Chapter Eighteen A Price Worth Paying

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A PRICE WORTH PAYING

Qin Zheng, who’s unusually commendatory about the rally I incited, doesn’t care how many men I pilot with as long as the world doesn’t consider them men anymore. The surgeries happen by the afternoon.

It’s so weird when I think about it, how people act like genitals are all that matter when it comes to being male or female. What’s fundamentally changed about Di Renjie and Feng Xiaobao besides their ability to have children or pee standing up? They still have the same minds, same appearances, and same attitudes and ideas shaped by their upbringing as men. Anyone who meets them after this without knowing what happened would continue to treat them like men. So how can it be said that their masculinity was dependent on those organs they no longer have? If it were that simple to shed one’s gender, I would’ve stabbed myself in the womb long ago.

In any case, Qin Zheng makes sure no one in Huaxia remains in the dark about this concept of a “eunuch-pilot.” Sima Yi goes on a new government-directed talk show, broadcast to every screen and radio, to spin a cover story about why Qin Zheng is sending me off to war in his stead while he “focuses on Huaxia’s rebirth.” During a conversation with the eagerly nodding host—a famous battle commentator who used to yell over livestreams from Gao Enterprises’ camera drones—Sima Yi explains, with diagrams and old military records, how the Yellow Dragon isn’t actually an effective unit against Hunduns and should therefore be saved for thwarting “counter-revolutionary campaigns.”

It’s not a perfect excuse, but it’ll have to do for now. Then after I rebuild the Iron Widows, hopefully the security of the frontiers will never become so worrying that people would clamor for Qin Zheng himself to fight.

There was a dark, venomous time in my life when I would’ve felt triumphant about this turn of events—finally, boys getting mutilated to serve a girl instead of the other way around. Yet no sense of victory stirs in me. Their pain doesn’t alleviate mine or that of any other girls. I’m not going to lose much sleep over it when Di Renjie and Feng Xiaobao both agreed to the procedure in exchange for getting out of the Tianlao, but it doesn’t feel productive, either. It’s just another show of Qin Zheng’s ownership of me, intended to emphasize his boundaries, not mine.

The night before I take off for the frontier, despite my disgust for him, I ask for another training session so I’m as prepared as I can be to put on a show that’ll convince the masses to accept the idea of female commanding pilots.

Once we’re in the privacy of the dream realm, though, he reveals something unexpected.

“You think I truly care about having children?” He laughs. “Hardly. I went along with Chairman Sima’s nonsense as an act for the gods.”

“ The gods want us to have a baby?” I gape.

Then again, why am I surprised? “Go be a dutiful wife, Wu Zetian,” they told me. “Be a dutiful mother.”

“A man with no loved ones left to threaten is an unpredictable liability,” Qin Zheng says. “Since they knew I would resent having this forced upon me, Chairman Sima brought the matter up to me as if it were his own suggestion. But I saw through it. The gods wish to give me a son to give me a weakness.”

“They can’t ‘give’ a son to you,” I snap. “Children don’t pop out of nowhere. I’m the one who’d have to grow it in my body for nine months.”

“Precisely. On my end, I’d have to expend more effort to defy this plan than to go along with it, so if you insist on keeping your womb unused, you’d better prove you are worth more as a pilot than as a mother.”

I wish I could kill him. I really do.

Unfortunately, he’s a great teacher when it comes to wielding power.

For our training this time, he challenges my understanding of qì, urging me to see past the surface differences between its five types.

“Whether Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, or Water, all qì is composed of the same primal particles.” Qin Zheng turns the dream realm pitch-black and manifests a swarm of lights like fireflies between his hands. “What gives rise to their different qualities are the particles’ different configurations.”

The swarm of light shifts across several formations, each arrangement vibrating at a different speed and giving off a different color.

“Spirit metal operates by the same principle, being simply qì in crystallized form, the way vapor can gather into frost.”

The lights condense into a golden lump, which then expands above his palm, revealing its microscopic structure of densely packed particles.

“However, like frost, spirit metal is inherently unstable. I assume you’re aware that raw particulates from the ground cannot be forged into useful constructs. But do you know what is different about spirit metal from a Hundun that gives it the properties we desire?”

I scrutinize Qin Zheng’s glowing diagram. “Something at the microscopic level?”

“The bonds,” he says. “The bonds between its primal particles undergo a change that strengthens its structure and makes it capable of conducting qì with spectacular effect.”

A current of Wood-green qì crackles through the golden particles, making them vibrate faster.

“Observe how the conducted qì can influence the spirit metal’s primal particles. When under the multiplied pressure of a dual-person link in a Chrysalis, the particles can even temporarily transmute into another type.”

Another stream of qì scurries through the golden particles. They vibrate to the point of slipping into a different arrangement, turning green.

