Chapter Five The Strike

CHAPTER FIVE

THE STRIKE

After Qieluo leaves, the maidservant who took care of me while I was comatose brings in a lacquered wooden bed tray with porridge and steamed vegetables. I take better note of her this time. She looks very young, which is interesting. One would think Qin Zheng would’ve entrusted an older, more experienced servant with the responsibility of watching me. Or was it Yizhi who picked her? For any particular reason?

“What’s your name?” I ask while she sets up the tray for me to eat in bed.

She bows her head so deeply her chin almost touches her throat. “It’s Wan’er, my lady. Shangguan Wan’er.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four, my lady.”

“Oh, wow, really?”

Never mind, I am terrible at guessing ages. But that’s still young compared to some of the aunties I’ve seen around the estate.

Color blooms in Wan’er’s round cheeks. “It’s all right. I’m often told I look younger than I am, my lady.”

“Who sent you to look after me and why? Secretary Gao or Qin Zheng?”

Her eyes go huge.

Right, it’s technically a great disrespect to refer to him directly by name.

“I mean, or the emperor ,” I say, so she feels more comfortable continuing this conversation.

She lets out a breath of relief. “It was His Majesty, my lady. He summoned all of us newly hired last month to ask us some questions. I answered honestly. Then I was told to serve you.”

So Qin Zheng deliberately picked a servant who hadn’t had time to develop any loyalty to the Gao family. Yizhi and I can’t trust her to relay messages between us, then, even though I can talk to her without any soldiers present. She’s one more set of eyes and ears for Qin Zheng.

“What kind of questions did he ask?” I interrogate further.

She’s oddly quiet before saying, “If any of us knew much about laborism.”

“What is that?”

Surprise flickers across her face. “The belief that people deserve to reap the fruits of their own labor. That no one should exploit the labor of others for profit.”

“Well, yeah. Doesn’t everyone believe that?”

“Far from it, my lady. Much of the exploitation occurs in ways we don’t think to question. For example, does your family own the land you farm?”

I wince at the mention of my family, but by the casual way she said it, I don’t think she knows what I did to them. I’m not sure exactly what footage is floating around out there. I decide not to bring it up before answering, “No, there’s this family who owns half the mountain my village is on. We pay a portion of our harvests to them each year to use their land.”

“But do your landlords ever contribute to the tilling?”

I snort. “They live in the town down the mountain. I’ve never even seen them.”

“So your family does all the labor on the land, yet your landlords receive a big portion of its yield without so much as setting foot on it?” The nervousness leaves Wan’er’s voice as she speaks. Her back straightens. Her eyes meet mine. “Does this not seem unfair, my lady?”

I blink at her before giving a slow shrug. “They own the land. My ancestors were refugees from Zhou. They had to settle wherever they could.”

“But imagine if your village collectively stopped recognizing that family’s abstract ownership of the land you work on. You wouldn’t have to hand any more harvests to them again.”

“We—we can’t just do that!”

“Why not?”

Is she serious? I open my mouth to list the obvious consequences, yet my words don’t come out so smoothly. “They’d…take us to court. It’s their land, bought with their money.”

“My lady,” Wan’er says with particular emphasis, “you and His Majesty control the courts now. It’s the state that enforces ownership, and you have seized the state. Also, however much your landlords purchased the land for, I’m certain your village has made it back for them many times over. Yet the land will never be yours as long as your landlords extract too much for you to amass the savings to buy it. Do you have no desire to dismantle this system?”

My mind goes blank.

Then I come to my senses. “No, no, I can’t change anything. I don’t control anything. Our dearest emperor does.”

“I think you’ll find His Majesty to be a staunch laborist, my lady. Our history books try their hardest to erase this, but he is. His analysis of the countryside, though, has always been flawed. You can be a voice of the peasantry to him. I believe it’s worth thinking about what changes you could push for to truly transform Huaxia.”

Did she just criticize Qin Zheng?

I look around in reflexive fear of him listening through the walls. Maybe he is. Maybe he got her to say this on purpose to test my reaction. What does he want to hear? Me chastising her? Me asserting I have no ambition to interfere in politics?

