Jade Maiden 6.2

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[continuing chapter 6]

"You are becoming disrespectful again, and we will not tolerate that."  Number One Grandfather looked more than usually unhappy, but Wen couldn't tell whether it was because he was preparing a smack on the head or because he was regretting the small part he and his fellow ancestors had played in Chin's initial escape with Wen.  "There is surprisingly little being said about General Chin these days outside of the bars on Penglai Island," he eventually said.

"It wouldn't bother me if I never heard his name again," said Wen.  He heard himself sighing as well.  In his case, though, he knew exactly what the problem was.  He was nowhere near as rich as he wanted to be—needed to be.  And it was, he suddenly realized, not so much a matter of being bored as it was of finding the demands of three dozen men—and one very frustrating young woman—much more of a problem than he'd ever contemplated, when he first imagined being a pirate.

So when Number One Grandfather said, "There is, in fact, a simple solution to your problem of too-small treasures," Wen suddenly found himself telling the craggy old spirit to just tell him.

Jade Maiden 6.1

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SIX

"On the whole, we have approved of what you have been doing of late.  This is why we have been leaving you alone as much as we have.  But now something in you seems to have changed, and we feel it is our duty to correct you."  Number One Grandfather hovered over the small table—or, rather, his head and upper torso did; the rest of him had faded to vapor in a way that made Wen feel slightly queasy.

"I don't understand what you mean," Wen muttered, "and I wish you wouldn't feel compelled to explain."  They were going to anyway, of course.  He knew the relative quiet of late had been too good to last.

"We don't really have to explain anything," said Number One Grandfather, sounding smug and entirely too pleased with himself.  "Your subordinate Lum has spelled it all for you; all you have to do is read the scroll he's left you."

Jade Maiden 5.11

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[concluding chapter 5]

Once the man had been revived and given a drink of strong wine, Wen tried again.  "I'm here to trade, not to cut your throat.  No, please don't faint again."

"But—but, 'Bloody Sheet' Wen...!" the man said.

"Doesn't hurt those who readily accede to his demands," Fengzi said, exasperation dripping from the words.  "And what he demands is to trade with you.  What part of this do you not understand?"

"And please, call me The Notorious Wen if you refer to me at all."

The Cosmic Jukebox?

 A few days ago I finished reading Electric Shock, a not-quite comprehensive history of recorded popular music, written by the British journalist Peter Doggett. I highly recommend the book, despite a few blind spots displayed by the author (and too much attention paid, so far as I'm concerned, to British band-leaders in the period between the world wars... and really to British pop music overall), and I am completely blaming Doggett for the fact I've done virtually no writing at all in September.

The reason for this is buried near the end of the acknowledgments at the end of the book (and we're talking about 736 pages here, including the index), where Doggett comments that through YouTube he was able to listen to every top-selling record ever released. And we're talking about songs recorded as long ago as 1890.

So I thought I'd spend a little time trying to verify his claim. And yep, so far he seems to be right.

John Philip Sousa? Check, an 1890 recording of Semper Fidelis by the US Marine Corps Band.

Recording of the first true "pop" song? Check, an 1893 recording of "After the Ball" by George G. Gaskin. (I don't advise listening to this one; it's puerile mush, really. Not unlike most of the work of Max Martin.)

First recording superstar? Oh, absolutely. YouTube is chock full of the early records (and they were all early records, 'cause the man died in 1921) of... Enrico Caruso. Man released nearly 250 records in the first two decades of the twentieth century, and he had a contract (with Victor) that paid him $2,000 a year just as a retainer. The estimate is that he earned something like five million dollars from those 247 records. That's the equivalent, today, of about $138 million.

But I digress.

Jade Maiden 5.10

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[continuing chapter 5]

"We're tired of eating dried, salted fish.  That's all."  The man, evidently not happy at having been appointed spokesman for the crew, twisted his long hair between two fingers.

"Ah.  So mutiny has never entered into the discussions?"

"Gods, captain, of course not!  You're a much better captain than Chin Gwai ever was, honest!  It's just that we've been eating that stuff for weeks now and our lips are all cracked and our noses are drying out.  How can you stand that stuff?"

