Burning Tigress (49 page)

"Wait, wait!" Mr. Gui called. "You have not seen the best yet." Then he brought out the bucket.

Little Pearl made a show of sneering. She and Mr. Gui both relished their daily squabble. She would not shorten it too soon. "Average," she groused. "Nothing more than average."

"What! Are you sick as well as stupid?" Mr. Gui went on, pouring his yang into defending his fish and insulting her senses. She let him rant, a part of her appreciating his fire. In truth, Mr. Gui was in rare form today and she should enjoy the display. But the morning was advancing fast and she was anxious to be in her kitchen cooking for the afternoon meal.

"Very well," she finally sighed, cutting him off mid-sentence. "I will take your diseased fish at your ridiculous price, but I will have those shrimp as well."

"You are crazy!" he cried.

"You are stupid!" she retorted.

Then they got down to serious bargaining. In the end, Little Pearl had her steelhead fish, her shrimp, and a small squid. Mr. Gui had the last of her purse and a happy wave as she left. They would both eat well tonight.

But Little Pearl's smile faded long before her tiny, bound feet made it out of the market. It was a sad day indeed when a riotous session with Mr. Gui could not make her happy. Her store of male yang energy was obviously depleted. It lasted less and less time lately, and she had no understanding of why. Female yin, she had in abundance. It kept her skin fresh, her step light, and her body amazingly youthful. Indeed, no one would guess her at nearly thirty years of age. She looked and dressed more like a mature sixteen.

But the yang energy, the power willingly surrendered by men in their sexual emission, this energy she could not seem to retain. She harvested as much as she could. She daily sat in contemplation and purification of that yang. But bit by bit, her fire faded, her assertive power and male strength withered long before she could use it. Once she could retain the fire for weeks on end. Now, she was lucky if it lasted a few days before listlessness returned.

What was happening to her? Without enough male yang, she would never be able to attain Heaven and become a Tigress Immortal.

A few months ago, a white woman—Lydia Smith—had reached the highest level a tigress could and became an Immortal. Such a thing had shocked and revitalized the entire school, Little Pearl included. Little Pearl had devoted what extra time she had to increased study and meditation. But without yang, she would be unable to reach even the antechamber to Heaven, the mystical Chamber of a Thousand Swinging Lanterns.

She passed a group of cripples and beggars that congregated on the Tan side of the market. Her gaze expertly scanned the group, picking the men who would be good sources of yang for herself and her fellow students. The women she disdained, her stomach churning at the scent of dirty women. There were some who would appreciate the added yin, but Little Pearl was not one of them.

By the time she made it to the Tan household, her feet were numb and her calves burned. If she hadn't spent the last of her purse on the squid, she could have taken a rickshaw, but she counted the excellent food well worth the pain in her legs. The mistress had a fondness for squid made with just the right amounts of ginger and plum, and Little Pearl would suffer much for the great Tigress Shi Po. Without Mrs. Tan, Little Pearl would still be a drugged prostitute spreading her legs for whatever dog paid Madame Ting. Instead, she was creating culinary feasts and teaching the pathway to Immortality to China's discarded women. It was a good life, and one she valued greatly.

With that happy thought in mind, she entered the front courtyard. She stopped dead, her sacks of fresh food slipping in her grip, but not tumbling to the ground. Even a destroyed courtyard, even horse dung and smashed roof tiles could not make her spill good squid in the dirt. Something terrible had happened last night, and Little Pearl choked on her fear for the Tans.

Swallowing down the bitter taste, Little Pearl ran through the main gate. "Mistress Tan! Mistress Tan!" she screamed as she rushed past the receiving hall. The scent of torn herb pillows lay heavy on the air. Even the family garden was in disarray, the lovely fountains smashed beyond repair. "Mistress Tan! Mistress Tan!"

