by Qinghan CeCe
He smiled gently. “How do you like the bird?”
“Did you raise it? It looks clever,” Wang Ruo said curiously. The bird seemed to understand and jumped even more joyfully in the cage with no sign of stopping.
“Yes, very clever. When I let him out of the cage, he flies to the forest, but as soon as he hears my whistle, he comes right back.” He stroked the bird’s head with two fingers. The bird affectionately kissed them.
Huang Zixia took Wang Ruo outside to avoid trouble. But when they were passing him, he said, “After all, no matter how we act, everything we’ve done and experienced is deeply imprinted on our hearts and can’t be hidden from others or ourselves.”
Huang Zixia sensed Wang Ruo’s body stiffen as she stopped walking.
“It’s like there’s an invisible rope around your neck, and the more you struggle to escape, the tighter it gets,” he said, looking at Wang Ruo. He laughed. “No worries, I’m only talking about this bird.”
Huang Zixia faced him. “Do you know to whom you’re speaking this nonsense?”
“Of course I know,” he said calmly. “If all goes according to plan, she’ll be the Princess of Kui within ten days.”
“That being the case, please don’t bother the lady any further.”
“Of course I don’t want to bother the lady. I just wanted to show Wang Ruo something fun.” He walked closer, then leaned forward to bow and held out the birdcage. “This servant only wants the Princess of Kui to smile.”
The bird that had been inside the cage was gone. The fine bamboo structure was empty. Wang Ruo looked at Huang Zixia in surprise. Huang Zixia looked silently at the man.
“I beg the Princess to be careful. Otherwise, she may disappear like this bird from its finely woven cage.” He turned toward the temple and whispered, “A bird in its cage suddenly disappears; riches are like clouds, a never-ending dream.”
The sun was setting. A bell rang, and the monks began heading to their evening classes amid singing. With that, the man was gone. The birdcage was left on the ground. Huang Zixia turned and hurried inside, but there was no one there. Wang Ruo’s face had turned as pale as a withering flower.
“Ruo, why are you standing still like that with Yang Chonggu?” someone behind them called. It was Wang Yun, who had been waiting for them at the foot of the mountain. They’d been so long, he came looking for them. He went down the steps. His white satin clothing flowing in the wind made his figure look clean and bright as the sky.
He saw the empty birdcage on the ground and asked, “Where did that come from?” He saw Wang Ruo’s expression. “What happened, sister?”
“Bro . . . brother,” Wang Ruo said, her voice trembling as she looked at him with tearful eyes.
“What happened?” Wang Yun said with a frown.
“Just now . . . a strange man. He—he said . . .” Wang Ruo’s voice trembled and she couldn’t get the words out.
“Before the Prince came up,” Huang Zixia said, “a man with a birdcage appeared and somehow made the bird disappear. He said that the Princess might also disappear that way.”
“A man?” Wang Yun looked around, stunned. “The temple was cleared before you went in, and I’ve been standing guard with soldiers at the foot of the hill. How could anyone get in?”
“He couldn’t have escaped the temple. Go look and you’ll find him,” Wang Ruo said, trembling.
Wang Yun nodded. “Don’t worry. Nothing is going to happen to the Langya Wang daughter soon to be the Princess of Kui.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “Maybe I’m thinking too much. With the wedding coming, I’ve been having trouble sleeping.”
Wang Yun smiled. “I know. I’ve heard all brides-to-be are like that. Maybe it’s anxiety.”
Wang Ruo nodded slightly and bit her lower lip.
“Oh, sister, the Prince of Kui is such a good person. Are you worried you won’t be happy in the future?” Wang Yun said. “Let’s go; don’t believe that nonsense.”
Wang Ruo lowered her head and went down the steps with Wang Yun to the main hall on the mountainside. Huang Zixia was close behind. “Chonggu,” Wang Ruo said.
“I’m here,” she responded.
“Do you also think I’ve seemed worried and anxious lately?”
Huang Zixia thought a moment and said, “The Princess is too concerned about the Prince, which has made her nervous.”
