The Hidden Moon

by Jeannie Lin

  Gao was the one who had captured the machete wielder. Did that make him even more of a target than Constable Ma?

  “Get inside,” Li Chen said as a parting warning. “We’re sweeping the streets.”

  He didn’t comply. Instead he circled back toward the tea house. If Wei-wei was stranded in this ward, she’d go somewhere familiar to her, and he couldn’t think of any other place. On his way there, another one of his informants caught up to him.

  “Go to the canal,” he said, out of breath.

  Dread sank its claws into him. “What do you mean?”

  “Go to the canal,” the informant repeated. He hurried away, disappearing into the alleyway.

  On his grave. The waterway was in the dark northwest corner of the ward. He shouldn’t go there alone, but he couldn’t not go.

  His heart pounded and Gao could barely breath as he made his way there. He slipped his knife into his hand. As a rule, he never brandished it out in the open, but this was a day for rules to be suspended.

  There was something near the water. A gray bundle huddled at the bank. Gao’s mouth went so dry he could no longer swallow. He forced his feet forward, his body going numb when he saw that it wasn’t something, but someone. The body was turned away toward the water with one shoulder jutting in the air.

  It couldn’t be Wei-wei. It couldn’t be. The size, the clothes. Nothing matched what she would look like, his mind insisted wildly. He didn’t know how to pray, but he tried it anyway as he crouched down and pulled the shoulder toward him. The body rolled onto its back.

  It wasn’t Wei-wei, but Gao’s stomach sickened nonetheless. It was Fu Lin.

  Chapter 20

  Wei-wei was on her way to the tea house when the drumbeats started to signal curfew.

  Zhou Dan pulled the carriage to a halt and looked back at her. “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Nothing like this had ever happened before. When the city crier rode through the streets, it finally occurred to her that there was a larger crisis at hand. She directed Zhou Dan to go toward the ward gates at the north end. There was a crowd gathered there, but the gates were shut and barricaded. The guards were not letting anyone through.

  There was only one option.

  The doors of the Spring Blossom tea house were closed, but Mingyu opened them when Wei-wei knocked.

  “There you are!” Mingyu said, ushering her inside.

  “What’s happened?”

  Mingyu sat her down as Wu Kaifeng went with Zhou Dan to stable the horse and carriage.

  “The magistrate has declared a state of emergency,” Mingyu barred the door behind them. “No one knows what has happened, but there is to be a formal proclamation in the morning. In the meantime, the city guards are enacting curfew and clearing the streets.”

  “In all the wards?” Wei-wei asked.

  “I think so.” The drums were the same ones that signaled the closing of all the gates. “The entire city is on watch.”

  Chang’an had faced several sieges in the past, some more devastating than others. None of the major rebellions were in their lifetimes, but the city remembered. There was another reason the capital would shut down like this. Wei-wei waited until Wu Kaifeng returned with Zhou Dan before she revealed her suspicions.

  “I think the Emperor is in danger.” She recounted the news of Chancellor Yao’s assassination on the same night as the Emperor’s nephew. The news hadn’t yet reached the rest of the city, but that could be what was being announced in the morning.

  “There was also the character ‘Li’ written in courtesan Song Yi’s chamber in the House of Heavenly Peaches,” she reported. “It looked like a threat.”

  “From the assassins?”

  He considered the possibility, but didn’t concede anything. Wei-wei was already convinced. Gao had told her another suspect was poisoned.

  “I won’t be able to go home while the gates are locked. My family will be worried.”

  “Magistrate Li came looking for you. Perhaps he’ll come back,” Mingyu soothed. “He’ll be able to get through the barricades.”

  “It would be safer to stay where you are.” He went to position himself near the door, taking a moment to look out the window. “And for Li to get off the streets himself.”

  “You were his head constable. Do you trust the magistrate?” Wei-wei asked.

  He thought on it. “Li Chen is overly careful with his words at times, but I’ve known him to be trustworthy.”

  “His behavior has been,” she had to be careful here. “Less than honest at times with this case. Important details were removed from the record. Suspects have passed away under his custody. Now he’s closed off the wards without warning.”

  Wu’s brow furrowed as he absorbed the information. “While I was in his employ, Li Chen performed his duties impeccably.”

  “All the more reason this behavior is so suspicious,” she insisted.

  He pinned her with a severe look. It would have intimidated most people, but Wei-wei had come to know this was just the way Wu Kaifeng always looked. Finally, he nodded. “No man is above corruption,” he agreed.

  What if Li had closed to gates to allow co-conspirators to move unimpeded through the city? The city guards were occupied at the gates and clearing the streets.

  She could be arrested for falsely accusing an appointed official, but there were too many coincidences. One of the last things Li Chen had said to her last night was a warning, wasn’t it? He’d warned her not to speak of the case.

  “Gao.” How could she have not thought of him until now? Gao was also in the middle of this case.

  “He was here earlier as well,” Mingyu said gently. “Also looking for you.”

  He could be in danger.

  “Gao,” Wu Kaifeng echoed, interrupting her thoughts. “Now, there is someone who is not to be trusted.”

