by Henry Lien
I find a path underneath the foundation of the temple and swim back to shore using powerful kicks in the Minghai striped dolphin position. I don’t tell people this very often because I’m a humble person, but I was swimming champion for all of Shui Shan Province five times before the age of nine. I only gave up swimming so that I could work toward becoming a legend of wu liu, so I’m never in any real danger in water, even while wearing skates. I’m able to make myself lighter through my excellent breath control, which is why I’m such an outstanding jumper.
As I’m swimming through the water, my heart fills with hope because this time, I saw Suki committing the attack. I didn’t see her face, but I saw the back of her academy robe.
I pop my head out of the water. Alarms ring out from across the campus. Students and senseis have rowed over from the Festival of Lanterns. The breeze cuts swaths into the billows lingering over the cavity where the temple once stood. There’s nothing left. Just a smoldering pit churning with seawater.
Suki’s words reach me as soon as I drag myself out of the water. “You see! She’s going to stop at nothing until she gets the secret of the pearl for the Empress Dowager! Imprison that filthy, murderous—”
“It was Suki!” I cry. “I saw her! She brought the temple down. She used some sort of fire jelly to melt it!”
Everyone is silent. Suki is smirking.
“I nearly drowned right now! Because of her! Aren’t you going to do anything?”
Sensei Madame Liao says to me, with her brow bunched into a cleft, “Peasprout. Suki was in my boat during the entire festival.”
“So she must have gotten one of her House of Flowering Blossoms girls to do it for her. Did she ask to be in your boat? She wanted you as a witness. She set you up!”
“I asked her to join me in my boat,” says Sensei Madame Liao.
My mouth drops open. Did she want to keep an eye on Suki? Should I feel betrayed?
Suki shouts, “Did anyone notice that she wasn’t at the Festival of Lanterns? And then she happens to be the only one at the site of the attack? Throw her in prison now!”
My Chi shudders. I’ve skated right into her trap.
“Enough. We will deal with this after the girls’ fifth Motivation tomorrow,” says Sensei Madame Liao. “The boys’ fifth Motivation is postponed, obviously.”
She orders the third-year students to usher us all to our dormitories.
* * *
I sleep little.
It’s even more urgent now that I consult Chingu after this third incident and with me at the site of the crime by myself with no witnesses.
I have to prove my innocence before the Chairman comes back. He’ll be here with the New Deitsu team tomorrow, just like the other times. Maybe sooner, since I promised to get him the evidence I needed to clear my name before another attack happened. He didn’t have enough evidence before to have a legal right to imprison me in that pavilion. If three incidents are enough evidence for Pearl Shining Sun to defame me, will it be enough for him?
I need to go while everyone is occupied with the girls’ fifth Motivation. But I have to finish participating in it myself first to keep up my ranking. I can escape into the city while it’s night, wait there until the markets open as soon as it’s light, and get back while the academy is still sleeping during the day.
So I’m going into the city, and I’m getting that wine, and I’m going to use Chingu’s oracle to prove to everyone that Suki is the criminal.
After I knock her out of the sky at the fifth Motivation.
* * *
We’re awakened at the usual time, and we meet at Divinity’s Lap.
Sensei Madame Liao leads the first-year girls to the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties. She ascends to the roof of the palace with a single-footed dolphin heel-kick. We copy the move and follow her atop the structure.
When we’re assembled, she barks, “Willful, unfilial daughters of Pearl and Shin. I can see from how you stand in your skates that you are all still selfish and depraved and that none of you is prepared for aerial combat.
“Because it will take place in the night sky, you are to tie these rings of luminescent seagrass around your wrists, ankles, hips, and shoulders so that I can see your movements and score you accordingly, and so we can find your bodies should you fall into the dark sea.
“Every pair of girls will fight every other pair simultaneously in an open field of combat on the roof of the palace and in the sky above. If both partners in the pair touch the pearl at the same time, that pair is eliminated. You will be scored based on how long you last. Those of you who have already selected your partners, form a line. Those of you who haven’t, you have until the count of one hundred to choose your own partners or you will be randomly assigned one.
