by Henry Lien
I’d thought that Pearlians were so different, so evolved. They can be just as brutal here as the Empress Dowager.
“All that’s left at the end is a miniature black structure, small enough to wear as a pendant. We have a chamber full of these trinkets at New Deitsu,” the Chairman continues. “If you are endangering the secret of the pearl, you could be number 2,021.”
The trinket. On the pendant. That I put in my mouth. That’s why it weighed so much. It was the body of a prisoner trapped inside a shrunken structure shaped like a tiny pavilion.
Like the pavilion I’m standing in now.
I try to push my way out, but the Chairman and his team block me.
They’re going to seal me inside it.
But they can’t legally do that! I take a deep breath to calm my Chi. They don’t have enough proof. That’s why he hasn’t thrown me in prison yet.
He’s just trying to intimidate me.
The Chairman starts pounding on the roof of the pavilion above me to scare me, like a boy taunting an animal in a cage.
He’s pouting! Because he can’t figure out a way to beat me!
How can I get him off my trail?
By finding the true criminal who caused the attacks.
But how do I do that?
I try to focus my Chi, but it’s hard with his palm beating on the roof and the pavilion ringing around me like a war drum, as if he were a spoiled, deranged—
That’s it! I know how to find out who the criminal is!
“Stop it!” I cry. “I’m going to prove to you that I’m innocent.”
The beating sounds stop. The Chairman ducks his head down to peer at me. “How?”
“I know the identity of the true criminal. I just need to gather the evidence.”
I begin to press my way past him. He tries to push me back into the pavilion.
“Let me go so I can get you your evidence. Or do you want to wait until another attack happens?”
“You’re not going anywhere, you disrespectful, corrupt, lying girl!”
“Yes, I am. Because you don’t have a choice. And you know it.”
The Chairman steps back. His eye is twitching.
“See,” he says. “This is why I hate children. You’d better hope that another attack doesn’t happen before you get your evidence.”
I skate away as quickly as I can and don’t look back until the palace is out of sight. I stop and catch my breath.
Why didn’t I see it before? It should have been so obvious how I can prove that I’m innocent and find out who the true criminal is.
I have to consult Chingu, the oracular monkey.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
At the Skybrary at the Conservatory of Literature, on a platform high above the central atrium, on the fifth tier of shelves that required me to do fifth-gate grasshopper double jumps while bouncing between columns to reach them, I find the Master Record of the Academy Rules and Statutes of Perfectly Upright Character.
I note with relief that statute 547 states that if someone accuses someone else of causing damage to the property of the academy, the accuser must bring proof. That’s why Suki and the Chairman haven’t been able to do anything to Cricket and me, yet. They only have inferences and allegations.
I consult the index, then flip to foundational principle of values number thirty-nine, which states that Chingu, the oracular monkey and earthly vessel of heavenly enlightenment, is never incorrect. Her oracles are always presumed true, though the interpretation may be inaccurate. Thus, if Chingu makes an oracle identifying a criminal, it’s presumed to be valid proof to satisfy statute 547 unless the criminal can show that the interpretation was flawed.
So that’s how it’s going to happen. It’s strange to see in this book in my hands an oracle of how I’m going to take Suki down. I snap the book shut with satisfaction.
After White Hour, before class at the Conservatory of Music, Suki and the House of Flowering Blossoms girls skate to me. They’ve adorned their academy robes with hundreds of luminescent, feathery, gold scales that wave and shimmer as they move. They look as if they’re being eaten alive by a school of goldfish. Sensei Madame Yao has not arrived yet, so the girls see their chance to squeeze in some abuse. Since Doi’s not in class today, I’m the target.
“So,” begins Suki, “have you decided which structure you’re going to attack next, Stealthiest Skater in Shin?”
“Oh, Suki, is that you under all that gold?” I ask. “I thought someone was being attacked by a gingko tree.”