Her words echoed back to her in the empty courtyard. She could tell by the way the sound fell like stones that no one was about: no students, no servants, no family. Only Little Pearl and her dying fish that still squirmed faintly in her sack.

Biting back tears, Little Pearl went to the kitchen first. She quickly disposed of her marketing, and then went in search of the Tans. She went through every room and secret hiding place. Everywhere she looked she saw disaster. Broken pots, churned mud, torn tapestries, but no blood and no bodies. Blood and death had their own smell, and she could taste nothing like that in the air.

Not dead then, only captured. And with no Mrs. Tan to tell them all was safe, the servants had disappeared. Such was the nature of Mrs. Tan's work that she had ordered all who worked or studied here to disappear should something appear amiss.

Little Pearl stepped into the Tans' bedchamber and struggled against her tears when she saw the broken bedframe and shattered perfume vials. She cursed the Manchurians who ruled over China. She cursed the Qin and most of all she cursed General Kang, who no doubt was the one who'd abducted the Tans in the middle of the night. Only Kang's soldiers had horses to break the courtyard stones and foul the ornamental shrubs. And only the most powerful general in all of China would dare abduct the wealthy Tans from their bed.

Little Pearl felt her hands clench. She was a small woman with bound feet. She had little money and no status. But still she thought of punching the horrible General Kang in his face. She would beat his arrogant brow and rip off his privates. Then she would tear open the cell door and bring the Tans home where they belonged. She would personally supervise the drawing of the perfumed baths, and she would make them such a feast that the hateful Manchus would be completely forgotten.

That was what she would do if she could. Frustration filled her with a surge of rancid yang. It coiled in her breast and found escape in vicious curses and violent fantasies. But soon even that yang depleted, leaving her weak and trembly amid the debris of an emptied home.

The Tans were not here. She had walked the compound twice, mentally cataloguing all the damage. It did not take long for her to form an idea of what had happened. The soldiers arrived in the dead of night. Neither the master nor the mistress had been in bed. They had been in the main exercise chamber and teaching room. She had no idea what they'd been doing. She had found a poisoned dagger, discarded clothing, and a message to herself. This she had quickly torn open, praying for a different explanation, but what was written there only added to her confusion.

Little Pearl,
Shi Po had written,
allow Kui Yu to manage all funeral arrangements. He will wish to do so himself. To you, I entrust my most precious Tigress school. I know you will run it well for I have seen your great yin heart and vital yang force. I also ask that you take charge of my husband. He will need a strong woman at his side and I know you will make an excellent wife for him. May your qi ever flow strong and clear, my dear friend and fellow cub. Knowing you are here lightens my passing.—Shi Po

Little Pearl read the missive three times and still had no idea what it meant. Obviously, her mistress had expected to die. Did that mean she'd known General Kang would come for her? But Kui Yu was gone, too. Or was he? None of it made any sense.

Without conscious thought, she wended her way through the compound back to the kitchen. She would make soup for herself and the servants, something that could be eaten whenever whoever eventually appeared. It would boil in the back courtyard fire, the aroma an enticement to servant and student alike. Since no worker was around to start the fire, Little Pearl abused her feet more as she gathered charcoal and wood. The fire lit quickly, her hands moving at lightning speed. She poured water into the pot, then added the leftover stock from last night's chicken. One of the steelheads would go squirming into the pot as soon as the water boiled. In the meantime, she would chop vegetables while she thought.

She harvested the last of the green onion, chopping it quickly while the unnerving silence ate into her calm. The Tan household was marked by noise and movement of servants, students, even animals. All were absent, and so she doubled the noise of knife against wood to drown out the stillness.

Eventually the women appeared. By ones and twos, the students slipped into the kitchen, their eyes wide, their shoulders hunched in fear. Little Pearl acted as she always did. She pointed to the food, and as they ate, she gave them their instructions. No class today. Instead, they would clean and take stock of what had survived the night and what had not. All this would be reported back to Little Pearl in the kitchen. And in this manner, she survived the bulk of the day.

