To Embers We Return — Chapter 2
***
Marquess Jing’an’s official residence in Chang’an was a mansion on Xinghua Street. It had once belonged to Prince Qin, another of the emperor’s brothers.[1] As a politician and administrator, Prince Qin had been only middling, but he had also been a keen gardener with a good eye for landscaping. As a result, the spacious mansion with its multiple courtyards was pleasingly laid out and elegantly constructed, with no trace of the overdone opulence to which residences of the nobility were prone.
The mansion had stood vacant following Prince Qin’s departure from the capital — until the emperor herself had added it to the long inventory of rewards she was pleased to bestow on Shen Ni. Servants had cleaned the residence from top to bottom, but its new occupant had yet to bring in any furniture of her own. Other than the one room that had been given over to storing the emperor’s many gifts, the rest of the mansion remained largely empty, and the servants could hear their own footsteps echoing through the rooms as they moved about.
While her residence remained empty of personal effects, Shen Ni — as the empire’s only double S-tier machinist — never went anywhere without her engineer’s toolkit. A room in the secluded north wing of the mansion was requisitioned to serve as a temporary workshop. The room led directly to a courtyard containing a natural hot spring. Shen Ni had heard from the housekeeper Auntie Wan that the spring had existed for hundreds of years, and its waters were said to have healing properties.
Shen Ni carried Bian Jin to the edge of the hot spring. She had intended to bathe Bian Jin herself, but given what had passed between them all those years ago, she reflected that Bian Jin might feel troubled about her doing so were she awake. So she summoned Auntie Wan to help. The housekeeper, diligent woman that she was, brought all the necessary bathing implements immediately.
Before leaving Bian Jin in Auntie Wan’s care, Shen Ni gave Auntie Wan nearly a score of directions: which injuries to clean and which to avoid, which ointments and salves to use on which wounds, how many layers of waterproof spray to apply, and so on.
Auntie Wan listened, slightly astonished at the sheer volume of detailed instructions she was expected to remember. She was fifty-one years old, but thanks having been in service for a long time, her mind had remained agile. Being keen to impress her new master with her competence, she stored all of Shen Ni’s complicated directions into her memory module, the better to retrieve them later.
Auntie Wan had once held a similar position at Shuangji Hall. Following Bian Jin’s disappearance and Shen Ni’s departure, the sect had dwindled precipitously from its former glory, so she’d had come to Chang’an to seek a living, though she remained in touch with old friends from her days at Shuangji Hall.
Shen Ni knew Auntie Wan well enough to trust her with this task, so after relaying her instructions, she left the other woman to it. She did, however, return with a blanket once the housekeeper had finished bathing Bian Jin.
‘Your shijie is awake,’ said Auntie Wan, wiping sweat from her forehead.
Shen Ni walked over to the edge of the hot spring. Rising clouds of steam obscured much of Bian Jin’s figure, and she was careful not to look where she shouldn’t. She bundled Bian Jin in the blanket and picked her up, keeping her motions as gentle as possible. Even the slightest jolt, however, sent a shudder through Bian Jin’s whole body, as if it were hurting her greatly. Bian Jin had always had a high tolerance for pain, Shen Ni knew. Any other person who had been wounded as badly as this would have screamed themselves hoarse by now, but all Bian Jin let out was a faint, barely perceptible moan.
Before Shen Ni returned to her makeshift workshop, she told Auntie Wan, ‘I’m shutting myself up in there for the next five days. I won’t be receiving any visitors.’
‘Yes, my lord,’ said Auntie Wan.
A light dusting of snow began to fall as Shen Ni made her way back indoors. Cold prickled at the tip of her nose; Bian Jin lay quiescent and warm in her arms. This was the former Governor-General of the North, who had administered those territories with a strong hand and cut down invaders in their hundreds of thousands, yet her body felt as soft as any other human’s.
There was a faint rustling sound. Bian Jin had managed with a monumental effort to lift her head, and was now looking up at Shen Ni.
Shen Ni dropped her gaze and met Bian Jin’s. In her memories, her shijie’s eyes had always been as sharp and cold as snow, with banked starfire glimmering in their depths. They shone bright and clear, striking awe into the hearts of all they fell upon. Never had they looked like this before — slightly reddened, and so very fragile.
‘A-Yao,’ Bian Jin called out suddenly, and clutched feebly at Shen Ni’s robes.
Shen Ni did not reply. She pushed open the door to her workshop with one foot and laid Bian Jin down on her workbench.
Bian Jin was the one who had given her both of her names — ‘Shen Ni’, her formal name, and ‘A-Yao’, her milk name.[2] Shen Ni had been found as a baby by Bian Jin on the mountain peak that bounded Shuangji Hall’s territory to the west. At the time, Shen Ni had not even been a year old, and Bian Jin had only been a half-grown child herself, though already busy with her own training.