“Wah, so she’s an expert on fashion now! In prison, you’ll be able to wear the latest fashions made out of discarded turnip sacks.”
“You should know,” I say, “that I intend to consult Chingu, the oracular monkey, and ask her who is attacking the structures of Pearl Famous. Enjoy your last few days at the academy, Suki. You had some talent, but you had more hatefulness.”
“Is that supposed to scare me? Make me die of laughing!” She giggles behind her hand, sending waves fluttering through the gold scales on her robe.
Sensei Madame Yao arrives, and so the insults end there. It would have felt good to deliver a last slice.
* * *
That afternoon, I visit Sagacious Monk Goom and Chingu. They live in a little temple on pillars rising directly out of the water off the southeast edge of the Principal Island.
I knock the suspended pole against the bell hanging outside of the front door to the temple. I immediately hear the sound of shrieking from within.
Sagacious Monk Goom opens the door. “Very nice. Very nice.”
Inside, Chingu is seated on top of a sort of great box, large enough to seat two people inside, made of ornate pearl lacquer carved with maps of stars. She’s screeching as if she’s being boiled alive, hacking at the box with her cleaver, and baring her fangs at us.
“Venerable holy Sagacious Monk Goom,” I say, bowing. “Ten thousand obeisances of gratitude for the honor of granting me an audience with you.”
“Nice.”
“I have never been received by so holy a man.”
“Very nice.”
“The students of Pearl Famous Academy of Skate and Sword are so fortunate to have so evolved a being, who almost received the bolt of enlightenment himself, serving as our spiritual counselor. How did we deserve such good fortune?”
“You’re my punishment for messing it up.”
I don’t know what to say to this.
“Do you have any money I can borrow?” he asks.
“Ah, venerable holy Sagacious Monk Goom,” I say. “I wish to consult Chingu, the oracular monkey.”
“Mmm. I see. Are you sure you don’t have any money I can borrow?”
“Alas, venerable holy Sagacious Monk Goom, I do not,” I say.
He lets out a great sigh. “You students never do. What do you know about consulting Chingu, the oracular monkey?”
“The asker enters the box with Chingu and takes her hand. She falls into a trance, the asker asks the question, she chooses three tiles from a set of sixty-lucky, and the logograms on the tiles form the fortune. The asker’s personal meditation on the meaning of the three logograms yields revelation and the oracle.”
“Ah, but you’ll need my assistance, won’t you? What’s your question for Chingu?” I don’t know why he wants to hear my question, but I know scheming when I see it.
I bow and say, “Ten thousand obeisances of gratitude. But I understand that questions that one asks Chingu are very personal, spiritual matters. And that every student has the right to consult Chingu privately.”
His face goes sour. “Sounds like we like to read the academy rules, don’t we? But all oracles benefit from interpretation. I can interpret it for you. For a small fee.”
“I roll in waves of gratitude for your generosity, but I will struggle with the mysteries of the oracle alone.”
I imagine that if you blow on a bear’s nose, it’d look like how Sagacious Monk Goom loo
ks.
“Suit yourself,” he says. “Yet Chingu doesn’t answer questions so easily. Sometimes Chingu is very nice. And sometimes she’s only nice.”
When we look over at her, she hisses at us like a viper.
“You see. Today, she’s only nice.” Chingu’s protests rise to such viciousness that she chokes and coughs out something into her hand, which she smells and eats.
“Chingu needs a nice treat before she can answer questions,” says Sagacious Monk Goom.
“What kind of treat?” I ask.
“Red sorghum wine.”
He’s a fraud and a cheat, but he’s standing between me and Chingu. “I make obeisances in all directions for the honor of your audience, venerable holy Sagacious Monk Goom. I will return with red sorghum wine for y—for Chingu, the oracular monkey.”
“Mmm. Very nice.”
“May we meet here in the New Year.”
“May we meet here in Pearl.”
I skate backward and exit the temple.
