Empress Rising: The Hunt

Chapter Four

The place I called home was a tiny, rundown shack that looked like the earth had chewed it up and spewed it back out. And the shed was smaller on the inside than it looked from the outside, thanks to the colorful maps that crammed the walls.

Detailed, crinkled outlines of China, the United States, and the whole world spilled over onto the small wooden kitchen table, the edges of the maps yellowed with age and covered in tea stains. Three cots, one for Alex, Ye Ye, and me, lay directly in front of the world map. Shoved against the left wall was a small TV hooked up to a game console, surrounded by the hand-me-down video games Alex and I had scrounged from other warriors. A small kitchen area squeezed against the opposite wall, with a tiny stove and a few cabinets for dishes and rags.

Ye Ye boiled tea while Alex fiddled around with a small gadget in his hand I turned on the TV and let it play in the background. A blonde newscaster wearing the contents of a makeup store on her face was speaking.

"It isn't just the cold weather that's blowing our way tonight, folks. Police are warning citizens of San Francisco to keep their doors locked and belongings secured. A wave of theft and violence is sweeping through the west coast, possibly the work of a new crime lord. Nobody knows which city trouble will hit next..."

A flurry of rapidly turning pages drowned out the local reporter's voice. Hopping over our cots, Alex eagerly spread his hands across the huge map of the world that hung on the wall opposite the front door. He raised Ba's black, leather-bound notebook in one hand, and ran his finger along the bottom coastline of the North American continent. Muttering to himself, he pulled a thumb tack out of Australia and stuck it off the coast of Massachusetts.

Trailing from the West Coast to the East, colorful thumb tacks marked Ba's travels on his search for the Peng Lai island, the mythical realm of the eight immortals. According to Alex, each tack represented somewhere significant to our father's research—anything from sacred temples to hotels to the best restaurants in Chinatown. The trail led to cluster of at least ten multi-colored tacks that surrounded the Atlantic Ocean.

"Still obsessed with finding the Peng Lai island?" I asked as my brother stepped back to admire his handiwork.

"Ba started his search when he was our age, and I've got a good feeling I can finish it for him," Alex said. "Even though his writing makes chicken scratch look like Times New Roman, I think I'm getting close." My brother flipped through the book feverishly, the breeze from the pages billowing his long, curly brown hair away from his face.

I stepped up behind my brother, staring at the faded, barely legible characters my father had scrawled over ten years ago. "How the hell do you know what any of this says?"

"It's called reading comprehension, idiot. Something you'd learn if you bothered ever picking up a book."

I stuck my tongue out at my brother, who rolled his eyes. "Why would I bother reading books when you can just tell me what they say?"

"Because, as hard as it is to believe, I don't know everything. There's this chapter about horses that I can't figure out," Alex explained, tilting our father's book toward me. "I mean, I know ba loved horses, but I wish he could've told us something a little more useful other than 'a pack of sugar cubes can go a long way'—"

"Give it up," I sighed. The crossed-out and hastily written Chinese characters were giving me a throbbing headache. "The Peng Lai island isn't meant for mortal travels. If our father—the Liu Bo—couldn't find it, what makes you think we can?"

Alex shot me a withering look. He plopped down on the nearest seat in front of the table and buried his head in our father's notebook. "When I'm as old as you are, I hope I don't turn into a total grouch," he muttered.