“You could teach me,” she said. “I want to learn, so why not?”
“I would be happy to teach you to read,” Zhihao said. “But it takes a long time, and we need a plan now. If we return to the Forbidden City empty handed, what will you tell the empress?”
Jiayi sighed and leaned back against the tree. “I don’t know.”
Their conversations seemed to run in this same circle with no end. Zhihao decided to change the topic of conversation. Maybe a distraction would clear their thoughts.
“What are you working on?” he asked her, reaching for her notebook.
“Oh.” She moved the pages out of his reach. “Nothing, just some sketches from my dreams I wanted to get on paper before I forgot them.”
“Let me see,” he said. “That one you did of the Conghua Pass was wonderful. Show me some others.”
“I certainly don’t think they are wonderful,” she said. “But if I agree, you must promise not to laugh.”
“I won’t laugh,” he said.
She slowly opened her notebook and showed him the first one. It was a detailed drawing of a necklace of a dragon and a phoenix.
“That is a beautiful necklace,” he said.
“It isn’t from my dreams, but is an artifact the empress once had me use. It’s from the Tang Dynasty. She was trying to reach Wu Zetian,” Jiayi explained.
“Empress Wu?” Zhihao asked. “The only true empress of China?”
“Yes,” Jiayi said. “I’ll tell you a secret. The empress is obsessed with Empress Wu.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “I’m sure she would love to use the precedent of Empress Wu to legitimize her own rule.”
“Exactly,” Jiayi said.
The next drawing was of a man even Zhihao had to admit was beautiful.
“Who is this charming devil?” Zhihao asked.
“That is…” Jiayi paused for a moment. “Oh, Prince Junjie. I think he is a nephew of Empress Wu.”
Zhihao laughed. “Did you really almost forget his name? Come now, even without seeing this image, I know he was handsome. His good looks are legendary.”
“Really?” Jiayi asked. “What do you know about him?”
“Oh, he was known as a pretty face, but he was quite skilled in battle as well. He had to wear a terrifying demon mask to scare his enemies in battle because without it, they would not take him seriously as an opponent. I’m glad to see he was just as good looking as the legend says.”
He looked up at Jiayi, and she was smiling so wide he thought her eyes would pop out of her head.
“What?” he asked. “Why does this make you so happy?”
“He…he doesn’t,” she said, shaking her head. “You just get so excited when you talk about history. I love hearing it. I wish I could get that passionate about something.”
“I’m sure you will eventually find your calling,” he said. “Come, show me the next.”
“Umm…” As she rifled through some of the pages, as if looking for something special, one of the papers slipped out of the stack and landed on the ground. As Zhihao leaned down to pick it up, it was if all time stopped. He was looking at some sort of object, square with a carved dragon on top. He knew he had seen the object before.
“Jiayi…” he whispered as he picked up the drawing. “What…what is this?”
“That’s the emperor’s seal,” she said. “Haven’t you seen it before?”
“I…no. Of course not,” Zhihao said. “I’m not a member of the court. I’ve never seen the empress stamp an edict before. Everyone in China, probably the world, has heard of the emperor’s seal, but no one outside of the empress’s inner circle has ever seen it…Except…I have seen this.”
“What?” Jiayi asked, moving closer to him and staring at the image. “Where?”
Zhihao couldn’t believe what he was looking at, but he knew he was right. It was almost too easy, too good to be true. The carved jade dragon on the gold and blue cloisonné base. He felt like an idiot for not recognizing it before.
“The brother, do you know what he looked like? Have you drawn him? I must see his face,” Zhihao said.
Jiayi opened her notebook and flipped through the images, finally pulling one out. “Here, this is him, standing to the right of the pedestal. To the left is the Daoguang Emperor,” she said, pointing at the figures in the image.
Zhihao laughed. He stood and put his hands to his head. He wanted to scream, he couldn’t believe it. That face, those eyes, that man. He knew him.
“I know where it is!” he finally said, pulling Jiayi up to him, her papers scattering on the ground. He hugged her and then spun her around in a circle.
“Know where what is?” Jiayi asked.
“I know where to find the emperor’s seal!”
Twenty
Jiayi was nervous as she climbed the stairs to the library at Peking University. She wasn’t sure why. Zhihao was so excited, he bounded up the stairs two at a time. Jiayi was once again dressed as a Manchu lady and had to walk much more cautiously in her pot-bottom shoes as she held the hem of her long gown aloft. As they walked through the campus, everyone stared at them. No doubt they were not used to seeing a woman at the school, especially not one dressed as a lady.
Zhihao was already at the top of the stairs, waving for her to join him. “Hurry!” he called out. “We have no time to waste.”
Even though Jiayi wanted to find the seal as much as he did, she had a feeling it was her life that was about to change forever, not his. She wasn’t sure if she was terrified of that prospect or wanting to prolong the moment, but neither possibility spurred her to move faster. Her heart was beating like a running horse and her mouth was dry. She licked her lips as she ascended the final step of the European style building that seemed out of place northwest of Peking.