If I want to get some wine, I’ll have to break academy rules and escape into the city. There, I’ll have to find someone willing to break the law and sell wine to a luckyteen-year-old girl.
The last thing I need now is to be caught breaking rules and laws. But that nasty little monkey has the evidence I need to prove that Suki has been setting me up. Rules and laws are great, but rules and laws are what made my parents disappear. So if wine is what it takes to get the proof I need out of Chingu, I’m not going to let rules and laws stop me.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Two hundred and fifty Sukis. That’s how I see the academy now that I’m planning to sneak off the campus into the city. Any of the hundreds of students could see me climbing onto the gondola rails leading back to the city and violating the academy rules. Any of them could report my suspicious behavior that seems to confirm Suki’s accusations and Pearl Shining Sun’s headlines. It’s like Suki’s just grown 498 extra eyes.
I could try to sneak out after dark, when the academy is asleep. The second- and third-years take turns patrolling the campus at night, but I could learn the patterns they travel during their watch. However, all the markets in the city are closed at night.
The week after my visit to Sagacious Monk Goom and Chingu, the answer is presented to me, because something extraordinary happens to day and night: they switch places. It’s the first day of the Season of Glimmers. During this season, the seas around the city of Pearl glow at night due to the luminescent plants and octopuses that migrate here during this season. The glowing sea life even works its way against the current, up the canals and aqueducts, turning the waterways into rivers of light. Pearlians harvest and use them as decorations during the Season of Glimmers to turn Pearl into a city fashioned of stars.
The whole academy goes nocturnal for the Season of Glimmers. Classes, Motivations, and meals all take place at night. We sleep during the daylight hours.
However, this reversal is just an academy tradition. The rest of the city of Pearl maintains its regular schedule of business. Thus, during the day, the academy sleeps but the markets remain open. I can sneak into the city during the day, as soon as I finish the next Motivation, since almost everyone at the academy is occupied for half a day with the conducting of each Motivation.
The Season of Glimmers brings me a way to get the wine for Chingu, but it also brings the Festival of Lanterns that will take place on the night before the fifth Motivation. This year’s festival will mark its two hundredth anniversary, so the whole city of Pearl will celebrate it with fanfare. Despite all the worries on my mind, I’m excited. We have lantern festivals in Shin, but they’re nothing like this.
From the eager whispers of my classmates, I learn that the entire academy will be decorated with lanterns made out of luminous octopuses. During the festival, everyone rows in boats into the glowing sea. They net octopuses and place a funnel into the beak of each one. They tie its arms into a bow to make a little basket, which rests under the cone of the funnel. Into this basket, they place a burning coal. The hot air rises through the funnel into the mouth of the octopus, filling it so it floats up. Beautiful shifting patterns of color swarm over the creature’s skin as it ascends.
I’m excited to have a chance to wear my flower dress at the festival. When I was young, before our parents disappeared, our mother took in other people’s washing for a year to save enough to buy the material for it. I know it’s not very high-grade material and that, in all likelihood, the rich students here only use this kind of material to polish their skate blades. However, it has folded cloth blossoms sewn all over it. It’s the best piece of clothing I’ve ever owned, and I want to wear it for Hisashi so that he can see that I’m not just a great wu liu warrior. I’m also a girl.
* * *
However, I can’t let such thoughts distract me. I have a plan to get into the city, but once I get there, I still have to find someone willing to sell wine to a luckyteen-year-old girl.
I doubt that any of the other students would know anything about the practices in the markets. Even if they’ve grown up in the city, they probably don’t do the market shopping. Parents or servants do that for them. And here at Pearl Famous, everyone has everything that they eat and drink provided for them in Eastern Heaven Dining Hall, so they would never have to shop for—
Hisashi. He never eats in the dining hall because everything has animal parts in it.
He must have secretly been going into the markets in the city all year long! He got that wakame from the sea, but not the star anise or the sweet potatoes. Hisashi would know where in the markets someone might sell me red sorghum wine.
