To Embers We Return — Chapter 40
***
Having had her consciousness so mysteriously cut off, Bian Jin was under heightened stress. Instinctively, she’d connected whoever was coming in through the door with the scrambled state of her thoughts, and jumped instantly to the conclusion that the newcomer must be dangerous. So she’d clapped a hand over Shen Ni’s mouth to stop her from making any noise, and dragged her behind the shelves.
To her surprise, the person who had come into the storehouse was none other than Meng Chu.
Meng Chu had finished cleaning the main office, so she’d come down to the storehouse to continue indexing and filing away the cyberware there. In her mind, she was still going over the finer points of her will, and wondering how much of a fright it would give her parents if she were to post it straight home. She didn’t have to make a will, of course — but then what would happen if she found herself face to face with the Black Box? There was no telling what gruesome form it would twist her into. She could quite literally lose her head, and then what would become of the little store of money she’d so painstakingly put by? Wouldn’t her landlord just make off with it?
Meng Chu was one of nature’s worker bees. No matter how fearful she felt on the inside, she would still soldier on with her duties for the day. Even as she mentally listed the thousand and one things she needed to put down in her will, she was already powering up the mechanical arm that she would use to lift the prosthetics and implants onto their respective shelves, albeit rather absent-mindedly.
Since Bian Jin had shown her the trick of operating the mechanical arm, her skill at doing so had improved somewhat. For every three pieces of cyberware she tried to file away, she would drop only one; the other two she could successfully place where she wanted them. Admittedly, they did sit rather lopsidedly on the shelves, their corners jutting out far enough for her to bump her head on if she wasn’t paying attention, but all things considered, it was still an improvement.
Meng Chu worked at a leisurely pace, safe in the knowledge that no one would come by to hurry her along or pile more tasks on her. Besides, now that she thought about it, the storehouse was in such an out-of-the-way spot, and the pickings here were so paltry — there was really nothing but scrap anyway — that it was probably beneath the Black Box’s notice.
Slowly, Meng Chu lifted another prosthetic with the mechanical arm, paused to rest for several moments before setting it down on a shelf, and then paused for an even longer rest.
She might not be in a hurry, but Bian Jin, watching from behind a bank of shelves, was becoming anxious for her.
Shen Ni, sitting comfortably between Bian Jin’s legs, looked up at her shijie over her shoulder with an expression that said: This is your colleague’s level of competency? How… novel.
Bian Jin could think of nothing to say. Even an ox new to the plough would have moved in a less laboured fashion. If Meng Chu went on dawdling in this way, how much longer was she going to take?
She was nearly overcome by the urge to rush out and finish Meng Chu’s job for her. There was no real reason she couldn’t — other than the fact that she’d hidden behind the shelves in the first place. If she were to emerge now with her wife in tow, how could she possibly explain herself?
Bian Jin glanced down at Shen Ni. They could probably tidy her rumpled clothing, but there was no concealing the pink flush in her cheeks, or the bright red tips of her ears. Anyone who saw them would jump straight to the conclusion that, not content with indulging themselves within the confines of their own bedchamber, they’d decided to seek a greater thrill by shifting their marital activities to this remote corner of Lantai.
Bian Jin was no longer covering Shen Ni’s mouth, but she remained sitting in the same position, fearful that any movement would be heard. The storehouse was very quiet. Meng Chu might not be the sharpest tool in the box, but she did have very keen ears.
Bian Jin stretched out both arms and rested her hands on her knees, taking care to avoid coming into contact with Shen Ni.
Shen Ni, for her part, was perfectly serene. It was Bian Jin who’d drawn her behind the shelves, and Bian Jin who’d placed Shen Ni between her knees. Shen Ni herself had no pressing business elsewhere, so she was content to stay here all day if need be.
Meng Chu finally finished all the filing she needed to do in that particular section of the storehouse, and began moving forward. Shen Ni’s gaze followed her reflexively. When her line of sight was blocked by the shelves, she shifted slightly so that she could see better. The ‘accidental’ movement meant that she brushed up briefly against Bian Jin, who had been conscientiously holding herself in such a way as to avoid touching Shen Ni.
Bian Jin, who had just managed to slow her heart rate to a manageable level, felt it speeding up again.