The idea of letting everyone defy their landlords is…bold. It would cause exponentially more chaos than what I’ve already unleashed. If this were a week ago, I’d be sure this woman was baiting me to say something subversive so there would be a legal excuse to execute me. But Qin Zheng did rant about rich people and how he wants to “rid society of parasites.” Is he for real? If he is, does he want to hear me enthusiastically support his agenda?

No, enough about what he wants. I need to get what I want.

I shove away the tray of food. “If our dearest emperor is sincere about freeing the masses, he’d be a hypocrite for holding me prisoner. Tell him I won’t eat a single bite until he gives back my spirit armor and lets me into his council meetings.”

He’s not going to let me into his meetings while fighting allegations of being manipulated by me, but the first rule of haggling is to aim high.

Wan’er goes pale. “My lady, you can’t—!”

“You have no say in what I can or cannot do,” I snap. I have to keep my distance from her, or she’ll be used against me. “Tell him what I want. If he doesn’t like it, he can come deal with it himself.”

Time passed more easily when I was unconscious.

The bedchamber’s pervasive silence reminds me too much of when I was locked in a dark cell after I killed Yang Guang, waiting in limbo for my fate while knowing the world outside had forever changed because of my actions. The only difference is my prison is fancier this time.

I stick by my refusal to eat anything, but I let Wan’er change my bandages and help me wash up. My new feet are a monstrous sight, no longer looking like pointed hooves, but wider and flatter, like swollen, discolored pouches of flesh stitched together with black thread and tipped with vague hints of toes. The surgeon broke my bones all over again and realigned them with splints. Fortunately, Wan’er says the swelling will go down. By tying waterproof bags over my feet, I can use the tub in the bathroom, albeit inelegantly, my legs hanging over the edge while my qì-exhausted body immerses in the silky, readily available hot water. My mind strays frequently to my first visit to Chang’an, when I got to spend a week and a half of my recuperation period with Yizhi. On those nights, he would invite me into the washing pool dug into his bathroom floor. I think of the way water slipped down his tattooed skin, the glide of his hands spreading soap over my body, the contours of his hips as I straddled him underwater, the heat of our mouths meeting in the steam. And more innocent moments, too. Shampooing each other’s hair, laughing as we splashed each other with foamy water.

Alone with my memories, I turn them over and over in my head. If I’d taken Yizhi’s offer to go with him to Chang’an instead of letting myself get lifted to the Great Wall with a heart full of vengeance, would Shimin still be alive? Would he have preferred to have never met me? If I’d known where this sequence of events would lead, would I have stopped? Where could I have made a different, better move?

The mess in my head gets so tangled I come close to ridding myself of it by force. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to drown myself in a bathtub. No matter how hard I try to hold myself underwater, I can’t override the instinct to burst out and cling to life.

Wan’er brings me food every few hours. I ignore her every plea for me to eat. She swaps out trays of uneaten food for trays of uneaten food. I bat away her attempts to stick more infusion lines into me. I drink only a little water so I’m not too parched to bargain with Qin Zheng.

A couple of days later, I hear the furious clanging of his armor before he throws the door open. I push myself up, a gnawing in my stomach, my body heavy as a Chrysalis.

“Why must you insist on being so difficult?” He stomps to my side. No more pox scabs mottle his face, just faint white imprints.

My gut twists at how he’s stronger and steadier each time I see him, but I rasp out my chief demand. “I want my armor.”

“So you’ll have the means to take down your guards and go roaming outside? Absolutely not.”

“Then Your Glorious Majesty won’t have an empress.” I drop my head back on my pillow, my voice grating like sand through my throat. “I bet the officials will be so satisfied. They’ll be able to look you in the eye and laugh in their hearts about how they prevented you from doing something you insisted you would do.”

“The central court has nothing to do with your foolishness.”

“That’s not how they’ll see it. And imagine how it’ll look to the masses, seeing you break your promise to make the girl who resurrected you empress the moment you were secure on your throne.”

“I never promised—!”

“Well, that’s what people think you did. Or do you want them to suspect you actually got dragged into crushing a government in sheer confusion and then lied about it to save face?”

