Chapter 56

Fu Nansheng moved in across the landing from Ning Shu and borrowed her luck, and sure enough his run of bad luck thinned out a great deal.

Working at the estate agency put house-viewings in his way, so he read feng shui for people on the side, and a little money began to come in.

Fu Nansheng was a very put-together sort of man. He did the housework, he kept himself well turned out, and he cooked beautifully. After he moved in opposite he was round at Ning Shu's constantly, helping her aunt in the kitchen.

Her uncle and aunt were thoroughly taken with him. Whenever there was anything good on the table, Fu Nansheng was asked over.

Even Gouwa got sour about it. "Mum, Dad, why are you nicer to Nansheng than you are to me?"

Her aunt said, "If you were half as sensible and capable as Nansheng I'd be living very well."

"He's three years older than me."

Her aunt went still at that, and asked Fu Nansheng, "How old are you this year?"

Fu Nansheng said, "Nearly nineteen."

"Nineteen. Nineteen." Her aunt looked at her husband, and then at Fu Nansheng. "So you're three years older than Gouwa. Three years. Three whole years."

Something had changed in her, and Fu Nansheng said, concerned, "Are you all right?"

Her aunt's eyes had gone red. "Oh. It's nothing. I'm all right." She put a piece of chicken in his bowl. "Eat your chicken, Nansheng. Have plenty. You're still growing."

The longer Ning Shu watched her aunt the stranger it seemed. She was somewhere else entirely, and plainly something was wrong. That evening, once Fu Nansheng had gone, Ning Shu went to her aunt's room and asked her, "What was the matter with you today?"

Her aunt was wiping her eyes in front of her husband, and dried them quickly when Ning Shu came in. "Ningning. It's nothing."

"Auntie, I saw you," Ning Shu said. "What are you crying for?"

Her uncle sighed. "There's no sense hiding it. Ningning's grown up and it won't hurt to tell her. Only don't let Gouwa know."

So her aunt said, "I was looking at Nansheng, and I thought of my own baby."

Ning Shu knew Gouwa was not her uncle and aunt's own, and that her grandmother had brought him back from Hong Kong. What she also knew was that three years before Gouwa came, her aunt had had a child of her own, and traffickers took it before it was even full term.

Her grandmother had been away at the time. By the time she got back the child was gone. She looked everywhere for it. She scattered paper to make soldiers, she used the finding charms, she went as far as the Heavenly Master's seal, and none of it brought the baby back.

Not a word. Not a trace.

Which leaves one explanation. The child was dead.

For three solid years her aunt went about like a woman who had lost her own soul, with no spirit in her for anything.

It was only when her grandmother brought Gouwa home and put him in her arms that her aunt came out of it, bit by bit, and took him for her own and put everything she had into him.

"Auntie, do you think Fu Nansheng might be the child you lost?"

Her aunt shook her head. "My baby's gone. I know that. It's only that when I look at Nansheng I think of him. Never mind, never mind. Whatever you do, don't let Gouwa hear about this."

"I won't say anything," Ning Shu said, and tried to settle her. "Don't dwell on it, Auntie. It was a long time ago. Try to be easy."

---

After the rescue of the trafficked women went out on the television news, work came to Ning Shu from every direction. More and more people wanted her, and what she was worth went up with it.

Ning Shu never named a price. The client gave what they thought right. From people with money, a hundred thousand or two was not a great deal, and a few thousand was not too little.

If a family were genuinely badly off, she did not take much. Something to mark it was enough.

Taking a fee is the rule of the trade. However much or little, you take some.

When Ning Shu had more than she could handle she passed work to Fu Nansheng, who was the real thing. His groundwork was a great deal more solid than hers.

Ning Shu had her knowledge and her powers through the heavenly eye. Fu Nansheng had walked every step of it.

So the work she sent him he did very well indeed.

Ning Shu was glad to have him earning alongside her, and Fu Nansheng made the most of every chance. What he could do he did with everything he had, and what he could not do he said so beforehand.

What he was building was a name.

With Fu Nansheng helping, things eased off for Ning Shu, and the summer went by comfortably.

---

In August her aunt was promoted to supervisor of the hotel's cleaning staff. Her hours changed, she no longer had to do the rooms herself, and her wages went up a good deal.

Her aunt was a tremendous worker, and good to people, with no cunning in her and a warm heart. A woman like that is welcome anywhere, so Ning Shu was not in the least surprised that she had been made supervisor and given a rise.

There are people in this world who take short cuts and look for clever ways to arrive overnight. And there are people who go one step at a time and change their lives by working.