The first visitor appeared just before noon: Mrs. Sing with the laundry. Little Pearl paid from the kitchen money and made no answer to the woman's probing questions. Everything was as it should be, she lied. Why do you ask?

Then came the usual parade of beggars, cripples, and the curious. Despite her lies to the laundry woman, anyone who peered into the front courtyard would see the disaster. To these outsiders, she maintained a steady stream of small talk as if nothing were wrong, no one was missing, all was normal.

Ken Jin appeared just after midday, Ken Jin and his newest white pet. She dispensed with them as quickly as possible. She was ill-tempered with her former dragon partner, but she had no time for his games. They had once cared for one another, but he had grown too attached. Now she allowed her anger to pollute the air between them as a reminder to them both that a dragon and tigress might share yin and yang in their sexual congress, but they never loved one another. Nevertheless, when he left, she found herself stripping vegetables with more calm. If anyone could find out the truth about the Tans, it would be Ken Jin. She trusted him that much.

Time to steam the dumplings for the prostitutes' evening meal. Many of the students practiced their craft at the nearby pleasure gardens. None would receive dinner despite the exorbitant prices the madams charged for their services. So Little Pearl gave them dumplings filled with vegetables and herbs to aid in yang energy retention. They would eat between clients and gather much yang.

She had set the first dumplings in the steaming pot when another caller appeared: an associate of Master Tan requesting an audience. Little Pearl sighed. These interruptions did not make for balanced food.

She wiped the moisture off her face and hurried to the reception hallway. Two steps outside of the kitchen and she had to turn back around. She could not appear before a businessman as a cook. She quickly stripped out of her food-stained tunic and pulled on a respectable gown. She had only one—a well-worn black silk tunic with gold embroidery to bring brightness to her dark eyes. It was designed for seduction, the clasps pulling the fabric tight to her small hips and pert breasts. The skirt was slit all the way up her thigh. It was a respectable
chong san
for a respectable woman, though rather elaborate for midafternoon. It also made the men salivate and their yang surge, especially since it gave full view of her tiny bound feet.

She'd taken too much time changing her clothing, so now she had to rush to the receiving chamber. She used the handholds placed throughout the compound to ease the ache in her legs and to speed her progress, but she still appeared inappropriately breathless when she stepped into the reception room.

"My deepest apologies for the delay," she whispered, her voice automatically taking on the husky tones of a seductress. She never consciously changed her mannerisms, they simply shifted as she donned one outfit or another.

The man turned to greet her, his black Manchurian queue barely shifting with his body. She smiled and bowed to him, belatedly realizing that she had erred. Not only had she forgotten to order tea, but she was not hidden behind the women's screen. Only a prostitute or the clumsiest servant would appear before a visitor like this.

She felt her shoulders hunch in shame and her gaze dropped to the floor. Too late to slip behind the screen now. At best, she would have to act as exactly what she was: a stupid, ignorant servant awkwardly thrust into a role too elevated for her training.

"Master Tan not home today," she said in a coarse accent. "Best come back tomorrow."

The man didn't answer but studied her with unnerving intensity. She reciprocated the inspection, but through lowered eyelashes. He was of average height for a Han Chinese and had a fastidious appearance. His tunic was made of the best silk and excellently tailored, but his tone was modest, his entire impression... inconsequential. All except for a nearly hidden jade bracelet on his right wrist: an imperial dragon which marked him as a very well-connected man in Shanghai.

He dressed to be unnoticed, but Little Pearl had been trained to evaluate a man's qi in a heartbeat. This man had enough yang power to overwhelm a woman. He was not insignificant. If anything, he had the power of a governor or viceroy running through his veins. That he would hide such strength beneath modest tailoring made him doubly dangerous. The deadliest snakes hid in the most common grass.

"Greetings, Tan mistress," he said formally, his friendly tone completely at odds with his suppressed energy.