Wang Ruo pouted her lips and looked at her with teary eyes. “Maybe,” she said quietly.
The monks were still in class, and the late bell chanting lingered around them. Hearing the Buddhist verses, Huang Zixia remembered her grandmother’s words. All love fades. It causes worry and terror. She looked at Wang Ruo’s hanging head and thought, Was she really like this because of Li Shubai?
Wang Yun and the guard captain, Xu Zhiwei, spoke briefly, then divided the soldiers into two groups: one to search the main hall and monks’ quarters and one to search the temple. Since everyone was in evening class, there were no monks absent from the main hall. None could have appeared in the temple where they burned incense.
When darkness fell, the soldiers reported back. They decided to divide the temple into fifty areas and conduct a detailed search with ten men. They combed the area so thoroughly that not even a termite could have gone unnoticed.
The only discovery at all was a rusted arrow in front of the Buddha in the incense temple. It was engraved with the barely discernable words The Tang Dynasty Prince of Kui. The same arrow the Prince of Kui used to kill the traitor Pang Xun.
Seven
SCARLET DREAM
When Huang Zixia returned to Kui Palace, Li Shubai was alone in the parlor eating dinner. He indicated for his attendants to leave and for her to sit in an empty chair. Huang Zixia sat. Li Shubai handed her a pair of ivory chopsticks and pushed a small bowl toward her. He looked around and saw only shadows on the partition before picking up some golden cakes and cloves and putting them in her bowl.
“I heard someone pulled off some wonderful magic at the ceremony today,” Li Shubai said casually.
“Yes,” Huang Zixia said. “Quite wonderful, but I think the Princess’s response was more wonderful.”
“Princess-to-be,” Li Shubai corrected her.
“The Emperor called for the wedding personally, and she’s from the Empress’s family. Is there really any way around it?”
“It doesn’t matter. If she’s deceiving me, then she must be exposed,” Li Shubai said. “Did she seem worried her identity was revealed?”
“I don’t think so. The strange man alluded to a secret about her past, which clearly frightened her.”
“Did you notice how he appeared and how he disappeared?”
“Not at all. And how he got through the guards and away from them, I have no idea.” Huang Zixia closed her teeth around the chopsticks and frowned. “The temple was searched thoroughly but no trace was found. Seems like he turned into a bird and flew over the wall.”
“Have you read Huang Fu’s essays?” Li Shubai asked.
Huang Zixia shook her head. “What’s that?”
“A book. It tells about a ‘Jiaxing rope’ stunt. During the middle years of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang’s reign, the Jiaxing County supervisor wanted to have some entertainment at a feast, so he looked for a stuntman among the local prisoners. One said he had rope skills, so they brought him to an open space and gave him a hundred feet of rope. He tossed it up, and it stayed as if someone were holding it. He kept tossing more and more up until you couldn’t see the end of it. Then he climbed up and disappeared to escape.”
“From any imaginable point of view,” Huang Zixia said, “this is impossible.”
“Why? Aren’t there stranger things in the world?” Li Shubai pursed his lips. “For example, it’s said my future Princess may disappear like the bird in the birdcage.”
“So the Prince is also taking that man’s words seriously?”
“I don’t think it came from nowhere for no re
ason.” He leaned back and looked at the shadows fluttering across the partition. “Huang Zixia, what was your favorite place in Changan growing up?”
“Huh?” Huang Zixia was caught off guard with a golden cake in her mouth. She stared at him a moment, then said, “Probably the West City.”
“Right, West City. I liked it there when I was little too,” he said thoughtfully. “Who wouldn’t? The liveliest place in the whole capital, even the whole world.”
Changan’s West City
All the shops were busy and bustling. Persian jewelry, Tianzhu spices, Dawan horses. There was Jiangnan tea, Shu brocades, Saibei fur, and crowds of businessmen at the street food stalls, girls selling flowers, and thin-waisted foreigners in restaurants.
