao Qian to raise.
I’ve seen a picture of Xiao Qian back when she was alive. It was hidden in a corner of a drawer in her dresser. The woman in the picture had thick eyebrows, huge eyes, a wrinkled face—far uglier than the way Xiao Qian looks now. Still, I often see her cry as she looks at that picture. Her tears are a pale pink. When they fall against her white dress, they soak into the fabric and spread like blooming peach flowers.
Every ghost is full of stories from when they were alive. Their bodies have been cremated and the ashes mixed into the earth, but their stories still live on. During the day, when all Ghost Street is asleep, the stories become dreams and circle under the shadows of the eaves like swallows without nests. During those hours, only I’m around, walking in the street, and only I can see them and hear their buzzing song.
I’m the only living person on Ghost Street.
Xiao Qian says that I don’t belong here. When I grow up, I’ll leave.
* * *
The smell of good food fills the room. The insects in my stomach chitter even louder.
I eat dinner by myself: preserved pork with stir-fried bamboo shoots, shrimp paste–flavored egg soup, and rice balls with chives, still hot in my hands. Xiao Qian sits and watches me. Ghosts don’t eat. None of the inhabitants of Ghost Street, not even Yan Chixia or the Monk, ever eat.
I bury my face in the bowl, eating as fast as I can. I wonder, after I leave, will I ever eat such delicious food again?
MAJOR HEAT, THE TWELFTH SOLAR TERM:
After night falls, the world comes alive.
I go alone to the well in the back to get water. I turn the wheel and it squeaks, but the sound is different from usual. I look down into the well and see a long-haired ghost in a white dress sitting in the bucket.
I pull her up and out. Her wet hair covers her face, leaving only one eye to stare at me out of a gap. “Ning, tonight is the Carnival. Aren’t you going?”
“I need to get water for Xiao Qian’s bath,” I answer. “After the bath we’ll go.”
She strokes my face lightly. “You are a foolish child.”
She has no legs, so she has to leave by crawling on her hands. I hear the sound of crawling, creeping all around me. Green will-o’-the-wisps flit around like anxious fireflies. The air is filled with the fragrance of rotting flowers.
I go back to the dark bedroom and pour the water into the wooden bathtub. Xiao Qian undresses. I see a crimson bar code along her naked back like a tiny snake. Bright white lights pulse under her skin.
“Why don’t you take a bath with me?” she asks.
I shake my head, but I’m not sure why. Xiao Qian sighs. “Come.” So I don’t refuse again.
We sit in the bathtub together. The cedar smells nice. Xiao Qian rubs my back with her cold, cold hands, humming lightly. Her voice is very beautiful. Legend has it that any man who heard her sing fell in love with her.
When I grow up, will I fall in love with Xiao Qian? I think and look at my small hands, the skin now wrinkled from the bath like wet wrapping paper.
After the bath, Xiao Qian combs my hair and dresses me in a new shirt she made for me. Then she sticks a bunch of copper coins, green and dull, into my pocket.
“Go have fun,” she says. “Remember not to eat too much!”
* * *
Outside, the street is lit with countless lanterns, so bright I can no longer see the stars that fill the summer sky.
Demons, ghosts, all kinds of spirits come out of their ruined houses, out of cracks in walls, rotting closets, dry wells. Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, they parade up and down Ghost Street until the narrow street is filled.
I squeeze myself into the middle of the crowd, looking all around. The stores and kiosks along both sides of the street send forth all kinds of delicious smells, tickling my nose like butterflies. The vending ghosts see me and call for me, the only living person, to try their wares.
“Ning! Come here! Fresh sweet osmanthus cakes, still hot!”
“Sugar-roasted chestnuts! Sweet smelling and sweeter tasting!”
“Fried dough, the best fried dough!”
“Long pig dumplings! Two long pig dumplings for one coin!”
“Ning, come eat a candy man. Fun to play and fun to eat!”
Of course the “long pig dumplings” are really just pork dumplings. The vendor says that just to attract the tourists and give them a thrill.
But I look around, and there are no tourists.
I eat everything I can get my hands on. Finally I’m so full that I have to sit down by the side of the road to rest a bit. On the opposite side of the street is a temporary stage lit by a huge bright white paper lantern. Onstage, ghosts are performing: sword-swallowing, fire-breathing, turning a beautiful girl into a skeleton. I’m bored by these tricks. The really good show is still to come.
A yellow-skinned old ghost pushes a cart of masks in front of me.
“Ning, why don’t you pick a mask? I have everything: Ox-Head, Horse-Face, Black-Faced and White-Faced Wuchang, Asura, Yaksha, Rakshasa, Pixiu, and even Lei Gong, the Duke of Thunder.”
I spend a long time browsing, and finally settle on a Rakshasa mask with red hair and green eyes. The yellow-skinned old ghost thanks me as he takes my coin, dipping his head down until his back is bent like a bow.
I put the mask on and continue strutting down the street. Suddenly loud Carnival music fills the air, and all the ghosts stop and then shuffle to the sides of the street.
I turn around and see the parade coming down the middle of the street. In front are twenty one-foot-tall green toads in two columns striking gongs, thumping drums, strumming huqin, and blowing bamboo sheng. After them come twenty centipede spirits in black clothes, each holding varicolored lanterns and dancing complicated steps. Behind them are twenty snake spirits in yellow dresses, throwing confetti into the air. And there are more behind them, but I can’t see that far.
Between the marching columns are two Cyclopes in white robes, each as tall as a three-story house. They carry a palanquin on their shoulders, and from within Xiao Qian’s song rolls out, each note as bright as a star in the sky, falling one by one onto my head.
Fireworks of all colors rise up: bright crimson, pale green, smoky purple, shimmering gold. I look up and feel as though I’m becoming lighter myself, floating into the sky.
As the parade passes from west to east, all the ghosts along the sides of the street join, singing and dancing. They’re heading for the old osmanthus tree at the eastern end of Ghost Street, whose trunk is so broad that three men stretching their arms out can barely surround it. A murder of crows lives there, each one capable of human speech. We call the tree Old Ghost Tree, and it is said to be in charge of all of Ghost Street. Whoever pleases it prospers; whoever goes against its wishes fails.
But I know that the parade will never get to the Old Ghost Tree.
When the parade is about halfway down the street, the earth begins to shake and the slate slabs crack open. From the yawning gaps, huge white bones crawl out, each as thick as the columns holding up Lanruo Temple. The bones slowly gather together and assemble into a giant skeleton, glinting like white porcelain in the moonlight. Now black mud springs forth from its feet and crawls up the skeleton, turning into flesh. Finally, a colossal Dark Yaksha stands before us, its single horn so large that it seems to pierce the night sky.
The two Cyclopes don’t even reach its calves.
The Dark Yaksha turns its huge head from side to side. This is a standard part of every Carnival. It is supposed to abduct a tourist. On nights when there are no tourists, it must go back under the earth, disappointed, to wait for the next opportunity.
Slowly it turns its gaze on me, focusing on my presence. I pull off my mask and stare back. Its gaze feels hot, the eyes as red as burning coal.
Xiao Qian leans out from the palanquin, and her cry pierces the suddenly quiet night air: “Ning, run! Run!”
The wind lifts the corner of her dress, like a dark purple petal unfolding. Her face is like jade, with orange lights flowing underneath.
I turn and run as fast as I can. Behind me, I hear the heavy footsteps of the Dark Yaksha. With every quaking, pounding step, shingles fall from houses on both sides like overripe fruits. I am now running like the wind, my bare feet striking the slate slabs lightly: pat, pat, pat. My heart pounds against my chest: thump, thump, thump. Along the entire frenzied Ghost Street, mine is the only living heart.
But both the ghosts and I know that I’m not in any real danger. A ghost can never hurt a real person. That’s one of the rules of the game.
I run toward the west, toward Lanruo Temple. If I can get to Yan Chixia before the Yaksha catches me, I’ll be safe. This is also part of the performance. Every Carnival, Yan puts on his battle gear and waits on the steps of the main hall.
As I approach, I cry out, “Help! Save me! Oh, Hero Yan, save me!”
In the distance, I hear his long ululating cry and see his figure leaping over the wall of the temple to land in the middle of the street. He holds in his left hand a Daoist charm: a red character written against a yellow background. He reaches behind his back with his right hand and pulls out his sword, the Demon Slayer.
He stands tall and shouts into the night sky, “Brazen Demon! How dare you harm innocent people? I, Yan Chixia, will carry out justice today!”
But tonight, he forgot to wear his sedge hat. His egg-shaped face is exposed to the thousands of lanterns along Ghost Street, with just a few wisps of hair curled like question marks on a blank page. The silly sight is such a contrast against his serious mien that I start to laugh even as I’m running. And that makes me choke, and I can’t catch my breath, so I fall against the cold slate surface of the street.
This moment is my best memory of the summer.
COLD DEW, THE SEVENTEENTH SOLAR TERM:
A thin layer of clouds hides the moon. I’m crouching by the side of the lotus pond in Lanruo Temple. All I can see are the shadows cast by the lotus leaves, rising and falling slowly with the wind.
The night is as cold as the water. Insects hidden in the grass won’t stop singing.
The eggplants and string beans in the garden are ripe. They smell so good that I have a hard time resisting temptation. All I can think about is stealing some under the cover of night. Maybe Yan Chixia was right: in a previous life, I must have died of hunger.
So I wait and wait. But I don’t hear Yan Chixia’s snores. Instead, I hear light footsteps cross the grassy path to stop in front of Yan Chixia’s cabin. The door opens, the steps go in. A moment later, the voices of a man and a woman drift out of the dark room: Yan Chixia and Xiao Qian.
Qian: “Why did you ask me to come?”
Yan: “You know what it’s about.”
Qian: “I can’t leave with you.”
Yan: “Why not?”
Qian: “A few more years. Ning is still so young.”
“Ning, Ning!” Yan’s voice grows louder. “I think you’ve been a ghost for too long.”
Qian sounds pitiful. “I raised Ning for so many years. How can I just get up and leave him?”
“You’re always telling me that Ning is still too young, always telling me to wait. Do you remember how many years it has been?”
“I can’t.”
“You sew a new set of clothes for him every year. How can you forget?” Yan chuckles, a cold sound. “I remember very clearly. The fruits and vegetables in this garden ripen like clockwork, once a year. I’ve seen them do it fifteen times. Fifteen! But has Ning’s appearance changed any since the year he turned seven? You still think he’s alive, he’s real?”
Xiao Qian remains silent for a moment. Then I hear her crying.
Yan sighs. “Don’t lie to yourself anymore. He’s just like us, nothing more than a toy. Why are you so sad? He’s not worth it.”
Xiao Qian just keeps on crying.
Yan sighs again. “I should never have picked him up and brought him back.”
Xiao Qian whispers through the tears, “Where can we go if we leave Ghost Street?”
Yan has no answer.
The sound of Xiao Qian’s crying makes my heart feel constricted. Silently I sneak away and leave the old temple through a hole in the wall.
The thin layer of clouds chooses this moment to part. Icy moonlight scatters itself against the slate slabs of the street, congealing into drops of glittering dew. My bare feet against the ground feel so cold that my whole body shivers.
A few stores are still open along Ghost Street. The vendors greet me enthusiastically, asking me to sample their green bean biscuits and sweet osmanthus cake. But I don’t want to. What’s the point? I’m just like them, maybe even less than them.
Every ghost used to be alive. Their fake mechanical bodies host real souls. But I’m fake throughout, inside and outside. From the day I was born, made, I was fake. Every ghost has stories of when they were alive, but I don’t. Every ghost had a father, a mother, a family, memories of their love, but I don’t have any of that.
Xiao Qian once told me that Ghost Street’s decline came about because people, real people, found more exciting, newer toys. Maybe I am one of those toys—made with newer, better technology until I could pass for the real thing. I can cry, laugh, eat, piss and shit, fall, feel pain, ooze blood, hear my own heartbeat, grow up from a simulacrum of a baby—except that my growth stops when I’m seven. I’ll never be a grown-up.
Ghost Street was built to entertain the tourists, and all the ghosts were their toys. But I’m just a toy for Xiao Qian.
Pretending that the fake is real only makes the real seem fake.
I walk slowly toward the eastern end of the street until I stop under the Old Ghost Tree. The sweet fragrance of osmanthus fills the foggy night air, cool and calming. Suddenly I want to climb into the tree. That way, no one will find me.
The Old Ghost Tree leans down with its branches to help.
I sit hidden among the dense branches and feel calmer. The crows perch around me, their glass eyes showing hints of a dark red glow. One of them speaks. “Ning, this is a beautiful night. Why aren’t you at Lanruo Temple, stealing vegetables?”
The crow is asking a question to which it already knows the answer. The Old Ghost Tree knows everything that happens on Ghost Street. The crows are its eyes and ears.
“How can I know for sure,” I ask, “that I’m a real person?”
“You can chop off your head,” the crow answers. “A real person will die with his head cut off, but a ghost will not.”
“But what if I cut off my head and die? I’ll be no more.”
The crow laughs, the sound grating and unpleasant to listen to. Two more crows fly down, holding in their beaks antique bronze mirrors. Using the little moonlight that leaks through the leaves, I finally see myself in the mirrors: small face, dark hair, thin neck. I lift the hair off the back of my neck, and in the double reflections of the mirrors, I see a crimson bar code against the skin, like a tiny snake.
I remember Xiao Qian’s cool hands against my spine on that hot summer night. I think and think until tears fall from my eyes.
WINTER SOLSTICE, THE TWENTY-SECOND SOLAR TERM:
This winter has been both dry and cold, but I often hear the sound of thunder in the distance. Xiao Qian says it’s the Thunder Calamity, which happens only once every thousand years.
The Thunder Calamity punishes demons and ghosts and lost spirits. Those who can escape it can live for another thousand years. Those who can’t will be burned away until no trace is left of them.
I know perfectly well that there’s no such thing as a “Thunder Calamity” in this world. Xiao Qian has been a ghost for so long that she’s now gone a little crazy. She holds on to me with her cold hands, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. She says that to hide from the Calamity, a ghost must find a real person with a good heart to stay beside her. That way, just as one wouldn’t throw a shoe at a mouse sitting beside an expensive vase, the Duke of Thunder will not strike the ghost.
Because of her fear, my plan to leave has been put on hold. In secret I’ve already prepared my luggage: a few stolen potatoes, a few old shirts. My body isn’t growing any more anyway, so these clothes will last me a long time. I didn’t take any of the old copper coins from Xiao Qian, though. Perhaps the outside world does not use them.
I really want to leave Ghost Street. I don’t care where I go; I just want to see the world. Anywhere but here.
I want to know how real people live.
But still I linger.
* * *
On Winter Solstice it snows. The snowflakes are tiny, like white sawdust. They melt as soon as they hit the ground. Only a very thin layer has accumulated by noon.
I walk alone along the street, bored. In past years I would go to Lanruo Temple to find Yan Chixia. We would knock an opening in the ice covering the lotus pond and lower our jury-rigged fishing pole. Winter catfish are very fat and taste fantastic when roasted with garlic.
But I haven’t seen Yan Chixia in a long time. I wonder if his beard and hair have grown out a bit.
Thunder rumbles in the sky, closer, then farther away, leaving only a buzzing sensation in my ears. I walk all the way to the Old Ghost Tree, climb up into its branches, and sit still. Snowflakes fall all around me, but not on me. I feel calm and warm. I curl up and tuck my head under my arms, falling asleep like a bird.
In my dream, I see Ghost Street turning into a long, thin snake. The Old Ghost Tree is the head, Lanruo Temple the tail, the slate slabs the scales. On each scale is drawn the face of a little ghost, very delicate and beautiful.
But the snake continues to writhe as though in great pain. I watch carefully and see that a mass of termites and spiders is biting its tail, making a sound like silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves. With sharp mandibles and claws, they tear off the scales on the snake one by one, revealing the flesh underneath. The snake struggles silently, but disappears inch by inch into the maws of the insects. When its body is almost completely eaten, it finally makes a sharp cry and turns its lonesome head toward me.
I see that its face is Xiao Qian’s.
