All those many months of struggle and danger, all the dead and wounded, all that suffering for nothing. That was my only thought; actually, it was more of a sensation, an image that encompassed the whole idea and remained fixed in my mind. I didn't notice the passing of time. I wasn't aware of anything. Inside, I'd come to a complete stop.
“What are we going to do now?” came Fernanda's voice from far away.
“We'll find an answer,” I murmured.
“No! There is no answer!” Lao Jiang thundered furiously. “We'll give the jiance to the Green Gang so they can see for themselves that the entrance has disappeared. Then they'll leave us in peace and we can go back to our lives in Shanghai. This madness is finally over.”
I was outraged. I hadn't expended all that energy and subjected my niece to all these dangers just to admit such an absurd, humiliating defeat.
“I do not want to hear that again!” I shouted. The antiquarian looked at me aghast, as did Fernanda, Biao, and Master Red. “You want to give the jiance to the Green Gang? You're insane! We'd be handing them the mausoleum on a silver platter. All they'll have to do is come with a crew and start digging. We'll give them the First Emperor's tomb and its incalculable riches in exchange for our little lives in Shanghai or Paris, is that it? Oh, and don't forget to tell them how to avoid the traps inside! We'll give it all to them just so they'll leave us in peace, is that right? You seem to have forgotten that the Green Gang is nothing more than the criminal arm of the imperialists and Japanese you despise and fear so much. Think! Use your head if you don't want to bow to an all-powerful Manchu emperor who'll force you to wear the Qing queue again!”
“What do you want? Do you want us to start digging?” he mocked. “I want us to do something, anything, to find some other way into the mausoleum!” I shouted, leaving them dumbfounded. “If we have to dig, we'll dig!”
I was getting fired up just listening to myself. I knew I was right, that was what we had to do, but if anyone had asked me how to resolve the problem, I'd have deflated like a popped balloon. However, my speech unexpectedly seemed to wake Master Red as if from a dream.
“It might be possible,” he said very quietly.
“What did you say?” I asked, feeling somewhat in command of the situation.
He glanced at me, embarrassed (it was still difficult for him to address me directly), and looked down at the ground before repeating, “It might be possible to find another way in.”
“Don't be ridiculous!” Lao Jiang snapped.
“Please don't take offense,” Master Red entreated. “I remember having read something, a long time ago, about some shafts that were dug by bands of thieves who wanted to loot the mausoleum.”
“The First Emperor's mausoleum?” I asked, bewildered. “This mausoleum?”
“Yes, madame.”
“But, Master Red Jade, that's impossible,” I reasoned. “To begin with, they had to know where it was, and no one has known anything about it for two thousand years.”
“Exactly, madame,” he agreed quite calmly. “There is a passage in the Shui Jing Chu—”
“Commentary on the Waterways Classic by the great Li Daoyuan?” the antiquarian asked, taken aback. “You've seen a copy of Commentary on the Waterways Classic?”
“Indeed,” the monk admitted. “A copy as old as the work itself, which was written during the Northern Wei dynasty.”44
“One day the abbot of Wudang and I will have to talk business,” the antiquarian mused.
“And what did this passage in Commentary on the Waterways Classic say?” I interrupted, before it became a discussion about all the valuable books in the Mysterious Mountain libraries.
“Xiang Yu was founder of the Han dynasty, the one that came after that of the First Emperor. According to the text, Xiang Yu assassinated the Qin imperial family and razed Xianyang, the capital, then went to Shi Huang Ti's mausoleum and set it on fire after taking all of the treasures.”
“That's impossible,” Lao Jiang said calmly. “Li Daoyuan wrote his work seven hundred years after the Qin dynasty disappeared. If such a thing had occurred, Sima Qian would have mentioned it in his Records of the Grand Historian, written just a hundred years after the fall of Qin and very well documented.”
