D r. X's boat was not the traditional sort of wallowing pleasure barge 
that was fit only for the canals and shallow lakes of the Yangtze's sodden 
delta; it was a real ocean-going yacht built on Western lines. Judging from the 
delicacies that began to make their way up to the foredeck shortly after Judge 
Fang came aboard, the vessel's galley had been retrofitted with all the 
accoutrements of a professional Chinese kitchen: umbrella-size woks, gas 
burners like howling turbojets, and extensive storage lockers for innumerable 
species of fungi as well as bird nests, shark fins, chicken feet, fœtal 
rats, and odds and ends of many other species both rare and ubiquitous. The 
courses of the meal were small, numerous, and carefully timed, served up in an 
array of fine porcelain that could have filled several rooms of the Victoria 
and Albert Museum, delivered with the precision of surgical air strikes by a 
team of waiters.