‘Sounds about right,’ Martin said.
‘Come to the Northern Heavens later this evening,’ Yue Gui said over lunch in our private room attached to the officers’ mess. ‘Allow us to reciprocate by providing you with dinner, and you can inspect the rebuilding work on the Serpent Concubine Pavilion.’
‘I can’t tonight,’ I said. ‘Simone and I have a charity art auction on the Earthly. But I’ll come in the next few days to have a look at the work on the Pavilion.’
‘The Pavilion is gone and the gardeners have already moved in,’ Yue Gui said.
‘Do you have space for another gardener?’ I said.
Martin unfocused, talking to the staff of the Palace, then snapped back. ‘If he is strong and talented, then yes we do.’
‘I have a Buddhist monk, a full Shaolin master — he fell from grace and worked as an assassin for a demon for a while,’ I said. ‘He’s trying to return to the Path and needs employment.’
‘Then the garden in the Palace is perfect,’ Martin said.
‘An assassin?’ Yue Gui said with disdain. ‘He should be incarcerated.’
‘Kwan Yin has favoured him,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Very well then.’
‘He is sincere about redeeming himself,’ I said. ‘I can just see him attaining Enlightenment and then doing what they all do — coming straight back down to help the sorry rest of us, raking the gravel in the garden and imparting really cryptic koans.’
‘How many Buddhas are there anyway?’ Simone said.
‘You have not studied the different Ages and their Buddhas?’ Yue Gui said with surprise. ‘Perhaps you should talk to Kwan Yin … No, perhaps not.’
‘Exactly. She says that numbers aren’t meaningful and that I should find the Universe within myself,’ Simone said. ‘And that once I have embraced Unity, I will achieve Oneness with all of them.’
‘They are pure thought when they are not assisting us,’ Martin said. ‘And thoughts cannot be numbered. They exist outside of this reality and are uncountable. So the answer to your question as to the number of Buddhas is: the answer is not meaningful.’
‘I became more interested in the whole thing when Emma came back and told us about the Second Platform,’ Simone said. ‘But right now, I think coming to terms with the Tao is more important anyway.’
‘You are lucky. You have Grand Masters on the Mountain who can teach you in the ways of alchemy, internal energy work and self-cultivation to achieve Immortality. All of the different paths are laid out before you.’
Simone looked down at her food. ‘The path I most want to travel is the one with my whole family waiting for me at the end of it.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ I said. ‘We’re all here on the Mountain. It won’t be long.’
‘Why are you returning to the Earthly tonight?’ Martin said. ‘You are established here now, Emma, you don’t need to sully yourself with Earthly activities.’
‘And we just talked about Buddhas from the higher plane coming down to help us,’ Simone said. ‘As long as there are children being abandoned in China because they’re either girls or disabled, I’ll be down there helping them.’
‘We both will,’ I said. ‘We have a long list of service organisations that we help out. Orphans, micro loans for small businesses, prisoners of conscience —’
‘Political prisoners? That’s perilously close to interfering in political matters,’ Yue Gui said, tapping the table with her fingertips. ‘You know we can’t have anything to do with the way that humans choose to run their governance.’
‘I haven’t been warned yet, and until I am I’m continuing,’ I said. ‘We still have the apartment on the Peak, and we use it as a base of operations.’
‘Sounds like you ladies are on a mission,’ Martin said with humour.
‘You could say that,’ Simone said.
‘Is John still there?’ I said.
Their eyes unfocused, and they all came back and nodded at the same time.
Simone checked her watch. ‘I have to go back to school.’ She rose and kissed Martin and Yue Gui on the cheek, then turned to me. ‘Are we free tomorrow night to have dinner at the Northern Heavens?’
‘Tomorrow’s Nanna and Pop,’ I said. ‘How about after Michael and Clarissa’s engagement party?’
‘It’s a date,’ Yue Gui said, pleased. ‘Make Leo come this time as well; he is family.’
Martin concentrated on Yue Gui and they shared a telepathic communication. Yue Gui bent over the table and spluttered with laughter. ‘Never mind. Di Di just told me why Leo’s staying away from the North right now, and it’s an excellent reason.’
‘Do I want to know?’ Simone said.
‘You are very perceptive,’ Martin said. ‘And the answer to your question is: no.’
‘See you later then,’ Simone said, and disappeared.
Martin leaned his elbows on the table and put his face in his hands. He looked up at me and his eyes were dark with emotion. ‘Hurry up and push him past the basics. I miss him horribly.’ He leaned back and rubbed his hands over his eyes. ‘Telling him to stay away was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.’
I felt a rush of sympathy for him. ‘Do you think he feels the same way?’
Martin leaned forward again and shook his head without looking up. ‘It is not me but the one I resemble that he wants. But I am happy to be a surrogate for as long as he will let me.’
Yue Gui put her hand on Martin’s. ‘Oh, Di Di, I did not know. You should withdraw from this, you will only suffer.’
‘This separation while he masters energy was a trial for me, to see if I was strong enough to end it,’ he said. ‘I failed. I don’t want to be apart from him.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s better to enjoy what I have than to deny myself altogether, isn’t it? He’s happy, I’m happier with him than when I’m not, so I will let the future take care of itself and enjoy the present.’
‘Does he know?’ I said.
‘Of course he does. He hopes that I will tell him not to come back because he knows exactly how I feel.’
‘I’m counting on you to bring him round so that when John returns with enough intelligence, Leo won’t want to be drained by him,’ I said.
‘It is a losing battle.’
Leo drove us to the Convention Centre that evening, with Michael in the front seat next to him. Simone and I sat in the back.
We all headed up to the main area together, to be greeted by David Hawkes, the taipan of one of the biggest multinationals in Hong Kong, and his wife, Bridget. David was one of the younger taipans, being only in his early forties, and one of the most talented members of the company family to come up through the ranks in a while. He was very tall due to his Scottish heritage, but his grandmother had been Chinese, giving him dark hair and eyes. Like most long-term Hong Kong residents he spoke with an accent that was a mix of English and American. Bridget Hawkes was small and slender with bright red hair. She appeared elegant and relaxed in her made-to-measure tailored suit, but I’d competed against her in dressage up at the Jockey Club and she was a fiendishly good rider on her massive warm-blood mare.
‘Good to see you, ladies and gentlemen,’ David said. He moved closer to speak softly to me. ‘There’s something strange going on here. Can you check it out?’
‘What