Qin Zheng makes a gruff noise. “I am keeping you safe in a world filled with those who wish you dead! Must you be so hung up on pride that you cannot accept this?”

“I’ll decide for myself, what I’ll do for my safety and what I won’t. I don’t need Your Resplendent Majesty to make choices for me.”

“Is that so?” He eyes my latest tray of neglected food on the nightstand. He lands a finger on the edge of a porridge bowl. “It seems you are choosing to compel me to tie you up and force meals down your throat.”

Shimin’s memories of being doused with alcohol flash through me. My stomach clenches.

“Go ahead. I can’t wait for people to hear that you have so little influence over me you can’t even get me to eat by my own will. How’s that for an auspicious start to your new reign? You think you can hide something like this when the court is looking for reasons to question you?”

Qin Zheng’s gaze darkens. Right as I fear he’s about to force-feed me anyway, he says, “Tell me something: what exactly is your relationship with Gao Yizhi?”

I go still as stone. He must have seen enough of my memories to know, or he wouldn’t be bringing this up.

“Exactly what you think it is,” I say with an air of nonchalance. Desperately denying it would only make him more keen to go after Yizhi.

“And you’re aware that even if I need you alive, the same does not go for him?”

I let out a hoarse laugh, the shaking of my shoulders masking the tremor going through me. “You saw me crush my own family when they were being used against me. You felt me doing it even as it tore me apart inside, and you want to gamble on the softness of my heart?”

He frowns, mouth pinching shut.

I go on before I have to hear another threat on Yizhi’s life. “Also, I wouldn’t dismiss Gao Yizhi’s usefulness to you. Who else would you trust to be Imperial Secretary? Everyone else in this era is an utter stranger to you. But if you’ve seen my memories, you know who Yizhi was before you woke up. You know what drives him.”

He may be the only other person in Huaxia who wants to kill the gods as badly as you and me , I would add if it weren’t too dangerous to say out loud. I hope Qin Zheng has realized this.

“Oh?” He tilts his head. “You imply that your memories of him, the side he has shown to you, are true reflections of who he is. Funny. I have already seen enough evidence to the contrary.”

What is that supposed to mean? I bite my cheek to stop myself from asking. Qin Zheng is trying to mess with my head. I trust Yizhi. Whatever he did, it must’ve been necessary.

“No matter what,” I say, “I will not let you dangle his life in front of me. The moment you do anything to him, I’ll consider him lost. I’ll accept that he’s better off dead than being used to control me, and so will he. You’ll…” A tremendous wave of grief rolls through me when I realize I must handle Shimin the same way. I have to think of him as gone. If I hold onto any hope of getting him back, I’ll be like Kuafu from the folk stories, chasing the sun until my sweat runs dry and my body withers.

When I snap back to my senses, Qin Zheng is studying me in silence. I steel myself, continuing as if I didn’t suffer the lapse. “You’ll lose Yizhi as an asset, and I still won’t do what you want. I’d weigh my options before making a move like that.”

He releases a sigh that presses close to a growl. “You can roam as you wish once the frenzy dies down. Cease this childish fit and eat your meals.” He picks up the bowl of porridge. “Have you any idea how much labor went into producing this? And you’re letting it go to waste?”

I roll over in my bed. “Send it to a beggar or something.”

He slams the bowl down on the tray. “I am far too busy for this nonsense.” His cape flaps behind him as he heads for the door.

“Does it make you feel powerful, controlling me?” I croak after him. “Or does the idea of me having a little freedom scare you that much?”

He stops.

“I was asleep for two hundred and twenty-one years, yet all I had to do was wake up, and the world bowed to me once more.” He cuts a glare at me over his shoulder. “I have no need to control you to feel powerful.”

I don’t know if Qin Zheng thinks I’m bluffing, or that I’ll break eventually, but I persist in my refusal to eat. I stop drinking water as well.

Once I push past the most intense phase of hunger, it becomes easier to resist the scents of braised meats and fried tofu. No matter how Wan’er calls or nudges me, I don’t respond. I can barely summon the strength to speak anyway. Sometimes she puts a finger under my nose to check if I’m breathing. Other times I wake to her sneaking spoonfuls of water past my cracked lips, and I have to whack her away. The clattering of all her meal deliveries blends together. I drift in and out of daydreams and nightmares, trying to think of anything except my sand-dry throat and hollow stomach.

