To Embers We Return — Chapter 21

***

Shen Ni had only been pretending to feel cold, and when Bian Jin put an arm around her and drew her close, she felt as if every part of her body had been set aflame.

Bian Jin did not seem entirely at ease. Shen Ni looked into her eyes, trying to discern her true feelings in their depths, but Bian Jin turned away so quickly that she didn’t have the chance..

Auntie Wan appeared at this most inopportune moment, bearing cups of warming wine. Under the guise of fetching one for herself, Bian Jin let go of Shen Ni and moved away from her. In the end, however, she stood empty-handed as the rest of her sect-sisters helped themselves to a cup each.

She hadn’t wanted any wine in the first place, Shen Ni realised; all she’d been after was an excuse to disentangle herself from Shen Ni. And now those arms that had just been around her were hidden away, miserlike, in Bian Jin’s wide sleeves, completely concealed from view.

A maid came to the foot of the wooden stairs that led to the upper floor of the pavilion. ‘Luncheon is served, my ladies,’ she said with a cheerful smile. ‘May I invite you to make your way to the dining room?’

Bian Jin was the first to make for the stairs. Shen Ni watched as her shijie marched briskly away, clearly intent on avoiding her. She knew then that Bian Jin’s earlier display of doting affection had not come from the heart, but was only a well-timed ploy to dispel the rumours of the rift between them.

Should I tell her ‘it’s been a pleasure working with you’? wondered Shen Ni.

As her gaze swept absently over Bian Jin’s hair, she realised that beads of sweat were glinting on her shijie’s meticulously tidy coiffure. Why was she sweating? Was it because something had gone wrong with her new spine or the neural core, and she was trying not to let the pain show?

Shen Ni strode swiftly to Bian Jin’s side. Bian Jin, who was usually alert to anyone and anything that drew near her, gave a violent start, even though Shen Ni had done nothing to hide her approach. It was as if her thoughts had been thousands of miles away. She shrank a little backwards, as if she feared coming into contact with Shen Ni.

When Shen Ni’s gaze fell on Bian Jin’s face, the question she’d been meaning to ask stilled on her lips. Bian Jin did not seem as if she were in any sort of physical pain. Her eyes were heavily misted over, and her cheeks were almost indecently flushed. She looked as if she’d been overtaken by a flood of passion, like a woman caught in the throes of desire.

But all that had happened just now was that their hands had touched briefly, and Bian Jin had wrapped an arm around Shen Ni’s waist through several heavy layers of clothing. Shen Ni could easily imagine Bian Jin being repulsed by the act of touching another person — but never that she could be aroused.

‘Shijie,’ Shen Ni began.

But Bian Jin gave her no chance to get the rest of the sentence out. She averted her eyes from Shen Ni and strode rapidly away.

Shen Ni stared at her departing back. The sweat on Bian Jin’s forehead, it seemed, was caused not by the effort of holding in her pain, but by the stifling heat of a very different sensation altogether.

She felt rather like a little pet fox that had been abandoned suddenly by its mistress. One moment she was nestled in the palm of Bian Jin’s hand, being cherished and cosseted and fussed over; the next, she had been tossed out unceremoniously into the snow to fend for herself. For all her wit, this progression of events had left her completely mystified.

Meanwhile, Bian Jin — who had managed to put two other sect-sisters between herself and Shen Ni — was trying her best to repress the waves of heat that were now surging up within her. She, too, was puzzled. Why was she so strongly affected by Shen Ni’s simple nearness?

On the way to the dining room, their assembled sect-sisters exclaimed over Bian Jin’s and Shen Ni’s supposed closeness. ‘It’s so wonderful that dashijie and xiaoshimei have reconciled,’ they sighed. ‘Now we can finally stop worrying!’

Their talk turned then to the old days as Shuangji Hall. They reminisced about how, as a child, Shen Ni was constantly demanding their dashijie’s attention, and how she’d always managed to get her way by dint of beseeching gazes, adorable pleas, and in extremity, charming pouts. Her other sect-siblings, seeing the effectiveness of these tactics, had been drawn to try the same on Bian Jin;^[1] invariably, all they ever received was a sharp telling-off.

‘Dashijie has always been so partial,’ said one of their sect-sisters.

‘Yes!’ agreed another. ‘Towards xiaoshimei and xiaoshimei only.’

‘Dashijie, it wasn’t then that you began developing feelings for xiaoshimei, was it?’ asked a third.

‘It seems as if this match was predestined from the very beginning!’ exclaimed a fourth.

