Chapter Seventeen The Rest of the Voiceless

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE REST OF THE VOICELESS

I get into a screaming match with Sima Yi after the assembly, with Yizhi catching some fallout, but then I waste no more time and proceed to look for a…eunuch-pilot, I guess. I need to get out of here before anyone gets any further ideas about deposing me or breeding me.

The fairest way to choose a guy for certain doom and suffering would be to pluck one out of the Tianlao, the highest-security prison in Huaxia, where every inmate is on death row anyway. But I waver when I realize Shimin had been held there before he was conscripted as a pilot. I decide that I can’t rely on the Tianlao’s files. I need to go there and judge the prisoners myself.

Not wanting to draw excessive attention, I take the most understated electric carriage in the estate’s collection, stored in a cavernous lot in the mountain. For the Gao family, though, “understated” still entails a glossy black exterior embellished with pearlescent fragments arranged like cranes in flight among wind-stirred plum blossoms.

“Hope Your Highness realizes the Tianlao isn’t a tourist destination.” Qieluo helps me into the carriage, serving as my bodyguard.

“Obviously,” I grumble, taking one of the four white leather seats that face each other in the carriage. I put my crown in my lap so its antlers won’t smack anyone in the face.

Wan’er gets in after us, coming along for general assistance. Right as she moves to pull the carriage door closed, an elevator nearby opens with a ding .

“Wait!” a voice calls out.

The sound of a cane clanks into the parking lot. Someone emerges in a male-style robe of exquisite orange silk with blue lapels and a leather belt around the waist. For a second, I think it’s Yizhi—except the person has bound feet.

A few guards block the cross-dressing woman who looks uncannily like Yizhi. She gives a dramatic groan. “Guys, it’s me! Your èr Xiǎojiě !”

Gao Qiu’s second daughter?

Oh . She’s the math genius sister Yizhi talked about.

I lean out of the carriage. “Hey, are you Gao Taiping?”

“Yours truly!” She waves. “Mind if I tag along, Your Highness?”

“Let her come,” I tell the guards.

Taiping puffs out her cheeks when the guards move aside. “To think I was one of your bosses a few weeks ago, but now that I’m living paycheck to paycheck, you act like you don’t even know me.”

As she climbs into the carriage, Qieluo gives her a hand while saying, “You know no one’s going to believe you’re a man when your feet are bound, right?”

“Oh, I’m not trying to fool anyone. They can think whatever they like.” Taiping sits down beside Wan’er and rests her cane against the inside of the carriage. Her hair is pulled up inside a black fútóu , something else usually worn only by men, its round top almost grazing the ceiling and its two long ends trailing past her shoulders.

“If you say so.” Qieluo pulls the door shut.

Taiping studies me up and down, eyes crinkling. “Your Highness sure is a busy woman. Zhi’ er told me you couldn’t meet me today because you’re going on this expedition, but I thought I could just join you instead of—” She does a double-take on Wan’er. “Wait, have we met?”

Wan’er tenses up. “I am an estate staffer, Miss Gao. You’ve probably seen me around.”

“No, no, it was somewhere else.” Taiping’s gaze drops to Wan’er’s chest. “Weeks ago, at…the club? Didn’t I do a jelly shot off your—”

“I do not frequent such establishments!” Wan’er’s cheeks go bright red. “You must be mistaking me for someone else!”

“Ahh…I see.” Taiping nods repeatedly. “You’re not open about it. Okay, I guess it was someone else .”

“What?” I blink at this incomprehensible turn in the conversation. “What’s a jelly shot?”

“A very fun way to consume alcohol, Your Highness.” Taiping winks.

“Oh.” Alcohol has never been associated with “fun” for me, but to each their own. This sounds like some city folk nonsense that’s none of my business.

Qieluo and Taiping simultaneously reach for a narrow compartment beside their respective seats.

“I can do the honors.” Taiping unfolds a screen out of her compartment first, steadying it before herself on metallic joints.

Qieluo scowls. “I know how to operate a self-driving carriage.”

“I don’t doubt that, Princess-General Dugu, but I’ve taken this baby out for a spin many times. And it’s my city.”

“Fine. Whatever.” Qieluo drops her own screen back into its compartment.

Neon colors shift over Taiping’s face as she works her screen. The carriage rolls forth, the hum of its electric engine echoing through the parking lot. Incredibly, it steers itself through the Gao family’s vehicle collection, many bedazzled with gold and silver filigree. Each is probably worth more than what the average worker makes in a lifetime. It boggles my mind sometimes, the technology the ultra-rich have access to.

