by Grace Lin
“Zu,” the Queen Mother said, “your character is too flawed for me to grant you immortality, so instead I bring you this peach of longevity. This peach will grant you nine hundred and ninety-nine more years of life. I hope with these extra years, you will be able to merit immortality.”
All, including the emperor, sank to the floor in deference, and one of the queen’s companions had to nudge a servant to rise in order to take the peach. As the emperor stammered his gratitude, the Queen Mother nodded to him and gave the sea of bowed heads a glance of acknowledgment. Then the unicorns reared and leaped and she and her entourage disappeared back into the sky.
For a moment, the emperor and his guests could only stare up at the heavens. If it were not for the peach, all would have doubted the reality of the Queen Mother’s visit. But the glorious golden peach was casting a warm glow. The emperor, already licking his lips, waved his hand for the peach to be brought to him.
The crowd parted and watched in hushed silence as the trembling servant carried the peach as if leading a procession. The sweet fragrance wafted through the air like an intoxicating wine, and it was not only the emperor’s mouth that watered.
But just as the peach was almost within arm’s distance of the emperor, someone broke through the mesmerized crowd and grabbed it! After a brief stunned moment, the emperor barked an order, and the guards clamored.
They swarmed upon the attempted thief, who collapsed to the floor. But with him fell the peach. It rolled on the floor toward the emperor, and all gazed in horror as they saw that a bite had been taken out of it!
For while the moment of shock had been short, it had been long enough. The golden skin of the peach had been torn open, and where a chunk of flesh was now missing, a sweet, sticky juice was dripping like crystal beads gliding off a string. The emperor would not take the first bite of his peach.
Enraged, the emperor had the thief brought before him. To everyone’s surprise, it was a magistrate who was distantly connected to the emperor by marriage. By all accounts, he was well liked. But all favor had disappeared with the bite of the peach.
“How dare you take a bite of my peach!” the emperor roared. “I shall have you executed!”
“Forgiveness, Your Exalted Majesty,” the magistrate said, prostrating himself. “But if I have eaten from the peach of longevity, how can I be killed?”
“Fool!” the emperor said. “You have stolen some extra years of life, but you are not invincible! That bite of peach may protect you from sickness and age, but you can still be killed.”
“Ah,” said the magistrate, who, contrary to the emperor’s words, was not a fool. “But that peach was given to you by the Queen Mother to give you time to become worthy of immortality. Do you think she would be pleased if the first thing you do upon receiving it is to order me to my death?”
At that, the emperor hesitated, for there was truth in his words. He grunted with annoyance. It occurred to him that he had yet to eat his peach and that he should consume it before any more disasters occurred.
“Just take him away,” the emperor thundered. “And bring me my peach!”
And so the official was taken away and the emperor finally received his peach. And while the emperor ate it with much delight, even he must have wondered how much sweeter the peach would have been if he had gotten the first bite.
“But Emperor Zu did not live an extra nine hundred and ninety-nine years,” the stonecutter said. “He was the last of the Min emperors, killed by the soldiers of Emperor Shang.”
“Well, that just proves Emperor Zu was right,” Amah said. “The peach could keep him from getting old or sick, but he could still be killed. Even immortality is not invincibility.”
“That’s true,” the stonecutter said. “I wonder what happened to that official. Executed later, do you think?”
“I don’t know,” Amah said slowly. “I wonder.”
“I wonder how many extra years that official stole with that one bite,” the stonecutter said, laughing as he brought the rice bowl to his face. “Perhaps he is alive still and wishes he had taken another bite!”
“Perhaps,” Amah said, but she did not laugh as she swallowed her rice.
CHAPTER
28
Yishan and Pinmei stepped onto the Long Walkway. In the distance, there was the glow of many campfires. Without a word, Yishan pointed to them. Pinmei nodded in agreement. Just as she had thought, the soldiers would be easy to find.