“Now, one. Two.…”
I look for Doi. She’s standing at the edge of the palace roof, looking on at everybody. I still don’t know if I can trust her, but I’ve decided she’s my best chance to win the Motivation. I see Mole Girl, and she waves at me. I pretend not to see.
“Eight. Nine.…”
Suki’s pairing up each of the other House of Flowering Blossoms girls with some girl who has terrible ranking. She’s doing it to eliminate as many of her competitors as possible by pairing them with weak partners.
“Twenty. Twenty-one.…”
Suki skates to me and says, “If you and I pair up, we’ll win. If we win, you’ll be in first place.”
“What makes you think I would even—”
“If you don’t partner with me, I’m going to Pearl Shining Sun as soon as this Motivation is over and telling them everything I know about the three attacks. As well as some new ‘secret weapon’ evidence I found.”
“Then I’ll tell them all about how you cheated at the—”
“No one’s going to believe a word you say after last night. You waited too long to play that tile and you know it.”
“Luckity-seven. Luckity-eight.…”
I look at Doi, who’s looking back at me. What if she has some wild plan for this Motivation like she did at Iron Fan Dance? Can I trust her? I think so. But then, I thought I could trust her brother.
“Sixty-nine. Seventy…”
Etsuko stares at us from the sideline, waiting to see if Suki succeeds in convincing me. I guess she’s Suki’s backup choice. Why do these girls put up with such treatment?
“Eighty-two. Eighty-three.…”
Only a couple other girls haven’t found partners yet. They’re ranked so low that I’ve never bothered remembering their faces. I’m going to get paired with one of them if I don’t choose.
“Ninety. Ninety-one.…”
Doi still stares at me. Does she have as many doubts about me as I have about her?
Finally, I say to Suki, “Make me die of laughing! I’d sooner pair with Chingu.”
“Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.…”
Suki sneers and grabs Etsuko’s hand.
Something tugs my hand. I turn to see Doi holding it.
“One hundred!”
Doi nods at me. “Let’s knock them on their butts.”
We start our first battles with Doi as the foundation below, hoisting me into the air. Doi launches me up again and again above the roof of the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties in great arcs so that I can fight my opponent in the air. It’s an astonishing sight to see girl after girl being shot into the air around me like living cannonballs. Meanwhile, Doi spars with her opponent on the ground as she weaves between other girls before racing to meet me at the other end of the arc in time to catch me and launch me back up. Her skate kicks my skate up hard enough to pass sufficient Chi to keep me airborne, but not so much that I can’t control my flight toward my opponent.
I force any thoughts out of my mind about how my skates will be ruined. I’ll worry about that later. When I feel that Doi’s beginning to get tired from supporting me below, we switch positions. Then, I’m the one bumping her up into the air
while sending sweeping kicks at my opponent here below.
Pair after pair of girls is eliminated around us and the chaos thins until at last, the field of battle is cleared and there is silence. Doi and I take a moment to catch our breaths. We look across the spine of the palace roof to the only other pair left standing: Suki and Etsuko.
Doi and I look at each other and silently consider which of us wants to take on Suki more.
Doi says “She’s yours” at the same moment that I say “She’s mine.”
Doi grabs one of my skates, whips me around her in eight spins, and swings me into the air. Etsuko launches Suki up at me like a grimacing cannonball.
Suki and I clash up above, skate on skate. We sling ourselves in backward flips to stay aloft as long as possible and try to knock the other one out of bounds of the roof of the palace, but we’re evenly matched. Our uniforms are black against the darkness above us, but we’re illuminated by the rings of luminescent plant growth around our wrists, ankles, shoulders, and hips.
We must look from below like the constellations of two goddesses who have peeled themselves from the night sky to do battle.