A gate lifts up on steel tracks with a resounding rumble, then our carriage speeds out of the mountain through a tunnel. Making the occasional swipe on her screen, Taiping asks Wan’er more mundane questions, like what her name is and how she came to work for the estate. The tension leaves Wan’er’s shoulders as they speak no more of “the club,” whatever that is. I find an opening to ask Taiping to join Wan’er in tutoring me so I can understand economics and “do math better,” to which she enthusiastically agrees. I’m not yet sure how to hint to her that the math is for attacking the Heavenly Court in the Yellow Dragon, and how she’ll react once she realizes, but that’ll have to wait until we have more privacy.

Spiraling mountain roads take us down to Chang’an proper. Although the carriage windows look black from the outside, they offer a clear view from the inside. And what I see makes my jaw drop.

The double doors of many walled estates have been smashed up, splintered gashes exposing the furniture barricading them from the inside. Elaborately carved window frames have only fragments of glass to hold on to, like broken teeth. Shards glitter on smoke-stained stone porches. Soldiers with rifles slung around their shoulders patrol the area half-heartedly, most scrolling on digital devices.

“Wow,” Qieluo exclaims under her breath.

“I heard there was a lot of looting and killing around here last night.” Taiping presses against her window.

Beside her, Wan’er frowns. “Nobody was killed.”

“N-nobody was killed?” Taiping’s attention whirls around.

“There are a lot of people determined to make the demonstrations sound much worse than they were, Miss Gao. It’s what they always do to discredit protests. I’d be careful about where you’re getting your information from. Yes, things got messy, but ultimately, anyone who can afford an entire servant-staffed estate in West Chang’an is definitely involved in some exploitative business.”

Taiping makes a troubled face. “?‘Exploitative’ is a bit strong of an accusation to make, don’t you think? Most families here simply inherited their estates. It’s not their fault there are people starving over in North Gate.”

“Nothing bad is their fault, yet they have no problem indulging in the luxuries their inherited fortunes make possible?” Wan’er’s voice loses all warmth and shyness. “How did your ancestors amass so much if not by paying workers next to nothing for sixteen-hour days in factories, and by criminally sabotaging other competitors?”

The air in the carriage goes still as ice. None of us missed her switch from “ their ” to “ your .”

“Why are you bringing my family into this?” Taiping splutters. “His Majesty already took all our property and nationalized our company. I have to go back to work as a regular employee right after this trip. I didn’t even get to relax that much in the general strike because His Majesty approved the company’s new work terms in, like, two hours.” She shakes her head. “We should’ve asked for more vacation days.”

Wan’er returns her attention to the barricaded estates. “The very fact that you think a strike is supposed to be relaxing tells me all I need to know.”

Qieluo and I exchange a stupefied look from the corners of our eyes. What is happening? They were having a friendly conversation two minutes ago!

“Okay, sorry I’m not some sort of benevolent deity!” Taiping cries before I can say something to de-escalate. “Most humans aren’t! You’re being so…Look, if no one’s allowed to get richer than anyone else, how would society advance? What would motivate us to make better and better stuff, like technology?” She indicates the control screen before her.

“Oh, please, most components in Gao Enterprises products were originally developed with government-subsidized research for military and surveillance purposes,” Wan’er fires back. “So, by researchers who weren’t driven by profit. Don’t assume I don’t know that. Also, now that you’ve cornered the tech market, you’re deliberately making your products plummet in functionality just past the warranty to force people to buy a new device every few years. The companies that actually make enduring products don’t survive. How is that producing ‘ better stuff ’?”

“That’s just good business sense,” Taiping says with a flick of her wrist. “If you hate big companies so much, why did you apply to work for us?”

I shrink against my seat, expecting the question to fluster Wan’er, yet she breathes in and out and keeps her composure, as if she was waiting for it. “Because I need to work to survive. I criticize all of this because I’m forced to partake in it. Not all of us have the luxury of going on joyrides in the middle of the day and dressing however we want without being harassed or fired from our father’s company.”

Taiping peers down at her male-style robe. “Do you want to wear this?” She tugs her blue silk lapels. “Is that what this is about? Because I can give it to you. We can swap right now.” She starts undoing her belt.

