Peasprout Chen, Future Legend of Skate and Sword

by Henry Lien

  “The girl who reaches all three beacons in the correct order and comes back first will receive top ranking.

  “Any girl who fails to touch all three beacons or who falls off the rail will fail the Motivation.”

  So here it begins. All the years of training. They were all leading to this.

  The chance to prove that I’m the best, that the Empress Dowager was right to choose me, that wu liu belongs to Shin.

  I will place first.

  I will make Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword history.

  I will be a legend.

  Sensei Madame Liao turns from us, sits on a small stool, pulls a little scroll from her sleeve, and begins to read.

  I assume that the race has started.

  None of us is quite sure how to begin. Then one girl, with a friendly round face and a mole on one side of her chin, grins and begins taking off her skates to powder her socks.

  The other girls see this and everyone else starts to take off their skates to step into the pit. These socks they gave us are terrible for skating, as loose and droopy as elephants’ ankles. Why are girls made to wear inane, impractical, performance-hindering, accident-inviting things? For the sake of cuteness? Why don’t boys have to wear them? At least we get to wear skirts, which we don’t have to worry about tearing when doing splits, like boys’ pants.

  Doi looks at the pit, then looks at Suki and her entourage. None of them is taking off her skates to step into the pit of powder.

  Instinct tells me that these are powerful girls, and if the powerful girls don’t want to step into the pit, it’s because they know something. I keep my skates on.

  Suki hops on one of the rails connecting the Principal Island to the smaller islets, with her followers close behind. Doi watches them skate away. She leaps onto the rail after them. All the other girls put on their skates and follow.

  We glide on the rail toward the islet where the Conservatory of Wu Liu sits. I look for a beacon as we speed along the rail over the open sea, but there are so many structures covered with pearlplate roofs that their rows seem like meandering, elbowed moon dragons. I’m grateful for my smoked spectacles, for the whole of the white academy blooms with glare.

  Behind us, I see several girls stopped on the route. What is happening? Some of them are taking off their skates and banging them.

  We skate on the rail curling around the Conservatory of Wu Liu. Fields of older students train below. Some are doing exercises in lines. Some are practicing weapons combat with staffs and dual katanas.

  I flip off the rail onto the spine of one dragonlike structure and ride its undulations. I think I see a brightness that could be a beacon in the coils of its tail, but it’s only a tower studded with little lounges and sitting rooms. What does the beacon look like?

  A glimmer on the edge of the islet catches my attention. It’s difficult to see in the full daylight, but the wind sweeps a spray of seawater in front of it, refracting it into a flash of wild colors.

  The light issues from a pagoda topped by a mirrored bowl that has a blaze of torches in it. The beacon! How do I get up there? The structure is three stories tall. Sprays of seawater keep blowing at me.

  I see how to reach the beacon! The hall next to the pagoda has a roof that sweeps up like a pumpkin vine. I can skate off that roof and leap up toward the tower next to the pagoda. I can kick against its side with a single-footed grasshopper move so that I spring back at a sharp angle, followed immediately by a hammer throw spin in midair. I’ll come slinging toward the pagoda and land directly on the platform with the beacon. I have to be careful not to overshoot or I’ll go sliding off into the sea.

  As I prepare to execute these moves, two figures skate past me and do exactly what I planned. Suki and Doi. Ten thousand years of stomach gas!

  I execute the moves. They work just as I thought. It feels wonderful to finally be doing these moves on actual buildings after doing them for so many years on just a training court. This is how it felt in my dreams.

  I tag the beacon with my hand. The pearl forming the mirrored bowl is surprisingly cool. I look around for the next destination, the Conservatory of Literature.

  The beacon there is easier to find because the conservatory is made of enormous sheets of the pearl formed into scrolls, unfurling out of the sea. Below the rails, students sit at desks in neat rows, working on the scripts of operas in open air. They look up and begin to applaud as the first-years pass over them. It’s a joyful thing to be applauded by students of so legendary a school.

  Ahead, Suki and Doi skate hard toward a curling sheet of the pearl. It sends them flying back toward the beacon. They execute a string of three backflips in the air, scissoring and snapping their legs closed at the end of each flip to sling themselves farther. I’ll have to try that.