The screaming wind had quieted to moans, but it did not calm Pinmei. Instead, she felt as if the sky were in a fitful slumber and about to awaken in a rage.
They scurried down the corridor in silence, the sound of their feet hidden by the lamenting wind. Pinmei found herself looking from side to side. Western side. Eastern side. No one crosses over to the western side, Yanna had said. You’d be killed if you did. Pinmei veered toward the eastern side as much as possible.
As soon as the silhouettes of tents came into view, they left the covered pathway to make a wide circle around the camp. As they crept closer, Yishan shook his head at Pinmei, and she drooped with sudden heaviness. There were only a dozen or so tents, nowhere near large enough for an emperor’s army. It was just a small troop, as Yishan had guessed. Still, we have to check, Pinmei thought.
The glow of the fires and the moonlight reflected on the snow made it almost as bright as morning, and they ran behind one of the tents to stay hidden. They could hear the rumbling snores of soldiers inside, like the growls of waiting beasts.
“Her tent would be guarded,” Yishan whispered in her ear.
Pinmei nodded, and they both began to run, going from tent to tent, deeper and deeper into the camp. As they stopped to rest at another tent, Yishan nudged her and nodded toward a tent surrounded by the others. It was larger than the other tents and an imperial flag flew from the cask in front of it. But it was the two guards whom the children’s eyes were fixed upon.
“Do you think Amah’s in there?” Pinmei whispered.
“All we can do is check,” he whispered back. “We’ll run to the back of the tent, I’ll sneak in, and you stand guard.”
“How are you going to get in?” Pinmei whispered. Even from a distance, she could see the tent was anchored closely to the snow-cleared ground, the cloth tightly stretched without a wrinkle.
Yishan put his hand in his bag, which Pinmei had thought he was carrying, like she was, out of habit, and pulled out a small knife. He grinned at her. “Picked it up at your hut,” he said. “Forgot to tell you.”
Pinmei rolled her eyes at him. Then, after glancing around, they ran.
Pinmei held her breath the whole way. Was Amah in the tent? Could they reach her? Would someone catch them?
But they arrived in the shadow of the tent, and no one seemed to have noticed them. Yishan took out the knife again, and it glinted as it caught the light of a nearby campfire. Pinmei peered over his shoulder as he placed the tip of the knife against the taut tent.
But then, from nowhere, someone reached out and grabbed his hand!
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29
“Shhh!” a voice whispered in Pinmei’s ear.
Pinmei swallowed her yelp of surprise and whipped her head around to look into familiar eyes. Yanna!
“What are you doing here?” Yishan whispered fiercely. Pinmei could only stare. Yanna looked nothing like she had earlier. She was no longer wearing her servants’ dress; instead, her clothes were all black. Her hair was hidden on top of her head with a tightly knotted cloth.
“Me?” Yanna whispered back with incredulous amusement. “What about you two? Why are you trying to sneak into the commander’s tent?”
“Commander’s tent?” Pinmei said. She looked at the tent, and the ice butterflies in her stomach froze together into a crushing boulder. “We thought the tent was… We’re looking for… prisoner… the emperor we thought maybe…”
Yanna’s smile disappeared. “I was looking for prisoners too,”
she said, her face sad. “They aren’t here. The emperor has sent them off to the Vast Wall already.”
“Who are you looking for?” Yishan asked. “Your father?”
“No.” Yanna shook her head. “I’m here for the king. I’m looking for his son.”
“His son?” both Pinmei and Yishan said in unison, and Yanna quickly hushed them.
“The king sent him into hiding in a village north of here,” Yanna said. “It was that village where the emperor collected his latest workers.”
Which was why the queen was crying when we came, Pinmei realized. His son and the people who hid him must be the “close friends” the king had meant when he had spoken with Lady Meng. Suddenly, she understood the king’s ashen face and stricken eyes.
“Did he send you to look?” Yishan said in an offended tone. “That’s pretty rotten of him!”