Back then, Shen Ni had refused to sleep unless she was rocked in Bian Jin’s arms. So no matter how busy Bian Jin was, she always indulged the child, rocking her to sleep every night. She had even given Shen Ni the slightly teasing milk name ‘A-Yao’ — ‘yao’ meaning ‘to rock’.
Bian Jin had called her by that name for the first sixteen years of her life. But ever since that fateful night, when Shen Ni had made her feelings for Bian Jin clear, Bian Jin had never used her milk name again. The letters she sent back to Shuangji Hall from the front lines rarely mentioned Shen Ni — and when they did, she always referred to Shen Ni by her formal name.
As she donned her work gloves and picked up her toolkit, Shen Ni found herself wondering: Did Bian Jin recognise me, or was she dreaming? Would she actually dream of me?
She looked back at the workbench, where Bian Jin lay. Her shijie had passed out again from sheer exhaustion.
Shen Ni went over to the workbench and drew aside the blanket to reveal the mess of wounds on Bian Jin’s back. Then she began her first long, painstaking round of repairs.
***
Several days passed.
The imperial palace complex was named Daming Palace, and at its heart lay Hanhua Hall, the throne room. Inside, the emperor Li Ruoyuan was having a busy day. Her younger brother Prince Wei had come with a petition earlier, and she had just managed to coax him into leaving. Now she lounged on her throne, spinning her cinnabar stylus round and round in one hand and kicking her legs idly in the air. After glancing towards the entrance a few times, she finally asked the servant beside her, ‘Why isn’t Shen Ni here yet?’
The servant had no idea what to say. Not only were Marquess Jing’an’s achievements unprecedented, so was her nerve, if she felt the former entitled to keep the emperor waiting. In this she was probably correct, given how much the emperor depended on her support.
‘I will see if she has arrived, Your Majesty,’ said the servant deferentially.
He stepped across the threshold of the throne room and paused. Shen Ni was standing in the courtyard just outside, her way barred by a man of around thirty years old. He was dressed in purple robes, with a rich fur coat thrown over his shoulders, and his beard was exquisitely trimmed. Below his left eye was a fine tracery of circuits, and the eye itself was made of highly polished titanium. Although it swivelled in perfect time with his organic right eye, that cool, silver-grey pupil was impossible to overlook.
The man was none other than the emperor’s younger brother Li Chu, titled Prince Wei, whom she had just managed to wheedle into leaving the throne room. He stood with his hands behind his back. Although he was speaking to Shen Ni, he was not looking at her; instead, he was gazing past her at some skylarks in the distant sky. ‘I truly admire you, my lord marquess,’ he was saying. ‘Not only are you one of our youngest and most brilliant ministers, you have that rare gift as well: an open and generous heart.’
Li Chu appeared to be in fine spirits; he looked rather like a puffed-up pheasant. Seeming to have enough self-awareness to realise Shen Ni wasn’t about to reply, he went on, ‘I understand you and Bian Jin were disciples of the same sect, and there has long been bad blood between you two, yet you were willing to look past that. Not only did you convince Her Majesty to release Bian Jin into your custody pending the outcome of investigations, you even went personally to the Court of Judicature and Revision to bring her back to your residence. It gladdens my heart to see such generosity, my lord.’
‘Oh?’ said Shen Ni unhurriedly. ‘And exactly why are you so glad about it, Prince Wei?’ she added.
Li Chu had been prepared for an exchange of false pleasantries with Shen Ni; he hadn’t expected her to respond quite so directly or flippantly, as if he were nothing to her. How dare a mere marquess speak so impertinently to him, he thought, when he was the emperor’s full brother! Li Chu’s expression darkened a few times before he was able to repress his temper. Then his smile grew even broader. This time, he shifted his gaze from the distant skylarks and fixed it unblinkingly on Shen Ni.
‘Bian Jin once held the position of Governor-General of the North, and administered those twelve provinces ably,’ said Li Chu. ‘She’s done her duty to the empire. Although she’s now a cripple, and remains under suspicion of high treason, we of the royal family have always been generous and forgiving towards our subjects. Even if she does turn out to be guilty, we would still permit her to live out her remaining years in peace, on account of all she has accomplished for the empire. Accordingly, I have petitioned the emperor to allow me to take Bian Jin as my concubine.’
No matter how deep the rift between Shen Ni and Bian Jin ran, Bian Jin was still Shuangji Hall’s most senior disciple and the much-revered leader of their sect. By offering to take Bian Jin as a mere concubine, Li Chu was grinding the pride of Shuangji Hall into the dirt.