As they entered the library, Jiayi was struck by the sight of so many books. The walls must have been a dozen meters high and each one covered with books and scrolls. So much knowledge in one place. Would it be possible to ever read all there was to read? If only she could read even one of them…
Jiayi followed Zhihao past many shelves to the back of the library and a dark, dusty corner. There, on a shelf amid a clutter of other items, was the emperor’s seal.
Zhihao could not help but laugh as he pulled it down and cradled it close like a child. “I saw this the day we met,” he said. “After I saw you, I came here to speak with my mentor, Hu Xiaosheng, and I saw this out of the corner of my eye. Actually, I have seen it many times over the years, just sitting up here, collecting dust. It never occurred to me that such a priceless treasure would be lying around forgotten.”
“Because you still have much to learn,” an old cracked voice said.
Jiayi turned and saw an elderly man hobbling toward them. As he approached them, he looked at her with very familiar eyes. He smiled and his eyes glistened. He knew who she was too.
“I’m starting to realize that,” Zhihao said as he placed the seal on a nearby table. The three of them stood around it, each marveling in its magnificence.
“But you did find it,” he said. “And that is what matters.”
Jiayi tore her eyes from the seal and looked at the old man again. He smiled as if he too had seen her before. “So, you finally found me,” he said.
“I didn’t even know I was looking for you,” she said. “Were you looking for me?”
“I’ve been waiting for you for…oh, well over seventy years now,” he said.
“But…how? Why?” she asked.
“My sister once told me that she used to have these fantastical dreams,” he said. “Dreams of another life. Dreams of a young woman at the court of an empress who had wild adventures.”
“Your sister dreamed of me?” she asked.
“I wasn’t sure for a long time. My sister thought her dreams were premonitions of herself reincarnated in a future life,” he said.
“You think my dreams are of past lives?” she asked.
>
“I don’t know,” he said. “I need to know more. Have you inhabited the lives of people who have lived at the same time? Like you could be Lady Cai and another lady of Dagguang’s court, depending on the items you were holding?”
“I can,” Jiayi said.
“And have you ever been someone who is living now? Maybe someone who touched an item many years ago but is still alive?”
Jiayi thought about the woman who gave Zhihao his hatpin, the woman he called Rebecca. “I believe so,” she said. “At least, I don’t think the woman is dead. I suppose she could be…”
“She is alive,” Zhihao quickly confirmed, knowing whom she was thinking of.
“And can you control the people you inhabit? Can you make them do certain things that they normally wouldn’t?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I usually just allow their emotions, their movements to take me along. I don’t feel in control. But sometimes I can hold them back, just for a moment. Like if I need someone to say something specific, I can keep my host from reacting, but it feels like holding back the tide. Eventually, the host will break free.”
“Interesting…” Hu Xiaosheng mumbled.
“How do you know all this?” Jiayi asked.
The old man waved her question off. “Oh, I don’t know anything. Only speculating. Special people has been something of an interest of mine. I’m always looking out for instances of women with unique abilities in my research. But the point is that you are not just a reincarnation of my sister. You are much more powerful than that.”
“Powerful?” she asked.
“You are…hmm…like a tunnel. A tunnel linking the past and the present. Think of it as a channel between two large bodies of water. You thought you were just traveling one way, traveling into the past. But now you know that the knowledge and abilities of the people you touch, they can travel into our time.”
“Yes!” she exclaimed. “Like the languages and my ability to fight. I brought those skills with me from the past into the present.”
“Exactly!” he said. “I don’t know exactly what you are, my dear, or why you have these abilities, but I do know you are extraordinary. I’ve never come across anyone like you. And your future is boundless.”
Jiayi’s eyes welled up with tears. She couldn’t believe how the old man spoke to her with such kindness, such hope. She never imagined she could ever have any kind of future, and now her future was wide open. For the first time, she was daring to dream while she was awake.
Zhihao had not stopped staring at the seal. “You had it here the whole time,” he said.
“Of course,” Hu Xiaosheng said. “I had to keep it safe. No one ever checks in the library for such things. And this way, I could keep an eye on it.”
“But you knew I was looking for it,” Zhihao said. “Why didn’t you just tell me where it was?”
“What good would that have done?” Hu Xiaosheng asked. “You wouldn’t have earned the accolades the empress wants to lay upon you. And how would I have known if you were worthy?”
“Worthy of what?” Zhihao asked.
“Worthy of being my student,” Hu Xiaosheng said.
“I thought I already was your student,” Zhihao said.
Hu Xiaosheng waved him off. “You were too arrogant. Thought you already knew everything. And you wouldn’t have learned to depend on this incredible girl. You would always have thought she was beneath you.”
“That…that is probably true,” Zhihao said, and Jiayi blushed. “So, what does it mean for me to be your student?”
“You are not going to be my student,” Hu Xiaosheng said, enunciating every word.
“But you just said—” Zhihao started, but Hu Xiaosheng interrupted him.
“You will not be my only student. I will only take both of you as my students. You will work together or not at all,” Hu Xiaosheng said, crossing his arms in a sense of finality.
“I’m ready to learn anything and everything,” Jiayi said. “My mind feels…empty, like it is waiting to be filled.”
