Free Skeleton Women by Mingmei Yip Page A

woman. If you want to talk about it, I’m all ears. Just pay me a visit.”
    I paused before I said, changing the topic, “Madame Lewinsky, why didn’t you tell me you’d be here, so I could have sent you a ticket in advance? Please sit down and chat with us for a while.”
    She shook her head. “I’ve got to go, but nice to meet you and your friends.” Eyes sparkling with mischief, she again whispered into my ear, her head nodding toward Jinying, “He’s a really nice young man, and I can tell he’s madly in love with you. Remember, once your bird of youth has flown, it will never come back.”
    After that, she cast another appreciative look at Jinying, turned back to wink at me, and left.
    Jinying poured more Champagne into my glass. “Who was that lady?”
    “My singing teacher.”
    “Then you should have introduced her to us.”
    I explained that she was in a hurry, but the young master continued. “Maybe I should also take lessons from her.”
    Alarmed, I exclaimed, “Oh, no, I am sure she is all booked!”

PART TWO

6
    Life Between the Two Gangs
    A mong the city’s numerous black societies, the two most powerful, headed respectively by the warlords Master Lung and Big Brother Wang, were the Flying Dragons and the Red Demons. However, the Flying Dragons were always a few steps ahead of the Red Demons in their various “business enterprises”—gambling, prostitution, opium, “protection,” kidnapping, loan-sharking, as well as smuggling guns, gold, US dollars and medicines in, and national treasures out. Ironically, as the two gangs competed in illegal dealings, they also vied in doing charitable works.
    My boss, Big Brother Wang’s, lifelong obsession was to destroy Lung so he could replace him not only as the richest and most feared boss of the Shanghai underworld but also as its most respected philanthropist.
    That was how I came onto the scene—a minuscule screw wriggling between the city’s two most powerful machines.
    Wang’s plan was to apply the famous meiren ji, beauty strategy, or honey trap, one of the Thirty-Six Stratagems . Simple in principle and timeless in effectiveness, it involved sending beautiful women to eliminate anyone from lord to emperor. Twenty-five hundred years ago, during the chaotic era known as the Warring States, King Goujian of Yue used it to defeat King Fuchai of the State of Wu.
    King Wu won the first battle, and so King Yue sent him ten carts of priceless treasures as tribute. But cleverly he also included eight of the most beautiful women in his state as peace offerings. As intended, King Wu and his ministers became so immersed in dalliance that they neglected state affairs. Tipped off by his spies, King Yue sent his army and easily defeated King Wu. Though Wu offered Yue his country and all its treasures, the victor was merciless. Wu was ordered to commit suicide in front of the very women who had brought about his ruin.
    Even the most cunning man becomes a fool for a beautiful woman. Friends’ warnings fall on deaf ears. Men blind themselves to the schemes behind the pretty face and the poisons in the beloved heart. When clothes come off, thinking stops.
    My job was simple in principle, though not in operation. It was to win Lung’s complete love and trust, then lure him to a place where the Red Demons gang could assassinate him. Of course I’d been told to do the murdering myself should the right situation arise. But this was really chiren shuomeng, crazy dreaming—pure wishful thinking on their part.
    Because every time before I was allowed inside Lung’s bedroom or hotel room, I’d be stripped naked and searched thoroughly by Gao, his head bodyguard. I was even asked to jump up and down in case a weapon—small knife, razor, poisonous pill—had been hidden inside my vagina. Of course he’d also scrape my mouth for possible pills wedged between my teeth. Was I humiliated? No, because acquiring a thick skin was part of my training. I had learned not