  The backflips send them whipping up toward the pedestal on which the beacon sits. They each reach out a hand and tag the beacon. They grab the pedestal below the beacon with one hand and use the remaining momentum to whip around the pole twice. They sling toward the rail leading past the Conservatory of Architecture. I’m not far behind them. I tag the beacon and follow them onto the rail.

  Ahead of me, Doi skates just an arm’s length behind Suki. Suki turns around and takes an illegal swipe at her with one skate. What a vicious little snake.

  Doi easily ducks Suki’s skate. She even adds the insult of flicking her finger against Suki’s blade as she dodges under it, as if she were testing the quality of a porcelain cup in a half-reputable shop. This has become personal.

  I skate behind Doi and Suki on the rail that passes by the Conservatory of Architecture, where students design the strange and wild opera sets that the wu liu performers skate across. There’s only one straight, ominous rail that leads to this conservatory. It passes through a little door in a high wall of the pearl rising out of the water, encircling the whole islet and blocking the operations within entirely from view.

  As our path swings past it, I see that the wall is covered in adornments. There are fins, horns, paws, claws, tails, levers, prows, and masts erupting from the surface. Flowers and vines are carved everywhere. What do they do behind that wall?

  Ahead on the rail, it’s all-out war between the two leaders. Now Doi is in the lead, elbowing Suki aside. Now Suki does the seven-fingered somersault egret move and lands ahead of Doi. These girls are not without skill. Of course. They train here year-round. But I’ve trained harder.

  As we skate down the rail to the islet of the Conservatory of Music, I hear humming and ringing. The halls of the conservatory are grafted with wind flutes. Trumpets that end in spread-mouthed blossoms streak up the sides of towers.

  A troupe of drummers skates in single file along the perimeter of the islet, racing up and down the gentle hills that form the breakwaters, each drummer beating at the drum slung on the back of the person in front of her.

  Singing breaks out. We look into the glassy pearl trees sprouting from the sides of the breakwaters. They’re filled with boy choristers. They turn to watch us midsong, smile and wave, and make their song into a serenade for us.

  We speed over the principal orchestra platform where spoon-fiddle virtuosos turn up their faces at the combat that’s playing out above. Their conductress barks at them not to drop the tempo. The fiddlers saw harder at their instruments, and the frenzied melodies seem to give our skates wings.

  I have to say, this is fun.

  Doi and Suki each strike the last beacon with flawless roundhouse kicks. They jump onto parallel rails leading back to the finish line at the Principal Island, skating side by side. Each knows the other’s moves well enough to perfectly dodge or block them. It’s clear from the emotion in their wu liu that they’ve not only fought each other before, they’re continuing unfinished business.

  I slap the beacon and bear down hard toward them. If I keep this up, I’ll finish third. I didn’t come here to finish third.

  As we ride the rails from the Conservatory of Music
down to the Principal Island of the academy, we cross a great expanse of open sea. Here, the Season of Spouts makes itself most felt. All around us, we’re misted with warm, gentle rain, but it’s not rain, since it’s falling upward.

  The rails ahead of us end. The Principal Island lies before me, across a stretch of open sea too wide to jump across. How are we supposed to cross that? I slow so that I don’t go shooting off into the sea before I solve the puzzle.

  Doi and Suki are still too busy with combat to notice. When they finally see the gap, they hop and skid sideways to make a sharp stop, right in front of me. The only thing I can do to keep from crashing into them is to plant a two-heeled sesame-seed pestle jump so that my skates pound down together on the rail below me and the dragon tails curled under my heels bounce me up and send me flipping over the girls’ heads.

  The next moments seem to pass so slowly, as if it takes days. I hang suspended in the air, skates above me, my braids swinging an arc under my head, the surprised faces of the girls watching me. I land and look behind me to see them clutching each other’s collars, mouths melting open at the realization that they’re not the only two in this race. In the distance, I see the banners that mark the finish line on the Principal Island. There’s only a short stretch of rail ahead of me, and I know I won’t be able to stop in time.