“So it has to be two inputs?” I ask. “It’s not possible for a person to transmute spirit metal on their own?”

“I would never say ‘impossible’ when it comes to spirit metal, but I found no records of such in the latest scientific literature. Neither did I find any progress in artificially replicating the bond change in Hundun-derived spirit metal.”

He drops a bitter look at his diagram, the first time I’ve seen him conflicted about the fact that his power comes from the very enemy he swore to defeat.

“Alas.” He lets the diagram vanish. “Let’s move on to the channeling of qì.”

Suddenly he’s behind me, sliding his hand up my spine. Before I can protest the touch, Wood qì—which I’ve never wielded before—surges into me. It races like electricity through my dream form, lighting me up in green meridians, conducting so quickly it feels like it might burst from me, the way leaves rupture from trees in spring.

“ Feel it .” Qin Zheng’s voice rebounds from everywhere at once. “Feel how differently qì can behave from what you’re used to, how the difference arises from a simple rearrangement of particles. It is a misconception that each individual has but one or two set types of qì inside them. In the way that an impulsive person can learn restraint, we all have the capacity to channel qì types we have weaker affinities toward.”

The sensation overwhelms me, so much that everything turns inside out and I am within the qì instead of the other way around. Microscopic particles now look as large as lanterns, rushing past me in green streaks. Then they shift in color and speed and density as Qin Zheng makes me experience the other four types of qì.

I lose myself in the space between these primal particles, aware for the first time of how everything in the world is shaped by the same fundamental units in eternal motion, even in something as rigid as Earth-type spirit metal. Its particles can hone into Metal type, loosen into Water type, agitate into Wood type, or rouse into Fire type. Change is all there is.

It’s no wonder Qin Zheng is so much more capable than us modern pilots. There’s no way an ordinary strategist could invoke this sort of understanding through words alone.

When he grounds our dream forms again, I find myself sitting across from him in the courtyard of a historical military base. Between us is a large basin of drifting iridescent vapors.

“I noticed you pilots nowadays must channel your most familiar qì before you can access other types.” He swirls his hand in the vapors. “That is a wasteful and unnecessary crutch. You should be able to reach for any type of qì and channel it independently.” He teases a trail of pure red vapor out of the iridescence. “I know Metal is your most dominant affinity, and Fire is your secondary. Now work on channeling Fire without drawing along Metal.”

“Okay.” Thinking of how Fire qì feels—its heat, its explosive power—I try to copy what he did.

It’s a lot harder than it looks. The vapors aren’t tangible enough to be picked up. After waving my hand inside the basin for a bit, I feel a slight coolness that I’m able to coax out by mental will, but what emerges is Metal white. Which is the problem. I churn the vapors some more, feeling for a hint of hotter qì, yet I can’t get any red to emerge without first pulling out a substantial amount of white. It’s as though the overpowering sensation of Metal qì prevents me from feeling anything else until I get it out of the way.

Qin Zheng leans with his knuckles against his cheek, looking bored.

“You know,” I say, partly out of remembering Di Renjie and partly so we’re not both fixated solely on my failures, “after visiting the Tianlao, I was thinking we should release all prisoners in jail for protesting the old order. Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical to keep them locked up when we overthrew the same government they fought against?”

Qin Zheng’s eyes slide sideways in thought. Two seconds later, he says, “You’re right. I shall issue a pardon order tomorrow.”

“Oh.” My latest attempt at isolating Fire qì drops from my hand.

He frowns. “You sound disappointed.”

“No, it’s just…a big move to make. And tomorrow is very soon.”

“Why delay? You raised a good point. This is honestly an oversight on my part.” He scratches the edge of his antlered crown. “On my first day awake, I decriminalized laborist activities and freed those detained on such charges, but of course anyone held on other anti-establishment felonies would more likely be a comrade of ours than not. If they prove their understanding of laborist principles through a written test, they could become a vanguard of the revolution.”

Guilt squeezes my heart. “Then Di Renjie will have missed that by only a day…”

I’m not sure if Di Renjie identifies as a laborist, but I can’t imagine him struggling with a test.

Qin Zheng squints as if reading something on my face, then says, “He agreed to his fate, and he may prefer having a direct line to you over being another organizer on the streets. It appears he wishes to influence my policies through you. I mind it not, as long as his ideas are sound.”

Oh. It was my memories that Qin Zheng was reading.

I shake off the prickle of discomfort. “I guess this just feels…too easy. Too good to be true, that we could talk about mass--pardoning prisoners and have it start happening the next day.”

“Then why propose it? How slowly did you expect me to take this? Or is it that you secretly wished for me to say no so you could tell yourself you made an effort to bring change without having to face the consequences it might entail?”

“That’s not—what I—” I trip over my words at the worst time.

Qin Zheng smiles. “You are unused to wielding power, I see.”