Meng Chu had only taken a few steps forward when someone called out to her from the door. Shen Ni’s curiosity was piqued. Since she had nothing else to do, she shifted again in the opposite direction, so that she could see who was at the door.
Once again, she brushed up against Bian Jin.
A crimson flush began spreading over Bian Jin’s throat from where it rose out of her collar.
It was another Lantai clerk who had come in. She spoke to Meng Chu about their work for a little while, then she brought up Bian Jin’s name. Their voices lowered, as voices are wont to do when gossip is being exchanged.
Shen Ni concentrated enough to catch the gist of what they were saying. Since Bian Jin had turned up unexpectedly at Lantai, Meng Chu and her colleague agreed that, if the Black Box really were to make an appearance, they should immediately rush off to find Bian Jin and throw themselves on her mercy. That way, they might just survive.
Shen Ni was still listening intently when suddenly, she felt Bian Jin’s arms around her waist. They tightened, and Shen Ni found herself being drawn backwards.
Bian Jin pinned Shen Ni securely between her thighs, holding her fast to stop her from moving. Her hot lips found their way to Shen Ni’s ear, and she said in a very low whisper, ‘Shimei, you need to stop rubbing against me.’ There was an undertone of huskiness in her voice; it sounded rather like a warning.
Caught in Bian Jin’s embrace, Shen Ni felt a sudden rush of heat to her chest. She swallowed once or twice, and nodded obediently.
Seeing that silent promise, Bian Jin let go of her.
Shen Ni hunched slightly into herself, overwhelmed by that moment of closeness. You need to stop rubbing against me, Bian Jin had said, yet she was the one who’d been tickling Shen Ni’s ear with her breath.
Shen Ni reached up and rubbed the tip of the ear in question. It was tingling with heat.
They were both wearing such thick winter clothes. Could Bian Jin really feel her touch so keenly even through all those layers?
Bian Jin looked down at Shen Ni’s ear. It had been a pale pink before, but now, after being thoroughly ill-used both by herself and Shen Ni, it had turned bright red.
You poor thing, thought Bian Jin. She blinked a few times, feeling the urge to soothe the much-abused little ear in front of her, but did not give in to it.
Meng Chu and the other clerk spoke for a while longer. There must have been something else they needed to tend to, because soon afterwards, Meng Chu stowed the mechanical arm away and followed the other clerk out of the storehouse.
Bian Jin seized the chance to smuggle Shen Ni out of the storehouse, and brought her to the warming chamber reserved for Lantai officials’ rest breaks. The archive was so empty today that she was quite sure no one would be there.
In the warming chamber, Bian Jin locked the door behind them and lowered the curtains. ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked Shen Ni.
The words had barely left her lips when she realised that she sounded as stern as an investigator interrogating a suspect. Shen Ni’s ear was still shockingly red, and while her robes had been straightened, the tail end of one of the scratches Bian Jin had left on her neck was still peeping out from above her collar, and it seemed redder and more swollen than before.
Bian Jin fell silent, reflecting on her own rather frenzied behaviour in the storehouse. She still had no clear idea what she’d done during her momentary loss of consciousness, but it was obvious that Shen Ni had somehow been caught up in it and been injured for her pains — yet had not uttered a single word of complaint. And now here she was, being downright hostile to her shimei!
Bian Jin plucked a tiny jar of ointment from where it hung from her belt and handed it to Shen Ni. ‘I shouldn’t have done that, shimei,’ she said. I’m sorry. Rub some of this ointment on, and you’ll feel better very soon.’
Shen Ni, for her part, was not really in pain. As a machinist, she was of course nowhere as tough as an SS-tier warrior like Bian Jin, but she was hardly so frail that she needed immediate treatment for every tiny scratch.
But clearly her shijie thought of her as some breakable, fragile creature, one who needed the utmost care at all times. Shen Ni had no idea how this misconception had come about, but she was quite happy to be treated like a porcelain bottle nestled in the palm of her shijie’s hand, zealously guarded lest some accidental jolt should shatter her.
Shen Ni took the ointment from Bian Jin, thanked her, and began loosening her outer robes.
‘Shimei?’ said Bian Jin, the pitch of her voice rising by at least two full tones.
Shen Ni looked over at her, a puzzled expression on her face. ‘What’s the matter?’
