Summary
The narrator becomes aware of someone crying and finds herself standing in a room with an old woman weeping beside the bedside of a young girl who appears to be very ill. Everyone in the room is shouting “Li Lan” to try and bring her back, and the doctor comes and reveals that the girl has overdosed on opium and slowed her life force drastically, but that she might recover.
The narrator goes over to look at the little girl and touches her body, which causes a jolt of lightning to run through her body, causing her to remember who she is and to realize that it’s her own body lying in the bed. She tries to cry out to Amah, but Amah cannot see her—and Li Lan realizes that her spirit has become separated from her body. Even though she stays by the body often, she cannot seem to rejoin with it, which convinces her to do something. As she becomes committed to figuring out what’s happening, she notices a thread in the air and leaves the room to follow it.
She begins to wander, and the banknotes she burned come in handy during her encounters with the dead on her way to the Lim household. She makes the decision to shadow Yan Hong, one of the Lim family daughters, for the rest of the day, though she maintains a distance out of fear that Lim Tian Ching will be able to see her and capture her somehow.
She notices that Yan Hong seems off and that she is guarding a teacup in her closet for some reason, something that looks like Lim Tian Ching’s missing cup that he mentioned to Li Lan in one of her dreams. Li Lan’s speculation is interrupted by the feeling of an oppressive presence, however, and she flees quickly, running until she reaches a small family. Watching them eat, she realizes that she is extremely hungry, and becomes lucky when the grandfather convinces his granddaughter to leave out food for the spirits, which Li Lan eats gratefully, then falls asleep.
She wakes up to meet another spirit, named Liew Fan, who is initially hostile but is eager to talk, sharing that she died from love and that because of this, she stays around the house of her lover, the grandfather, even though she was supposed to face judgment a long time ago. From their conversation, Li Lan learns that the thread represents feelings for other people and convinces Fan to show her the gateway to the Plains of the Dead, lying that she is from heaven and therefore does not know the way.
On their way through the crowd, they catch a glimpse of the border officials, as well as Lim Tian Ching, who seems to be allied with them as Li Lan feared. Desperate, Li Lan askes Fan how to reach the Plains of the Dead, and Fan offers to help her—for a price. Li Lan’s idea to ask about the Plains of the Dead stems from an impulse to see her mother.
She encounters a Dutchman who can see her and who generously gives her directions to the merchant quarter, but when she returns home, she finds that there are demons waiting for her outside her door. Seeing Old Wong exiting the door, she calls his name, and finds out that he too can see and hear her; while he cannot help much, he gives her some advice and offers up some food for her to eat.
Analysis
It turns out Li Lan's impulsive actions have had very serious consequences when she is unexpectedly thrust out of her body. If there was any doubt about her haunting being real, it's eliminated at the beginning of this chapter. While the first portion of the book did deal with spiritual elements, this transition marks the big shift in the book away from traditional historical fiction towards more of a fantasy approach. Instead of just seeing the spirit world, Li Lan is now suddenly a part of it and must deal with the consequences. It's something that is so disorienting that initially, Li Lan doesn't even recognize herself.
Li Lan again struggles with the conflict between her pragmatism and her curiosity when she decides to follow the thread from Tian Bai's watch. Although it's extremely risky to leave her body behind, Li Lan is curious enough to go find out where the thread might lead. It is here that the banknotes come in handy since she needs them to fend off the dead. Choo uses this moment to emphasize how important ritual is in this novel: because these ghosts have not been buried properly—specifically because they have not been named—they remain hungry forever.
But this frightening incident does not deter Li Lan's natural curiosity, and she decides to go shadow Yan Hong for the day despite her fear that Lim Tian Ching might see her. Although she claims not to be bothered by the news that Lim Tian Ching gives her about Tian Bai, her actions make it clear that what he has said unsettles her. Finding the teacup hidden in Yan Hong's rooms proves that this suspicion is fairly valid, and Choo makes it clear that this teacup will be significant later. Much of this novel from here on out involves people saying one thing and doing another: while Li Lan is not intentionally hypocritical, this scene reflects how many of the other characters maintain a facade that is not necessarily the truth.
Li Lan's discovery that she is hungry challenges a traditional view that spirits feel nothing, and her hunger gives her more empathy with the spirits who swarmed her earlier, as she can only imagine what it must be like to be hungry for eternity. Even though the spirit world gives Li Lan more freedom, she is still very restricted by what she can gain access to. The grandfather's thinking of the ghosts shows how important the kindness of the living is to the wellbeing of the dead.
Meeting Fan further introduces Li Lan to the strange complexity of existing in the afterlife. From Fan, she learns that there is a way to avoid the border officials and prevent oneself from moving on when they should. On the surface, Fan seems like a young girl who tragically died mourning her lover, but as the two of them talk more, Fan is revealed to be shallow and self-centered. Nevertheless, Li Lan has to learn to make unlikely allies, and so she finds herself partnering with Fan. This need to seek out relationships is reflected in the fact that she is trying to find her way to see her mother, and that she is (understandably) desperate to be able to communicate with people from the living world.