I stir the vapors more harshly and compose myself before speaking again. “Aren’t you at least a little concerned that if we change too much, too quickly, all of this will fall apart? I know Your Majesty doesn’t want to hear this, but you’re pretty easy to kill now.”

“Oh?” He leans over the basin. “You’re worried about me?”

I bite my lips together to hold in a flash of fury. “Qin Zheng, the hopes and fates of thirty-four million people are tied to you.”

He makes a tsk sound. “Insolence! Do not call my name directly. Also, thirty-four million? Why merely thirty-four million?”

“What do you mean, ‘merely’? That’s how many people…” I trail off when another mocking smirk rises on Qin Zheng’s face.

“That is closer to the population in my time,” he says. “Did you miss a digit wherever you got that number? The latest census of Huaxia shows a hundred and thirty-four million.”

“Fine, a hundred and thirty-four million people. Same point.”

“I am not taking pointers from someone who does not even know the correct population of her nation.”

As I ponder whether it’d be worth the drama to dump this basin over his head, he turns more serious. “I jest, but I am fully aware of the fragility of life. All the more reason to release political prisoners as soon as possible so they can aid in community organization. The revolution cannot hinge on me alone.” He falls silent, looking deep in thought, then regards me with a renewed intensity. “If something happens to me, throw open the armories and tell the masses to arm themselves before the reactionaries come for them.”

My hand goes still in the vapors. “You mean give everyone guns?”

“The workers and peasants, yes. Do not make the same mistake my allies made in my time and assume the parasites will ever give up on the idea of striking back.”

My dream form sways at the thought of dealing with the upheaval in Huaxia without him. Something Taiping said comes back to me: “ 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? ”

My attention drifts to the glowing thread between me and Qin Zheng. I imagine it severed and dangling uselessly.

“Do you have any idea how powerful modern guns are?” I say, unable to hide the quaver in my voice.

“I’ve witnessed demonstrations. In an ideal world, I would confiscate and destroy them all, but since there is no realistic possibility of keeping these weapons entirely out of the hands of counter-revolutionaries, I’d rather the masses have the capacity to fight back. I aim to put every civilian through basic firearms training so they’ll know what to do if they must utilize one.”

“That sounds like the quickest way to guarantee a terrible civil war!”

“Empress, we are already in a civil war. You began it the moment you crushed the Palace of Sages with all those elites inside.”

He says it matter-of-factly, with no air of blame. But, even knowing he would’ve made the same decision if I hadn’t, the weight of the rubble descends on my mind, bringing flashes of flesh bursting through skin and eyeballs popping out of skulls.

“On the path to true change, some battles cannot be avoided,” he adds. “I was not the one who incited my unification campaigns, you know. The other six nations declared war on me first.”

“They…did?”

“I came to power in the chaos of a worker uprising. It terrified the other nations. They labeled me a ‘pariah regime,’ lamented a ‘humanitarian catastrophe’ under my rule. Four coalitions, they formed to take me down. Funny how none of that concern came when thousands wasted away in factories, only when we began stringing industrialists up on lampposts.” He shakes his head. “Anyhow, the solidarity among the owning class transcends borders, and they tolerate no challenge. So I, too, transcended the borders.”

“You’re saying the other six nations forced you to conquer them?”

“Yes, when they refused to coexist with me,” he says, with no trace of irony. “Do you understand what a revolution is? A revolution is always a tragedy, a destructive force unleashed by those stripped of every last option for peace. There’s not a revolutionary in history who doesn’t wish they could’ve gotten what they wanted within the world order they knew, but you cannot reform a system designed to keep power out of your hands. I learned this lesson long ago. So have some faith in my judgment, will you?”

“Your past judgment got you knocked out of the regular stream of history in the prime of your life.”

I regret the words as soon as they’re out. It’s his turn to look like he wants to dump the basin over my head.

“Okay, that wasn’t fair,” I say before he can act on the urge. “Not like you could’ve fist-fought a virus. I’m just worried this will spiral out of control and implode on us. How do we know when to stop before we go too far?”

“Too far?” He scoffs. “We’ve hardly enacted any changes, and you’re worried about going too far. What has gotten into you, empress? This was not the attitude you had when you dragged me into crushing your government while I was half awake, or when you incited that street rally.”

Slowly, I raise a dumbfounded look upon him.

He doesn’t see it? He doesn’t realize?

“I learned that drastic actions have drastic consequences,” I say, hollow.

You , I can’t help but think. You are consequence enough for a lifetime.

Mercifully, he doesn’t appear capable of hearing my exact streams of thought, or he would’ve killed me many times over by now.

“I mean,” I add, “after your first revolution, the world literally got worse than you ever thought it would.”

