The girl runs towards us along the raised edge of the field. When she reaches us, she steps aside to let us onto the wider bit.
‘You came over the mountain? Aren’t you tired?’
I nod, then shake my head. Which question am I answering?
‘We’re looking for somewhere to stay tonight,’ I add quickly.
‘Come into town, then! I’m Ailin. This is Tiantai.’ She waves to the others. ‘Axing! Shall we take them to the inn?’
‘Yes, come on.’ The girl behind her picks up a basket and smiles at me. ‘We’re going back anyway.’
The third girl is looking down at my hand. I follow her gaze. Waving has pulled my sleeve back. There’s the scrape on my wrist again.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Oh, that. I fell on the way.’
She turns to Ailin. ‘Any clean cloth?’
‘At the inn. Tutu, give me your basket.’
Tutu hands it over and stays beside me. I start tugging my sleeve down.
‘Don’t rub it.’ Slowly, I pull it back up.
Ailin comes alongside Zuobituo and looks up at her mask. ‘Doesn’t your face get hot?’
My back goes straight.
‘We are cultivators,’ Zuobituo says. ‘This is my apprentice.’
‘What do cultivators do?’
‘We study the immortal arts.’
‘Wow. Can you do them too?’ Ailin asks me.
‘I’ve only just started.’
‘Oh, that’s why you’re with your teacher.’ She points ahead. ‘Careful going down here. Keep to the right.’
A chunk of the road is missing, grass growing in the hollow underneath. I follow her round it, loose earth shifting beneath my shoes. Across the street, grass grows inside a whole row of houses. Only the walls are left.
One doorway leans sideways, its upper half patched with fresh wood. A dark line runs along the wall beside it, almost as high as my shoulder.
‘The flood did that,’ Axing says, catching me looking. She gives me a hand over a broken step. ‘This way’s shorter. Just round the corner.’
‘Back early today?’ An old woman sorting vegetables by her door calls to the girls.
‘We’ve got visitors!’ says Ailin.
The old woman looks up at us and reaches beside her feet for a little stool. ‘Sit a while?’
‘They’re going to the inn.’
‘Oh, off you go, then. Have they got water on? I’ve got some hot here.’
Axing says she’ll come back for it. I’m still wondering whether I ought to bow when the old woman pulls her vegetable basket out of our way and waves us on.
‘Take your time.’
‘Thank you, Granny!’ I wave back.
A child runs after us to ask what’s in Axing’s basket. She lifts the cover. He says he doesn’t want leaves and runs off again.
We stop. There’s a sign above the door.
‘Number… t… Wo?’ I squint. ‘Number Two?’
Axing turns on the threshold.
‘No! Number One Inn the World.’ She points to the broken edge, where most of the last word is missing.
‘Oh! Sorry, I meant the sign, not—’
Ailin looks up and snorts. I point to the surviving letters, but Axing’s laughing too now, and soon I’m laughing too hard to finish my apology.
Someone peers out to ask what’s happened.
‘Nothing!’ I say quickly, and step inside.
Ailin brings a teapot out of the cupboard. She wipes its base on her sleeve before setting it on the table. The bowls beside it are chipped; she picks out a whole one for me.
‘We haven’t got good tea. But this smells lovely in hot water. Tutu picked it today.’
Perilla leaves slowly open in the water. I lean over the bowl, warmth rising round my nose.
‘Thank you. Have some too.’
Axing has already brought her bowl over and sat beside me. ‘Move along a little. You’ll get the sun there.’
It’s coming straight through a missing patch of wall. I shuffle along the bench. She drags it closer to the table, making room for Ailin, and calls Tutu over.
‘Was that the flood too?’ I ask.
‘Yes. They patched it, but it fell out again.’ Ailin sits and turns the teapot’s spout away from my hand. ‘Careful. That bit’s hot.’
I take a sip. It really does smell good, and afterwards there’s a little coolness on my tongue.
‘Oh, that’s nice.’
‘Isn’t it?’ Ailin beams. ‘Tutu, pick some more tomorrow.’
Tutu nods and spreads the rest of the leaves on the table. I turn one over. Purple underneath. Axing leans in too, asking what people drink where I’m from.
‘That’s a long conversation.’
‘Go on, then.’
All three of them are watching me. I set my bowl down properly and clear my throat.
‘First of all. Did you know you can put little round things in a drink? Things you have to chew?’
Axing looks into her bowl.
‘Not these!’ Laughing, I push a leaf aside. ‘They’re called pearls. Not actual pearls. They’re black, and when you bite them they’re a bit like…’
I stop. What are tapioca pearls like?
‘Anyway. They’re good.’
‘Do you scoop them out with a spoon?’
‘You suck them up a straw. Like—’
I purse my lips into a tiny circle and slurp. Halfway through, I choke on nothing. Axing pats my back while Ailin pushes my bowl towards me.
‘Take your time. We’re not going anywhere.’
Tutu gathers the leaves back into the basket and clears a space in the middle of the table. The man who peered out at us brings a plate of pickled vegetables, followed by a steaming pot of rice porridge.
‘Have something to keep you going. There’ll be dinner later.’
I’m about to say he needn’t go to all this trouble. Then the smell of rice reaches me, and what comes out is, ‘We ought to pay.’
Zuobituo sits down, gathering her white sleeves onto her lap.
‘We should pay for our food and lodging.’
I reach into my backpack. My fingers find my EasyCard before I remember there’s no money from this world in there. Zuobituo touches my hand beneath her sleeve. I look down as she takes a tiny pink glaze chip from her wrist and puts it in my palm.
‘This will do,’ she says quietly. ‘Renunciants must not handle money. Please do this for me.’
