To Embers We Return — Chapter 7
***
The next morning, Shen Ni and Bian Jin rose at about the same time. Neither of them said anything to the other.
Shen Ni threw her outer robes over her shoulders and left the room briskly. She washed and dressed in the courtyard outside. The rays of the newly-risen sun felt warm against her skin as she changed into her official court robes.
There were dark shadows under Shen Ni’s eyes; she hadn’t slept well the night before. Yawning lightly, she went in search of Auntie Wan and gave the housekeeper instructions about the medicinal tonics she was to prepare for Bian Jin. Then, without stopping to have breakfast, she left straightaway to attend court at the imperial palace.
Since she was setting off later than usual, Shen Ni decided to take the hovercraft instead of riding in on horseback. Hovercraft were essentially the aerial version of a motorcycle, though much speedier than the latter. As their name indicated, they could fly, and this particular model even had an extendable cabin for its rider to rest in during night flights.
Shen Ni climbed onto the hovercraft, straightened her futou, swept her cloak over her shoulders, and slipped on a pair of sunglasses. With a flash of blue light, the hovercraft rose rapidly into the air.
The sun was shining brightly down on the snow that lay thick on the streets of Chang’an, lending it a brilliant white glow. As the hovercraft locked onto one of the designated flight paths over the city, Shen Ni activated the autopilot and turned on the central control screen. The notifications told her that she’d received a few messages from Yanluo. These were from old comrades and trusted agents who’d remained behind in the north and continued to work for her in secret.
Since Bian Jin’s disappearance three years ago, Shen Ni had been covertly trying to track down her shijie’s whereabouts, as well as the truth behind her apparent ‘betrayal’ of the empire. The Court of Judicature and Revision had held her prisoner for a month, and they’d tried every trick in their book, all to no avail. Bian Jin claimed to have no memory of the last three years, but that had been impossible for the Court of Judicature and Revision to believe, and Shen Ni herself was certain something more was going on.
Shen Ni hadn’t tried to force her way into Bian Jin’s memory module, but she’d examined it closely, and saw that it had been heavily damaged. She’d repaired it to the best of her ability, so in principle it should be functioning much as normal. Some odd scraps and details might still be missing for now, but ‘committing high treason’ should have taken up such a large part of Bian Jin’s memory module that it was impossible for her to put it out of her mind, even if she wanted to. Yet Bian Jin still claimed that she remembered nothing.
And what’s more, Bian Jin didn’t seem to be lying either. Shen Ni knew her shijie well enough to understand that this went beyond simple honesty. Bian Jin had always been proud; she would consider it beneath herself to lie.
Rumour claimed that Bian Jin had taken up with the female emperor of Xuanzhou, that the two of them had engaged in the most debauched forms of carnality together night after night. Rumour also claimed that Bian Jin, wishing to please her paramour, had offered up her country’s most closely-guarded secrets on a silver platter, allowing the Xuanzhou armies to effortlessly capture the provinces of Baizhou and Danzhou, which lay north of Yanluo. When the Xuanzhou forces swept through those two provinces, it was said, the gates of their capital cities had already been flung wide open, and the invaders were able to march right in without meeting much in the way of resistance. The records showed that the gates had been opened using Bian Jin’s credentials. All this was said to be ironclad proof that Bian Jin had betrayed her country.
When Shen Ni first heard these rumours, she’d laughed quite rudely in the face of the person who’d brought them to her. Her shijie, whose coolness of manner was rivalled only by the coolness of her heart, and who had about as much passion in her as a horse hitching-pole? It was impossible to imagine her in the same sentence as ‘the most debauched forms of carnality’.
If her shijie had been the kind of person who would trade an empire for a woman’s smile, she would hardly be all alone in the world now, with nothing but a trail of broken hearts to show for it, along with the lamentations of the admirers who had loved her well though not wisely for so many years. Now that she was seriously injured — practically half-incapacitated — there was no lover by her side to care for her. The task had fallen to Shen Ni as her shimei instead.