Changan’s West City couldn’t be stifled by the curfew. From Kaiyuan through Tianbao, it grew more and more prosperous so that even some of the surrounding squares became crowded and noisy at night. But this was daytime, and the late-spring/early-summer light shone on the streets’ locusts, elms, and jasper. Li Shubai and Huang Zixia walked one in front of the other in the shade. Since Li Shubai was in disguise, Huang Zixia forwent her eunuch uniform and wore ordinary men’s clothing, which made her look like a young teen. They peeked into shops, but Li Shubai had been wealthy since he was a child and found nothing up to his standards. Huang Zixia, meanwhile, was penniless, still unpaid, so neither bought anything.
That is until they reached a shop selling koi, and Li Shubai bought a small bag of fish food and contemplated a uniquely shaped fish tank inside.
Huang Zixia encouraged him. “Pretty nice, and the little fish will have more room.”
He picked it up, looked, and put it back. “All the space wouldn’t be good for a domesticated fish.”
“You can’t let him free once a day?” Huang Zixia muttered.
“How long would he be happy in that situation?”
She didn’t know what to say to a man who made such a big deal about the little fish.
It was still early, so the jugglers hadn’t come out yet. Huang Zixia asked someone and discovered that the jugglers appeared a little later to make use of the busiest time. When noon came, Li Shubai finally indulged and took her to Zhuijin, the most luxurious restaurant in the West City. They sat in a room to try some food she hadn’t seen at the palace. The restaurant was quite elegant, and it was crowded and noisy. There was a sudden knock on a wood block, which made the restaurant go quiet for a moment.
It was a storyteller who sang along to the sound of a small drum. First he sang the well-known “Butterfly”; then he put his drumstick away, cleared his throat, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am not talented, but I will tell you about the latest news from the kingdom.” As soon as he spoke, Huang Zixia recognized him as the man telling stories in the pavilion outside Changan. “In Changan’s Daming Palace, the Emperor reigns,” he began. “Beyond it are Princes; one is the Prince of Kui, Li Shubai.”
Someone shouted, “I love stories about the Prince of Kui. Tell us the one about him battling Pang Xun!”
“Soon! This matter is much more important than his battle with Pang Xun!”
Despite the story being about him, Li Shubai didn’t pay any attention. He just kept slowly eating, calmly looking out the window at the people walking by. Huang Zixia listened. “It’s said the Prince of Kui has himself a new problem.”
That same customer shouted, “The Prince of Kui just broke the Four Directions Case and is preparing to marry. Everything’s going so well.”
The room filled with chatter.
“Didn’t you hear? The Kui Princess-to-be, the Langya Wang girl, went to Xianyou temple to burn incense?”
The person rushed to say, “I heard the Empress’s cousin is gorgeous as could be!”
“She must be incredibly beautiful; why else would the Prince of Kui pick her over Princess Qi Le?”
“That Princess Qi Le is really the most pitiful creature in the capital. Women really shouldn’t bare their hearts so clearly.”
The storyteller listened until they calmed down and then said, “But did you know, even though the Wang girl became the Princess of Kui-to-be and the envy of all the capital women, the marriage process hasn’t been without its twists and turns?”
The room went quiet. The storyteller was really exaggerating. He told of the trick at Xianyou Temple and mixed in a lot of speculation and fantasy. He even said the man was ten feet tall and six feet around with green fangs and wings and had the intention of taking the Princess away, but that Wang Yun fought him off during a swordfight that lasted hours. The assassin couldn’t win, so he fled and shouted that the Prince of Kui better be careful during the ten days until the wedding because he was going to go deep into the palace and snatch the Princess from under everyone’s noses.
The more he spoke, the more excited the storyteller became. He hit his wood block with a captivated look on his face. “Wang Yun was furious at the assassin’s claims. He raised his sword and rushed at him. Suddenly, the monster disappeared in a puff of smoke and left an arrow engraved with The Tang Dynasty Prince of Kui, the same arrow the Prince of Kui used to kill the traitor Pang Xun!”
The audience burst into thunderous applause.
Huang Zixia was the only one quietly shaking her head. “What? Not well told?” Li Shubai asked.
“It doesn’t make sense. If he can fly, why turn into smoke? Why not just fly away?”
