The creature laughed. “No need to be so formal, my young disciple.”
Hong just glowered, his normally impassable face showing a hint of displeasure.
The demon pretended not to notice as he returned to watching the mice cook noodles. (Alas, the sect master knew as little of cooking noodles as did his disciples.)
Hong’s master called himself ‘Azcabellon the Candlelight,’ though he never expected anyone else to call him such a weird, foreign name (Hong had heard he came from someplace called ‘Innsmouth,’ though that may have just been a joke on the demon’s part).
His disciples called him Master, and the world called him the Noodle Shop Repair Demon; but as Hong watched him gaze at the mice cooking, the only name that seemed appropriate was ‘a young child.’
The demon rubbed his hands gleefully as the mice finished cooking the meal. They ladeled the food into two bowls, one for the Noodle Shop Repair Demon and one for Hong, and for themselves put individual bits of noodle in thimbles.
Hong’s master took the bowls to a bench, where a particularly muscular mouse was already eating, and motioned for Hong to join him.
The three ate their meal peacefully, while the men outside waited for Hong to finish killing the horrible evil demon and his army of murderous mice.
When at last they were done the demon pushed his bowl away and turned to face Hong.
“So, my young disciple, much as I love you I’m afraid the question persists: why are you here?”
“Because of you and your army of mice,” Hong observed drily. The Noodle Shop Repair Demon blinked in surprise.
“My army of mice? I have no army, except my loyal repairmen- and- women-in-arms.”
Hong sighed as the mice scampered about, cleaning up after his dinner. “Well then, armies aside, would you care to tell me what you’re doing here?”
“I’m here on contract, of course,” the Noodle Shop Repair Demon said, and continued speaking as the mouse at their table motioned for tea to be brought to the three of them.
“That kid who lives here is supposed to be studying to be a scholar, but he doesn’t like hard work, you see. Figured he could have an easy life with a demon or two at his beck and call, so he rummaged about the criminal underworld until he found somebody willing to sell him a grimoire of black magic that would let him summon them. Only then a problem presented itself - he couldn’t figure out how to make the bleeding thing work, and was too lazy to bother learning how.”
“And yet you did, somehow, end up being summoned, so presumably someone was willing to put in the work to learn how.”
“I was just getting to that-” Hong’s Master started, when someone else spoke.
“That would be me.” This was from the muscular mouse, who faced Hong with his hands crossed military-style behind his back. His voice was smooth and squeaky, his diction perfect, his use of pitch masterful.
Hong raised one eyebrow as he gazed at the mouse appraisingly. It wasn’t simply the mouse’s bearing that radiated dignity: his entire person showed propriety in every coil of muscle, every twitch of his tail, every flutter of his eenie weenie hanfu.
“Yup, him.” Hong’s Master confirmed, jerking one thumb at the mouse. “Squeaky the Rat - so-called because he has the stature of a giant among mice. To continue my narration: as you can tell, the mice here have cultivated their way into consciousness.”
Hong nodded. It was a typical enough story - a conflict between the owner of a house and the newly conscious spirit beasts or objects now living there, resolved through the intervention of a third party. Usually this was a scholar - who could adjudge ownership and duties - but in this case a demon would have to suffice.
“Right, and you see that while the son may have been lazy and uninterested in learning, the mice were not - they taught themselves the Three Character Classic, then after that the Four Books and Five Classics, after which they read Zhuxi, then Shao Yong, Zhang Zai, Zhou Dunyi, Xu Gan, the Commentary of Zuo, Xunzi, the commentaries of Wang Bi and Lu Xixing, A New Account of the Tales of the World, the Legends of the Warring States, Dong Zhong-”
“I understand, Master,” Hong interrupted respectfully. “They mastered a lot of books. But where did they even get that many books? I can’t imagine the owner’s son was interested in reading the likes of Xu Gan’s Balanced Discourses.”
“Oh,” said Squeaky the Rat, “we have part-time jobs as assistant matchmakers.”
“…I beg your pardon?”
***
Xu waited nervously for Fan to enter the sitting room. He’d been courting her for months, and though he was delighted that she had reciprocated, now had come the hardest test of all - getting the approval of his mother.
His mother waited beside him, disapprovingly. She’d never liked Xu’s choice of a bride (be she Fan or no), and was already searching her mind for reasons to condemn the marriage.
