CHAPTER 9
ShaoShu felt like crying. He looked up through the blackness at the small round hole that served as a dead man's window. This was going to be his final resting place, too. His body would rot beside Tong -long's father's ashes.
He sniffled. There was no way he could reach the window. Even if he could climb onto the pedestal and jump high enough to grab hold of the opening, he would never be able to squeeze back through without something supporting his feet.
ShaoShu lowered his head. Unless someone happened to pass by in the next few days, he was doomed.
A soft scraping sound caught his attention, and ShaoShu lifted his head. Was that Tonglong's father's spirit, there to punish him?
He glanced nervously around the darkness and determined that the noise was coming from one corner of the room. He crawled slowly in that direction. As he neared, he figured out what it was. Something was digging.
ShaoShu drew closer to the sound, and he saw that it was only his mouse. He had forgotten all about it. Grateful for the company, he reached out to pick it up. It darted forward, however, quick as a flash, disappearing into the tiny crack it had been pawing at.
ShaoShu pouted. Even his little friend had abandoned him, preferring to hide within the walls. He sighed and lay down to get a closer look at where the mouse was hiding. Perhaps he could coax it out by pretending to have some food.
As he pressed his eye to the crack, ShaoShu uttered a small cry. He could see a faint sliver of moonlight! The crack went clear through to the outside. What's more, the crack appeared to be wider on the outside than on the inside, and the stone floor gave way to dirt in this corner.
ShaoShu recalled what Tonglong had said about a mouse being able to squeeze through any space that could accommodate its head, and he scrambled back over to the pedestal. He felt along the ground until he found what he was looking for—a large, sharp section of the broken urn. He hurried back to the crack and began digging.
It took several hours and many different urn shards, but ShaoShu eventually opened a hole that he could easily slip his head through. In fact, he could have stopped earlier and probably still gotten out, but he didn't feel like dislocating his shoulder again.
By the time he hauled himself out, the sun was beginning to rise. Exhausted and covered with dirt from head to toe, ShaoShu said goodbye to Tonglong's father and dragged himself around to the front of the building. He'd hoped to find a few bites of apple or other offerings left that animals or insects hadn't ravaged. Instead, he was greeted by a sight that made him forget all about his hunger.
“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in.”
ShaoShu frowned. It was Lei.
Tonglong was there, too. He offered ShaoShu a slight bow and said, “Well done, little one. You have impressed me. That is not easy to do.”
ShaoShu stared coldly at Tonglong. “You were going to leave me in there, weren't you, sir?”
“Absolutely.”
“You are a bad man.”
Tonglong grinned. “So I've been told.”
ShaoShu turned away, and he heard a slight scurrying sound. He glanced down to see his mouse racing toward him. It hurried up the outside of his pant leg and across his sash, nestling itself deep inside the empty, dirt-laden pouch.
He rested his hand on the pouch, smiling inwardly.
“Isn't that cute,” Lei said.
ShaoShu ignored him.
“You have proven yourself, ShaoShu,” Tonglong said. “From this point forward, you are a valuable member of my team.” He turned to Lei. “You will keep your cat a respectful distance from ShaoShu and, more importantly, from his mouse, understand?”
Lei bowed. “Yes, sir.”
“Good,” Tonglong said. “Let us get back to the ship. We shall sail on this morning's tide.”
It was late in the day by the time ShaoShu had cleaned the last bits of dirt from behind his ears and beneath his fingernails. This was no easy task with the ship rolling about over heavy seas, but he managed after the cook took pity on him and let him borrow a brush normally reserved for scrubbing potatoes.
Tonglong had told him to be shipshape for a meeting they were going to have that evening. The ship's sailmaker had even made a new robe and pants for ShaoShu out of black silk. He wondered what the meeting could be about, silently hoping that it had nothing to do with his friends. Tonglong's ship had just passed the mouth of the Qiantang River, and he couldn't help but think about Hok and Ying. He'd traveled the river with them.
ShaoShu sighed and looked over at the largest of the treasure piles. Its tarpaulin had been pulled back, and several of Tonglong's men were documenting the items. He had a difficult time comprehending the vast wealth on deck. To him, the shinier an object was, the more it was worth. There sure were a lot of shiny objects there.