After the Dragons Read online

  “I was hoping to have a look at that grey-and-white panlong again — Hua Xue, was it? Quite astonishing, that she managed to survive so long in the city. I would like to examine her more closely. Of course,” she says, pulling out her wallet, “the Laboratory of Immunology would be more than happy to cover any costs our demands on your time would warrant.”

  “If it’s a request from Beida’s Laboratory of Immunology, well,” Mr. Lin says, shrugging as he opens the doors. Dr. Wang walks in beside him, striding forward with the assurance of someone who belongs there. Though not entirely sure why he’s needed here, Eli follows, steps slow as he peers inside.

  The shop is a dusty, dim space, the only illumination from a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, though unlit lamps are placed throughout the room. While hardly spacious, the shop is larger than it looked from the street, with aquarium tubes stretching up walls like vines and shelves crowded with glass tanks and cages. Dragon scales flash as Eli passes, golden eyes following him with faint curiosity or lazy indifference. There’s an astonishing amount of species variation on display — yellow and green and iridescent blue, sizes ranging from the tiny serpents the length of his finger to large wyverns hulking like eagles or brooding vampires inside their metal cages. He pauses in front of one, watching the dragons inside hiss and faintly fluoresce at each other.

  “Lin,” a voice says. A man emerges from the depths of the shop, dirt streaking his worn apron and scuffed-up sneakers. He’s younger than Mr. Lin, pale and lanky in the way that suggests the delicate mixture of stress and bad nutrition that constitute college student. “I need you in the back. I want you to look at —” He stops, seeing Dr. Wang and Eli.

  “Oh!” Dr. Wang says, appraising the newcomer in delight. “I haven’t seen you around. Did you just start here, young man?”

  The young man in question narrows his eyes. Despite being several inches shorter than Eli, his glare is disproportionately withering.

  “I’ve been working here for a month.”

  “Kai,” Mr. Lin says, a warning in his voice before he turns to Dr. Wang again. “Xiang Kaifei. My new assistant. It seems we match now, an apprentice each. Kai, this is Wang Jiachun, medical researcher at Beida.”

  “Hello,” Eli says, inserting himself into the conversation with a wave. “I’m Eli. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Hi,” Kaifei says, glancing at him briefly before turning his attention to Mr. Lin again. “Xiao Bai’s refusing to eat again. You should take a look at her.”

  “Of course she is,” Mr. Lin says, sighing as he glances toward the back of the store. “Brat. Didn’t I hire you so I wouldn’t have to do this? I’ll go check on her. Jiachun,” he says, nodding at Dr. Wang. “Need to make sure my dragons aren’t killing themselves.”

  “Oh, but I’d love to come along! You know, I was telling Eli about the importance of unexpected experiences — I can’t be a hypocrite and refuse now. Besides, it could be helpful later — some of my colleagues at Beida work on dragons, but it’s a piecemeal affair since no one does dracology per se. Yueli — you remember Yueli, don’t you? She did a postdoc in Shandong, and she’s been an evangelist for draconic research ever since. Now she’s working with a local wildlife rehabilitation center, but because she’s junior faculty the university’s been hesitant with funding. I was thinking of petitioning the university to fund a formal dragon research unit, so this visit is technically research. Who knows, maybe today I’ll find something I can add to the grant proposal.”

  “You do that,” Mr. Lin says, expression carefully blank in the way of someone who has heard this pitch many times before. “You,” he says, nodding at Kaifei. “Watch the front. Bettors should start coming around in a few minutes — don’t let the place burn.”

  Kaifei dips his head. “I’ll do my best.”

  “Eli,” Dr. Wang says, smiling at him from the back door, “would you like to come?”

  Eli’s gaze drifts back to where Kaifei is standing, a stiff silhouette against the rows of tanks. He shakes his head. “No, I can wait here.”

  Dr. Wang gives him an odd look, one full of meaning Eli can’t quite parse, but for once says nothing. With a nod at Eli, she follows Mr. Lin into a back room, the curtain fluttering behind them.

  In their absence, Eli and Kaifei stand there in the silence.

  Eli watches as Kaifei walks behind the register, opening the cabinet and rummaging through its contents with familiarity.

