The Corpse Reader

35

From what seemed like very far away, Cí could hear the guard saying he didn’t see the point in reviving a man who was about to be executed. But he did as he was told and emptied several buckets of water over Cí’s bloody, insensate body.

Cí moaned, trying to open his swollen eyes.

“You should take better care of yourself,” said Feng, handing Cí a cloth. “Here, clean yourself up a bit.”

Cí’s focus gradually came back. Feng stood over him like a man inspecting an insect he’d just crushed. Cí tried moving but found he was still chained to the wall.

“These guards can be so brutal sometimes!” said Feng. “Still, I suppose that’s their job. Water?”

Cí didn’t want to accept anything from Feng, but he was so thirsty he felt as if his insides were burning up, and he drank a little from the cup.

“I must say,” said Feng, “I’ve always held your astuteness in high esteem, but today you really surpassed yourself. Shame, really, because unless you take it all back, that same shrewdness is going to get you hanged.”

Cí managed to open one of his eyes, only to get a glimpse of Feng’s insincere smile.

“Bastard,” he muttered. “Same shrewdness you used to frame my brother?”

“Oh, you managed to work that out, too? Took you some time, didn’t it? Well, from one expert to another,” he said as he nudged Cí playfully, “you must agree it was a rather excellent play! Once Shang was out of the way, someone needed to be incriminated for it, and your brother, well, he was perfect. The three thousand qián one of my men somehow lost to him in a bet…the purse swap once we’d arrested Lu…the drug we used on him so he wouldn’t be able to speak at his trial…and the best bit, the sickle, and the way we smeared blood all over it and waited for the flies to do the rest.”

Cí was struggling to understand. His skull was still ringing with the blow to his head.

“So it seems that nosing around in other people’s books runs in your family. Nasty habit,” he said, shaking his head. “Your father wasn’t even satisfied sticking his beak in my accounts; he had to go and blab about it to his little friend Shang! I didn’t really have much choice after that. I tried to warn him, but when I visited that night, he really became quite unreasonable. Talking about reporting me to the authorities! Refusing to hand over the papers that would incriminate me! So we had to blow up the house. Should’ve done it sooner, really. Oh, and the idea of using the gunpowder rocket to mask the wounds? That idea came to me that evening, too; it was the thunder that made me think of it.”

Cí couldn’t talk. So that was why Lu had taken Cí’s sickle when he hadn’t been able to find his own—Feng had taken Lu’s for the setup.

“Come on, Cí!” Feng suddenly roared. “Did you really think a bolt of lightning came down from heaven and finished your parents? Let me know when you decide to stop dreaming and join us in the real world.”

Cí wished he could believe this was all some terrible nightmare. It was too much to absorb. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Feng was still in front of him with a nearly rapturous look on his face.

“What did your family ever do for you, anyway? Compared with me? You should thank me for having extracted you from that rat hole.” He began pacing the room. “I made you! Ingrate. You’d have been the same as any other canal rat if it weren’t for me…You were the one good thing about the Song family, its saving grace! And I thought, when you showed up, we could all be happy together—you, me, Blue Iris.” He smiled at the thought of his wife before whispering, “You were like the son I never had…”

Cí felt numb watching Feng’s demented display.

“We could still be that! A family!” Feng continued. “Let’s put this all behind us! This is where you belong, with us! Anything you want, you can have. Wealth? To study? You can have it all! A little push from me here, and you’ll be taking the exams like you always dreamed; a little shove there, you’ll have a top spot in the administration. What you’ve always wanted! Don’t you see what I could do for you? Why would I be telling you all this otherwise? I want us to be a family, Cí. Just the three of us!”

Not long before, Cí would have jumped at the chance of joining the judiciary, but now his only desire was to bring honor back to his father—and that meant unmasking this lunatic imposter, this murderer here in the cell with him.

“Get away from me!” Cí shouted.

Feng laughed.

“What? Do you really think you can turn me down? Think I’m going to tell you all this and then let you ruin me?” He laughed again. “Or maybe you think you can beat me!”

“I don’t need you to tell me anything,” muttered Cí. “I’m going to take you down anyway.”

“I see! I wonder, what might you be thinking of saying about me? Hmm. That I killed Kan? That I embezzled money? Gods, boy. You must really have lost it if you think anyone’s going to believe you now.”

“I’ve got proof,” Cí managed to say.