I wake up. The cold wind rustles the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. It’s too quiet around me. All the crows have disappeared to who knows where, except one that is very old and ugly. It’s crouching in front of me, its beak dangling like the tip of a long mustache.
I shake it awake, anxious. It stares at me with two broken-glass eyes, croaking to me in its mechanical, flat voice, “Ning, why are you still here?”
“Where should I be?”
“Anywhere is good,” it says. “Ghost Street is finished. We’re all finished.”
I stick my head out of the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. Under the slate gray sky, I see the murder of crows circling over Lanruo Temple in the distance, cawing incessantly. I’ve never seen anything like this.
I jump down from the tree. As I run along the narrow street, I pass dark doors and windows. The cawing of the crows has awakened many of the ghosts, but they don’t dare to go outside where there’s light. All they can do is peek out from cracks in doors, like a bunch of crickets hiding under houses in winter.
The old walls of Lanruo Temple, long in need of repairs, have been pushed down. Many giant mechanical spiders made of steel are crawling all over the main hall, breaking off the dark red glass shingles and sculpted wooden molding piece by piece and throwing the pieces into the snow on the ground. They have flat bodies, blue-glowing eyes, and sharp mandibles, as ugly as you can imagine. From deep within their bodies comes a rumbling noise like thunder.
The crows swoop around them, picking up bits of broken shingles and bricks on the ground and dropping them on the spiders. But they are too weak, and the spiders ignore them. The broken shingle pieces strike against the steel shells, making faint, hollow echoes.
The vegetable garden has been destroyed. All that remains are some mud and pale white roots. I see one of the Monk’s rusted arms sticking out of a pile of broken bricks.
I run through the garden calling for Yan Chixia. He hears me and slowly walks out of his cabin. He’s still wearing his battle gear: sedge hat on his head, the sword Demon Slayer in his hand. I want to shout for him to fight the spiders, but somehow I can’t spit the words out. The words taste like bitter, astringent paste stuck in my throat.
Yan Chixia stares at me with his sad eyes. He comes over to hold my hands. His hands are as cold as Xiao Qian’s.
We stand together and watch as the great and beautiful main hall is torn apart bit by bit, collapses, turns into a pile of rubble: shingles, bricks, wood, mud. Nothing is whole.
They’ve destroyed all of Lanruo Temple: the walls, the main hall, the garden, the lotus pond, the bamboo grove, and Yan Chixia’s cabin. The only thing left is a muddy ruin.
Now they’re moving on to the rest of Ghost Street. They pry up the slate slabs, flatten the broken houses along the sides of the street. The ghosts hiding in the houses are chased into the middle of the street. As they run, they scream and scream while their skin slowly burns in the faint sunlight. There are no visible flames. But you can see the skin turning black in patches, and the smell of burning plastic is everywhere.
I fall into the snow. The smell of burning ghost skin makes me vomit. But there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up. Instead, I cry during the breaks in the dry heaves.
So this is what the Thunder Calamity looks like.
The ghosts, their faces burned away, continue to cry and run and struggle in the snow. Their footprints crisscross in the snow like a child’s handwriting. I suddenly think of Xiao Qian, and so I start to run again.
Xian Qian is still sitting in the dark bedroom. She combs her hair as she sings. Her melody floats in the gaps between the roaring, rumbling thunder of the spiders, so quiet, so transparent, like a dreamscape under the moon.
From her body come the fragrances of myriad flowers and herbs, layer after layer, like gossamer. Her hair floats up into the air like a flame, fluttering without cease. I stand and listen to her sing, my face full of tears, until the whole house begins to shake.
From on top of the roof, I hear the sound of steel clanging, blunt objects striking against one another, heavy footsteps, and then Yan Chixia’s shouting.
Suddenly the roof caves in, bringing with it a rain of shingles and letting in a bright patch of gray sky full of fluttering snowflakes. I push Xiao Qian into a dark corner, out of the way of the light.
I run outside the house. Yan Chixia is standing on the roof, holding his sword in front of him. The cold wind stretches his robe taut like a gray flag.
He jumps onto the back of a spider and stabs at its eyes with his sword. The spider struggles hard and throws Yan off its back. Then the spider grabs Yan with two sharp claws and pulls him into its sharp, metallic, grinding mandibles. It chews and chews, like a man chewing kimchee, until pieces of Yan Chixia’s body are spilling out of its mandibles onto the shingles of the roof. Finally Yan’s head falls off the roof and rolls to a stop next to my feet, like a hard-boiled egg.
I pick up his head. He stares at me with his dead eyes. There are no tears in them, only anger and regret. Then, with the last of his strength, Yan closes his eyes, as though he cannot bear to watch any more.
The spider continues to chew and grind up the rest of Yan Chixia’s body. Then it leaps down from the roof and, rumbling, crawls toward me. Its eyes glow with a deep blue light.
Xiao Qian jumps from behind me and grabs me by the waist, pulling me back. I pry her hands off me and push her back into the dark room. Then I pick up Yan Chixia’s sword and rush toward the spider.
The cold blue light of a steel claw flashes before my eyes. Then my head strikes the ground with a muffled thump. Blood spills everywhere.
The world is now tilted: tilted sky, tilted street, tilted snow falling diagonally. With every bit of my strength, I turn my eyes to follow the spider. I see that it’s chewing on my body. A stream of dark red fluid drips out of its beak, bubbling, warm, the droplets slowly spreading in the snow.
As the spider chews, it slows down gradually. Then it stops moving. The blue light in its eyes dims and then goes out.
As though they have received some signal, all the other spiders also stop one by one. The rumbling thunder stops, plunging the world into silence.
The wind stops, too. Snow begins to stick to the spiders’ steel bodies.
I want to laugh, but I can’t. My head is now separated from my body, so there’s no way to get air into the lungs and then out to my vocal cords. So I crack my lips open until the smile is frozen on my face.
The spiders believed that I was alive, a real person. They chewed my body and tasted flesh and saw blood. But they aren’t allowed to harm real people. If they do, they must destroy themselves. That’s also part of the rules. Ghosts, spiders, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has to follow the rules.
I never imagined that the spiders would be so stupid. They’re even easier to fool than ghosts.
The scene in my eyes grows indistinct, as though a veil is falling from the sky, covering my head. I remember the words of the crows. So it’s true. When your head is cut off, you really die.
I grew up on this street; I ran along this street. Now I’m finally going to die on this street, just like a real person.
A pair of pale, cold hands reaches over, stroking my face.
The wind blows and covers my face with a few pale pink peach petals. But I know they’re not peach petals. They’re Xiao Qian’s tears, mixed with snow.
AWAKENING OF INSECTS, THE THIRD SOLAR TERM:
Ghost Street is long but narrow, like an indigo ribbon. You can cross it in eleven steps, but to walk it from end to end takes a full hour.
At the western end is Lanruo Temple, now fallen into ruin. Inside the temple is a large garden full of fruit trees and vegetable patches as well as a bamboo grove and a lotus pond. The pond has fish, shrimp, dojo loaches, and yellow snails. So supplied, I have food to eat all year.
It’s evening, and I’m sitting at the door to the main hall, reading a copy of Huainanzi, the Han Dynasty essay collection, when along comes Yan Chixia, the great hero, vanquisher of demons and destroyer of evil spirits. He’s carrying a basket by the crook of his elbow, the legs of his pants rolled all the way up, revealing calves caked with black mud. I can’t help but laugh at the sight.
My teacher, the Monk, hears me and walks out of the dark corner of the main hall, gears grinding, and hits me on the head with his ferule.
I hold my head in pain, staring at the Monk in anger. But his iron face is expressionless, just like the statues of the buddhas in the main hall. I throw down the book and run outside while the Monk pursues me, his joints clanging and creaking the whole time. They are so rusted that he moves as slowly as a snail.
I stop in front of Yan, and I see his basket contains several new bamboo shoots, freshly dug from the ground.
“I want to eat meat,” I say, tilting my face up to look at him. “Can you hunt some buntings with your slingshot for me?”
“Buntings are best eaten in the fall when they’re fat,” says Yan. “Now is the time for them to breed chicks. If you shoot them, there won’t be buntings to eat next year.”
“Just one, pleeeeease?” I grab onto his sleeve and act cute. But he shakes his head resolutely, handing me the basket. He takes off his conical sedge hat and wipes the sweat off his face.
I laugh again as I look at him. His face is as smooth as an egg, with just a few wisps of curled black hair, like weeds that have been missed by the gardener. Legend has it that his hair and beard used to be very thick, but I’m always pulling a few strands out now and then as a game. After so many years, these are all the hairs he has left.
“You must have died of hunger in a previous life,” Yan says, cradling the back of my head in his large palm. “The whole garden is full of food for you. No one is here to fight you for it.”
I make a face at him and take the basket of food.
The rain has barely stopped; insects cry out from the wet earth. A few months from now, green grasshoppers will be jumping everywhere. You can catch them, string them along a stick, and roast them over the fire, dripping sweet-smelling fat into the flames.
As I picture this, my empty stomach growls as though already filled with chittering insects. I begin to run.
The golden light of the evening sun splatters over the slate slabs of the empty street, stretching my shadow into a long, long band.
I run back home, where Xiao Qian is combing her hair in the darkness. There are no mirrors in the house, so she always takes off her head and puts it on her knees to comb. Her hair looks like an ink-colored scroll, so long that the strands spread out to cover the whole room.
I sit quietly to the side until she’s done combing her hair, puts it up in a moon-shaped bun, and secures it with a pin made of dark wood inlaid with red coral beads. Then she lifts her head, reattaches it to her neck, and asks me if it’s sitting straight. I don’t understand why Xiao Qian cares so much. Even if she just tied her head to her waist with a sash, everyone would still think she’s beautiful.
But I look seriously and nod. “Beautiful,” I say.
Actually, I can’t really see very well. Unlike the ghosts, I cannot see in the dark.
Xiao Qian is happy with my affirmation. She takes my basket and goes into the kitchen to cook. As I sit and work the bellows next to her, I tell her about my day. Just as I get to the part where the Monk hit me on the head with the ferule, Xiao Qian reaches out and lightly caresses my head where I was hit. Her hand is cold and pale, like a piece of jade.
“You need to study hard and respect your teacher,” Xiao Qian says. “Eventually you’ll leave here and make your way in the real world. You have to have some knowledge and real skills.”
Her voice is very soft, like cotton candy, and so the swelling on my head stops hurting.
Xiao Qian tells me that Yan Chixia found me on the steps of the temple when I was a baby. I cried and cried because I was so hungry. Yan Chixia was at his wit’s end when he finally stuffed a handful of creeping rockfoil into my mouth. I sucked on the juice from the grass and stopped crying.
No one knows who my real parents are.
Even back then, Ghost Street had been doing poorly. No tourists had come by for a while. That hasn’t changed. Xiao Qian tells me that it’s probably because people invented some other attraction, newer, fresher, and so they forgot about the old attractions. She’s seen similar things happen many times.
Before she became a ghost, Xiao Qian tells me, she lived a very full life. She had been married twice, gave birth to seven children, and raised them all.
And then her children got sick, one after another. In order to raise the money to pay the doctors, Xiao Qian sold herself off in pieces: teeth, eyes, breasts, heart, liver, lungs, bone marrow, and finally her soul. Her soul was sold to Ghost Street, where it was sealed inside a female ghost’s body. Her children died anyway.
Now she has white skin and dark hair. The skin is light sensitive. If she’s in direct sunlight, she’ll burn.
After he found me, Yan Chixia had walked up and down all Ghost Street before he decided to give me to Xiao Qian to raise.
I’ve seen a picture of Xiao Qian back when she was alive. It was hidden in a corner of a drawer in her dresser. The woman in the picture had thick eyebrows, huge eyes, a wrinkled face—far uglier than the way Xiao Qian looks now. Still, I often see her cry as she looks at that picture. Her tears are a pale pink. When they fall against her white dress, they soak into the fabric and spread like blooming peach flowers.
Every ghost is full of stories from when they were alive. Their bodies have been cremated and the ashes mixed into the earth, but their stories still live on. During the day, when all Ghost Street is asleep, the stories become dreams and circle under the shadows of the eaves like swallows without nests. During those hours, only I’m around, walking in the street, and only I can see them and hear their buzzing song.
I’m the only living person on Ghost Street.
Xiao Qian says that I don’t belong here. When I grow up, I’ll leave.
The smell of good food fills the room. The insects in my stomach chitter even louder.
I eat dinner by myself: preserved pork with stir-fried bamboo shoots, shrimp paste–flavored egg soup, and rice balls with chives, still hot in my hands. Xiao Qian sits and watches me. Ghosts don’t eat. None of the inhabitants of Ghost Street, not even Yan Chixia or the Monk, ever eat.
I bury my face in the bowl, eating as fast as I can. I wonder, after I leave, will I ever eat such delicious food again?
MAJOR HEAT, THE TWELFTH SOLAR TERM:
After night falls, the world comes alive.
I go alone to the well in the back to get water. I turn the wheel and it squeaks, but the sound is different from usual. I look down into the well and see a long-haired ghost in a white dress sitting in the bucket.
I pull her up and out. Her wet hair covers her face, leaving only one eye to stare at me out of a gap. “Ning, tonight is the Carnival. Aren’t you going?”
“I need to get water for Xiao Qian’s bath,” I answer. “After the bath we’ll go.”
She strokes my face lightly. “You are a foolish child.”
She has no legs, so she has to leave by crawling on her hands. I hear the sound of crawling, creeping all around me. Green will-o’-the-wisps flit around like anxious fireflies. The air is filled with the fragrance of rotting flowers.
I go back to the dark bedroom and pour the water into the wooden bathtub. Xiao Qian undresses. I see a crimson bar code along her naked back like a tiny snake. Bright white lights pulse under her skin.
“Why don’t you take a bath with me?” she asks.
I shake my head, but I’m not sure why. Xiao Qian sighs. “Come.” So I don’t refuse again.
We sit in the bathtub together. The cedar smells nice. Xiao Qian rubs my back with her cold, cold hands, humming lightly. Her voice is very beautiful. Legend has it that any man who heard her sing fell in love with her.
When I grow up, will I fall in love with Xiao Qian? I think and look at my small hands, the skin now wrinkled from the bath like wet wrapping paper.
After the bath, Xiao Qian combs my hair and dresses me in a new shirt she made for me. Then she sticks a bunch of copper coins, green and dull, into my pocket.
“Go have fun,” she says. “Remember not to eat too much!”
Outside, the street is lit with countless lanterns, so bright I can no longer see the stars that fill the summer sky.
Demons, ghosts, all kinds of spirits come out of their ruined houses, out of cracks in walls, rotting closets, dry wells. Hand in hand, shoulder to shoulder, they parade up and down Ghost Street until the narrow street is filled.
I squeeze myself into the middle of the crowd, looking all around. The stores and kiosks along both sides of the street send forth all kinds of delicious smells, tickling my nose like butterflies. The vending ghosts see me and call for me, the only living person, to try their wares.
“Ning! Come here! Fresh sweet osmanthus cakes, still hot!”
“Sugar-roasted chestnuts! Sweet smelling and sweeter tasting!”
“Fried dough, the best fried dough!”
“Long pig dumplings! Two long pig dumplings for one coin!”
“Ning, come eat a candy man. Fun to play and fun to eat!”
Of course the “long pig dumplings” are really just pork dumplings. The vendor says that just to attract the tourists and give them a thrill.
But I look around, and there are no tourists.
I eat everything I can get my hands on. Finally I’m so full that I have to sit down by the side of the road to rest a bit. On the opposite side of the street is a temporary stage lit by a huge bright white paper lantern. Onstage, ghosts are performing: sword-swallowing, fire-breathing, turning a beautiful girl into a skeleton. I’m bored by these tricks. The really good show is still to come.
A yellow-skinned old ghost pushes a cart of masks in front of me.
“Ning, why don’t you pick a mask? I have everything: Ox-Head, Horse-Face, Black-Faced and White-Faced Wuchang, Asura, Yaksha, Rakshasa, Pixiu, and even Lei Gong, the Duke of Thunder.”