“I agree with you,” Master Red asserted. “That is also the opinion held by all the wise and learned men who wrote about this part of Li Daoyuan's work during the fourteen centuries after. However, I remember that one of them, an old feng shui master, told a strange story about an ancient treatise. He said that although Li Daoyuan's story was false, there had indeed been two serious attempts to loot the First Emperor's mausoleum in the two hundred years after his death. Both were organized by noble families in the Han court that were anxious to get hold of his immense riches. In both cases they bored very deep shafts in order to reach the underground palace.”
“And were they successful?” Lao Jiang asked skeptically.
“The first attempt failed because although they had the financial resources, they didn't know the techniques required to bore that deep.”
“Those Han engineers weren't as skilled as the Qin foremen,” my niece commented.
“That's right,” I agreed. The night was getting much colder, and despite my lined boots, my feet were two blocks of ice.
“The second attempt had better luck,” Master Red continued to explain. “The thieves arrived at the mausoleum but were never heard from again. It seems they perished inside.”
“The automatic crossbows,” I murmured.
“Most likely,” Lao Jiang admitted. “But unless Master Red Jade can tell us exactly where the thieves dug the shaft on the second attempt, this whole conversation is pointless.”
“I can tell you that,” Master Red announced, smiling broadly. “The wise man who referred to these events was a master in feng shui from the Three Kingdoms45 period. He didn't know where the First Emperor's tomb was located, but as a feng shui master he did possess the geomantic information that today could lead us to the shaft that reached the mausoleum.”
“And you can remember that geomantic information?” asked Biao, who hadn't said a word until then.
“Of course I can,” the monk said, still smiling. “It's quite simple. All you have to do is find the Dragon's Nest.”
Biao opened his mouth and eyes as if he'd just heard the most extraordinary words in the loveliest poem in the world.
“Dragons don't exist, Master Red Jade! So how would we find a nest?” Fernanda challenged.
“I'm not talking of real dragons,” the monk said, laughing. “A Dragon's Nest is a concept in feng shui. For us Chinese the dragon symbolizes good luck. A Dragon's Nest is a place where there is a powerfully balanced and natural concentration of chi energy. It's very rare and hard to find. In antiquity a Dragon's Nest indicated the precise spot where an emperor was to be buried. If the geomantic location was also correct, as was the case here, then the burial was especially fortunate and the dead were assured a good life in the hereafter.”
“That's true,” Lao Jiang said. “This is the proper geomantic location for a burial: the Fire of red raven to the south, which is the crests of Mount Li; the Water of black tortoise to the north, the river Wei; the Metal of white tiger to the west, the Qin Ling mountain range we crossed from Wudang; and to the east … What is there to the east?” he asked perplexed. “There's nothing there.”
“Nothing we can see,” the master replied. “The area to the east, that of the green dragon, will most certainly be protected in some way.46 Shi Huang Ti's master geomancers were the best of their time.”
“I've heard of this white tiger, red raven, black tortoise, and green dragon,” I commented, surprised. “I think they explained it in a class about the Five Elements I went to at the monastery.”
“You're right.” The monk nodded. “The science of chi, the Five Elements, feng shui, the I Ching, the martial arts, and all of our culture's other ancestral knowledge are related.”
“So, getting back to the Dragon's Nest,” I said, taking up the conversation before we went off on another tangent. “Was the shaft that got down as far as the mausoleum in a Dragon's Nest or just the First Emperor's tomb?”
“I'm certain the tomb was built in a Dragon's Nest, but what that great scholar from the Three Kingdoms period emphasized as being special was that the shaft down to the mausoleum had been dug in a second nest very near the first. This is highly unusual.”
“Then it would have been destroyed when it was dug up.”
“A Dragon's Nest isn't destroyed, madame,” he replied patiently. “It's not a piece of earth that, once turned, is never the same again. It's a place where the concentration of the earth's chi is particularly strong and in the best possible conditions. That energy alters the ground, creating a characteristic pattern, which is how nests are found.”
“A pattern?” Biao asked.