“Really?” said Feng, going to the far end of the cell and taking something from a bag. “You wouldn’t mean this, by any chance, would you?” He walked back over to Cí with the model of the hand cannon. “You weren’t hoping this could save you, were you? Oh, well.” And at this, he threw the plaster to the floor, shattering it in a thousand pieces.

Cí shut his eyes as the fragments hit his body. He couldn’t look at Feng. Not while he was still alive.

“What now?” sneered Feng. “Going to beg for mercy like your miserable parents before they died?”

Cí almost ripped the chains from the wall. Feng stood back and watched with enjoyment as Cí grappled with the shackles.

“Pathetic,” said Feng, laughing. “Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to let you bring me down? I could have you tortured right now, and do you think anyone would hear your cries? Or bother to save you if they did?”

“Well, go on then!” screamed Cí. “Why don’t you? What are you waiting for?”

“Hah! Just so I can get sentenced later? I don’t think so. Clever boy.” Feng shook his head. “Guard!” he called.

The guard came in with a bamboo staff in one hand and an implement resembling pliers in the other.

“Sometimes prisoners lose their tongues. Did you know that? Shame, it does make it awfully difficult for them to defend themselves.”

These were Feng’s final words before he went out, leaving Cí alone with the guard.

Just as Cí doubled over from the first blow to his gut, the next one came down across his back. The guard grinned and rolled his sleeves up as Cí tried to protect himself from someone he knew would deliver as much pain as necessary to get paid. Cí had seen it all before. First the beating, then he’d have to sign the confession. Then his nails would be pulled out, his fingers broken, his tongue cut out. With all this done, no prisoner could write down or speak the truth. He thought about his family and the fact that, no matter how desperately he wanted to, he might not be able to avenge their terrible deaths.

The blows continued to rain down. His vision clouded over and he drifted in and out of consciousness. His parents whispered to him: Fight, they said. Don’t give up. His mouth and throat filled with the iron-like taste of his own blood. What was left of his spirit was draining away. He could let himself die now and bring an end to this useless torment, but his father’s spirit urged him on. Another blow. And another. Through his nose, he inhaled a mix of blood and air, and when he felt it reach his lungs, he exhaled as hard as he could, expelling the cloth that had been stuffed in his mouth. Finally he could say something.

“I’ll confess,” he mumbled.

This didn’t stop the guard from hitting him once more, as though Cí’s sudden decision had interrupted his fun. Satisfied, the guard removed the chains from Cí’s wrists and handed him the confession document. Cí took the brush in his trembling hand and scribbled at the bottom of the page. Then the brush fell from his hand, leaving a trail of blood and ink on the page. The guard looked disgusted but said it would do. He gave it to another guard outside the door, told him to take it to Feng, then came back and stood over Cí with the pliers in hand.

“Now,” he said, “let’s have a look at those fingers of yours.”

Cí was too weak to resist as the guard grabbed his right wrist and clamped the pliers on the edge of his thumbnail. He tightly squeezed the pliers and yanked. Cí barely flinched, which annoyed the guard. He prepared to pull off the next nail, but instead of yanking this one straight out, he ripped upward so the nail stood loose from the finger. Cí let out only a grunt.

Annoyed by this passivity, the guard shook his head.

“Well,” he growled, “since you aren’t using that tongue of yours to complain, maybe we should relieve you of that as well.”

Cí felt his father’s spirit coursing through him, spurring him on.

“Have you ever pulled out a tongue before?” Cí managed to ask.

The guard squinted his small dark eyes.

“Now you talk?”

Cí tried to force a smile, but instead found himself spitting bloody phlegm.

“Pulling out the tongue will bring the neck veins with it. I’ll bleed out like a pig, and there will be no way to stop me from dying.” He paused. “Do you know what happens to someone who kills a prisoner before he’s been sentenced?”

“Save it,” said the guard, but he let go of the pliers, knowing full well that it was a crime punishable by death.

“You really don’t get it,” said Cí. “Why do you think Feng left? So none of this could be blamed on him!”

“I said shut it!” He punched Cí in the stomach. Cí doubled over on the floor.

“Where are the doctors who are supposed to stop me from bleeding out?” he gasped. “If you obey Feng, you know I’ll die, and he’ll deny having given the order. You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”

The guard hesitated, and Cí was sure the guard knew Cí was right. Plus there had been no witnesses, so it would be Feng’s word against the guard’s. Still, he picked up the pliers again and turned on Cí.

