To Embers We Return — Chapter 39
***
Chang’an’s morgue was located in Pingle Ward, on the westernmost side of the city.
Li Si stood in the courtyard as the undertakers brought out all two hundred corpses of the Ruifeng Battalion — her erstwhile subordinates — for her inspection. She examined every single one of the fallen soldiers closely. Then, without saying a single word, she turned and left the morgue, her adjutant following closely behind her. One by one, the undertakers began bringing the corpses back into the morgue again. The exertion was making them sweat even in the midst of the midwinter cold, but none dared to voice even the slightest complaint.
Li Si had barely slept the last few nights, and she’d gone toe-to-toe with the mutant beast the day before as well. She’d escaped without serious injury, but still had her fair share of cuts and scratches. Her subordinates had urged her to get a good night’s sleep, but Li Si had found that physically impossible. She simply couldn’t rest.
She’d gone with the wounded troops under her command to the Imperial Medical Bureau and made sure they were all out of immediate danger. She’d also helped those soldiers who needed it to submit requests for replacing their prosthetics. Then, with the deaths of the Ruifeng Battalion uppermost in her mind, she’d gone to the morgue to inspect their corpses with her own eyes.
The inspection had only confirmed her suspicions: something very bizarre was going on.
As they stepped out of the front gates, her adjutant leaned closer and said in a low voice, ‘General, every one of those soldiers was killed with a single sword-thrust through their throats. Only the most extraordinary martial arts prodigy could have done it with such precision. The Ruifeng Battalion were some of the most elite fighters in the empire, and there were a good number of A-tier warriors among them. Yet the attacker was able to act so quickly that they had no time even to call for reinforcements.’
Li Si paused, resting a hand on the head of one of the stone lions that graced the entrance. She turned the question over and over again in her mind.
‘They weren’t each killed with a single sword-thrust through the throat,’ she said finally. ‘No. The attacker managed to run through ten or twenty of them at the same time with a single thrust.’
Her adjutant turned even paler. When he next spoke, his voice had sunk to a mosquito’s hum. ‘Could the attacker be seeking revenge against the Ruifeng Battalion for what they did two years ago?’
Two years ago, the Ruifeng Battalion had not yet been absorbed into the Jinwu Guards. Instead, they had belonged to the Right Valiant Guards, another company within the Southern Garrison, who were frequently sent on missions outside the capital. During one of these missions, the Ruifeng Battalion, overcome by greed, had slaughtered and plundered an entire village.
News of their crime had been suppressed by the general of the Right Valiant Guards at the time. When the Ruifeng Battalion continued to prove recalcitrant, he’d simply offloaded them to the Jinwu Guards, where they’d ended up under Li Si’s command. Li Si had not wanted responsibility for that gang of butchers. But she’d still been fairly junior at the time, and did not have the authority to refuse.
Now that her adjutant had brought up the incident, Li Si only responded coolly, ‘If that really is the case, then it’s no more than just punishment for their crimes.’
Her adjutant said nothing more.
Li Si had had no part in the training of the Ruifeng Battalion, so she did not feel particularly strongly about their deaths. She was, however, very curious about their killer — deeply, keenly, eagerly curious.
This was not something that could have been done by just any skilled martial artist, even one at the very top level. It was a crushing display of dominance by someone at the very pinnacle of their powers.
And who could that possibly be? Li Si could only think of one answer.
To her adjutant she said, ‘You can stand down now, and go back to the barracks.’
Having sent him away, Li Si began making her way towards Lantai.
***
When he discovered that Shen Ni had absented herself from court today, Li Chu felt as if he’d been robbed of the opportunity to make his accusations to her face. Still, it was no bad thing to be spared a direct confrontation with that sharp tongue of hers.
Shen Ni’s absence also meant that he felt free to hurl accusations against her without holding anything back. He held forth volubly as he stood before the emperor’s throne, recounting all the arguments which Cao Su and his other supporters had fed to him. The attack at the Eastern Market, the existential threat now facing Chang’an — all this he laid at the door of Shen Ni’s supposed ‘dereliction of duty’. He even raised several suspicions about her conduct, hinting to Li Ruoyuan that she should look into how much — or how little — progress Shen Ni had made in recovering Bian Jin’s memories.
