Fox and Phoenix (Lóng City 1)

Just like the one she made for me and Yún to fool the royal wizards.

Hai-feng Lo was still talking, something about how my mother had made additional arrangements. I heard the words “emergencies,” “main account,” then my name and Yún’s.

“Say what?” I said.

“An emergency authorization,” Hai-feng repeated with admirable patience. “Granted by Shen Zou to her son Kai Zou and to Yún Chang, to make special payments for expenses connected to the tutoring shop owned by the aforementioned Shen Zou. You are each authorized to name a representative for yourselves, in case of unforeseen absences.”

So she had expected to vanish. But why make all those arrangements and not tell me?

“Any more questions?” Hai-feng Lo asked.

Oh sure, I had a mountain of questions, but right now I had to hurry to buy supplies and run errands before sunset. “I need money. From my own account.”

Hai-feng nodded. “Very good. How much?”

I’d worked out the amounts beforehand. “One hundred in paper cash. And, um, six hundred in personal notes. Do I have enough in my account?”

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nbsp; “Oh, yes. Your mother made an extra transfer, just for you.”

That gave me another jolt of surprise. I wanted to ask him if my mother had given any reason for all these mysterious transactions, but I knew better. You didn’t bank with Hai-feng Lo and his partner for the shiny offices. You did it because you wanted reliable money handlers who knew how to keep secrets. So I took my bag of cash and notes and didn’t ask any questions.

For the next couple of hours, I spent money, picking up this and that for my journey. It was late afternoon, and the temple bells were ringing, before I collapsed onto a stool in the nearest noodle shop. The waiter set down a pot of hot tea, then handed me a menu to read. “Garlic dumplings,” I told him. “Curried rice. Spicy meatballs. And more tea. Lots of it. Oh, and get me a brush and ink, please.”

Unlike Deming, this waiter didn’t sneer at my order. He whisked himself and the menu away. Two minutes later, he’d refilled my teapot and plunked a ready-writing-kit on my table. As he disappeared back into the kitchen, I heard a banging of pots, and someone swearing in a thick, lowlander dialect. The swearing stopped suddenly, replaced by whining music.

I took out the package of gold-edge rice paper, wrote off the addresses as neatly as I could, then folded them around the letters. The waiter soon returned with several steaming platters. I ate absentmindedly, picking at tidbits from one then another, while fiddling with an extra sheet of the fancy paper. The argument in the kitchen had started up again, joined by a woman’s high voice. Meanwhile the other customers had paid and left. The waiter slowly made his circuit of the room, cleaning off tables and humming tunelessly along with the radio.

Clearly, Ma mi had planned to disappear. Just as clearly, she hadn’t forgotten about me and the shop. That made me feel a little bit better, except . . .

. . . except she would never forget a chance to tell me exactly what to do and how to do it.

So, it wasn’t all right, as much as I wanted it to be.

All unaware, I’d folded the sheet of paper into a hexagon. On impulse I unfolded it and scribbled a note to Yún, telling her about the piaohao and Ma mi’s special instructions about payments. It wasn’t a real explanation, but it was the most I could say right now. At least someone would be in the city to watch over the shop, and Ma mi clearly trusted her.

When I’d finished, I dusted the ink dry, folded the paper around my key to the shop, and enclosed everything in two more layers of paper, which I sealed with wax from the writing kit. Across the front I wrote Yún’s name and address.

I sent the waiter off for another pot of tea and dialed up Jing-mei on my talk-phone. “Yo, pretty girl. It’s me, Kai.”

Her answer was a noisy raspberry. “Kai, my friend. Word said you had died in a garbage pail.”

“Have you been talking to Danzu?” I asked suspiciously.

She laughed. “Every day. What’s up?”

“Business. I need a favor. Could you meet me at that fancy tea shop of yours?”

“Sorry, I can’t. Oh, wait.” I heard a brief muffled conversation, then, “Come over to my apartment. It’s a new one—in the Silk Merchant quarter, second lane over from the wind-and-magic lift. Number three-oh-nineteen.”

Once Jing-mei had lived with squatters, in the poorest quarter of Lóng City. After we won the reward from Lian’s father, she had moved at once into an apartment of her own, but apparently that wasn’t good enough, and she’d moved again a month ago. Eyeing the mansions and houses of the silk merchants who lived in this district, I wondered again what Jing-mei was up to. Oh, well. It wasn’t my money or my life.

I came to number 3019, a three-story building for those merchants who weren’t quite rich, but who wanted to look it. Jing-mei answered her door on the second ring, which told me she’d been waiting for me. She smiled and led me through a series of rooms, all of them stacked high with trinkets and gadgets and other expensive toys.

When we got to a small room in the back, I was in for another surprise. Gan sat there, dressed in a crisp palace uniform. “Hello, Kai,” he said.

“Um, yeah. Hi, Gan. I thought you were on night shift.”