“Well?” Hu Xiaosheng asked, looking at Zhihao.
“Well…sure. I mean, of course,” Zhihao said with a crooked half-smile. “I think that Jiayi and I work well together. Why not keep a good thing going?”
“Excellent,” Hu Xiaosheng said.
“But will the empress let me?” Jiayi asked. “After we give her the seal, she will certainly want me back at court.”
“Just leave the empress to me,” Hu Xiaosheng said with a wry smile.
Twenty-One
Shortly after their meeting with Hu Xiaosheng, Zhihao sent a message to the empress letting her know they had found her item and had returned to Peking. The empress lost no time in responding. She sent a palace guard to fetch Jiayi and ordered Zhihao to present the item to her at a formal audience first thing in the morning. He was surprised she didn’t send for him immediately, but he supposed it would be odd for him to show up so late in the day outside of a time when she usually held audiences. He barely even had a chance to say goodbye to Jiayi as she was whisked away in an enclosed sedan chair.
Zhihao returned to his office. He was glad to be back. If he and Jiayi had not found the seal, he might never have been back here again. He was pleased to see that all of his books, notes, and artifacts were just where he had left them. He paced the room for a bit. Straightened his stacks of papers. Then he straightened them again. Everything had worked out perfectly. They found the seal. Jiayi could return to the empress. He would be rewarded.
Why did he feel so unsettled?
He was straightening the papers on his desk for the third time when he heard a knock at the door.
“You made it back!” Lian said with a broad smile that looked even more dazzling in his bright white suit. “When you didn’t send me a letter, I thought maybe you had fallen off the edge of the map.”
“I very nearly did,” Zhihao said, remembering the cave-in that nearly crushed the lot of them. “But good to know I would have been missed.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far,” Lian said. “We were all just debating how long you had to be gone before we started divvying up your things.”
Zhihao smirked. He and Lian had been friends for a long time. They had schooled together in England, but Lian was much more interested in the political side of history than the digging part.
“Where are you off to?” Zhihao asked. “You look like you are going to a funeral.”
Lian waved him off as he tugged at his cuffs. “I had a meeting. So, how did everything go?”
Zhihao nodded. “Fine. Everything went…just fine.”
Lian cocked his head. “Are you sure about that? You…found whatever it was the empress sent you to find, then?”
“Oh, yes, I found it. We found it…”
“We?” Lian prodded. “Oh, come on. Are you going to tell me the story or am I going to drag it out of you bit by bit?”
“It’s…complicated,” Zhihao hedged. “But, there is a girl. She is…a sort of court historian, you might say. The empress sent her with me to find the artifact.”
“A female court historian?” Lian asked. “That is incredible. Why has no one outside the court heard of her?”
“The empress keeps her rather close. She doesn’t want anyone else to know about her.”
“Poor dear,” Lian replied. “She must feel rather trapped.”
“Indeed,” Zhihao said.
“And you…like this girl?” Lian asked.
“I…No, not like that. She is sweet and smart, but too…innocent, I suppose. But I feel the need to protect her. To help her.”
“To protect her from whom?” Lian asked. “The empress?”
“Maybe,” Zhihao said, running his fingers through his hair. “What if…what if you could…I can’t even say the words. It is treason to even think what I am thinking.”
“Treason?” Lian asked. “I like the sound of that. Now you must tell me.”
Zhih
ao looked at Lian and considered him for a moment. Was he joking, only looking for some light entertainment? Or was he serious? Did he have revolutionary leanings? Were they more than leanings?
“You…umm…you have no love for the Qing, do you?” asked Zhihao.
“Ha! You should know me better than that. You know I fought the order to return to China for two years. They practically had to drag me back in chains.”
That was true. Lian tried every avenue save marrying a British girl to get to stay in England when they finished their education. He loved his country and his parents too much to dare consider marrying a white woman. Yet he never missed an opportunity to complain about the Qing and the empress.
“If you could single-handedly bring down the Qing Empire, would you do it?” Zhihao asked.
“Without question,” Lian said without missing a heartbeat.
“Even if it meant ruining the life of someone you care for?” Zhihao asked.
“You mean the court girl?” Lian asked. Zhihao nodded. Lian let out a long sigh. “Is there another way? Can you get the girl out first?”
“There is no time,” Zhihao said. “She is already back at the palace. I have to return the artifact to the empress in the morning. Either I return it and forget about using it against the empress, or I keep and it and possibly start a revolution now. I don’t even have time to get my family out of the city, much less the girl.”
“Wait,” Lian said. “The artifact the empress sent you to find could be used to dethrone her? What is it?”
Zhihao held his breath for a moment, deciding whether or not to trust his friend. He reached over and pulled a cloth sheet back, revealing the seal.
“Okay…” Lian said. “Is that what I think it is? Is that—”
“The emperor’s seal,” Zhihao confirmed.
“The emperor’s seal!” Lian repeated. He slapped his hands together, spun around, put his hands on his head. He seemed unsure of how to react, so he was just flailing. “That…oh my God. That is the emperor’s seal. Are you kidding me? Where was it? Why...why did the empress not have it herself?”
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