Jade Maiden 5.9

Previous    First

[continuing chapter 5]

He thought about the money that he had so far largely failed to accumulate, and his father somewhere on the south coast, sick and miserable and himself unable as yet to do anything to help.  "And I hate that my father has been a complete failure at everything he's tried to do, because everything he's tried to do has been dictated by his duties—as a son, as a student, as a—as a Chinese!  Don't you wake up some mornings, Fengzi, and just think that something's not right about the way things are?"

"Pretty much every day," she said.  She was, he realized, looking at him in a sort of cocked-head way, as if he'd done something strange like pull a moon-cake out of one ear.  "You'd best watch yourself, Captain Wen.  Try to do too much and the gods will smack you down."

Jade Maiden 5.8

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[continuing chapter 5]

"Hey, Wen!"  Pocapetl waved as Wen stumbled down the stairs into the semi-basement main room of the wine-shop.  "Have you heard the news? Chin's escaped again!"

"Why doesn't anyone just execute the big idiot?" Wen asked, taking up the cup Pocapetl offered him.  "Why do they insist on gloating at him?  It only makes the man angry, and gives him time to break loose of whatever they've bound him with."

"You're sure right about that, barbarian Bloody Sheet."

"Oh, stop.  I don't need that from you."

"You have a reputation now," Pocapetl said.  "Don't you want to revel in it, just a little?"

Jade Maiden 5.7

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[continuing chapter 5]

"And then he let them all go!"  The Jade Maiden crewman—Wen didn't know his name, but figured he would soon enough if it mattered—turned to the people on the opposite side of the table before he continued.  "He didn't execute a single one, not even the governor's assistant under-secretary who happened to be accompanying the cargo, or some of it."

"Not a single execution?"  This from an old man who looked as if he'd have trouble executing a bowl of rice gruel.  "That's not the way it was done in my day!"

"No, you're right there, old man.  Instead we sailed the ship to the nearest village and put everyone ashore.  The only thing Captain Wen did that I understood was he told everyone to tell everybody they met about what they'd seen.  Not that he had to remind them.  I could hear them as we were leaving, and all I kept hearing was 'sheet of blood.'  We're right in it now, and no doubt of it."

Jade Maiden 5.6

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[continuing chapter 5]

The helmsman did his job perfectly; Jade Maiden sidled up alongside the coaster, just outside of what would be effective cannon-range were the coaster armed.  Which evidently she was not, beyond the fighters on top of the rear cabin—it looked like a turret on the Great Wall—the ship appeared to be too poorly favored to be worth defending properly.  The fighters were probably mercenaries, too.  Well, that will work in my favor, thought Wen.

"All right, everyone," he said, trying to keep his voice pitched low.  "Get ready to stand, on my command."  He turned to Foghorn.  "Hail them, please."

"ATTENTION OVER THERE.  MY CAPTAIN, THE NOTORIOUS WEN XIA, CALLS FOR YOUR SURRENDER."

Jade Maiden 5.5

Previous    First

[continuing chapter 5]

"Is everybody ready?"  Wen paced the deck, feeling stupid at being so nervous, and wondering if this afflicted all captains, or only those who had suddenly discovered they were in too deep.  "You all know what to do?"

"We know, Wen Xia."  Yin Fengzi stepped in front of him.  "It's not as if this is Beijing Opera we're performing here.  Stop that pacing," she added as Wen tried to dodge around her, nearly colliding with the mainmast in the process, "or I will turn you into a carp and put you in a bucket until this over."

Jade Maiden 5.4

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[continuing chapter 5]

The crew were less than enthusiastic about having a woman aboard, and it wasn't just superstition.  From a practical perspective, having to allocate a section of the cabin to Yin Fengzi alone meant that the other men had to divide less space amongst themselves.  And Wen had made it very clear that nobody would be sharing space with her.

They accepted Fengzi, though, when Wen reminded them of their last defeat and explained how a Daoist adept could deal with the better-defended imperial cargo ships.  And once they'd seen Yin Fengzi practicing her spells on the rear of the deck, above the cabin, they stopped grumbling.

Jade Maiden 5.3

Previous    First

[continuing chapter 5]

"I would be perfectly happy to see the Ming overthrown," Wen said.  "It's just not my main goal.  What I want is to get rich."  For some reason he found himself reluctant to admit that his primary reason for getting rich now was to help his father.  Perhaps, he thought, it isn't the sort of thing a dangerous desperate pirate would really say.  "If the dynasty falls in the process, that's just fine."  He turned to her.  "Would you like to be rich?"