Now Wan’er gets flustered. She smacks Taiping’s arms down. “I don’t want your clothes! That was not even close to my point!”

This is going to a weird place. I wave my hands. “Hey, let’s, uhh…take it down a notch.”

Wan’er jumps like she’s just remembered I’m here. “My sincerest apologies, Your Highness.” She bows her head, which is suddenly uncomfortable to witness, as if I’m smothering something wild and majestic. “I got carried away.”

“Has our dearest emperor been ranting to you?” I say, half a joke to lighten the mood.

She raises her eyes with no humor in her gaze. “With all due respect, Your Highness, His Majesty didn’t invent these ideas. Laborists advocated them for hundreds of years before His Majesty, and in the hundreds of years he slept.”

“Laborists?” Taiping scratches her temple, right beneath the edge of her fútóu . “Like the terrorist group?”

I have never seen a human make a more incensed expression than the one Wan’er turns on Taiping.

“ What now? ” Taiping throws her hands up. “Are laborists not those people who set buildings on fire and plant bombs under people’s carriages?”

“That was only one sect of—” Wan’er pulls a small tablet out of her maidservant uniform and flashes a code at Taiping. “Add me on Central Chat. I don’t want to keep yelling in front of Her Highness.”

“Uh, okay.” Taiping scans Wan’er’s code with her own tablet.

They continue their argument in message form, styluses flitting across their devices. Every so often, they make weird faces at each other.

Qieluo raises a brow at me. What just happened? I can tell she wants to say.

I shrug. I’ve known Yizhi for long enough that I can’t be surprised by the way rich people think. And, honestly, I have no ground to stand on in a debate about morality.

I decide not to ask if Wan’er and Taiping still want to tutor me together.

After we cruise past the extravagant estates and roll deeper into the city, the streets grow more cluttered and filthy. The buildings rise higher and get duller, trading intricate wooden architecture for rain-stained concrete studded with steel-barred anti-theft windows.

Just like how I dispelled Yizhi’s fantasy of the frontier as a pristine paradise where humans live at one with nature, he in turn showed me photos of Chang’an that revealed the grit beneath its glamor. Photos of people sleeping in cramped rooms divided into what are essentially cages, the sum of their worldly possessions hanging along the metal grids. Trash-filled slums in the shadows of gleaming skyscrapers. Men with thinning topknots and tired eyes squatting in damp alleyways, slurping bowls of noodles near hotly glowing ads for luxury handbags. Yizhi stopped showing me pictures like those after he started trying to persuade me to go to Chang’an with him, but it’s not like I could wipe them from my memory.

The energy in Chang’an today, however, is vastly different from those photos. We run into bustling crowds on the streets, vibrant as a New Year’s festival. They play drums and gongs and light up firecrackers. Poles in hand, dragon dancers undulate a massive puppet of the Yellow Dragon. Taiping hits a button to spin her seat around so she can manually steer past them.

Hawkers peddle heaps of the Dragon Head Flag for people to wave and hang from every window. Overnight, many folks have cut their hair like Yizhi and joined a trend of tying yellow sashes around their heads or waists. Rongdi women who didn’t grow up with the Han tradition of keeping long hair have set up camp behind signs advertising their haircutting skills. Their lines of customers stretch on and on. Every snip of their scissors brings a skip to my heartbeat.

The number of women out in the open is remarkable in itself. I didn’t fully believe Yizhi about how different things are in the cities until now. They all dance on natural feet, cheering just as wildly as the men around the burned wrecks of luxury vehicles. But, of course, women with bound feet wouldn’t be let out in these circumstances when they’re the wives and concubines of rich men, as Taiping, Big Sister, and I were meant to be. Funny how we’re from the very top and bottom of society, yet we suffered the same way, packaged to be bought and sold.

On some streets we pass, people wait in line with small burlap sacks in hand and a personal device at the ready. After a soldier scans their device, they each receive a big scoop of rice from a giant vat.

“Is food really free now?” I squint at the long queues of mostly women mingling with their children in tow.

“Just the essentials,” Wan’er says. “Everyone’s guaranteed a basic ration of rice, flour, and vegetables.”

“Oh, yeah.” Qieluo raises her tablet. “The Ministry of Welfare developed a platform called Citizen Central before the coronation. We all had to download it and log in with our identification numbers. Every day there’s a list of rations you can redeem from the government. Though if you have to wait in these lines…eh.”

