To Embers We Return — Chapter 18
***
The mechanical arm swept over Bian Jin, scanning for any signs of contamination or overloading, and found none. The operation was now complete.
Shen Ni put the mechanical arm into clean-up mode, then closed her eyes for a brief rest. The mechanical arm skimmed delicately across Bian Jin’s skin, cleaning and disinfecting every inch of it, before finally applying a layer of unscented moisturiser. Once that was done, it placed a blanket over Bian Jin and retreated back into its recess in the wall.
Shen Ni opened her dry, swollen eyes. She hadn’t slept in three days. In the mirror, she looked haggard and worn.
She downed a large cup of nutrient beverage in a single gulp. As the cool liquid slipped smoothly down her throat, the taste of osmanthus blossoms filled her mouth, so sweet that she gave an involuntary shudder — one which had the unexpected effect of clearing her head. She’d forgotten that all the cans of nutrient beverage they had at home were flavoured with osmanthus syrup.
Shen Ni walked over to the workbench. Bian Jin was still sleeping soundly. Her long, delicate eyelashes, with their natural upward curve, lay against her cheek. Her pink lips were slightly parted, as full and soft as a pair of strawberry sweets.
Since their reunion, this was the first time Shen Ni had been able to look upon her face so openly.
As she undid the leather straps around Bian Jin’s wrists and ankles, Shen Ni saw that there was a half-healed cut running across Bian Jin’s left palm. Through her mind flashed the memory of one recent morning, when Bian Jin had sat down at the breakfast table with a bandage wrapped around her hand. That had been immediately after the night some unidentified object had broken into the mansion’s grounds.
Shen Ni inspected the cut carefully. It was deep but narrow, and the edges were almost perfectly smooth. It looked as if it had been made by something sharp and metallic. Bian Jin had treated it at some point, but in a woefully slapdash manner. And she wanted to fix her own spine? scoffed Shen Ni. With that level of medical skill?
Since she didn’t have much else to do, Shen Ni sewed up the wound for Bian Jin.
Bian Jin’s head was covered by a surgical cap. Shen Ni had placed it there just before she began operating on Bian Jin. Over the course of the elaborate three-day procedure, however, a couple of drops of hydraulic oil had splashed onto the hair at her temples, which peeked out from the edges of the cap.
Her shijie, who was almost fanatical about cleanliness, insisted on bathing every day and couldn’t abide a single speck of dirt anywhere about her person. Since the rest of her had already been cleaned up, Shen Ni decided she might as well give Bian Jin’s hair a wash. Even though Bian Jin would undoubtedly be upset with Shen Ni once she woke up, her temper might just soften a little when she realised she was all nice and clean.
Once she’d finished washing Bian Jin’s hair, Shen Ni wrapped the blanket back around her and carried her to their bedchamber. She settled Bian Jin into bed, then brought out a quantum cellular resonator — the latest model, of course — and placed it in a corner, pointing directly at Bian Jin’s sleeping form. She turned it on.
The resonator would oscillate at the same frequencies as Bian Jin’s own cybernetic energy field, increasing her rate of recovery. The only problem with the device was that it was very expensive to run. It consumed about five thousand taels’ worth of energy for every hour it was on.
Shen Ni set it to run for six hours for the time being, then left the room.
As she stepped out into the courtyard, she saw two officials from the Lijing Bureau standing under a snow-covered tree. It was the same pair who had stayed behind after the wedding to make sure she and Bian Jin duly consummated their marriage.
The taller of the two officials, the one wearing a veiled hat made of titanium, was named Fang Pan. The shorter one with the cybernetic neck was named Dou Xuanji.
The officials of the Lijing Bureau, it was said, were all orphan girls who’d been taken in by its director. Each and every one of them had been trained as dedicated servants of the emperor, ready to lay down their lives for her without hesitation. The two officials in front of Shen Ni had come to the Lijing Bureau as nameless orphans. It was the emperor who’d granted them the surnames they now bore, as a reward for loyal service. The Fang and Dou clans were two of the empire’s most prestigious noble families.