Have all of you lost your memories? Shen Ni groused inwardly. Did you forget how she made me kneel in the snow and gave me ten lashes of her whip?

At the same time, she was also reflecting: was I really such a spoiled child?

Bian Jin changed the subject abruptly. ‘Turn left just ahead.’

***

As Bian Jin led their guests into the dining room, Shen Ni slipped away from the crowd and rounded a corner, making straight for her workshop. She stepped inside, made sure she wouldn’t be disturbed, then logged on to the dark web and posted a bounty through her anonymous account.

Wanted: Bian Jin’s bone whip. No counterfeits.
Reward: One pound of galactic chromium from Lili Three, or gold of equivalent value.

This threw the whole of the dark web into a frenzy.

Galactic chromium from Lili Three was the rarest, most sought-after commodity on the dark web. Its extraterrestrial origins meant that it was both very strong and highly stable. At present, it was one of the only two types of materials that could be used in the construction of double S-tier weapons and cybernetic implants. The demand for it was practically endless, the supply of it virtually nil.

The last time a listing for galactic chromium had appeared on the dark web, it had also been posted by an anonymous account. Only a single ounce of the material had been offered for auction, but that had been enough to set off a wild flurry of bidding. The auction had gone on for three full days and nights. In the end, that single ounce of galactic chromium had sold for an astronomical price: a king had bartered her throne for it.

Other than the Supreme Bureau of Research and Innovation, there were only three people in the whole of the continent who had some amount of galactic chromium in their possession. Each of these three knew who the other two were, but no one else in the empire did. Of these three, Shen Ni had the largest quantity of galactic chromium.

She had not really cared much about the rarity of the metal itself. It was simply that its characteristics happened to make it a good fit for Ni’s Heart, and so she had decided that it would do as raw material for the neural core.

After forging Ni’s Heart, she had six chunks of varying sizes of galactic chromium left. They added up to around one hundred and eighty ounces — or just over eleven pounds — in total. A small part of this she meant to use in her routine work, and she’d set aside a much larger proportion for future repairs and improvements to Ni’s Heart. As for the remainder, she decided she would start by listing a pound of it on the dark web, as bait of sorts to draw out the bone whip.

That single pound of galactic chromium was nearly enough to crash the infrastructure of the dark web. Shen Ni’s listing was instantly swarmed by millions of users. When she refreshed the page, she saw that more than a thousand bounty hunters had already signed up for the job. According to their records, they were all veterans at the very top of their trade. She had no doubt that they would be able to trace Bian Jin’s bone whip back to its last known whereabouts: the Xuanzhou Empire. Once this lot of ruthless, none-too-scrupulous professionals began pouring into Qin Wushang’s realm, the emperor’s never particularly agile brain would likely be sent into overdrive.

Shen Ni was in the middle of working out how many times she would need to disinfect the bone whip once she managed to recover it from Qin Wushang — assuming it really was in Qin Wushang’s hands — when her inbox pinged with a message from another high-level user on the dark web. The sender had a six-starred account, adorned with a colourful array of achievement badges.

Shen Ni had no idea what the badges stood for, but she knew the significance of the six stars. It meant that the owner had spent at least ten billion taels of silver on the dark web. Shen Ni’s own account was also a six-starred one.

The message had not come from an anonymous account, either. Displayed proudly on the page for all to see was the the sender’s name: Qin Wushang.

Shen Ni, her face entirely devoid of expression, opened the message.

How is my darling doing over there in Chang’an? I’ll be bringing her home very soon, so you should make the most of the time you have left together. And by the way, old friend, I’ll tell you something for free: her right hand is very sensitive.

The message ended with a wickedly grinning emoji.

Faced with this blatant provocation from Qin Wushang, Shen Ni elected not to reply directly. Instead, she returned to the bounty she’d posted and doubled the amount of galactic chromium on offer. She also threw in a little sweetener: Whoever brings me Qin Wushang’s head will also receive one (1) double S-tier cybernetic implant of their choice.

At present, Shen Ni was the only machinist on the continent capable of forging double S-tier implants. There had been another machinist before, but she’d vanished many years ago, and her fate was unknown. By adding on that extra bonus, Shen Ni was essentially disclosing the identity to the dark web.

In an instant, the number of people signing up for the job doubled, tripled, quadrupled. The list now included the top three bounty hunters on the dark web.

Shen Ni had set herself up in an open confrontation with Qin Wushang. Now they would see who could be the first to run the other through the heart.

