Everything Under the Sky (27 page)

“Look,” I said, bringing some rice to my mouth, “I'm not all that fond of politics or big speeches. Why don't you tell me that good news you mentioned when I arrived?”

His face lit up. “You're right. I apologize. Let me go get the book, and I'll read what I found while you eat.”

“Yes, please, do,” I encouraged, gobbling my vegetables with gusto, but he wasn't gone more than a few minutes. Soon he was back, seated again, with an ancient Chinese tome open on his lap.

“Remember I once told you about Sima Qian, the most important Chinese historian of all times?”

I gestured in a way that meant nothing, because that's exactly what I remembered: nothing.

“When we were on the barge on the Yangtze,” he carried on, unperturbed, “I told you that in his book,
Records of the Grand Historian,
Sima Qian says that everyone involved in building the First Emperor's mausoleum died along with him. Do you remember?”

I nodded and kept eating.

“Well, this is a marvelous copy of the
Shiji,
or
Records of the Grand Historian,
by Sima Qian, written over two thousand years ago, shortly after the First Emperor's death. I knew they'd have a copy in Wudang. Believe me, there aren't many. This would be worth an absolute fortune,” he said, speaking like a true merchant now. “I asked for this particular book because I wanted to confirm the chronicler's information about the tomb, and it's the only documented source in existence. Listen to what I found in the part called The Basic Annals of the First Emperor of the Qin,” he said with a heavy sigh, and then began to read. “‘In the ninth month, the First Emperor was interred at Mount Li. When the emperor first came to the throne, he began digging and shaping Mount Li. Later, when he unified the empire, he had more than seven hundred thousand men from all over the empire transported to the spot. They dug down to the third layer of underground springs and poured in bronze to make the outer coffin. Replicas of palaces, scenic towers, and the hundred officials, as well as rare utensils and wonderful objects, were brought to fill up the tomb. Craftsmen were ordered to set up crossbows and arrows, rigged so they would immediately shoot down anyone attempting to break in. Mercury was used to fashion imitations of the hundred rivers, the Yellow River and the Yangtze, and the seas, constructed in such a way that they seemed to flow.’ ”

By this point I had stopped eating and was listening spellbound. Enough mercury to fashion rivers and seas? Replicas of palaces, towers, and officials, as well as wonderful objects and utensils? What exactly were we talking about here?

Lao Jiang continued reading:

“‘Above were representations of all the heavenly bodies; below, the features of the earth. Whale oil was used for lamps, which were calculated to burn for a long time without going out. The Second Emperor said, “Of the women in the harem of the former ruler, it would be unfitting to have those who bore no sons sent elsewhere.” All were accordingly ordered to accompany the dead man, which resulted in the death of many women. After the interment had been completed, someone pointed out that the artisans and craftsmen who had built the tomb knew what was buried there, and if they should leak word of the treasures, it would be a serious affair. Therefore, after the articles had been placed in the tomb, the inner gate was closed off and the outer gate lowered, so that all the artisans and craftsmen were shut in the tomb and were unable to get out. Trees and bushes were planted to give the appearance of a mountain.’ ”

He lifted his eyes from the text and looked at me triumphantly.

“What did I tell you?” he exclaimed. “It's full of treasures!”

“And death traps,” I qualified. “According to that historian, there are any number of crossbows and arrows just waiting to fire automatically as soon as we set foot in the mausoleum—not to mention those mechanical devices we know nothing about, planned specifically for tomb raiders such as ourselves.”

“As always, Elvira, you let negative thoughts carry you away. Don't you remember we have the map from Sai Wu, the foreman? He prepared it for his own son, Sai Shi Gu'er. The answers about to how to pass through the traps unscathed will undoubtedly be in the third piece of the
jiance.
”

The Old Yin in my Enduring Caldron wouldn't allow me to just blindly trust whatever Lao Jiang said. Unease and agitation—weren't those the terms that defined my temperament according to the
I Ching
? Well, I couldn't calmly accept Sai Wu's instructions for avoiding the arrows, crossbows, and mechanical devices. No, sir, I could not. In any event, we still didn't have the third piece of the
jiance,
which reminded me I'd better not waste any more time eating if I didn't want Ming T'ien to slip away on me again.

