It was a long climb, and when we emerged at the top, I saw why. We now stood in a chamber set high above the cavern I'd entered down below. Plenty of light and fresh air entered this room through latticed windows cut into the stone walls, and Chinese lanterns with electric light hung from the carved wooden beams of the ceiling. The entire room was paneled in richly lacquered hardwood, and the scent of sandalwood incense sweetened the air. Traditional Chinese furnishings stood all around. It looked like one of those throne rooms in the Forbidden City, where Chinese emperors used to receive foreign dignitaries.
My escort melted into the woodwork as silently as she'd appeared, leaving me to gawk at the incredible luxury that filled the room. But the smell of tobacco told me I was not alone. Perched on some kind of elevated throne at the far end of the room sat a man smoking a cigarette and tapping the arm of his chair with the tip of a long gold, jewel-encrusted fingernail sheath that capped the little finger of his left hand. He glared at me in stony silence as I approached him.
At ten paces I froze in my tracks and squinted at the man. I could hardly believe my eyes! A smug smile spread across the man's face as he felt my recognition grow—a demented smirk that confirmed his identity beyond all doubt. Sure, he'd changed a bit—lost most of his hair and much of his bulk-but that look on his face—especially the perverse smile—hadn't changed at all. Swank on his pretentious throne, wearing a long Mandarin robe of the best Chinese silk, with a golden dragon embroidered across his chest, sat my "old friend" Ching Wei, grinning at me through a coiling cloud of smoke.
III
"Have you eaten yet?" he asked. That's a standard Chinese greeting and means basically the same as "How do you do?" in English. It was typical of that wise guy to greet me with such courtesy, as though he'd simply invited me over for dinner, rather than having me dragged there at gunpoint by his goon, One-Eye.
"Not yet," I replied, which immediately obliged him to offer me something to eat. I hadn't had a bite of food for two days and felt famished.
"Good!" he said, snuffing out his cigarette in an ivory ashtray as he stood up. "Dinner is ready. I am so delighted you could come here tonight. As our great sage Confucius said, 'When friends visit from afar, is this not indeed a pleasure!"'
He led me through a round "moon door" into a smaller but equally well-appointed dining room. Scrolls of elegant Chinese calligraphy and delicate landscape paintings adorned the walls; sprays of fresh flowers artfully arranged in antique porcelain vases scented the air—all the traditional trappings of a classical Chinese gentleman were there. In the middle of the room stood a polished rosewood dining table, set for two.
"Please be seated," he said, indicating my place at the table.
We sat silently and appraised each other for a few minutes. He had grown one of those long "Fu Manchu" types of mustaches, which he habitually twisted and tugged with his fingertips. The nail of his left little finger must have been at least two inches long, and it was sheathed inside a gold nail scabbard studded with emeralds, rubies, and sapphires that sparkled in the candlelight. This indicated, in classical Chinese fashion, that he was a gentleman of wealth and leisure, not a man of labor. His smoothly shaven head shined like a bowling ball, and his eyes flickered brightly through narrow lids. Another native girl in Chinese dress appeared from nowhere and poured us a round of hot rice wine—the real Hsiao-Shing wine from the mainland. She also placed a few platters of hot hors d'oeuvres on the table, served us a portion of each, then disappeared as silently as she'd come.
"Welcome to Dragon Mountain, Captain Jack," Ching Wei finally said, hoisting his cup to toast me. "Let us drink to old times. Bottoms up!" His English had improved considerably since I'd last seen him. "How long has it been, Jack?"
"About thirty years."
"Ah, yes, thirty years. We have so much to talk about, and so much time to talk about it. But first, we must eat!" He clapped his hands and the girl returned with the first course, a platter of roasted meat and braised poultry, garnished with coriander, scallions, and a savory sauce.
The girl returned about every fifteen minutes, each time with a fresh platter of the most superb Chinese food I'd eaten in years. One bite was enough to tell me that a genuine culinary artist was at work back in the kitchen. We had everything from bird's nest soup to shark fin stew, and some dishes that I'd never even tasted before. We didn't spoil the meal with serious discussion. Instead, we chatted about the finer points of Chinese cuisine.
By now this whole thing must sound like a fairy tale, so let me backtrack a bit and fill in the background.
I first met Ching Wei back in Chungking, China, during the war. We were both pilots then, assigned to fly supplies over the Himalayan Hump from India into Kunming and Chungking. I was stationed there from 1942 until VJ Day in 1945, when I was transferred back to Shanghai. So I knew Ching Wei for about three years there, after which I never saw him again until that night.
The first time we met was at a Chinese martial arts class that we both attended in Chungking. The weather was so terrible there that we'd often be grounded for days at a time with nothing to do. And with the chronic shortage of fuel, the constant damage to runways from Japanese bombs, and the endless bickering between General Stilwell and the Chinese command, we ended up spending more time on the ground than in the air. The martial arts class helped kill time.
There was a remarkable old Chinese master living in Chungking at the time, and he organized the class especially for Chinese and American officers stationed there. I guess the class was his personal contribution to the war effort. We simply called him "Old Lee" among ourselves, but always "Master Lee" to his face. He came from a long line of martial artists and Taoist mystics, and—believe it or not—his father was still alive then at the ripe old age of 273! To prove it, Old Lee once showed me his father's birth certificate, duly stamped with the official seals of the Kang-Hsi reign in the Ching Dynasty. I once asked his father for the secret to his health and longevity, and he simply replied, "Correct breathing." Anyway, it was fascinating stuff, and it had both recreational and practical health benefits. I always looked forward to the class during those long dismal days we were grounded.
About thirty of us studied under Old Lee—ten Americans and the rest Chinese—but at any given time about half of us were stuck on the other side of the Hump in India. It was like a little fraternity: close bonds of brotherhood formed among most of Old Lee's students. That's the Chinese way.
During my three years with him, I grew quite close to Old Lee. He seemed to like me from the start. Later, I realized that he saw something in me that aroused his profession al interest as much as his personal friendship.
Old Lee said that I was unusually sensitive to the vital force that the Chinese call chi, the essential energy of life that animates all living things. With proper training and lots of practice, Old Lee said, I could learn to focus and direct my chi by virtue of will power, first by practicing martial arts forms, and later by meditation and other internal methods. Old Lee took a dim view of the war-whooping, high-flying, muscle-bound variety of martial arts. Instead, he cultivated the soft, subtle internal powers of chi. "Properly applied," he often said, "four ounces of energy can topple one thousand pounds."
Old Lee also entrusted me with his highest teachings. He knew from long experience that most young adepts end up abusing the powers of the martial arts if taught its innermost secrets too early in life. But he felt that as a foreigner who had taken the trouble to learn the basics of Chinese language and culture, I had demonstrated sufficient sincerity to be taught these esoteric arts the way they were meant to be practiced. So I learned a lot from Old Lee, and in the process we became good friends as well.
Because he taught me so much in private outside of the regular class, some of his Chinese students grew very jealous, especially since I was a foreigner. It didn't seem fair to them that the old