[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.
As soon as the thoughts reached him, though, they vanished. Waiting in a lushly appointed chamber was the dragon. Or, rather, a dragon. This was not Áo Guăng, nor was it any of the other dragon kings. It had no horns, for one thing, and for another its scales were yellow and silver rather than the riot of greens, blues, golds and reds that marked each of the kings of four great seas. Even so, he doubted that even Number One Grandfather would be able to do anything to help him now.
"Are you a virtuous man, then?" The dragon's voice was dry, crackling like an ancient scroll being unrolled. "Answer me truthfully, human." The words curled up and around Wen, in the same way that the dragon curled up and around the crystal chair on the crystal dais at the head of the room. Beneath the dais glittered gold, silver, gems, precious stones and even bolts of expensive silk, presumably all removed from sunken ships.
"Virtuous? Me?" Wen laughed. "I have been accused of many things in my life, but never that."
"But it says—you are lying!" The dragon hissed, and a gust of wind shook Wen. "Your placard names you as virtuous!"
"My what?" As the dragon pointed a claw, Wen looked down and saw the sign Lum had placed on him. Now he lifted it from around his neck and turned it so he could see. Water had caused the characters to dissolve or run, but he could still read Wen Xia: A Man of Virtue and a Fit Sacrifice. "This is obviously someone's idea of a joke," Wen said. "I am here because I am of flawed, not virtuous, character."
"Do not mock me!" The palace shook as the dragon uncoiled; thunder beat on Wen's ears and wind roared around him; the dragon's eyes were drained of all color. "You are dead regardless of what happens, human!" The dragon's head shifted to the left, then the right. "Mo!" it shouted. "Mo, you pathetic wretch, get in here now!"
Wen heard a scrabbling sound, like rats in the hold, and then a beautiful young woman stood beside the dragon, her long black hair billowing over her shoulders as if unaware that she herself was no longer moving. "Did I not make it clear to you, freak, that you were to tell the humans that the sacrifice must be a person of uncommon virtue?"
"I did, exalted one," the woman said. "All of the humans in Fusang should know this now."
"And yet this human, wearing a sign proclaiming him to be a virtuous man, claims not to be. Can you think why that might be, freak?"
She is hardly a freak, Wen thought. Unless she is a yaoguai, a demon. Let us see. "I am sorry to interrupt, exalted one, but I find your servant's appearance distracting. Might it be changed?"
"What would you prefer?" the dragon asked, snarling. "Smaller breasts? Larger feet?"
"Something reminiscent of my father or grandfather, perhaps?"
Instantly, the beautiful woman was gone, replaced by a white-haired old man—who nonetheless stood straight and tall, a reminder that demons were immensely powerful, however they looked. "Your filial devotion is admirable, human," said the dragon. "And you call yourself not virtuous."
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