One day, Xi’s friend, Tai began to tell him about a secret society; Xi was intrigued.
“If you like,” said the Tai, “I’ll take you to meet the Master.”
“Who is the Master?”
“He is the Master of the Wei Society, but you must never call him that.”
“What rubbish are you talking about?”
“Listen,” said his friend, “it’s no good me telling you. You have to see for yourself.”
His friend started telling him about the feeling you got from being a member.
“I don’t know. It sounds crazy.”
“I swear to you, it’s not bullshit. Not only will you feel protected, but you will feel power.”
“You must be off your head.”
“Xi, you know me. I was a wreck, but now look at me. I feel like a new man. I tell you I have not gambled or touched a drop in months.”
Tai gave Xi an address, and he said he would think about it.
“You don’t need to be afraid,” said his friend. “I promise nothing bad will happen to you.”
“You swear it.”
“I am your friend, aren’t I?”
Xi went to the address in the Kwun Tong district at the appointed hour.
Tai came to answer the door and led him, past a kitchen where a woman was making noodles, into a room at the back of the house.
Incense was burning, and the room was lit with candles.
When Tai put the sack over his head, Xi was terrified, but also exhilarated. “Have no fear,” said Tai. “You will not suffocate.”
The Master began to speak; the words went right over his head.
Eventually, the Master turned to him and said:
“Do you wish to be initiated?”
“Yes.
“And you wish to be a member of our Society?”
“Yes.”
“You are aware of the origins of our story.”
He shook his head.
The Master told of a timeless struggle between two orders. “The task of our society,” he declared, “is to monitor the activities of the two orders. We are the ones who come between.”
“We are the ones who come between,” intoned Tai.
“Now,” he said, “you must repeat the words of the ritual.”
Xi mumbled through the sack.
“Do you hear me?” the Master said.
“Yes,” he replied.
The Master began to intone the words of the ritual.
Xi began to repeat the words back to him.
If he stumbled, the Master stopped and repeated them again until he got them right.
Then he was silent.
Xi grew impatient.
“What’s going on?” he cried.
“Do you want to ruin the Ceremony?” said the Master. “Keep silent, keep still.”
Xi tried to do as he was told. Even when he became distracted, Xi told himself to obey. Xi, you must keep silent, keep still.
At length, the Master spoke again.
“Place your hands on the table.”
He felt the knife.
“This is a dragon knife,” said the Master. “It is a knife worn at the side. It is held in an upward curved sheath. There is a dragon on its handle.”
“Now,” he said, “take the dragon from the sheath.
“Such a knife is rarely used to commit a murder. It is a ceremonial blade. But if it is used in such a way, it suggests that the person’s honour has been sullied. Or there was extreme conflict, and the owner was forced to defend himself from attack.”
The Master bade him pick up the knife.
“Now you will take the dragon in your right hand,” he said. “As you take it in your right hand, you will pass the blade across the palm of your left hand.”
The dragon knife had cost over two thousand Hong Kong Dollars. Xi could ill afford it. But he did not care. From time to time he would take it out of its sheath and admire the blade with the dark patch which was his own bloodstain. What his friend Tai had told him was true. The dragon knife gave him confidence and a sense of power. Xi was very proud of it, as he was the scar across his palm. He would carry it around with him in the inside pocket of his jacket because there was no way in modern day Hong Kong to wear a blade at one’s side. At times he would bring it out to show people. Then he would confide in them. “I am a member of the Wei Society,” he would tell them. His friends from the gambling den thought he was crazy. But he did not care. He would hold the knife up. “You don’t believe me I will show you!”
But everyone laughed.
“How much did you pay for it?”
“What’s it to you?” he cried. “My dragon knife is not for sale.”
“We bet you lose it by the end of the evening.”
“I will never lose my dragon knife.”
But, after gambling heavily and drinking too much, Xi got into a fight in the street. He was surrounded by a group of attackers, all young men bigger and stronger than him, but he did not care. “I am the defender of the Wei,” he cried. He took the dragon knife out and began to wield it with gleeful swishing motions.
When his attackers saw the knife, they turned tail and ran.
He was so drunk he fell over, giggling and hysterical.
“You are a member of the Wei,” he told himself. “No one can touch you.”
When Xi woke up, he was lying in the room he shared with the machinist from Guangzhou.
He groped under the pillow, but the knife was not there.
What had happened to my dragon knife?
He strained to remember. It was no good. It was lost in the fog of his brain.
Did he pawn it?
Did he lose it?
Or did someone steal it?
What did it matter now?
All these thoughts were going through his mind when he took kitchen knife from the drawer.
There was no reason for it. No logic.
Only the logic of the knife.
What did it matter if the knife was a kitchen knife or a dragon knife?
My honour has been sullied, he told himself.
“Yes,” he told himself, “all honour has been sullied.”
So saying, he cut across the vein with one brisk motion.
Collapsed on the floor, he watched the blood trickle onto the floor…
As he began to lose consciousness, he thought of the darkened room and his Master’s intoning voice:
“Keep silent, keep still.”