While Mr. Chin, tall and sheepish, shuffles his feet, Lynn’s mother leans toward Gu Ling Zhu Chi. Ming edges offstage. Despite his admiration of Gu Ling Zhu Chi, Ming scoffs at the idea that she can foretell the future. He believes in free will. Moreover, he possesses enough cultural knowledge to see through this fatalistic drivel. He’s had four years of intensive Chinese, and he can read the newspaper in both complex and simple characters. He’s the most literate in Mandarin of his Haven generation. From his college history course with a world-class scholar, he knows that Gu Ling Zhu Chi and her group are small eddies at the edge of the great river of twentieth–century change: they’re cultural leftovers from not one but two or even three revolutions ago. Truth be told, he is repulsed by Winnie’s prayers; growing up, he often closed the door in order to avoid the sight of her on her knees, forehead to the floor. Of course, Dagou was never a skeptic; their mother’s prayers filled Dagou with proper guilt and shame. He’s an unreconstructed sinner, stupid with the burden of having grasped neither Eastern nor Western moral teachings.
Still, Ming can’t avoid eavesdropping on Mrs. Chin. In Mrs. Chin’s dream, Lynn is near campus, sitting in a tea shop, drinking matcha bubble tea through a bright pink straw. Mrs. Chin is outside, knocking on the window, but Lynn can’t see or hear her.
“… doesn’t she know that college is more than just four years of bubble tea? That she’s slurping up her higher education—hurtling toward a terrible future?”
Gu Ling Zhu Chi’s eyelids flicker as she speaks. “The dream isn’t about this life, but about the afterlife.” She reaches out to hold Mrs. Chin’s hand. She is praying now, in an inaudible murmur. Ming checks to see how Lynn is taking all of this. She has her nose buried in an Elena Ferrante novel.
Ming has wondered why his mother is just now bringing him and his brothers to Gu Ling Zhu Chi. It occurs to him that he might have it backward. It’s possible that Gu Ling Zhu Chi is the one who asked to see the three of them. Maybe the old abbess wants to speak specifically to him, to Ming. Ming, who has paid his mother’s dowry. Does she want more money? As if he can sense Ming’s apprehension, Alf leans against his leg, comforting and solid. Alf’s bright eyes follow Winnie’s footsteps as she shuffles up to Gu Ling Zhu Chi, who bends toward her slightly, gazing through her thick glasses.
A quarter hour goes by before Winnie comes to fetch him. “We’re going to start without Dagou.”
Ming and his mother walk to the little platform. Everybody else has politely gone backstage, except for James and Fang, that bilingual snoop.
“Sons,” Winnie says. “Greet Gu Ling Zhu Chi.”
As he has been taught, Ming ducks his head and mutters, “Gu Ling Zhu Chi.” James copies him.
“James first. Stand here,” Winnie says. “Ming, over there.” She gestures Ming away. Does she not want her sons to hear each other’s fortunes? He steps away, but leans toward them, listening.
“Hold out your hand, James.”
James goes red. Ming grins. His brother must be wondering how much Gu Ling Zhu Chi can see. Can she tell that James wants to make out with Alice Wa? Can she foretell his grade in freshman chemistry? There are other things she might advise him about, Ming considers—such as how to recover from his failure to save the old man at the train station. But James doesn’t have the Mandarin to communicate with her.
Gu Ling Zhu Chi examines James’s palm. She bends his fingers, examining the lines, and murmurs something to his mother, tracing out a shape. She presses his fingertips, squinting through her glasses as the blood flushes back into them over and over. As she does this, she unloads on Winnie a fantasy of James in twenty years: James as a great man. Probably she’s only telling Winnie what she wants to hear. Although, who knows? It might be true. It might be that when they were handing out Leo’s flaws—miserliness, dissipation, lechery—James was passed over.
Winnie nods at Gu Ling Zhu Chi, hopeful, proud. She turns, pats James’s arm. “Okay. She’s done.”
“What’d she say?” James asks.
Winnie shrugs as if it’s not important, but Ming can see that she’s decided not to tell. He can always read her. “Good things,” she says, but he knows something is bothering her. “You’re fine. Now go, James.” She gives him a little push. “Ming, your turn.”
Ming makes his way back and shows Gu Ling Zhu Chi his most deadpan face. She studies him, her pouched eyes magnified by her thick glasses.
As she did with James, Gu Ling Zhu Chi examines his palms and his fingertips, pressing the tip of each to examine the flow of his blood. Her own hand is surprisingly warm and supple.
“You’re not well,” she says to Ming.
The expression on his mother’s face ripples like the surface of a pond.
“Interesting,” says Fang’s voice from somewhere behind them. “She says Ming is sick.”
Gu Ling Zhu Chi fixes her eyes on Fang. “Get out of here,” she says.
James and Fang back away.
“You’re about to become very ill,” Gu Ling Zhu Chi says to Ming. “You should seek tranquility immediately.” Her voice is colorless and deep. She continues to discuss his health, his habits, and his diet. Ming knows she’s full of shit. He’s given the Spiritual House a lump of money, and now the old lady is trying to scare him into giving her even more money. Upsetting Winnie is a part of the plan. Winnie is staring at Gu Ling Zhu Chi, stricken. Gu Ling Zhu Chi bends toward her in a concerned, attentive way. Only Alf seems not to notice anything amiss. Instead, he yips with joy and bounds off the stage toward the door.
At last, Dagou has arrived.
The Fortune You Seek Is in Another Cookie
From his place on stage, Ming is among the first to see Dagou across the gymnasium. He isn’t happy that his brother has shown up to find him with his hand outstretched, ready to receive his fortune-cookie fortune. But Dagou, wrapped up in his own turbulence, doesn’t pay attention. He strips off his coat, revealing a pink dress shirt, and makes his way toward the stage.
“Hey, everyone,” he says, reaching down absently to tousle Alf between the ears. His voice sounds both higher and deeper, huskier and more sonorous. His gaze settles on Ming; they nod politely.
Ming still hasn’t gotten used to Dagou’s changed physical appearance. Every part of his body has been blown up from the inside into a heavier version of itself. His shoulders are twice as thick as the year before, and his feet seem to point out slightly. Flesh hangs even from the lobes of his ears. Only his eyes are familiar, dark and quickly moving. (“Restless,” James once described him. “Horny,” Leo corrected him.)
“Hey, Snaggle.” Dagou walks straight over to James and tousles his hair, too. James stands there with his mouth curled up at the corners like a child. Cuff links flash as Dagou opens his arms to embrace their mother. Then Dagou takes a visible breath, chest swelling, and faces their father. Leo Chao’s face grows both brighter and darker. Younger, with his edges more defined, he seems to recognize another man in Dagou, someone from long ago.
“I’m here,” Dagou announces. “We can start now.”
“Where were you?” Ming can’t help pointing out that after making them all show up, he’s an hour late.
“At the restaurant.”
“It’s Monday. The restaurant’s closed.”
Dagou shrugs. “’Cause JJ’s gone, Ba asked me to go through the supplies with O-Lan.”
“Where is Katherine?” asks Mary Wa.
Dagou hangs his head. “We broke up.”
This is a surprise, and they all stare. Ming drops his gaze. The idea of Dagou dumping Katherine is insufferable.
“What happened?” asks Mary Wa. “I thought you were going to get married.”
Dagou shrugs. “She wouldn’t agree to a prenup.”