“What matters is that the option will always be there for those who need it,” Wan’er says, sounding quite fed up with the amount of privilege in this carriage.

Huh. Qin Zheng did more preparation ahead of announcing his revolution than I thought.

Still, the bolder the people get, the more unease feeds into me. They think they have him as their invincible guardian. They don’t know they’re wrong. It’s like they’re playing with fire while having no idea the bucket of water next to them has only a thin layer left.

I flex my gauntlets on a pulse of panic, trying to see if I’ve miraculously developed the ability to channel my qì as well as Qin Zheng. I haven’t. If a militia organized by disgruntled corporations suddenly bursts onto the streets to beat these people back into submission, I would not be able to defend them.

I only get big breakthroughs in my skills when I’m in a Chrysalis. There’s a reason strategists think pilots learn best when thrown into battle.

Why is it that every problem in my life has to push me toward the battlefield?

“I…worry about the shortages and inflation we might face,” Taiping mumbles while turning a pair of steering handles, inching the carriage away from the crowds around street vendors and food carts. “If more people have spare money to buy things, yet fewer are willing to work as much, supply won’t keep up. This could get…messy.”

“Will you not be happy unless the common people are kept on the brink of starvation?” Wan’er deadpans.

“That’s not what I said! I was just expressing a realistic concern! Sure, everyone’s all pumped up and excited right now, but how long do you think this enthusiasm can feed on itself once shelves start going empty and prices shoot up? How do you think this will end? It can’t—”

Suddenly, half the street stops and looks in a certain direction. I hear it a second later: a whirring noise drawing nearer.

A young man with a helmet and goggles rides in overhead on a hovercycle like the one Yizhi has, silk robes buckled around his limbs so they don’t tangle in the spinning rotors extending from either side of the vehicle.

“Wang Zhong!” screams a woman pushing out of a ration line. “You owe my daughter her purity!”

A dazed second later, the masses explode with outrage. Cursing and shouting, they pelt the young man with everything from rocks to fruit peels to crumpled paper. Something trips his hovercycle’s rotor blades. It dips in the air. He steadies it clumsily and then glares over his shoulder, goggles throwing a flash of sunlight, his face fuming red.

“I’m not Wang Zhong!” I think he yells, though it’s barely audible over the commotion.

Rather than backing down, the people take more deliberate aim. The rage on his face cools into fear. Before he can pull into a sharp climb to get away, a long roll of firecrackers flies very high and lands on one of the hovercycle’s rotors, tangling the blades.

The hovercycle plummets with a sputtering noise, lopsided.

The mob backs away in a circle to clear space for its landing. Then everyone swells toward it.

There’s so much shouting I can’t hear if the young man is screaming. I can’t tell what they’re doing to him. It all happened so fast I can barely react. Neither can the soldiers managing the nearest ration line. Their hands go to their guns but bounce away immediately when the women react with yelling and pointing. Some help themselves to the rice, taking multiple scoops. This causes several arguments among the shifting crowd. People push and shove like a swarm of hornets, but most can no longer get near the hovercycle or the rice. Some turn around and point—

Toward us .

Fuck, we’re in a luxury carriage!

A whole section of the mob stomps right at us. Taiping grasps her steering handles, but it’s too late. More bodies press up behind us. We’re surrounded. We hardly have time to look at each other before people start slapping our windows and shaking our carriage. Shouts for us to “come out!” fog up the glass. Qieluo grips my arm. I hug my crown tighter in my lap.

“Take off the silk!” Wan’er snatches Taiping’s lapels.

Taiping spins her seat to face inward again. “You were saying about nobody getting killed ?” she shrieks while unbuttoning her robe with shaking fingers.

“Nobody yet !” Wan’er flushes. She helps Taiping strip down to her white inner garments and stuff the gaudy robe into a compartment beneath her seat. Then Wan’er turns a pleading look onto me. “Your Highness!”

The carriage wobbles more violently, rattling us against its innards. I smack my window. “How do I open this?” I cry. To think I was worried for these people a minute ago!

Taiping braces against Wan’er and presses something on her control panel. The glass rolls down. The raw sound of the mob pours over us, accompanied by the smell of smoke. Hoping no one snatched a gun from a soldier, I stick my head out. Several arms nearly hit me in the face.

“ Stop !” I demand.

Silence falls in a wave as people recognize me. My golden mask, the stringed veil dangling in front of my mouth.

