Inspired by and based upon Serpent Dance by Synthean
Thanks to Jon B 1969 for the edit.
"I hate chinks." The words seeped up like pus from a festering wound. The woman didn't say it out loud. Her upbringing made her too refined to express such thoughts openly. Helen made no bones about it, however; she disliked the Chinese immensely.
She was never able to pinpoint the origins of her hate. Possibly it could have been her youth in Shanghai, waited on hand and foot by servants. It seemed unlikely to her that she hated them then. She didn't like them, but she didn't hate them either. They were like furniture. One didn't hate furniture.
As a child she was curious of course. Her school taught her about other cultures, including China, but she couldn't ask the servants about their lives. Her parents discouraged such socializing. "One shouldn't inquire into the lives of lesser people," her father told her, and Daddy should know. He was British and he raised his daughter to be British.
The most important lesson she learned was the British were the best, and most certainly the best rulers of these downtrodden people. The British were not like the French or the Americans or, heaven forbid, the barbaric Japanese. The Chinese should be grateful to the West and, especially, the British for lifting them out of centuries of barbarity and superstition. This lesson was taught to Helen Prescott by her parents, her culture, and her class. So Helen was shocked when the servants displayed a lack of gratitude for their fair treatment.
Perhaps the ingratitude was where the hate began. In hindsight, Helen thought, the fact the Japanese were running the Europeans out of Shanghai, at the time, might be taken into account, but it didn't excuse the slap Chunhua gave her when Helen ordered her to pick up her clothes. "Carry your own clothes you round-eye bitch!" Chun spat.
Helen had little time to chastise the woman, as her father quickly bundled her and Mother aboard the last plane out. All she carried was her Lady Margaret Hall degree in anthropology and a jewel box from her grandmother. Her father disappeared into the Lunghua internment camp shortly after. She never saw him again.
Today, it was June, 1953, and Helen was in Chinatown, hating the Chinese, and hating her husband for dragging her there.
She never actually loved her husband but she never started hating him until later in the marriage. Helen met James P. Morgan in India. He was a rich American working for USAAF transport command. She was staying with relatives in New Delhi. They met in a nightclub while he was on leave.
He was handsome enough, and rich, and more dynamic than the reserved British officers. It wasn't love at first sight, more lust really, nor a whirlwind courtship. They were distractions for one another. The subsequent marriage was more a business partnership than a commitment. Her familial connections to British aristocracy matched his wealth; for a while it worked. His money kept her and Mum comfortable, her connections brought him useful contacts in Europe and Asia. He was okay in bed. She put up her end but then they grew bored with each other, and she closed her legs.
The war ended, she came to San Francisco with Jim as a war bride. The boredom had already turned to hatred. Helen quickly learned that some necessities of her husband's work required dealings with shady people of low character. "But why do they have to be Chinese?" she asked herself on that summer day, June 25, 1953. A day which would change her life forever.
"I hate whites," Wu thought. Madame Wu, not her real name, stared at the arrogant white bitch and her husband who dared to come into her shop. Not that
Madame Wu's Antiques and Apothecary
didn't accept any kind of customer, but these two were of a type she despised above all others. The kind who destroyed her beloved China. Arrogant, rich, white westerners, wrapped in justifications ranging from religion to commerce, they ravaged her land with a sly efficiency that shamed the Mongols.
"At least the Mongols were more honest," Wu thought.
Wu, logically, didn't place the entire blame on the West. China contributed its own part, certainly she'd lived long enough to know its flaws. Even now, the communists were finishing what the westerners started.
The woman was arguing with her husband. "Fuck! She's British," Wu spat.
Above all westerners, Wu hated the British with a passion. She never forgave them for the Opium Wars. British merchants grew fat on the lives of tens of thousands of Chinese whom they'd addicted to opium. Consequently, Madame Wu despised opium as well and vowed never to sell it or tolerate its sale through her businesses. She couldn't speak for her employees, however. Occasionally, she dropped by one of her shops to make sure the proprietor stayed honest. Just one of the many headaches of being an Immortal.
Madame Wu discovered a harsh lesson when she acquired immortality, many years ago when she went by another name. It didn't pay the bills. It had been easy, at first. Many Chinese back then were more accepting of Immortals and gods. Hooking up with a few emperors and noblemen, dazzled by her beauty and illustrious sibling, worked for a while. She suppressed her own proclivities to take a few to bed.
