by Jeannie Lin
It was the first time I had seen Yizhu since his succession. As Emperor, his movements had become even more restricted. He was confined to the inner sanctum of the palace with only a select few allowed access. All of his commands were carried out of the palace by retainers and one could never be certain whose hand had written the decrees.
I had been given a rare glance of our new Emperor and I was worried by what I’d seen.
The Observatory rose above high above the city and I could see the bronze structures from afar. It had been built on top of the old city wall and the hard, precise silhouettes of the instruments was a stark contrast to the rest of the Peking skyline with its graceful pagodas and sloping eaves.
Torches were lit around the perimeter of the observatory platform, indicating that there was indeed someone still up there. My brother told me that Chang-wei had gone there every evening this week. He’d even said, quite pointedly, that he went there alone.
I only dared to ask about Chang-wei in the guise of speaking to Tian about his studies. However my brother was a clever boy and we had always been close. There was no hiding the reasons for my curiosity from Tian. He also knew now that his mentor had once been betrothed to me. It was an arranged marriage that had fallen apart with the single tragedy that had changed our lives. My father’s death, our family’s exile, our mother’s descent into opium smoke to dull the pain.
No, I had to stop blaming the past. Chang-wei had convinced me to fight for the future. But what exactly were we fighting for if the Emperor, the man who was supposed to lead us, was drowning in smoke and pleasure?
The guards posted at the stairs allowed me up after inspecting my imperial letter which granted me passage through the city.
At the top of the platform, I entered into a different world; a maze of metalwork on top of stone. Bronze spheres and globes and sextants. The structures looked like wildly artistic creations, but they were scientific instruments, made for tracking and measuring the stars and planets.
A lone figure sat beside a tower at the center of the platform. A lattice of bronze and copper rose from it to disappear into a thin point in the sky. Chang-wei had set up a wooden table and was making notes in a book by the light of an oil lamp.
I could recognize him anywhere from his silhouette alone. From his lean frame and strong shoulders and particularly the tilt of his head. The way he held himself, always thoughtful and focused.
Chang-wei was an imperial engineer, but like many a scholar, enjoyed dabbling in many fields. He remained absorbed in his notes as I approached, his brush moving fluidly over the paper.
He was dressed in his state robes and his official cap which displayed an ornament made of crystal and peacock feathers which glinted in the firelight. He had been promoted in rank since the Emperor’s succession.
Selfishly, I didn’t announce my presence as I approached. It had been so long since I’d seen him that I wanted just to take him in without being disturbed for just a little longer. My brother saw Chang-wei nearly every day at the Ministry while I was hidden away in the harem tending to the palace women.
Finally I stood at his back, almost close enough to touch. I noticed then that he had some sort of device around his ear, which perhaps explained why he still hadn’t heard me. Over his shoulder, I could see that he actually had two books laid out in front of him, side by side. The one on the left was filled with a table of dashes and dots along with characters that resembled hanzi writing, yet were unintelligible.
I touched a hand gently to his sleeve and he jumped before whipping around.
“Soling,” he said, so startled that he used my given name. He corrected himself immediately. “Miss Jin.”
His gaze was shielded from me by wire rim spectacles. They sat over the bridge of his nose and accentuated the definition in his cheekbones. I knew that he used them when working with particularly delicate instruments.
“Mister Chen.” I moved back a step to put a polite distance between us. “My brother said I would find you here.”
“Yes?”
“Something . . . something happened today.”
Oh, it had been weeks since I’d seen him and now I sounded so dim-witted. It had been this way between us ever since we returned to Peking. No, that wasn’t true. It had been this way since he’d kissed me in the middle of the siege on Changsha. Then we’d never spoken of it again.
This was why kissing was prohibited. Or rather, not encouraged. Actually, no one had ever told me anything about kissing which is why I knew nothing about how I should be now around Chang-wei. If the rules were written down in a book, I would be well-studied by now.
I was good with books.
He pulled off the glasses and I could finally see his eyes. His gaze only made my heart beat faster. I think many would call him handsome. I might have argued against that when we first met, just to be contrary, but I couldn’t argue now.
“When was the last time you spoke to the Emperor?” I asked, my voice coming out more breathless than I intended.
Chang-wei frowned. “Just last week at the double fifth ceremony.”
“When was the last time you actually spoke to him?” I insisted. “Has he said anything about the warship fleet? Or the foundries? Or—”
“Miss Jin, I don’t understand.”
“I’m worried,” I blurted out. “How do we know the Emperor is still focused on the welfare of the empire?”
“Soling!” he said sharply. Even though we were alone on the platform, Chang-wei glanced over his shoulder before looking back to me and continuing in a lower voice. “You know insulting the Emperor is an act of treason.”
As was criticizing the Emperor openly or making any remark that could be seen as disparaging against the imperial court or the empire. Which is exactly why Father had been executed, despite serving this land and its people loyally until the end.
This was an argument between us that could go on forever. I turned my attention to Chang-wei’s worktable and the book he’d been writing in.
“What is all this?”
The look of disapproval remained on his face, but he relaxed a little, grateful for a neutral topic.
“Take a look.” He turned the open pages toward me, though half of the characters remained unreadable. “It’s Nipponese.”
The island empire that shared the waters off the coast. From all that I knew, the Emperor of Nippon had closed off his ports to all foreigners in an attempt to avoid our fate.
“Are you learning the language?” I asked.
“I actually speak it with some competency. I’ve studied it in the past.” He looked embarrassed, as if he’d made some outlandish boast.
I wasn’t surprised. I’d learned that Chang-wei also knew how to speak the language of the Yinguoren. English, they called it.
“Are you composing a message? I thought the empire of Nippon was refusing contact with anyone.”
“Not composing a message, but writing one down.”
He beckoned me closer, offering his seat to me. I finally got a closer look at the box before him. It was covered in lacquer and painted with a design of two circling carp stamped with gold. On closer inspection, I saw the wires that extended from it which were attached to an earpiece in the shape of a dragon.
“Here.”
He placed the device onto my ear with the dragon curling over my lobe to hold it in place. I shivered as his fingers brushed briefly against my neck.
A series of clicks came from the earpiece. At first I was quite confused, but as I looked down at the mysterious characters on the page before me, I understood.
“It’s a code table.”
“Correct.”
Chang-wei gave me a nod of approval. Despite the cool evening, I felt my insides warming.
“You might recall this as well.” Chang-wei opened the lacquered box to reveal
the intricate metalwork inside. At the center was a familiar-looking device.
“From my father’s puzzle box.”
“Given to him by emissaries from Nippon. It’s a receiver and this here—” He indicated the spiraling structure beside us. “—is a signal tower.”
I could barely breathe at the wonder of it all. The clicks inside my ear were some sort of message, but from who?
“Nippon has an Imperial Science Ministry, just as we do,” Chang-wei said, his eyes glowing bright. “And they’ve been transmitting a message, hoping that someone was listening.”
USA Today bestselling author Jeannie Lin grew up fascinated by stories of Western epic fantasy, Eastern martial arts adventures, and romance novels. Formerly a high school teacher, Jeannie is now known for writing groundbreaking, award-winning historical romances set in Tang Dynasty China, including her Golden Heart Award–winning debut, Butterfly Swords, as well as The Dragon and the Pearl, My Fair Concubine, and The Lotus Palace.