  Three waterspouts grind slowly in the water in front of me, spewing water and fish toward the sky. Dolphins leap into the columns of wind and water, rise up, and go shooting out of the tops through the air.

  I understand the solution to Sensei Madame Liao’s puzzle. I end my slide with a single-footed forward flip, flinging myself off the edge and into a waterspout. The spout spins me higher and higher. I focus my mind and loosen all my muscles except my back muscles to center my Chi and make my body as sleek as a dolphin’s. Like the dolphins, I go shooting out of the top of the spout.

  I land in a crouch on the Principal Island so heavily that it bruises the pearl in a disk around me. I make sure to finish right in front of Sensei Madame Liao, in a one-footed landing, head thrown back, both arms fanning out behind me like a swan spreading its wings. Never let them say that Shinians have no style.

  Suki and Doi land behind me. I don’t know which one came in second and which in third. I don’t care. Because I’ve finished first at our first Motivation at Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword. I, Chen Peasprout from Serenity Cliff. I’ve only just arrived here and I’ve already started my rise to become a legend of wu liu.

  Bring on the rest of the days. It’s going to be a lucky year!

  CHAPTER

  LUCKY

  After the Motivation is complete, I check my skate blades. They didn’t suffer any damage. I didn’t have to take many steps, and I could glide for much of the route since it was mostly racing and jumping. It’s combat that eats up a lot of steps.

  Many girls complain to Sensei Madame Liao that they were delayed because they had to stop to empty pebbles in their skates after stepping through the pit of tuber root starch powder. Doi, Suki, and Suki’s entourage exchange glances. Somebody put something in the pit to sabotage the other skaters. After seeing Suki take an illegal swipe at Doi during the Motivation, I suspect it was her or one of her followers.

  Sensei Madame Liao rakes the filtering comb through the pit but finds no pebbles. Nonetheless, she orders the pit to be scooped out and refilled with fresh powder.

  Now the group of first-year boys takes over the course to be given the same Motivation. I look for Cricket, but I don’t see him among them. Is he all right? I hope the other boys haven’t been teasing him. And please, Heavenly August Personage of Jade, let Cricket not finish last.

  I wanted to get the chance to see how Cricket does, but no. Sensei Madame Liao leads us to the far side of the Principal Island to the Courtyard of Supreme Placidness for what she calls “visualization exercises.” As soon as we enter the walled courtyard, the sounds of activity from the academy become muted. The courtyard is made of eight rows of eight squares, all filled with sand. Sensei tells us each to sit in a square of sand, cross-legged in lotus position.

  She lights sticks of incense in an urn and says, “Do not think yourselves skilled for your performances at the first Motivation. Your skills are trash. None of you has the excellence, discipline, and perfectly upright character needed to have a career in Pearlian opera yet. Now you will learn to harmonize your Chi after performing wu liu.

  “You might think you understand Chi. Everything you know is trash. Chi is not some mystical force invoked in just meditation and acupuncture. Chi is energy. Energy drives wu liu. Energy is everything. Lift the palm of your hand to your face. Hold it in front of the point between your eyebrows without touching your face. Feel the energy from your hand interacting with your Chi.”

  I already know all this, but I do as she instructs. I feel a dull, aching pressure on my invisible Third Eye from the closeness of my palm.

  “Wu liu practitioners who practice visualization of themselves successfully completing their moves improve their performances dramatically. Throw away your understanding of all laws of the visible world. Your understanding is trash. Now visualize yourselves performing better at the first Motivation. Except you, Chen Peasprout.”

  Everyone turns toward me. Doi looks at me with that hard, unblinking gaze. Suki practically has fumes curling out of her nostrils.

  “You,” Sensei Madame Liao says to me, “visualize yourself performing with the humility to remember that this was only the first of six Motivations.”

  Make me drink sand to death.

  After we finish our visualization exercise and say prayers to our honored ancestors begging them for forgiveness for our worthless performances, Sensei Madame Liao tells us to go bathe and dress for the Osmanthus Banquet, the traditional feast held after the first Motivation.

  After my bath, I wait for Cricket outside of the boys’ dormitory, ready to comfort him. I only hope he didn’t finish last. He will be devastated if he finished last.