My mind is swimming in darkness when a soft glow reaches through my eyelids. I peel them open to the sight of—

“Shimin?” I gasp.

He’s kneeling at my bedside, faint and ethereal, like the mist that surrounded us when we first locked eyes on the Vermilion Bird’s docking bridge.

“ Mei-Niang …” He speaks like a wind, an echo. He brushes his knuckles over my cheek, the touch soft as silk. “Be strong. I believe in you.”

My throat aches, and my eyes sting with hot tears. “You’re not real. You can’t be real.”

He shakes his head with a sad smile. “I will always be with you.”

He puts his hand over mine. I stop breathing, afraid that one stray flutter of air might scatter this illusion.

Then something else disturbs it—sudden sounds outside the bedchamber. Shouts, gunshots, metallic clanging. Flashes of red leak through the gap beneath the door.

Shimin and I exchange an alarmed look.

“Quick, hide!” he says.

I stumble out of bed, repressing a cry of pain as I put my weight on my feet. Their new shape throws me off balance. When I look up, Shimin is gone. I don’t know what that was.

I stagger into the bathroom and fall against the sink counter, my limbs weak and my head woozy. Just after I lock the bathroom door, I hear the door of the bedchamber getting smashed open. Several beats of wood creaking and snapping, followed by a heavy thud.

The metallic clanking of armor rages closer.

“Harlot! Where are you?” a surprisingly boyish voice yells out.

That has to be Liu Che. He’s still in Chang’an?

Right—Qin Zheng sapped the Azure Dragon dry of qì. The unit will need more time to recuperate before it can be flown back to the Han province.

Lights flick on in the bedchamber, spilling around the bathroom door. Heart pounding sluggishly, I feel around for something to defend myself with. The mirror has long since been removed, leaving me without the option to make a glass shiv. I twist open a bottle of hand soap instead and pour it in front of the door. Then I snatch a big towel hanging on the wall and take a few steps back, steadying myself against the sink.

The door handle rattles. The red radiance of Fire qì shines around the door’s edges, then the lock glows like an ember. It melts.

“Meet your nightmare, harlot!” Liu Che kicks the door open, waving a sword.

Skies, that’s not even the right line I said that one time!

I hurl the towel at him. It catches him over the head as I hoped. His sword stabs through the fabric and is inadvertently anchored. I duck around him as he stumbles against the door frame and then slips on the soaped tiles. He crashes onto his back with a massive metallic sound, yelping. With all the remaining strength I can squeeze out, I push through the pain in my feet and bolt for the lantern-lit hallway beyond the bedroom.

Liu Che roars out curses behind me, armor clattering as he gets up. Heat grazes my back. He must be firing qì blasts at me, but thankfully, Wood-type spirit metal doesn’t concentrate qì as well as Fire-type, so it can’t tear through me with explosive force.

However, I abandon any underestimation of Liu Che when I spot my guards on the hallway floor, slashed and burned with deep, charred gashes. The smell of roasted flesh lingers in the air, rousing my hunger in the worst possible way.

“Die, harlot!” Liu Che charges up behind me.

I trip in the hallway, landing hard on my elbows. I keep crawling over the polished wooden floor and trying to get up, but I’ve lost my momentum. I cry out when Liu Che stomps the back of my leg. He rolls me over with his foot. Blazing red eyes greet me. Fire qì heats like lava in his raised sword. I bare my teeth. I will not die with fear on my face.

“Enough!” Qin Zheng’s voice booms through the hallway.

Liu Che lurches back, then drops to his knees. “Your Majesty!”

I glance behind me. Qin Zheng is marching down the hallway with an entourage of guards and servants. One of them darts out from behind his flowing black cape—

I clench every muscle in my body to not call out Yizhi’s name. It feels like another hallucination, except I would never imagine Yizhi in the purple robes of a top-ranking official, his hair pulled up inside a black gauze hat with two flaps in the back. He clutches a large notepad to his chest.

Our eyes meet. There’s a breathless moment in which a thousand things should have been said.