The time for the meeting came, and Fan arrived exactly on time. She entered the room, her deportment perfect, and after delivering the appropriate greeting to Xu and his mother sat down.
The next twenty minutes were exceedingly awkward, as Fan tried to make small talk and Xu’s mother tried to find fault with her speech, comportment, behaviour, virtue… none of the four virtues escaped criticism.
Xu was beginning to despair, when all of a sudden his mother screamed.
There, on the mantelpiece, were half a dozen mice.
They waited until Xu’s mother could see them, and then began doing the dance of the rolls. Their choreography was perfect, the accompanying squeaks completely in tune. It was a masterful performance, fit for any opera house.
Xu’s mother started shrieking incoherently, and then it was that Fan leapt into action. Whipping a horse whisk out of her sleeve, she laid into the mice, who panicked and scurried away.
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Xu’s mother only just had time to see the mice being chased towards the window before she fainted.
As the last of the mice went to leave, he turned to face the two humans in the room who were still conscious.
Xu gave him a thumbs up. Fan gave him a thumbs up. The mouse didn’t have opposable thumbs, so he waved a finger around in midair.
The two lovers were married that spring.
***
“So, the mice read all the classics… and then they decided to summon a demon.” Hong said, deciding to ignore, for the moment, the fact that the mice were running a bride-assistance program out the back of a restaurant.
“It wasn’t all that hard. Once you know a little about the Laws of Man, the Laws of Heaven aren’t all that difficult. It’s just bureaucracy, bureaucracy all the way down.” Squeaky the Rat said, his tone modest and demure.
“It took some time for us to decipher the symbols used in the grimoire, but once we’d figured out the legal terms and signs and so forth it was fairly easy to master and even modify. We didn’t summon any of the demons from the grimoire, of course - they were all low-level servant demons, whereas what we wanted was one of the big ones.”
“And so you decided to summon the Demon of the Noodle Shop Repair Sect. It must have been hard for you,” Hong said, imagining all the mouse traps and poison and cats the poor wee spirit beasts had to contend with on the daily. Mice didn’t belong in a noodle shop, but humans could be quite cruel.
“Oh yes, it was awful,” the mouse said. “You have no idea how filthy this restaurant was. Grime on the windows, under the tables, in the corners. Improperly managed supplies, rotting food. They even used the same cleaning clothes for the bathroom as they did for the dishes. Rampant pest problem, yet where were the mousetraps? Had they never heard the words of the Master, Confucius? ‘Food can never be too clean.’ So we did what we must, and brought in the muscle needed to… transfer ownership, so that we could put in the time to properly clean the restaurant.”
The Noodle Shop Repair Demon - and resident muscle - nodded in approval. Hong just sighed.
“Why didn’t you simply register a complaint with the Ministry of Health?”
“We could have, if we were men. But we are mere mice, and lack the authority for such things.”
“Only because you don’t have citizenship. You should have gone to the Bureau for Spirit Beast Affairs, informed them of your recent development of consciousness, filed for citizenship, then gone to the Ministry of Health and filed a legal complaint. ‘When there is order in the nations, there will be peace in the world,’ said the Master. In causing disorder can you expect to bring peace?”
Squeaky thought about this for a moment, recognised Hong’s command of the Analects, and hung his head. “You are correct, sir. Tell me, what should I do?”
“The Classics are the Law; they are not the administration of the Law. You clearly possess the capacity for study: you should go to an Academy, and become a proper scholar. ‘He who grasps the Dao produces Law and does not venture to transgress it, establishes Law and does not venture to oppose it… if he is able to align himself, then he will not be confused when he cognizes the situation.’”
And then Hong turned to the Noodle Shop Repair Demon. “And you- not that I would ever dare to criticise my Master, who is my superior in all things, but I would ask why, exactly, you helped the mice stage an uprising when you must have known what was the correct path for them to take?”
The Demon of Noodle Shop Repair sipped his tea. “I’m a demon; I like chaos.”
Hong groaned. He turned back to the repentant Squeaky the Rat. “Leave this noodle shop. Seek citizenship. I’ll write you a letter of recommendation, so you can enrol in the local Academy-”
“Oh, that’s quite unnecessary.” The Noodle Shop Repair Demon interrupted. “I may enjoy causing chaos, but I always clean up my messes. I will do better than write him a letter of recommendation: I’ll help him become the disciple of a friend of mine, who’s a master of the law…”
“Just so we’re clear, this is one of the friends you eat noodles with, right? Not the friend you have drinks with?” Hong asked suspiciously. “Because that guy is weird.”