“Is it the hour of the Monkey yet?” I asked in Chinese, wiping my mouth with a handkerchief and standing up.

The antiquarian smiled. “You're becoming a true daughter of Han, Elvira.”

I smiled back. “I think not, Mr. Jiang. You treat your women too poorly for me to want that. I much prefer being European, but I don't deny that I'm becoming quite fond of your language and culture.”

He seemed offended, but I didn't care. Wasn't he the one who said the world was changing and we had to keep old ideas from strangling new ones? Well, perhaps he should apply his big political ideas to the underprivileged other half of the population in this immense country.

“Yes, it's the hour of the Monkey,” he grumbled.

“Thank you,” I exclaimed, rushing out in search of a new pair of sandals. “Let's go, Biao!”

As Biao and I ran along the cobbled roads, up and down the endless staircases in Wudang, sheltered under our umbrellas, I felt happy. Without realizing it, I had revealed a great truth to Lao Jiang: I really was very fond of Chinese culture, art, and language. I simply could no longer be like the foreigners who live in international concessions, always ensconced in their little Western groups, never mixing with the locals, never learning their language, looking down on them as ignorant and inferior. That long journey through a crumbling nation divided among political parties, imperialists, mafia, and warlords was giving me much food for thought. I would need a good long while to assimilate and make the most of it all.

I was happier still when, in the distance, I saw tiny old Ming T'ien sitting on her cushion on the temple portico. As before, she was smiling as she looked out at the void, contemplating mountains she was unable to behold and an overcast, rainy sky her eyes could not see. Nevertheless, she was obviously happy. She knew that it was us by the sound of our approach.

“Ni hao,
Chang Cheng,” she said in that cracked little voice she had used to call me “poor fool” the last time. It was clear just how quickly news traveled through the monastery given that she now called me by my new nickname, “Great Wall.”

“Ni hao,
Ming T'ien,” I replied. “How are you today?”

“Well, my bones were aching a little this morning but feel much better after my tai chi. Thank you for asking.”

Of course her bones ached! She was so hunched over, so bent and twisted with age, what was most surprising was that she could do tai chi at all.

“Do you remember getting angry at me the other day because I was so ignorant I didn't even know that happiness is the most important thing in life?”

“Certainly.”

“Is happiness the most important thing for a Taoist from Wudang?”

“It is.”

“Then what would be most important for a Taoist from Wudang
after
happiness?”

Ming T'ien,
³⁸
living up to her name, beamed at the question. Perhaps she'd never had disciples and was thrilled by the very idea, or perhaps she'd had many and longed for those days. In any event, her wrinkled little face couldn't smile any wider.

“Imagine you're truly happy right now,” she replied. “Feel it deep inside. You are so happy, Chang Cheng, that what you wish for most would be …”

What I wish for most? What would I want most if I were happy? I shook my head sadly. What did it mean to be happy? I couldn't just conjure up a feeling I'd never experienced. There had been joyful, passionate, fun, exciting, euphoric times in my life—all of which could be considered happy, but I had no idea exactly what happiness was. Just as sadness and pain lasted only long enough for me to recognize and be able to define them, happiness was so ephemeral it was untraceable. I could imagine something similar if I combined feelings (joy and passion, for example), but this was only a temporary solution. Still, if I were very, very happy, most likely I'd want that feeling to last as long as possible, given that the main characteristic of happiness was precisely its fleeting nature.

“See, you've answered the question yourself,” Ming T'ien replied once I'd summarized my deliberations. “When you're happy, you yearn for longevity, because a long life allows you to enjoy the happiness you've attained for a longer period of time. I'm a hundred and twelve, and I've been happy ever since I started on the path of Tao over a hundred years ago.”

For the love of God! What on earth was the woman saying? For a moment I almost lost all respect for her.

“You likely think about death quite a lot,” she added.

“Why do you say that?” I replied defiantly, barely keeping my frustration under control.