Li Shan stood to one side, her eyes languidly downcast. She did not even bother to glance at her brother as he talked his way towards certain ruin.
Li Ruoyuan was usually mild-mannered, and her illness meant that she looked and sounded exactly as she had as a child. But anyone who believed that her appearance made her as easy to manipulate as one would be sorely mistaken. Twenty years ago, twelve of her siblings had been in contention for the throne, and she’d beaten out all of them, emerging as the clear victor. Despite having the weak body of a child, she’d ushered in the now-celebrated ‘reign of Zhenguan’,[1] ruling over this vast empire for more than two decades. She’d steered the massive ship that was the empire through stormy waters threatened both by the Black Box and surrounding enemy kingdoms. How could someone like her not know how to bring an intractable minister to heel? She hardly needed Li Chu to teach her what to do.
Li Shan glanced unobtrusively at the throne.
Li Ruoyuan had been ill these last few weeks, and had chosen to hold court either online or not at all. The attack at the Eastern Market, however, had galvanised her into action. This time, she’d insisted on holding court in person, even if it meant having to drag her ailing body into the throne room. Her goal was clear: she wanted her most senior ministers work together to devise strategies for resisting the Black Box, bringing their collective wisdom to the empire in its hour of need. Yet even in the face of looming disaster, Li Chu was still prattling on about his own petty vendettas — when, as an imperial prince, the safety of the empire should have been uppermost in his mind.
Li Ruoyuan stayed silent as Li Chu held forth. It was only after he’d finished speaking that she said slowly, ‘Do you take me for some callow child, Prince Wei, that you would condescend to tell me what to do?’
Li Chu could hear the displeasure beneath her calm words. His brain, which Li Shan’s slap had sent into an overheated frenzy, instantly went cold.
Before Li Ruoyuan could say anything more, two other officials stepped forward to make their own indictments against Li Chu.
‘His Highness Prince Wei has long borne a grudge against Mistress Bian,’ said one of them, ‘and has been plotting to gain his revenge against her for some time. Even though Mistress Bian is now wed to Marquess Jing’an by Your Majesty’s own decree, Prince Wei continues to persecute her whenever he finds the chance. Is this your way of indicating your dissatisfaction with Her Majesty’s decision, Prince Wei?’
The second official took up the onslaught before Li Chu could respond. ‘If I might make so bold, Your Highness, I have been told that you kept the gates of your mansion locked against the injured townsfolk who were fleeing the attacks at the Eastern Market. Is that true?’
‘I— ‘ began Li Chu.
‘Where one’s personal desires outweigh their reason, their actions are liable to harm the public good,’[2] the official went on. ‘As an imperial prince, everything Your Highness does reflects on the reputation of the royal family. Your callous treatment of the townsfolk has brought shame to Her Majesty, and bitter disappointment to the people of this realm!’
Li Chu’s residence had been reduced to ruins, and the precious possessions he’d collected over the years had been smashed to pieces. The losses he’d suffered, he estimated, were incalculable. Yet here he was, being openly accused of rank selfishness, and of disappointing the subjects of the empire!
‘There are matters of which Your Majesty is unaware,’ Li Chu insisted, addressing the emperor directly. ‘In that moment of crisis, how was I supposed to know whether the townsfolk hammering at my gates were genuinely there to seek shelter, or whether they were mutant beasts infected by the Black Box? I had upwards of a hundred servants in my residence, whose safety I was responsible for as well. How could I have thrown open my gates without knowing who was outside?’
The entire throne room fell silent. It was then that Li Chu realised he had made a fatal error.
How could he have told the emperor that ‘there are matters of which Your Majesty is unaware’? How could he claim to have knowledge that the emperor herself did not possess?
Cold sweat slithered down from the back of his neck and along his spine, like some many-legged worm.