I spend a long time browsing, and finally settle on a Rakshasa mask with red hair and green eyes. The yellow-skinned old ghost thanks me as he takes my coin, dipping his head down until his back is bent like a bow.
I put the mask on and continue strutting down the street. Suddenly loud Carnival music fills the air, and all the ghosts stop and then shuffle to the sides of the street.
I turn around and see the parade coming down the middle of the street. In front are twenty one-foot-tall green toads in two columns striking gongs, thumping drums, strumming huqin, and blowing bamboo sheng. After them come twenty centipede spirits in black clothes, each holding varicolored lanterns and dancing complicated steps. Behind them are twenty snake spirits in yellow dresses, throwing confetti into the air. And there are more behind them, but I can’t see that far.
Between the marching columns are two Cyclopes in white robes, each as tall as a three-story house. They carry a palanquin on their shoulders, and from within Xiao Qian’s song rolls out, each note as bright as a star in the sky, falling one by one onto my head.
Fireworks of all colors rise up: bright crimson, pale green, smoky purple, shimmering gold. I look up and feel as though I’m becoming lighter myself, floating into the sky.
As the parade passes from west to east, all the ghosts along the sides of the street join, singing and dancing. They’re heading for the old osmanthus tree at the eastern end of Ghost Street, whose trunk is so broad that three men stretching their arms out can barely surround it. A murder of crows lives there, each one capable of human speech. We call the tree Old Ghost Tree, and it is said to be in charge of all of Ghost Street. Whoever pleases it prospers; whoever goes against its wishes fails.
But I know that the parade will never get to the Old Ghost Tree.
When the parade is about halfway down the street, the earth begins to shake and the slate slabs crack open. From the yawning gaps, huge white bones crawl out, each as thick as the columns holding up Lanruo Temple. The bones slowly gather together and assemble into a giant skeleton, glinting like white porcelain in the moonlight. Now black mud springs forth from its feet and crawls up the skeleton, turning into flesh. Finally, a colossal Dark Yaksha stands before us, its single horn so large that it seems to pierce the night sky.
The two Cyclopes don’t even reach its calves.
The Dark Yaksha turns its huge head from side to side. This is a standard part of every Carnival. It is supposed to abduct a tourist. On nights when there are no tourists, it must go back under the earth, disappointed, to wait for the next opportunity.
Slowly it turns its gaze on me, focusing on my presence. I pull off my mask and stare back. Its gaze feels hot, the eyes as red as burning coal.
Xiao Qian leans out from the palanquin, and her cry pierces the suddenly quiet night air: “Ning, run! Run!”
The wind lifts the corner of her dress, like a dark purple petal unfolding. Her face is like jade, with orange lights flowing underneath.
I turn and run as fast as I can. Behind me, I hear the heavy footsteps of the Dark Yaksha. With every quaking, pounding step, shingles fall from houses on both sides like overripe fruits. I am now running like the wind, my bare feet striking the slate slabs lightly: pat, pat, pat. My heart pounds against my chest: thump, thump, thump. Along the entire frenzied Ghost Street, mine is the only living heart.
But both the ghosts and I know that I’m not in any real danger. A ghost can never hurt a real person. That’s one of the rules of the game.
I run toward the west, toward Lanruo Temple. If I can get to Yan Chixia before the Yaksha catches me, I’ll be safe. This is also part of the performance. Every Carnival, Yan puts on his battle gear and waits on the steps of the main hall.
As I approach, I cry out, “Help! Save me! Oh, Hero Yan, save me!”
In the distance, I hear his long ululating cry and see his figure leaping over the wall of the temple to land in the middle of the street. He holds in his left hand a Daoist charm: a red character written against a yellow background. He reaches behind his back with his right hand and pulls out his sword, the Demon Slayer.
He stands tall and shouts into the night sky, “Brazen Demon! How dare you harm innocent people? I, Yan Chixia, will carry out justice today!”
But tonight, he forgot to wear his sedge hat. His egg-shaped face is exposed to the thousands of lanterns along Ghost Street, with just a few wisps of hair curled like question marks on a blank page. The silly sight is such a contrast against his serious mien that I start to laugh even as I’m running. And that makes me choke, and I can’t catch my breath, so I fall against the cold slate surface of the street.
This moment is my best memory of the summer.
COLD DEW, THE SEVENTEENTH SOLAR TERM:
A thin layer of clouds hides the moon. I’m crouching by the side of the lotus pond in Lanruo Temple. All I can see are the shadows cast by the lotus leaves, rising and falling slowly with the wind.
The night is as cold as the water. Insects hidden in the grass won’t stop singing.
The eggplants and string beans in the garden are ripe. They smell so good that I have a hard time resisting temptation. All I can think about is stealing some under the cover of night. Maybe Yan Chixia was right: in a previous life, I must have died of hunger.
So I wait and wait. But I don’t hear Yan Chixia’s snores. Instead, I hear light footsteps cross the grassy path to stop in front of Yan Chixia’s cabin. The door opens, the steps go in. A moment later, the voices of a man and a woman drift out of the dark room: Yan Chixia and Xiao Qian.
Qian: “Why did you ask me to come?”
Yan: “You know what it’s about.”
Qian: “I can’t leave with you.”
Yan: “Why not?”
Qian: “A few more years. Ning is still so young.”
“Ning, Ning!” Yan’s voice grows louder. “I think you’ve been a ghost for too long.”
Qian sounds pitiful. “I raised Ning for so many years. How can I just get up and leave him?”
“You’re always telling me that Ning is still too young, always telling me to wait. Do you remember how many years it has been?”
“I can’t.”
“You sew a new set of clothes for him every year. How can you forget?” Yan chuckles, a cold sound. “I remember very clearly. The fruits and vegetables in this garden ripen like clockwork, once a year. I’ve seen them do it fifteen times. Fifteen! But has Ning’s appearance changed any since the year he turned seven? You still think he’s alive, he’s real?”
Xiao Qian remains silent for a moment. Then I hear her crying.
Yan sighs. “Don’t lie to yourself anymore. He’s just like us, nothing more than a toy. Why are you so sad? He’s not worth it.”
Xiao Qian just keeps on crying.
Yan sighs again. “I should never have picked him up and brought him back.”
Xiao Qian whispers through the tears, “Where can we go if we leave Ghost Street?”
Yan has no answer.
The sound of Xiao Qian’s crying makes my heart feel constricted. Silently I sneak away and leave the old temple through a hole in the wall.
The thin layer of clouds chooses this moment to part. Icy moonlight scatters itself against the slate slabs of the street, congealing into drops of glittering dew. My bare feet against the ground feel so cold that my whole body shivers.
A few stores are still open along Ghost Street. The vendors greet me enthusiastically, asking me to sample their green bean biscuits and sweet osmanthus cake. But I don’t want to. What’s the point? I’m just like them, maybe even less than them.
Every ghost used to be alive. Their fake mechanical bodies host real souls. But I’m fake throughout, inside and outside. From the day I was born, made, I was fake. Every ghost has stories of when they were alive, but I don’t. Every ghost had a father, a mother, a family, memories of their love, but I don’t have any of that.
Xiao Qian once told me that Ghost Street’s decline came about because people, real people, found more exciting, newer toys. Maybe I am one of those toys—made with newer, better technology until I could pass for the real thing. I can cry, laugh, eat, piss and shit, fall, feel pain, ooze blood, hear my own heartbeat, grow up from a simulacrum of a baby—except that my growth stops when I’m seven. I’ll never be a grown-up.
Ghost Street was built to entertain the tourists, and all the ghosts were their toys. But I’m just a toy for Xiao Qian.
Pretending that the fake is real only makes the real seem fake.
I walk slowly toward the eastern end of the street until I stop under the Old Ghost Tree. The sweet fragrance of osmanthus fills the foggy night air, cool and calming. Suddenly I want to climb into the tree. That way, no one will find me.
The Old Ghost Tree leans down with its branches to help.
I sit hidden among the dense branches and feel calmer. The crows perch around me, their glass eyes showing hints of a dark red glow. One of them speaks. “Ning, this is a beautiful night. Why aren’t you at Lanruo Temple, stealing vegetables?”
The crow is asking a question to which it already knows the answer. The Old Ghost Tree knows everything that happens on Ghost Street. The crows are its eyes and ears.
“How can I know for sure,” I ask, “that I’m a real person?”
“You can chop off your head,” the crow answers. “A real person will die with his head cut off, but a ghost will not.”
“But what if I cut off my head and die? I’ll be no more.”
The crow laughs, the sound grating and unpleasant to listen to. Two more crows fly down, holding in their beaks antique bronze mirrors. Using the little moonlight that leaks through the leaves, I finally see myself in the mirrors: small face, dark hair, thin neck. I lift the hair off the back of my neck, and in the double reflections of the mirrors, I see a crimson bar code against the skin, like a tiny snake.
I remember Xiao Qian’s cool hands against my spine on that hot summer night. I think and think until tears fall from my eyes.
WINTER SOLSTICE, THE TWENTY-SECOND SOLAR TERM:
This winter has been both dry and cold, but I often hear the sound of thunder in the distance. Xiao Qian says it’s the Thunder Calamity, which happens only once every thousand years.
The Thunder Calamity punishes demons and ghosts and lost spirits. Those who can escape it can live for another thousand years. Those who can’t will be burned away until no trace is left of them.
I know perfectly well that there’s no such thing as a “Thunder Calamity” in this world. Xiao Qian has been a ghost for so long that she’s now gone a little crazy. She holds on to me with her cold hands, her face as pale as a sheet of paper. She says that to hide from the Calamity, a ghost must find a real person with a good heart to stay beside her. That way, just as one wouldn’t throw a shoe at a mouse sitting beside an expensive vase, the Duke of Thunder will not strike the ghost.
Because of her fear, my plan to leave has been put on hold. In secret I’ve already prepared my luggage: a few stolen potatoes, a few old shirts. My body isn’t growing any more anyway, so these clothes will last me a long time. I didn’t take any of the old copper coins from Xiao Qian, though. Perhaps the outside world does not use them.
I really want to leave Ghost Street. I don’t care where I go; I just want to see the world. Anywhere but here.
I want to know how real people live.
But still I linger.
On Winter Solstice it snows. The snowflakes are tiny, like white sawdust. They melt as soon as they hit the ground. Only a very thin layer has accumulated by noon.
I walk alone along the street, bored. In past years I would go to Lanruo Temple to find Yan Chixia. We would knock an opening in the ice covering the lotus pond and lower our jury-rigged fishing pole. Winter catfish are very fat and taste fantastic when roasted with garlic.
But I haven’t seen Yan Chixia in a long time. I wonder if his beard and hair have grown out a bit.
Thunder rumbles in the sky, closer, then farther away, leaving only a buzzing sensation in my ears. I walk all the way to the Old Ghost Tree, climb up into its branches, and sit still. Snowflakes fall all around me, but not on me. I feel calm and warm. I curl up and tuck my head under my arms, falling asleep like a bird.
In my dream, I see Ghost Street turning into a long, thin snake. The Old Ghost Tree is the head, Lanruo Temple the tail, the slate slabs the scales. On each scale is drawn the face of a little ghost, very delicate and beautiful.
But the snake continues to writhe as though in great pain. I watch carefully and see that a mass of termites and spiders is biting its tail, making a sound like silkworms feeding on mulberry leaves. With sharp mandibles and claws, they tear off the scales on the snake one by one, revealing the flesh underneath. The snake struggles silently, but disappears inch by inch into the maws of the insects. When its body is almost completely eaten, it finally makes a sharp cry and turns its lonesome head toward me.
I see that its face is Xiao Qian’s.
I wake up. The cold wind rustles the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. It’s too quiet around me. All the crows have disappeared to who knows where, except one that is very old and ugly. It’s crouching in front of me, its beak dangling like the tip of a long mustache.
I shake it awake, anxious. It stares at me with two broken-glass eyes, croaking to me in its mechanical, flat voice, “Ning, why are you still here?”
“Where should I be?”
“Anywhere is good,” it says. “Ghost Street is finished. We’re all finished.”
I stick my head out of the leaves of the Old Ghost Tree. Under the slate gray sky, I see the murder of crows circling over Lanruo Temple in the distance, cawing incessantly. I’ve never seen anything like this.
I jump down from the tree. As I run along the narrow street, I pass dark doors and windows. The cawing of the crows has awakened many of the ghosts, but they don’t dare to go outside where there’s light. All they can do is peek out from cracks in doors, like a bunch of crickets hiding under houses in winter.
The old walls of Lanruo Temple, long in need of repairs, have been pushed down. Many giant mechanical spiders made of steel are crawling all over the main hall, breaking off the dark red glass shingles and sculpted wooden molding piece by piece and throwing the pieces into the snow on the ground. They have flat bodies, blue-glowing eyes, and sharp mandibles, as ugly as you can imagine. From deep within their bodies comes a rumbling noise like thunder.
The crows swoop around them, picking up bits of broken shingles and bricks on the ground and dropping them on the spiders. But they are too weak, and the spiders ignore them. The broken shingle pieces strike against the steel shells, making faint, hollow echoes.
The vegetable garden has been destroyed. All that remains are some mud and pale white roots. I see one of the Monk’s rusted arms sticking out of a pile of broken bricks.
I run through the garden calling for Yan Chixia. He hears me and slowly walks out of his cabin. He’s still wearing his battle gear: sedge hat on his head, the sword Demon Slayer in his hand. I want to shout for him to fight the spiders, but somehow I can’t spit the words out. The words taste like bitter, astringent paste stuck in my throat.
Yan Chixia stares at me with his sad eyes. He comes over to hold my hands. His hands are as cold as Xiao Qian’s.
We stand together and watch as the great and beautiful main hall is torn apart bit by bit, collapses, turns into a pile of rubble: shingles, bricks, wood, mud. Nothing is whole.
They’ve destroyed all of Lanruo Temple: the walls, the main hall, the garden, the lotus pond, the bamboo grove, and Yan Chixia’s cabin. The only thing left is a muddy ruin.
Now they’re moving on to the rest of Ghost Street. They pry up the slate slabs, flatten the broken houses along the sides of the street. The ghosts hiding in the houses are chased into the middle of the street. As they run, they scream and scream while their skin slowly burns in the faint sunlight. There are no visible flames. But you can see the skin turning black in patches, and the smell of burning plastic is everywhere.
I fall into the snow. The smell of burning ghost skin makes me vomit. But there’s nothing in my stomach to throw up. Instead, I cry during the breaks in the dry heaves.
So this is what the Thunder Calamity looks like.
The ghosts, their faces burned away, continue to cry and run and struggle in the snow. Their footprints crisscross in the snow like a child’s handwriting. I suddenly think of Xiao Qian, and so I start to run again.
Xian Qian is still sitting in the dark bedroom. She combs her hair as she sings. Her melody floats in the gaps between the roaring, rumbling thunder of the spiders, so quiet, so transparent, like a dreamscape under the moon.
From her body come the fragrances of myriad flowers and herbs, layer after layer, like gossamer. Her hair floats up into the air like a flame, fluttering without cease. I stand and listen to her sing, my face full of tears, until the whole house begins to shake.
From on top of the roof, I hear the sound of steel clanging, blunt objects striking against one another, heavy footsteps, and then Yan Chixia’s shouting.
Suddenly the roof caves in, bringing with it a rain of shingles and letting in a bright patch of gray sky full of fluttering snowflakes. I push Xiao Qian into a dark corner, out of the way of the light.
I run outside the house. Yan Chixia is standing on the roof, holding his sword in front of him. The cold wind stretches his robe taut like a gray flag.
He jumps onto the back of a spider and stabs at its eyes with his sword. The spider struggles hard and throws Yan off its back. Then the spider grabs Yan with two sharp claws and pulls him into its sharp, metallic, grinding mandibles. It chews and chews, like a man chewing kimchee, until pieces of Yan Chixia’s body are spilling out of its mandibles onto the shingles of the roof. Finally Yan’s head falls off the roof and rolls to a stop next to my feet, like a hard-boiled egg.