Shen Ni did not believe a single word of those meaningless rumours — indeed, they only made her add a personal grudge of her own to the long list of crimes to be laid at the Xuanzhou emperor’s head. Once, while she was still fighting in the north, Shen Ni had glimpsed the Xuanzhou emperor from a great distance. She had not been able to make out the woman’s face clearly, but she’d come away with the distinct impression that the Xuanzhou emperor was completely mad.
For the last few days, Shen Ni had been thinking hard on the mysteries surrounding Bian Jin. Since Bian Jin’s memory module showed no signs of being contaminated by the Black Box, there was only one possibility left.
Someone must have hacked into it. Whoever it was had either sealed off Bian Jin’s last three years’ worth of memories, or overwritten them completely. The hacker had been extraordinarily skilled — a match for Shen Ni herself. They’d done so, evidently, because they had something to hide.
The secrets concealed in Yanluo, Shen Ni reflected, must be even greater than she’d imagined.
But there was one thing Shen Ni could be absolutely sure of: Bian Jin would never betray the empire. Even if invaders were at the gates of Chang’an itself, even if Li Ruoyuan had made a run for it with her whole household in tow, Bian Jin would still be there in the capital, defending it to her last breath. If Bian Jin had not been utterly loyal to the empire, if the desire to protect its people not outweighed everything else in her mind, she could never have brought herself to leave Shuangji Hall that second time, dragging her weary, battered body back to the battlefields of the north. Especially knowing that it would be a campaign of many years, with no guarantee that she would return from it alive.
Back then, Shen Ni had believed that the next time she saw Bian Jin again, it would be as a corpse. Though she was also confident that she would be able to recognise her shijie instantly, even if Bian Jin were no more than a nameless pile of bones.
When she thought about it, having Bian Jin returned to her side battered and broken, but still alive, was far from the worst outcome.
***
As before, none of Shen Ni’s agents in Yanluo had the information she hoped for. Shen Ni logged out of her account and hid the messaging program from the rest of the hovercraft’s systems.
By this time, her vessel had come to a stop above the palace. Her fellow ministers, spotting Shen Ni by herself, drew up one by one on their own hovercraft; several of them had to change direction to reach her. They called out their greetings to her.
‘My lord marquess, your wedding was just yesterday!’ exclaimed one. ‘Shouldn’t you still be on marriage leave? Why are you attending court today?’
Shen Ni returned their greetings neutrally. Of course she had her own reasons for coming here.
The ministers descended slowly on their hovercraft. This was the only day all month on which the emperor would be holding court, so all the horse hitching-posts and car parking spaces were already fully occupied.
Shen Ni landed her hovercraft in her designated parking spot. Lifting the hem of her elaborate court robes, she swung her long legs over the edge of the hovercraft and climbed off it. The golden pouch holding her ministerial seal swayed lightly at her waist as she and her fellow ministers made their way down Mutian Corridor towards Hanhua Hall, the throne room. The building had originally been named Hanyuan Hall; after Li Ruoyuan had taken the throne, the ‘yuan’ had been changed to ‘hua’ in order to avoid breaching the taboo proscribing the use of the emperor’s given name.[1]
Mutian Corridor was a covered walkway more than half a mile long. It was lined with stone pillars on both sides, and every second pillar was adorned with a carving of a dragon that looked almost lifelike. The eyes of the first rows of carvings were fitted with facial recognition scanners. As the ministers walked past the pillars, these swept over their features, making a record of their attendance.
The blueprints for Daming Palace and everything it held had come from an unknowable future. More than five hundred years ago, when the empire had still been ruled by the previous dynasty and was just having a brief respite from a prolonged period of war, a minor clerk from the Ministry of Works had come across a strange capsule amid some hidden ruins. The capsule was only the size of an adult’s forearm, but it held things that the clerk had never heard of, even though he[2] had traversed the length and breadth of the country over the course of the war. Tucked next to the capsule was a letter which he was to spend the rest of his life trying to decipher. It read:
Dear ancestors,
Whoever you are, the object in front of you must be filling you with bewilderment. Let us not mince words. This tiny capsule is a thing which has travelled through time in the reverse direction. It carries within it the might and intelligence of a distant future. It comes from us — your descendants.