A moment later, Li Ruoyuan gave a scornful laugh. ‘Since you find Chang’an so dangerous, my dear brother, it would be best for you to leave immediately. Lanling is rather remote, but it is guarded by some of our most elite troops, so I trust you will find it sufficiently secure. You will leave for Lanling this very afternoon.’
Li Chu had been bent over in a half-bow as he spoke. He straightened up hastily in alarm. ‘Lanling? But that — that’s a dungeon! How could you send me to suffer in that wasteland? Your Majesty, I am your full brother by blood!’
He peered desperately into Li Ruoyuan’s face, to see if his words had any effect. But the strings of jade beads that dangled from the emperor’s headdress[3] hid her expression completely from view.
‘It hardly counts as suffering, does it, my dear brother? You would be watching over the people of Lanling on my behalf, and I’m sure they will always remember your kindness. Oh, and you’d better give up the title of Prince Wei. From now on, you’ll be the Prince of Lanling instead.’[4]
Li Ruoyuan’s cool voice contained no trace of sisterly affection. Frantically, Li Chu glanced towards Cao Su, sending out a wordless plea for help.
Cao Su, however, had his head deferentially bowed, looking every inch the calm, dignified senior minister. He did not look at Li Chu even once.
Li Chu suddenly realised that the two officials who had just spoken out against him were close associates of Cao Su’s son-in-law.
Cao Su had always been his staunch supporter; it was Cao Su who had goaded him into pitting himself directly against Shen Ni. But now that it was clear Li Chu had lost the emperor’s favour completely, he’d changed his allegiance on the spot, and was offering Li Chu up as a sacrifice instead.
Li Shan finally deigned to look at her half-brother. Her eyes were full of pity.
‘Those who join together for power’s sake become estranged once power fades’. That was one of the world’s immutable truths.
One last drop of sweat rolled down Li Chu’s temple. Hopelessly he looked up. He knew he had been abandoned by the group of ministers who stood behind him.
He was all too aware of what happened to sacrificial pawns; he’d seen too many of them.
***
The dingy train steered itself into the station from the murky grey horizon. It was a good few moments before its headlamps slowly lit up. Cracks ran across the one on the left, fraying and fracturing the light that shone from it. This gave the front of the train a somewhat lopsided appearance.
The train lumbered to a halt, and Bian Jin boarded it amid a blare of announcements. She was dressed in her robes of office, with a simple, elegant coat of fox fur over them. On her head was her futou, and her feet were clad in smart black boots. She was the picture of cool, quiet grace; the way she held herself spoke of spotless integrity. When she stepped into the hubbub of the carriage, it was like the moon rising in the sky. Even the murky air seemed to be freshened by her presence.
These days, the only passengers who still took the light rail were those too poor to afford a personal vehicle. The idlers and rubes who filled the carriage had never seen such a beautiful official in their midst before, and their eyes roamed brazenly over her.
Bian Jin, looking straight ahead, made her way down three carriages — each covered in stains of unknown origin — before finding an empty corner to stand in.
Everything seemed as it should be, though it was rather stuffy in the carriage.
The light rail had not seen anything in the way of maintenance or refurbishment since she left Chang’an six years ago. She remembered this particular train well. Before leaving Chang’an, she’d taken thousands of trips along its route, patrolling it for signs of the Black Box.
The carriages of each train in TangPro’s light rail system were named after the seasons. This was the fifth one from the front, so it was called ‘Midsummer’. Six years ago, she remembered, the back of the leftmost seat in the third row had been cracked in half. No one had repaired it in the intervening time, and now the whole thing was completely gone.
Shen Ni had suggested that she take the coach to Lantai, but Bian Jin had declined. Rather than the confines of the coach, Bian Jin preferred to be closer to the buildings and streets of Chang’an, so that she could feel herself part of the landscape, and breathe in the atmosphere of the city that was her home.
She’d been away from Chang’an for too long, battling the Black Box on distant frontiers. Many of her most precious memories had become faded and indistinct. She had returned now, it was true, but for quite some time her life had been hanging by a thread. And once she’d recovered from the worst of her injuries, there had been one crisis after another to be dealt with.