Hands leave the carriage. Feet scamper backwards. Soon, even those around the hovercycle and the rice vats stop what they’re doing. The young man slumps to the ground, goggles cracked and robes torn, one shoulder bared and bruised. His slight resemblance to Yizhi in that riding gear sends a twinge through my chest, but speaking up for him would rile this mob back up for sure.

“May my empress live for a thousand years…” some mumble the greeting they’re supposed to give me. None do it with conviction.

The street goes dead quiet and dead still. No one seems to know what to expect from me in this situation. But of course, I was just a subject of gossip to them for months. I deliberately played up a controversial image to profit off their attention. The only reason they’re not dragging me out by my hair is because I’m Qin Zheng’s empress.

My hands tighten on the edge of my window. I can’t let them think that’s all I am. Some are filming , devices streaming to heaven-knows how many more eyes across Huaxia. The way I handle this could make or break my new image.

I recall the way Qin Zheng roused the audience in that stadium with his words. How he sent them into ecstasy by telling them things that made them feel hopeful, feel seen .

“Power to the laboring class!” I yell, pumping my left fist in the air.

Something shifts in the mob immediately.

“ Power to the laboring class! ” a good portion of them echoes.

“Down with the old order!” I throw out another slogan.

“ Down with the old order! ” more shout after me.

Oh, wow. Talking shit about rich people really does work.

I lean farther out the window. “They need us; we don’t need them!”

“ They need us; we don’t need them! ” The mob is fully back to life, almost jittering with energy. Now to direct this energy somewhere else…

“Citizens, let us not succumb to the same instincts of greed that corrupted the old order! Let us be better, and take only our fair share!” I call out. Those around the rice vats drop the scoops, looking guilty. “At the same time, let no more parasites escape justice!” I point to the beleaguered young man. “Let’s escort him to the Tianlao!”

The mob cheers louder than ever.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These parasites have got to go!” I shout out the carriage window through a megaphone someone in the crowd gave me.

“Hey, hey! Ho, ho! These parasites have got to go!” The long rally behind the carriage echoes my words as a world-shaking force while we move at a steady pace toward the Tianlao, situated on the outskirts of Chang’an. More people join us on every street. I’m pretty sure most have no idea what’s happening, just that they want to be part of it. Arms tied behind his back, the unlucky young man gets shoved forward ahead of the carriage. But at least he’s not being beaten to death.

Taiping focuses on driving the carriage, knuckles as pale as her undergarments. Qieluo sits perfectly still in her seat.

Meanwhile, Wan’er brainstorms more slogans on her tablet and labels them with phonetic markers so I don’t embarrass myself by reading them wrong. I’m so glad to have her, because I would’ve run out of these ages ago. There are only so many ways to say “I hate rich people and think they should die.”

“There is only one solution—working-class revolution!”

“There is only one solution—working-class revolution!” the masses repeat after me.

There’s a delicious power in hearing thousands answer my every call. In some moments, I genuinely feel like we could accomplish anything by acting as one.

But then I remember I’m lying to them. In so many ways.

Even if Qin Zheng were fine and we took out all the rich and powerful, what’s next? The common people will work together and provide for each other and live in harmony ever after?

No fucking way.

“The people, united, will never be defeated!” I keep going nonetheless, because I can’t give up this opportunity to win the hearts of the masses. If I want power beyond the battlefield, I do actually have to get people to like me. I need to gain the kind of influence that will make Qin Zheng wary of deposing me. I want to be so revered that crowds would riot in the streets for me if I were being wronged.

Becoming likable. Now that is the most daunting challenge I’ve ever faced.

When we finally spot the Tianlao—a fortress of concrete, barbed wire, and armed soldiers in guard towers silhouetted against the cloudy sky—a painful sense of familiarity breaks over me, even though I’ve never been here. I’m several seconds slow to shout the next slogan, and my voice wavers. I hope no one thinks much of it.

I power through until we reach the prison gate, where a very confused warden receives his unexpected thousands of visitors. He wears the pale-red robes of a fifth-rank official, decently high but not enough to be part of the central court. He’s a different warden than the one from Shimin’s memories.

Good. I don’t think I could hold back from punching that one if I saw him.

“Just so we’re clear,” Qieluo says in the carriage while a circle of yelling people presents the young man to the warden, “I never got my money by doing anything shady, okay? All I did was take the standard wage for a pilot of my caliber and advertise a few products for Gao Enterprises.”

