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Hulan ignored the outburst and hurriedly sorted through Brian’s things, which still lay in a messy pile under the window. As she stuffed gear into the backpack, she asked, “Where’s your brother’s journal?” When Angela didn’t answer, Hulan dropped the bag, turned, and pushed the girl up against the wall. “More people are going to die unless you tell me right now about your brother’s journal!”
“I gave it to Lily.”
“On the night she died?”
Angela bent her head and nodded.
That meant David had it with Lily’s other papers! Hulan shoved Angela toward the door. “Go to the front desk. Tell the night clerk to run to the Public Security Bureau. He has to tell Captain Hom not to go to the All-Patriotic Society meeting tonight.”
Angela stared at her dumbly. Hulan shook the American’s arm roughly. “Do you understand?” Angela nodded. “Go!” Hulan pushed Angela toward the lobby, knowing in her gut that the errand would be fruitless. Hom was probably in the cave by now. But Hulan had to prevent his death if she could.
She ran through the corridors back to the third courtyard, with the rooms for Lily and Dr. Strong. When she reached it, she left the colonnade and stepped out into the central courtyard and thrashing rain. A clap of lightning lit the sky for a moment as though it were midday, then it darkened again. She scurried to the scholar’s rocks in the middle of the courtyard and circled them twice, looking for an entrance. She circled again, focusing on the ground this time, hoping there might be a trapdoor of some sort. Nothing. She took a couple of steps back and looked at the rocks again, ignoring the fact that the rain had soaked through her clothes. The three rocks appeared to abut each other, but she could see now that there was empty space in the middle.
She circled again slowly, then stepped forward and slipped her hand into an opening between the two largest rocks. Even with the warm, wet wind whistling around her, she could feel cool air. She pulled her arm back out, slipped the backpack off her shoulders, and gripped it in her hand. She took a breath to calm her nerves, turned sideways, then slowly eased through the seam of the twin rocks. Once inside, she reached into the backpack and groped for the flashlight. She stood on wha
t looked to be the edge of a well. She had to be more careful!
She hunched down with her back against the rock, careful not to lose her footing on the rim of the precipice. She aimed the flashlight into the hole and saw footholds carved in the sides. With all of the rain she couldn’t test if this was actually a well. She had only two hands, and she was going to need them both. She turned off the flashlight and tucked it into the waistband of her pants. She shimmied around carefully so she could put on the backpack. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, she descended into the dark hole.
Five minutes later she’d reached the bottom and had the flashlight back on. Again, she rummaged through her bag until she found the miner’s lamp, which she put on. She looked up one last time, felt the rain on her face, then jogged down the dark tunnel. What had made Lily’s stories so enticing was the little grain of truth that had lain embedded in them. She had said that Wang had disappeared from the courtyard in plain sight of the liberating soldiers. He’d used this tunnel to escape, just as Lily’s killers had used it to bring her body back into the hotel. The monumentally difficult job of getting her up through the hole and back to her room without being discovered must have been outweighed by the knowledge that they were creating a seemingly unsolvable mystery.
As she ran, Hulan could hear conversations waft down from the village through cracks and holes that ran up to the surface. She knew she’d left Bashan behind when the muffled sounds of civilization ceased and she heard only her own footfalls and labored breathing. She had no idea what direction she was going or even where she was, but at least this stretch of pathway was clear and there were no obvious side tunnels or crawl spaces.
After a half hour, new sounds came to her from the darkness—thunder, lightning, the roar of the river somewhere near, and the scrabble of scurrying rats. Up ahead a flash from a lightning bolt lit an exit. Hulan slowed as she neared it, reached for her weapon, and aimed it ahead of her. At the edge of the exit, she peered out. Night had settled fully now, and the storm ravaged what little visibility there might have been. But in the momentary brightness of another streak of lightning, she saw that the tunnel opened onto a small track, which cut into the edge of the cliff less than a foot above the raging river.
She pulled her head back inside the cave and wiped the rain from her face with her forearm. She’d need both her hands free to traverse the rocky ledge, so she put away the gun and flashlight, then stepped out into the rain. With the light from the miner’s lamp, she saw the river churning just inches below her. The water crashed on the rocks, sending murky waves over her sandals, threatening to sweep her feet out from under her. The path narrowed even further as it inclined steeply. She put her back against the cliff that towered behind her and edged forward. No one ahead of her or behind her as far as she could see, but then she couldn’t see much as the rain lashed her face and obscured anything and everything around her.