We live in a highly networked society, and we possess advanced technology the likes of which you cannot imagine. The most direct proof of this is that we have solved the secrets of time itself, and delivered this letter — together with the capsule, in which our most cutting-edge technology is stored — into your hands.
We are familiar with the historical records, and have borne distant witness to the countless calamities that loom over ancient societies — war, death, famine, natural disasters, mass displacement. What we want is to use our technology to eliminate all this suffering.
To allow us a moment’s immodesty: this capsule contains riches beyond your wildest imaginings. It will bring you unprecedented prosperity, and you will see with your own eyes a technological revolution that will upend the world as you know it.
We do not yet know how far into the past this capsule will travel. You and we might be a thousand years apart, or two thousand, or we might even be in separate parallel universes. But we believe that you will have the courage to open the capsule. It contains within it our most advanced technology, as well as all the historical records available to our time, stored in compressed form. To decompress it is simple: all you need to do is press the only button on the capsule.
All natural calamities and human-made disasters will be a thing of the past. You will gain wealth untold and military might beyond measure. A new page in history will unfold before your very eyes — one filled with light, warmth, strength and boundless hope.
Venerated ancestors, this is the only thing we as your descendants can do for you. Please treat this gift with care and reverence, for it carries with it all our respect.
We wish you the very best of luck, and may courage and good fortune be ever with you.
There was perhaps no one in the world who could have resisted so great a temptation, much less a lowly clerk who had barely survived the devastation of war and whose sole overwhelming wish was to cling on to life. With a press of a button, he triggered the capsule. An endless stream of knowledge poured forth, including blueprints for the most incredible inventions and methods for generating energy hitherto unthought of. A most wondrous future unfolded before the clerk’s eyes.
The clerk got his wish: he lived. Not only did he survive the ravages of war and its aftermath, he also lit the first flame of the upcoming technological revolution. Cutting-edge innovations from a completely different era infiltrated their hitherto agrarian society. The next five hundred years of madcap, breakneck development and near-fanatic future-worship had shaped their civilisation into its current twisted form: a surreal mixture of ancient tradition and radical avant-gardism.
As for the clerk who had discovered the capsule from the future, he became the founder of the present imperial dynasty — Li Ruoyuan’s direct ancestor. Daming Palace itself was the product of the era’s future-worship. Even the name of the new dynasty was an homage to a particularly prosperous empire of the future described in the historical texts from the capsule, while at the same time reflecting the overweening arrogance of a new age.
The name of the present dynasty was — TangPro.
Shen Ni and her ministerial colleagues reached the far end of Mutian Corridor. Looming before them at the top of a long flight of steps was Hanhua Hall. At the head of the steps themselves stood TangPro’s emperor Li Ruoyuan. The assembled ministers knelt, and Li Ruoyuan inclined her head graciously towards them, accepting their obeisances.
As Li Ruoyuan stood bathed in the morning sun, gazing down at her thousands of officials., Shen Ni looked up at the woman who had ruled the empire for more than twenty years. At this distance and height, it was difficult to make out her features clearly.
Only direct descendants of the Li clan had ever laid eyes on the capsule whose contents had turned the world upside down, as well as the letter that had accompanied it. When it came to that part of the empire’s history, there was one thing Shen Ni was particularly curious about. There was something grotesque about what their society had become, but they had undeniably reached a new peak of technological innovation. In that regard, it was likely not far behind the civilisation of the future from which the capsule had come. But no one in the empire had yet discovered the secret of travelling through time.
Had those distant descendants from an even more distant future really made this gargantuan effort to break the shackles of time purely from the altruistic desire to better the lives of their ancient ancestors, whom they had never met? TangPro was now the dominant power on the continent, the foremost of the three great empires there — but what of it? Could anyone, looking around at the decaying, near-apocalyptic state of the empire, sincerely believe that their descendants had been motivated by filial piety?
The sun was rising behind Li Ruoyuan. Its slanting rays drew her shadow longer and longer over the ground, until it lay across the steps like a vast pool of darkness.