Shen Ni hadn’t asked her who those ‘precious’ memories were all about — whether it was their shizun, their fellow disciples, or Shen Ni herself.
In any case, no matter how stern Bian Jin was to begin with, she would always end up spoiling Shen Ni thoroughly, so Shen Ni was only too happy to reciprocate. If Bian Jin preferred to take the light rail instead of the coach, then she should. It wasn’t as if anyone else in Chang’an could beat her in a fight, anyway.
Bian Jin’s motive for taking public transport was to gauge for herself how far the Black Box’s infection had spread. She was much more alert to the Black Box’s presence than the average person. The virus had always favoured crowds, and places where people were packed closely together. This had likely only intensified since it had evolved intelligence.
Had she not needed to go to Lantai, Bian Jin would have changed trains a few more times, to see if she could detect the Black Box among the crowds. On this particular journey at least, she had not sensed the virus’ presence.
She stood by a window, watching as building after dilapidated building flashed past. She could see broken signboards, dried-up tree branches, cracked paving stones — all unloved and uncared for. Her home was old and grey; now in its twilight years, it was a husk of its former self.
Following the attack at the Eastern Market, the city was no longer filled with the air of bustle and merriment that it had had since the Shangyuan Festival. The broad streets were nearly empty, and the few passersby who were out and about glanced fearfully around themselves as they hurried along, their faces tense and worried.
The train came to a stop, and Bian Jin stepped out onto the platform. A man was bawling out some drunken song in one corner. As she watched, he collapsed onto the steps leading down from the platform, vomit spewing from his mouth.
Bian Jin was repulsed by the smell, but she had to do something. The man had now passed out completely, flat on his back and in real danger of choking on his own vomit. She went up to him and nudged him with one foot, rolling him over on his side, so that he was no longer at immediate risk of suffocation. Then she called the Imperial Medical Bureau’s emergency service. The man should be all right soon, though he would find a mysterious footprint on his face once he woke up.
Bian Jin wiped her boot clean and stepped down from the platform. She passed by two women who were deep in conversation. When she overheard the words ‘spousal module’, her steps slowed.
‘Really?’ one of the women was saying. ‘But Wang Wuniang has been in a coma for full year. And now you’re telling me she’s finally woken up?’
‘It’s true!’ said the other. ‘Luckily she and her wife happened to have activated their spousal modules before she fell into that coma. Her wife has held stewardship over her body all this time, and had been entering her dreams every night to try and wake her up. Even the doctors said it was unlikely, but it worked in the end. This truly is a miracle!’
‘Oh, what wonderful news!’ said the first woman. ‘Let’s go and buy Wang Wuniang some presents — we must visit her immediately!’
The other woman sighed.
‘What is it?’ asked the first woman.
‘With the state the world is in, who’s to say she’s better off awake?’
Both of them fell silent. Bian Jin drew her fur coat more closely around her shoulders and continued on her way to Lantai.
Winter was coming to an end, and the damp chill in the air was beginning to fade. The street she was walking along had fallen into some disrepair; cracks zigzagged across its surface. A small yellow wildflower was growing out of one — a stubborn, completely ordinary yet perfectly beautiful bit of life, blooming away unnoticed.
That is, until Bian Jin stopped in front of it. She crouched down for a closer look, resting her gloved hands on her knees. She gazed intently at the tiny flower with its multi-layered petals, living through the prime of its life amid the chill winds of winter. She did not touch it, only admired it with her eyes.
Carbon-based life forms were so fragile, each one carving out an imperfect yet unique existence according to its own logic.
Passersby hurried past her, paying neither her nor the flower any notice. She was the only one who had stopped to look at that fresh, blooming life. No one else might ever spare this flower a single glance, from its first flush to its final withering. But that did not hinder it from placidly living out the full cycle of its existence.