Taiping watches the crowd coalesce in front of the prison gate, looking like she’s processing fear for the first time in her life. “And I, uh, straight up don’t have money anymore. I swear.”

“Stop flaunting your luxuries, and maybe people will believe you,” Wan’er says dryly.

Taiping whirls toward Wan’er. “You still think your revolution isn’t violent?”

“I didn’t say it’s not violent! I said any violence by the common people always gets exaggerated! The old order would’ve gunned down that mob and then condemned them in the news without a word as to why they were angry. But Her Highness gave them hope that the new order actually cares, and so they backed off from hurting us, didn’t they?” Wan’er looks at me like she’s seeing me in a new light. “It goes to show that the people won’t be unreasonable if they’re given even one reasonable way out to what they want.”

Her gaze makes me feel a strange, hefty responsibility. As if what I did wasn’t simply swindling thousands of people into escorting a random guy to a prison I was heading to anyway. I force a smile.

The crowd bursts into cheers and applause when soldiers take the young man and the woman who accused him through the gate, along with several others. Seems like multiple people have grievances with him, if he’s even who they think he is. I thought better of verifying his identity in the streets. If it’d turned out this was all for nothing, the mob would’ve simmered in dangerous dissatisfaction instead of scattering while laughing and singing.

“Your Highness…” The warden approaches my carriage once the masses have gone on their merry ways. He puts his fist to his open palm in a martial salute. “I, your humble servant, am Lai Junchen. May I ask why—”

I clear my throat. “Warden Lai, the people came to you because they expect the Tianlao to be the highest standard of justice in Huaxia,” I say in my window, doing my best impression of someone who knows what they’re doing. “Whether or not investigations are your jurisdiction, bring in the relevant personnel to do a thorough inquiry into the young man and his accusers. If he isn’t the one who wronged them, find the real culprit. Do not disappoint the people, or that mob just might come back.” I narrow my eyes.

The warden gulps, then bows. “Your Highness’ wish is my command.”

On foot, he leads our carriage through several more gates and checkpoints. While crossing the prison grounds, flashes of memories hit me, of being forced to assemble products while chained to other inmates and watched by guards who whip out their guns or cattle prods at the slightest hint of defiance. The images fill me with the urge to run, even though I destroyed the powers that used to control the prisons.

“Whoa, you okay?” Qieluo steadies me by my shoulder.

“It feels like I’ve been here before, even though I haven’t,” I say, quietly enough that only she can hear.

Her features soften with a certain understanding. She lets go of my shoulder. “Yeah, stuff like this happens all the time with me and Ah-Jian. The more you pilot with someone, the more your lives blur together.”

I smile a little at her slip of using a pet name for her partner.

Although this may be far from a happy place for Shimin, I decide to cherish the sensations it stirs up within me. In some way, it’s like he’s on this trip with me.

After we get out of the carriage at the prison camp’s main building—with me in my wheelchair and Taiping fully-clothed again—Warden Lai guides us into an observation booth that looks into another room. Kind of like Qin Zheng’s quarantine chamber, except the walls are dull concrete instead of smooth white tiles.

“Rest assured, those on the other side cannot see through to here, and they cannot hear us unless we allow them to.” Warden Lai sits down at a microphone on a long table in front of the observation window. He pulls out his tablet and props it up. Sima Yi appears on the screen, calling from his new office in the palace.

“Your Highness,” Sima Yi says in front of a shelf full of thick tomes, looking close to popping a vein. “What in the skies did you just do? Can you please explain why you’re trending on the networks for inciting mob violence?”

“I was stopping mob violence!” I hiss. “They were fully ready to kill that guy on the spot! And us, too, maybe! You had to be there!”

I realize the reactionaries will have a field day with this as further proof of how dangerous and devious I am.

Whatever. The elites’ opinion of me is already at rock bottom, while a lot of common people might start liking me for this.

“I…Never mind.” Sima Yi rubs his hand down his face. “Warden Lai, just get to the candidates.”

“Of course.” Warden Lai offers me a file folder. “Your Highness, I have three inmates under twenty years of age who showed a spirit pressure of over five hundred in their latest tests.”

I pass the folder to Wan’er in a way that I hope comes across as authoritative instead of self-conscious about my reading abilities. “Let’s see the first one.”

The warden holds down a button on the microphone. “Bring him in!”