His Master looked at him, his attitude one of total innocence. “Of course.”
Hong looked at the mouse. “So, what do you think?”
Squeaky hesitated for but a moment. “‘By three methods we may learn wisdom. First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.’ I have supped from the bitter. I would take the easy, and learn a little that I may then tread the noble. I graciously and gratefully accept your offer.”
And so it was that the affair of the demon in the noodle shop came to an end. Half an hour later, Hong emerged to a group of tired and anxious watchers and informed them - truthfully - that he had chased the demon and his army of mice from the shop. He took his wages from the restaurant owner, tipped his hat, and left.
The restaurant owner and his son took over the shop again, for a time. Not two weeks later a group of recently enfranchised mice filed a pile of complaints against them en masse, and in the ensuing investigation the restaurant was shut down.
The mice themselves went and, after much study, were successful in becoming actuaries, later opening a firm called Of Mice and Men. All of them did very well for themselves. Well, all of them, except one…
***
“My friend, I can understand your request well enough and am more than happy to fulfil it… but why are you eating noodles right now? You never eat noodles when we’re together,” the Noodle Shop Repair Demon’s friend noted.
“Oh, just keeping my word,” the Noodle Shop Repair Demon replied vaguely, as he slurped some noodles out of a thermos.
His friend scratched his head in confusion, then turned to Squeaky the Rat, who was cowering in the corner. The latter whimpered.
“So, you want my help with… learning to be a scholar, was it? To take the imperial exams?” The friend asked the mouse. Squeaky nodded, not daring to speak.
“Well, that shouldn’t be too hard. It’s been awhile since I studied law, but it shouldn't take too long to get the old heart-mind back into shape,” the friend said, yawning.
Squeaky squeaked in terror as the giant cultivating cat opened his mouth wide, exposing a maw full of teeth.
The Noodle Shop Repair Demon’s friend was a cat. The feline had met them in a backroom by the river-yards, where no one could see them (and hear Squeaky scream). He was wearing the garb of a stereotypical pirate, with a raggedy captain’s coat, trailing sleeves, and a faded bandana imprinted with pictures of bananas.
The cat had been playing a shamisen when first they saw him, but he’d perked up at the sight of his friend (in tow with a delicious, rodential snack).
Said friend had dropped poor Squeaky in front of the cat, given the latter a cursory summary of the reasons for his visit, and then promptly began eating noodles.
Squeaky quailed. He wanted to flee, but there was only one door to their room; and though he could hear noise from outside - the rumble of a thousand sailors and dockworkers, going about their day - the hubbub and chaos would prevent anyone from hearing his weensy cries for help.
The cat finished yawning, and continued speaking. “Lately, I’ve been really into editing, but the Author I’m working with is kind of goofy. He keeps sending me the strangest material, stuff about Christmas-loving eldritch horrors and cultivating noodle shop repairmen and undead exorcists and all sorts of other nonsense. At any rate - I don’t want to be a whiner, ye ken - but I could use a breather - and tutoring something soft and fuzzy in the ways of the eternal law would be more than sufficient.”
Finally, Squeaky was able to force words out of his mouth. “So- so you won’t eat me?”
“Eat you?” The exuberant feline practically yelled.
“Bahaha! Whyever would I eat you? Law 4175b, Ordinance 56c, Statute 1: one is not permitted to kill a spirit beast, for doing so is the same as murder. And if that isn’t sufficient, let me direct you to Law 4863e, Ordinance 23f, Statute 4: to devour someone whom one has signed a contract with shall not invalidate the contract, but rather shall lead the consuming party to be charged with breach of contract. And then there’s Law 314g, Ordinance 3a, Statute 3: it is forbidden to fight inside a city or on its outskirts, be it on public or private property. And besides, I’m a vegetarian.”
But Squeaky the Rat didn’t hear that last line. He had heard little to nothing after ‘Law 4175b,’ his jaw going slack, a strange light shining in his beady eyes. The cat noticed his weird look, and his own eyes widened.
“Hey, kid, you alright? If you’re feeling sick or anything, I-”
But then Squeaky spoke, reverently breathing out one word:
“Master…”