Fang Pan’s veiled hat hid the upper half of her face completely, revealing only a pair of lips made of the same hard metal. When she spoke, her mouth moved only a little way, so it was difficult to discern any emotion. Her voice, however, was high and shrill, with an electronic timbre to it that made the listener’s eardrums ache.
‘Marquess Jing’an,’ said Fang Pan, ‘Her Majesty the emperor summoned you to the palace yesterday, yet you failed to make an appearance. Now the two of us have been sent all the way here to fetch you. You do think a lot of yourself, just as the rumours say.’
‘Consider it an early-morning workout, Your Excellencies,’ said Shen Ni, as she cleaned her teeth and washed her face.
Fang Pan stared at her in confusion.
Shen Ni finished her ablutions and put her official’s robes and futou on. As she adjusted the latter, she saw that Fang Pan and Dou Xuanji were still standing under the tree.
‘Her Majesty has summoned me,’ said Shen Ni, ‘so I must now proceed to the palace. If you would prefer to stay here, Your Excellencies, please feel free. My housekeeper makes an excellent sweet tofu pudding.[1] You should try it.’
And so saying, she went over to a corner of the courtyard, where her horse stood. She untied its reins from the hitching-pole and leaped onto its back.
‘What are you going on about?’ sneered Dou Xuanji. ‘Tofu pudding? As if anyone cares.’
Fang Pan sneered as well. ‘Anyone could have told you there’s no decent sweet tofu pudding to be had in all of Chang’an.’
Dou Xuanji glared at Fang Pan, then punched her viciously on the back before following Shen Ni out of the courtyard. Fang Pan, biting back a yelp of pain, scurried after her exasperated partner.
It had been three days since Shen Ni last set foot outside the mansion, and the air had turned warmer in the interim. Sunshine fell across her sleep-deprived face, giving her the trancelike sensation that she might fall headlong into a dream at any moment.
Dou Xuanji and Fang Pan rode behind her on a horse apiece, trailing slowly in her wake. As they made their way through the streets, some remnants of the Shangyuan festivities could still be seen here and there. When they passed through the market quarter though, there was no sign left of the Great Wheel of Fire. Just as Shen Ni expected, it had been dismantled.
Dou Xuanji, who was already keeping a tight leash on her temper, saw that Shen Ni was swaying slightly on her horse. She recalled what Shen Ni’s housekeeper had told her — that Shen Ni hadn’t slept in the last three days, due to pressing business. She’s liable to fall off that horse at any moment, thought Dou Xuanji, keeping her eyes fixed unblinkingly on Shen Ni’s back.
Marquess Jing’an, it was clear, was as full of schemes as a lotus root was of holes. There was no telling if she might decide to orchestrate an ‘accidental’ fall from her horse in order to avoid the emperor’s summons.
Before she and Fang Pan had set off that morning, the Director of the Lijing Bureau had instructed Dou Xuanji to keep a close watch on Shen Ni. That business at the florist’s in the Eastern Market was no trifling matter, and Shen Ni was a key witness to the whole incident. If anything happened to her, Dou Xuanji and Fang Pan might as well kiss their heads goodbye.
Dou Xuanji had already had her head cut off once before, and she had no wish to repeat the experience. She couldn’t afford to take her eyes off Shen Ni for a single moment.
Shen Ni was now very obviously swaying on her horse. Suddenly she stiffened, then began toppling slowly to her left.
Dou Xuanji noticed this immediately. She really has fallen asleep, she thought. Swiftly she leaped from her own horse and, amid the startled cries of onlookers, flung herself towards Shen Ni, intending to nudge the other woman back into her saddle.
Unexpectedly, however, Shen Ni let out a yawn, then sat up straight again.
Dou Xuanji’s outstretched hand met empty air, and she nearly fell flat on her face. To keep her balance, she had no choice but to drop into a crouch with one knee on ground, so that she looked exactly as if she were making an obeisance to Shen Ni.
Shen Ni, a hint of tears in the corners of her eyes, looked down at the kneeling Dou Xuanji. ‘You may rise,’ she said.
Dou Xuanji gritted her teeth. ‘Please stay alive long enough to reach Her Majesty’s presence, Marquess Jing’an.’