***

Shen Ni logged off the dark web and made her way slowly to the dining room.

The midday meal had been laid out family-style, with shared dishes placed in the centre of the round table. Bian Jin was seated on the east side of the room, the host’s usual place. The vacant chair next to her was, of course, for Shen Ni.

The flush had largely receded from Bian Jin’s cheeks, though her ears were still bright pink. No one else, seeing that heightened colour, would have thought anything of it; they would simply have assumed it was from the cold. The image of Bian Jin as a stern, cool, aloof figure had long been etched in everyone’s minds. The words one associated with her were honour, justice, discipline; never anything as earthly or carnal as desire or lust.

When Shen Ni stepped into the dining room, all her other sect-sisters turned to look at her, but she had eyes only for Bian Jin.

Out of the corner of her eye, Bian Jin sensed Shen Ni’s gaze, but did not meet it. Her digital watch happened to buzz just then, giving her an excuse to avoid looking up. She opened the message.

She’d only meant to look occupied, but the message was so odd that it arrested her attention in truth.

It was an encrypted message, to begin with. There was no indication of the sender’s identity, nor any clues as to what the password might be. Why would someone send another person an encrypted message, with no prior notice or arrangement?

Bian Jin tried her usual password. The page buffered for a few moments, and then to her surprise, the message opened.

The contents of the message seized her full attention immediately. An odd, eerie sensation stole over her as she read.

You must not fall in love with Shen Ni. You know this better than anyone else.

A sharp edge of pain scraped across her brain, and her vision went completely white. The next moment, Shen Ni had already made her way to the seat beside Bian Jin’s.

Bian Jin, valiantly fighting keep her expression calm, locked her watch screen.

Shen Ni greeted the roomful of sect-sisters with every appearance of warmth and graciousness, but inwardly she cared nothing for these surface pleasantries. As she sat down next to Bian Jin, she stole a look at her shijie’s right hand. To her disappointment, Bian Jin had already put on a fresh pair of gloves, hiding those shapely hands from view. It was as if she’d put up a sign saying No visitors allowed. She denied the world even glances, much less touches. Really, what a hard-hearted woman she was.

Bian Jin’s long, thick lashes cast quiet shadows over her eyes, concealing their depths. It was impossible for Shen Ni to tell what she was feeling.

Somewhat downcast, Shen Ni looked away. Absently she picked up her teacup, still thinking about Bian Jin.

Qin Wushang’s words echoed in her mind again: Her right hand is very sensitive.

Now that she thought about it, her shijie was indeed left-handed.

***

By the time their guests left, Bian Jin was feeling rather fatigued. She was just thinking about retiring to the bedchamber when Shen Ni said, ‘Come with me.’

‘Is something the matter?’

Ah, thought Shen Ni. That familiar coolness.

‘Come with me. Then you’ll see.’

With those words, Shen Ni left the room. Bian Jin had no choice but to follow her to the warming chamber.

Shen Ni pushed open a sliding screen to reveal a low table laid out with a selection of Bian Jin’s favourite dishes — the fresh, lightly-seasoned fare she preferred.

‘There were so many people at luncheon today, you didn’t eat a single bite,’ said Shen Ni. ‘It makes no sense for you to go hungry when your guests have enjoyed a lavish banquet. You should have something to eat now.’

Bian Jin had, indeed, not taken a single bite of food earlier. The stale air in the room that had been through so many pairs of lungs, the countless pairs of chopsticks flitting across the table, every single dish picked over by multiple diners — just the very thought of it was unbearable. It was why she’d kept her mask on the whole time she’d been at the table, set to full transparency. That also meant she’d eaten nothing.

Now, Bian Jin gave a murmur of assent, but did not reach for the chopsticks.

I’m definitely not imagining things, Shen Ni decided. Her shijie was being even cooler to her than usual. So Bian Jin really had just been putting on a performance when she’d warmed Shen Ni’s hands earlier. Now that their audience had left, the show was over, and Shen Ni’s leading lady had gone back to being her usual ice-cold self.

A suffocating sort of ache filled Shen Ni’s chest. She turned to leave the warming chamber.

‘Shimei,’ Bian Jin called out to her, and she stopped in her tracks.

‘Are you still suffering any after-effects from your trip to Lili Three?’ Bian Jin went on.

Bian Jin must have learned about that from Zeng Qingluo, thought Shen Ni. Since Ni’s Heart was already inside Bian Jin’s body anyway, and both of them were now fully aware of the circumstances surrounding its creation, Shen Ni did not bother dissembling further.