I pick up his head. He stares at me with his dead eyes. There are no tears in them, only anger and regret. Then, with the last of his strength, Yan closes his eyes, as though he cannot bear to watch any more.
The spider continues to chew and grind up the rest of Yan Chixia’s body. Then it leaps down from the roof and, rumbling, crawls toward me. Its eyes glow with a deep blue light.
Xiao Qian jumps from behind me and grabs me by the waist, pulling me back. I pry her hands off me and push her back into the dark room. Then I pick up Yan Chixia’s sword and rush toward the spider.
The cold blue light of a steel claw flashes before my eyes. Then my head strikes the ground with a muffled thump. Blood spills everywhere.
The world is now tilted: tilted sky, tilted street, tilted snow falling diagonally. With every bit of my strength, I turn my eyes to follow the spider. I see that it’s chewing on my body. A stream of dark red fluid drips out of its beak, bubbling, warm, the droplets slowly spreading in the snow.
As the spider chews, it slows down gradually. Then it stops moving. The blue light in its eyes dims and then goes out.
As though they have received some signal, all the other spiders also stop one by one. The rumbling thunder stops, plunging the world into silence.
The wind stops, too. Snow begins to stick to the spiders’ steel bodies.
I want to laugh, but I can’t. My head is now separated from my body, so there’s no way to get air into the lungs and then out to my vocal cords. So I crack my lips open until the smile is frozen on my face.
The spiders believed that I was alive, a real person. They chewed my body and tasted flesh and saw blood. But they aren’t allowed to harm real people. If they do, they must destroy themselves. That’s also part of the rules. Ghosts, spiders, it doesn’t matter. Everyone has to follow the rules.
I never imagined that the spiders would be so stupid. They’re even easier to fool than ghosts.
The scene in my eyes grows indistinct, as though a veil is falling from the sky, covering my head. I remember the words of the crows. So it’s true. When your head is cut off, you really die.
I grew up on this street; I ran along this street. Now I’m finally going to die on this street, just like a real person.
A pair of pale, cold hands reaches over, stroking my face.
The wind blows and covers my face with a few pale pink peach petals. But I know they’re not peach petals. They’re Xiao Qian’s tears, mixed with snow.
TONGTONG’S SUMMER
Mom said to Tongtong, “In a couple of days, Grandpa is moving in with us.”
After Grandma died, Grandpa lived by himself. Mom told Tongtong that because Grandpa had been working for the revolution all his life, he just couldn’t be idle. Even though he was in his eighties, he still insisted on going to the clinic every day to see patients. A few days earlier, because it was raining, he had slipped on the way back from the clinic and hurt his leg.
Luckily he had been rushed to the hospital, where they put a plaster cast on him. With a few more days of rest and recovery, he’d be ready to be discharged.
Emphasizing her words, Mom said, “Tongtong, your grandfather is old, and he’s not always in a good mood. You’re old enough to be considerate. Try not to add to his unhappiness, all right?”
Tongtong nodded, thinking, But haven’t I always been considerate?
Grandpa’s wheelchair was like a miniature electric car, with a tiny joystick by the armrest. Grandpa just had to give it a light push, and the wheelchair would glide smoothly in that direction. Tongtong thought it tremendous fun.
Ever since she could remember, Tongtong had been a bit afraid of Grandpa. He had a square face with long, bushy white eyebrows that stuck out like stiff pine needles. She had never seen anyone with eyebrows that long.
She also had some trouble understanding him. Grandpa spoke Mandarin with a heavy accent from his native topolect. During dinner, when Mom explained to Grandpa that they needed to hire a caretaker for him, Grandpa kept on shaking his head emphatically and repeating, “Don’t worry, eh!” Now Tongtong did understand that bit.
Back when Grandma had been ill, they had also hired a caretaker for her. The caretaker had been a lady from the countryside. She was short and small, but really strong. All by herself, she could lift Grandma—who had put on some weight—out of the bed, bathe her, put her on the toilet, and change her clothes. Tongtong had seen the caretaker lady accomplish these feats of strength with her own eyes. Later, after Grandma died, the lady didn’t come anymore.
After dinner, Tongtong turned on the video wall to play some games. The world in the game is so different from the world around me, she thought. In the game, a person just died. They didn’t get sick, and they didn’t sit in a wheelchair. Behind her, Mom and Grandpa continued to argue about the caretaker.
Dad walked over and said, “Tongtong, shut that off now, please. You’ve been playing too much. It’ll ruin your eyes.”
Imitating Grandpa, Tongtong shook her head and said, “Don’t worry, eh!”
Mom and Dad both burst out laughing, but Grandpa didn’t laugh at all. He sat stone-faced, with not even a hint of smile.
A few days later, Dad came home with a stupid-looking robot. The robot had a round head, long arms, and two white hands. Instead of feet, it had a pair of wheels so that it could move forward and backward and spin around.
Dad pushed something in the back of the robot’s head. The blank, smooth, egg-like orb blinked three times with a bluish light, and a young man’s face appeared on the surface. The resolution was so good that it looked just like a real person.
“Wow,” Tongtong said. “You’re a robot?”
The face smiled. “Hello there! Ah Fu is my name.”
“Can I touch you?”
“Sure!”
Tongtong put her hand against the smooth face, and then she felt the robot’s arms and hands. Ah Fu’s body was covered by a layer of soft silicone, which felt as warm as real skin.
Dad told Tongtong that Ah Fu was made by Guokr Technologies, Inc., and he was a prototype. His biggest advantage was that he was as smart as a person: he knew how to peel an apple, how to pour a cup of tea, even how to cook, wash the dishes, embroider, write, play the piano… Anyway, having Ah Fu around meant that Grandpa would be given good care.
Grandpa sat there, still stone-faced, still saying nothing.
After lunch, Grandpa sat on the balcony to read the newspaper. He dozed off after a while. Ah Fu came over noiselessly, picked up Grandpa with his strong arms, carried him into the bedroom, set him down gently in bed, covered him with a blanket, pulled the curtains shut, and came out and shut the door, still not making any noise.
Tongtong followed Ah Fu and watched everything.
Ah Fu gave Tongtong’s head a light pat. “Why don’t you take a nap, too?”
Tongtong tilted her head and asked, “Are you really a robot?”
Ah Fu smiled. “Oh, you don’t think so?”
Tongtong gazed at Ah Fu carefully. Then she said very seriously, “I’m sure you are not.”
“Why?”
“A robot wouldn’t smile like that.”
“You’ve never seen a smiling robot?”
“When a robot smiles, it looks scary. But your smile isn’t scary. So you’re definitely not a robot.”
Ah Fu laughed. “Do you want to see what I really look like?”
Tongtong nodded. But her heart was pounding.
Ah Fu moved over by the video wall. From the top of his head, a beam of light shot out and projected a picture onto the wall. In the picture, Tongtong saw a man sitting in a messy room.
The man in the picture waved at Tongtong. Simultaneously, Ah Fu also waved in the exact same way. Tongtong examined the man in the picture. He wore a thin, long-sleeved gray bodysuit and a pair of gray gloves. The gloves were covered by many tiny lights. He also wore a set of huge goggles. The face behind the goggles was pale and thin and looked just like Ah Fu’s face.
Tongtong was stunned. “Oh, so you’re the real Ah Fu!”
The man in the picture awkwardly scratched his head and said, a little embarrassed, “Ah Fu is just the name we gave the robot. My real name is Wang. Why don’t you call me Uncle Wang, since I’m a bit older?”
Uncle Wang told Tongtong that he was a fourth-year university student doing an internship at Guokr Technologies’s R&D department. His group developed Ah Fu.
He explained that the aging population brought about serious social problems: many elders could not live independently, but their children had no time to devote to their care. Nursing homes made them feel lonely and cut off from society, and there was a lot of demand for trained, professional caretakers.
But if a home had an Ah Fu, things were a lot better. When not in use, Ah Fu could just sit there, out of the way. When it was needed, a request could be given, and an operator would come online to help the elder. This saved the time and cost of having caretakers commute to homes, and increased the efficiency and quality of care.
The Ah Fu they were looking at was a first-generation prototype. There were only three thousand of them in the whole country, being tested by three thousand families.
Uncle Wang told Tongtong that his own grandmother had also been ill and had to go to the hospital for an extended stay, so he had some experience with elder care. That was why he volunteered to come to her home to take care of Grandpa. As luck would have it, he was from the same region of the country as Grandpa and could understand his topolect. A regular robot probably wouldn’t be able to.
Uncle Wang laced his explanation with many technical words, and Tongtong wasn’t sure she understood everything. But she thought the idea of Ah Fu splendid, almost like a science fiction story.
“So does Grandpa know who you really are?”
“Your mom and dad know, but Grandpa doesn’t know yet. Let’s not tell him for now. We’ll let him know in a few days, after he’s more used to Ah Fu.”
Tongtong solemnly promised. “Don’t worry, eh!”
She and Uncle Wang laughed together.
Grandpa really couldn’t just stay home and be idle. He insisted that Ah Fu take him out walking. But after just one walk, he complained that it was too hot outside and refused to go anymore.
Ah Fu told Tongtong in secret that it was because Grandpa felt self-conscious, having someone push him around in a wheelchair. He thought everyone in the street stared at him.
But Tongtong thought, Maybe they were all staring at Ah Fu.
Since Grandpa couldn’t go out, being cooped up at home made his mood worse. His expression grew more depressed, and from time to time he burst out in temper tantrums. There were a few times when he screamed and yelled at Mom and Dad, but neither said anything. They just stood there and quietly bore his shouting.
But one time Tongtong went to the kitchen and caught Mom hiding behind the door, crying.
Grandpa was now nothing like the Grandpa she remembered. It would have been so much better if he hadn’t slipped and got hurt. Tongtong hated staying at home. The tension made her feel like she was suffocating. Every morning, she ran out the door and would stay away until it was time for dinner.
Dad came up with a solution. He brought back another gadget made by Guokr Technologies: a pair of glasses. He handed the glasses to Tongtong and told her to put them on and walk around the house. Whatever she saw and heard was shown on the video wall.
“Tongtong, would you like to act as Grandpa’s eyes?”
Tongtong agreed. She was curious about anything new.
Summer was Tongtong’s favorite season. She could wear a skirt, eat watermelon and Popsicles, go swimming, find cicada shells in the grass, splash through rain puddles in sandals, chase rainbows after a thunderstorm, get a cold shower after running around and working up a sweat, drink iced sour plum soup, catch tadpoles in ponds, pick grapes and figs, sit out in the backyard in the evenings and gaze at stars, hunt for crickets after dark with a flashlight… In a word, everything was wonderful in summer.
Tongtong put on her new glasses and went to play outside. The glasses were heavy and kept on slipping off her nose. She was afraid of dropping them.
Since the beginning of summer vacation, she and more than a dozen friends, both boys and girls, had been playing together every day. At their age, play had infinite variety. Having exhausted old games, they would invent new ones. If they were tired or too hot, they would go by the river and jump in like a plate of dumplings going into the pot. The sun blazed overhead, but the water in the river was refreshing and cool. This was heaven!
Someone suggested that they climb trees. There was a lofty pagoda tree by the river shore, whose trunk was so tall and thick it resembled a dragon rising into the blue sky.
But Tongtong heard Grandpa’s urgent voice by her ear: “Don’t climb that tree! Too dangerous!”
Huh, so the glasses also act as a phone. Joyfully she shouted back, “Grandpa, don’t worry, eh!” Tongtong excelled at climbing trees. Even her father said that in a previous life she must have been a monkey.
But Grandpa would not let her alone. He kept on buzzing in her ear, and she couldn’t understand a thing he was saying. It was getting on her nerves, so she took off the glasses and dropped them in the grass at the foot of the tree. She took off her sandals and began to climb, rising into the sky like a cloud.
This tree was easy. The dense branches reached out to her like hands, pulling her up. She went higher and higher and soon left her companions behind. She was about to reach the very top. The breeze whistled through the leaves, and sunlight dappled through the canopy. The world was so quiet.
She paused to take a breath, but then she heard her father’s voice coming from a distance. “Tongtong, get… down… here…”
She poked her head out to look down. A little ant-like figure appeared far below. It really was Dad.
On the way back home, Dad let her have it. “How could you have been so foolish?! You climbed all the way up there by yourself. Don’t you understand the risk?”
She knew that Grandpa had told on her. Who else knew what she was doing?
Tongtong was livid. He can’t climb trees anymore, and now he won’t let others climb trees, either? So stupid! And it was so embarrassing to have Dad show up and yell like that.
The next morning, she left home super early again. But this time, she didn’t wear the glasses.
“Grandpa was just worried about you,” said Ah Fu. “If you fell and broke your leg, wouldn’t you have to sit in a wheelchair just like him?”
Tongtong pouted and refused to speak.
Ah Fu told her that through the glasses left at the foot of the tree, Grandpa could see that Tongtong was really high up. He was so worried that he screamed himself hoarse and almost tumbled from his wheelchair.
But Tongtong remained angry with Grandpa. What was there to worry about? She had climbed plenty of trees taller than that one, and she had never once been hurt.
Since the glasses weren’t being put to use, Dad packed them up and sent them back to Guokr. Grandpa was once again stuck at home with nothing to do. He somehow found an old Chinese Chess set and demanded Ah Fu play with him.
Tongtong didn’t know how to play, so she pulled up a stool and sat next to the board just to check it out. She enjoyed watching Ah Fu pick up the old wooden pieces, their colors faded from age, with his slender, pale white fingers; she enjoyed watching him tap those fingers lightly on the table as he considered his moves. The robot’s hand was so pretty, almost like it was carved out of ivory.
But after a few games, even she could tell that Ah Fu posed no challenge to Grandpa at all. A few moves later, Grandpa once again captured one of Ah Fu’s pieces with a loud snap on the board.
“Oh, you suck at this,” Grandpa muttered.
To be helpful, Tongtong also said, “You suck!”
“A real robot would have played better,” Grandpa added. He had already found out the truth about Ah Fu and its operator.
Grandpa kept on winning, and after a few games, his mood improved. Not only did his face glow, but he was also moving his head about and humming folk tunes. Tongtong also felt happy, and her earlier anger at Grandpa dissipated.
Only Ah Fu wasn’t so happy. “I think I need to find you a more challenging opponent,” he said.
When Tongtong returned home, she almost jumped out of her skin. Grandpa had turned into a monster!
He was now dressed in a thin, long-sleeved gray bodysuit and a pair of gray gloves. Many tiny lights shone all over the gloves. He wore a set of huge goggles over his face, and he waved his hands about and gestured in the air.
On the video wall in front of him appeared another man, but not Uncle Wang. This man was as old as Grandpa, with a full head of silver-white hair. He wasn’t wearing any goggles. In front of him was a Chinese Chess board.
“Tongtong, come say hi,” said Grandpa. “This is Grandpa Zhao.”
Grandpa Zhao was Grandpa’s friend from back when they were in the army together. He had just had a heart stent put in. Like Grandpa, he was bored, and his family also got its own Ah Fu. He was also a Chinese Chess enthusiast and complained about the skill level of his Ah Fu all day.
Uncle Wang had the inspiration of mailing telepresence equipment to Grandpa and then teaching him how to use it. And within a few days, Grandpa was proficient enough to be able to remotely control Grandpa Zhao’s Ah Fu to play chess with him.
Not only could they play chess, but the two old men also got to chat with each other in their own native topolect. Grandpa became so joyous and excited that he seemed to Tongtong like a little kid.
“Watch this,” said Grandpa.
He waved his hands in the air gently, and through the video wall, Grandpa Zhao’s Ah Fu picked up the wooden chessboard, steady as you please, dexterously spun it around in the air, and set it back down without disturbing a piece.
Tongtong watched Grandpa’s hands without blinking. Are these the same unsteady, jerky hands that always made it hard for Grandpa to do anything? It was even more amazing than magic.
“Can I try?” she asked.
Grandpa took off the gloves and helped Tongtong put them on. The gloves were stretchy, and weren’t too loose on Tongtong’s small hands. Tongtong tried to wiggle her fingers, and the Ah Fu in the video wall wiggled its fingers, too. The gloves provided internal resistance that steadied and smoothed out Tongtong’s movements, and thus also the movements of Ah Fu.