Shen Ni was about to reply when a low laugh came from behind her.
‘A daughter of the noble house of Dou kneeling before a mere Shen? What would the shades of your ancestors at Lanling think if they knew?’
Heads turned in the direction of that derisive voice. The woman it belonged to was sitting regally in a richly-appointed coach at the head of a procession. Her face was as exquisite as if it had been carved from the finest jade, and her lips were a brilliant crimson. Around her shoulders she wore a cloak of deep indigo. Her hair was arranged in an elaborate loop at the top of her head — the style called ‘soaring to the clouds’ — and adorned with a gorgeous golden hairpin from which a multitude of smaller ornaments dangled. She wore all that opulence with an air of casual arrogance, as if it were nothing more than her due. The curtains of the coach were half-open despite the wintry air, and its occupant surveyed Shen Ni in a leisurely manner, as if trying to drink in every single detail of her reaction.
The woman in the coach was none other than Prince Yong herself — Li Shan..
Now that she was no longer wearing her ministerial robes, she’d shed the stern, forbidding air she’d had at their last encounter. Instead, she was all poise and elegance. But elegance or no, her tongue was still as cutting as ever.
The Dou clan had once been counted among the four most prominent noble houses in the empire, together with the Chen clan of Luoyang, the Diwu clan of Muzhou, and the royal family itself, the Li clan of Chang’an. Lanling, once the empire’s glittering second city, was the Dou clan’s ancestral home. It had been razed nearly to the ground ten years ago when the Black Box invaded. Now, whenever Lanling was mentioned, no one thought of its former status. Instead, it was known as the most infamous prison in all the realm. Locked away behind its walls were the most violent, most depraved criminals, together with some maddened victims of the Black Box who were barely clinging to life.
The Dou clan had gone into decline after the destruction of Lanling. They’d been forced to uproot themselves from their ancestral lands and seek shelter in Chang’an. Being newcomers, they were handily outshone by the city’s established noble families, who’d been entrenched in the capital for generations. When Li Ruoyuan had awarded the surname ‘Dou’ to a group of warriors for their exemplary service, the Dou clan had thanked her for the honour. Behind closed doors, however, they considered it an utter humiliation.
There were two prominent members of the Dou clan in Li Shan’s entourage at this very moment: Dou Bin, the eldest son of the Dou patriarch, and Dou Bin’s own eldest son. Their coach was right next to Li Shan’s.
In making that jibe at the Dou clan’s expense right to their faces, Li Shan had dealt a crushing blow to their pride and left Dou Xuanji mortified. Most of all, she’d hoped to humble Shen Ni.
Shen Ni was an orphan, a foundling who’d been taken in by Shuangji Hall. This part of her history had become known more and more widely within Chang’an as her star rose. The Shen clan itself was a very minor family within TangPro. By reminding Shen Ni of that fact, Li Shan had meant to get under Shen Ni’s skin, and now she waited to see how Shen Ni would react.
But Shen Ni only gave her a brilliant smile — one so lovely that Li Shan’s breath caught.
‘Your Highness jests, of course,’ said Shen Ni. ‘Mistress Dou was only concerned for my welfare, and in her haste, she overbalanced and fell. If you were to call this an obeisance, why, half the residents of Chang’an would be constantly prostrating themselves before the other half! Just yesterday, the garden paths at my residence were so slippery that my housekeeper Auntie Wan and I nearly found ourselves kowtowing to each other.’
Shen Ni spoke easily enough; on the surface, there was no obvious barb in her words. Dou Bin’s expression lightened slightly, as did his son’s. Li Shan’s, however, turned suddenly grim. It was only then that Dou Bin realised Shen Ni’s innocent-sounding remark had left Li Shan both angry and embarrassed.
Li Shan’s own mother had been of low birth — a mere maidservant who’d been looked down on by the late emperor and the rest of the Li clan. It just so happened that her surname had also been Wan, the same as Shen Ni’s housekeeper. She’d brought Li Shan up herself, and the two of them had been very close. She’d died young of illness, however, before she’d had the chance to witness the emergence of her daughter’s Talent.