“It was my idea,” Yanna said, drawing herself up taller. “And if it wasn’t for you, I probably would never have offered.”
“Me?” Yishan said.
“Not you,” Yanna said, smirking at Yishan. She nodded over at Pinmei. “You!”
“Me?” Pinmei said, just as surprised.
“It was that story you told,” Yanna said. “I started thinking about, and it made me feel ashamed. I’ve been working for the king all this time hoping that someday he could help my father, but I never thought about what I could do to help him. That story made me realize the king might be as worried about his son as I am about my father.”
“So you volunteered to run in the middle of the night into a soldiers’ camp?” Yishan shook his head.
“At least I am disguised,” Yanna shot back. “I could see your hat with my eyes closed! Besides, if it weren’t for me, you’d be crawling on top of the commander right now!”
“Shhh!” Pinmei warned.
Too late! A sword blade stabbed through the tent fabric and the RIIIIPP tore apart the quiet that had blanketed the entire camp.
“Who’s there?” shouted the commander.
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30
“This way!” Yanna said, pulling them behind a rock sculpture. The camp was now alive and swarming, throngs of men starting to swell together like boils of a plague.
“I’ll go first,” Yanna said. “I’ll lead them toward the main palace. Then you two go the other way. You’d best get your lady friend and leave right away. Get out of the City of Bright Moonlight as fast as you can. It won’t take long for the emperor to find out you’re here now.”
“You’re going to lead them away?” Pinmei gasped. “Yanna! You can’t!”
“Don’t worry about me,” Yanna said. “Once they find out there were strangers here, they won’t suspect me at all. I just have to get someplace to change clothes.”
“B-but…” Pinmei stuttered. She looked at Yishan, who was strangely quiet. “But…”
“Just remember, no one crosses to the western side of the walkway,” Yanna instructed. “No matter what you do, stay on this side. Do not cross the walkway!”
A bellow from the camp howled toward them and they looked at one another.
“Take care of yourselves out there,” Yanna said, her crooked smile returning. Her eyes met Pinmei’s, and suddenly, Pinmei found they were friends. “Make sure you put me in a story someday.”
And she was off.
Pinmei watched as Yanna hollered and the soldiers began to chase her, a single running figure in the night, like a rabbit being chased by wolves.
“She’ll be okay,” Yishan said. “We’re the ones in trouble. Yanna’s right. We’d better get out of here.”
He took off his hat and shoved it into his bag. Pinmei took a deep breath, and together they began to run.
The snow of the uncleared ground padded their footsteps, but nothing could muffle the pounding inside Pinmei. They passed a tent. Then another. Pinmei could see the covered path of the Long Walkway.
Behind them yelled a voice.
“Over there!” the voice shouted, cutting into the night air as well as Pinmei’s chest. “That way!”
Stomping and shouts clattered closer behind them. They were steps from the Long Walkway, but how would they ever make it all the way back? Pinmei’s feet slipped and stumbled as she tried to run even more quickly. Faster, she told herself. Faster.
But the thunder behind them only grew louder, like an inescapable storm. Yishan turned his head to look at Pinmei, but his eyes widened at what he saw instead.
The soldiers were right there! They were like a pack of mad dogs, their torches flickering like demonic eyes and their swords glittering like sharp teeth.
“Children!” one of the soldiers spat with disgust. “Come here, you brats!”
He leaped and his hand clawed the cold wind between them. Annoyed, he snarled and the group of men behind him echoed his growls like hungry beasts. He lunged again, grabbing the sleeve of Pinmei’s coat. She pulled with all her strength, but he only laughed.
“You’re not getting away!” the soldier said in a tone that would have been mocking if it weren’t so vicious. He began to drag her to him. Pinmei screamed.
Then she felt Yishan pull her. He jerked her from the soldier with such force it threw her to the ground. When she looked up, breathless, Yishan was standing like a mountain between her and the crowd of soldiers.