Horror blooms in his eyes at the sight of me. I must look as disheveled, starved, and worn down as I feel. My translucent robe exposes way too much, tracing angles of bones I’ve never been able to see through my skin until now. Heart twinging at Yizhi’s expression, I draw my bandaged feet behind myself and try to at least sit straighter. I avoid looking at him directly so we’re not staring conspicuously at each other.

In one smooth motion, Qin Zheng tugs his cape away from his shoulder guards and tosses it over me. I claw to get my head out from under the thick black fabric.

“Prince-Captain Liu.” Qin Zheng plants himself before us. “Explain yourself.”

Liu Che knocks his forehead against the floor and slaps his palms down flat. “Y-your Majesty, please believe I am acting out of the utmost concern for you and Huaxia. I was told this wicked harlot has deceived you and continues to trouble you!”

Qin Zheng steps past me. I shiver at the unnatural chill he exudes and draw the cape tighter around myself. He pivots and sinks to one knee beside Liu Che. “Who was it that informed you of this?”

Liu Che gapes like a fish while lifting his head. “E-everyone. Everyone is saying it.”

“You trusted that rabble over my judgment?”

“Your Majesty, I only want what’s best for Huaxia!”

“I appreciate your thoughtfulness, Captain Liu. I truly do. But I do not need anyone to question my capacity to make decisions,” Qin Zheng hisses out.

“Please forgive me, Your Majesty!” Liu Che smashes his forehead thrice more on the ground. His green pilot crown, which sprouts vine-like antlers along his head, slips askew.

Qin Zheng gestures at the burned corpses near us. “These soldiers were good men who put their lives on the line for Huaxia. They were fathers to young children, sons to ailing elders. Yet you took them from their families forever, without a single thought.”

“I was thinking of Huaxia, Your Majesty!” Liu Che says between sobs, disconcerting for a boy with fresh blood on his hands.

Then again, who am I to judge?

“You can’t keep this wicked harlot around you!” Liu Che points at me. “She does nothing but lie and manipulate, and Your Majesty deserves better than a twice-used whore! She—”

Qin Zheng seizes Liu Che’s hand with an expression that sends terror straight to my core.

“ Say that word in front of me again .” He tightens his grip around Liu Che’s little finger.

Oh . His mother.

Water qì runs black under the tiny squares that make up Qin Zheng’s gauntlet. Liu Che screams, clutching at his hand. A burst of coldness reaches me, accompanied by the sound of crackling ice. With a heart-jolting noise, Qin Zheng snaps the finger off.

Liu Che’s scream goes jagged. He gawks at the red stump on his hand, so frozen it doesn’t bleed.

“Next time, it’ll be your tongue.” Qin Zheng stuffs the severed finger in Liu Che’s skewed crown.

What little acid that’s left in my shriveled stomach surges into my throat. The hallway tilts, and my vision goes black.

Cold arms catch me before I collide with the ground. When dark spots recede from my vision, Qin Zheng’s half-masked face is right above mine. I fight to get away from him, but he lifts me up, wrapped in his cape.

“Let it be known!” He spins me toward his entourage, toward Yizhi. “By my decree, this woman by the name of Wu Zetian is to become the Empress of Huaxia, to be crowned in a ceremony on the first day of the fourth month! Her piloting power is vital to the war effort. I will not tolerate any further attempts on her life!”

I can’t see Yizhi’s face clearly anymore as he stands in the shadows between lanterns. I only catch the movement of his arm while he writes on his notepad. I shut my eyes and roll my head in the other direction. My cheek hits Qin Zheng’s ice-cold shoulder guard.

As Liu Che wails and cries for forgiveness, Qin Zheng carries me back into the bedchamber.

“Get some food in you now ,” he mutters. “Aside from your spirit pressure, your moderately sumptuous figure was your sole redeeming quality.”

Pointedly ignoring the remark, I wriggle an arm out from beneath his cape and pull myself higher by his neck. “This would not have happened if I’d had my armor,” I snarl over the wretched sounds outside.

“Fine. However, I hope you have learned a lesson about the danger you’re in.”

I don’t have the energy to respond to that. Cherishing his concession, I welcome the darkness that pulls me under.