Li Shan had made much of Shen Ni’s humble background in order to mock her. However, she’d forgotten that her mother’s own family was equally inferior in the eyes of the nobility.
Shen Ni had struck her unerringly in her weak spot, but there was no way Li Shan could justify taking her anger out on the other woman. For one thing, Shen Ni’s housekeeper really was named Wan, after all. No casual observer could have told whether Shen Ni had meant that particular remark innocently, or whether it had been a deliberate dig at Li Shan.
Fearing that Li Shan might fly into a rage at any moment, Dou Bin spoke up hastily. ‘Your Highness, I’ve just heard from Luoyang. Everything is ready for the banquet, and all they’re waiting for is for you to arrive and host it. Let us go now, lest we miss the auspicious hour.’[2]
Li Shan said nothing more. Still grim-faced, she pulled the coach-curtains down the rest of the way, blocking out the sight of Shen Ni’s aggravating face completely.
She couldn’t block out Shen Ni’s voice, however. An airy, ‘Safe travels, Your Highness,’ still drifted into Li Shan’s ears.
After that covert jibe from Shen Ni, Li Shan was now overly conscious of every word that came out of the other woman’s mouth. She fancied she caught a caustic edge of mockery in that otherwise perfectly ordinary farewell.
Prince Yong’s entourage departed the city shortly afterwards, disappearing from sight over the horizon.
When Dou Xuanji glanced over at Shen Ni again, she decided that the other woman’s fox-like face didn’t look so annoying after all.
***
The doors of the throne room were firmly shut. A servant was stationed outside with orders to turn away anyone who did not have an express summons from the emperor.
Shen Ni and Li Ruoyuan were the only ones inside the throne room. Shen Ni was projecting a recording from her memory module onto the wall in front of them. It showed the incident from Liu Ji’s residence on the night of the Shangyuan Festival.
At first, as Li Ruoyuan watched Liu Ji sit up in his coffin, his eyeballs vibrating madly in their sockets, she’d been able to think: It could still be something else. After all, it wasn’t uncommon for cybernetic components to malfunction. If the implants inside a corpse hadn’t been properly deactivated, there was a possibility that they might spring back into action, giving the appearance that the body had come back to life. This might not necessarily be the work of the Black Box.
But once they reached the part of the recording where Liu Ji began attacking Zeng Qingluo, his neck stretching itself out to a length of some twenty feet, Li Ruoyuan fell completely silent.
‘It’s the Black Box,’ said Li Ruoyuan eventually. Her head drooped; fear was written all over her face. ‘But how? Didn’t you destroy the very last infected victim when you were in the north? If the virus did manage to find its way into Chang’an, our city-wide tracking system would surely have sounded the alarm.’
‘Your Majesty, in the twenty or so years of its existence, no one has ever been able to kill the Black Box completely.’ Shen Ni’s pitiless words ripped away the last shreds of Li Ruoyuan’s faint hopes. ‘Even if it does not take a human host, it can infect other living creatures just as easily. It can infiltrate anything that has a connection to the extranet, any implant, any cybernetic component.’
‘But our tracking system—’
‘Just as we can upgrade our defences, the Black Box can evolve. The current iteration of the virus may well be capable of evading our surveillance systems altogether.’
Those words were like a stab to Li Ruoyuan’s heart. A chill spread all over her.
Six years ago, the empire had poured a vast amount of its resources into forging a tracking system capable of detecting the Black Box’s presence with pinpoint precision. Whether it was a human that had been infected, or another creature, or even some part of the extranet, the system could identify and locate it almost instantly. That was why Li Ruoyuan had felt they could take their time when it came to the construction of the city’s fortifications.
But if the Black Box was now capable of evading their tracking system, infiltrating the city unattended… well, then, the fate of blighted Lanling waited in Chang’an’s future.
Large drops of sweat were forming on the tip of Li Ruoyuan’s delicate little nose.
‘Shen Ni, if we were to pour all of the empire’s resources into Chang’an’s defensive fortifications now, how long would it take for construction to be complete?’