On the roof far below, Doi and Etsuko look like swirling blossoms of cloth and metal as they spin and swipe their skates at each other.
Doi and I work in beautiful harmony. With every fling into the air, I’m saying I need her. With every kick off her skates, she’s saying she needs me. I need her. She needs me.
As Suki is launched into the air, she reaches into the front of her robe and pulls out something colorful. When I fly up to meet her, she flings it at me. I snatch it out of the air. It’s a paper doll of me, toppling an entire pagoda with a flying side kick of my skates. The words Peony-Level Brightstar, Unstoppable Secret Weapon of Shin! are printed in gold logograms above my head, stamped with the imperial seal.
Aiyah! That’s the new “secret weapon” evidence! Where did she find them? How is this going to look now? I know she’s doing this to distract me, but I can’t let anyone else see these.
Etsuko and Doi fling Suki and me back up into the sky. Suki whips two more paper dolls to either side of her. I air dash to the left and sweep kick to the right to snatch both of them. As Suki descends from her arc, she flings five more in all directions.
I come down and Doi kicks me hard back up. I pluck three of the paper dolls out of the air, but in my distraction, Suki manages to land a lightning squall chop on the side of my face and I go spiraling down. Doi has to race across the whole length of the roof to catch me in time.
Below us, everyone’s looking up to see what Suki is throwing around in the air.
“Peasprout, focus!” Doi launches me back up and I reposition myself in midair so that I am flying straight at Suki’s face.
Suki reaches into the front of her robe and flings fistful after fistful of the paper dolls in all directions. They flutter down around us in a cascade of color. Some of the students below are already picking them up and examining them.
Below me, I see Doi pick up one of the paper dolls as well. I hold my breath, but she merely looks at it, crushes it into a ball, and throws it aside before continuing to fight Etsuko.
I can hear from the change in the sound of Doi’s and Etsuko’s skates that the roof of the palace that they’re skating on doesn’t seem to be the same thickness everywhere. Some parts are thicker and some are thinner, like ice on a pond. As if New Deitsu didn’t patch it as—
I cry out a warning, but it’s too late. The roof caves in. Etsuko goes crashing into the interior of the palace. Doi hops aside to avoid falling in, but I’m plummeting toward the hole. Just before I disappear into the chasm, Doi hooks my foot with her foot and sends me flinging up again.
Suki’s not so lucky and falls through the hole. I see her land with her knees on Etsuko’s shoulders. Doi jumps into the hole to continue the battle, so I plummet down and land with my knees on Doi’s shoulders.
The ceiling within is too low for Etsuko or Doi to launch Suki or me airborne, so we battle inside the palace stacked like giants from a legend, with Suki and me battling with our arms and Etsuko and Doi with their skates. We fight side to side as we race down the length of the great hall, but neither of us gains an advantage. We’re too well matched.
Finally, Doi skates us under a beam and yells to me, “Grab it!” I hook my legs under her arms, then I grip the edge of the beam and pull up with all my strength, lifting both of us up.
We swing back and forth from the beam. Suki sways on top of Etsuko’s shoulders and they both gape at us, unable to guess what we’re about to do.
Doi and I collect our Chi and then, on the forward swing, I send my Chi into her and we explode apart. She hurtles skates-first like a spear flying toward the point where Suki’s knees rest on Etsuko’s shoulders.
Etsuko throws Suki forward across the length of the hall to avoid being struck and crouches to let Doi fly over her. However, Doi twists around in her flight, curbs her blades, lands on Etsuko’s shoulders, and clamps tight onto her with her hands and legs.
Meanwhile, Suki comes shooting across the length of the palace at me, limbs spiraling wildly as she tries to grab anything to keep her from touching the floor and being disqualified. As she reaches for one of my dangling skates, I lift it ever so slightly out of her reach, like I’m letting an insect creep past.
She goes crashing onto the floor of the palace below me.
For the first time, I notice Sensei Madame Liao and the other girls crowded in the doorway of the palace, watching our final battle.
