By Barry Hughart
Within the middle of the Forbidden urban, grasp Li and quantity Ten Ox, observed by way of a scarred puppeteer and his shamanka daughter, examine the homicide of revered mandarins. through the writer of Bridge of Birds. Reprint. PW. AB.
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How delightful that the record should be set by Sixth Degree Hosteler Tu! " Master Li was yelling. "He begins by bemoaning your excessive sensationalism, and then writes, ' Ut turpiter atrum desinat in piscem mulier formosa superne — ' " I nudged his arm and pointed, and Master Li arose and adjusted his robes. He stepped to the front of the platform as the bailiffs dragged the prisoner forward, and I could see the old man compose himself and begin formulating suitably dignified Confucian comments to help the hosteler resign himself to his imminent demise.
I climbed back into the palanquin and we proceeded in seemly silence between the Phoenix Towers and across the moat. Master Li has been out of official favor for years, but he still has the rank and proper credentials and the guards had no orders to stop him, and we passed without difficulty through the Meridian Gate and the Forbidden City opened in front of us. "Now I need your sharp young eyes," Master Li said. "If I'm right, one of the senior mandarins made a meal for a vampire ghoul, and for whatever reason his colleagues are doing everything in their power to hush it up.
All eyes turned to six figures that were racing into the square through the Gate of Prolonged Righteousness. The five men in the lead had wide staring eyes, faces bleached white with terror, and mouths gaping like coal bins as they emitted one earsplitting scream after another. The sixth figure was the cause of the commotion, and one look was enough to freeze my blood. I had heard tales of vampire ghouls from Auntie Hua since I was five years old, but I had never expected to see one, and this ch'ih-mei , as Master Li later confirmed, was a specimen so classic it could have been used to illustrate the famous scientific study by the great P'u Sung-ling, Recorder of Things Strange.