“Stop right there!” came a shout from outside the cell.

Cí and the guard looked up in unison. It was Bo, accompanied by two sentries.

Suddenly Cí was being pulled, but in what direction he had no idea…Was he standing now? Salts were waved beneath his nose, and he was jolted into awareness.

“Come on!” said Bo. “We must hurry. The trial’s about to begin again.”

It was morning. Cí realized he’d survived a night of torture.

On their way to the courtroom, Bo told Cí everything he’d learned, but Cí was finding it hard to listen. His mind was that of a predator, and all he could focus on was the thought of Feng’s jugular. But as the court came into sight again, he began to pay attention to Bo’s discoveries. Bo stopped just before they went in, wiping Cí’s face and giving him clean robes to put over his bloody, grimy clothes.

“Be careful,” said Bo. “Try to make it look like you’ve got yourself together. Remember that accusing a court official amounts to the same thing as accusing Ningzong himself.”

When the two soldiers made Cí kneel before the throne, the emperor himself let out a gasp. Cí’s face was a mess of bruises and cuts. His two nailless fingers were bleeding. Feng smiled nervously. Bo stood a few paces from Cí, a leather bag slung over his shoulder. The gong sounded to announce that the court was in session again.

Feng took the floor first. He was wearing his old judge’s robes and the mortarboard that indicated he was on the side of the prosecution.

“Some of you here, I’m sure, have felt the blows of disappointment from time to time—when unscrupulous colleagues have threatened to ruin you, or when a woman has betrayed you for a wealthier suitor, or when unfair claims are brought against you.” Feng turned to the audience. “But I can assure you that none of those situations compare with the suffering and bitterness I now feel in my heart.

“Here before us, kneeling in front of our beloved emperor, you see the worst of imposters, the most ungrateful and insidious man alive. The accused has been living under my roof, and until yesterday I treated him like a son. I nurtured him, saw that he had an education, urged him to mature. I am childless, and I placed all my hopes in Cí Song. But to my deep, deep regret, I have learned that beneath that lamb’s clothing there is the worst kind of vermin imaginable: perverse, traitorous, and, yes, even murderous.”

“Once the proof was brought before me, I felt I had no choice but to support Gray Fox. It pained me to have to spill Cí’s blood, I can tell you, but I knew we had to see this confession.” He held the document up for all to see. “These are the hardest words a father could ever have to read. Unfortunately, though, it was the will of the gods, so that we might be saved the spectacle of more lies. Justice must now be served in regard to this despicable lowlife.”

The emperor carefully read the confession note before handing it to the official to register its content. Ningzong stood and looked at Cí with a dark hatred.

“With this document in mind, I hereby—”

“Not my signature…” groaned Cí, spitting blood on the floor.

The astonishment in the room was palpable. Feng came forward, trembling.

“It’s not my signature on that document!” cried Cí, the effort almost causing him to topple forward.

Feng flinched as if listening to a ghost.

“Your Majesty,” he said quietly. “He confessed—”

“Silence!” roared Ningzong, peering around the room as he considered what to do next. “Maybe he did ratify this document,” he said, pausing, “and maybe not. But in any case, every prisoner has the right to make his case.”

He sat on his throne once more. His face couldn’t have been more severe, or more regal, as he nodded at Cí to proceed.

Cí touched his forehead to the floor.

“Dear Sovereign,” he said, but just these two words brought on a bloody coughing fit. Bo stepped forward to help him, but a guard stood in his way. Cí took as deep a breath as he could before continuing. “In front of all the people present here today, I should confess my guilt. A guilt that’s eating me from inside.” Another murmur ran around the room. “I’m guilty of ambition. Ambition blinded me, and I became unable to distinguish right from wrong. And in my blindness, I trusted a man who is hypocrisy incarnate, the very body and soul of evil. Just as he says he looked on me as a son, I once regarded him as a father, but I now know him to be the worst of criminals, a snake of the most poisonous kind.”

“Hold your tongue!” warned the official who had been directing the proceedings. “You know that anything said against one of the emperor’s men is a slur on the emperor himself.”

Cí nodded to acknowledge that he knew the seriousness of his accusations, then fell into another coughing fit.

“Majesty!” shouted Feng before Cí could recover. “Are you really going to listen to this? Slander and lies! He knows it’s his only chance to save his skin.”

