THE SADDEST GIRL SINCE THE SONG DYNASTY

AND THEN - DUANG! - PART V

Despite all that, Lady Zhao knew in her gut her future was in China's most degenerate metropolis. A fortuneteller had dropped in on her life at just the right moment to tell her something she wanted to hear, and to convince her father of the same now merely required the recounting of the story and a telephone number for corroboration.

Lady Zhao tipped the man, exchanged contact information, and stayed in touch throughout her early twenties, turning to him whenever she needed spiritual reinforcement of her own biases. One day, a woman telephoned Lady Zhao – she said she had had a dream that a fortuneteller colleague of hers had died, and that he had told her in this dream to take on his client list, which included Lady Zhao. Not only that, the woman claimed also to have inherited the thoughts and memories of Lady Zhao's freshly deceased psychic, and was willing to conduct a free over-the-phone sample consultation. Four years later, that woman was taking Lady Zhao's pulse at a busy taxi stand and shaking her head.

"Been so hectic, you know how it is."

"Wait a moment. I am getting a reading from your internal energies. Just a second... Have you been stressed lately?"

When was Lady Zhao not stressed? "A little, a few things all happening at once. Troublesome."

"Is your friend in trouble? One of your friends? This is what I'm getting, what I'm sensing. Have you been eating properly? No, wait – it's because Buddha is not pleased with you, I think I understand, it's getting clearer. Have you thought about going to a temple? Or making a visit to a holy place, a mountain, a shrine...?"

The dinner conversation from the weekend lingered somewhere in Lady Zhao subconscious, and it manifested itself not as a defined memory, but possibly as a flinch.

"Yes, a holy mountain. Wutai Shan... It's a bit far, I think. Don't go there. But Dar-For Mountain – that is the closest of all the sacred mountains. Have you been thinking of going there? Or maybe someone has revealed this to you, someone other than me. Did you doubt it? I sense you initially had misgivings. Zhao Lei, your life force, I can feel it through your wrists – I think you should go, I think it will help you. And don't go alone. No, take your friend. Or friends. This is a trip you must do in a group, you must take those who have problems in their lives with you, love problems, money problems, so Buddha can consider the merits of their cases, help them, maybe help you too. Helping others – this Buddha looks agreeably upon, it will earn you cosmic credit."

The fortuneteller added something about visiting a particular monk there who was perhaps six months away from enlightenment, but by then Lady Zhao had tuned out and was simply keen to deliver Bingbing's gift and end a crap day. She felt obliged to hand over a couple of hundred kuai for the impromptu session, and in return for the generosity, the fortuneteller used her frail appearance to steal a cab from an embarrassed looking young couple. During the ride to Jingan District, the revelation and the idea of taking Bingbing and Ander to a temple that weekend successfully invaded Lady Zhao's frontal lobe, her decision making synapses.