She let out a childish little laugh that I found exasperating. I studiously avoided looking at Biao, because I didn't want him to think this was any of his business.

“Leave me be now,” Ming T'ien then ordered. “I'm tired of all this talking.”

This abrupt end to conversations seemed to be customary. Since we Westerners were so ceremonious about saying a polite good-bye, it seemed I would need to get used to the jars of cold water they dumped on you from the temples, palaces, and caves of Wudang. It wasn't worth taking personally. I puffed a little wind back into my sails and stood up to leave.

“May I come back to visit you again?” I asked.

“You'll have to come at least once more, won't you?” she replied, closing her milky eyes and assuming the same pose of silence and impenetrable concentration as Master Tzau, seeming to indicate she was no longer there.

I was dumbfounded. Did Ming T'ien know why I was visiting her, why I was asking her those questions about the objectives of Taoists from Wudang? So why didn't she just give me the whole answer? Why was Ming T'ien so determined to give me just one ideogram with each conversation? It was unnecessarily prolonging our stay in Wudang, although leaving would be a little risky in this rain. Risky yes, but not impossible, so rationing the information was just wasting our time. I had to tell Lao Jiang.

When I did tell the antiquarian as we sat in the study, he didn't seem terribly interested. He had never put a lot of faith in Ming T'ien. He wanted tangible, irrefutable proof and thus persisted with his ancient Taoist volumes written during the time of the First Emperor—like the one about feng shui that spoke of the harmony between living beings and the energies of the earth. He was unaffected by both my worry and my happiness at having obtained the second ideogram in the abbot's puzzle. He thought it was a logical conclusion and agreed we might have solved half the problem: first happiness, then longevity. However, nothing he'd read thus far corroborated the accuracy of our suppositions, and he was therefore still skeptical.

“Doesn't it seem more logical,” I asked him, “to read books written by monks who lived in this monastery and who might at some point mention the objectives of their lives?”

“You think I'm using the wrong criteria, is that it?”

“No, Lao Jiang, I simply think you should expand your criteria. You must have your reasons to read about feng shui, I have no doubt of that. I just doubt you'll find what we're looking for there.”

“Do you want to know why I'm studying it?” he replied sardonically. “You see, the First Emperor believed in
K'an-yu
as much as any selfrespecting Chinese person. All sons of Han, especially those of us who are Taoists, believe we must live in harmony with our environment and the energies of the universe. We're convinced that things will go either well or poorly depending on where we build our houses or place our tombs. Health, longevity, peace, and happiness depend in good measure on our relationship with the energies where we choose to live and those that circulate through our houses, our businesses, or our tombs. You see, even the dead need to be buried somewhere with beneficial energy so their existence in the great beyond can be placid and happy. How do you think all the temples and palaces in Wudang were built? Ancient master geomancers studied the mountain in minute detail to find the very best locations.”

Now I understood! Feng shui was the reason all the buildings in China seemed so exquisitely harmonious. The incredible thing was that there was a thousand-year-old science dedicated just to this. The Celestials were very odd indeed, but these peculiarities had brought them close to beauty in a way that was unknown to us in the West. Could this also be the reason their furniture was placed symmetrically in every room?

“However, there is yet another reason to study these old feng shui books,” Lao Jiang continued. “The First Emperor had a veritable army of master geomancers working for him. According to Sima Qian,” he said, placing his hand on the tome he'd read out loud from that afternoon, “every one of his palaces—and there were many—was built according to the laws of feng shui. Obviously his tomb was as well. Since the characteristics of correct placement are easily recognizable at first glance, I thought we should be clear on certain notions about feng shui for when the time comes to find Mount Li and the mausoleum.”

“But that will all be in the third piece of the
jiance.
”

“And what if we don't get it?” he rejoined. “We could make a mistake with the ideograms. Hadn't you thought of that? You put such faith in that old woman, Ming T'ien, that the very idea of failing hasn't even crossed your mind.” He pulled the hem of his tunic into a pleat above his knees. “In any event, I will do as you suggest. The servant who brings me the books should be here soon. I'll ask him to take all these volumes on feng shui and bring me works written by Wudang monks.”