‘Three years,’ said Shen Ni. ‘But the first phase would be done within a year.’
Li Ruoyuan squeezed her eyes shut. This seemed to be the only path left to them now.
She pressed a button on her desk. ‘Summon Prince Yong to the throne room,’ she said.
Through the speakers came the voice of an official of the Palace Domestic Service. ‘Your Majesty, Her Highness Prince Yong is not in Chang’an at present. She—’
‘I don’t care if she’s gone to the ends of the earth,’ snapped Li Ruoyuan. ‘I want her back here right now.’
The Palace Domestic Service rarely heard such a outburst of temper from the good-natured emperor. ‘At once, Your Majesty,’ said the official hastily, and rushed off to track Li Shan down as if his feet were on fire.
‘I know Prince Yong had plans to be in Luoyang today,’ Li Ruoyuan explained to Shen Ni. ‘But given the urgency of the matter, I have no choice but to bring her back here immediately. I’m going to make it clear to her that, regardless of her feelings in the matter, she must give you access to the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation as soon as possible. I fear she’s well on her way to Luoyang, so it may take a while before she returns.’
Li Ruoyuan took a moment to compose herself before calling out to the servant standing guard outside the throne room. ‘Bring the marquess some tea.’
‘Yes, Your Majesty,’ he replied.
***
The sky had darkened, and a storm was raging over Chang’an.
When Li Shan finally rushed into the throne room, the first thing she saw was Shen Ni, sitting just below Li Ruoyuan’s throne and sipping leisurely from a cup of tea.
Li Shan’s face was flecked with snow, and her movements were hampered by her elaborate outfit. She looked completely dishevelled as she stumbled into the room. As she came forward, holding her long skirts out of the way, she somehow contrived to trip over them, and came to rest in a deep crouch with one knee on the floor.
That was a pose Li Shan was all too familiar with. It was the very same one that Dou Xuanji had found herself in earlier that day, when she’d leaped off her horse and overbalanced.
At the time, Dou Xuanji had found herself kneeling before Shen Ni. And now…
Li Shan looked up, straight into Shen Ni’s face.
Shen Ni put down her teacup, but did not rise. To any observer, she looked as if she were accepting Li Shan’s accidental obeisance with perfect equanimity.
Li Shan thought back on their encounter in the streets of Chang’an just an hour ago. At the time, Shen Ni had been accompanied by two Lijing officials, so it was obvious that she’d been on her way to see the emperor. Shen Ni must have known perfectly well, too, that whatever discussions she had with the emperor were likely to result in the latter summoning Li Shan to the palace, yet she’d chosen not to mention a single word of it to Li Shan at the time. The upshot was that Li Shan had been recalled to Chang’an post-haste almost as soon as she’d arrived in Luoyang. On the journey back, her entourage had nearly been struck by lightning as their coaches hurtled through the sky.
Now that she thought of it, Shen Ni’s airy, ‘Safe travels, Your Highness,’ from earlier sounded like an outright taunt.
Li Shan’s eyelid twitched. With a monumental effort, she choked down her indignation, then turned to Li Ruoyuan and said deferentially, ‘I have come in answer to your summons, Your Majesty.’
Li Ruoyuan was looking decidedly displeased. Had this been any other occasion, she would no doubt have been moved by her younger sister’s bedraggled appearance, and stepped down from her throne to help Li Shan to her feet. Now, however, she was clearly annoyed.
‘The construction of the city’s defensive fortifications has become a matter of utmost urgency,’ she said, her voice echoing through the throne room. ‘To ensure that the project progresses as smoothly as possible, it is imperative that Minister Shen be given the highest level of access to the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation, with full authority to allocate any resources and staff as she sees fit. Make sure it is done without delay.’
Li Shan gritted her teeth so hard her jaw felt as if it had gone as stiff as rock. But all she could do was acquiesce. ‘As you command, Your Majesty.’
***
Li Shan left the throne room and stepped into the courtyard just outside. Her costly skirts were stained with dirty snow. Any possibility she might have entertained of returning to Luoyang to preside over the Festival of a Thousand Flowers as its most dazzling hostess had now gone up in smoke.