“A Dragon's Nest tends to be more or less circular in shape, and within it the ground is two different colors: dark brown and light brown, separated by a white line. The dark earth is viscous, and the light earth is loose, like sand. The two colors form a pattern inside the nest that can be concentric circles, spirals, waning moons, or even the whirl of t'ai-chi.”
“Tai chi?” I asked, amazed. What did our morning exercise have to do with a Dragon's Nest?
“No. T'ai-chi. It's different. T'ai-chi is a pattern that represents yin and yang in the colors black and white in a small circular whirl, each side containing a dot of the other color. Dragon's Nests can sometimes also present this image.” Master Red pulled up the collar of his coat. “Two thousand years ago, a wealthy, noble Han family ordered that a deep shaft be dug down to the mausoleum. Their master geomancers found the best place to do this: an unexpected Dragon's Nest. This ensured the project's success. However, all the servants who went down the shaft and reached the bottom died. Surely this would have frightened them enough that they'd have ordered it be filled in and then forgotten all about the matter. But a shaft that deep couldn't be just a simple hole, especially because this was a well-financed project. The shaft had to be wide enough for them to easily remove the treasures, with reinforced walls in order to prevent a collapse, some sort of pulley system to lower workers and pull up baskets of earth or, more likely, steps dug into the walls. When the attempt failed and they closed the shaft, the chi energy would emerge once again over the centuries and re-create the Dragon's Nest. Now that you know what it looks like, all we have to do is find it.”
“Tomorrow morning at first light,” Lao Jiang declared, “we'll divide up the area around the burial mound and begin our search.”
“And now let's please get some sleep,” I pleaded. “I'm exhausted and frozen.”
However, I couldn't sleep a wink, and the night felt particularly long. We were all nervous and impatient. I heard the children rustle around for hours and Lao Jiang and Master Red whisper until early morning. Our blankets were covered in frost when dawn began to brighten the sky at last, and we got up to do our tai chi (not t'ai-chi). We finally warmed up after the exercise and the hot tea we had for breakfast once dawn broke so that we could light a fire.
Biao timidly proposed we divide up the four points of the compass. Fernanda and he would go together, he said, but my niece flatly refused. She was perfectly capable of finding a Dragon's Nest on her own, without anyone's help, so I teamed up with poor Biao, and we would cover red raven, the south. Lao Jiang took white tiger, the west; Fernanda took green dragon, the east; and Master Red took black turtle, the north. This last area was the most extensive, since it went as far as the river Wei, but Master Red was well versed in feng shui and had his luo p'an to study the terrain—in other words, if the Dragon's Nest was in his section, he'd walk straight to it following the chi energy lines. Since the areas that had to be covered were so vast, we took our lunch with us. First we went by horse to the mound Sima Qian said covered the mausoleum. Then we placed stones on top of the horses’ reins so they wouldn't escape while we were gone. Finally we all set off to the side we'd been assigned around that verdant pyramid of earth.
“We'll walk up and down parallel to the mound, Biao. What do you say?”
“Sounds good, tai-tai, but to cover our territory as far as the base of Mount Li a bit faster we could walk from opposite directions and meet in the middle. That way we'll do double the work in half the time.”
“That's a marvelous idea. Remember, each line has to be a little longer the farther we get from here.”
“We could count the number of steps and take one more each time.”
I lifted my hand and ran it over his wiry hair. “You'll go far in this world, Little Tiger.”
His ears blazed red, and he smiled modestly. It was amazing to think how much he'd grown during our journey. I recalled seeing him for the first time in the garden at the house in Shanghai, standing next to Fernanda. I thought he looked like a crafty street urchin and wasn't impressed by what I took to be willfulness. How wrong first impressions can sometimes be.
We walked up and down that stretch of land all morning without finding a thing, stopping to eat at midday after the boy had complained of being hungry the three previous times we'd met in the middle. We'd barely taken a bite of our rice balls wrapped in mulberry leaves when a shout that seemed to come from the other side of the planet made us look at one another in surprise.