Grandpa said, “Come try shaking hands with Grandpa Zhao.”
In the video, a smiling Grandpa Zhao extended his hand. Tongtong carefully reached out and shook hands. She could feel the subtle, immediate pressure changes within the glove, as if she were really shaking a person’s hand—it even felt warm! This is fantastic!
Using the gloves, she directed Ah Fu to touch the chessboard, the pieces, and the steaming cup of tea next to them. Her fingertips felt the sudden heat from the cup. Startled, her fingers let go, and the cup fell to the ground and broke. The chessboard was flipped over, and chess pieces rolled all over the place.
“Aiya! Careful, Tongtong!”
“No worries! No worries!” Grandpa Zhao tried to get up to retrieve the broom and dustpan, but Grandpa told him to remain seated. “Careful about your hands!” Grandpa said. “I’ll take care of it.” He put on the gloves and directed Grandpa Zhao’s Ah Fu to pick up the chess pieces one by one, and then swept the floor clean.
Grandpa wasn’t mad at Tongtong and didn’t threaten to tell Dad about the accident she caused.
“She’s just a kid, a bit impatient,” he said to Grandpa Zhao. The two old men laughed.
Tongtong felt both relieved and a bit misunderstood.
Once again, Mom and Dad were arguing with Grandpa.
The argument went a bit differently from before. Grandpa was once again repeating over and over, “Don’t worry, eh!” But Mom’s tone grew more and more severe.
The actual point of the argument grew more confusing to Tongtong the more she listened. All she could make out was that it had something to do with Grandpa Zhao’s heart stent.
In the end, Mom said, “What do you mean, ‘don’t worry’? What if another accident happens? Would you please stop causing more trouble?”
Grandpa got so mad that he shut himself in his room and refused to come out even for dinner.
Mom and Dad called Uncle Wang on the videophone. Finally Tongtong figured out what had happened.
Grandpa Zhao was playing chess with Grandpa, but the game got him so excited that his heart gave out—apparently, the stent wasn’t put in perfectly. There had been no one else home at the time. Grandpa was the one who operated Ah Fu to give CPR to Grandpa Zhao, and also called an ambulance.
The emergency response team arrived in time and saved Grandpa Zhao’s life.
What no one could have predicted was that Grandpa suggested that he go to the hospital to care for Grandpa Zhao—no, he didn’t mean he’d go personally, but that they send Ah Fu over, and he’d operate Ah Fu from home.
But Grandpa himself needed a caretaker, too. Who was supposed to care for the caretaker?
Furthermore, Grandpa came up with the idea that when Grandpa Zhao recovered, he’d teach Grandpa Zhao how to operate the telepresence equipment. The two old men would be able to care for each other, and they would have no need of other caretakers.
Grandpa Zhao thought this was a great idea. But both families thought the plan absurd. Even Uncle Wang had to think about it for a while and then said, “Um… I have to report this situation to my supervisors.”
Tongtong thought hard about this. Playing chess through Ah Fu was simple to understand. But caring for each other through Ah Fu? The more she thought about it, the more complicated it seemed. She was sympathetic to Uncle Wang’s confusion.
Sigh, Grandpa is just like a little kid. He won’t listen to Mom and Dad at all.
Grandpa now stayed in his room all the time. At first, Tongtong thought he was still mad at her parents. But then, she found that the situation had changed completely.
Grandpa got really busy. Once again, he started seeing patients. No, he didn’t go to the clinic; instead, using his telepresence kit, he was operating Ah Fus throughout the country and showing up in other elders’ homes. He would listen to their complaints, feel their pulse, examine them, and write out prescriptions. He also wanted to give acupuncture treatments through Ah Fus, and to practice this skill, he operated his own Ah Fu to stick needles in himself!
Uncle Wang told Tongtong that Grandpa’s innovation could transform the entire medical system. In the future, maybe patients no longer needed to go to the hospital and waste hours in waiting rooms. Doctors could just come to your home through an Ah Fu installed in each neighborhood.
Uncle Wang said that Guokr’s R&D department had formed a dedicated task force to develop a specialized, improved model of Ah Fu for such medical telepresence applications, and they invited Grandpa on board as a consultant. So Grandpa got even busier.
Since Grandpa’s legs were not yet fully recovered, Uncle Wang was still caring for him. But they were working on developing a web-based system that would allow anyone with some idle time and interest in helping others to register to volunteer. Then the volunteers would be able to sign on to Ah Fus in homes across the country to take care of elders, children, patients, pets, and to help in other ways.
If the plan succeeded, it would be a step to bring about the kind of golden age envisioned by Confucius millennia ago: “And then men would care for all elders as if they were their own parents, love all children as if they were their own children. The aged would grow old and die in security; the youthful would have opportunities to contribute and prosper; and children would grow up under the guidance and protection of all. Widows, orphans, the disabled, the diseased—everyone would be cared for and loved.”
Of course, such a plan had its risks: privacy and security, misuse of telepresence by criminals, malfunctions and accidents, just for starters. But since the technological change was already here, it was best to face the consequences and guide them to desirable ends.
There were also developments no one had anticipated.
Uncle Wang showed Tongtong lots of web videos: Ah Fus were shown doing all kinds of interesting things: cooking, taking care of children, fixing the plumbing and electric systems around the house, gardening, driving, playing tennis, even teaching children the arts of Go and calligraphy and seal carving and erhu playing…
All of these Ah Fus were operated by elders who needed caretakers themselves, too. Some of them could no longer move about easily, but still had sharp eyes and ears and minds; some could no longer remember things easily, but they could still replicate the skills they had perfected in their youth; and most of them really had few physical problems, but were depressed and lonely. But now, with Ah Fu, everyone was out and about, doing things.
No one had imagined that Ah Fu could be put to all these uses. No one had thought that men and women in their seventies and eighties could still be so creative and imaginative.
Tongtong was especially impressed by a traditional folk music orchestra made up of more than a dozen Ah Fus. They congregated around a pond in a park and played enthusiastically and loudly. According to Uncle Wang, this orchestra had become famous on the web. The operators behind the Ah Fus were men and women who had lost their eyesight, and so they called themselves “The Old Blinds.”
“Tongtong,” Uncle Wang said, “your grandfather has brought about a revolution.”
Tongtong remembered Mom had often mentioned that Grandpa was an old revolutionary. “He’s been working for the revolution all his life; it’s time for him to take a break.” But wasn’t Grandpa a doctor? When did he participate in a “revolution”? And just what kind of work was “working for the revolution” anyway? And why did he have to do it all his life?
Tongtong couldn’t figure it out, but she thought “revolution” was a splendid thing. Grandpa now once again seemed like the Grandpa she had known.
Every day Grandpa was full of energy and spirit. Whenever he had a few moments to himself, he preferred to sing a few lines of traditional folk opera:
Outside the camp, they’ve fired off the thundering cannon thrice,
And out of Tianbo House walks the woman who will protect her homeland.
The golden helmet sits securely over her silver-white hair,
The old iron-scaled war robe once again hangs on her shoulders.
Look at her battle banner, displaying proudly her name:
Mu Guiying, at fifty-three, you are going to war again!
Tongtong laughed. “But, Grandpa, you’re eighty-three!”
Grandpa chuckled. He stood and posed as if he were an ancient general holding a sword as he sat on his warhorse. His face glowed red with joy.
In another few days, Grandpa would be eighty-four.
Tongtong played by herself at home.
There were dishes of cooked food in the fridge. In the evening, Tongtong took them out, heated them up, and ate by herself. The evening air was heavy and humid, and the cicadas cried without cease.
The weather report said there would be thunderstorms.
A blue light flashed three times in a corner of the room. A figure moved out of the corner noiselessly: Ah Fu.
“Mom and Dad took Grandpa to the hospital. They haven’t returned yet.”
Ah Fu nodded. “Your mother sent me to remind you: don’t forget to close the windows before it rains.”
Together, the robot and the girl closed all the windows in the house. When the thunderstorm arrived, the raindrops struck against the windowpanes like drumbeats. The dark clouds were torn into pieces by the white-and-purple flashes of lightning, and then a bone-rattling thunder rolled overhead, making Tongtong’s ears ring.
“You’re not afraid of thunder?” asked Ah Fu.
“No. You?”
“I was afraid when I was little, but not now.”
An important question came to Tongtong’s mind. “Ah Fu, do you think everyone has to grow up?”
“I think so.”
“And then what?”
“And then you grow old.”
“And then?”
Ah Fu didn’t respond.
They turned on the video wall to watch cartoons. It was Tongtong’s favorite show, Rainbow Bear Village. No matter how heavily it rained outside, the little bears of the village always lived together happily. Maybe everything else in the world was fake; maybe only the world of the little bears was real.
Gradually Tongtong’s eyelids grew heavy. The sound of rain had a hypnotic effect. She leaned against Ah Fu. Ah Fu picked her up in his arms, carried her into the bedroom, set her down gently in bed, covered her with a blanket, and pulled the curtains shut. His hands were just like real hands, warm and soft.
Tongtong murmured, “Why isn’t Grandpa back yet?”
“Sleep. When you wake up, Grandpa will be back.”
Grandpa did not come back.
Mom and Dad returned. Both looked sad and tired.
But they got even busier. Every day, they had to leave the house and go somewhere. Tongtong stayed home by herself. She played games sometimes, and watched cartoons at other times. Ah Fu sometimes came over to cook for her.
A few days later, Mom called for Tongtong. “I have to talk to you.”
Grandpa had a tumor in his head. The last time he fell was because the tumor pressed against a nerve. The doctor suggested surgery immediately.
Given Grandpa’s age, surgery was very dangerous. But not operating would be even more dangerous. Mom and Dad and Grandpa had gone to several hospitals and gotten several other opinions, and after talking with one another over several nights, they decided they had to operate.
The operation took a full day. The tumor was the size of an egg.
Grandpa remained in a coma after the operation.
Mom hugged Tongtong and sobbed. Her body trembled like a fish.
Tongtong hugged Mom back tightly. She looked and saw the white hairs mixed in with the black on Mom’s head. Everything seemed so unreal.
Tongtong went to the hospital with Mom.
It was so hot, and the sun so bright. Tongtong and Mom shared a parasol. In Mom’s other hand was a thermos of bright red fruit juice taken from the fridge.
There were few pedestrians on the road. The cicadas continued their endless singing. The summer was almost over.
Inside the hospital, the air conditioning was turned up high. They waited in the hallway for a bit before a nurse came to tell them that Grandpa was awake. Mom told Tongtong to go in first.
Grandpa looked like a stranger. His hair had been shaved off, and his face was swollen. One eye was covered by a gauze bandage, and the other eye was closed. Tongtong held Grandpa’s hand, and she was scared. She remembered Grandma. Like before, there were tubes and beeping machines all around.
The nurse said Grandpa’s name. “Your granddaughter is here to see you.”
Grandpa opened his eye and gazed at Tongtong. Tongtong moved, and the eye moved to follow her. But he couldn’t speak or move.
The nurse whispered, “You can talk to your grandfather. He can hear you.”
Tongtong didn’t know what to say. She squeezed Grandpa’s hand, and she could feel Grandpa squeezing back.
Grandpa! she called out in her mind. Can you recognize me?
His eyes followed Tongtong.
She finally found her voice. “Grandpa!”
Tears fell on the white sheets. The nurse tried to comfort her. “Don’t cry! Your grandfather would feel so sad to see you cry.”
Tongtong was taken out of the room, and she cried—tears streaming down her face like she was a little kid, but she didn’t care who saw—in the hallway for a long time.
Ah Fu was leaving. Dad packed him up to mail him back to Guokr Technologies.
Uncle Wang explained that he had wanted to come in person to say good-bye to Tongtong and her family. But the city he lived in was very far away. At least it was easy to communicate over long distances now, and they could chat by video or phone in the future.
Tongtong was in her room, drawing. Ah Fu came over noiselessly. Tongtong had drawn many little bears on the paper and colored them all different shades with crayons. Ah Fu looked at the pictures. One of the biggest bears was colored all the shades of the rainbow, and he wore a black eye patch so that only one eye showed.
“Who is this?” Ah Fu asked.
Tongtong didn’t answer. She went on coloring, her heart set on giving every color in the world to the bear.
Ah Fu hugged Tongtong from behind. His body trembled. Tongtong knew Ah Fu was crying.
Uncle Wang sent a video message to Tongtong.
Tongtong, did you receive the package I sent you?
Inside the package was a fuzzy teddy bear. It was colored like the rainbow, with a black eye patch, leaving only one eye. It was just like the one Tongtong drew.
The bear is equipped with a telepresence kit and connected to the instruments at the hospital: your grandfather’s heartbeat, breath, pulse, body temperature. If the bear’s eye is closed, that means your grandfather is asleep. If your grandfather is awake, the bear will open its eye.
Everything the bear sees and hears is projected onto the ceiling of the room at the hospital. You can talk to it, tell it stories, sing to it, and your grandfather will see and hear.
He can definitely see and hear. Even though he can’t move his body, he’s awake inside. So you must talk to the bear, play with it, and let it hear your laughter. Then your grandfather won’t be alone.
Tongtong put her ear to the bear’s chest: thump-thump. The heartbeat was slow and faint. The bear’s chest was warm, rising and falling slowly with each breath. It was sleeping deeply.
Tongtong wanted to sleep, too. She put the bear in bed with her and covered it with a blanket. When Grandpa is awake tomorrow, she thought, I’ll bring him out to get some sun, to climb trees, to go to the park and listen to those grandpas and grandmas sing folk opera. The summer isn’t over yet. There are so many fun things to do.
“Grandpa, don’t worry, eh!” she whispered. When you wake up, everything will be all right.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
I’d like to dedicate this story to my grandfather. I composed this story in August, and it was also the anniversary of his passing. I will treasure the time I got to spend with him forever.
This story is also dedicated to all the grandmas and grandpas who, each morning, can be seen in parks practicing tai chi, twirling swords, singing opera, dancing, showing off their songbirds, painting, doing calligraphy, playing the accordion. You made me understand that living with an awareness of the closeness of death is nothing to be afraid of.
NIGHT JOURNEY OF THE DRAGON-HORSE
1.
The dragon-horse awakens in moonlight.
Drops of cold dew drip onto his forehead, where they meander down the curve of his steel nose.
Plink.
He struggles to open his eyes, rusted eyelids grinding against eyelashes. A pair of silvery specks reflects from those giant dark red pupils. At first he thinks it’s the moon, but a careful examination reveals it to be a clump of white flowers blooming vibrantly in a crack in the cement, irrigated by the dew dripping from his nose.
He can’t help but inhale deeply, as though trying to taste the fragrance of the flowers, but he smells nothing—after all, he is not made of flesh and blood and has never smelled anything. The air rushes into his nostrils, whistling loudly in the narrow gaps between mechanical components. He feels a slight buzzing all over his body, as if each one of his hundreds of scales is vibrating at a different frequency, and so he sneezes, two columns of white fog erupting from his nostrils. The white flowers tremble in the fog, drops of dew falling from the tips of the translucent petals.
Slowly the dragon-horse opens his eyes all the way and lifts his head to survey the world.
The world has been desolate for a long time and now looks very different from his memory of it. He remembers once having stood in the middle of a brightly lit hall, shaking his head and waving his tail at Chinese and foreign visitors, surrounded by cries of delight and surprised intakes of breath. He remembers nights when, after the lights in the museum had been extinguished, lingering visitors murmuring in strange tongues had disturbed his dreams.
The hall is now in ruins, the cracked walls askew with vines sprouting from fissures and seams, leaves susurrating in the wind. Vine-shrouded trees have punched holes large and small in the glass skylight overhead. Bathed by moonlight, dewdrops plink-plonk like pearls falling onto a jade platter.
The dragon-horse glances around the great hall of the museum—now a decayed courtyard—and sees that all the other inhabitants are gone, leaving only him dreaming for untold centuries amongst the rubble. He peers at the night sky through the holes in the skylight: the empyrean is a shade of midnight blue, and the stars twinkle like silver-white flowers. This is also a sight he can’t remember having seen for a long, long time.