"Who wouldn't?"  She turned to face him, and he felt the mountain crumbling away beneath him.  It was a lot easier to understand what men were thinking from the way they looked at you; the expression on Fengzi's face was... disturbing.  "But would wealth really make me any happier?  I am content here, Wen Xia.  Scholar Wu leaves me alone to pursue my studies, and what more could I really want?"

Jade Maiden 5.2

Previous    First

[continuing chapter 5]

"Fascinating," Wu said.  "Clearly not carved by any man's hand, or at least by any man not one of the Immortals.  Who, I suppose, didn't really have much interest in gem-stones, did they?  I'm sorry; I'm rambling.  I suppose you're here to see Yin Fengzi; men who look like you don't, in my experience, have much use for men who look like me."

"I am here to see Fengzi," Wen said.  "As for your wise self, I prefer to defer judgment.  In my experience one never knows when one will need the assistance of a learned man."  Even one as distracted-looking and scattered as you seem to be.

Jade Maiden 5.1

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FIVE

"Of course she's living at the top of a mountain," Wen said to himself, pausing for breath after each word.  "She doesn't have to climb the thrice-damned thing.  She just flies home after a day at the market."

Penglai, outside the port town of Panjiakou, was very much a wild place.  Wild, and inconveniently dry.  Most of the plants on this mountain were tough and wiry, and alarmingly similar in many respects to the Jade Maiden's crew; this wasn't exactly nature as the ancient sages described it.  Also, there appeared to be no streams on this mountain from which a thirsty man could refresh himself.  You could have just sent one of the wharf-rats up this hill to fetch Yin Fengzi, Wen told himself.  But no, you had to do the honorable thing and come up here in person.  Some pirate captain you're turning out to be.  Some leader of men.

Jade Maiden 4.10

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[concluding chapter 4]

"Here is what I am suggesting," Wen told the assembled crew of the Jade Maiden.  Several of the soldiers from the merchant ship just taken, he noted, had joined.  "I have not lost my interest in sailing with you.  What I have lost—besides my left eye—is my interest in serving under Chin Gwai.  However virtuous he may be—and we have it on the highest authority that he is a virtuous man—he did try to sacrifice me to a demon, and I find I am rather unwilling to forgive that."  Chin was, Wen was pretty sure, upset about the way things had ended up, but he still had the decency to look embarrassed.  Sullen, too, but still embarrassed.

"Plus, although I would be lying if I said that I was dedicated to the idea of restoring Fusang to a proper government that has the mandate of heaven, I would also be lying if I said that I was opposed to the idea.  As I've said before, I see no reason why Fusang can't have a proper government so long as we can get rich in the process."  Someone he couldn't see gave a small cheer, and Wen felt his smile broaden.

Jade Maiden 4.9

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[continuing chapter 4]

Chin had regained his senses by the time he, Wen and the now-recovered demon entered the dragon's crystal palace.  He said nothing, though, simply stared at the glittering diamond-like floor.  As he was bound hand and foot, he did nothing either.

"That was a very amusing battle."  Wen heard the dragon's voice well before the creature appeared in the chamber.  "And this is your virtuous man, is it?"  A clink and clatter of precious metal and stones announced the yellow dragon as it slithered through the treasure-hoard.  "If the gods lend strength to a virtuous man, then this is surely the man I seek, because he would have killed you without the assistance of that freak Mo."

"I was trying very hard not to hurt him," Wen said with forced respect.  "I suspect you would find me more than a match for any opponent whose well-being I was not trying to preserve."  I'd like to believe that, anyway, he thought.  Taking a deep breath, he walked over to Chin.  "And at this moment, demon, I am not especially interested in his well-being."

Jade Maiden 4.8

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[continuing chapter 4]

So far as Wen could see the demon made no gesture.  But one second she and Liang Sheng were facing one another, and the next the old adept was hundreds of paces away, tumbling end over end in a fluttering of raggedy old silk and cotton.  As Wen watched one of Liang's slippers came off his foot and flew up into the air before arcing down into the sea.  Wen was sure he heard a little plop as the slipper hit the water.  Then he heard Liang Sheng's wailing voice, wobbling a bit as the old man tumbled away into the distance and invisibility.