The emperor pursed his lips.

“Feng is in the right. Either show us some evidence, Cí Song, or I’ll have you executed immediately.”

“I can assure you, Majesty, there’s nothing in the world I would like more than to prove my innocence.” Cí shook his head, and when he looked up the determination had returned to his face. “And that’s why I’ll now demonstrate that I was the one, not Gray Fox, who worked out that Kan didn’t commit suicide. I was the one who told Feng of the evidence. And it was Feng who, rather than bringing the news directly to Your Majesty, broke his promise to me and gave the information to Gray Fox.”

“I’m waiting,” said the emperor, clearly losing his patience.

“In that case, I need permission to ask you a question, Majesty.” Ningzong nodded. “I suppose Gray Fox would have talked you through the details that led him to his conclusion.”

“Yes,” confirmed the emperor. “He did.”

“Details so strange, so specific, and so obscure that no other judge could possibly have observed them beforehand.”

“Exactly.”

“Things that have not been spoken here.”

“Get to the point!”

“In that case, Majesty, tell me, how could I possibly know those same details? Like the fact that Kan was made to write a false confession, that he was drugged and stripped naked by two people who then strung him up.”

“What kind of nonsense is this?” said Feng. “He knows because he was the one who carried out the act!”

“I’m about to prove that is also not the case,” said Cí, fixing Feng with a threatening look before turning back to Ningzong. “Dear Sovereign, did Gray Fox talk to you about the detail of the noose’s vibration marks? Did he explain that Kan, drugged as he must have been, didn’t struggle? That the mark left in the dust on the beam was neat rather than showing any sign of agitation?”

“Yes, yes, but what on earth has this got to do with—”

“Please, one last question: Is the noose still attached to that beam?”

The emperor glanced over at Gray Fox, who nodded in the affirmative.

“In that case, Gray Fox’s lies can be checked once and for all. That mark isn’t there anymore. I accidentally wiped it out when I was up there checking how the rope had moved. Which means by the time Gray Fox came to examine the room, the mark wasn’t there. He only knew because I told Feng, and Feng told him.”

Now Ningzong looked inquiringly at the prosecution. Gray Fox hung his head, but Feng, smiling, was ready with a retort.

“Nice try, but a bit predictable. Any idiot could tell that just by untying the corpse the dust up there would be rubbed out. Gods, Majesty! How long do we have to go on being insulted by this charlatan’s stupidities?”

Ningzong merely stroked his whiskers and turned his attention to the confession paper. The process was stalling. He ordered the transcriptionist to be ready and stood to announce the sentence, but Cí stepped forward.

“Please, one last chance!” he said. “And if you’re still not convinced, I swear to you I will stab myself in the heart.”

Ningzong frowned and glanced at Bo, who nodded.

“One last chance,” Ningzong said, seating himself once more.

Cí wiped the blood from around his mouth. He signaled to Bo, who came over and handed him the leather bag.

“Majesty,” said Cí, holding the bag up so Ningzong could see it. “Inside this bag there is a piece of evidence that will both prove my innocence and unmask a terrible plot. A scheme hatched through heartless ambition and based on an awful invention: the most dangerous weapon ever dreamed by the minds of men. A cannon so lightweight that it can be shot without the normal support a cannon requires, so small that it can be concealed in a person’s robes, so lethal that it can be used to kill, time and again, at a distance and with great accuracy.”

“More nonsense!” roared Feng. “Is he going to try and bring witchcraft in here?”

Cí’s only answer was to reach his hand deep into the bag and pull out a small cannon made of bronze. Ningzong looked astonished. The blood drained from Feng’s face.

“I found the remains of an unusual ceramic mold at the bronze maker’s workshop after it burned down. I managed to piece the mold together, but then it was stolen from my room at Judge Feng’s. Luckily, though,” Cí said, and at this, he couldn’t help but turn a smile in the direction of Feng and Gray Fox, “I’d already made a plaster cast, which I hid at the Ming Academy. Before I knew of Feng’s deception, I asked if he would retrieve it and look after it. But I found out about his trickery just in time and changed the note of authorization, telling Ming’s servant, who was guarding the evidence, only to give Feng the plaster cast…but not this replica!” Cí paused, looking around the room. “Feng destroyed the mold to try and save himself, but little did he know I’d already ordered Ming’s servant to have another made from the plaster cast. A true replica of the original weapon.” He held it aloft again. “This very one.”