  “Peasprout!” Cricket skates up to me.

  “I’m sure you did your best, Cricket,” I say quickly. “Are you all right?”

  “I didn’t finish last! Most of the boys did the final leap, but about ten of us were too frightened and got stuck on the last stretch of rail that ended in open sea. One boy finally tried, but he messed up the timing and shot out of the side of the waterspout instead of the top. He was flung back and knocked us all into the sea. So we all tied for forty-first place!”

  He beams like he was just given the gift of a baby dragon. My sweet little Cricket. But sweetness is not going to get him to his best possible future.

  “Cricket, only half of the one hundred students in each class are invited at the end of the second year to devote to one of the conservatories. And the rest are kicked out. Only twenty-six are invited to devote to the Conservatory of Wu Liu. Twenty-six students, Cricket.”

  He tucks his chin into his breast. I wish he wouldn’t do that; he looks like he’s three years old. “I know, Peabird.”

  “Stop using baby talk!” He didn’t stop confusing the miao in Peasprout with the niao in Peabird until he was five, and he reverts to my childhood nickname when I’m scolding him. “Never let anyone hear you calling me that.”

  “I won’t, Peab—sprout.”

  As grateful as I am that Cricket didn’t finish last, I can feel that his Chi is agitated and remind him to be calm at the Osmanthus Banquet. These appearances in front of other students are also performances.

  * * *

  When we skate into Eastern Heaven Dining Hall, Suki catches my eye. She motions me over to her table with a silly little flap of the hand that Pearlians must consider cute. Cricket and I skate to her.

  She’s wearing a white bandage around her head. We’re not wearing our smoked spectacles because it’s nighttime. She has a perforated metal patch cupping one of her eyes. I don’t remember her being injured during the Motivation. All the other girls sitting
around her are similarly adorned, with bandages, slings, and eye patches. One girl has even patted black and blue kohl powder around one eye.

  Fashion. They’re doing this as some ludicrous sort of fashion.

  Suki says, “A glorious victory today.” She smiles as if she’s about to take something away from me. “You were lucky.”

  Here it is. I’ve made an enemy. Without even trying. Well, that’s nothing new to me. You don’t get to be the Peony-Level Brightstar without making some enemies.

  She looks hard at me. I stare right back into her big brown eye. She laughs. “Calm down. I value lucky friends.”

  Lucky! It wasn’t luck. She’s lucky the Motivation didn’t require her to fight me.

  “Come sit.” She flaps her hand at an empty chair beside her. I sit, and Cricket takes the seat next to mine.

  “You can’t sit there,” says Suki to Cricket. She points to a stone tied with a cord that has been set on the chair. “They’re ceremonial seats. Families buy them for their unborn children or children who have died.” All the sacrifices Cricket and I endured to get here, and Pearlians can afford to buy places at the academy for children who don’t even exist.

  Cricket takes a different seat a few spaces down. I hope he won’t embarrass us, so far away from where I can guide the conversation.

  “We haven’t formally met. I am called familial name Gang, personal name Suki,” she says. “Although you may call me Your Grace, Radiant Goddess Princess Suki. I am Princess of the House of Flowering Blossoms.”

  “I am called familial name Chen, personal name Peasprout.”

  “Ah, kawai!” she cries, and all the other girls also squeak “Kawai!” Why does everyone here love using Edaian words so much?

  “And that’s my little brother, called familial name Chen, personal name Cricket.”

  “Disciple Peasprout, Disciple Cricket, welcome to Pearl Famous.” Who is she to be welcoming me to the academy? She’s a first-year, too. “Allow me to introduce you to my court. This is my first lady-in-waiting, Disciple Chiriko; my second lady-in-waiting, Disciple Etsuko; my first lieutenant, Disciple Noriko; my second lieutenant, Disciple Mitsuko; my first fan-bearer, Disciple Mariko; and the newest member of my court, my second fan-bearer, Disciple Yukiko. I had another second fan-bearer, but we no longer speak her name. I learned that last Glimmer Season, at the Immortal Ruby Tea Society Thousand Octopus Lantern-Viewing Party, she wore vermillion out of season. She could have destroyed me.”