As decades, centuries, and millennia passed, Chinese became more fearful and skeptical. "Not to mention greedy, envious, and demanding," she thought. "As if Peaches of Immortality were easy to acquire."
She found it prudent to recede into the background, letting her sister grab all the publicity. Wu quietly acquired a fortune, opened and closed businesses, changed her name and identity constantly, and made sure never to stay in one place too long or, if she returned, posed as a younger sister or daughter. Spells of illusion and shape-changing helped considerably.
Her sister being more outgoing and less prudent, eventually followed Wu's lead but by then had acquired a reputation. As a result, she was mentioned more prominently in the histories while Wu was mostly forgotten. Wu preferred it that way.
At present, Wu was checking on her antiques store. She suspected her manager, Johnny Cheng, of selling opium for a local gang, "And using my store as a front."
Days earlier, she ordered Cheng to put out a help wanted sign. "The business is growing," she said. "Hire assistant." Cheng was reluctant. "But Miss Wu,
'Stupid old woman!'
business has been slow for months. I don't need another assistant."
"I take care of money. Hire assistant," she said. Cheng grudgingly put out the "Help Wanted" sign. Madame Wu surreptitiously put a glamour on the sign, so no one would notice it. Several days later, the most beautiful woman Cheng had ever seen, walked through the door with the wanted sign in her hands.
Her skin was like golden silk, her hair, black as ink, done up in a two-sided up do. Her eyes were perfect dark amber almonds. She had bee-stung lips, red as a rose bud, and her body, far more robust and curvy than one would expect from a daughter of China, with melon breasts and wide hips. The red, sexy cheongsam she wore hugged her body like a second skin, showing her waist to be slim and tight. Nor was she some young maiden. This woman was tall and mature, mid-thirties at the least, with the look of one not easily manipulated.
The red cheongsam was embroidered with black snakes. Cheng swore they undulated with every graceful stride she made. The woman strode smartly to Cheng's desk. "I have come for a job." Her singsong Mandarin was perfect, with a voice like deep, rich honey.
"Uh," Cheng realized, belatedly how speechless this beauty struck him. "You put out the help wanted poster, did you not?" she asked. Cheng nearly fell to pieces before her golden smile. "Why. . . er, yes. Yes, I did. Uh, you work from nine to six, the store is open from ten to five,
'You're already hired, you beauty!'
We pay two-fifty per hour plus a raise pending your performance. How's your English?"
"I'm American," the woman replied in flawless Californian. Cheng cocked an eyebrow. "American born?" he thought. "This might be difficult." He already had plans for this woman. Fresh off the boat immigrants were easier to disappear than long term residents or native born citizens. However, he could deal with the complications later. "So when can you start Miss. . .?"
"Mudan, Jennifer Mudan. People call me Jen."
"Jen Mudan. You know your last name means peony"?
"Of course," she smiled.
"If you change the 'E' in your name to an 'I' you'd be Jin Mudan, gold peony," he smiled back.
"Damn! She's gorgeous! When I tell Lao about this hot number he'll beg me to name a price!"
"People have pointed that out."
A thought stirred in the back of Cheng's brain. Gold Peony sounded vaguely familiar. There was a White Peony, Bai Mudan, of course but. . . "Nah." Probably a confusion of names. "So, um, back to when you start?"
"As soon as you wish," she smiled.
"So how about tomorrow, then?"
"That's just fine," she replied.
Jennifer slinked out of the store. Cheng watched and followed until she turned down the street. "Goddamn!" he whistled. "I can't wait to tell the old bitch the news. And it's not some dumb teenager either. She'll do fine until I figure a way to sell her. She may not be young but she more than has it." Whistling a tune, Cheng went back into the store.
That was a month ago. Cheng ran into complications. The opium shipment was delayed. His smuggling contact cited problems with the war winding down. Shipments were disrupted, the gang was getting anxious, and Madame Wu was asking questions.
Jen was working out well. Her elegance and beauty attracted more customers, so at least the front business was picking up. She kept a professional distance from Cheng, however.
Cheng found her a mystery. He tried having her followed but his hires, loaned from the gang, always lost her in some alley or market. He still had no idea where she lived. He spoke to Lao about her and Lao was intrigued. "I will make inquiries," he said but later, informed Cheng he could find nothing.