“Is someone calling, or did I imagine it?” I asked Biao, who was voraciously chewing a mouthful. He gave a nasal grunt that seemed to indicate he wasn't sure, and then we heard the shout again. “They're calling us, Biao! Someone has found the Dragon's Nest!”
He gobbled down his rice and, sputtering, stood up at the same time I did.
“Where's it coming from?” I asked, trying to get my bearings.
Since we couldn't tell, we waited quietly.
“Over there!” Biao exclaimed as soon as the shout was heard again, running off to the east, toward Fernanda's area. That's when I saw her. I thought I could make out several horses galloping but just one rider, and I could tell by the clothes that it was my niece. As I ran toward her, I realized she was one of those people who isn't proficient at anything quite simply because no one has ever encouraged them to try anything new. When she arrived in China, she was overweight and dressed in mourning—oh, that horrid bonnet! She had an unpleasant nature and a foul temper. But when she started to eat with chopsticks, she quickly became adept at it. She learned to play Wei-ch'i and was soon as good as Biao (and the boy was a genius); she had begun tai chi less than a month earlier and already excelled; she had refused to learn Chinese, but once she put her mind to it, she was at my level within a week; and now, in the middle of this Chinese prairie, I watched her gallop on a horse as if she'd taken lessons and ridden along the promenades in Madrid's Retiro Park her whole life. I would have to do something with that girl once we got back to Europe—if we got back.
Biao and I stopped running.
“Auntie!” she shouted, reining in her horse when she reached us. “Master Red Jade found the Dragon's Nest over an hour ago! I was nearby so he told me first, and then he went to find Lao Jiang. I've brought your horses so we don't waste any time. It's quite far.”
“Wonderful!” I exclaimed. “Let's go!”
The only problem was how to make a horse gallop when you barely know how to get it to walk and, on top of that, felt a certain … shall we say respect for an animal of that size. This is no time to be cowardly, Elvira, I said to myself, mounting with verve. Surely all you had to do was use the stirrups to kick it in the belly a little more quickly and firmly than when encouraging it to walk. Feeling a bit frightened, that's what I did, and indeed I set off for the burial mound at top speed, followed not far behind by the children. Luckily, no one I knew back in Paris could see me bouncing around, leaning this way and that in the saddle.
We rode for a good while and went past the mound without stopping. The river Wei was still quite far off, b
ut its sparkling waters could be seen in the distance beyond the small, upright figures of Lao Jiang and Master Red, who seemed to be waiting for us. It didn't take long to reach them. Hauling firmly on the reins, we stopped next to their horses and dismounted. The two men were smiling broadly.
“Look at the Dragon's Nest,” Lao Jiang said. I was still somewhat unsteady on my feet but walked over to where he was pointing, my eyes fixed on a light-colored oval shape with strange zigzags of dark mud inside. It wasn't very big, perhaps two feet in length. It wouldn't have caught my eye if I'd never heard of a Dragon's Nest, and yet it really was quite unusual-looking.
“It's likely been planted over many times,” Master Red remarked, “and this land must have always produced a good crop.”
“What do we do now?” I asked. “Dig? Let me remind you that we don't have shovels.”
“Yes, I had thought of that, and it's a bit of a setback,” Lao Jiang murmured.
“We could go to that little town by the train station,” Biao proposed, “but we wouldn't get back here until tomorrow.”
“I have a solution to propose,” the antiquarian announced mysteriously. “I have a small amount of dynamite in my bag that we could use to open the shaft.”
As had happened in Nanking when the first battalion of Kuomintang soldiers saved us from the Green Gang and I found out that the antiquarian had been hiding the fact he was a member of that party, I felt myself slowly fuming at having been deceived once again. He was carrying explosives? With the children there? Since when? Ever since Shanghai? What did he plan on using them for? Any old weapon was a better means of defense, and he had his steel fan. So why was he carrying explosives from one place to the next, over thousands of miles, across China, knowing how dangerous that was?