All these years, Li Chu had been keeping a close eye on Bian Jin’s movements, waiting for the opportunity to get his revenge. It was Bian Jin, after all, who had blinded his left eye. Now that she’d fallen into dire straits, Li Chu finally spotted his chance — and he wasn’t about to let Shen Ni ruin it. In his eyes, Bian Jin was now a helpless cripple, too broken to resist any mistreatment. He wanted to shackle Bian Jin to his side, the better to subject her to all the torments and humiliations he pleased.
Li Chu had hoped to see Shen Ni lose her temper, but she looked as calm and unruffled as a mill-pond as she stood bathed in the sunlight that shone into the courtyard. A smile hovered about the corners of her mouth.
Fearful that the two of them might come to blows then and there, the emperor’s servant decided to interrupt, tossing all the usual proprieties aside. ‘My lord marquess, Her Majesty has been waiting for you for quite some time.’
Shen Ni waved at Li Chu as dismissively as if she were swatting aside a fly. ‘Step aside, Your Highness.’
Li Chu’s eyebrows twitched. ‘You—’
The moment the syllable left his lips, he realised he had allowed Shen Ni to goad him into losing his composure. With a sneer, he swept past Shen Ni, flinging a parting shot in her direction. ‘I’ll allow her to remain at your residence for the next little while, the better for you to renew your old bonds. She’s your shijie, after all, and I hope the two of you won’t be strangers in future.’
Shen Ni paid his attempt at provocation no heed, merely busying herself in gathering the folds of her cloak about her. Then she said, seemingly out of nowhere, ‘That cybernetic eye of yours was installed quite some time ago, wasn’t it, Your Highness? It seems a little temperamental to me. You really should go and get it looked at. If you leave it too late, you might find yourself losing more than just an eye.’
Li Chu, pausing mid-stride, turned and stared at her in disbelief. Shen Ni, however, had no intention of sparing him another glance. She sauntered towards the throne room.
The servant heaved a secret sigh of relief that the two of them had, at least, not resorted to fisticuffs. When Shen Ni stepped across the threshold of the throne room, he did not follow her in. Instead, he shut the doors behind her and stood guard outside.
‘Shen Ni, Shen Ni, you’re finally here!’ The emperor’s clear, girlish voice rang out through the throne room.
Shen Ni knelt and made an obeisance to Li Ruoyuan. ‘I hope Your Majesty will forgive me for my lateness. The repairs to Bian Jin’s body took quite some time, so I was unavoidably delayed.’
Li Ruoyuan scribbled a clumsy ‘granted’ on the petition displayed on her handheld screen with her cinnabar stylus. Then she hopped excitedly down from her throne to help Shen Ni up. ‘Please rise, my dear minister.’
Shen Ni got to her feet. She overtopped Li Ruoyuan by well over a head.
A look of worry crossed Li Ruoyuan’s round, childlike face. Although she and Shen Ni had not seen each other for a long time, she wasted no time on pleasantries. Instead, she handed Shen Ni a document immediately. ‘This is everything the Court of Judicature and Revision was able to get out of Bian Jin. Have a look.’
Shen Ni was able to take in the gist of the document with one glance — because all Bian Jin’s answers to the interrogators’ questions were remarkably consistent. Whatever they asked, she only had three words to say in response: ‘I don’t remember.’
‘Now that you’ve had the chance to examine Bian Jin,’ said Li Ruoyuan, ‘do you believe she genuinely has lost her memory?’
Slowly Shen Ni began rolling up the document. ‘Bian Jin’s injuries were very severe, and she’s still unconscious. The way her spine was broken isn’t consistent with the Court of Judicature and Revision’s usual techniques — perhaps it happened in Yanluo. More than half of her memory module was destroyed, making it impossible to access. Memory modules are one of the most difficult things to repair. It’s going to take me quite a while.’
What this meant, of course, was that Shen Ni had no way to be certain whether Bian Jin was telling the truth when she claimed to have no memory of the last three years.
Li Ruoyuan sighed. ‘Who could have done that to her, I wonder?’
‘Probably one of her sworn enemies,’ Shen Ni said indifferently. ‘There must be hundreds of thousands of people out in the world who hate Bian Jin to their very core.’ Her voice was so devoid of emotion that it made Li Ruoyuan recall the rumours she’d heard of the long-standing animosity between Shen Ni and Bian Jin.
‘In addition to her memory module,’ Shen Ni went on, ‘Bian Jin’s jade core has also been irreparably damaged. As you know, neural implants can only be activated with a functioning jade core. Not only do I have to repair her memory module, I also need to replace her jade core with a new one. I’ll need much more time before I can determine whether she’s lying or telling the truth, Your Majesty.’