“Infuriate me to death!” spits Suki.
Doi pushes off of Etsuko as if she were covered with leeches.
I skate to Doi. I bow and say, “I couldn’t have done that without you.”
“You needed me,” she says.
“And you needed me.”
“No one can be in two places at the same time.” And then she surprises me by nearly smiling. She looks almost like Hisashi at that moment.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
My triumph at winning the fifth Motivation is brief. I have to get the wine for Chingu before the Chairman visits again. My Chi freezes every time I think of the pendant with the crushed body of a criminal inside. I suspect the Chairman isn’t the type to wait for sufficient evidence before enacting punishment.
After bowing to Doi in gratitude, I leave the site of the fifth Motivation and race toward the rail-gondolas leading back to the city. I have to get out of the academy while everyone is distracted with the aftermath of the fifth Motivation. Then I have to find wine in the city and get back before tomorrow, while the academy is still sleeping. And all of it before the Chairman arrives again.
“Iwi, it’s brushtime!” comes the call. The birds, wearing luminescent harnesses, take flight and begin writing logograms.
“Vicious. Third. Attack. On. Pearl. Famous. Inspires. Renewed. Calls. For. Arrest. Of. Chair—”
Suddenly, the words in the sky stop and the birds scatter, circling in confusion.
I don’t have much time to spare, but I sense that something’s wrong. I skate toward the spot on the campus over which the birds are swarming and squawking. When I pass under the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness, I kick my heel to stop.
Near the rail-gondolas, Sensei Madame Phoenix is surrounded by the New Deitsu team. I duck behind an ornamental sculpture of the Enlightened One and peer around the corner. A man grips Sensei’s arm tightly. I can see the long nail of his little finger pressing into the sleeve of her arm even from here. Chairman Niu.
I skate as hard as I can in the other direction and almost trip on my nicked and jagged skate blades.
I hide on the original Conservatory of Music islet, which partially sank after a tsunami but was left there because people found the sumptuous ruins to be picturesque. No one ever goes there, because you have to hop across a series of tiny humps that rise out of the sea to access it.
I need to get out of P
earl Famous, away from the Chairman, and into the city as quickly as I can, but I don’t dare cross the campus and be seen in case he’s searching for me. I skate back and forth across the decaying floor of the conservatory, counting down the time.
After two hours, the air splits with a great clap, the same sound that I heard when they completed repairs on the Palace of the Eighteen Outstanding Pieties.
I wait another hour to be safe and then skate back toward the rail-gondolas, staying close to the edge of the Principal Island. The fifth Motivation must be long completed by now. My plan to sneak off the campus while much of the academy was occupied with the Motivation is ruined. I just have to hide if I see anyone between here and the rail-gondolas.
When I near the landing, I see someone under the Great Gate of Complete Centrality and Perfect Uprightness. I skate to hide behind a copse of false ornamental trees, but it’s too late. I’m spotted. Make me drink sand to death! The person is waving at me with both hands.
It’s Cricket.
“Peasprout!”
I hop off and race to him.
“What’s wrong?”
“I saw them restoring the temple!”
“Cricket! You broke the rules!”
“No! They only said that we may not face in the direction of the worksite. They didn’t say that we couldn’t see it. The third-year students who’d devoted to the Conservatory of Architecture were gathered on the edge of the Principal Island facing the worksite. They were given special permission to watch the temple being restored.
“One of them is named Deen Dei-Hwun. She’s ashamed that one of her eyes wanders a little in the socket, so she wears smoked spectacles even at nighttime, which is ridiculous since she’s the prettiest girl at Pearl Famous. She let me talk to her while she watched the work being done. And I realized that I could see everything that was happening reflected in her spectacles!”
“Cricket, what have you done?”
“The work team brought giant metal spoons,” Cricket continues, his face glowing as if he can’t hear me. “They used them to sling great white balls at the ruins of the temple. And I saw the balls strike and eat away the ruins.