A human might well wish they had not been born into a time of such turbulence, but the flower could not think, so it knew no fear, and it knew no suffering. Whatever the state of the world, it simply carried on, propelled by its instinct towards life. To most humans, an unintelligent life might well be nothing more than an empty display of obstinacy, a meaningless tragedy.
But survival was the most fundamental instinct of every living creature, and it had never cared much for what humans thought.
***
Lantai was just as deserted as Bian Jin had anticipated. Other than Meng Chu — whose shift it just ‘happened’ to be again — there were only two lower-ranked clerks there to keep the archive ticking over. There was no sign of their director Cheng Zhe. Everyone who was able to take leave had done so; saving their own skins was the most important thing, after all. Bian Jin was fairly sure the same thing was happening across most of the civil service. The whole apparatus of government would half-incapacitated for days to come.
The two clerks were huddled in a corner, talking morosely about the Black Box. They seemed distinctly uninterested in doing any work.
Meng Chu, meanwhile, was industriously polishing the front door and the desks. She had not been expecting Bian Jin to turn up, and hurried up to her immediately to ask about what had happened at the Eastern Market. She’d seen horrifying videos on the extranet of the child’s head attaching itself to the old man’s body, and had sat awake all night waiting for an official statement from the palace. That had not been forthcoming, however, and now the extranet was abuzz with all sorts of speculation. If Bian Jin could just put her out of her misery, she thought, and confirm that it had been an attack by the Black Box, she would pack up her things and flee back to her hometown immediately.
‘Did you see me in those videos?’ asked Bian Jin. She wanted to know how Meng Chu had deduced that she’d been in the Eastern Market at the time of the attack.
‘No,’ said Meng Chu. ‘But I did see the picture posted by your lovely wife, Marquess Jing’an that is. The two of you went to the Eastern Market, didn’t you? Quite a few people saw you there as well, and took and posted pictures of you too.’
So that was it. Bian Jin had nearly forgotten about Shen Ni’s post.
‘Let’s put it this way,’ she told Meng Chu. ‘Regardless of whether there’s a connection between the Black Box and the attack, it’s probably too late for you to leave the city now.’
‘Why?’ asked Meng Chu in alarm.
‘They’ve sealed off the city gates for at least the next seven days. You’d have to wait and see what happens after that. For the next few days, you should stay at home as much as possible, unless you have pressing business somewhere else. It’s a good time to use up all the leave you’re owed. If there’s anything you’ve always wanted to do, it would be best to do it now,’ Bian Jin concluded calmly. ‘Make sure you don’t have any lingering regrets.’
Meng Chu stared speechlessly at her. Technically speaking, Bian Jin had not told her anything much, but Meng Chu felt as if she’d said all that needed to be said. ‘Make sure you don’t have any lingering regrets’? she thought. Should I start writing my last will and testament now?
Meng Chu stumbled off dazedly into a corner. Bian Jin, for her part, sat down at her desk and began tapping away at her workstation. In the end, however, she was unable to resist asking Meng Chu, ‘Which platform did you see the picture on?’
Meng Chu felt as if her soul had become untethered from her body and was drifting along in mid-air. ‘What picture?’
‘The picture of me and… and my wife.’
‘It was EmpireChat News, wasn’t it?’
Bian Jin thanked her and immediately downloaded the EmpireChat News program to her watch. The picture Shen Ni had posted was front and centre on the list of trending topics.
In the image, she herself looked rather foolishly startled; it was too embarrassing for her to look at for long. Her shimei, however, was practically glowing.
Bian Jin leaned back in her chair, glancing around the room out of the corner of her eye. No one was paying any attention to her. She downloaded the picture to her watch.
It was a perfectly innocent thing to do — after all, it was just a picture of herself and her shimei — yet she felt rather like a thief in the night.
Her eyes fell on the thousands of comments that had been left under Shen Ni’s post, and she began scrolling through them. There was praise for their good looks, compliments on what a perfect match they were, well wishes for their continued happiness… comment after glowing comment, piled as high as hills.
Something bright quickened in the depths of her eyes, until they stumbled across comments of an entirely different sort.
When can Marquess Jing’an finally unshackle herself from this treasonous murderer?