***
In front of her assembled ministers, Li Ruoyuan made a point of announcing that Shen Ni had been appointed to supervise the construction of the capital’s defensive fortifications. She also proclaimed that the project was to be moved to the top of the Ministry of Works’ list of priorities, and instructed the Minister of Works to work closely with Shen Ni and to treat all her requests for resources as being of the utmost importance. Once the fortifications around Chang’an had been completed and they had had the chance to refine the techniques used in their construction, the same defences would be built around other major cities across the empire, such as Luoyang.
Li Ruoyuan’s speech was highly complimentary to Shen Ni. On the surface, it sounded like nothing more than a mark of the esteem in which she held her extraordinarily talented minister. But Shen Ni knew perfectly well that Li Ruoyuan was using it to place all responsibility for the success of the project on her shoulders. She also knew, however, that the fortifications needed to be built. Otherwise, once the Black Box woke from its slumber, it would only be a matter of time before it invaded the capital, and the death and suffering that would inevitably sweep through the city’s populace would only break Bian Jin’s heart.
Not only did the fortifications need to be built, she also needed to make extensive revisions to their original specifications. After court had adjourned, Shen Ni stayed behind in Hanhua Hall and explained to Li Ruoyuan the changes she intended to make. All the features set out in the original blueprints were to remain, but Shen Ni now considered them insufficient for dealing with the looming threat, and wanted to add a series of even more advanced mechanisms. Defensive gun turrets were to be placed at intervals on top of the wall, each with an intelligent tracking system capable of detecting any potential threat within at least two hundred and thirty-five feet and up to nearly six hundred feet away. Automated repair points with a honeycomb structure were to be built into the wall itself. These would be triggered if the wall was attacked directly, patching up any damage while also sending out a warning alarm.
The foundations also had to be dug much deeper — at least fifty feet into the ground — and the wall’s embedded systems were to be connected to Chang’an’s main extranet network, forming a vast data hub to enable even more efficient transmission of information. Where necessary, this would also allow suspicious persons to be quickly stripped of their permissions to access the city’s networks. And if the capital were ever to fall into extreme danger, those with the authority to do so could activate what Shen Ni called ‘silent mode’. Once triggered, a defensive dome would extend from the top and bottom of the wall, and the two halves would fuse together in a matter of minutes, encasing the city of Chang’an in a huge metallic sphere through which nothing could enter or leave.
All that, to Shen Ni, was simply the first and most basic phase of the project. She’d witnessed the horrific might of the Black Box virus with her own eyes. Even if the fortifications were to be constructed precisely to her specifications, they would only be enough to ward off the Black Box in the earliest stages of its re-emergence, giving humanity the tiniest bit of advance warning, the most fragile possibility of being able to act early enough to save themselves.
Shen Ni could still remember what an old prophet had once said to her on his deathbed in Yanluo: In front of the Black Box virus, all that a human can do is pray. Pray not to suffer too much when we die.
The Black Box had been temporarily vanquished by Shen Ni, but everyone knew that what she had purchased for them was not a lasting peace — only some breathing space in which to raise whatever puny shields they could contrive against the nightmare’s resurgence. So the city’s defences had to be continuously upgraded, and Shen Ni needed access to the empire’s most cutting-edge technology if she was to do so. The resources available to the Ministry of Works were woefully inadequate.
With that in mind, Shen Ni asked the emperor to grant her access to the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation. This seemed to put Li Ruoyuan in a somewhat difficult position.
‘Shen Ni, my dear minister, the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation holds some of the empire’s most closely-guarded state secrets. Not even I can set foot in it whenever I please. It will be… rather difficult to give you the access you’ve requested.’
Li Ruoyuan had thrown her support seemingly whole-heartedly behind Shen Ni, elevated Shen Ni to her present position, and entrusted Shen Ni with the weightiest of responsibilities. All this had, of course, made Shen Ni the target for the envy of her fellow ministers. Shen Ni was hardly the sort to allow herself to be taken advantage of politically, and Li Ruoyuan had known full well that she would exact more than her pound of flesh in return when the time came. And now Li Ruoyuan knew what she wanted in exchange.