She took a few steps forward, then turned and glared at Shen Ni, who had followed her out of the throne room.
Shen Ni was wearing her sunglasses, pulled lazily down over her nose. Only a miserly sliver of her eyes was visible above their rims, but she met Li Shan’s penetrating stare calmly enough. Shen Ni had been audacious enough to receive an obeisance from Prince Yong herself, after all; what wouldn’t she dare do?
Shen Ni cupped her hands before her chest in a gesture of respect, then went on walking past Li Shan.
Li Shan called out to her. ‘Bian Jin is just using you.’
Shen Ni paused.
Li Shan swept her long skirts aside, deciding that they were too much trouble to bother with. She eyed the back of Shen Ni’s tall figure.
‘You’ve gone to all these lengths to gain access to the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation. But at the end of the day, she’s the one who’s going to benefit — that woman who’s inveigled her way into becoming your wife. She’s going to use you to steal even more state secrets. She’s been a minion of the Xuanzhou emperor Qin Wushang for a very long time. In front of you, she might play the part of the pitiful victim, but secretly she’s pulling your strings like a marionette. By the time you finally realise the truth, it will be too late.’
Shen Ni looked back at her through the wind and falling snow.
A layer of white flakes limned her black futou and her sunglasses; more snowflakes powdered her eyelashes. An odd little smile tugged at the corners of her lips. She winked, and the smile suddenly seemed utterly captivating.
Li Shan stared at her, speechless. She’d thought to provoke Shen Ni to anger. She had not expected this unfathomable smile — a smile of undisguised avidity, with an edge to it that spoke of obsession.
Shen Ni had shed her usually demure facade; she was now wickedness personified.
‘My wife is using me?’
Shen Ni brought a fingertip up to her full red lips. Her gaze wandered to the distant sky, her eyes drifting half-closed, as if she were turning something over in her mind, savouring it slowly. ‘Do you have any idea how delicious every single word of that is?’ she said.
Li Shan’s heart thumped forcefully in her chest.
She’d never been able to anticipate what Shen Ni would say or do next. In all her twenty-seven years, she’d never seen a creature quite like the woman now standing in front of her.
Shen Ni, inwardly relishing the waves of excitement that were swelling up in her heart, composed herself again. When she turned back to Li Shan, her usual deceptively mild smile was back in place.
‘Thank you for telling me this, Your Highness, and for all the pains you’ve taken on my behalf.’
At the mention of ‘pains’, Li Shan realised she’d said too much. In doing so, she’d inadvertently revealed what close attention she paid to Shen Ni’s personal affairs. She couldn’t think of a single retort. Flushing deeply, she turned and stalked swiftly away from the courtyard.
***
Bian Jin woke to the scent of temple tea. When she opened her eyes, she realised she was back in the bedchamber. In front of her, next to the bed, was a stalk of ice-blue cereus with several flowers on it, all of them in full bloom.
As its name suggested, every part of the plant — from stem to leaf to petal — was a semi-transparent pale blue, like a thin layer of ice that was just beginning melt. One could see the fine traceries of the vascular cells that sent nutrients flowing all through the plant. It glimmered with a faint, lonely blue glow in the dark winter night. The petals were as soft as silk, as if the Creator’s deft hands had formed a piece of gossamer fabric into the shape of a flower — exquisite, but oh-so-fragile.
And these were real flowers — not artificial ones.
It had been many years since Bian Jin had seen a living ice-blue cereus. The last time had been when she was still living at Shuangji Hall. She’d acquired two such flowers by chance, and planted them in the small courtyard behind her quarters.
Shen Ni had thought them very beautiful, and had come to Bian Jin’s quarters multiple times a day to admire them. But the flowers proved too fragile and too difficult to keep alive. They’d wilted before three days were out.
When she saw the disappointed look in Shen Ni’s face, Bian Jin had consulted all the horticultural texts she could get her hands on, until she finally found the secret to cultivating those finicky blossoms. Soon, her courtyard was filled with ice-blue cereuses in full bloom, and Shen Ni became cheerful again.
