Part 4 (2/2)
The boy flushed and his head touched the floor as he bowed again.
”Great Magistrate, I am your poor servant,” he said. ”I was close enough to see the line on the page... however, I cannot read. I do not know what the line said.”
Magistrate Tiger scowled with irritation and the emissary and the soldier s.h.i.+vered.
”I... I did notice something,” the soldier said.
”What?” the magistrate demanded.
”There was only one character on the page,” the soldier said. ”The line was one word written over and over again, many times.”
”One word?” the magistrate snarled, and his anger seemed to burn deep in his eyes. ”One word is the secret to happiness? It was a trick! The family must have thought they could deceive me! Emissary, gather all of my troops. I, personally, will get the secret of happiness and punish that family of lowly dogs!”
So, the next day, with Magistrate Tiger and his entire army prepared for destruction, the emissary led the way to the home of the happy family. But when they arrived, nothing was there! No house, no chickens or sheep, no family! Instead, there was only a flat plain, as if the whole home had been scooped from the earth.
Magistrate Tiger scowled at the blank ground with rage and vowed to punish the family for their disrespect. But while he glared, the wind blew and covered him with a grayish green dust. As he stood like a green powdered statue, he felt as if the sky were laughing at him.
”So, I think Minli, like the secret word and the paper of happiness,” Ba said, ”is not meant to be found.” He glanced at Ma and while she did not meet his gaze, she made no objection either.
”And, tomorrow,” Ba continued, gently, ”we should return and wait for her to come home.”
Again, Ma said nothing but barely, perhaps only because he was looking for it, she nodded. Ba nodded back at her and quietly took some rice and dropped it into the fishbowl.
CHAPTER 16.
Feasting on juicy peaches, Minli and the dragon walked through the woods for many days. At night, when the dragon slept, Minli missed Ma and Ba. ”But this is for our fortune, so they don't have to work so hard anymore,” Minli told herself when she thought about the worry they must be feeling. ”When I get back, Ba can rest and Ma will never have to sigh again. They'll see.” But the lonely moon never seemed to gaze comfortably down at her.
One day Minli and the dragon came upon a body of water. In the distance, they saw the woods continue. As the compa.s.s pointed across the water, the dragon swam the inlet with Minli riding his back.
”How far do we go before we get to Never-Ending Mountain?” the dragon asked.
”Well,” Minli said slowly, ”the fish said to go west until I reached the City of Bright Moonlight. Once there, I'm supposed to find the Guardian of the City.”
”The Guardian?” Dragon said. ”Who is that?”
”I'm not sure,” Minli said. ”The king of the city, I guess. Once I find him, I'm supposed to ask for the borrowed line, which, according to the fish, is something I'll need for Never-Ending Mountain.”
”The borrowed line?” the dragon asked. ”What is that?”
”I don't know,” Minli said. ”The fish didn't tell me.”
”You did not ask?” The dragon almost stopped swimming in surprise.
”I didn't want to delay her,” Minli said. ”She was in a rush.”
The dragon shook his head and opened his mouth to say something when they both heard a strange sound next to them in the water.
”Aunt Jin! Aunt Jin!” a voice said. ”Is it you? You came back like you said!”
Dragon and Minli looked in the water and saw a large orange fish with a black fin swimming next to them. It looked a lot like Minli's goldfish but larger.
”I think you have me mixed up with someone else,” Minli said to the fish.
”I was speaking to the dragon,” the fish said, ”but you must not be Aunt Jin either.”
”Well,” the dragon looked down at the fish with a wry smile, ”either one of us would be a very strange relative to you, Fish. Why did you think I was your aunt?”
”Because Aunt Jin always said she would come back to show us the Dragon Gate was real,” the fish said.
”What do you mean?” Minli asked. ”Dragon Gate? What's that?”
THE STORY OF THE.
DRAGON GATE Even though no fish has seen the Dragon Gate, we all know about it. Perhaps the story was told to us through the waves of water while we were eggs or whispered to us by the roots of the lotus flowers.
We all know that somewhere in one of the rivers of the land, there is a great and powerful waterfall; it is so high and so vast that it is as if water was gus.h.i.+ng from a cut in the heavens. At the top of that waterfall, beyond anyone's view, is the Dragon Gate.
The Dragon Gate is an entryway to the sky. It is old, so old that it's possible that the gray stone columns grew from the mountain it stands on. Wind and time have worn and smoothed the gate's tiered placards that barely show the old carvings of the five colored clouds of heaven.
Above the placards are the tiled arches the same color as the misty sky. Nine hundred and ninety-nine small dragon ornaments perch on the ridges of those tiled roofs. Each one is intricately formed to the smallest detail and, even weathered as they are, the black pearl eyes still flash with a mysterious power. That is because these dragons are not mere decoration - they hold the secret to the Dragon Gate.
For if ever a fish is able to swim up the waterfall and pa.s.s through the gate the dragons will shake with power. As the fish goes through, its spirit enters the gate and bursts out of one of the ornaments - changing the fish into the form of a flying dragon!
”So the Dragon Gate transforms fish into dragons, a wish many of us hold deep in our hearts,” the fish finished. ”None know who first told the story, or if it is even a story at all. But Aunt Jin was determined to find out. She said she was going to search all the rivers of the land for it and if she found it she'd come back here as a dragon, to show us. That's why I thought you might be her.”
”Did your aunt look like you?” Minli asked, ”Orange with a black fin?”
”Yes,” the fish said, ”but much smaller, the size of a copper coin.”
”It doesn't seem likely that a fish that small could swim up a waterfall,” Dragon said. ”Even if she does find the right river, she might not be able to get to the gate.”
”If there is a gate, Aunt Jin will find a way through it,” the fish said. ”She's very wise. If you knew her, you'd understand.”
”Maybe I do know her,” Minli said softly, thinking hard about the goldfish she set free. Could it be that her goldfish, who had swum all the rivers except one, had been Jin searching for the Dragon Gate?
”If you are not Aunt Jin,” the fish said to the dragon, interrupting Minli's thoughts, ”why are you swimming across the river? Why don't you just fly?”
”He can't fly,” Minli answered for the dragon, when she saw his discomfort. ”We are going to go see the Old Man of the Moon to ask him how to change that. But we have to cross the river to get to the City of Bright Moonlight first.”
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