Has the former Governor-General provided even a single scrap of information that could give comfort to the orphans, widows and widowers of those million soldiers who were so brutally killed?
She’s lost her memory, she says? And people actually believe that clumsy excuse?
Poor Marquess Jing’an — she has to share her bed with that vicious jackal!
Very calmly, Bian Jin turned off her watch. She had work to do, after all. Meng Chu wasn’t the only one on duty today.
On her way to the storehouse where the archive’s collection of cyberware was held, Bian Jin reread the invitation she’d received from the Civil Affairs Bureau, the one about the spousal module. There was no time limit specified in the message. So it probably wasn’t too late for her and Shen Ni to install and activate it now. Once she and Shen Ni could share each other’s emotions and thoughts, she might be able to recover her memories all the quicker.
Her only concern was that old dream.
And then suddenly, she felt as if a heavy black cloth had been flung over her consciousness, catching her completely off guard. The darkness cut her off from all her senses completely; there was no room even to struggle.
Her thoughts shattered into a thousand falling puzzle pieces. Some time later — she had no idea how long — they were swiftly reassembled by some unknown hand.
By the time she realised that something had cut her off from her senses, they had come flooding back again. Her field of vision lit up. In front of her were row after row of high shelves, each lined with the metallic containers in which cybernetic prosthetics and implants were stored.
She was inside the storehouse. But he last thing she remembered, she’d still been in the corridor outside. How had she managed to get here in the blink of an eye?
…And she was even gripping someone by the sleeve of their robe.
‘Shijie…’
Bian Jin realised she was pinning Shen Ni against the shelves one-handed. Shen NI’s robes had been tugged open a little, revealing her fair, fragile throat. Angry red scratches stood out on her skin; blood was seeping out from them. Bian Jin realised they must be her own handiwork, although she had no idea when she could have made them.
The pain had left Shen Ni’s eyes bedewed with tears; they were as limpid as if they’d been washed with clear water. She looked prettily helpless and bewildered, breathtakingly lovely in her fragility.
The sight made Bian Jin draw in her breath sharply. Instantly she let go of Shen Ni’s sleeve.
When had Shen Ni arrived? And what had she done to leave Shen Ni so dishevelled?
Clang—
That was the door. Someone was coming in.
Bian Jin’s senses were instantly on full alert. She was a veteran of multiple battlefields, and that momentary loss of consciousness had left her feeling dangerously exposed. She had no idea who the newcomer might be, so she clapped a hand over Shen Ni’s mouth, turned lightly and drew her behind one of the shelves. Its height and the bulk of its contents hid them completely from view.
Shen Ni found herself sitting between Bian Jin’s thighs, Bian Jin’s hand still over her mouth. You can take your hand away now, she was about to say. I won’t make any noise.
Then she thought it over, and decided against it. Her gaze turned soft and yielding. If this is what shijie wants, then let her do it.
***
Author’s Note:
Little Fox Shen: You’re being so rough (I’m crying now), I need a hug to make it all better (I was just pretending).
***
Footnotes:
- In our world, ‘Zhenguan’ (贞观) was the era name used during the reign of Li Shimin (李世民), Emperor Taizong (太宗) of the Tang Dynasty. His reign lasted from 626 to 649 AD, and was considered a golden age in imperial Chinese history, characterised by political stability and economic flourishing. [return to text]
- In the original text, 私心胜者, 可以灭公 (pinyin: sixin sheng zhe, keyi mie gong). The saying originates from Record of Examining the Heart (省心录, pinyin: shengxin lu), collection of short sayings on morality by the Song Dynasty poet and recluse Lin Bu (林逋). [return to text]
- Emperors of China traditionally wore a headdress (sometimes also referred to as a crown) known as a mianguan (冕冠). The version worn during the Tang Dynasty (and subsequent dynasties) had twelve strings of twelve jade beads each hanging from both the front and back of the headdress. These strings of beads are known as mianliu (冕旒). [return to text]
- This, for the avoidance of doubt, is a very substantial demotion. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 