“Don’t you think it’s more exciting that way?”
Huang Zixia took a moment to calm down. “Didn’t the mayor, Yin, put some regulations on these storytellers?”
“What’s wrong with a little fun?” Li Shubai said, indifferent.
All she could do was listen to the tale spinning outside. The man told the story of Li Shubai and Pang Xun.
In the ninth year of Xiantong, Pang Xun led a mutiny in Guilin. Two hundred thousand men marched on the court to make him military governor. The court refused, so he killed the governor and made himself king. At that time, each military governor raised his own force, so the Central Court was unable to mobilize. Only Li Shubai rose to the task. He brought one hundred thousand troops and negotiated with six other military governors. In September of the next year, they smashed the army and killed Pang Xun.
In the heat of battle, Li Shubai shot Pang Xun through the neck with an arrow. Chaos spread as Pang Xun fell from a tower, smashed into the ground, and was trampled by horses galloping in the mud. Only the bloody arrowhead remained. It was enclosed in a crystal box and placed in the Xuzhou drum tower as a warning to others.
That was when Li Shubai got the cursed paper on his birthday.
Last month, a rumor spread that the crystal box in the Xuzhou drum tower hadn’t moved, but the arrowhead was missing. Officials searched long and hard but found no trace of it until it showed up in the temple where Wang Ruo met that strange man.
“Something is amiss here, huh, gentlemen?” The storyteller seemed to magically bring everyone to life. “Could it be that Pang Xun’s spirit is seeking revenge on the Prince of Kui by attacking his marriage?”
“Come on, only good people’s spirits live on. He was a usurper.”
“Maybe an evil spirit, then.”
The conversation took a bizarre turn and Huang Zixia looked at Li Shubai.
Without looking up, he said, “What are you doing?”
“I’m thinking about when you were nineteen and shooting Pang Xun. What was going through your mind?” she asked, holding her chin.
He looked as unruffled as usual. “It’ll only disappoint you.”
“No way. Let’s see.”
“I was thinking it would be a shame if a gust of wind came and blew the arrow off course.”
Huang Zixia had no response.
“Some things aren’t worth knowing.” He pointed out the window and said, “The performers are out. Let’s take a walk.”
Huang Zixia, stomach growling, looked down and noticed she’d hardly eaten any of her food.
Then she stood up angrily and followed him out.
The performers were finally out and about. But it was only typical hoops and bowls. Only one sword swallower. “Sword swallowing is so common. What’s the point?” she asked a man pushing his way to the front of the crowd.
“This isn’t the same!” the man said. “The sword’s four feet long, and the dwarf swallowing it is only three feet tall!”
Huang Zixia suddenly couldn’t help but squeeze closer herself. Li Shubai looked at her disdainfully and turned to leave. Huang Zixia followed him, thinking, Can such a person with no interest in anything fun ever be happy? Li Shubai walked ahead of her. He turned slightly and glanced at her. She was two steps behind him, watching a young husband and wife holding the hands of a little girl between them. The girl bounced, sometimes jumping to hang and swing like a little monkey.
Li Shubai stopped and waited for Huang Zixia.
She stood and watched the family walk off. She was silent, and the sun lit up part of her face, leaving the rest in shadow. Then she suddenly thought, What about me? My parents and family are dead; I’ve been charged with murder but have no leads on how to prove my innocence. Will I ever be the playful girl I once was?
After a while, Li Shubai said, “Let’s go.”
There was another crowd ahead. A slippery-looking husband and wife, who looked to have made a difficult journey from Jianghu, stood in the middle of the crowd and first turned into a monstrous fish. Then the woman held out paper flowers and changed them into real ones. Though it wasn’t very original, it was moving when she threw the flowers in the air.
When the performance was over, the onlookers left, and the couple gathered their things to leave. Huang Zixia saw Li Shubai wink at her, so she approached and said, “Wow, that was really amazing!”
The man smiled. “You liked it, little man?”
“Yes, I really liked that paper-flower trick. I know the real flowers must have been up your sleeve, but where did the paper flowers go?”
