Huang Ying [hiatus]

Prologue

Huang Ying
Fox-Trot-9

Rated PG-13
Horror/Suspense/Mystery/Vampire 

Prologue

Near Chengde, China
September 18, 1977

The killings, which would terrify and perplex the authorities for the next three decades, began with a small artifact glinting in the fading overcast of an early autumn sky, nearing sunset in a dig site between Inner Mongolia and Heibei Province. That glint caught the eye of Sammo Hung, a 32-year-old man in a dusty plaid shirt and dustier slacks from overseeing the dig all day, appearing as the imposing silhouette of an Indiana Jones without his hat against the quickening backdrop of the sky.

For most of the six hours of his shift, he had been doing double duty—directing the workers on where they should dig according to this day's plan, and updating his mentor and curator of the Nanjing Municipal Museum, Dr. Xiou Godenzi, on the findings. Those findings, however—a few bronze spearheads and arrowheads; shards of pottery; and two or three pieces of the turtle shell armor the ancient Chinese infantry wore—were of little importance to Dr. Godenzi; he was looking for something else, though Sammo hadn't a clue. So when he saw that glint, he thought it was just another arrowhead, but he thought it over on a second glance.

He looked at the object glinting the greenish hue of rusted bronze, but his instincts told him it was something different. Curious, he climbed down the ladder into the pit, where the rest of the diggers shoveled dirt and carried it out by the bucket load. He crouched, took out his spade and carefully dug around the artifact, so he wouldn't damage it; when he lifted it out and got all the dirt clots off, he stood and examined it for a while. It was something to whistle at. It was a ring made of nephrite, a rare kind of jade not found too often in the dusty steppes of northern China. And beyond that, it had a seal on it, making it the most promising find yet in Dr. Godenzi's seemingly futile attempt to prove his theory of what really happened here all those distant centuries ago.

So the old geezer was right, after all, thought Sammo. Something really did happen here. After telling the rest of the diggers to take off for the rest of the day, he climbed the ladder out of the hole and walked over to the tent, big enough to encompass a small bathroom. "Dr. Godenzi, I think I found something. A jade ring."

Dr. Godenzi looked up from his text books. At seventy-six, he was the perfect image of a cue ball-headed curator, not a single wisp of hair atop his sun-burned scalp, and wearing thick round-lensed glasses. And no less uglier, either. "Really, now?"

When Sammo entered into the light of the tent, he looked different from the Indiana Jones of the outside. He was of mixed parentage, bearing the thin and pale Nordic features of his mother on his face, while still possessing the Chinese black hair and brown eyes of his father. He sat down across from his mentor, showing him his find. "And there appears to be some kind of seal on it, though it's hard to make out."

"Any idea how old the script is?"

"It might be from the early Shang Dynasty (1), maybe even older than that by the looks of it."

Dr. Godenzi raised his brows, wrinkling his wrinkly forehead, which he rarely does. A sign that told Sammo he was interested in his find, for once. "Are you saying they're older than the oracle bones (2) from Henan?"

"Take a look for yourself," and he handed it to him.

The older man took out a magnifying glass and examined the marks under the light of a lamp on his desk. Silence. "Sammo, you finally gave me a real puzzler to pick at. It's an ancient form of Chinese script, far older than the script on the oracle bones, as far as I can tell."