A thick metal door opens in the room we’re looking into. A guard leads in an inmate in orange prison garb, with a prisoner tattoo on his cheek and chains rattling at his wrists and ankles. He’s a gut-punch reminder of Shimin at first, but then their many differences sharpen out to me. He’s nowhere near as tall or broad as Shimin, his physique being more lanky and frail. And his hair hasn’t been cut, so he’s sporting a typical topknot. His cheekbones are high and sharp, and his eyes are long and thin, reminding me of a fox, while his eyebrows flare up at the ends like flames.

“This is Di Renjie, the candidate with the highest spirit pressure by far,” Warden Lai says. “An interesting case. The other two were conscripted into the army reserves as children and committed their crimes before they were called on as pilots, but this one didn’t break five hundred pressure units until he was incarcerated. His latest test result was one thousand six hundred and thirty, pretty close to the Iron Noble threshold. I was expecting him to be fast-tracked as a pilot against usual protocol, just like—”

Warden Lai stiffens, guilt overtaking his expression.

A pang spears through my heart. Again, Shimin has been rendered an unspeakable pariah, never to be mourned as a hero for his part in the retaking of Zhou. And not even because he was a criminal, but because no one is comfortable talking about how I was basically married to another man before Qin Zheng. As if that somehow emasculates their dearest emperor.

The sound of Sima Yi flipping through papers fills the silence where Shimin’s name should’ve been said. “Ah, I’ve heard of this rascal.”

I pull myself back to the mission. “What did he do?”

“Treason, inciting subversion of state harmony, participating in illegal gatherings, resisting arrest, assaulting law enforcement personnel, contempt of justice…” Sima Yi glides his finger across a page. “The list goes on and on.”

Warden Lai sneers. “He thought he knew better than the Sages. Could’ve gotten a nice degree from Chang’an University, but decided to run a newspaper and radio show that spread inflammatory messages against the government. Riled up a bunch of other students to make trouble at the Palace of Sages three years ago. It turned into quite the situation.”

“Oh, he’s the one responsible for that mess?” Qieluo remarks.

Di Renjie’s narrow-eyed stare pierces across the glass, making me wonder if it’s true that he can’t see or hear us.

Wan’er flips through the folder with her mouth pinched tight before saying, “Warden Lai, I followed the events described here in real time, and the students weren’t ‘making trouble.’ They were peacefully protesting how the old order bailed out the irresponsible banks after the real estate market collapsed. It was the soldiers who escalated the situation by tear-gassing them, and then they started shooting into the crowd when all the students did was throw some rocks back.”

Warden Lai glances up and around like he’s looking for a buzzing fly. “Why is this servant girl speaking to me?”

“Warden Lai,” I raise my voice, “you will treat my assistant with respect.”

“My apologies, Your Highness, but this little girl—”

“ Woman ,” I cut him off. “She’s twenty-four.”

“Yes, be careful, Warden Lai,” Sima Yi says. “Her Highness gets prissy if you say anything remotely negative about women.”

I don’t dignify that remark with a reaction.

Warden Lai’s attention bounces between me and the screen with Sima Yi, as though he’s unsure which of us he should suck up to. “Well, regardless, this young woman has no idea what she’s talking about. Those rascals simply had too much time and energy on their hands. There are proper channels to make one’s complaints heard. You don’t cause a ruckus at the Palace of Sages, never mind assaulting our brave troops with stones!”

Wan’er shoots Taiping a look that screams “ I told you so. ” Taiping flashes a sheepish grimace.

I give a huff. “Warden Lai, if you care so much about proper channels of complaint, shouldn’t you be arresting me and our dearest emperor for rendering the Palace of Sages nonexistent ?”

The warden pales. “I wouldn’t dare, Your Highness! That’s not what I meant!”

“Should we even be keeping the prisoners in for protesting the old order when the old order is gone?”

“With all due respect, Your Highness,” Sima Yi says, with no respect at all, “we’re getting beyond the scope of what we came here to do. Just begin the questioning, Warden Lai.”

“Yes, Chairman, right away.” The warden activates the microphone. “Di Renjie, I am here with representatives of the new government. They are offering you a chance to serve Huaxia in exchange for a pardon of your death sentence, but it would require the castration of your manhood. What do you say to that?”

Warden Lai’s finger leaves the button. There’s a long pause where I expect Di Renjie to blow up in bewildered outrage. Yet he doesn’t. Calmly, he says, “If the task is to become a backup pilot for Her Highness the Empress, I am willing to undergo the procedure.”