He recalls his birthplace, a small city named Nantes on the shores of the tranquil Loire, where the brilliant pinpricks of the stars reflected in the water resembled an oil painting. But in this metropolis, thousands of miles from Nantes, the sky always hung overhead like a thick, waxy gray membrane by day, varicolored neon lights turning it even more turbid at night.
Tonight the limpid moon and luminous stars arouse in him an intense nostalgia for his hometown, for the tiny workshop where he was born on an isle in the middle of the river, where the artisans drew the plans for his design using pens with nibs as fine as a single strand of hair, and then cast the components, polished, spray-painted, and assembled them until he was fully formed. His massive body weighed forty-seven tons, composed from tens of thousands of individual components.
With his reinforced steel frame and wooden scales, he stood erect, a terrifying sight. Then the gears, axles, motors, and cables inside him collaborated seamlessly in a mechanical symphony so that he could come alive: his four hoofed legs extending and flexing as though made of flesh, his neck curving and straightening like a startled wild goose, his spine gyrating like a playful dragon, his head lifting and dipping like a lazy tiger, his steps as light as an immortal dancing across water.
On top of his horse-like body is a dragon’s neck and head, along with a long beard, deer antlers, and dark red glass eyes. Each of the golden scales covering his body is inscribed with a Chinese character: “dragon,” “horse,” “poem,” “dream.” These characters embody the romantic fantasies his clever artisan-creators harbored about another ancient civilization.
Long ago, he came here in a Year of the Horse. “Vigorous as dragon and horse” is an auspicious phrase the people of this land loved to say to one another, and it was this phrase that inspired his creators and endowed him with his present mythical form.
He remembers also parading across a square packed with crowds with his head held high and his legs stretched out. Children greeted him with curious eyes and delighted screams as the mist spewing from his nostrils drenched them. He remembers the lovely music that filled the air, a combination of Western symphonies and Chinese folk tunes—slowly and gracefully he strolled, swaying and stepping to the rhythm of the music. He remembers the streets and buildings spreading before him like a chessboard, stretching endlessly under the hazy gray sky. He remembers his performance partner, a mechanical spider who was almost as large as he was and whose eight legs sliced through the air menacingly. They performed together for three days and three nights, enacting a complete mythical tale.
Nüwa, the goddess of creation, sent the dragon-horse to survey the mortal world, where he encountered the spider, who had escaped from the heavenly court and was wreaking havoc everywhere. They fought an epic battle until—neither able to overcome the other—they forged a peace based on friendship. Then the four seas undulated in harmonious tranquility, and even the weather became mild and pleasant.
After the show, the spider returned to its birthplace, leaving the dragon-horse alone as guardian of this strange land.
Yet isn’t this place another homeland for him? He was created to celebrate the lasting friendship between two nations, and from conception he was of mixed blood. The dreams and myths of this land were his original seed. After eons of being passed from one storyteller to another, the legends—transformed into the languages of strange lands, borne across oceans to new realms—were substantiated by the magic of steel and electricity, like those agile robots and spaceships. Finally, across thousands of miles, he came here to become a new legend to be passed down through the ages. Tradition and modernity, myth and technology, the East and the West—which is his old country, which the new?
The dragon-horse, unable to puzzle out the question, lowers his heavy head. He has been asleep for too long, and now the whole world has turned into a ruined garden. Are there still places in this garden for people to live? In the cold moonlight, the dragon-horse carefully lifts his legs and, step by step, begins to explore.
Every joint in his rusty body screeches. In a glass wall filled with spiderweb cracks, he sees a reflection of himself. His body has also been decaying. Time flows like a river, halting for no one. His scaled armor is now patchy, incomplete, like an aged veteran returning from the wars. Only his glass eyes continue to glow with that familiar dim light.
The wide avenue where cars had once streamed like a river of steel is now filled with lush trees dancing in the wind. As soon as there’s a break in the rustling of leaves, birds and insects fill the silence with their chittering music, which only makes everything seem even more desolate. The dragon-horse looks around, uncertain where he should be headed.
Since it makes no difference, he picks a direction at random and strolls forward.
The clopping hoofbeats echo against the pavement. The moon stretches his lonely shadow a long way over the ground.
2.
The dragon-horse isn’t sure how long he has been walking.
Silently the stars spin overhead, and the moon wanders across the firmament, but without clocks or watches, time’s passage cannot be felt.
The avenue he’s on was once this city’s most famous street. Now it is a deep canyon whose craggy walls are formed from an amalgam of bricks, steel, concrete, and trees, the product of mixing the inorganic with the organic, decay with life, reality with dream, the steel-and-glass metropolis with ancient myths.
He remembers there was once a square nearby where bright lights remained lit throughout the night like a thousand-year dream. But in the end, the lights went out, and the dream ended. There’s nothing in this world that can outlast time itself.
Coming into the valley that was once that square, he sees an impossible vision: thousands and thousands of steel wrecks heaped and stacked like the skeletal remains of beasts, the looming piles stretching as far as the eye can see. These were once automobiles of various makes and sizes, most of them so corroded by rust that only the frames remain. Twisted branches emerge from the dark, empty windows and stab into the sky as though clawing for some elusive prey. The dragon-horse experiences a nameless sorrow and terror. He lowers his eyes to gaze at his own rusty forelimbs. How is he different from these dead cars? Why should he not fall into a perpetual slumber alongside them?
No one can answer these questions.
A scale falls from his chest, rolling among the steel wrecks and echoing dully in the watery moonlight. The insects, near and far, fall silent for a moment before resuming their joyful chorus, as though what fell were nothing more than an insignificant pebble.
He becomes even more frightened, and picks up his pace as he continues his night journey.
* * *
Squeaks come from a certain spot in the ruins. The sound is thin and dreary, different from birdcall and insect chitter. The dragon-horse follows the sound to its source, searching among the thick grass with his nose. Suddenly, in the shadow of a shallow cave, he finds himself gazing at a pair of tiny, dark eyes.
“Who are you?” the dragon-horse asks. It has been so long since he has heard his own voice that the thrumming timbre sounds strange to him.
“Don’t you recognize me?” a thin voice answers.
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m a bat.”
“A bat?”
“Half-beast, half-bird, I sleep during the day and emerge at night to swoop between dawn and dream.”
The dragon-horse carefully examines his interlocutor: sharp snout, large ears, a soft body covered by fine gray fur and curled upon itself, and two thin, membranous wings shimmering in the moon.
“And who are you?” the bat squeaks.
“Who am I?” the dragon-horse repeats the question.
“You don’t know who you are?”
“Maybe I do; maybe I don’t,” replies the dragon-horse. “I’m called Dragon-Horse, meaning I am both dragon and horse. I began as a myth in China, but I was born in France. I don’t know if I’m a machine or a beast, alive or dead—or perhaps I’ve never possessed the animating spark. I also don’t know if my walk through the night is real or only a dream.”
“Like all poets who make dreams their horses.”[7] The bat sighs.
“What did you say?”
“Oh, you reminded me of a line from a poem from long ago.”
“A poem?” The word sounds familiar to the dragon-horse, but he’s not certain what it means.
“Yes. I like poems,” the bat says, and nods. “When the poets are gone, poems are even more precious.”
“The poets are gone?” the dragon-horse asks carefully. “You are saying no one writes poems anymore?”
“Can’t you tell? There are no longer any people in this world.”
The dragon-horse doesn’t bother looking around. He knows she’s right.
“Then what should we do?” he asks, after being silent for a while.
“We can do whatever we want,” says the bat. “Humans may be gone, but the world goes on. Look at how lovely the moon is tonight. If you want to sing, sing. If you don’t want to sing, just lie still. When you sing, the world will listen; when you are quiet, you’ll hear the song of all creation.”
“But I can’t hear it,” admits the dragon-horse. “I can only hear the chitter of insects in the ruins. They frighten me.”
“Poor baby—your ears aren’t as good as mine,” says the bat compassionately. “But you heard me. That’s odd.”
“Is it really that strange?”
“Usually only bats can hear other bats. But the world is so big, anything is possible.” The bat shrugs. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know where I’m headed,” the dragon-horse says. It’s the truth.
“You don’t even have a destination in mind?”
“I’m just walking about. Also, I don’t know how to do anything except walk.”
“I have a destination, but I got held up on the way.” The bat’s voice turns sorrowful. “I’d been flying for three days and three nights, and then an owl came after me. The owl almost tore my wings.”
“You’re hurt?” asks the dragon-horse solicitously.
“I said ‘almost.’ Do I look like I’m easy prey?” Her indignant speech is interrupted by a fit of coughing.
“Do you not feel well?”
“I’m thirsty. Flying parched my throat, and I want a drink. But the water here is full of the flavor of rust; I can’t stand it.”
“I have water,” says the dragon-horse. “It’s for my performance.”
“Would you give me a drink? Just a sip.”
The dragon-horse lowers his head, and a white mist sprays from his nostrils. The mist soaks the bat’s tiny body, forming droplets on the fine fur. Satisfied, the bat spreads her wings and carefully licks up the droplets.
“You’re nice,” squeaks the bat. “I feel much better now.”
“Are you leaving for where you want to go, then?”
“Yes. I have an important mission tonight. What about you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll just keep on moving forward.”
“Can you carry me for a while? I’m still tired and need rest, but I don’t want to be late.”
“But I walk very slowly,” the dragon-horse says, embarrassed. “My body is designed so that I can only walk haltingly, step by step.”
“I don’t care.” Briskly flapping her light wings, the bat lands next to the dragon-horse’s right ear. The bat’s claws lightly clutch a branch of his long antler, and then she’s dangling upside down.
“See, now we get to talk as we walk. There’s nothing better than a night journey with conversation.”
The dragon-horse sighs and carefully shifts his limbs. The bat is so light that he almost can’t feel the creature’s presence. He can only hear that thin, reedy voice whispering poetry in his ear:
“Faced with the great river, I am consumed by shame. What has my exhaustion accomplished…?”
3.
They pass through the graveyard of cars. The road is now more rugged and uneven, and the moon has hid itself behind wispy clouds so that the road is illuminated in patches.
The dragon-horse carefully picks his way through, fearful of falling and breaking a limb. With each step, his whole body creaks and groans, and gears and screws fall off him—clink-clank—and disappear in the gaps between rubble and weeds.
“Are you in pain?” asks the bat curiously.
“I’ve never known what pain is,” confesses the dragon-horse.
“Wow, impressive. If it were me, I’d be dead from the pain by now.”
“I don’t know what death is, either.” The dragon-horse falls silent. The nameless sorrow and terror have returned. If he is considered alive now, is that essence of life scattered among the tens of thousands of components making up his body, or is it concentrated in some special spot? If these components are all scattered along the path he has trodden, will he still be alive? How will he continue to sense all that is around him?
Time flows like a river, halting for no one. There’s nothing in this world that can outlast time itself.
“Walking like this is boring,” says the bat. “Why don’t you tell me a story? You were born so long ago that you must know many stories I don’t.”
“Story? I don’t know what a story is; I certainly can’t tell you one.”
“It’s easy! Okay, repeat after me: ‘Long, long ago.’”
“Long, long ago…”
“What comes to your mind now? Do you see something that doesn’t exist?”
The dragon-horse does. The wheel of time seems to be reversing before his eyes. Trees shrink into the ground, and giant buildings shoot out of the earth, part to the sides like the sea, and leave a straight, wide avenue down the middle.
“Long, long ago, there was a bustling metropolis.”
“Are there people in the city?” asks the bat.
“Many, many people.”
“Can you see them clearly?”
The image before the dragon-horse’s eyes clarifies like a long, painted scroll: everyone’s expression is vivid and lifelike. He sees the people’s joys and sorrows, partings and meetings, as though seeing the moon waxing and waning.
“Long, long ago, there was a bustling metropolis. In this city there lived a young woman…”
He starts to tell the stories of those people.
A young woman who’d never been in love fell for a stranger she met through the chat program on her phone, but then she discovered that her interlocutor was only a perfect bit of conversation software. Yet, the digital boy loved her back, and they happily spent a lifetime together. After the woman died, a record of her life—her frowns and laughter, her actions and reactions—was uploaded to the cloud, and she became the shared goddess of people and AIs.
A pious monk went to a factory to pray and bring blessings to the robot workers who were plagued by short-circuits and malfunctions. But the ghosts of the dead robot workers hounded him. Just as the investigation of the strange occurrences was about to end, the monk was found dead in a tiny hotel room, his nude body smeared with the blood of a woman. An autopsy revealed the truth: he was also a robot.
A famous actress was known for being able to portray a wide variety of roles. So skilled was she, the paparazzi suspected that she was only a software simulation. But by the time they managed to break into her well-secured mansion, all they saw was a cold corpse lying on a magnificent bed. Frighteningly, whether you were looking at her body with the naked eye or through a camera, everyone and every camera saw a different woman. And even years later, the actress continued to show up on the silver screen.
A blind child prodigy began to play go against the computer when he was five. As time passed, his skill improved, and his computer opponent also became smarter through competition with him. Many years later, as he lay dying, the blind Go player played one last match against his old opponent. But unbeknownst to him, as they played, others opened his skull and scanned each part of his brain layer by layer, digitizing the results into computer modules that his machine opponent could learn from, until this last Go match became so complicated that no one could follow it.
Delighted by the stories told by the dragon-horse, the bat dances upside down. In turn, she squeaks other stories into the dragon-horse’s ear:
A bell that rang only once every hundred years was forgotten in the dark basement of an art museum in the heart of the city. But due to a marvelous resonance phenomenon, whenever the bell did ring, its sound would be echoed and magnified by the entire city until the ringing resounded like an ensemble of pipe organs, and everything stood still in awe.
An unmanned drone took to the skies every dawn. Each clockwise swoop over the city also served to recharge its solar-powered batteries. Whenever spring turned to summer, a flock of fledgling birds followed the drone to practice flying like a magnificent cloud.
Piles of paper books which no one ever read filled an ancient library where the temperature was always kept at sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The main computer of the library was capable of reciting every poem in every language. If you were lucky enough to find the way there, you would receive an unimaginably enthusiastic reception.
A musical fountain was capable of composing new music as soon as you deposited some coins. At dusk, feral cats and dogs often dropped coins they picked out of the ruins into the fountain; and so, as the birds and beasts took turns bathing in the fountain in an orderly manner, they also got to enjoy lovely music that never repeated itself.
“Is it really true?” they each ask the other, again and again. “And then? What happened then?”
Shadows dance in the moon. The longer they walk, the longer seems the road.
* * *
Gradually they hear gurgling water, like the babbling of a brook echoing through a deep canyon. Before the founding of the metropolis, creeks and brooks had crisscrossed this spot. Year by year, they were tamed as people multiplied, and turned into lakes, ditches, and dank underground sewers. But now the brooks have been freed, wantonly meandering their way over the rolling terrain, singing, nourishing the life on this patch of land.
The dragon-horse stops. The road he’s on disappears into a wild lotus pond. The pond stretches as far as the horizon, covered by layer after layer of lotus leaves. A breeze passes, and the lotus leaves ruffle, causing undulating ripples through the dark-green-and-gray-white sea. Red and white lotus flowers peek out of the leaves as though they’re pieces of frozen moonlight, with no trace of the merely terrestrial in their beauty.
“How lovely.” The bat sighs lightly. “It’s so beautiful that my heart aches.”
The dragon-horse is startled because he feels the same, though he doesn’t know if he has a heart.
“Shall we go on?” he asks.
“I need to fly over this lake,” replies the bat. “But you can’t go on any longer. You’re made of metal; the water will probably cause you to short-circuit.”
“Maybe.” The dragon-horse hesitates. He has never been in the water.
“Then let us say farewell here.” The bat’s flapping wings tickle the dragon-horse’s ear.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I don’t want to be late.”
“Bon voyage!”
“The same to you! Take care of yourself, and thank you for your stories.”
“Thank you as well.”
The dragon-horse stands at the shore and watches as the shadow of the bat diminishes until she has disappeared in the night.
