Crane (Page 13)

Bing eventually put the jar down and nodded to Hok. Beads of sweat ran down Bing’s forehead.

“I’ve never seen anything like that,” Hok replied. “Where did you learn to do it?”

“I taught myself,” Bing said. “If you teach GongJee how to walk on her hands, I will teach you how to do this. What do you say?”

Hok’s eyes lit up. “I would like that.”

Bing nodded, and for the first time Hok thought she saw a hint of a smile on her mother’s face. “Excellent,” Bing said. “Perhaps we can start your training in Kaifeng. For now, we should pack up and get moving. We need to pick up our traveling pace if we plan to make it there in time for the annual Dragon Boat Festival.”

Hok, Charles, Bing, and GongJee arrived in Kaifeng just before dark on the eve of the Dragon Boat Festival. As they passed through the walled city’s enormous wooden gates, Hok was immediately struck by the onslaught of new sights, sounds, and smells, not to mention the hordes of people. Most surprising of all to Hok were the horrible conditions in which most of the people lived. Raw sewage trickled through open sewers in the streets and most of the buildings they passed were in disrepair. Many of the crowd members appeared to be homeless drifters who owned nothing more than the clothes on their backs, and a shocking number of them had lesions and other open sores on their skin.

If Kaifeng was the region’s capital, why did so many people have to live like this? Hok made a point to remember to ask her mother.

They found the acrobats in a makeshift camp on the southern bank of the Yellow River, near the main bridge that connected the northern and southern banks. The acrobats lived in a collection of four large tents that they had set up on a relatively clean stretch of riverbank well away from the open sewers that emptied into the river farther downstream. Hok was relieved.

There were four acrobats, all brothers. Their names were Ming, Ling, Ping, and Ching, but no one bothered to point out which was which to Hok. Hok soon learned it didn’t matter. In keeping with Bing’s desire to conduct business in relative secrecy, no one ever mentioned anyone else’s name while in camp.

The brothers let Hok, Bing, GongJee, and Charles have one of the tents, and after unloading a few things from the small cart, Bing announced that she was going to have a meeting with the brothers. GongJee said she was tired and wanted to go to bed, so Charles and Hok decided to take a short walk.

Darkness had settled in, and there weren’t many people left along the riverbank. Hok and Charles headed for the bridge in the bright moonlight. At the foot of the bridge was a large display board that contained numerous announcements of events over the next several days. In the upper right corner of the board was a very official-looking document that made Hok’s blood run cold.

“Hey!” Charles said, pointing to the document. “Is that—”

“Shhh,” Hok said as she stared at a sketch at the top of the posting. “Yes, that drawing is me. Keep your voice down.”

“Why?” Charles said. “Does it say something bad? I can’t read Chinese.”

“Just a moment,” Hok whispered as she scanned the document. She couldn’t believe it. Tsung hadn’t been exaggerating back at Shaolin Temple.

“It’s a wanted poster,” Hok continued. “It says I’m an Enemy of the State because of some things that happened at Shaolin Temple. It also claims that I had a role in the destruction of my own temple, Cangzhen, considered to have been a closely guarded secret ally of the Emperor. At the bottom it also lists rewards for information on the capture of my brothers, Fu, Malao, Seh, and Long. It claims they were involved in Cangzhen’s destruction, too. This is crazy.”

Hok adjusted the turban on her head, glad that she’d decided to wear it until her hair grew to a respectable length. Another thing mentioned in the document was the fact that she had brown hair. Tsung must have reported that.

“What should we do?” Charles asked.

“I don’t know,” Hok said. “I—” She stopped in mid-sentence as her eyes passed over a second posting that also contained a sketch.

“Whoa,” Charles said, pointing to the second posting. “Look at that guy. I wonder what happened to his face.”

“That’s my former brother, Ying,” Hok replied in a low voice. “He thinks he’s a dragon. It’s also a wanted poster.” She pointed to a smaller document pinned to the board next to it. “This one here is an update. It says that Ying has been captured and was thrown into prison under orders from the Emperor.”

“What do you make of that?” Charles asked.

“I don’t know,” Hok said. “We should get back to camp.”