Chương 117: Chapter 115

I look at the man who has just introduced himself as Yushi Xuang for barely a second, but that second is more than enough for a very specific question to begin to be born within my head. What the devil is the personnel of the Yushitai doing here, in the Tàiyīyuàn, instead of presenting themselves at my residence as would be the normal, the polite, and, above all, the protocolary?

Because if I have anything clear, it is that the Yushitai knows perfectly well how things are done, and appearing without warning at a medical consultation where an eleven-year-old girl with bandaged legs is being examined is not, not by a long shot, within the habitual procedures. But before I can finish weaving the idea together, another person in the room beats me to the reaction.

The Ruīyī Junning, who until a second ago was leaning down examining the leg, rises with her back straight and an expression that has changed from professional to indignant in the time it takes her to turn around.

"Yushi Xuang", she says with a tone that seems lower than it really is by the way it travels across the room.

"Can you explain to me what the Yushitai is doing appearing in my study, without prior warning, in the middle of a medical examination of a patient?" She moves two steps toward the door, just enough to position herself at the same height as Yushi Xuang without invading the corridor, and crosses her arms over her apron with the same firmness with which I suspect she reprimands her apprentices.

"The Tàiyīyuàn is not a place to come to bother people", she continues with that same contained and dangerous voice.

"If you need to speak with the Zhāohuán, the correct thing would be to wait for her to finish the consultation or, better still, to present yourselves at her residence as is fitting." Yushi Xuang is not the least bit perturbed by the reprimand, which already tells me quite a lot about how much the opinion of the Ruīyī Junning matters to him, and limits himself to inclining his head with a small smile of apology that, to my ears, sounds as authentic as a painted bronze coin.

"Ruīyī Junning, I beg you a thousand pardons for the inconvenience", he replies with the measured voice of someone who has pronounced that very same phrase several hundred times throughout his career.

"But I have my orders and I can only follow them as best I can. If I could choose, believe me, I would not be interrupting your work today." And it is precisely at that moment, while I listen to an official apologizing with the conviction of a mediocre actor, that I slot the first piece of the puzzle into place. They have come, precisely, because I am here. They have come here because, for the first time since what happened yesterday, I have left the Pavilion of the Scent of Clouds without my mother nearby.

Because they know perfectly well that if they had presented themselves at the Pavilion, my mother would have been listening to every word of the interrogation seated three paces from me, and that, for some reason I still don't quite understand, is something they need to avoid at all costs. As soon as the idea settles, my brain, which was already on autopilot calculating ways to kindly throw them out of the room, brakes to a halt.

Because, now that I think about it, I have several perfectly good ways of sending them packing. I could allege that I prefer to do it with my mother present, which is perfectly reasonable at my age. I could allege that I am in the middle of a medical consultation and that this is not the moment. I could even, and this would be the cleanest, let the Ruīyī Junning continue arguing with them until they leave of their own accord. But then, and here is the problem, I would never know what the devil they really want.

And curiosity, that small chronic illness I carry around, wins the round in approximately half a second. I want to know what questions they had prepared thinking they would be able to ask them to me alone and I want to know what they intended to extract from me in my mother's absence. I want to know, in short, what kind of operation is being set up with an interrogation that should normally be a routine and polite visit.

So, instead of taking advantage of the ally I have in the Ruīyī Junning to get these four off my back, I do exactly the opposite. I put on the most amiable smile of my repertoire and let my voice come out with all the sugar I am capable of injecting into it.

"Ruīyī Junning, please don't worry", I tell her with a sweetness that almost embarrasses me.

"I understand perfectly that the kind agents of the Yushitai are simply doing their work, and in fact it would seem unjust to me that they should leave with a bad memory for having come all the way here and depart without being able to fulfill it. Since besides, while you are checking my legs, I have nothing better to do, I will be delighted to answer the questions of the diligent members of the Yushitai."

The Ruīyī Junning turns her head toward me with the expression of someone who has just heard a patient with high fever declare that she feels splendidly. She frowns for an instant, opens her mouth as if she wished to retort something, and finally, lets out a low grunt between her teeth which, I suppose, comes to mean something along the lines of her washing her hands of the consequences of my decision.

But since I don't protest, nor change my mind nor give her further arguments, she crouches down again before my leg with a short sigh and resumes her work where she had left off, although now with movements a bit brusquer than before, as if the gauze bandages were the ultimate responsible parties for the rudeness of the Yushitai.

