The Fake Medium Hooked a Real Ghost novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Tea with Master Lu

Master Lu's house stood on the hillside above Huandao Road, behind a camphor tree and two sets of gates.

A woman in a white apron showed Ye Ming through a hall lined with photographs of the master shaking hands.

The tea room at the end had a view of the whole sea.

Lu sat at a low table in his cream linen, warming a clay pot between his palms.

"Little Ming," he said. "Sit. Put the lamp down where we can both see it."

Ye Ming set the lamp on the table between them.

The crack ran down the glass chimney, thin and clear, and the candle inside it stood very straight.

Lu poured tea into two small cups and pushed one across.

"I'll be plain with you," he said, "because you're the only one at the Hall who's earned it."

"Thank you, Master."

"I am fifty-six. I have been on television twelve years. In all that time I have never heard a single dead person say a word."

He smiled, gently, at the lamp.

"I did it by diligence, and by listening to people. It is a craft, like any other."

He turned the clay cup in his fingers.

"But I think something here speaks to you."

"I think it cracked this glass in my own office, and froze my photographs. I'm not a fool."

The candle flame lay down flat.

Across the table the clay cup in Lu's hand gave a sharp ping.

It split from rim to base, and the tea ran out of it, crusted with ice.

Lu looked at the broken cup without blinking.

Then he laughed softly and wiped his fingers on a napkin.

"There he is," he said. "Hello, Inspector."

Under the table, a cold hand gripped Ye Ming's, hard.

"I can't hear him," said Lu pleasantly. "I never could."

"But I can see what he does to a room, and I find it quite thrilling."

"He's not a pet, Master," said Ye Ming.

"No. A pet would be easier. Here is my offer."

He laid two documents on the table, side by side.

One was the confidentiality undertaking.

The other was thicker, on heavy paper, and had Ye Ming's name on the first page.

"On the last Saturday in November the Hall unveils the pier memorial at the Seaview Hotel," said Lu. "Three hundred guests, and all nine families in the front row."

"You stand at the lamp and give each of them a final message, written by me, spoken with the authority of a man who is actually answered."

"They sign the permanent release at their tables, and we close eight years."

"And for me?" said Ye Ming.

"Twenty percent of the Hall. Your sister's tuition, for life. A television contract the producer will do cartwheels over."

"You'd use him," said Ye Ming. "In front of his own mother."

"Use is a hard word. Let us say I would let him be of service."

Beneath the table, Ye Ming felt the grip on his hand tighten, and then very slowly ease.

"I'll think about it," he said.

"Of course. You're a clever boy. I only ask you to be clever about the people who love you."

Lu bowed his head toward the lamp.

"Goodbye, Inspector. It's a pity about your temper."

Outside, under the camphor tree, the evening smelled of wet leaves.

Ye Ming walked to the end of the drive and stopped where the street lamp threw a pale circle on the road.

For a long moment he could not make his hands stop shaking.

"I wanted to put him through the wall," said Gu Chen.

He was standing in the light, quite close, and for the first time he was more than a shadow.

Ye Ming could see the long dark coat, damp at the cuffs.

He could see the wet black hair, and the cut at the left temple.

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