Bian Jin had turned her back on Shen Ni. ‘I’m the one who should be asking you questions. Why are you taking off your clothes?’
‘Ah?’ said Shen Ni. ‘Wasn’t that why you brought me into this empty room and drew the curtains — so that I could apply the ointment as quickly as possible? I must have misunderstood.’
Bian Jin knew Shen Ni well enough to tell when she was up to mischief — and exactly how much mischief she was up to — just from the tone of her voice; she did not even need to see Shen Ni’s face in order to be certain. If only you were as slow as you’re pretending to be, she thought.
Out loud, she said, ‘I was just giving you the ointment. It wouldn’t be appropriate to do anything more in a public place like this.’
‘Oh?’ said Shen Ni. ‘Then we should do it as soon as we get home.’
Bian Jin couldn’t think of a response. That was technically what she meant, of course — but why did those perfectly innocent words became so laden with suggestion the moment they came out of her shimei’s mouth?
‘Have you put your clothes back on?’ asked Bian Jin.
Shen Ni had not really begun to undress. She spent a good few moments silently admiring Bian Jin’s back — which her shijie had turned on her in embarrassment — before replying in leisurely tones, ‘I’m dressed now. You can turn around, shijie.’
Bian Jin turned, and the two of them finally sat down face to face, beginning to speak of more serious matters.
Shen Ni explained how and why she’d come to Lantai. She’d very quickly become bored of lounging around at home, and was also a little worried that the Black Box might still be on Bian Jin’s trail. So she’d decided to make sure Bian Jin was all right. After all, the mutant beasts they’d fought yesterday had spoken of wanting a stronger body, and right now there was no one stronger in the whole of Chang’an than Bian Jin.
She’d slipped out from the mansion and made her way to Lantai. Once there, she’d bumped into the same junior official who’d given her directions on her last visit. The girl had told her that Bian Jin was in the cybernetic storehouse, so that was where Shen Ni had gone. She’d found Bian Jin searching intently through a bank of shelves with her back to the door, as if looking for something.
Shen Ni stepped closer, and was just about to call out to Bian Jin when the latter — seeming to sense that someone was behind her — whirled abruptly around, her hand thrusting straight towards Shen Ni’s throat.
Shen Ni had managed to duck out of the way just in time, so that Bian Jin had caught hold of her collar instead. If Bian Jin hadn’t missed, there was no doubt she’d be in a world of pain.
‘I tried to strangle you?’ asked Bian Jin, bewildered.
‘Mm. But I’m sure it was just from force of habit. After all those years you’ve spent on the front lines, it’s hardly surprising that you’d be fully on your guard against anyone approaching you from behind. You defended yourself as instinctively as you would have against an enemy, that’s all.’
Shen Ni’s tone was lighthearted; there was no suggestion that she blamed Bian Jin in any way for how she’d responded. After all, Shen Ni herself had also spent years on the battlefield, and she knew full well what it felt like to sleep uneasily at night, hugging her weapon to her chest. Bian Jin had spent so much of her life treading on thin ice,[1] and she’d suffered near-fatal injuries not long ago besides. It was perfectly understandable that she should be on edge.
‘Even if you hadn’t missed, I would still be fine,’ Shen Ni added, so cheerfully that it sounded almost as though she were making a joke. She did not want Bian Jin to feel the slightest twinge of guilt for her reaction earlier.
Bian Jin admitted quite frankly that something had cut her off from her consciousness at the time, and that she’d had no intention of hurting Shen Ni.
‘Now that you mention it,’ said Shen Ni, ‘you did seem a bit odd earlier.’
‘In what way?’
Shen Ni thought back on how Bian Jin had looked when she’d whirled around suddenly. ‘There was an urgency to your expression, as if you’d been interrupted while deeply engrossed in something else. That must be it. If your attention hadn’t been fully occupied in whatever you were doing, you’d have noticed me long before I came up behind you.’ Given how keen Bian Jin’s senses were, she would ordinarily have detected Shen Ni’s presence the moment the latter set foot in the storehouse.
‘Before my consciousness was cut off, I was in the corridor outside the storehouse,’ Bian Jin mused. ‘I have no memory of entering the storehouse, or of when you came in. In other words, despite having no awareness of what I was doing, I was still walking about as usual, and even searching for… whatever I was looking for?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was I searching for?’