News of her success spread, and sect-siblings and outsiders alike came to her to ask how she’d done it. Out of a desire to keep the secret for herself, Bian Jin had not told any of them. And as for where that desire had sprung from, Bian Jin had never examined it too closely.
***
The woman who had restrained Bian Jin forcibly to her workbench was sitting at the table in a corner of the bedchamber.
When she saw that Bian Jin was awake, Shen Ni put down her stylus and stood up. She took the beaker of nutrient beverage from where she’d placed it in readiness and brought it over to Bian Jin. This time, when Bian Jin held her hand out for it, Shen Ni did not refuse. She gave the beaker to Bian Jin and returned to her seat.
Not for a single moment did their gazes meet.
Shen Ni went on looking through the plans for the fortifications. The snow-white length of Bian Jin’s arm hovered at the edge of her vision.
‘The operation was a great success,’ she told Bian Jin, as she turned the pages. ‘I had the mechanical arm clean you up thoroughly right after. Don’t worry, I disinfected everything three times, and the whole procedure was carried out in a sterile environment—’
Bian Jin interrupted. ‘It’s all just implants anyway. There’s no need for all this fuss.’
So Bian Jin was still upset at having been tied up, thought Shen Ni. Well, she was prepared to be accommodating.
‘The proprieties must be observed,’ said Shen Ni.
Bian Jin threw Shen Ni a sideways glance. When she spoke again, there was something almost like petulance in her voice.
‘I remember telling you to stop last night, but you didn’t. Was that you observing the proprieties as well?’
Shen Ni couldn’t recall Bian Jin ever… well, sulking in front of her before. Bian Jin had always been the very model of a benevolent shijie — kind, caring and considerate. Seeing her in the midst of this little tantrum made Shen Ni’s wholly organic heart start pounding inside her chest.
‘It wasn’t last night,’ Shen Ni corrected. ‘It was three days ago.’
There was silence.
This meant Shen Ni must have spent three full days operating on her again, Bian Jin realised. She couldn’t help wondering how many meals Shen Ni had eaten in that time, and how many hours she’d slept.
She stole a glance at Shen Ni in the dim light of the room. Her shimei’s face was as lovely as ever, but she looked distinctly worn. She’d probably had very little in the way of food and rest. I probably spoke too aggressively to her earlier, Bian Jin thought. Her eyes went to the flowers by the bed.
It was Bian Jin who finally broke the silence. ‘These flowers — did you buy them?’ she asked.
Shen Ni still remembered all too well how Bian Jin had described her to Marchioness Chengqing — ‘an old acquaintance one doesn’t know all that well’. It was probably her own fault, for having too good a memory. She no longer minded, but she still didn’t feel like admitting that she’d been buying Bian Jin flowers, lest it give Bian Jin another chance to rebuff her.
‘No,’ said Shen Ni. ‘They were a gift from some colleagues.’
Bian Jin said nothing more.
‘You should be told what’s happened to your body,’ said Shen Ni. ‘I’ve replaced both your cybernetic spine and your jade core. The new spine is made from an alloy of titanium and nanofibres. It’s strong and flexible, and should be more than capable of handling whatever you throw at it. You need to stay in bed today, but you should be able to get up and about tomorrow. I’ve only tested the spine once, so I’ll need feedback and more data from you as you get used to it. And another thing: your old jade core was almost completely destroyed, so I’ve swapped it for a new one. Otherwise, no matter how strong your new spine was, the superconductors themselves would still fail instantly the first time you threw a punch.’
That surprised even Bian Jin, whose experiences had taught her much about cybernetic repairs. ‘You replaced my jade core? Then—’
‘I replaced it with a new one I crafted myself. It’s called “Ni’s Heart”. It’s the only one of its kind in the whole world. Even though it’s still unfinished, it’s still much better than the most expensive customised jade core you might be able to find on the dark web.’
Bian Jin knew that Shen Ni had begun making her own cybernetic creations since she was a little girl. Back then, when she’d been very young, she’d had her moments of feeling lost and unsure. It was Bian Jin who’d encouraged her to keep exploring the outer limits of her Talent.