Her left foot slipped out from under her, and she clung to a root. She regained her balance. Branches of lightning lit the world for another frightening moment. Water everywhere. Hand over hand she climbed, trying to secure her footing with each step until the path leveled out.
She still wasn’t exactly sure where she was going, but when this path dead-ended into another one, her instincts told her to go down. It was hard to tell in the dark, but this path looked unused except by animals. Then she heard chanting coming through the deafening sounds of the storm. After a few more meters, the chanting became very clear, even though she knew she was nowhere near the main entrance to the cave where the local All-Patriotic Society met.
“Subdue the wild tribes in our hearts. Practice the abstinence of alcohol, tobacco, and fornication.”
Hulan stepped through a small opening in the cliff and into deeper darkness. Unlike the first set of tunnels, this one had a strange musky smell. She remembered Michael Quon’s words to her earlier in the day: “Caves are alive.” A shudder passed through her body unrelated to the cold of the cave. She knew she was far from the cavern where she and David had first spoken with Dr. Ma, yet she knew from the overpowering odor of earth and mold that this cave had to be part of the larger system that riddled this entire hillside.
Murmured syllables floated to her. “Xiao Da, Xiao Da, Xiao Da.” Another piece fell into place. Wu Huadong’s father, the old blind man, had said that he’d heard Xiao Da, not that he’d seen him. Xiao Da’s voice must have traveled up through the cave system to the Wu home, just as the old man’s grandson’s cries had traveled down not just to the cave where Hulan and Michael had been today but to the cave on the beach where Brian’s body had disappeared.
Her eyes would never adjust in this gloom, and the miner’s lamp wasn’t much help. She shined the flashlight around her. This was a small cave with only one way to go. She shielded the beam of the flashlight so that it lit only the ground before her feet and crept forward.
“It is virtue that moves Heaven.” Xiao Da’s strange, unearthly voice echoed up to her. “And it is Heaven that punishes the guilty, for Heaven hears and sees as the people hear and see.”
“Be reverent,” came the response.
It was much cooler in here. Soaked clean through, Hulan shivered, and her teeth chattered.
“The river brings us life, so too does a leader,” Xiao Da told his flock. “When a leader gives repose to the people, his kindness is felt and the wild ones cherish him in their hearts.”
The roof began to slope down, and Hulan had to bend at the waist to get through. She came around a turn and up a small dip and saw a slight flickering on the walls and ceiling up ahead. She stopped and listened. She could hear people moving about. As quietly as she could, she took off the miner’s lamp, set down the backpack, and felt inside for her Luger. She steadied her grip on her weapon with her left hand and walked around the last corner and into the light.
Captain Hom lay naked on a bed of stone. His nose was gone. His bare feet hung off the edge of the platform above twin buckets—waiting. His hands had already been amputated and his arms pulled away from his body so that the blood could drain from his wrists into another set of buckets. His mouth was stuffed with something brown and pulpy. A horrible mess of tissue and blood coagulated where his penis had been. His eyes were open and staring at the stalactites above him. Next to him lay another naked man, presumably Hom’s brother-in-law, already dead. His nose, feet, hands, and penis had been cut off.
Michael Quon—the man who had tantalized Hulan with his stories of Da Yu, the man who was a mathematician like Da Yu, the man who had so obviously emulated Da Yu that he had twisted and corrupted his name to become Xiao Da—sat cross-legged on a rocky plinth just inside an alcove to the left of the gruesome tableau. On either side of him were braziers, which emanated both light and heat. A metal poker—probably the brand—nestled in the flames of one of the braziers. To the far right were a cot, camping table, lantern, and portable stove—creature comforts for long, undetected stays.
Quon looked at Hulan and spoke just loud enough for her to hear. “We make sacrifices for the good of others.”
So they were going straight into it, Hulan thought. Her fear and resolve were one.
“Da Yu meant personal sacrifice.” She slowly moved the Luger in Quon’s direction. “He labored so hard that the hair fell from his legs. Isn’t that what you told me?”