‘Hm.’ Shen Ni tapped a knuckle thoughtfully against her chin, going over the details in her memory. ‘The label on those shelves said “eleventh year of Wude”.[2] So perhaps you were looking for a prosthetic that was decommissioned that year?’
‘The eleventh year of Wude?’
Bian Jin had a keen knowledge of the empire’s history, down to the most minute detail. But when she cast her mind back over the incidents that had taken place in the eleventh year of Wude, all she could remember was that the beginning of the year had been marked by a heavy snowstorm, and that Li Ruoyuan — then a princess of seven years old — had come down with the mysterious illness that had left her in her present form. There seemed to be nothing else of note.
In light of that, perhaps there was some connection between Li Ruoyuan and whatever Bian Jin had been searching for. Shen Ni made a mental note of the possibility, then went on asking Bian Jin questions. ‘But you don’t remember why you might be looking for a prosthetic that was decommissioned in the eleventh year of Wude?’
Slowly, Bian Jin shook her head. She truly had no memory of why she would have done such a thing. She described to Shen Ni in some detail how it had felt to have her consciousness cut off.
‘I wondered if it might have something to do with the damage to my memory module,’ she finished.
‘It does sound as if it could be a lag triggered by a memory failure.’
‘Now that I have new neural core, shimei, can you start repairing my memory module?’
‘I could, yes.’
‘Should we try that now?’
Shen Ni had not expected Bian Jin to be quite so serious about the matter. ‘Of course,’ she said.
It was handy, then, that Shen Ni had just made some new modifications to her arm. It was impossible for her to bring her toolkit with her everywhere she went. It wasn’t a very heavy object, but she would feel ridiculous carrying it about. So she’d spent some time that morning modifying the recess in her arm, making room for a three-in-one multi-tool. The convenient little device could be used for disassembling cyberware, treating minor wounds, and as a defensive weapon if she were ever to run into a mutant beast. It was sufficient for most commonplace needs.
Shen Ni had completed the modifications just before leaving the house, and had not expected that she would have the chance to use the multi-tool so soon. She told Bian Jin to turn around, and to keep a close watch on their surroundings so that she could sound a warning if she saw or heard anyone approaching.
Bian Jin gave a murmur of assent, and duly turned around. Then she looked back at Shen Ni over her shoulder. ‘Should I… unfasten my robes?’
It must be a daunting prospect for Bian Jin to have to undress — even if only partially — somewhere that was not her home. Shen Ni did not want to make things more awkward for her shijie than they already were, and still less did she want some passerby to catch an accidental glimpse of Bian Jin in a state of deshabille.
‘There’s no need for you to do that at all,’ she said. ‘If you trust me enough, shijie, I can simply slip my hand inside.’
And to prove she had no lascivious intentions, Shen Ni added, ‘I won’t touch you, shijie, I promise.’
She says she won’t touch me, thought Bian Jin, but would that make any difference? There had been no direct physical contact between them during the full-body examination, and yet that had done nothing to stop her tactility score from soaring up into stratospheric ranges.
‘How long will it take?’ asked Bian Jin.
‘I’ll plug a connector into one of the sockets on your body. If you let me through your firewall and give me unimpeded access to your systems, it should be done within a minute.’
‘Let’s begin, then.’
Bian Jin did very much want to know what had gone wrong with her body. How could it move and act of its own accord, without her being conscious of it? While it did not seem as though the Black Box had taken control of her body, it was hardly a good sign. It felt almost as if someone had left a command buried somewhere deep inside her mind — but who could have done that, and what did they want?
Since Implanting Ni’s Heart into Bian Jin’s body, Shen Ni had not raised the matter of Bian Jin’s damaged memory module. That had been partly out of respect for Bian Jin’s wishes, but also partly out due to her own reservations. Now that Bian Jin had brought it up herself, there was no further reason for Shen Ni to say no.
Bian Jin slipped the fur coat from her shoulders and unbuckled her belt. Then she undid the fastenings of her inner shirt and lifted the hem slightly.
Deftly, Shen Ni drew a connector from the recess in her arm and slipped it beneath Bian Jin’s shirt. True to her word, her hand did not so much as graze Bian Jin’s skin. She plugged the connector into a socket in Bian Jin’s lower back.