He is alone again. The watery moon gently illuminates all creation.
4.
He looks at his reflection in the water. His body seems more skeletal than he remembers from before the start of this journey. The scales covering his body have mostly fallen off, and even one of his antlers is gone. Through the holes in his skin, messy bundles of wires and cables can be seen wrapped around his rusty steel skeleton.
Where shall I go? Should I go back? Back to where I started?
Or maybe I should head in the opposite direction. The Earth is round. No matter where I want to go, as long as I keep going, I’ll get there.
Though he’s pondering turning back, he has already, without realizing it, stepped forward.
His front hooves disappear underneath the ice-cold waves.
The lotus leaves scratch gently against his belly. Countless sparkling droplets roll across their surfaces: some return to the starting point after wandering about for a while; others coalesce like beads of mercury and then tumble off the edge of the leaf into the water.
The world is so lovely. I don’t want to die.
The thought frightens him. Why am I thinking about death? Am I about to die?
But the endless lotus pond continues to tempt him. He moves forward, one step after another. He wants to reach the other shore, which he has never seen.
The water rises and covers his limbs, his belly, his torso, his spine, his neck.
His legs sink into the mud at the bottom of the pond, and he can’t pull them out. His body sways, and he almost falls. The last scale falls from his body.
The golden scale splashes into the water like a lotus-shaped floating lantern. Slowly it drifts away, carried by the ripples.
The dragon-horse is exhausted, but he also feels as though all weight has been lifted from him. He closes his eyes.
He hears the sound of rushing water, as though he has returned to the place of his birth. Long-forgotten memories replay before his eyes. He seems to be on the ocean at this moment, riding in a giant ship headed for China. Perhaps all that he has seen and heard over the years are but a dream on this long voyage.
A breeze caresses his beard like a barely audible sigh.
The dragon-horse opens his eyes. The tiny figure of the bat is flattened against his nose.
“You’re back!” Joy fills him. “Did you make it on time?”
“I got lost.” The bat sighs. “The pond is too big. I can’t seem to find the other shore.”
“It’s too bad that I’m stuck in the mud. I can’t help carry you any farther.”
“I wish we had fire.”
“Fire?”
“Wherever there’s fire, there’s light. I want to lead the way for everyone!”
“For… who?”
“For the gods in darkness, for the lonely ghosts and lost souls, for anyone who doesn’t know where to go—I will lead them all.”
“You need fire?”
“Yes, but where would we find fire in all this water?”
“I have fire,” says the dragon-horse. “I don’t have much, but I hope it’s enough for you.”
“Where?”
“Give me a bit of space.”
The bat flaps over to a lotus leaf nearby. The dragon-horse opens his jaw and sticks out his black tongue. Pure kerosene flows out of a seam under the tongue, and a dark blue electric spark comes to life at the tip of the tongue, lighting the kerosene spray. A golden-scarlet column of fire shoots into the sky.
“I had no idea you had such hidden talents!” the bat shouts in admiration. “More, more!”
The dragon-horse opens his mouth, and more flames shoot out. Kerosene burns easily, even after so many years of storage. He can’t remember the last time he performed the fire-breathing trick—it’s possible that he hasn’t done it since the battle with the spider. Fire is so warm and beautiful, like a god whose shape is constantly shifting.
“Millions wish to extinguish the fire, but I alone will lift it high overhead.” The bat’s voice rings out clearly in the ear of the dragon-horse, resonating with each and every one of his components:
This fantastic fire, a storm of blossoms that blankets the sacred motherland.
Like all poets who make dreams their horses,
By this fire, I survive the long, dark night.
He feels like a burning match. But he doesn’t feel any pain.
All around him, faint lights appear in the distance, gathering like fireflies.
Oh, what a collection of spirits and demons! They are of every shape and material, sporting every strange color and outline: hand-drawn door gods and buddhas; abstract graffiti on factory walls; tiny robots no bigger than a thumb made out of computer components; mechanical Guan Yu constructed from truck parts; dilapidated, ancient stone guardian lions; teddy bears as tall as a house and capable of telling stories; simple, clumsy robot dogs; strollers capable of singing a baby to sleep…
They are just like him, mixed-blood creations of tradition and modernity, myth and technology, dream and reality. They are made of Art, yet they are Natural.
“It’s time!” the bat sings joyfully. “Come with us!”
“Where are we going?” asks the dragon-horse.
“Anywhere is fine. Tonight you will find eternal life and freedom in poetry and dream.”
She sticks out a tiny claw and pulls him into the air, where he transforms into a fluttering butterfly with dark red eyes and golden wings full of Chinese characters. He looks down and sees the massive body of the dragon-horse still burning in the endless lotus pound, like a magnificent torch.
Along with all his companions, he flies higher into the sky. The rolling landscape of ruins diminishes in the distance. Next to his ear, the bat’s voice continues to whisper.
A thousand years later, if I were to be born again on the riverbank of my motherland,
A thousand years later, I will again possess China’s rice paddies and the snow-capped mountains of the King of Zhou, where sky-horses roam.
Farewell, and good-bye. He sighs.
The flame disappears in darkness.
They fly for a long time until they reach the end of the world.
Everywhere they look, gloom greets their eyes. Only a giant, sparkling river lies between heaven and earth.
The blue water gleams like fire, like mercury, like the stars, like diamonds—twinkling, shimmering, melding into the dark night. No one knows how wide it is, or how long.
The spirits flap and flutter their wings, heading for the opposite shore. Like mist, like a cloud, like a rainbow, like a bridge, they connect two worlds.
“Go on,” says the bat. “Hurry.”
“What about you?”
“I still have some tasks to finish. When the sun rises, I must return to my nest to sleep and wait for the next night.”
“So we’re to say farewell again?”
“Yes. But the world is so grand, I’m sure we’ll meet somewhere else again.”
They embrace, wrapping their tiny wings about each other. The dragon-horse spirit turns to leave, and the bat recites poetry to send him on his way.
Riding the five-thousand-year-old phoenix and a dragon whose name is “horse,” I am doomed to fail.
But Poetry itself, wielding the sun, will surely triumph.
He heads for the opposite shore, and he isn’t sure how long he has been flying. The starry river flows by.
Next to the shore is his birthplace, the tiny, tranquil isle of Nantes. The mechanical beasts have been slumbering for an unknown number of years: the twenty-five-meter-tall carousel horse of the ocean world; the fifty-ton giant elephant; the immense, frightening reptile; the heron with the eight-meter wingspan capable of carrying a man; the bizarre mechanical ants, cicadas, and carnivorous plants…
He sees his old partner, the spider, who lies tranquilly in the soft moonlight, his eight legs curled under him. Landing gently on the forehead of the spider, the dragon-horse spirit closes his wings like a dewdrop falling from the heavens.
When you sing, the world will listen; when you are quiet, you’ll hear the song of all creation.
The night breeze carries the sounds of collision, percussion, and metal creaking and grinding against metal. He smells the aroma of machine oil, rust, and electrical sparks. His friends have awakened, and to welcome his return, there will surely be a great feast.
But first, he falls into a deep slumber.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For more about the dragon-horse, please see the following videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxkVKBp6HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nj0d_ZJQQw
1.
The dragon-horse awakens in moonlight.
Drops of cold dew drip onto his forehead, where they meander down the curve of his steel nose.
Plink.
He struggles to open his eyes, rusted eyelids grinding against eyelashes. A pair of silvery specks reflects from those giant dark red pupils. At first he thinks it’s the moon, but a careful examination reveals it to be a clump of white flowers blooming vibrantly in a crack in the cement, irrigated by the dew dripping from his nose.
He can’t help but inhale deeply, as though trying to taste the fragrance of the flowers, but he smells nothing—after all, he is not made of flesh and blood and has never smelled anything. The air rushes into his nostrils, whistling loudly in the narrow gaps between mechanical components. He feels a slight buzzing all over his body, as if each one of his hundreds of scales is vibrating at a different frequency, and so he sneezes, two columns of white fog erupting from his nostrils. The white flowers tremble in the fog, drops of dew falling from the tips of the translucent petals.
Slowly the dragon-horse opens his eyes all the way and lifts his head to survey the world.
The world has been desolate for a long time and now looks very different from his memory of it. He remembers once having stood in the middle of a brightly lit hall, shaking his head and waving his tail at Chinese and foreign visitors, surrounded by cries of delight and surprised intakes of breath. He remembers nights when, after the lights in the museum had been extinguished, lingering visitors murmuring in strange tongues had disturbed his dreams.
The hall is now in ruins, the cracked walls askew with vines sprouting from fissures and seams, leaves susurrating in the wind. Vine-shrouded trees have punched holes large and small in the glass skylight overhead. Bathed by moonlight, dewdrops plink-plonk like pearls falling onto a jade platter.
The dragon-horse glances around the great hall of the museum—now a decayed courtyard—and sees that all the other inhabitants are gone, leaving only him dreaming for untold centuries amongst the rubble. He peers at the night sky through the holes in the skylight: the empyrean is a shade of midnight blue, and the stars twinkle like silver-white flowers. This is also a sight he can’t remember having seen for a long, long time.
He recalls his birthplace, a small city named Nantes on the shores of the tranquil Loire, where the brilliant pinpricks of the stars reflected in the water resembled an oil painting. But in this metropolis, thousands of miles from Nantes, the sky always hung overhead like a thick, waxy gray membrane by day, varicolored neon lights turning it even more turbid at night.
Tonight the limpid moon and luminous stars arouse in him an intense nostalgia for his hometown, for the tiny workshop where he was born on an isle in the middle of the river, where the artisans drew the plans for his design using pens with nibs as fine as a single strand of hair, and then cast the components, polished, spray-painted, and assembled them until he was fully formed. His massive body weighed forty-seven tons, composed from tens of thousands of individual components.
With his reinforced steel frame and wooden scales, he stood erect, a terrifying sight. Then the gears, axles, motors, and cables inside him collaborated seamlessly in a mechanical symphony so that he could come alive: his four hoofed legs extending and flexing as though made of flesh, his neck curving and straightening like a startled wild goose, his spine gyrating like a playful dragon, his head lifting and dipping like a lazy tiger, his steps as light as an immortal dancing across water.
On top of his horse-like body is a dragon’s neck and head, along with a long beard, deer antlers, and dark red glass eyes. Each of the golden scales covering his body is inscribed with a Chinese character: “dragon,” “horse,” “poem,” “dream.” These characters embody the romantic fantasies his clever artisan-creators harbored about another ancient civilization.
Long ago, he came here in a Year of the Horse. “Vigorous as dragon and horse” is an auspicious phrase the people of this land loved to say to one another, and it was this phrase that inspired his creators and endowed him with his present mythical form.
He remembers also parading across a square packed with crowds with his head held high and his legs stretched out. Children greeted him with curious eyes and delighted screams as the mist spewing from his nostrils drenched them. He remembers the lovely music that filled the air, a combination of Western symphonies and Chinese folk tunes—slowly and gracefully he strolled, swaying and stepping to the rhythm of the music. He remembers the streets and buildings spreading before him like a chessboard, stretching endlessly under the hazy gray sky. He remembers his performance partner, a mechanical spider who was almost as large as he was and whose eight legs sliced through the air menacingly. They performed together for three days and three nights, enacting a complete mythical tale.
Nüwa, the goddess of creation, sent the dragon-horse to survey the mortal world, where he encountered the spider, who had escaped from the heavenly court and was wreaking havoc everywhere. They fought an epic battle until—neither able to overcome the other—they forged a peace based on friendship. Then the four seas undulated in harmonious tranquility, and even the weather became mild and pleasant.
After the show, the spider returned to its birthplace, leaving the dragon-horse alone as guardian of this strange land.
Yet isn’t this place another homeland for him? He was created to celebrate the lasting friendship between two nations, and from conception he was of mixed blood. The dreams and myths of this land were his original seed. After eons of being passed from one storyteller to another, the legends—transformed into the languages of strange lands, borne across oceans to new realms—were substantiated by the magic of steel and electricity, like those agile robots and spaceships. Finally, across thousands of miles, he came here to become a new legend to be passed down through the ages. Tradition and modernity, myth and technology, the East and the West—which is his old country, which the new?
The dragon-horse, unable to puzzle out the question, lowers his heavy head. He has been asleep for too long, and now the whole world has turned into a ruined garden. Are there still places in this garden for people to live? In the cold moonlight, the dragon-horse carefully lifts his legs and, step by step, begins to explore.
Every joint in his rusty body screeches. In a glass wall filled with spiderweb cracks, he sees a reflection of himself. His body has also been decaying. Time flows like a river, halting for no one. His scaled armor is now patchy, incomplete, like an aged veteran returning from the wars. Only his glass eyes continue to glow with that familiar dim light.
The wide avenue where cars had once streamed like a river of steel is now filled with lush trees dancing in the wind. As soon as there’s a break in the rustling of leaves, birds and insects fill the silence with their chittering music, which only makes everything seem even more desolate. The dragon-horse looks around, uncertain where he should be headed.
Since it makes no difference, he picks a direction at random and strolls forward.
The clopping hoofbeats echo against the pavement. The moon stretches his lonely shadow a long way over the ground.
2.
The dragon-horse isn’t sure how long he has been walking.
Silently the stars spin overhead, and the moon wanders across the firmament, but without clocks or watches, time’s passage cannot be felt.
The avenue he’s on was once this city’s most famous street. Now it is a deep canyon whose craggy walls are formed from an amalgam of bricks, steel, concrete, and trees, the product of mixing the inorganic with the organic, decay with life, reality with dream, the steel-and-glass metropolis with ancient myths.
He remembers there was once a square nearby where bright lights remained lit throughout the night like a thousand-year dream. But in the end, the lights went out, and the dream ended. There’s nothing in this world that can outlast time itself.
Coming into the valley that was once that square, he sees an impossible vision: thousands and thousands of steel wrecks heaped and stacked like the skeletal remains of beasts, the looming piles stretching as far as the eye can see. These were once automobiles of various makes and sizes, most of them so corroded by rust that only the frames remain. Twisted branches emerge from the dark, empty windows and stab into the sky as though clawing for some elusive prey. The dragon-horse experiences a nameless sorrow and terror. He lowers his eyes to gaze at his own rusty forelimbs. How is he different from these dead cars? Why should he not fall into a perpetual slumber alongside them?
No one can answer these questions.
A scale falls from his chest, rolling among the steel wrecks and echoing dully in the watery moonlight. The insects, near and far, fall silent for a moment before resuming their joyful chorus, as though what fell were nothing more than an insignificant pebble.
He becomes even more frightened, and picks up his pace as he continues his night journey.
Squeaks come from a certain spot in the ruins. The sound is thin and dreary, different from birdcall and insect chitter. The dragon-horse follows the sound to its source, searching among the thick grass with his nose. Suddenly, in the shadow of a shallow cave, he finds himself gazing at a pair of tiny, dark eyes.
“Who are you?” the dragon-horse asks. It has been so long since he has heard his own voice that the thrumming timbre sounds strange to him.
“Don’t you recognize me?” a thin voice answers.
“I’m not sure.”
“I’m a bat.”
“A bat?”
“Half-beast, half-bird, I sleep during the day and emerge at night to swoop between dawn and dream.”
The dragon-horse carefully examines his interlocutor: sharp snout, large ears, a soft body covered by fine gray fur and curled upon itself, and two thin, membranous wings shimmering in the moon.
“And who are you?” the bat squeaks.
“Who am I?” the dragon-horse repeats the question.
“You don’t know who you are?”
“Maybe I do; maybe I don’t,” replies the dragon-horse. “I’m called Dragon-Horse, meaning I am both dragon and horse. I began as a myth in China, but I was born in France. I don’t know if I’m a machine or a beast, alive or dead—or perhaps I’ve never possessed the animating spark. I also don’t know if my walk through the night is real or only a dream.”
“Like all poets who make dreams their horses.”[7] The bat sighs.
“What did you say?”
“Oh, you reminded me of a line from a poem from long ago.”
“A poem?” The word sounds familiar to the dragon-horse, but he’s not certain what it means.