A ‘jade core’ was the special chip which allowed humans to control their cybernetic implants. These were flat, round discs with a circular hole in the centre — the exact same shape as the traditional jade bi,[3] hence their name. Humans, being all too fragile, needed the augmentation provided by a jade core in order to operate sophisticated cyberware. The better one’s implants, the easier it was for one to gain power, wealth and status; because of this, there were relatively few unmodified humans left. In this cybernetic age, one’s jade core was even more important than one’s organic heart.
Of course, not everyone could afford a jade core. These were expensive devices: a standard model was worth as much as a sizable house. Without a jade core, one could only make use of the cheapest, most basic prosthetics. These served ordinary medical purposes well enough, but provided no enhanced functionality. When the craze for ever-more powerful jade cores and implants was at its height, people all across the empire went into deep debt to pay for them. In the end, many found themselves indentured to the banks which had lent them the money. Of course, that had now faded somewhat, thanks to the depredations of the horrific ‘Black Box’.
The previous day, before Shen Ni set off for the capital, she had sent a petition to Li Ruoyuan. With just one sentence, she’d managed to convince the emperor to release Bian Jin into her custody:
‘The Court of Judicature and Revision will never be able to get a single word out of Bian Jin, but I can pry her wide open.’
At the time, Li Ruoyuan had been agonising over the document containing Bian Jin’s ‘testimony’, which the director of the Court of Judicature and Revision had just presented to her. She had no better option other than to let Shen Ni try. As the only double S-tier machinist in the whole country, Shen Ni could access anyone’s memory module if she chose. She was not only the empire’s most accomplished machinist; she was also its most terrifying hacker.
The mysterious deaths of Bian Jin’s million-strong army, Li Ruoyuan reflected, had to be investigated as thoroughly as possible. Then her delicate little brows knitted together, as if a sudden thought had occurred to her. When she next spoke, it was in hushed tones, as if she feared alerting some baleful force which lurked in the darkness.
‘Shen Ni,’ she said. ‘Do you think this could have something to do with the Black Box? Might it be responsible for Bian Jin’s memory loss?’
At the mention of the ‘Black Box’, the throne room fell momentarily silent.
The Black Box had first appeared the year Shen Ni was born. It was a virus that caused the most horrifying mutations in humans. In five short years, it had turned the the empire — then at its strongest and most prosperous — into hell on earth, and rampaged its way through the other countries on the continent.
The Black Box was a computer virus. It spread not through blood or air, but through digital contact. Most terrifyingly for the multiply-enhanced humans of the present day, it could infect all forms of cyberware. Anything which connected to the extranet, anything with a cybernetic component — all these were fair game to the Black Box. Those lightest infected were fortunate enough to simply go mad; those more seriously affected would mutate into the most grisly, nightmarish forms — a fate worse than death. When these luckless beings turned on one another — which was often — the victor would devour the loser and take on an even more monstrous shape. The Black Box virus was like a malignant god, twisting its victims into anything it fancied, as if they were no more than one of those rotating puzzle cubes. There was no way of resisting or escaping it. Once it had set its sights on someone, death was the best outcome that person could hope for.
The Black Box was the greatest anathema of their age. Before Shen Ni had managed to vanquish it — at least for the time being — through her victories in the north, no one had even dared to mention the name of the virus, as if simply saying it would be enough to bring down calamity upon them.
Shen Ni’s eyelashes flickered. ‘So far, I’ve found no traces of the Black Box inside Bian Jin’s body.’
Li Ruoyuan nodded. ‘That’s a good sign. Thank you for all the pains you’re taking, Shen Ni. If there’s anything you need, just let me know.’
Throughout the whole conversation, Shen Ni had been sitting with her arms crossed before her, looking completely unperturbed. Now, however, a thought seemed to occur to her. ‘Your Majesty, is it true that Prince Wei has asked to take Bian Jin as his concubine?’ she asked.
Li Ruoyuan sighed in her piping little voice. ‘That brother of mine has always been badly spoiled,’ she said glumly. ‘He’s already thirty years old, yet he’s still as impetuous as ever.’
Shen Ni nodded. ‘In that case, Your Majesty, may I make so bold as to seek a boon?’
***
Author’s Note:
Shen Ni: She’s my wife, of course she’s marrying me.
***
Footnotes:
- I am, frankly, making a wild guess here as to how Prince Qin is related to the emperor, as this is not specified in the novel. [return to text]
- In Chinese, 小名 (pinyin: xiao ming). An informal name given to a baby, often before their formal name is chosen. Even after the child has been given a formal name, the use of their milk name may be continued as a familial nickname. [return to text]
- In Chinese, 璧, a type of ancient Chinese jade artifact. Historically, these served as grave goods, symbols of rank, and ceremonial items. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 