The emperor seemed fascinated by the hand cannon.

“But,” he said, “you still haven’t explained what this strange contraption has to do with any of the murders.”

“This contraption, Your Majesty, was the cause of all those deaths.” Cí brought it forward, bowing and handing it to the presiding official, who then handed it to the emperor. “Feng,” continued Cí, “whose only motivation in life is money, designed this perverse instrument and had it made. Furthermore, he was planning to sell the secret to the Jin. And how did he finance all this? By embezzling state funds from the salt trade. The eunuch, Soft Dolphin, as many people here today know, was an honest and scrupulous auditor, and at the time of his death his job was to keep accounts of the salt trade. Feng began siphoning off so much money for himself that it began to show in the books. And when Soft Dolphin confronted Feng, Feng had him eliminated.”

“Slander!” cried Feng. “This is all pure—”

“Silence!” said the official before nodding to Cí to carry on.

“Like my father before him, Soft Dolphin also noticed that some of the embezzled funds were being used to buy up a very specific kind of salt—it’s known as saltpeter. An expensive product, difficult to manufacture, and used primarily to add to the mix that makes up gunpowder. Soft Dolphin’s accounts also show that he’d figured out something else: a considerable increase in the earnings of three men who apparently had nothing in common. An alchemist. An explosives expert. A bronze maker. And I think most people in the room can probably guess what ended up linking those three men together: they all ended up dead. Soft Dolphin’s final act was to cut the funds, which prevented Feng from making progress in his research. And Feng couldn’t have that.”

Now Cí took another document from Bo and handed it forward.

“However, Soft Dolphin was not actually the first victim. That unfortunate honor went to a Taoist monk by the name of Yu. As you’ll see in the report, his salt-corroded hands, the carbon under his fingernails, and the small yin-yang tattoo on his thumb showed he worked in the manufacture of gunpowder. When Feng didn’t pay what he’d promised, the old alchemist objected and ended up being shot dead by the very weapon he’d been helping Feng create.”

Cí turned a defiant look Feng’s way.

“The hand cannon shoots a scaled-down cannonball. It entered through Yu’s chest, broke a rib, and came out through his back, ending up stuck in a nearby wooden beam of some kind. Feng, wanting to hide any incriminating signs, recovered the small cannonball and tried to conceal the nature of the chest wound, enlarging and scraping it out to make it look like the result of either an animal attack or a macabre ritual.

“Next—the very next day, in fact—the young explosives expert was killed. I was able to identify his work due to the highly unusual scarring to his face, which I subsequently saw on a living man who told me gunpowder had exploded in his face. Feng’s motives were similar, but this time it was a stab to the heart that killed the victim. Bo has since found out that such specialists work wearing visors, which matches with the fact this corpse had none of the scarring immediately around his eyes. Again, Feng worked on the wound to try and make it look like the first one and the result of another attack or ritual murder.

“Now we come to Soft Dolphin. Since his disappearance would inevitably draw suspicion, Feng first tried to pay him off. He knew of Soft Dolphin’s passion for antiques and tried to buy the eunuch’s silence with a framed poem of incalculable value. At first Soft Dolphin went along with it, but when he found out Feng’s true intentions, he tried to renege on the deal. He was stabbed to death and, like the others, his wound was tampered with.

“Last to die was the bronze maker—the man who actually built the mold and cast the hand cannon for Feng. The murder occurred the night of the Jin reception, in your very own gardens, Majesty. I found soil just like the soil around the palace walls under the bronze maker’s fingernails. Feng stabbed him, and with somebody’s help dragged the not-yet-dead body to the walls, where the bronze maker struggled before his head was chopped off.

“So you see, Feng planned and carried out every single one of the murders, beheading or disfiguring the corpses to make their identification difficult and to suggest the involvement of some criminal sect.”

To this, the emperor said nothing, but merely stroked his beard for a time.

“So…” he said eventually, “what you’re saying is that this small piece of artillery has great destructive potential.”

“Imagine every soldier having one. The greatest power a human mind has ever conceived.”

Feng was visibly shaken as he stepped forward to try and formulate a reply. But the anger etched in his face was still fearsome—as fearsome as the weapon that Cí had just described, if not more so. He pointed at Cí and yelled.