Her aunt was so pleased she went about beaming, and at the weekend she had Ning Shu invite Fu Nansheng over and cooked a whole table of food to celebrate.

Her aunt really was fond of Fu Nansheng. She treated him exactly like a son of her own, and anything good went into his bowl, including Gouwa's beloved chicken necks. Gouwa was distinctly put out about it. "Mum, if you're that fond of Nansheng, have him for a son."

Her aunt said, "If I had a son as sensible as that I'd count myself lucky."

Ning Shu understood it. Fu Nansheng was the same age her aunt's dead child would have been, and he had no mother or father of his own, and her aunt ached over him. That was all it was.

"Nansheng, have you got a girlfriend?" her aunt asked him.

Fu Nansheng smiled. "I'm building something first. I'm not thinking about that for now."

"What a good boy. And what a shame he never got to stay in school." Her aunt had got onto his history, and her eyes went red again. "Those parents of yours. How could they lose you like that? Nobody to look after you, no proper schooling, out making your own way this young, and all that hardship."

The more she said the sorrier she got, and she started wiping her eyes.

Gouwa said, sourly, "Mum, stop crying. We're eating."

Ning Shu watched Fu Nansheng. Growing up the way he had made him unlike other young men his age. He held everything in and let very little show. He was moved now, and almost nothing of it reached his face.

The man kept a great deal below the surface.

Her aunt got herself back in hand and went on. "Nansheng, since you're building a career, don't trouble yourself about girlfriends now. But in a few years, once our Ningning's out of university and you've got somewhere, if you thought our Ningning would suit you…"

Ning Shu nearly choked on her rice.

Where on earth had that come from?

Having failed to acquire him as a son, her aunt had moved on to pairing people off at random.

Fu Nansheng smiled and said nothing, and looked rather uncomfortable.

Gouwa said, "Mum, don't talk nonsense. If big brother Lu heard that…"

"If who heard it?" her aunt said.

Nobody answered her, and her aunt arrived at her own conclusion and asked, suspiciously, "Ningning. You aren't seeing some boy at your age, are you?"

"Of course not." Ning Shu waved it off. "As if I would."

"Quite right. You're far too young for that." Her aunt was severe about it. "Those bad boys at school who never do any work, they go straight for a girl like you because you're simple and easy to take in. Look at Nansheng. Who's half as sensible as he is, or half as presentable?"

Gouwa tugged Ning Shu's sleeve. "What is it about Nansheng that my mother likes so much?"

Ning Shu shook her head. "The face, I expect. A good face settles everything these days."

---

Then her aunt coughed, hard, several times, as though something had gone down the wrong way.

Her uncle said at once, "There you are, talking while you eat. Have some water."

He poured it and put it in front of her.

Her aunt drank, and went on coughing, and her face went red with it.

And then Gouwa saw that there was hair in her mouth. He reached in to pull it out, and what came out was a black tangled mass of it, all wound together.

Gouwa shouted. "Mum, how much hair have you swallowed?"

And the hair in her mouth kept coming, more and more of it, with no end to it.

Her aunt's face was getting redder, and then it went past red into purple.

Ning Shu was appalled. She had never seen anything like it. She got up and went to help Gouwa pull the hair out of her aunt's mouth.

And then Fu Nansheng shouted, "Stop. Don't pull. The hair has her heart and her liver and her lungs netted. Pull any more and you'll have her organs out with it."

When Gouwa heard that his mother's insides would come out, his face went white and he dropped the hair in his hand, and the tears very nearly came.

Her aunt's breathing was getting faster and her face was swollen with it.

Fu Nansheng made up his mind at once, got up and ran out of the room and across to his own flat, and when he came back a moment later there was a small box in his hand.

He opened it, and inside was something like a scorpion, the size of a thumbnail, waving two large pincers.

Fu Nansheng took it out onto his palm, bit his finger open and dripped blood on it, and the thing came alive at once and shook itself all over.

Then Fu Nansheng fed it into her aunt's mouth.

"What. What is that?" Gouwa said. It looked like a great deal to him.

"A gu," Ning Shu said quietly. "That one saves lives."

Sure enough, the moment the creature went into her mouth her aunt came back and began to pull air in, in great gulps of it.

Her uncle patted her back to settle her breathing and sent Gouwa for water.

Gouwa brought warm water and held it to her mouth and got her to drink, and asked Fu Nansheng, "Have you saved my mum?"

Fu Nansheng wiped the sweat off his face. "She's got her breath back. That's all, for now."