I, meanwhile, am attentive to Yushi Xuang and the three men accompanying him, but I don't for that reason fail to notice, with a small internal shudder of embarrassment, that as soon as I finish my little sugary speech an involuntary tic fires off at the corner of Lianhua's left eye. Apparently, not even she entirely buys the tone I have just used.

Yushi Xuang listens to my reply with a small inclination of the head, observes the Ruīyī Junning out of the corner of his eye and, upon seeing that the healer has returned to her task, finishes crossing the threshold of the study as his three companions follow him in orderly fashion. Once inside, Yushi Xuang stops at a prudent distance from my chair, joins his hands before his chest and bows with a correct formality.

"In that case, Zhāohuán, in order to take the least time possible and return to the Ruīyī Junning her study as soon as possible, I thank you for your understanding and shall begin at once with the questions", he tells me as he straightens up. I nod with the same amiable smile as before and prepare myself to wait for him to fire them off.

But before Yushi Xuang opens his mouth, one of the three agents accompanying him takes a step forward, brings his hands to his chest and, with an efficiency that betrays much practice, unfolds what at first glance had seemed to be a sort of tablet hung from his neck and which is actually rather more complicated. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. I recognize it immediately, because I have seen one years ago in an illustrated manual of imperial protocols.

It is a Bàizhān, a kind of small portable desk that hangs from the neck by means of a strap and rests against the chest of the one who uses it, with the writing surface inclined upward so that he can write while standing. It has some small lateral compartments and, while I observe it trying not to let my interest show too much, the agent opens one of them and begins to take out a quality pen, a small sealed inkwell, several sheets of official paper, and a blotter.

He places everything in its place on the Bàizhān, uncaps the inkwell, dips the pen carefully and, after a small bow directed at Yushi Xuang as if saying he is now ready, remains in position to begin writing as soon as it should be necessary. And while this entire little piece of theater is unfolding, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place with a thud that almost resonates in my head. This is not a visit nor a routine interrogation, this is a formal deposition.

Because to ask a couple of questions of an eleven-year-old girl, victim by chance of an incident in the capital, one does not come with a Bàizhān, nor brings a specialist scribe, nor sets up the whole show of taking down an official record. That is something one does when one wants to leave a written, archived, and official record of every word that is said, so that afterward it can be used. And so that it can be used, I imagine, not against those responsible for the collapse, but against me.

My suspicion is confirmed even before Yushi Xuang opens his mouth, because out of the corner of my eye I see how Lianhua, who knows better than anyone how the Yushitai functions because until recently she was a part of it, slightly furrows her brow upon seeing the unfolding of the Bàizhān. It is a small furrowing, practically invisible to anyone who does not know her, but for me it is like a small luminous sign that reinforces my idea that what is happening is not normal. Even so, I say nothing.

Because now more than ever, what I need is to see how far they are willing to go, what they want to achieve exactly, and, above all, who the devil is behind this whole little performance if I can get it out of them. So I limit myself to sitting up a bit more straightly in the chair, as much as I am able, and wait politely for Yushi Xuang to begin.

"Zhāohuán", he tells me with the measured voice from before, now without the tone of apology he had dedicated to the Ruīyī Junning.

"My first question is rather direct. What was the reason for which you found yourself yesterday outside the precinct of the Imperial Palace without having passed through the corresponding controls and without the necessary authorizations to do so?" And there it is. In the first question the whole operation is laid bare.

Because the first logical question, the question any honest investigator would ask at this moment, would be something about what I remembered of the incident, whether before, during, or after, anything that put the focus on what happened and on those responsible. Instead of that, the first question is directed at putting into question, before anything else, my presence there. At establishing, in the official record, and with elegant characters, that the Zhāohuán was outside the palace without authorization.

Whoever is behind this does not want to discover what happened, they want to document my irresponsibility, to officialize my imprudence and, when the moment comes, to have in hand a signed and sealed report on which they can lean to undermine my reputation before whoever may prove convenient. And, without knowing it, by revealing his card so soon, I suppose thinking that by doing it to a girl she would innocently say something incriminating, Yushi Xuang has just done me an enormous favor.

Because now I know exactly with what kind of interrogation I am dealing, and now I know exactly what type of replies I have to play with. So I let the smile loosen a bit until it becomes a more relaxed expression, almost childlike, almost innocent, just enough so that it should seem as if I am going to reply with the candor of any girl to whom an adult asks an important question.