“Majesty! I demand that this prisoner be immediately punished for these foundless accusations! They are an insult to you, dear Sovereign. This court has never heard such disrespectful lies. None of your antecedents would ever have permitted such a thing.”

“Leave the dead in peace,” said Ningzong. “First, you ought to worry about your own impertinence.”

Feng’s anger quickly turned to a blush.

“Imperial Highness…this insolent fool, the one they call Corpse Reader, is in reality nothing more than an expert in dissimulation. Where’s the proof? Where, I ask you? His words are like fireworks, as explosive as this supposed gunpowder he speaks of. Hand cannons? All I see is a bronze flute. What would it shoot anyway? Rice? Cherry stones?” He turned to face Cí.

The emperor squinted. “Calm yourself, Judge Feng. I am not yet pronouncing your guilt, but much of what young Cí says seems logical. The question is, why might he want to accuse you, if not to uncover the truth?”

“Majesty, is that so difficult? Spite! Sheer spite! As you know Cí’s father was once in my employ as an accountant. I hadn’t intended to bring this out in public today, but I found out that his father had been falsifying accounts and stealing from me. I had to fire him. Out of affection, I hid the truth from Cí himself. To protect him. But the Songs are all the same! When he found out, he went crazy and somehow decided it was all my fault.

“With respect to these murders, I don’t see how there can be any doubt: Kan killed these unfortunate men, but Cí, unable to solve the case and burning with ambition, made it look as though Kan also committed suicide. Simple. All the rest is the result of Cí’s feverish mind. Pure invention.”

“And I invented the hand cannon, too?” howled Cí.

“Quiet!” ordered the emperor.

The emperor got to his feet and whispered something to one of the officers near him, who signaled to Bo to come nearer. Bo hurried over and kneeled, before being ordered to follow Ningzong through to an antechamber. The two emerged after a few minutes, and as he came over, Cí could clearly see the concern on Bo’s face.

“The emperor has asked me to talk with you,” Bo whispered.

Cí was surprised at how firmly Bo took him by the arm, leading him into the antechamber and shutting the door. Once they were alone, Bo hid his face in his hands.

“What?” said Cí.

“The emperor believes you.”

“No…really?” Cí whooped with delight. “Amazing! Feng’s finally going to get what he deserves, and—” But Cí could see how worried Bo looked. “What? What else? You’ve just told me I’ve won the case, so…”

Bo wouldn’t look Cí in the face.

“What’s going on?”

Bo took a deep breath.

“The emperor wants you to say you’re guilty.” He sighed.

“But…but why? What for? Why me and not Feng?”

“He’s offering a comfortable exile if you just say you’re guilty,” said Bo. “He’ll give you a lump sum and an annual stipend. You’ll never have to work again; you’ll have plenty to pass onto future generations even. You’ll receive no punishment whatsoever. It’s a generous offer.”

“And Feng?”

“The emperor has assured me he’ll take care of him personally.”

“Meaning what? And you, you agree with all this?” Cí began backing away from Bo. “You’re in on it, too, aren’t you?”

“Be calm, Cí! I’m just the messenger—”

“Be calm? You know what I’m being asked to do? I’ve lost everything—my family, my dreams, my honor. And now you want to strip me of my dignity? No, Bo! I won’t give up the one hope I have left! I couldn’t care less about anything else, but there’s no way I’m going to let that bastard Feng get away with killing my father and shaming my family. No way.”

“Gods, Cí! Don’t you get it? This isn’t a request. The emperor can’t allow this kind of scandal. It would be far too damaging to him. His critics already say he’s too weak, so if they hear of intrigues at court, if word of treason gets out, if people see he can’t even control his own officials, what will they think of his ability to deal with the country’s enemies? Especially with the Jin on our doorstep, Ningzong has to show an iron will. Councilors and judges killing each other? He can’t allow that to get out.”

“So let him show he’s firm—but fair, too!”

“Damn it, Cí! If you reject his offer, what do you think he’ll do? Condemn you anyway, of course! You’ll be executed, or sent to the mines for the rest of your days. What would your father have you do? If you agree, you’ll have somewhere to live, a stipend, a calm life—away from all this. With time, you might be able to repair your reputation and reenter court life. I don’t see what more you can ask for or, really, what choice you have in the matter. If you try and oppose the emperor, he’ll crush you. Your evidence is circumstantial at best.”