“Yishan!” she screeched as she scrambled up. She pulled at Yishan, tugging him with all her might to lead him away. “Come on!”
He let himself be pulled a few steps, but he moved with such reluctance that she finally lifted her head to see what he was looking at. Then she too stopped.
The soldiers weren’t following them! They stood all in a row alongside the Long Walkway, the fires from their torches trembling. What were they waiting for? Why were they just standing there?
Then Pinmei realized she was looking at the soldiers through the posts of the covered pathway. That meant she and Yishan were on the other side, the western side! She and Yishan had crossed the Long Walkway!
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“We’re on the wrong side!” Pinmei whispered to Yishan.
They glanced at the soldiers, who were eerily quiet. Behind, another row of men formed. But none dared to cross the walkway. Instead, the soldiers simply stood flanking the corridor, all silently staring at them.
“We shouldn’t be here!” Pinmei said, her voice still an urgent whisper. She began to tremble. “Yanna said not to cross the walkway.”
“Too late,” Yishan said grimly. He looked at her and she saw that he too was disturbed. “What should we do?”
The bleak faces of the soldiers watching them frightened her even more than being chased. Their eyes were fixed on them as if she and Yishan were ghosts.
“Let’s go somewhere so we don’t have to see them looking at us at least,” she said.
Yishan nodded. They turned and walked into the garden, choosing a tree-covered footpath that would hide them from view. Round lanterns lit the zigzagging walkway, their glowing circles echoing the full moon above. The constellations glittered in the black sky, a star streaking across it like a shimmering loose thread.
“Beacon Fire,” Yishan whispered, watching the shooting star with surprising intensity.
“What?” Pinmei asked. “What beacon?”
“Oh, it’s just a constellation I suddenly remembered,” Yishan said, and Pinmei saw his self-assurance had returned. In fact, he looked strangely confident. He looked around at the garden. “This place is big.”
Pinmei nodded, but she was still shaking. They walked on. The branches above created a canopy patched with dark swatches of the sky, embroidered with the stars and falling snow. What were they going to do? Would they get out of here? How could they save Amah now?
Across the frozen lake, a pavilion was brightly lit. Pinmei stared. Even from their distance she could see two silhouettes inside it. She gripped Yishan’s arm.
“The emperor and the king!”
Pinmei hissed.
Yishan squinted. “Looks like they’re just talking,” he said. “I wonder what they’re talking about.”
Pinmei continued to stare, the small figures like two stitches of embroidery thread on a vast tapestry. Could they be talking about Amah? Or the Luminous Stone? And the king—they never got to ask the king about the dragon’s pearl. Maybe…
“Should we try to find out?” she squeaked. Was she crazy? But this might be their only chance! She placed her hand on her chest, letting her heart beat against the stone of Amah’s bracelet.
“Good idea,” Yishan said, nodding. “We’re going to be killed for being on the wrong side of the walkway, so we might as well make it worth it.”
Pinmei gulped. Still, she stepped forward and led Yishan onto the path with the silent and skilled stealth of a mouse.
CHAPTER
32
He was tired.
He had slashed and snapped, struck and roared, but it had done nothing. He had only beaten the air that slipped and slithered around him like smooth silk. Even his screams and howls seemed to have been smothered in that brilliant blankness.
His throat was raw from screaming. His arms and legs lay limp.
He was the Black Tortoise of Winter, indestructible and invincible.
But that did not matter.
His strength and power could not help him. There was nothing for him to fight, no one for him to conquer.
He could do nothing. Except…
He could do what he had never done before. He could do what he had never imagined he would ever have need for.
The gold glimmered at him, mocking and taunting. He closed his eyes.
Perhaps it was time for him to ask for help.
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33
“Do you think we could hide behind that?” Pinmei whispered right into Yishan’s ear as she pointed to a large stone sculpture at the foot of the pavilion.