Shen Ni smiled decorously. ‘That’s all right, Your Majesty. You can consider the matter at your leisure. I’m more than willing to wait.’
Li Ruoyuan returned her smile rather stiffly. It seemed Shen Ni was dead-set on extracting this concession from her. But meimei[3] would never agree, she thought.
After Shen Ni had left, Li Ruoyuan’s head was throbbing so insistently that she could barely sit still. She had her attendants shut the doors of the throne room and instructed them to turn away all petitioners. Soon she began to feel drowsy. She put her head down on the table in front of her, intending to take a brief nap, and was soon asleep.
Then the faint sound of footsteps echoed across the shadowy throne room. A figure came up to Li Ruoyuan’s slumbering form, put a hand under her chin, tilted up her childish face, and scrutinised it minutely. Li Ruoyuan’s brows knitted together, but she did not open her eyes, looking for all the world as if she were trapped in some sort of nightmare.
***
Shen Ni was busy with the project the emperor had set her, so she’d spent the last few nights at the headquarters that had been erected at the site of the fortifications instead of returning home. That meant Bian Jin had been sleeping and rising alone.
One morning, shortly after she’d woken up, Bian Jin took a few turns through the grounds. Then she leaped up to the top of a tree and jumped back down again lightly, as nimble as any cat.
Bian Jin was careful to put as little stress on her spine as possible, and paid close attention to how it felt throughout. There wasn’t even a twinge as she landed. This cybernetic spine might only be a temporary one, but it still seemed fairly resilient. She was about to try jumping up onto the roof when she remembered Shen Ni’s warning: It’s vital that you not exert yourself, otherwise you’ll only make your injuries worse.
While Bian Jin did not possess Shen Ni’s Talent as a machinist, she’d seen them at work often enough on the battlefield to know that repairs of this sort called for an extraordinary degree of both skill and concentration, and was physically and mentally draining. She had no wish to put Shen Ni through that kind of strain. After all, their union had come about purely through circumstance, and was destined to be brief. Shen Ni owed her no obligation to carry out such arduous repairs.
Bian Jin decided to defer the experiment with the roof for now. She would ask Shen Ni about it in a few more days. Then she felt the digital watch on her left wrist vibrate. She had a Messenger Pigeon text.
Practically everyone in Chang’an wore a watch like this, and hers was the latest model. One of its handier functions was the ability to project a screen and keyboard into the air which only the wearer could see and use. Shen Ni had given her the watch almost in passing, saying that it would make it easier for Bian Jin to get in touch with her if necessary.
‘Though you probably won’t need to,’ she’d added at the time.
Bian Jin had been unsure how to use it at first. She’d been away from the capital for the last six years, fighting deep within hostile territory, and had even lost her last three years’ worth of memories. She’d never seen these newfangled devices before.
Shen Ni had shown her what she could do with it. Once she’d connected the watch to TangPro’s extranet, she could search for and retrieve any information that was publicly available, and she could also receive all official notifications sent out from the imperial court.
After she’d experimented with the watch for a few days, Bian Jin realised that it functioned similarly to a secondary brain. Before the emergence of the Black Box virus, a secondary brain had been a standard augmentation for all those who could afford cybernetic implants. Once the virus began running rampant across the continent, however, they proved to be the most convenient route for the Black Box to infiltrate a human body. Following the horror of this discovery, secondary brains had become less and less popular, and external devices had proliferated to take their place. These powerful digital watches were simply the most currently popular equivalents of a secondary brain.
Bian Jin settled into the warming chamber[4] to read the message she’d just received. Since Shen Ni was the only person in her list of Messenger Pigeon contacts so far, she thought it must have come from her shimei, and even took a moment to imagine what Shen Ni might want to say to her, and whether they would need to meet in person.