I slap Warden Lai’s table. “You weren’t supposed to tell him what he’s being recruited for!”

The warden waves his hands wildly. “No, Your Highness, I swear not even my guards know! Di Renjie just…notices things! Yesterday he figured out my wife and I had a fight with no clue other than that I came in with my robes wrinkled!”

“Maybe that’s a sign you should learn to iron your own robes,” Qieluo says.

“Please, see for yourselves!” Warden Lai activates the microphone again. “Di Renjie, explain why you think this has anything to do with Her Highness!”

Di Renjie’s eyes shift side to side like he’s scanning something no one else can see. “Something happened to His Majesty near the end of the coronation. He was not the one present in the Phoenix Nest Stadium last night. The shadows in close-up shots of him did not match the shadows of him in far shots.”

“I assembled the prisoners to watch the broadcast to put some respect into them,” Warden Lai hastily explains to us before turning back to the microphone. “Shadows? You are on a special level of nonsense today, Di Renjie!”

“It was a mere suspicion until you summoned me here with those two other inmates,” Di Renjie says. “The only traits we have in common are our Chrysalis-capable ages and high spirit pressures. Until a minute ago, I thought we were about to be formally recruited as pilots, but there’s no reason that would entail castration—unless we’re partnering with a co-pilot we must avoid any intimate contact with. That, coupled with how His Majesty appears to be out of commission, leads to the obvious conclusion that we are being recruited for the empress herself. Breaking piloting tradition seems like the exact sort of move she would make. I heard the tinkling of spirit metal on your end, Warden Lai. Her Highness is with you, isn’t she?”

“Whoa,” Taiping breathes out. “This guy is brilliant.”

“Which makes him dangerous,” Sima Yi says. “Especially with his history of insubordination.”

I let out an aggressive sigh. “Again, that was against the previous government, which we have literally destroyed. If we—”

“Your Highness, if you’re there,” Di Renjie lifts his eyes, “I am willing to endure mutilation to become your co-pilot, but you must promise me one thing: that you’ll fight for the rest of the voiceless as hard as you fight for yourself. That includes the prisoners here. No matter what they might’ve done, surely you can see how broken this system is, how it exists to punish the downtrodden and benefit the wealthy. You have to dismantle it. You have to.”

I bite my lip. Why is he imposing this expectation on me? I already have so much to worry about! Just getting more power for women and girls is a daunting enough goal!

“Insolence!” Warden Lai shouts into the microphone. “You’ve got no right to make demands, Di Renjie!”

Sima Yi flips harshly to another file. “I think it’s time to look at the next candidate.”

I say nothing to keep Di Renjie from getting escorted away, yet I can’t stop thinking about him as we review the next two inmates, evaluating their reactions to the possibility of escaping their death sentence on the condition of being castrated. They both react a lot more predictably—immediate outrage and refusal, followed by bargaining attempts and perplexed questions about what kind of task would require them to lose their genitals. As for the crimes that landed them here: the second inmate committed a series of armed robberies that ended in the murder of a store owner, and the third was caught producing pornography so heinous, we groan in united disgust when Warden Lai describes it.

“I don’t care if you choose him or not, castrate him anyway!” Qieluo yells. “Actually, I’ll go do it myself.” She storms toward the door.

Warden Lai chases after her. “Princess-General, please do not make a mess!”

“I do not want to ever link with this guy’s mind.” I block the inmate’s face from my view. “Get him out of my sight!”

“So the choice is between an eerily intelligent rebel and a homicidal robber,” Wan’er muses as a guard ushers the third inmate out of reach of Qieluo’s wrath. “Di Renjie has a much higher spirit pressure and would probably survive more battles with Your Highness, but Feng Xiaobao committed the worse crime, so technically he’s more deserving of the risk of dying in your Chrysalis. What’s Your Highness’ verdict?”

I realize what this choice boils down to: Will you use your power to change or to punish?

“I’ll take both,” I say. “Di Renjie as my main co-pilot, Feng Xiaobao as a secondary option. If I rotate them, the risk can be spread across the two of them.”

Sima Yi makes an indignant noise on the screen. “Your Highness, you can’t—”

“Can’t what , Chairman Sima? If male pilots can have multiple concubine-pilots, why can’t I have multiple eunuch-pilots?”

Sima Yi’s mouth curdles. He slaps down his papers. “We’ll see if His Majesty approves.”