15 What to do

Ghosts liked dark places, didn't they?

Ming Cheng had never heard of a ghost that walked in the sunlight. If they appeared outside, then they would be in the shade, or in the middle of the night.

In the sunlight, for at least a little while, Ming Cheng would be slightly safer from the ghost that was telling him to make friends with the children in the corner who clearly didn't like him at all. It would be so much easier if he could just avoid them and keep his head down.

There was no telling what the ghost would do to him if he didn't cooperate with her, Ming Cheng thought and despaired, eyes down turned to keep washing the rice in front of him.

He wondered whether the ghost was watching him all the time, or was running out of spiritual energy and was fading in and out of existence. Was that why the ghost was speaking so slowly?

Ming Cheng really didn't know the answers, and he had no real way to find out. He didn't know how to read and write, so couldn't check any books. All he could do was ask people and Lan Chang was the only one here who he could really trust.

He glanced over to the children in the corner again, and thought to himself that maybe ghosts and spirits were a good topic to begin with and talk about. It wasn't something dull, like the weather, and he had no idea really about the kinds of hobbies that they would have and what they liked.

Ming Cheng remembered playing make believe a lot, but those games weren't things that children in groups liked to play.

They played with sticks as swords, dolls and paper tops. They had rattle drums, spinning tops and all sorts of other paper animals.

He didn't have any of those things.

Ming Cheng, like an idiot, had agreed to not speak of the ghost at all, which put him in a difficult position.

He needed to get rid of the ghost, but he had no idea how.

Temple priests, who sometimes walked around with their giant carts giving out food, could probably. They'd at least be able to pray to a God who could solve the problem.

But if Ming Cheng wanted to speak to a priest, he had no time to do so, due to the ghost speaking to him in the middle of the day and the new employment that he was in.

There was no real way that Ming Cheng could really contact a priest to do something about the ghost in the palace that was haunting him.

Why was the ghost even in the palace?

Who even was Liu Yang before she died?

Ming Cheng would have to ask, but he needed some kind of segue way to bring up the question about her and he had no justification for really knowing her name.

Ming Cheng blinked those thoughts away, deciding to focus on the task at hand rather than pondering on questions that he would have to answer later.

Lan Chang was the only way that Ming Cheng could travel upon to learn how to read and write. Lan Chang was the only way that Ming Cheng could possibly access any books on people of the palace and Lan Chang was the only way that Ming Cheng could possibly exorcise the ghost.

But now, instead of ghosts, Ming Cheng had to focus on making friends.

He had never made friends before.

Proper friends.

There were only loose alliances based on the exchange of valuables and services for survival on the streets.

Nobody wanted another beggar child around, and nobody really cared if another beggar child died in the snow.

They were useless, pitiful animals after all.

There were the scum of the earth, unwanted and unloved by their parents and guardians, cast out for some supposed fault of their own that they failed to correct and resolve. They were somehow lazy and not in want of work, but at the same time, vicious and vile criminals who would mercilessly beat any innocent, hardworking man dead and rob his corpse for any and all shreds of wealth.

Ming Cheng didn't have friends.

He only had the old men who would toss him scraps of bread if he collected the scant remains of snapped opium pipes outside of the brothels and the special houses.

He only had the feral teenagers, who would sooner slice his neck open in his sleep, to beg for shelter from, in exchange for delivering messages from one filthy alley to another.

He only had the children his age, under the threat of potential broken bones and blindness, to help storm singular stalls, all at once in big groups, as part of revenge when the men, who manned the market stalls, decided to be particularly vicious to them.

A huge swarm of children would descend upon that one stall, and that one stall alone, robbing and taking everything in sight, leaving nothing but bare shelves behind.

Of course soldiers came and other men rallied around the cause of ridding the world of the menaces and vermin. And of course it was every child for themselves, their large group splitting into tens of individuals, all scattering in different directions to escape.

It was a calculated risk that they all took.

It was a calculated risk that Ming Cheng took.

And it was a calculated risk to try and make friends with these children.

Ming Cheng's hands shook, water rippling away from his offending limb as he swirled the rice in the water around and around, the artificial whirlpool's sides climbing higher and higher up the wood.

He stopped himself in the last moment, before the water overflowed and splashed him, embarrassing him.

He picked up the rice, filling both his small hands with the grains, and dropped the wet mass into the giant pot that was going to be boiling over a fire, much later in the evening.

The bell tolled then, signalling the beginning of the lunch break.