"Yushi Xuang, I beg pardon if my reply seems insufficiently appropriate, but the reason is rather simple", I begin to say.

"I had been hearing, for some time, through some comments here and others there among the palace staff, that my imperial brothers tend to leave the Imperial Palace frequently in disguise, dressed as commoners, in order to be able to enjoy the city and to know better the life of the people whom they will one day serve." I make a pause to catch my breath, maintaining the calm smile, and I continue.

"And as I, due to my situation, see myself logically more limited than they are when it comes to moving with freedom, I thought that while I am still a girl, I still had room to imitate them at least for one day", I add letting my gaze drop to my bandaged legs for an instant before raising it again.

"Because I imagine that, as I grow up, it will become increasingly more difficult for me to do something like that without everyone who sees me recognizing me immediately." I close the reply with the same amiable smile as before, looking directly into Yushi Xuang's eyes, and the silence that follows is exactly of the kind I was expecting.

Because my reply, besides being technically true, has a rather uncomfortable problem for whoever drafted the questionnaire, since if they want to use this report to accuse me of going out without authorization, they automatically have to accuse also, in the same act, the totality of the imperial princes for doing the same thing for, probably, decades. And that is something that neither the Yushitai, nor whoever is pulling the strings, can afford.

As the seconds pass in this small uncomfortable silence, a part of my attention that had been calmly keeping watch over the rest of the study suddenly registers something rather interesting. The agent with the Bàizhān, the one who was writing, has stopped completely still.

He still has the pen in his hand, suspended over the paper an inch away, and looks at it with the expression of someone who has just realized that the next phrase he writes is going to be archived in the records of the Yushitai for an extremely long time. I smile internally and, out loud, let escape once more that sweet and amiable tone that seems to have given me such good results so far.

"Excuse me", I tell him with all the courtesy in the world.

"Why have you stopped writing? The empire needs you to fulfill your duty and to record correctly everything that is said in an official interview. It would be a pity that such a diligent scribe should fail precisely at the most important moment."

The agent with the Bàizhān looks at me, looks at Yushi Xuang, looks at me again, swallows with a movement that would be almost comical in another situation, and, without daring to open his mouth, dips the pen again and begins to write with a speed that suggests he is going to make up for lost time by way of not stopping a single time. Yushi Xuang, meanwhile, for a moment stops looking at his subordinate and turns his gaze back to me.

His expression has hardened subtly, and I suspect that I am witnessing the precise instant in which he reconsiders, completely, what type of girl he has before him and what type of interrogation he is going to find himself in. Welcome to the club, Yushi Xuang, you are not the first nor will you be the last.

"Let us continue, Zhāohuán", he tells me after a brief pause, and I notice that the measured voice no longer sounds so paternal as at the beginning.

"My next question is how you managed to come out from under the rubble after the collapse of the building." Ah. That question does have a reasonable reply, and the reply is, moreover, perfectly true.

"I had much good fortune, Yushi Xuang", I reply with the same calm.

"By the way in which the rubble fell, a cavity remained above me, which fortunately was large enough that I could move a bit. From there, I simply went moving the looser rubble aside, carefully, until I opened a path toward a point through which some light was filtering in." Yushi Xuang opens his mouth as if he were going to ask a new question, presumably one about how I could have been so fortunate, but before he can emit sound, another voice intervenes from behind my chair.

"With your permission, Zhāohuán", Lianhua says with her habitual professional tone, that tranquil voice she uses only when she wants to be absolutely clear.

"The probable reason why a cavity formed above the Zhāohuán is that, as the building was collapsing, in addition to covering her with my own body, I activated upon us an air-barrier talisman. It is probable that the barrier, at the moment in which it gave way, kept clear above the Zhāohuán a minimal space that the rubble did not afterward reach to fill." Lianhua turns for an instant toward me and adds, in a slightly softer tone.

"I beg your pardon for not having told you earlier, Zhāohuán Wen", she tells me.

"But since you did not ask me how it was possible for there to be a cavity, I did not consider it necessary to clarify it." I nod slowly as I digest the information, and for the first time since this whole little adventure began I feel that something, within yesterday's incident, is left explained satisfactorily, because the idea that it had formed only by chance had never entirely convinced me. But with an air-barrier talisman in the mix I suppose its existence is much more reasonable.

One less mystery, I think with satisfaction. And then, just as I am preparing to turn my head toward Yushi Xuang, my gaze rests once again, almost by reflex, on the Yushi with the Bàizhān, who has stopped again.