Cí tried to find his conviction and fight reflected in Bo’s eyes, but what he saw couldn’t have been more different.

“Please,” begged Bo. “It’s your best—and only—option.”

Bo put his hands on Cí’s shoulders. Their weight was the weight of sincerity. Cí’s thoughts turned to his dreams, his studies, his desire to become a great forensic judge. This had also been his father’s dream for him…He nodded his head, resigned.

“Come on,” said Bo.

Cí approached the throne with his head hung low and dragging his feet as though they were in shackles. He fell to his knees before the emperor, who glanced at Bo. Bo nodded. The emperor, pleased, calmly gestured to the scribe to prepare the deed.

Once the deed was written, an officer stepped forward to read it out. Everyone listened, and the emperor watched intently, as the officer slowly read the words. Cí’s culpability was established, and the charges against Feng were dismissed. All that was left was for Cí to sign it.

When the deed was handed to Cí, the ink wasn’t yet dry—as if offering some hope it might still be rewritten. Cí’s hands trembled violently. He tried to pick up the brush, but it fell from his fingers to the floor, leaving a black dash across the red carpet. Excusing his clumsiness, Cí picked up the brush and then stopped to reflect. There was no doubt: sign the deed and he would be admitting sole responsibility, and Feng would be off the hook.

Bo’s argument ran through his head. But could this really be what his father would have wanted? Cí could barely think straight. He gripped the brush and wet it on the inkstone. Then, slowly, he began painting the lines that made up his signature. Again, though, his grip seemed to loosen on the brush; it was as if his ancestors were there in the room, knocking it away. When he reached the part of his signature that was his family name, something rose up inside him. And at that moment, he looked up and saw Feng’s triumphant smile. Cí saw his parents’ bodies buried in the rubble, and his brother’s tortured form, and his little sister in agony. He couldn’t leave them like that. He looked Feng steadfastly in the eyes until a grain of concern entered the older man’s face. Cí jumped to his feet, threw the ink and brush to the floor, and tore up the deed.

Ningzong’s wrath was immediate and terrible. He ordered his men to come forward, put manacles on Cí, and whip him ten times. When it was over, the emperor said the time had come for the verdict, but Cí demanded to be allowed his final defense. Ningzong bit his tongue. This was a centuries-old tradition, and Cí knew the emperor wouldn’t dare prevent him his rights in front of the whole court. Eventually the emperor signaled for Cí to go ahead.

“You have until the water clock runs out!” he said as it was brought forward.

Cí took a deep breath. Feng still stood looking defiant, but a glimmer of fear was in his eyes.

The water began to drop.

“Majesty, more than a century ago, your most venerable great-grandfather allowed himself to listen to poor counsel with regards to the case of General Fei Yue, which led to the condemnation of that man. Nowadays, we know Fei Yue was in fact innocent and we celebrate him as a great man. That abominable verdict has gone down as one of the darkest chapters in our history. Fei Yue was executed, and though his name has subsequently been cleared by the efforts of his family, the damage was never fully repaired.” Cí paused, glancing around for Blue Iris. “I wouldn’t dare to compare myself with such a figure…but I do dare to ask for justice. I am also the son of a dishonored father. Now you ask me to declare myself guilty of the very crimes I have shown you that I am innocent of. And I can prove the truth of my assertions.”

“Just as you’ve been saying right from the start,” said Ningzong, glancing at the water clock.

“Allow me, therefore, to show you the terrible power contained in the weapon.” He lifted up his chains so they could be taken off. “What if such lethal force should fall into enemy hands? Think on that. Think on our nation.”

Cí allowed his statement to settle in Ningzong’s conscience. The emperor muttered something to himself, turning the weapon over and over in his hands. He looked to his councilors. And then back at Cí again.

“Take off the chains!” he ordered.

The same guard who unchained Cí then stood in his way as he tried to approach the emperor, but Ningzong said to allow him. Cí staggered forward, his stomach gripped by fear. Coming up a few steps to the same level as the throne, he knelt down. Then he got up, as best he could, and held his hand out. The emperor handed over the weapon.

Facing the emperor, Cí took the small spherical stone from his robes along with the small bag of gunpowder he’d taken from Feng’s dresser.

“The projectile I have in my hands is the very one that ended the alchemist’s life. As you can see, it isn’t perfectly round; a sliver has broken off of it. This fragmentation occurred on impact with the alchemist’s spine, matching a sliver I extracted from the corpse when I examined it.”