‘I have dry eyes from time to time, that’s all,’ she said.

Bian Jin gave a murmur of acknowledgement, and asked no further questions.

Once Shen Ni left the room, Bian Jin hesitated over the food. She had not originally planned to eat any of it, but since these dishes had been selected by Shen Ni herself, and they were her favourites as well, it seemed a shame to let them go to waste. She forced herself to take a few bites.

Soon, however, she couldn’t eat anything more. She put down her chopsticks, and realised that her wrist was still red from when she’d spilled hot cider over herself. She prodded lightly at it, but felt no pain.

How strange it all was. Her sense of pain seemed to have become much duller, but whenever she came into contact with Shen Ni, especially when it was skin to skin, her sensitivity to touch would sharpen to a point that was almost pathological.

That was how she’d felt last night, when Shen Ni had put her arms around her. It was also how she’d felt earlier, when she’d cupped Shen Ni’s hands to warm them. Shen Ni’s knuckle had brushed lightly between two of her fingers, and that brief moment of contact had sparked an electrical current that seemed to seep slowly from her top layer of skin to the innermost corners of her heart. Then it had flowed further down into some unmentionable spot, rousing a wave of hot, sticky wetness she’d never experienced before.

No, that wasn’t true. She had experienced it before.

Bian Jin clutched at her throbbing forehead, quite unable to believe that she was, even now, going over every single detail of the moment when she’d cupped her hands around Shen Ni’s. It brought to mind the dream she’d avoided thinking about for so many years.

She’d had the dream not long after she’d set off on her second campaign to her north, perhaps four or five years ago. Back then she’d thrown herself into warfare and the slaughter of TangPro’s enemies, the better to quell the emotions that had surged up uncontrollably within her since Shen Ni declared her feelings.

She’d even succeeded, at least at the beginning. Until one night, when she’d stumbled across two of her soldiers in an intimate embrace just outside their camp.

The soldiers, both women, were kissing deeply in the darkness, their hands roaming each other’s bodies. When she heard their moans of pleasure, Bian Jin turned and fled the scene.

She’d averted her gaze as swiftly as she could, but what she’d seen and heard had captured her mind completely. That very night, she’d dreamt of Shen Ni.

The two women kissing in the darkness became Shen Ni and herself. Shen Ni’s features were indistinct, but Bian Jin could feel very keenly the pressure of Shen Ni’s hand on the back of her neck, directing her movements.

‘Open up, shijie. Yes, there’s a good girl.’

Shen Ni’s words were an exact duplicate of what Bian Jin had heard one soldier say to the other. And in the dream, Bian Jin had found herself doing exactly as she was told.

When Bian Jin finally woke up from that most preposterous dream, she’d discovered to her horror that she was in a state of complete disarray. She’d washed hastily in the icy weather, and changed into fresh undergarments. Despite the cold water she’d poured over herself, it took a good long while before the flush in her cheeks began to fade.

That was the only time in her life when she’d come face to face with desire. That the subject of her dream should have been the child she’d raised with her own hands — that was something for which she could never forgive herself.

For a long time after that, she made every effort to have as little to do with Shen Ni as possible, both in the letters she sent to Shuangji Hall and the video calls she made to her sect-siblings back there. And it had worked — or at least, she’d had no more dreams coloured by desire after that.

But it was because of that dream that she’d rejected Shen Ni’s suggestion that they activate the spousal module together. She was fairly certain that she was only repressing it somewhere deep within her consciousness; she doubted it had vanished completely.

It was the same with her feelings for Shen Ni. No matter how deeply she buried them, how well she kept them hidden, it was impossible to excise Shen Ni from her heart. Unless, of course, she was dead.

It’s best for us not to see too much of each other, she’d said of Shen Ni once.

Bian Jin knew herself too well. Now she and Shen Ni saw each other every day, and this was precisely the state of affairs she found most difficult to cope with.

***

Author’s Note:

Reminder x2 from my strong survival instincts: Shijie and shimei’s feelings are fully reciprocal, please don’t believe what Ms Qin says.

Plus, that which one does not wish to be found out will always be found out.

***

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Footnotes:

In the original text, 依葫芦画瓢 (pinyin: yi hulu hua piao), literally ‘to draw a ladle (or scoop or dipper) with a gourd as a model’. Traditionally, ladles were often made from gourds. This set phrase describes someone who makes an exact copy or imitation of another person’s work without any attempt at originality. ^{[return to text]}