When he heard Bo at the door, he put his melancholy aside and grabbed a small case for his notebooks. He told Bo he needed to go back to the bronze workshop, and Bo seemed not to suspect a thing. They left the palace precinct and made their way to the first of the walls, where they were halted by a sentry. Cí gritted his teeth while Bo showed their seals of passage. The sentry took his time looking over the documents and then looked Cí up and down—excruciatingly slowly, it felt like to Cí. The man let them pass. At the next post, Bo took out the documents again. The sentry looked at Cí oddly. Cí began chewing his lip. It was the first time while accompanied by Bo that there had been any delay at the checkpoints. He waited, trying to stay calm. After a short while the sentry handed Bo’s documents to him, but when Cí reached to take his own documents from the sentry’s outstretched hand, the man wouldn’t let go.
“They have the Councilor for Punishment’s signature on them,” said Cí angrily.
“Follow me to the tower,” the sentry ordered Cí.
Cí did as the man said. On entering, he was surprised to find Kan waiting for him there. The councilor stood, took the documents, and crumpled them up.
“Where were you off to then?” said Kan disdainfully.
“The bronze maker’s workshop,” said Cí, heart pounding. “There were some clues I needed to follow up on. Bo’s coming with me.”
Kan arched an eyebrow. “What kind of clues?”
“Um…clues,” stuttered Cí.
“Maybe, maybe! Or, maybe, as I suspect, you’re toying with the foolish idea of making your getaway.” He paused and smiled. “And in case I’m right, I thought it might be worth mentioning that it would be very rude on your part if you were to go without saying good-bye to your master, Ming. He’s in the dungeon. Under arrest. And that’s where he’ll stay until you decide to obey me and take a room in Feng’s pavilion.
Cí was consumed with rage when he saw the state in which Ming was being kept. The old man was lying on a broken wicker bed. His face was impassive and his gaze distant. When he saw Cí come in, he tried to get up but was completely unable; his legs were bloody and bruised. When he spoke, Cí saw that his teeth had been bashed in, leaving a gory mess.
“They beat me…” Ming managed to say.
Cí could see he had no choice. He told Kan he’d go to Feng’s, and he demanded that Ming be attended to and transferred to a better cell.
Several servants helped Cí take his belongings to the Water Lily Pavilion. When they’d left, Cí stood astonished by the loveliness of his new quarters, a large room overlooking the lemon grove. Putting his things down, he went to his appointment with Feng, who was brimming with satisfaction at the turn of events. Cí bowed, but Feng took him in his arms and hugged him.
“Boy!” he exclaimed, ruffling Cí’s hair enthusiastically. “I’m so happy you’ve joined us!”
Once they were sitting and drinking a delicious black tea, Feng asked Cí to tell him about his father’s death. Cí told him the story and went on to outline his difficulties in Lin’an, the dealings with the fortune-teller, Third’s tragic death, his entrance into Ming Academy, and his later arrival at the palace. He told Feng everything apart from the circumstances that had brought him to this present juncture.
Feng could hardly believe all the things that had happened to Cí.
“All these hardships…I just can’t understand why you didn’t try to find me.”
“I tried…” Cí thought about admitting to being a fugitive. “Sir, I really shouldn’t be here with you. I’m not fit to share—”
But Feng shushed him. Cí had suffered quite enough, said the older man. He was just pleased they’d found each other now, so that they could share the good as well as the bad. Cí fell silent. Remorse gripped his throat. Eventually Feng broke the silence by asking him about the exams.
“You wanted to take them, didn’t you?”
Cí nodded. He said he’d tried to obtain the Certificate of Aptitude but was denied because of his father’s dishonor. Tears came to his eyes.
Feng lowered his head in sorrow.
“So you found out. Such a terrible thing, I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. Not even when you were asking me about the changes in your father. You already had plenty on your plate at the time, what with your brother’s arrest. But maybe I can help you now, use my connections. That certificate—”
“Sir, I’d really rather you not do anything more for me.”
“You know how highly I’ve always thought of you, Cí. Now that you’re here, I want you to think of yourself as family.”
Feng went on to speak about Blue Iris, how they’d met, the difficulties of their courtship, and their happy marriage.
As Feng spoke, Cí glanced at the nüshi, who was relaxing in the gardens. Her sleek black hair was arranged in a bun, leaving her smooth, firm back in sight. Cí sipped at his tea, hoping the cup would hide his blushing. Finishing, he stood and asked permission to return to his room to study. The judge said he could go but stopped him to give him a sweet rice dessert.
“Thank you, Cí. Thank you for agreeing to come. You’ve made me so happy.”
Cí went and lay down on his feather bed and contemplated the richness of his surroundings. Normally he would have been delighted to find himself in such a place, but now he felt like a stray dog taken in by a kind master whom the dog would nevertheless turn on and maul.
Disobeying Kan would mean Ming’s death; obeying him meant betraying Feng. He tried to eat a little of the sweet rice but immediately spit it out. He tasted only the bitterness in his soul. Was it really worth living like this?
He lay there, tormenting himself, blaming himself for the damage he was going to have to do—either to Ming or to Feng.
Trying to focus instead on his work, he ran through the murders: Soft Dolphin, the eunuch, an elegant homosexual, a sensitive lover of antiques; the man with the corroded hands, in some way linked to the salt industry; the youth captured in the portrait, his face peppered with tiny wounds that Cí was yet to understand; the bronze maker, whose workshop burned down the same night he was decapitated…None of it added up, least of all how Blue Iris might be involved. She might have wanted revenge on the emperor, but how would she achieve that with these four seemingly unrelated deaths? What difference would they make to the emperor? When it came down to it, in spite of the similarities in the appearances of the murders, there was nothing yet to say the same person had carried them all out or even coordinated them.
When he was called down for dinner, he said he had a stomachache and sent the servant away. His dreams were inhabited by the seemingly inescapable image of Blue Iris.
The next morning he woke early and, after asking the servants to tell his hosts he’d be back to eat with them later, went to see how Ming was getting on.
Finding his old master in a cell that was no better than the last—damp, with rotten food and excrement in the corners—he couldn’t contain his rage. Cí demanded an explanation from the sentry, but the man seemed about as merciful as a butcher going about his work. Ming was lying down and complained about his leg wounds. Cí gave him some water and, wiping the dried blood from the man’s face with a wet cloth, tried to comfort him. The wounds didn’t look good. A younger man might recover from such treatment, but Ming…Cí tried to stay calm, but he thought he was in more of a state than Ming. He swore to Ming that he’d get him out of there.
“Don’t trouble yourself. Kan has never had much of a liking for effeminate men,” he said sarcastically.