without a word of protest. The two long-legged women kneel on the carpet and plead coquettishly: ‘Be good to us, Patron. Our breasts are Yaoyao's breasts, our legs are Yaoyao's legs, we are Yaoyao's stand-ins, so treat us with tenderness.’ ‘Do you know who Yaoyao was?’ Lan asks unemotionally. ‘No,’ they reply. ‘All we know is that we can please Patron by pretending to be her. And when Patron is happy, he treats us fondly.’ Lan Daguan reacts with a belly laugh as tears spill from his eyes. Two of the young craftsmen walk up with buckets of clean water while the third has discovered a wire brush. With the foreman in charge, they scrub the paint off the idol. It howls a complaint, and my skin turns itchy and painful. Once the paint has been cleaned off, I see the original colour and grain of the willow tree. ‘We'll paint it again after it dries’ the foreman tells them. ‘Xiaobao, go see Director Yan for the funds. Tell him we'll take the Meat God back and chop it up for kindling if he doesn't come up with the money’ ‘Be careful you don't wind up with a toothache’ warns Shifu, the worker who suffered the night before. ‘The Meat God knows what I'm doing, the foreman says unemotionally. The young man takes off running, hips churning. The foreman walks into the temple to inspect the crumbling Wutong Spirit. His bookish apprentice follows him in as the foreman pats the Horse Spirit on the rump—a piece of clay falls off. ‘This is our meal ticket’ he says. ‘These five spirits will keep us busy for quite some time.’ ‘What worries me, Shifu,’ his disciple says, ‘is that things will change.’ ‘Change how?’ the foreman asks with a glare. ‘After what happened last night, Shifu, with more than a hundred poisoned, what are the chances that the Carnivore Festival will continue? If they cancel the festival, there'll be no Meat God Temple and they won't want to refurbish this Wutong Temple. Didn't you hear the lieutenant governor last night when he talked about the Meat God and the Wutong Temples in the same breath?’ ‘You've got a point, the foreman says, ‘but, young fellow, there are things in this world you don't understand. If nothing had happened last night, the festival might well have been cancelled next year. But, because it did, there's no chance it won't be held next year. And bigger than ever.’ The apprentice can only shake his head. ‘You're right, I don't understand’ ‘That won't kill you, boy,’ the foreman says. ‘There are things you young people don't need to understand. Just keep doing your job and you'll understand when you reach a certain age.’ ‘That I understand, Shifu,’ the youngster answers. With his chin the foreman points to the two men out in the yard with the Meat God. ‘Those two are fine with manual labour, but I'm going to count on you for what needs to be done with the Wutong Spirit.’ ‘I'll do my best, Shifu, but what if my best isn't good enough and I don't live up to your expectations?’ ‘Don't sell yourself short. I'm an excellent judge of people. Four of the five spirits are pretty much ruined, and it's not going to be easy putting them back the way they were. But I've got an old edition of Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio, which describes what the five spirits are supposed to look like, though we'll have to make some improvements to keep up with the times. We can't just imitate the old style. Take this Horse Spirit. It looks more equine than human, the foreman says as his hands move around the idol. We need to make it look more human so it won't scare all the women away. But won't other teams also want the job, Shifu? the concerned young worker asks. Only Nie Liu and Lao Han's gangs, and they're lucky if they can throw together a local earth god. These five spirits are way above their ability.’ ‘Don't underestimate them, Shifu,’ the youngster says. ‘I hear that Nie Liu sent his son to a fine-arts school to study sculpting. When he comes back to take over from his father, we won't be in his league.’ ‘Are you talking about his blockhead son? A fine-arts school, you say? He'd be no good even if he'd gone to an art academy. The first requirement for working on