Without another word, and following what he’d read in the treatises on conventional cannons, he poured the gunpowder into the mouth of the weapon and then used the handle of a brush to stuff the small cannonball down into it. Then he tore a strip from his own shirt, twisted it into a sort of fuse, and inserted this into a gap in the side of the contraption. He then handed it to Ningzong.

“Here you have it. All that remains is to light the fuse and aim.”

The emperor looked as though he was holding in his hands some great wonder. His small eyes shone with perplexity.

“Majesty!” Feng said. “How long am I going to have to put up with this disgrace? It’s all lies, every single word—”

“Lies?” screamed Cí, turning on him. “Do you mind explaining how the remains of the mold you stole from my room, as well as the gunpowder and the small cannonball that killed the alchemist, were all in the drawers of your desk?” He turned back to the emperor. “That’s where I found them. If you send your men to look in the same place, I’m sure they’ll find many more projectiles.”

Feng, though stunned, was quick with a reply.

“If you took them from my office, you could just have easily planted more there.”

Cí wasn’t sure what to say to this. His legs felt weak. He’d assumed Feng would crumble against this last onslaught, but the old man seemed firmer than ever. Was there ever going to be a way out?

“Very well. In that case, answer me this,” Cí said finally. “Councilor Kan was killed on the fifth moon of the month, a night when you’ve already stated you were away from Lin’an on business. But we have the testimony of a sentry who allowed you into the palace that very evening.” Cí looked across at Bo, who was nodding in confirmation. “So, you had motive, you had the means…and from what we now know, despite your lies, you also had the opportunity.”

“Is this for certain?” asked Ningzong.

“No!” erupted Feng. “It’s anything but certain!”

“Can you prove it?”

“Of course,” snorted Feng. “I returned from my trip that night. I was at home with my wife, enjoying her company.”

Hearing this, Cí’s jaw dropped. That was the night he and Blue Iris had been together.

He still hadn’t recovered when Feng came at him with a question.

“And you?” said Feng. “Where were you the night Kan was killed?”

Cí went deep red. He looked at Blue Iris, trying to find something in her face to suggest she might throw him a lifeline to get him out of this quickening whirlpool. But Blue Iris was impassive as ever. The submissive wife. Cí knew then that he’d never beat Feng, since he couldn’t condemn Blue Iris by revealing their secret. He wouldn’t destroy her life.

“We’re waiting,” said Ningzong. “Do you have nothing further to add before I deliver the verdict?”

Cí, glancing at Blue Iris again, was quiet for a moment.

“No,” he said.

“In that case, I, Emperor Ningzong, Heaven’s Son and Sovereign of the Middle Kingdom, declare Cí Song to be—”

“He was with me!” came a resounding voice from the back of the room.

Everyone turned around to see who had spoken. Blue Iris was on her feet, and she looked unshakable.

“I didn’t sleep with my husband,” she said firmly. “The night Kan was killed, I lay down beside Cí Song.”

Feng stammered helplessly as hundreds of eyes turned to look at him. He stumbled backward in shock, his eyes fixed on Blue Iris.

“You—you couldn’t!” he shouted, but he was clearly out of his mind now. He turned and tried to run for the door.

He continued to stammer and cry, “You couldn’t! After all I’ve done! You snake!” as guards dragged him back into the middle of the room. He managed to get free of the men holding him and leaped up the steps to the throne, seizing the weapon from the astonished Ningzong.

“Get back, all of you!” he shouted. Before anyone could react he struck a flint and lit the fuse. “Back, I said!” The soldiers, who had begun to creep forward, stopped as Feng turned the weapon on the emperor. “You bastard,” he said, lifting the muzzle and putting it to Ningzong’s head. “I gave up everything. I did it all for you.” The flame was advancing up the fuse. “How could you?”

The people next to Blue Iris crouched down. Feng was holding the contraption in two hands. It was shaking, just as Feng was. Cí held his breath. The flame was almost there. Feng cried out, turning the weapon around and pointing it at his own head. A dry report rang through the room; instantly Feng was down on the floor and blood was pooling around him. The guards leaped on him and looked up when they were sure he was dead. Ningzong stood, his face flecked with Feng’s blood. Wiping at it, he muttered a few words: The trial was over. Cí was free to go.