It was only then that Bian Jin realised Shen Ni had placed a socket there as well. Until now, she’d been aware only of the one near her hipbone. She had no idea how to feel; Shen Ni seemed to knew her body so much better than she did herself.
Shen Ni unplugged the connector before even a minute had passed.
‘What is it?’ asked Bian Jin.
‘I was still denied access.’
‘But I’ve already deactivated my firewall.’
‘I know,’ said Shen Ni. ‘It’s just as I guessed. Ni’s Heart has begun automatically repairing parts of your memory module, but it’s still impossible to access any of your memories from the last three years.’
It was not surprising to Bian Jin that Ni’s Heart should have this ability; she’d already experienced the full extent of its power firsthand. But not even Ni’s Heart, it seemed, was capable of restoring access to her memory module.
‘Impossible?’ said Bian Jin. ‘Even for you?’
As an SS-tier machinist, Shen Ni rarely heard the word ‘impossible’ applied to herself.
‘You must think me very powerful, shijie,’ she said. ‘As I said before, I could hack into your memory module through sheer brute force. But in your current condition, that would leave you with serious injuries, even with Ni’s Heart to protect you. I would advise against it.’
Bian Jin fastened up her inner shirt again and re-buckled her belt around her waist. Her collar was wrapped tightly around her throat, denying an onlooker even the briefest glimpse of snow-white skin.
‘Based on your experience, shimei, what could have happened to my memory module to leave it in this state?’
‘A machinist even more Talented than myself must have sealed it off.’
‘More Talented than you? There can be no such person, I’m sure.’
Shen Ni’s Talent was at the very peak of what was humanly possible. It was indeed very unlikely that some other machinist might be able to construct a digital barrier she could not bypass. On the whole, she was quite happy with Bian Jin’s praise, and with the evidence of how much her shijie trusted her, even if that meant having to make a slightly embarrassing admission about to the limits of her ability.
‘Give me some time, and I might still be able to unlock—’ Shen Ni trailed off into a cough, her voice cracking.
She’d been hard at work since she got out of bed: first, feigning poisoning and illness, then, after Bian Jin had left the house, modifying her arm to accommodate the multi-tool. And right after that, her worries over Bian Jin had brought her straight to Lantai. She’d probably drunk no more than a mouthful of water since she woke up, and now her throat was uncomfortably dry.
‘Don’t try to speak,’ said Bian Jin. ‘I’ll bring you some water.’
Bian Jin could just as easily told Shen Ni where she could find water, and had her fetch it herself. But instead, she insisted on bringing it to Shen Ni. See? thought Shen Ni. My shijie does care about me!
Shen Ni did not refuse. She luxuriated in the knowledge of how much Bian Jin doted on her — to a degree Bian Jin herself might not even be conscious of. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
Bian Jin left the room. A quarter of an hour later, she had still not returned. By that point, Shen Ni was becoming a little worried. She wandered out of the warming chamber in search of Bian Jin, and ran into Meng Chu in a different part of the archive.
‘I haven’t,’ said Meng Chu, when Shen Ni asked if she’d seen Bian Jin. The very next moment, they heard an ear-splitting wail from the archive’s main entrance.
‘Mistress Bian, you can’t possibly be as heartless as this! He followed you to war so faithfully for so many years — how could you have forgotten all about him? If you don’t know how he died, then who else would?’
It was a woman’s voice, and she sounded as though she were tearing her heart out.
Meng Chu was looking directly at Shen Ni, so she saw that change that came over Shen Ni’s face at those words. In a single instant, the usually warm, smiling, impeccably well-mannered Marquess Jing’an became a completely different person — cold, implacable, and rather frightening.
Shen Ni’s eyebrows lifted. She turned on her heel and strode straight towards the main doors.
***
Footnotes:
- In the original text, 如履薄冰 (pinyin: ru lü bo bing). The chengyu describes someone who is acting with extreme caution, as if skating on thin ice. It originates from the Book of Odes (诗经, also known as the Classic of Poetry), the oldest existing collection of Chinese poetry, and one of the ‘Five Classics’ of Chinese literature said to have been compiled by Confucius. [return to text]
- In our world, ‘Wude’ (武德) was the era name used during the reign of Li Yuan (李渊), the founder and first emperor of the Tang Dynasty. His reign lasted from 566 to 635 AD. [return to text]
douqi 随笔 