The message wasn’t from Shen Ni, however. It was an official letter from the Ministry of Personnel, informing her that the emperor had been pleased to appoint her to the post of archival clerk at Lantai.[5]
Lantai was the empire’s central repository for official documents and historical and cultural records — which now included cybernetic implants of note as well. The standard duties of an archival clerk consisted of assembling, cataloguing and verifying historical materials, organising and filing them away, and sundry other administrative tasks.
Li Ruoyuan’s motive for giving her this unimportant post was obvious: she meant to keep Bian Jin in Chang’an, the better to continue her investigations into Bian Jin’s supposed treason.
As Bian Jin reached this point in her train of thought, she closed her eyes and tried to access her memory module. Not only was her jade core seriously damaged, her memory module now felt like nothing less than a ruin. The major pathways showed signs of repair — undoubtedly Shen Ni’s handiwork. It was thanks to Shen Ni that she still retained most of her important memories. Everything that had happened in those last three years in Yanluo, however, were locked away in a section of her memory module that had been rendered inaccessible by some unknown hand. Only a highly talented machinist could have sealed away her memories so tightly.
If her million-strong army had lost their lives because of her, and the people of Baizhou and Danzhou had perished because she’d thrown open their gates to the enemy, then she was indeed an arch-traitor to the empire. But if turned out that she had nothing to do with those deaths, then she wasn’t about to be anyone’s scapegoat. She owed it to the empire, to her shimei, and even to herself to recover her lost memories.
‘My lady, are you in there?’ Auntie Wan’s voice came from outside the room.
Bian Jin opened the door and Auntie Wan stepped through, carrying today’s beaker of tonic.
The first day Bian Jin had been given this tonic, Auntie Wan had explained Shen Ni’s instructions to her. Bian Jin was to drink it two hours after breakfast, and to continue doing so for a full month. That would allow its strengthening properties to take full effect.
The tonic was exceptionally bitter today. Even Bian Jin, whose tolerance for such unpleasant tastes was high, found her brow furrowing reflexively. ‘Is there anything sweet to take away the taste?’ she asked Auntie Wan.
A broad grin spread instantly over Auntie Wan’s face. As Bian Jin gazed at her quizzically, Auntie Wan handed her a small piece of candy, as if she’d expecting that very request.
‘It’s osmanthus candy — my favourite,’ said Bian Jin.
‘That’s right,’ said Auntie Wan. ‘Her lordship said you liked them, and you’d be sure to ask for one after drinking the tonic, so she had me get them ready.’
The sweetness of the candy soon banished any lingering bitterness from the tonic; it took over her tastebuds swiftly.
Her shimei was no longer in love with her, Bian Jin thought, yet she was still conscientiously discharging every single one of her duties in this loveless marriage. Perhaps no matter who Shen Ni had married, she would always treat her wife as thoughtfully as this.
***
Author’s Note:
Shen Ni: It’s impossible — just ask the horse hitching-pole!
Horse hitching-pole: Huh?
***
Footnotes:
- Historically, subjects of imperial China were forbidden to speak or write the characters in the emperor’s personal name. When a new emperor took the throne, the names of people and places containing the same characters as their personal name would typically be changed. [return to text]
- It is not clear from the text what the gender of the clerk is. On the assumption that the history depicted in this novel proceeded along the same lines as in our world up until the moment of divergence set out in this chapter, I’ve elected to make the clerk a man, on the basis that it would be unlikely for a woman to hold imperial office in a pre-divergence era. [return to text]
- In Chinese, 妹妹, literally ‘younger sister’. In addition to being a familial term, it is also used as an affectionate term of address for a non-blood-related younger woman of the same generation. [return to text]
- In the original text, 暖阁 (pinyin: nuan ge). In traditional Chinese architecture, a room built to conserve warmth, often with heated walls. A traditional heated system wall consists of three parts: a stove (typically located in a different room, often the kitchen), a cavity wall, and a chimney. The stove serves as the heating source and is linked to the cavity wall. The cavity wall absorbs the heat from the stove and releases the heat gradually into the room. In a traditional Chinese household, the warming chamber functioned as a relatively private space to which members of the family would retire with close friends. [return to text]
- In Chinese, 兰台. A central document repository which existed in several Chinese imperial dynasties. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 