Hisashi will help me get the wine to give to Chingu to receive the oracle to prove my enemy and clear my name and make Cricket and me, at long last, safe.
I don’t see Hisashi for over a week after the luckieth Motivation. I finally run into him crossing the Bridge of Serene Harmony. I almost skate past him because his uniform isn’t decorated with luminous octopus slices like everyone else’s. Further, the lantern he carries isn’t an octopus lantern but one of the regular frosted pearlplate lanterns.
“Good midnight, Peasprout.”
“Good midnight, Hisashi. Are you excited about the Season of Glimmers Festival of Lanterns? I never imagined I’d be here for its two hundredth anniversary.”
The smile on his face dims.
“What have I said?” I ask him.
“I’m not going to the Festival of Lanterns.” He looks at me directly. “Those luminous octopus lanterns? Their bells swarm with light and wild colors like that because the octopuses are still alive when they’re being filled with hot air. Eventually, the coal under each one grows so hot, it ignites the digestive gases in the animal, causing it to burst like fireworks. Entire schools are harvested and killed to supply the Pearlian market during the Season of Glimmers.”
I’d assumed that he didn’t eat meat because he loved animals, but it hadn’t occurred to me that that would extend to the octopuses because I hadn’t thought of them as animals. How tenderhearted he is to love even things that are so different from us. I knew what the lanterns were made of. I just hadn’t stopped to consider the cruelty and suffering in it.
“You think the seas are beautiful now?” He sweeps an arm toward the water. “Nine years ago, before they started celebrating the Festival of Lanterns, the waters around Pearl were a sea of light. The octopuses will probably all be gone in another nine years.”
“What do you mean ‘nine years ago’?” I ask. “I thought this was the two hundredth anniversary.”
“Ah, I thought you knew. It’s only the ninth year of the festival. The company that sponsors the holiday didn’t see acceptable profits in the first eight years. They thought that this year, if they called it the two hundredth anniversary and hired poets to write some invented history, people would like it more. And everyone does seem very excited. It’s like the whole city is the set of a historical opera.”<
br />
I get that unpleasant feeling in my chest of waking from a dream. This beautiful festival is built on suffering and lies.
“This must all seem so strange to you,” he says.
“I’m not going to attend the Festival of Lanterns, either,” I blurt.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you about this being the ninth year.”
“Yes, you should have. And that’s not the only reason. Many animals will die for no reason. It’s a cruel, thoughtless tradition created for money.” My heart sinks as I realize that I won’t get the chance to wear my dress for him. But I can’t unknow what he told me.
“Thank you.” Hisashi brings his knuckles to his lips and composes himself. At last, he merely says, “Let’s make our own better tradition. Meet me on the night of the festival, and we’ll celebrate together.”
* * *
Before I can escape into the city, I’ll have to participate in the fifth Motivation. I have to get wine for Chingu to get evidence to prove I’m innocent, but I also can’t let my performance suffer or Suki will pounce.
However, the fifth Motivation is unlike anything I’ve prepared for. I don’t know why they delayed announcing it so long this time, but the anticipation has made everyone expect something very special. Even as Supreme Sensei announced it, I knew what it meant that our fifth Motivation would be “Little Pi Bao Gu and Cloud-Tamer Zwei.”
We are going to do aerial combat.
“All know the story of Little Pi Bao Gu, the creator of wu liu,” says Sensei Madame Liao in her proclamation voice during our next wu liu class. “Yet her achievement would be useless were it not for the contributions of Cloud-Tamer Zwei. A woman famed for her ugliness who hid from ridicule by living on the sea in floating houses that she built herself.
“After the Great Leap of Shin destroyed the first city of Pearl, there wasn’t enough stone or wood to rebuild. Cloud-Tamer Zwei instead used a building resource she discovered in the waters around the island during her years at sea … the pearl.
