Part 3 (1/2)
”So I think,” the dragon said, ”my name is Dragon. Because that is what everyone called me.”
”Dragon,” Minli repeated, and she tried not to smile. ”Well, I guess it's a good enough name. It will be easy for me to remember.”
The dragon nodded, pleased to have found himself a name.
”So you were born from a painting!” Minli said, ”That explains why you are so different from the dragons my father told me about.”
”Your father knew other dragons?” the dragon asked eagerly. ”I have never seen another dragon. I always thought if I could fly, I would finally see another like me.”
”Um, well,” Minli said, ”I don't think my father ever knew any dragons. He just told stories about them. Most people think dragons are just in stories. You are the only dragon I've ever met.”
”Oh,” the dragon said sadly, ”and I am not even a real dragon.”
All this time, Minli had been cutting the twine ropes. At that very moment, Minli cut the last rope and rubbed the dragon's arm. ”You're the only dragon I've ever met in real life,” she said, ”and you feel real to me. So, I think you're a real dragon. Or, at least, real enough. Anyway, if we're going to Never-Ending Mountain together, let's at least be real friends.”
”Yes,” Dragon agreed, and they both smiled.
CHAPTER 12.
The goldfish man turned around and smiled questioningly at Ma and Ba, who could do nothing but continue to stare. He was slender and small, which was perhaps why it was easy to mistake his footprints for Minli's. The dragging lines Ma had thought were from Minli's walking sticks led to his cart, and the bowls of goldfish caught the sifting beams from the sun, slivering it into flas.h.i.+ng sparkles of light. The goldfish man's eyes also flashed, as he looked at Ma and Ba and their dust-covered clothes and haggard, tired faces.
”Can I help you?” he asked them.
”We were looking for our daughter,” Ba stammered. ”We are from the Village of Fruitless Mountain.”
”You sold her a goldfish, and then,” Ma sputtered, ”and then she ran away to change our fortune.”
”I see,” the goldfish man said, and again, he looked at them - at Ma's tight, angry frown and Ba's careworn, worried face. ”And you are going after her, to stop her?”
”Of course,” Ba said. ”We need to bring her home.”
”Yes,” Ma said. ”She is acting crazy. Who knows what could happen to her?”
”She could succeed,” the goldfish man said steadily. ”She could find a way to change your fortune.”
”She's trying to find Never-Ending Mountain!” Ma said. ”Ask questions to the Old Man of the Moon! There is no way for her to succeed.”
”Yes,” Ba said, ”it's impossible.”
The goldfish man looked a third time at Ma and Ba, and this time they felt it. Under his gaze, Ma and Ba suddenly felt like freshly peeled oranges, and their words fell away from them. Inexplicably, they felt ashamed.
”Let me tell you a story,” the goldfish man said.
THE STORY OF THE.
GOLDFISH MAN.
My grandmother, Lao Lao, was a famous fortune teller. People from far away villages would line up at our home, asking for lucky dates for weddings and predictions for their children. If she was ever wrong, we never heard of it.
But a week before my nineteenth birthday, we heard her moaning in her room. When we rushed to her, we found her sitting on the floor with her fortune-telling sticks spread around her. To my surprise, as soon as I entered the room, her piercing eyes fixed upon me.
”You,” she said, ”you will die next week on your birthday.”
It was as if she had exploded a firecracker in the room. My parents and aunts and cousins burst into exclamations and wails. ”It is true, it is true,” my grandmother insisted, ”I have checked and rechecked over and over again. And the sticks always say the same. Next week, on his nineteenth birthday, he will die. That is his fortune.”
I could not believe it. How could this be? But my belief in my grandmother was unshakable; if she said so it must be true. I stood staring as my family created a storm around me. Finally I said with a mouth as dry as sand, ”Lao Lao, isn't there anything I can do?”
”There is only one thing you can do,” she said, ”but it is doubtful it will work.”
”I'll do it,” I said.
”First,” Lao Lao said, ”we must get a bottle of the finest wine and make a box of sweets.”
So Lao Lao went to the rich magistrate of the town and persuaded him to give her a bottle of his best wine. My mother and aunts hurried to the kitchen and prepared cakes, cookies, and sweetmeats with more care than ever before. Before the aromas of the delicacies were captured in our most ornate box, they floated in the air, causing all the neighborhood animals to whine at our door.
And then Lao Lao went to her room and began to read her fortune sticks. When she came out, she gave me the box of sweets and bottle of wine and sat me down.
”Listen to me carefully,” she said, ”you must do exactly as I say. Tomorrow morning, you must walk north of the village. Do not stop until the moon begins to appear in the sky. When it does, you will see a mountain before you, and at the foot of the mountain you will see an old man reading a book. Open the box of sweets and bottle of wine and set them by him, but do not say a word unless he speaks to you first. This is the only chance we have to change your fortune.”
So the next morning, I followed her instructions and it was as she said. I walked all day and when the sun finally withdrew from the sky, there was a vast mountain in front of me whose tip seemed to touch the moon. Sitting cross-legged at the bottom was an old man, reading a giant book. The light from the moon seemed to make him glow silver. I opened the bottle of wine and box of sweets and quietly laid them next to him. Then I sat and waited.
The old man didn't notice me and continued to read. My mouth watered as the smell of the sweets drifted in the air, but I didn't move. But even though the old man was engrossed in his book, he must have smelled them as well because, without lifting his eyes from the page, he began to eat.
It was only when the bottle of wine was empty and he was eating the last cake that the old man lifted his head. He seemed surprised to see a half-eaten cake in his hand.
”I've been eating someone's food,” he said to himself. He looked up and saw me sitting nearby. ”You, boy, was this your food?”
”Yes,” I said and I came closer as he beckoned.
”Well,” he said to me, ”what are you doing here?”
I told the old man my story while he rubbed his beard. When I finished, he said nothing but began to turn pages in his book. Finally, he nodded.
”Yes, it's true,” the old man said. ”You are only to live nineteen years.”
And he turned the book toward me and in the moonlight, I read my name on the page. Next to my name was the number nineteen.
”Please,” I couldn't help asking, ”isn't there any way to change it?”
”Change it?” the old man asked, surprised at the thought. ”Change the Book of Fortune?”