Dragon Bones Read Free Page B

to take hold in Beijing. She turned to signal to the policemen to round up anyone holding a collection basket.
    Suddenly she heard a woman’s voice scream, “For Xiao Da!”
    Hulan spun around. The mother who moments before had been whispering into her daughter’s ear now stood fully erect, her neck stretched so she could see above the crowd to the lieutenant. In one hand she held on to the back of her daughter’s T-shirt; in the other she held a cleaver, which she must have brought with her in her bag. The blade was a good ten centimeters wide.
    Everyone here was Chinese; all knew from experience when something bad was going to happen. People started to edge away and push each other to get out of there. For a moment Hulan lost sight of the mother and daughter altogether. She heard Tang Wenting’s voice shout out: “Be calm! Xiao Da would want you all to be calm!”
    Miraculously, the crowd responded to his words, slowing down, quieting.
    “We need to help our sister,” he went on. “Tell me, sister! What do you want to tell Xiao Da? Have you come to renounce alcohol, tobacco, and fornication? We are all with you!”
    “I have come to punish this girl,” the woman called back to him.
    Hulan pulled out her weapon and held it lowered in front of her. “Put the knife down!” she yelled.
    People scattered out of the way, then, like frightened animals, scrambled right back into her line of fire.
    “All children are innocent.” Tang Wenting maintained his facade of serenity. As much as Hulan distrusted the group and all it stood for, she was grateful that the lieutenant seemed to understand the gravity of the situation.
    “This one is bad,” the mother answered. “The evil needs to be cut out.”
    These words caught the interest of the crowd. Now they wanted to see what the ruckus was all about. Hulan shoved people aside, yet she still felt she was being pushed farther away.
    “Only Xiao Da can pass judgment,” the lieutenant countered. “And he believes in just punishments only.”
    A primal howl ripped out of the woman. “A mother can see evil too!”
    She sank to her knees and pushed her daughter to the ground. She grabbed the girl’s forearm and held it flat against the cement.
    “Move out of my way!” Hulan screamed. But in a country where people witnessed executions as entertainment, no one moved. To the woman, she shouted, “Put the knife down or I’ll shoot!”
    “Mama! No! Mama!” These were the first words anyone had heard from the child. They floated out sweet and crisp.
    Tang Wenting had come down off his box and managed to make his way to the mother. “You are suffering, sister,” he consoled her. “We suffer with you, but we are not extremists. The river is life….”
    These words did not offer solace. Instead the woman looked around wildly, searching the faces for understanding. Then her eyes dropped to her daughter’s hand. When she raised the cleaver above her head, Hulan lifted her weapon and took careful aim at the woman’s shoulder. The cleaver began to fall. The little girl struggled to free her arm. Her screams were unlike anything Hulan had ever heard before. Hulan fired.
    Panic was instantaneous. People began running every which way. Hulan heard other shots being fired and hoped that bullets were only going over people’s heads. She took a last few steps and reached the sad little tableau. The mother lay splayed on the ground, thrashing from side to side, blood everywhere. The little girl knelt beside her mother, sobbing. Tang Wenting was on his knees, trying to staunch the bleeding with his palms. Hulan dropped down beside them. “Move!” she ordered the lieutenant. He pulled his hands away, and blood squirted up, spraying the little girl’s face.
    “There shouldn’t be so much blood,” Hulan said to no one. She tore the woman’s blouse. The entry wound was in the shoulder as it should have been, but the blood was not coming from there. Instead it gushed from a