I nod.
‘Will this be enough?’ I ask the innkeeper.
He dries his hands on his apron before taking it. Turns it over. Turns it back.
‘Young lady, this is far too much! I couldn’t give you change if you stayed a year.’
‘It’s fine, really.’ I glance at Zuobituo, then back at him. ‘Could you… keep it as a tip?’
‘You’ve still got a journey ahead.’ He holds it out to me. ‘Put it away. You’re welcome to stay.’
Zuobituo steps forward and bows. ‘My apprentice must learn the ways of the world. Please accept it.’
He looks from her to me. At last he nods and finds a piece of cloth to wrap the chip in.
‘We’ll make you comfortable, then. The room at the back upstairs—the wind doesn’t blow straight in. I’ll fetch the bedding.’
Axing sets a bowl of porridge in front of me. ‘Do you put those black pearls in when it’s cold too?’
I nod through a mouthful, swallow, then have to add, ‘In summer we put ice in as well. Lots of ice.’
‘Doesn’t it hurt your teeth?’
‘If you drink it too fast, it hurts your head.’
Axing laughs against my shoulder. I nudge her upright and spoon myself some pickles.
‘But you still drink it?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘It must be really good, then,’ says Ailin.
‘Exactly! You get it!’
Afterwards, Tutu takes me to wash my wrist. The water’s a little hot. I test it, then slowly work the dirt off. She holds a clean cloth against the scrape and keeps it there until I say it’s all right.
Outside the door, Axing calls Ailin. They haven’t collected Granny’s water yet. Ailin answers, picking up my bowl as well.
‘Tell us the rest when you wake up. About the straw.’
‘OK. I can do street vendors’ voices too.’
She’s almost through the door. Now she turns back.
‘Sleep first,’ says Tutu.
I swallow the sales pitch I’m about to launch into and nod obediently.
Only one side of our upstairs window opens. The other hangs crooked. The innkeeper wedges a piece of wood into it, gives it a couple of pushes to show me it won’t fall, then leaves.
I close the door before Zuobituo unties her mask.
‘Did it press on anything?’ I ask.
‘No.’
She lays it beside her pillow and rolls up her sleeve to examine the cracks underneath. I pass her an unused cloth and watch her slowly wipe the dirt from their edges. Clean now, but still there. One thin crack runs up from her wrist.
‘Will that heal?’
‘The new damage can repair itself gradually. The old wounds will take longer.’
‘Lie down for a bit, then.’
She puts the cloth away and lies on the other bed. I start pulling the quilt towards her, but she says she isn’t cold, so I hug the corner back to myself.
The quilt has that warm, sun-dried smell. The mat underneath is a bit hard. I roll over and settle into place, only now noticing how much my legs ache.
Ailin’s voice drifts through the window. I can’t tell who she’s talking to. Someone laughs. A wooden bucket knocks against the ground.
I want to finish doing that voice when they come back.
My eyes close first.
When I open them, half the room is dark. My arm’s gone numb from sleeping on it. I lift it to shake it out, knocking my backpack off the pillow. Zuobituo catches it.
‘You are awake.’
Someone downstairs calls us to dinner. I sit there blankly for a while, get my feet into my shoes, then remember to answer.
Axing comes round again while we’re eating. From the doorway, she tells me her house is just behind the tree at the corner.
‘If you can’t find it, ask anyone.’
‘I’ll come and see you tomorrow.’
‘All right!’ Then she’s off; there are still things to put away at home. Someone calls Tutu and Ailin too. I wave with the hand holding my bowl and nearly send the soup over the edge.
The innkeeper steadies it.
‘No hurry. They all live close by.’
Back in our room after dinner, only a few voices linger outside. Zuobituo rests against the head of her bed, sleeves down again. I push the things I’ve rummaged through back into my bag, find my phone, and take it out.
Black screen. I press once. Fifty per cent battery. Press again. Wait.
When I was telling Axing about bubble tea, I thought how my brother would butt in if he were here. He’d say his one tasted better.
The screen goes dark. I wipe it on my sleeve. The window shows in it, and half my face beside it, looking a bit vacant.
Out in the corridor, someone collects the bowls. One small clink, then footsteps going downstairs. Fading.
I turn the phone face down on my lap and pick at the edge of its case.
‘Peach.’
‘Mm?’
Zuobituo reaches over and lightly touches the back of my hand.
‘Are you missing home?’
I shake my head. Stop. She doesn’t ask again, just waits, her face towards me.
I curl my hand round the phone and look up.
‘I…’
Red light starts flashing in her eyes.
The rest catches in my throat.
‘I am sorry, Peach… I sense creatures from the underworld nearby.’
She sits straight. I push the phone into my bag and get my feet onto the floor.
Her head leaves her shoulders.
‘Ah!’
I land straight back on the edge of the bed.
The chrysanthemum hangs in the air, rings of petals turning open around a glowing red ball. Below it, her white-robed body is still sitting there. Nothing above the collar.
‘Wait—your head!’
Warm air brushes my forehead. Like a floating jellyfish, she rises until she’s level with my eyes.
‘I will investigate. Stay in the room.’
One of the outer petals comes loose and drifts down onto my lap. I hurry to cup it in my hand. It’s thin, still warm from her body.
‘Place the petal before your eyes, and you will see what I see.’
Holding it between my fingers, I look from her to the headless body on the bed.
‘Is this… a live video feed?’
‘It is called “A Petal of Far Sight”.’
I lift it in front of my eyes and let go. It stays there, floating steadily. I run a finger along the edge. Still a little warm.
My hand has barely returned to the bed when she turns towards the window and floats out through its open half.