  Magistrate Li never did return. Neither did Gao. After an hour, the streets grew quiet except for the occasional foot patrol marching by to ensure the streets were clear. Wu Kaifeng set up a pallet in the main room downstairs for Zhou Dan while Mingyu brought Wei-wei to the extra room upstairs.

  “We rent this out to the occasional traveler,” Mingyu explained, rolling out the sleeping mat and blankets.

  She wasn’t used to seeing Mingyu doing something so mundane. Mingyu had always seemed otherworldly, so elegant and ethereal. Wei-wei knelt to help her set up the sleeping area.

  “Thank you for allowing me to stay.”

  “Of course. Aren’t we family now?” Mingyu patted her hand affectionately before rising. She closed the door gently behind her, leaving Wei-wei alone.

  She removed her outer robe to prepare for bed, leaving on the pale-colored tunic and trousers of her undergarments. She folded the robe into a neat rectangle and laid it in the corner beside her shoes. Then she opened the shutters on the window before blowing out the lamp.

  The moon was still round and bright, reminding her of the gathering the night before. She and Gao had returned home last night beneath the full moon, but they hadn’t left on good terms.

  As she leaned against the ledge, an evening breeze swept in, whispering her name.

  Her name?

  Someone really was calling out her name. Wei-wei looked down to see Gao standing down in the alleyway.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  “Making sure you’re safe.”

  There was a haunted look in his eyes. He looked ready to fight demons for her, and her heart broke.

  “Come up,” she urged. “The patrols are sweeping the streets.”

  Wei-wei expected him to go around to knock on the front door to be let in, but Gao reached up, found a hand-hold, and started climbing steadily up the side of the building. Her heart pounded, nervous on his behalf. One slip and he’d plummet to the hard ground. When his hand closed around the ledge, she was flooded with relief.

  She stepped back, letting out a trapped breath, as he
climbed inside. Then looked up and their eyes met. His were dark and fathomless and some kind of madness flowed into her. She reached for him, pressing her mouth against his.

  His arms circled tight around her waist to return the kiss. His mouth was so warm, and his skin heated. She could feel his heat through his clothes, and beneath that, the hard, corded strength of his muscle.

  “I was afraid they’d come for you,” she said when they pulled apart.

  “They?” Gao looked at her, searching her face. His jaw tightened and his expression was darker than she’d ever seen.

  She reached for the part of his robe, her fingers slipping past cloth to follow his heartbeat. Her palm pressed against bare skin. There was something dangerous in that first touch. His chest rose and fell. There was an audible catch in Gao’s throat.

  “Wei-wei.” He trapped her hand beneath his. Longing mixed with alarm in his voice. “We can’t.”

  “I don’t care.”

  She kissed him again, sensing resistance even though Gao returned the kiss. She pressed closer, deepening the kiss until he yielded. Gao reached for her hungrily, threading his fingers through her hair. Gao had said this touch was meant to confuse yet she’d never been more certain of anything in her life. She never been more afraid either, but she liked this fear. She liked how it tasted, her pulse racing the way it was. Like she was falling with no end.

  “I care,” Gao insisted.

  His voice was thick with desire, but he broke apart despite that. Then he looked at her for a long time, as if second guessing his decision. The hard lines of his face entranced her. She wanted to trace them with her fingertips. She wanted to trace every part of him. Warring emotions flickered across his face as he let go.

  The bruising on his face was even darker now, making his appearance even more striking. She could feel it down to her toes when he looked at her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked him. The darkness she’d sensed in him had returned.

  “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He turned to look out the window, scanning the alley below. Then he turned and sat with his back against the wall. “I’ll just watch this window while you sleep. I won’t touch you,” he insisted, his voice hoarse.

  Something was different. She’d never known him to be agitated, but Gao was agitated now.

  “Try to sleep,” he urged, before forcing his gaze outside into the night.

  Wei-wei sank onto the mat and pulled the blanket over herself. All the while watching him.

  Her body remained awakened and restless with arousal. Gao didn’t turn toward her, but she could sense the same awareness in him. Every muscle in his body pulled tight with barely restrained desire. His throat rose and fell as he swallowed.

  For a long time, they remained like that. Wei-wei laying on her side and Gao sitting by the window. The room was so small that if reached her hand out, she could touch him. He was that close.

  “You should rest too,” she said finally.

  Gao shook his head. “No, Wei-wei.”

  She sighed, squeezing her eyes shut. “Just please come here so I can say something to you.”

  He was slow to move, but he finally did. Gao stretched himself out at the edge of the bamboo mat. He lay flat on his back and looked up at the ceiling. She mirrored his pose, also looking up. Maybe that would make it easier for both of them.

  “I don’t hate you for what happened with my brother,” she began. “It was in the past. You’re different now.”

  “I haven’t changed,” he insisted.

  She wouldn’t accept that. “I think you have. And Huang told me you how you spared him.”

  Whether or not he admitted it, Gao appeared to feel a sort of kinship with her brother.

  “I just didn’t want him dead.”