“Not all of it!” he says, somewhat sheepishly. “I may wholly condemn your era in my speeches, but I have in fact had some pleasant surprises. Imagine my relief when I discovered we no longer need to print millions of ration booklets for families across Huaxia, because a digital platform is sufficient. The improved production techniques and transportation methods also mean we can fulfill the rations without much difficulty. Have you any idea what game-changing miracles these would have been in my first reign? There is much we can fix by simply repurposing such technology to serve the masses rather than the elites.”

“Serve the masses,” I echo incredulously.

He tilts his head. “Yes?”

“You sound so idealistic sometimes despite being…y ou .”

“That is false; I am a materialist,” he says with a scowl. “Do not confuse me with the idealist laborists, who do nothing but fantasize about the perfect bloodless revolution while criticizing every attempt in reality for failing to match their vision.”

“What about our reality makes you think we could actually make a government that serves the masses ?” A sudden despair comes over me, like water up to my neck. “Yes, we can tell the masses to rise up and destroy the current elites—but then what? People will rush and shove to become the new elites squeezing everything out of everyone else, because that’s what humans always do!” I say, thinking of those in the ration line who scooped themselves more rice at their first opportunity. I clutch my head. My voice is small when I next speak. “What is the point of all of this if it’ll fall apart the moment we’re not vigilant enough? We’re going against human nature itself.”

Qin Zheng watches me in heavy silence, then pushes to his feet and turns around. “Come with me.”

As he walks ahead, our surroundings transform into a street full of ghostly people marching in ratty clothes. I step over the forgotten basin of vapor to follow him. This new scene is much less vivid, the low buildings on either side of the street hazy in detail. The people, blurry at the edges, hold up tools, wooden poles, and signs made from paper or cloth. They pump their fists toward the smoky sky while chanting in sync.

Everything is too indistinct for me to make out exactly what’s on their signs or what they’re chanting, but I don’t need to. They are fed up, and they want better for themselves. That much is clear.

“You believe human nature consists of greed and selfishness,” Qin Zheng says, while weaving to the front of the rally. “I do not disagree with you regarding that, but I do disagree on where it leads. If the fate of society is sealed by human self-interest, how is it that a minuscule fraction of our species can control all vital resources and compel the wider majority to toil for them?”

The rally slows to a standstill, though the people don’t stop shouting. A line of soldiers yells back at the crowd, rifles raised.

Qin Zheng keeps speaking over the incorporeal voices. “When someone stomps their boot on us and tells us to labor for them while they sit and reap most of the value, our instinct is to resist. There is nothing natural about this arrangement. It requires considerable, constant force to maintain.”

The rally swells a few steps forward.

The soldiers open fire.

In spite of the unreality, I cry out and lunge to pull down a woman next to me. My hand goes through her, useless to stop a bullet from striking her chest. Her body jerks violently, splattering blood. She crumples to the street along with many others in the front rows. Phantom screams echo through the air.

I draw back my hand, feeling slightly silly for reacting. Yet, at the same time, I can’t shake the bone-deep intuition that this really happened at some point in the past.

As the woman’s blood soaks through her protest sign in a red triangle, like the one on the Dragon Head Flag, the scene shifts again. The bodies on the ground fade away, and another mass of people confronts another line of soldiers. The street is different, and so are the soldiers and their uniforms, but the grimy, ragged crowd chants with the same vigor. They beckon to the soldiers. A few begin to lower their rifles.

Then a loud noise goes off behind us.

I don’t see what caused it. It sounded more like it came from an alley than from the crowd. It doesn’t injure any of the soldiers.

They reposition their rifles and fire back anyway.

More blood. More screams. More death.

Before I can catch my breath and demand to know why Qin Zheng is making me watch this, the scene resets yet again. Another street. Another time. Another line of soldiers, another crowd of people.

“If to exploit is an element of human nature,” Qin Zheng lifts his arms as the clash repeats over and over, “then this , to resist exploitation, is also human nature. No exploiter has ever lived in peace without their weapons, their soldiers, and their propaganda and lies. And I have enough faith in human self-interest to believe that those who do the true labor of society will rise for their own sake until there are no more exploiters to combat, however many eons it may take. Every oppressor, through their denial of humanity, sows the seed of their own destruction.”

In the next manifestation, the soldiers nod at each other before turning their rifles around and charging as one with the people.

“Of course, it will not be easy,” Qin Zheng adds as the rally streams past us toward whatever powers once kept them divided. “But every attempt is worth something, even the failures, because they can teach us what to avoid the next time. Dare to believe the world can be better than this, empress. That would be the true manifestation of collective human interest. After all, a society that takes care of its own does not produce children who grow up dreaming of burning it down.”

He looks at me as though he’s telling an inside joke between us. A shiver travels through me when I see my own all-consuming rage reflected in his eyes.

I have never hated someone so much and yet not wanted them to die.