  “So,” Kaifei says, not looking up from where he is kneeling, a collection of nets and dried jerky scattered around him. “You’re from Beida?”

  “I — yes,” he says, blinking. There’s a hint of Britishness in Kai’s accent, a not uncommon trait in the English spoken by international students. “Only here for the summer, though. Research assistant,” he says, switching to Mandarin.

  “Mm-hmm. Veterinary medicine?”

  “Just normal medicine. Dr. Wang dragged me out here. I don’t really know, either,” he says when Kai raises one eyebrow. “She’s got these ideas about dragons, thinks that because of the way their immune and respiratory systems work there could be a connection to human disease. They could be a model organism.” This last word Eli knows only from hours spent pouring over lab manuals, Chinese-English dictionary in hand. “I think she feels responsible for me, actually,” he says, smiling ruefully. “It’s interesting, though. Not a lot of people have dragons in America, so I don’t know a lot about them.”

  “Import taxes, international laws, et cetera.” Kaifei pushes the cabinet closed, then stands up. “They’re also high-strung, finnicky bastards. If the Western species were half as entitled, you can understand why the Europeans were in such a rush to get rid of them.”

  Net and bag of food in hand, Kaifei moves toward the back of the store and a row of tanks against the wall. Eli follows, staying a step back as Kaifei adjusts the dials on a tank, flips a switch on another, pops open the top of another and skims dead leaves off the water. The dragon inside — a pale, violently red-eyed shuilong, a river or lake variant Eli guesses by the delicate tracery of veins beneath skin — pokes its head out of the water. A feathery blue mane trails down its spine, and in place of wings, the shuilong has fine, fin-like membranes along its legs to help it navigate through the water. While all shuilong spend a large portion of their lives in water, this dragon looks like it must be a fully aquatic breed, able to breathe above water but receiving most of its oxygen from the long, frilled external gills framing its head.

  Sensing human attention, the dragon makes a high, warbling sound, clearly expectant. Kaifei rolls his eyes but acquiesces, sprinkling a handful of pork floss into the tank; it disappears in a matter of seconds, the dragon spraying out the extra water it swallowed.

  “Here,” he says, shaking a few pieces of dried fish onto Eli’s palm and pointing to a small cage near the ground, “you can give this to Suxin. He’s not an asshole like some of the others, but be careful where you put your fingers.”

  Eli blinks. “Thank you,” he says, and then leans down, imitating Kai’s pose, holding the hand with food just outside the cage. The dragon’s tongue is slightly rough against his skin, but not unpleasant. “Are you a student too, then?”

  “No, not like that,” Kaifei says, clicking his tongue as Eli reaches out a hand to pet Suxin. “You don’t want to approach them from above, it makes them nervous. Larger dragons sometimes eat the smaller ones, so it’s a prey instinct. Like this,” he says, extending one hand in front of the dragon, palm up. “Let them smell your hand first, then when he’s comfortable, go slow and make sure he can see you when you pet him.”

  Eli watches, and then tries, as best he can, to mimic Kaifei’s movements.

  “Is this right?”

  “Well,” Kaifei says, watching as Suxin leans into his touch, “he hasn’t bitten you yet.”

  “I promise not to hold it against you if he does.”

  That earns a smile from Kaifei — a small one, but nonetheles
s it’s striking how it transforms his face.

  It’s oddly calming, sitting there watching as Suxin rubs against his hand. Eli scratches the soft scales underneath Suxin’s chin, and the dragon arches its back in response, wings lazily folding and unfolding in pleasure.

  Outside, it’s getting darker. Small groups of people gather, men in sweat-soaked undershirts lighting cigarettes as they idle in the shade of storefronts. Shoes shuffle; motorcycles groan, headlights fade; someone calls out a name, the sound almost comically loud in the silence. The over-enthusiastic response: an easy embrace by men who would never think to question their heterosexuality.

  Kaifei glances toward the doorway, and sighs. “Competitors,” he says, standing up. “Should start setting up, the crowds are going to be coming in soon. Tell Lin and your boss to stop canoodling and get over here, will you?”