  “I’m glad for that.”

  They were quiet for a long time until Gao broke the silence this time.

  “I didn’t like seeing you with Magistrate Li last night.”

  “I don’t feel anything for him.” Not like what she felt for Gao. Why was it so hard to admit it out loud?

  “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “My family is convinced that we should be married.”

  There was something about speaking to Gao that was comforting. She would miss it, when it was gone.

  “I used to plot that instead of marrying, I’d run away to a temple and become a nun,” she confessed.

  There was a long pause before Gao’s reply. “You’d look strange with your head shaved.”

  “Not a Buddhist nun, a Taoist nun.”

  “Well, that’s much better. You get to keep your hair.”

  She listened to his breathing for a few moments and tried to match her rhythm with his. His was ahead of hers. It was hard to match the pace.

  “There have been several imperial princesses who have done the same. They became nuns and converted their residences to convents rather than marry.”

  “What would you do for the rest of your life as a nun?”

  “Meditate. Read books. Write essays.”

  “You dream of writing essays.”

  “I do. Famous ones. What do you dream of?”

  Silence. Then, “You.”

  Her heart felt the word like a sharp blow.

  “I used to dream of my family, sometimes,” he continued. “But not much anymore.”

  “What happened to them?” She had no right to ask, but she was greedy for every last drop of him.

  “My father was disgraced. We left the city with nothing to our names. Then my father died. We begged in the streets for a while, but there was never anything but scraps. I’m not as good at telling stories as you are,” he interrupted. It was the first time he turned to look at her since they’d kissed.

  “I don’t mind.”

  His tone was flat and factual. It was the way he always sounded when speaking of the past. Like recounting a tale that had happened to someone else.

  “My mother, she actually did bring us to a Taoist temple,” he said. “She begged for them to take her in, but they couldn’t while she had a son with her. Certainly not one who was nearing manhood.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Nine years.”

  She fell silent, feeling selfish with her grand plans to run away to temple as if it were some idyllic retreat.

  “Eventually my mother decided the only way we would survive was at the mercy of others. She left me at a Buddhist monastery. The monks would feed a motherless orphan, she told me. And then she was gone.”

  “Were you sad, being left alone?”

  “Mostly I was angry with the monks. I was too old and didn’t take to temple life. There were so many rules. I did have to shave my head.”

  “I never knew any of this.”

  “It was a long time ago.”

  Wei-wei tried to imagine what Gao had been like as a young boy losing his home and then his family.

  “What happened then?”

  “I broke too many rules.” His eyes were directed at the ceiling above, his gaze distant. “I always ran away or was expelled. I stole, got caught. Was sentenced to penal servitude—which turns out is one way to get fed. And then eventually, back to Chang’an. At some point I learned how to no longer get caught.”

  “People like the two of us, we shouldn’t know one another,” she said, not meaning it as an insult. “It’s fate that we’re here together.”

  “Fate indeed,” he said softly.

  But not destiny. Their lives were so far from one another. Hopelessness grew within her, hollowing her out until her skin like the thin shell of an egg. Like she would break apart any moment. She wished Gao would at least hold her.

  “I met the Emperor,” he announced quietly.

  She turned her head to him and he did the same. His face filled her vision.

  “How? When?”

  “Last night, at the banquet.”

  Her brother was in the Censorate, yet he’d only
ever seen the Emperor from a distance.

  “He wanted to commend me for catching the suspect.”

  “What did the Emperor look like?”

  “I didn’t get to see him; I could only hear his voice. He was behind a screen.”

  “This is an important moment, Gao. Most subjects will live their entire lives and never even come close to the Son of Heaven, and you sound as if this was nothing. Just another night.”

  “Seeing the Emperor and listening to him speak made me realize something,” he said soberly. “We have no place trying to solve this crime.”

  “But we’ve made such progress. You caught one of the killers.”

  “What use are all our efforts when some powerful shadowy figure can simply make all evidence disappear?”

  He’d mentioned something to that effect the night before.

  “The Emperor’s seal was outside of the palace. Someone could have used it to order whatever they wanted. Maybe the tower guards saw nothing because they were ordered to turn their backs. Maybe they were told to execute the chancellor themselves.”

  Wei-wei tried to imagine it. The watchtowers standing empty that morning. Imperial guards instead assembled along the road to the Yanxi Gate to ambush the chancellor’s entourage. It was possible with a false decree. The ward gate records would show no one suspicious entering the ward night or day. All the barricades and searches would turn up nothing. No one was there who wasn’t supposed to be there.

  “Maybe it was the Emperor himself who issued the order,” Gao considered. “And he threw out that seal to cast suspicion on someone else. These men can do anything, and we’d never know.”

  What had happened to him? Gao seemed cynical and agitated all of the sudden.

  “An Emperor can’t issue any command on a whim,” she protested. “Imperial decrees are reviewed and approved. Then they’re archived in the records office. It’s one of the functions of my brother’s position.”

  “In the end, it doesn’t matter if this is the work of the Emperor or some chancellor or warlord. Let the bureaucrats fight among themselves.”