Red Mandarin Dress

screamed and scurried and was caught by the patroller. The mention of the red mandarin dress was enough to put the officer on the alert, so he called at once.
    Liao had hardly started the van when a second call came in from the patrolling cop.
    “A hotel uniform was also found there, not too far from the body, and a hotel hat too.” The patroller added, “Come quick. The grave robber has fainted. He believes he has seen a ghost.”

NINETEEN
    FRIDAY MORNING CHEN FINALLY woke up refreshed and reinvigorated.
    He wondered how he could have slept like that for almost two days. It could have been due to the fabulous bu dinner. Some special herb with a miraculous effect. Manager Pei had real medical knowledge; he must have diagnosed Chen’s problem from Gu’s description and arranged for the particular bu dinner Chen needed. In traditional Chinese medical theory, Chen recalled vaguely, certain herbs could bring out the symptoms, so the body would adjust itself accordingly. Chen had overworked himself, so the special dinner enabled him to sleep soundly, making up for all those years of lost rest. Now yin and yang or other elements in his body would move in harmony again. Whatever the Chinese medical theory and practice, Chen hadn’t felt so good in a long time.
    But he was slightly disturbed too. He’d had a weird dream shortly before dawn. He was sitting in an exotic garden, watching a young woman perform a striptease, dancing, singing like a siren, when he was suddenly seized with a fit of inexplicable abhorrence. He grabbed her, trying to strangle her in the flower bed. Struggling against him, the woman was no other than White Cloud, her dress turning into the red mandarin dress against the green grass.
    The red mandarin dress case was still on his mind, but the appearance of White Cloud in the dream bothered him, not to mention his own behavior. Perhaps it was because of his experience in the Old City God’s Temple Market. Or perhaps it was the bu feast—such an unusual boost to yin or yang that he was aroused. Still, it might be a good sign. He had recovered enough to dream like a young man.
    He decided not to think about it. It was not a morning for dream interpretation. He thought about the case in Shanghai again. It was Friday, he realized. Chen was tempted to call Yu, but he thought the better of it. Once he did so, his vacation here would be, for all practical purposes, finished, though he felt it had only started. He hadn’t even walked around the village a single time. Nor had he done anything about his paper yet.
    He called White Cloud instead. She hadn’t read or heard anything new about the case, and she urged him to enjoy his vacation. She had visited his mother, who was getting along fine at home, so he didn’t have to worry.
    Looking out of the window, he thought that he might take a stroll along the lake.
    It was a bit cold outside and the lake looked rather deserted this time of the year. There was only one old angler sitting on the waterfront, wrapped up in a worn-out army overcoat. The bamboo basket beside him was empty. He seemed to be lost in meditation, or in a pose of meditation.
    Chen walked on without disturbing him.
    Chen looked up at the mountains silhouetted against the horizon. There seemed to be a cascade murmuring, not too far away. Looking back, he glimpsed, now at distance, a faint flickering light in the hand of the old man.
    Against the woods and hills, the tiny light gleamed and was gone. A rustle of the pines swept through. A long deep sigh of the wind. He was strangely saddened. Then he turned onto a slippery trail, which wound between clumps of larches and ferns. He had to move slowly. It must have rained while he slept. Soon he reached a long carpet of pine needles, which muffled his footsteps. Then the trail widened unexpectedly, leading him to a local market.
    The market was already alive at this hour, and most of the people there were tourists looking for souvenirs. He spent several minutes making his way through the crowd, when he came to a stop at a booth displaying afterworld money, a superstitious product not commonly seen in Shanghai.
    “Dongzhi is approaching,” the peddler said warmly, folding the silver paper into a yuanbao -shaped silver ingot. In the Chinese afterworld, the main currency seemed to still be the silver ingot. “Folks need money to buy winter clothes there.”
    On an impulse, Chen purchased a bunch of the afterworld money. He didn’t