  “C’mon, c’mon, you piece of shit, you little fucker, don’t you dare —”

  “Oh, fucking gods, I can’t believe —”

  “— no, fuck your mother and fuck your mother’s mother and fuck her mother’s —”

  The courtyard between the shops where Eli and Kai stand is not large. It’s a space designated for respite and not activity; crammed with spectators and bettors, it feels even smaller, air thick with the scent of beer and smoke and bodies pressed in uncomfortable proximity. Men crowd the white-chalked circles of the individual rings, screaming vitriol and encouragement by turns. Outside the rings, thin-lipped trainers sit cross-legged and hunched forward, nearly motionless but for the laconic hand motions and whistles which direct their dragons this way or that. Inside the rings, hissing dragons face each other, weighted jesses around their back legs preventing them from flying more than a few meters. Plastic caps have been placed over claws and leather guards cover vulnerable stomachs and throats. Even with such protections the matches are fierce, the dragons diving at each other and wrestling in the dirt as they try to force their opponent to either step outside the ring or yield in a belly-up surrender. Each time a dragon succeeds, a wave of cheers and groans erupts from the spectators. Employees from the surrounding stores circle the crowds, alternatively hawking bottles of beer and smoking as they observe the fights. At one end of the courtyard, opposite the archway through which visitors stream in out of the streets, Mr. Lin sits on a plastic lawn chair, a white T-shirted emperor with his referee whistle and yellow legal pad. Dr. Wang stands beside him, an enthusiastic interloper in her polo shirt and pressed slacks.

  “So there it is,” Kai says, nodding over his sketchbook at the crowd from where they’re standing, close enough so that Kai can nominally monitor the fights while far enough away that they can comfortably talk. “Five thousand years of civilization.”

  “Ah,” Eli says, uncertain how to respond. Kai’s voice is flippant, but his eyes, as they watch the circles of drunk men, are sharp. Eli knows that dragon fighting has a long history in China, a codified emperor’s sport more than anything, but he knows that it’s always been controversial. Critics compare it to bear baiting and bull fights, other instances of animal suffering for the sake of human entertainment; defenders cite the natural behavior of dragons in the wild and argue that, when correct procedures are followed, the fights provide young dragons a much-needed outlet for otherwise destructive instincts. In lieu of a definitive verdict, the sport is highly regulated, traditional leather armor and claw guards now mandatory, and elaborate new scoring rules have been put in place to minimize injury. But armor slips and plastic breaks and even without evisceration, bruised ribs and broken bones are serious injuries. American-raised and acutely conscious of his country’s own history of moral imperialism, its quintessentially American strategy of saving countries by bombing them, Eli tries to avoid casting cultural judgment. There are few things worse to him than being that tourist cliché, the outraged Westerner speaking out against a cultural practice they barely know anything about. But in the face of Kai’s obvious outrage, he wonders if there is something hypocritical about the ease with which he brushes away the faint revulsion dragon fighting has always invoked in him.

  There’s a sketchbook open in front of Kai, but he only glances at it periodically, occasionally erasing a mark here or adding a few tentative lines there. When he tilts his head, they almost coalesce into something, but then Eli blinks and it’s gone.

  “What are you working on?” Eli asks.

  “This?” Kai looks up, face half-shadowed in the artificial light. “It’s not — well, it actually isn’t anything yet. One of my professors used to talk about feeling in art, the way abstract artists could use a few strokes of line and color to convey emotion. I’m trying that, I guess. Getting down a mood without worrying about representing anything. Being avant-garde,” he says, the last word accompanied with an eye-roll and heavy French accent.

  “Très bon,” Eli says, shifting so he can better peer at the sketches. “You’re an art student, then?”

  “Biology,” Kai says, idly darkening a few lines in a corner. “Art students don’t get paid. It helps with the anatomy, though. You’re either chemistry or biology, I’m guessing?”

  “Both, actually. Technically just graduated, so I guess I’m not a student anymore either,” Eli says, rubbing the back of his neck. “This is sort of like a vacation before I focus on med school applications.”

  “A vacation where you do research?”

  “I didn’t want to be completely idle, I guess,” Eli says, shrugging. “Might as well try to do something good with all this new free time.”

