The Nine Fold Heaven by Mingmei Yip Read Free Book Online Page A

guarantee the many lonely tai tai, society ladies, wouldn’t harass my boyish face and delicate frame with their wandering eyes.
    The main singer, who’d replaced me, was about my size and age, pretty with a goose-egg face and twinkling eyes. However, I was relieved that both her appearance and her singing were far beneath mine. Because of the narrow range of her barely trained voice, she could only sing within a single octave. To cover up this flaw, she gestured and smiled a lot, with bobbing breasts and a slutty manner that were extremely annoying, at least to me.
    Obviously she was the sort of girl who cared only to attract a rich man to marry, or if he’s already married, at least become his kept woman. These so-called singers spent their time flirting and conniving instead of practicing. I did all these, too, and thanks to my spy training, I did them better. But because I genuinely loved music, I also practiced hard. So though I’d been trained to be rid of feelings, I rediscovered them through my singing.
    But these feelings didn’t emerge right away, only little by little, like flour seeping through a sieve. Big Brother Wang always taught that a spy’s feelings are equivalent to an incurable disease. In contrast, having no feelings protects against danger and might save your life. But I could not help but love singing, and the emotions it evoked progressively grew within me like a baby inside its mother’s womb.
    To my disappointment, after sipping my drink and listening to the girl’s meowing for half an hour, except for one or two vaguely familiar faces, I didn’t see anyone I knew. Where had they all gone? Could it be they used to come only to hear my voice and now did not care to listen to this talentless girl?
    The front table in the middle was empty. Only Master Lung and his entourage dared to sit there—his right-hand man Mr. Zhu, his son, Jinying, his bodyguard Gao, and me. The table, once fully occupied with laughing and shouting, now looked forlorn, like a jilted mistress or a discarded gown after a ball.
    Now I’d been sitting here for almost an hour with the lazy singer’s voice buzzing in my ears but had not detected anything useful. I was wondering if I should just get up and leave, when something happened that I could never have anticipated: my former boss Big Brother Wang was striding into the club with an entourage of eager lackeys, looming bodyguards, elegantly suited business partners, and expensive women.
    In all the time I had sung here and hung out with Master Lung as his number one woman, Big Brother Wang had never once shown his face in Bright Moon. Not that he wouldn’t want to push his way into his rival’s favorite night spot, but because he wasn’t ready to set off a war. Nor could he risk Lung noticing any sign that I recognized his arch enemy.
    So, what was my former boss doing here?
    My heart froze. If he recognized me, a moment later I’d be a bloody corpse lying on the glass floor. Because I betrayed him during the shoot-out at Lung’s secret villa. And he may have guessed that I had stolen his rival’s money and treasures, which my boss thought he was rightfully entitled to steal himself.
    Heads turned as the nightclub manager and waiters dashed to greet Wang and his people. Then, to my utter surprise, the entourage was led to sit at Master Lung’s table!
    To all of us who were regulars at Bright Moon, that table was sacred and untouchable, to only be occupied by Master Lung or at his invitation. This could only mean that the configuration of Shanghai’s underworld had finally shifted. Were Master Lung and his Flying Dragons gang now just one more finished chapter in Shanghai’s unsavory history?
    It was definitely time for me to leave. I tossed a few bills on the table, pulled up my collar, and hurried out.

6
    The Garden Party
    T he following Wednesday, I put on a simple dress and hired a car, then changed to a rickshaw to bring me to Edward Miller’s mansion