“Yes. I like poems,” the bat says, and nods. “When the poets are gone, poems are even more precious.”
“The poets are gone?” the dragon-horse asks carefully. “You are saying no one writes poems anymore?”
“Can’t you tell? There are no longer any people in this world.”
The dragon-horse doesn’t bother looking around. He knows she’s right.
“Then what should we do?” he asks, after being silent for a while.
“We can do whatever we want,” says the bat. “Humans may be gone, but the world goes on. Look at how lovely the moon is tonight. If you want to sing, sing. If you don’t want to sing, just lie still. When you sing, the world will listen; when you are quiet, you’ll hear the song of all creation.”
“But I can’t hear it,” admits the dragon-horse. “I can only hear the chitter of insects in the ruins. They frighten me.”
“Poor baby—your ears aren’t as good as mine,” says the bat compassionately. “But you heard me. That’s odd.”
“Is it really that strange?”
“Usually only bats can hear other bats. But the world is so big, anything is possible.” The bat shrugs. “Where are you going?”
“I don’t know where I’m headed,” the dragon-horse says. It’s the truth.
“You don’t even have a destination in mind?”
“I’m just walking about. Also, I don’t know how to do anything except walk.”
“I have a destination, but I got held up on the way.” The bat’s voice turns sorrowful. “I’d been flying for three days and three nights, and then an owl came after me. The owl almost tore my wings.”
“You’re hurt?” asks the dragon-horse solicitously.
“I said ‘almost.’ Do I look like I’m easy prey?” Her indignant speech is interrupted by a fit of coughing.
“Do you not feel well?”
“I’m thirsty. Flying parched my throat, and I want a drink. But the water here is full of the flavor of rust; I can’t stand it.”
“I have water,” says the dragon-horse. “It’s for my performance.”
“Would you give me a drink? Just a sip.”
The dragon-horse lowers his head, and a white mist sprays from his nostrils. The mist soaks the bat’s tiny body, forming droplets on the fine fur. Satisfied, the bat spreads her wings and carefully licks up the droplets.
“You’re nice,” squeaks the bat. “I feel much better now.”
“Are you leaving for where you want to go, then?”
“Yes. I have an important mission tonight. What about you?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’ll just keep on moving forward.”
“Can you carry me for a while? I’m still tired and need rest, but I don’t want to be late.”
“But I walk very slowly,” the dragon-horse says, embarrassed. “My body is designed so that I can only walk haltingly, step by step.”
“I don’t care.” Briskly flapping her light wings, the bat lands next to the dragon-horse’s right ear. The bat’s claws lightly clutch a branch of his long antler, and then she’s dangling upside down.
“See, now we get to talk as we walk. There’s nothing better than a night journey with conversation.”
The dragon-horse sighs and carefully shifts his limbs. The bat is so light that he almost can’t feel the creature’s presence. He can only hear that thin, reedy voice whispering poetry in his ear:
“Faced with the great river, I am consumed by shame. What has my exhaustion accomplished…?”
3.
They pass through the graveyard of cars. The road is now more rugged and uneven, and the moon has hid itself behind wispy clouds so that the road is illuminated in patches.
The dragon-horse carefully picks his way through, fearful of falling and breaking a limb. With each step, his whole body creaks and groans, and gears and screws fall off him—clink-clank—and disappear in the gaps between rubble and weeds.
“Are you in pain?” asks the bat curiously.
“I’ve never known what pain is,” confesses the dragon-horse.
“Wow, impressive. If it were me, I’d be dead from the pain by now.”
“I don’t know what death is, either.” The dragon-horse falls silent. The nameless sorrow and terror have returned. If he is considered alive now, is that essence of life scattered among the tens of thousands of components making up his body, or is it concentrated in some special spot? If these components are all scattered along the path he has trodden, will he still be alive? How will he continue to sense all that is around him?
Time flows like a river, halting for no one. There’s nothing in this world that can outlast time itself.
“Walking like this is boring,” says the bat. “Why don’t you tell me a story? You were born so long ago that you must know many stories I don’t.”
“Story? I don’t know what a story is; I certainly can’t tell you one.”
“It’s easy! Okay, repeat after me: ‘Long, long ago.’”
“Long, long ago…”
“What comes to your mind now? Do you see something that doesn’t exist?”
The dragon-horse does. The wheel of time seems to be reversing before his eyes. Trees shrink into the ground, and giant buildings shoot out of the earth, part to the sides like the sea, and leave a straight, wide avenue down the middle.
“Long, long ago, there was a bustling metropolis.”
“Are there people in the city?” asks the bat.
“Many, many people.”
“Can you see them clearly?”
The image before the dragon-horse’s eyes clarifies like a long, painted scroll: everyone’s expression is vivid and lifelike. He sees the people’s joys and sorrows, partings and meetings, as though seeing the moon waxing and waning.
“Long, long ago, there was a bustling metropolis. In this city there lived a young woman…”
He starts to tell the stories of those people.
A young woman who’d never been in love fell for a stranger she met through the chat program on her phone, but then she discovered that her interlocutor was only a perfect bit of conversation software. Yet, the digital boy loved her back, and they happily spent a lifetime together. After the woman died, a record of her life—her frowns and laughter, her actions and reactions—was uploaded to the cloud, and she became the shared goddess of people and AIs.
A pious monk went to a factory to pray and bring blessings to the robot workers who were plagued by short-circuits and malfunctions. But the ghosts of the dead robot workers hounded him. Just as the investigation of the strange occurrences was about to end, the monk was found dead in a tiny hotel room, his nude body smeared with the blood of a woman. An autopsy revealed the truth: he was also a robot.
A famous actress was known for being able to portray a wide variety of roles. So skilled was she, the paparazzi suspected that she was only a software simulation. But by the time they managed to break into her well-secured mansion, all they saw was a cold corpse lying on a magnificent bed. Frighteningly, whether you were looking at her body with the naked eye or through a camera, everyone and every camera saw a different woman. And even years later, the actress continued to show up on the silver screen.
A blind child prodigy began to play go against the computer when he was five. As time passed, his skill improved, and his computer opponent also became smarter through competition with him. Many years later, as he lay dying, the blind Go player played one last match against his old opponent. But unbeknownst to him, as they played, others opened his skull and scanned each part of his brain layer by layer, digitizing the results into computer modules that his machine opponent could learn from, until this last Go match became so complicated that no one could follow it.
Delighted by the stories told by the dragon-horse, the bat dances upside down. In turn, she squeaks other stories into the dragon-horse’s ear:
A bell that rang only once every hundred years was forgotten in the dark basement of an art museum in the heart of the city. But due to a marvelous resonance phenomenon, whenever the bell did ring, its sound would be echoed and magnified by the entire city until the ringing resounded like an ensemble of pipe organs, and everything stood still in awe.
An unmanned drone took to the skies every dawn. Each clockwise swoop over the city also served to recharge its solar-powered batteries. Whenever spring turned to summer, a flock of fledgling birds followed the drone to practice flying like a magnificent cloud.
Piles of paper books which no one ever read filled an ancient library where the temperature was always kept at sixty-two degrees Fahrenheit. The main computer of the library was capable of reciting every poem in every language. If you were lucky enough to find the way there, you would receive an unimaginably enthusiastic reception.
A musical fountain was capable of composing new music as soon as you deposited some coins. At dusk, feral cats and dogs often dropped coins they picked out of the ruins into the fountain; and so, as the birds and beasts took turns bathing in the fountain in an orderly manner, they also got to enjoy lovely music that never repeated itself.
“Is it really true?” they each ask the other, again and again. “And then? What happened then?”
Shadows dance in the moon. The longer they walk, the longer seems the road.
Gradually they hear gurgling water, like the babbling of a brook echoing through a deep canyon. Before the founding of the metropolis, creeks and brooks had crisscrossed this spot. Year by year, they were tamed as people multiplied, and turned into lakes, ditches, and dank underground sewers. But now the brooks have been freed, wantonly meandering their way over the rolling terrain, singing, nourishing the life on this patch of land.
The dragon-horse stops. The road he’s on disappears into a wild lotus pond. The pond stretches as far as the horizon, covered by layer after layer of lotus leaves. A breeze passes, and the lotus leaves ruffle, causing undulating ripples through the dark-green-and-gray-white sea. Red and white lotus flowers peek out of the leaves as though they’re pieces of frozen moonlight, with no trace of the merely terrestrial in their beauty.
“How lovely.” The bat sighs lightly. “It’s so beautiful that my heart aches.”
The dragon-horse is startled because he feels the same, though he doesn’t know if he has a heart.
“Shall we go on?” he asks.
“I need to fly over this lake,” replies the bat. “But you can’t go on any longer. You’re made of metal; the water will probably cause you to short-circuit.”
“Maybe.” The dragon-horse hesitates. He has never been in the water.
“Then let us say farewell here.” The bat’s flapping wings tickle the dragon-horse’s ear.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes, I don’t want to be late.”
“Bon voyage!”
“The same to you! Take care of yourself, and thank you for your stories.”
“Thank you as well.”
The dragon-horse stands at the shore and watches as the shadow of the bat diminishes until she has disappeared in the night.
He is alone again. The watery moon gently illuminates all creation.
4.
He looks at his reflection in the water. His body seems more skeletal than he remembers from before the start of this journey. The scales covering his body have mostly fallen off, and even one of his antlers is gone. Through the holes in his skin, messy bundles of wires and cables can be seen wrapped around his rusty steel skeleton.
Where shall I go? Should I go back? Back to where I started?
Or maybe I should head in the opposite direction. The Earth is round. No matter where I want to go, as long as I keep going, I’ll get there.
Though he’s pondering turning back, he has already, without realizing it, stepped forward.
His front hooves disappear underneath the ice-cold waves.
The lotus leaves scratch gently against his belly. Countless sparkling droplets roll across their surfaces: some return to the starting point after wandering about for a while; others coalesce like beads of mercury and then tumble off the edge of the leaf into the water.
The world is so lovely. I don’t want to die.
The thought frightens him. Why am I thinking about death? Am I about to die?
But the endless lotus pond continues to tempt him. He moves forward, one step after another. He wants to reach the other shore, which he has never seen.
The water rises and covers his limbs, his belly, his torso, his spine, his neck.
His legs sink into the mud at the bottom of the pond, and he can’t pull them out. His body sways, and he almost falls. The last scale falls from his body.
The golden scale splashes into the water like a lotus-shaped floating lantern. Slowly it drifts away, carried by the ripples.
The dragon-horse is exhausted, but he also feels as though all weight has been lifted from him. He closes his eyes.
He hears the sound of rushing water, as though he has returned to the place of his birth. Long-forgotten memories replay before his eyes. He seems to be on the ocean at this moment, riding in a giant ship headed for China. Perhaps all that he has seen and heard over the years are but a dream on this long voyage.
A breeze caresses his beard like a barely audible sigh.
The dragon-horse opens his eyes. The tiny figure of the bat is flattened against his nose.
“You’re back!” Joy fills him. “Did you make it on time?”
“I got lost.” The bat sighs. “The pond is too big. I can’t seem to find the other shore.”
“It’s too bad that I’m stuck in the mud. I can’t help carry you any farther.”
“I wish we had fire.”
“Fire?”
“Wherever there’s fire, there’s light. I want to lead the way for everyone!”
“For… who?”
“For the gods in darkness, for the lonely ghosts and lost souls, for anyone who doesn’t know where to go—I will lead them all.”
“You need fire?”
“Yes, but where would we find fire in all this water?”
“I have fire,” says the dragon-horse. “I don’t have much, but I hope it’s enough for you.”
“Where?”
“Give me a bit of space.”
The bat flaps over to a lotus leaf nearby. The dragon-horse opens his jaw and sticks out his black tongue. Pure kerosene flows out of a seam under the tongue, and a dark blue electric spark comes to life at the tip of the tongue, lighting the kerosene spray. A golden-scarlet column of fire shoots into the sky.
“I had no idea you had such hidden talents!” the bat shouts in admiration. “More, more!”
The dragon-horse opens his mouth, and more flames shoot out. Kerosene burns easily, even after so many years of storage. He can’t remember the last time he performed the fire-breathing trick—it’s possible that he hasn’t done it since the battle with the spider. Fire is so warm and beautiful, like a god whose shape is constantly shifting.
“Millions wish to extinguish the fire, but I alone will lift it high overhead.” The bat’s voice rings out clearly in the ear of the dragon-horse, resonating with each and every one of his components:
This fantastic fire, a storm of blossoms that blankets the sacred motherland.
Like all poets who make dreams their horses,
By this fire, I survive the long, dark night.
He feels like a burning match. But he doesn’t feel any pain.
All around him, faint lights appear in the distance, gathering like fireflies.
Oh, what a collection of spirits and demons! They are of every shape and material, sporting every strange color and outline: hand-drawn door gods and buddhas; abstract graffiti on factory walls; tiny robots no bigger than a thumb made out of computer components; mechanical Guan Yu constructed from truck parts; dilapidated, ancient stone guardian lions; teddy bears as tall as a house and capable of telling stories; simple, clumsy robot dogs; strollers capable of singing a baby to sleep…
They are just like him, mixed-blood creations of tradition and modernity, myth and technology, dream and reality. They are made of Art, yet they are Natural.
“It’s time!” the bat sings joyfully. “Come with us!”
“Where are we going?” asks the dragon-horse.
“Anywhere is fine. Tonight you will find eternal life and freedom in poetry and dream.”
She sticks out a tiny claw and pulls him into the air, where he transforms into a fluttering butterfly with dark red eyes and golden wings full of Chinese characters. He looks down and sees the massive body of the dragon-horse still burning in the endless lotus pound, like a magnificent torch.
Along with all his companions, he flies higher into the sky. The rolling landscape of ruins diminishes in the distance. Next to his ear, the bat’s voice continues to whisper.
A thousand years later, if I were to be born again on the riverbank of my motherland,
A thousand years later, I will again possess China’s rice paddies and the snow-capped mountains of the King of Zhou, where sky-horses roam.
Farewell, and good-bye. He sighs.
The flame disappears in darkness.
They fly for a long time until they reach the end of the world.
Everywhere they look, gloom greets their eyes. Only a giant, sparkling river lies between heaven and earth.
The blue water gleams like fire, like mercury, like the stars, like diamonds—twinkling, shimmering, melding into the dark night. No one knows how wide it is, or how long.
The spirits flap and flutter their wings, heading for the opposite shore. Like mist, like a cloud, like a rainbow, like a bridge, they connect two worlds.
“Go on,” says the bat. “Hurry.”
“What about you?”
“I still have some tasks to finish. When the sun rises, I must return to my nest to sleep and wait for the next night.”
“So we’re to say farewell again?”
“Yes. But the world is so grand, I’m sure we’ll meet somewhere else again.”
They embrace, wrapping their tiny wings about each other. The dragon-horse spirit turns to leave, and the bat recites poetry to send him on his way.
Riding the five-thousand-year-old phoenix and a dragon whose name is “horse,” I am doomed to fail.
But Poetry itself, wielding the sun, will surely triumph.
He heads for the opposite shore, and he isn’t sure how long he has been flying. The starry river flows by.
Next to the shore is his birthplace, the tiny, tranquil isle of Nantes. The mechanical beasts have been slumbering for an unknown number of years: the twenty-five-meter-tall carousel horse of the ocean world; the fifty-ton giant elephant; the immense, frightening reptile; the heron with the eight-meter wingspan capable of carrying a man; the bizarre mechanical ants, cicadas, and carnivorous plants…
He sees his old partner, the spider, who lies tranquilly in the soft moonlight, his eight legs curled under him. Landing gently on the forehead of the spider, the dragon-horse spirit closes his wings like a dewdrop falling from the heavens.
When you sing, the world will listen; when you are quiet, you’ll hear the song of all creation.
The night breeze carries the sounds of collision, percussion, and metal creaking and grinding against metal. He smells the aroma of machine oil, rust, and electrical sparks. His friends have awakened, and to welcome his return, there will surely be a great feast.
But first, he falls into a deep slumber.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
For more about the dragon-horse, please see the following videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQxkVKBp6HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nj0d_ZJQQw
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