  “Eli, Xiao Kai!” Dr. Wang calls. Mr. Lin follows as she approaches. “You two been having a good time, I hope?”

  “I’m working,” Kai points out, despite the ample evidence to suggest otherwise. Mr. Lin raises a skeptical eyebrow, but Dr. Wang’s smile doesn’t flag.

  “No reason that should stop you from enjoying yourself, though. You boys want anything? A beer, something to eat? I did say I’d pay —”

  “We’re fine, Dr. Wang,” Eli says before she can continue. “How have you two been? Have you been enjoying yourselves?”

  “But of course,” Dr. Wang says. She links an arm through Mr. Lin’s and he adopts the stoic expression of a man resigned to never understanding the ways of extroverts. “Lin da-ge has been showing me all around, and it’s quite fascinating. The variety of dragons on display, even within the same species. The level of adaptation in even third or fourth generations, the way cell membranes evolve to maximize water absorption even as the transport proteins become more adept at identifying and filtering out toxins — it makes you wonder if there might be some truth to the rumors, that we might see some trace of huolong —”

  Behind his sketchbook, Kai makes a noise of disbelief.

  “Oh, come now,” Dr. Wang says, pivoting toward Kai, “The basic principle is just evolution, isn’t it? Time scale’s an issue of course, but look at the peppered moth or pesticide resistance or everything we’ve done to dogs — nature works faster when humans are involved. If you look at some of the feral populations here, it’s the same principle — dragons are supposed to have delicate constitutions, better than canaries for checking air quality. But on any street in Beijing you’ll find bright little designer dragons rummaging through dumpsters with their feral cousins. If someone can understand how that happens, locate the mechanisms or genes letting non-native dragons survive high levels of corrosive pollutants, then it’s not that far-fetched to think they could use those same principles to bioengineer a dragon that, oh, ingests metals to produce breath that ignites on contact with air. Something sulfuric and maybe iron too — they’ve certainly found enough ferrous deposits in the fossil record to suggest that’s how the old drakes did it. In any case, draconic evolution’s a fascinating field, especially when you look at it from the standpoint of model organisms for human health. The implications for respiratory diseases alone …”

  “Of course,” Mr. Lin says, voice deadpan. “When you get your patent, I want a portion
of the profits. Next round’s starting, Jiachun. We should go back. Kai,” he says, nodding at him. “Don’t start any trouble.”

  Kai raises a hand in acknowledgement before returning to his sketchbook.

  “Huolong?” Eli asks.

  “Rumor,” Kai says, frowning as he sketches an outline of a building. Eli can make out the edge of a shingled roof, the hazy illumination of streetlamp light. “Pipe dream, urban legend, latest scam since they turned the Water Cube into a theme park. Surprised your boss knows about it. Though considering what I’ve seen of her, I guess I shouldn’t be. Are they all this weird at Beida?”

  “I’m just here for the summer,” Eli reminds him, “so I wouldn’t know. Besides Dr. Wang, I don’t interact much with the other researchers. What exactly are huolong, then?”

  “It’s ‘huo’ like the huo in ‘set fire,’ ‘forest fire’ — fire dragon. It’s a rumor you hear around dragon fighting circles sometimes, tales of urban dragons that have adapted to drought conditions by taking on the characteristics of fire drakes, the way animals in Chernobyl are supposed to glow because of the radiation. Beyond blurry internet photos, there’s no proof they actually exist, but every now and then, you’ll find someone talking about trying to breed back the old European firebreathers. Western dragons, but with Chinese characteristics.”

  Eli remembers, as a child, going to the Natural History Museum on his visits to London, his father lifting him up for a better view of the Draco maximus skeleton on display, each of its teeth as long as his hand. For all that ecologists lament the human-driven extinction of the fire drakes, there is always a hint of relief in their rebukes. Enough stories abound, both apocryphal and not, that it is easy to understand why medieval Europe was so eager to rid itself of the species. In the West, hidden in the mountains, the dragons grew large and breathed fire and death; in the East, they stayed in the lakes and rivers and spit water, migrations bringing heavy rains and new crops. And so it was that one was hated and feared and the other worshipped and revered.