And now Shen Ni had succeeded in creating her very own masterwork. The neural core that bore her name was inside Bian Jin’s body at this very moment, displacing the one their shizun had left her.
Bian Jin wasn’t quite sure how to feel.
‘There’s something else I need to tell you about,’ Shen Ni went on. ‘Because neither your new spine nor your new jade core has been fully tested yet, I’m going to need you to provide me with data on their performance in the days to come. In the next two months, I’ll need to carry out checks on them and gather readings every seven days. On those days, shijie, may I please ask you to make sure that you return home for the inspection, no matter how late it may happen to be.’
Bian Jin couldn’t help remembering the altercation they’d had that night before Shen Ni had sedated her, and the way Shen Ni had put her hands on her. The memory of Shen Ni’s arm still lingered in the crook of her knees. If they had to repeat what they’d done that night—
Bian Jin blinked.
‘Shijie?’ Shen Ni prompted.
‘Yes, I understand,’ said Bian Jin.
Her tone was decidedly cool. Shen Ni could tell that it had been a struggle for her to say yes, but she’d done it in the end.
‘Oh, and by the way, I had to cut your ruqun off you.’ Shen Ni rubbed her nose. ‘After all, the circumstances were… unusual.’
Bian JIn’s chest rose and fell. ‘Let’s not talk about that.’
‘Of course,’ said Shen Ni. ‘And I’ll have a new set made for you later, to replace it.’ She began tidying up the blueprints in front of her. ‘You can take your time discovering the capabilities of your new spine and jade core. There should be no risk of either of them failing. Though your duties at Lantai don’t usually require any display of martial prowess, I daresay?’
Shen Ni, was of course, trying to find out in a roundabout way where Bian Jin had gone on the night of the Shangyuan Festival, and how she’d ended up so grievously injured.
Bian Jin saw through the attempt immediately. ‘I had a personal matter to take care of,’ was all she said.
It must be something Bian Jin didn’t feel she could disclose, thought Shen Ni. That made sense. It wouldn’t be strange for her shijie to have an old acquaintance in Chang’an whom she’d gone to meet. After all, neither of them knew anything of what the other had done in the six years since they’d last seen each other. Bian Jin had not been wholly wrong when she’d described them as old acquaintances who’d been forced into each other’s company by circumstance.
Shen Ni asked no further questions. Her shijie could have her own private affairs, and she could keep her secrets close if she chose. It was fine. She, Shen Ni, could afford to be magnanimous. She would still do her best to dispel certain misunderstandings that seemed to have sprung up in her shijie’s mind.
She’d received a message from Diwu Que more than a quarter of an hour ago. In it, Diwu Que had said that she planned to call on Shen Ni the day after tomorrow, bringing Zeng Qingluo with her.
Come tomorrow instead, Shen Ni replied.
On the other side of the city, Diwu Que stared at her message, puzzled.
Shen Ni spun her stylus between her fingers. ‘Oh, and one more thing. An old friend of mine will be visiting tomorrow. If you have nothing else to do, shijie, might I trouble you to play at being my wife one more time?’
‘Play at being your wife? What would I need to do?’ asked Bian Jin.
Shen Ni turned her gaze suddenly back on Bian Jin, and Bian Jin felt her heart skip a couple of beats. ‘Just act as any wife would,’ said Shen Ni.
Bian Jin looked away from Shen Ni. Her eyes fell by chance on what Auntie Wan had called the ‘box of delights’. With some difficulty, she shifted her gaze away from that as well.
‘I’ve never been anybody’s wife before,’ she said, ‘so I have no idea how a wife would act.’
Shen Ni mulled this over for a moment or two. ‘You just have to act as if you love me, shijie,’ she said.
***
Author’s Note:
Bian Jin (meditatively): This feels like a trap.
***
Footnotes:
- In the original text, 豆花 (pinyin: douhua). A snack made from silken tofu, which can be savoury or sweet. [return to text]
- In the original text, 吉时 (pinyin: ji shi). In Chinese astrology, certain hours of the day (sometimes specific days) are considered more cosmically favourable for carrying out various important activities than others. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 