"Thank you," he said, bowing to the demon (who for some reason refused to clothe or shape-shift its enticing nakedness).  "I will remember all that you have done for me."  He tried very hard to look deeply into the demon's eyes as he said this, but received no response.

Jade Maiden 4.7

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[continuing chapter 4]

Chin stood, eyes wide and mouth slack, and the weight of his sword pulled his arm down, threatening to drag Wen's sword down with it.  As suddenly as time had slowed and broadened, it snapped back into its normal speed and shape.  Wen pulled his sword free of Chin's, flipped it around, grabbing it as it finished its turn, and in a single smooth motion smashed the pommel into the space between Chin's eyebrows.  The huge man grunted, once, the sound of air being forced from him, and then collapsed to the deck as if he'd been a sack of rice.

Only when he was sure that Chin was not going to get up again did Wen turn to see what had so distracted Chin.  He was just in time to see a beautiful, shapely—and very naked—young woman fall to the deck.  "I suppose that was help of a sort," he said to himself.

Jade Maiden 4.6

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[continuing chapter 4]

The ship on which Wen and the demon traveled was ancient, so simple it was essentially a raft.  After untold centuries at the bottom of the sea it should not have floated—and in fact it did not float; it was carried above and through the waves on the backs of several dozens of the dragon's shrimp-soldiers.  Wen stared, fascinated and appalled, as the sun turned spray into diamonds against the blades of the soldiers' spears.  Are they here to help me, he wondered, or kill me once I've pointed out the virtuous man?

When they found the Jade Maiden, it was a sight that gladdened Wen's heart: she was grappled to a medium-sized fuchuan cargo ship and her crew was nowhere to be seen.  That meant the rebels were swarming across the deck and into the fuchuan's crew.  Wen's heart rang with joy at the thought, and he gripped the hilt of his sword and broadened his stance on the smooth-worn, ancient deck of his raft.  A fight meant chaos, confusion: things he could exploit; he was unlikely to be able to claim his target in a fair fight.  "I may be busy for a few minutes once we reach that ship," he told the demon, grinning.

Jade Maiden 4.5

 Previous    First

[continuing chapter 4]

When Wen regained his senses the world looked different, closed in somehow.  It was the space of several breaths before he understood that he was seeing through just one eye, and something cold was pressing against the other.  Slowly he climbed to his feet, smoothing his tunic and trousers.  Something tugged at his hair.  "Why?" he asked the dragon, not daring to touch his face.  At least the pain had stopped.

"Now I will know everything you do," the dragon said.  "Because I will see everything you see."  The dragon now sported a third eye—Wen's left eye—in the middle of its forehead.

Jade Maiden 4.4

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[continuing chapter 4]

"I admit I like my father, most of the time.  As for my grandfathers…"  He let his voice trail away.  There was no chastising smack on the back of his head.  Most likely ancestral spirits couldn't force their way into a place as magically powerful as this.  The dragon showed its teeth.  "But it was Father who showed me, by his life of hard work and devotion, that hard work and devotion is seldom enough if you are born poor and you want to ride the tiger."

The dragon hissed.  "That is not a virtuous thing to say.  And the god of wealth should not be invoked so casually, especially before a dragon."

Jade Maiden 4.3

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[continuing chapter 4]

Wen was surprised to regain his senses and not be in any of the hells to which Father had always predicted he would go.  Instead, he was bound, hand and foot, to a pole being carried toward a palace whose walls shivered and sparkled, a carved crystal mounted in the rich blue-green of the ocean depths.  The soldiers who carried the pole, he realized, were gigantic shrimps, albeit shrimps in lacquered armor. Their commanding officer was a crab; each of its legs was the thickness of a man's upper arm.  I see black beans and garlic in your future, Wen thought.  Just get me loose from this pole.

It was only when he was inside the palace that it occurred to him to wonder how it was that he had been able to breathe under the sea.  And where are the grandfathers, he wondered.  They should be reveling in my discomfort, and doing everything they can to increase my suffering.  I don't suppose they'd actually be interested in helping me here.