The Emperor's Riddle

by Kat Zhang

  But the only proof the new emperor could produce was a charred body. Legends said that Zhu Yunwen actually escaped his uncle’s clutches and fled the capital city disguised as a monk. He then settled into a quiet, anonymous life in the Fujian region of China, but never gave up his hopes of reclaiming his throne—or having his descendants do so for him.

  To this end, he hid a great treasure somewhere, hoping to one day fund his return to power. But Zhu Yunwen never saw the perfect opportunity to retake the throne. And over time, the treasure’s location faded from memory.

  It’s still out there, Aunt Lin used to say, curled up beside Mia at bedtime. Someday, someone will find it.

  They’d lie there whispering in the darkness, dreaming up things the treasure trove might contain: jade bracelets as clear as mountain ice, golden statuettes in the shape of charging horses, piles of jewel-encrusted rings. Mia’s voice would grow fainter and fainter until she dozed off and Aunt Lin crept from the room.

  Aunt Lin’s In a way hurt deep in Mia’s chest. She sat there on the couch, unsmiling. If it had been Jake beside her, or even her mother, they might not have noticed. But Aunt Lin and Mia were so close that they could sometimes read each other’s minds. She noticed.

  “Of course I remember,” she said, squeezing Mia’s hand. “But it’s been a very long time since Zhu ­Yunwen hid that treasure. If anyone found it, it would be an ­archeological triumph. Something the whole world should share in, and not just us, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” Mia said, mollified. Like Aunt Lin, she’d never been interested in the treasure’s monetary value. Zhu Yunwen’s riches were exciting because they were undiscovered, and because they had a wonderful story attached to them. Mia could see no better ending to their journey than the spot of honor in some lovely museum.

  Sometimes she dreamed about her and Aunt Lin finding the hoard. Their names would go down in history. That would be better than any number of precious vases or golden coins.

  Ying’s eyebrows were still bunched up. He stared into his tea.

  This had been where he and Aunt Lin had disagreed, all those years ago. He hadn’t envisioned Zhu Yunwen’s treasure ending up in a museum—he hadn’t cared about history, only money. He’d wanted to sell the pieces off one by one, keeping the treasure’s location secret while he and Aunt Lin got wealthy.

  Neither of us had much money growing up, Aunt Lin had explained to Mia. You can’t blame him for dreaming about a better life.

  Still, the arguments they’d gotten into over it had been bad enough to split up a friendship.

  The doorbell sang out. Jake let their mother in, the woman weighed down by shopping bags. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion, but her eyes shined. “Mia, Jake,” she said, “you should have come with me. There’s so much you haven’t seen before—oh, we have a guest?”

  Then, of course, introductions had to be made, and snacks brought out, and conversation shifted back to things like travel itineraries and the rising cost of housing. Mia stayed at the table as long as she physically could. Then she caught Jake’s eye, and they snuck back to the couch.

  The television still blared the same historical drama. A beautiful actress floated across the screen in flowing robes, her head perfectly straight to balance an elaborate headdress. Serving maidens bowed before her, their hands fluttering to one hip.

  Mia turned against the couch cushions and nudged at Jake with her toes. “What would you do if you found an emperor’s treasure?”

  “Shh,” he said, shoving her foot away. Mia should have known better than to ask Jake something so fantastical, so unrealistic. “I’m trying to understand what they’re saying.”

  3

  MIA’S STRANGER-UNCLE TRIED TO INSIST that Ying stay for dinner, but the man shook his head and said he needed to visit his wife at the hospital. Aunt Lin made him promise he’d return sometime for a meal and for more remembering. He left her a phone number and his new address, then slipped away—very much, Mia thought, the way a shadow leaves a sunny room.

  Aunt Lin didn’t seem to share Mia’s opinion. She tucked Ying’s address into her notebook with a pleased little smile and a faraway look.

  Mia put this down as an example of strange adult behavior she didn’t understand. Then she put it out of her mind. There were other things to worry about. Her messenger bag, for example.

  She’d lost it somewhere in the apartment earlier that day, and assumed it had fallen beneath Aunt Lin’s bed or something. It was a raggedy, beat-up old thing, pieced together from dark green canvas and easily forgotten in dusty corners. Mia’s mother had been trying to get rid of it for months.

  So Mia’s heart jumped when she saw the bag in her stranger-uncle’s hand. He and Mia’s mother were making up a bed for Jake on the living room couch, and must have found the bag tucked beneath a cushion.

  “Is this yours, Jake?” he called before Mia could interrupt him.

  Jake poked his head out of the bathroom, his hair still damp from the shower. He laughed. “No, that’s Mia’s bag of explorer essentials.”

  Mia flushed. She darted forward and took the messenger bag from her stranger-uncle’s grip, hoping against hope that he’d let it go.

  He gave her the bag readily enough. But not without saying, amused, “Explorer essentials?”

  All three of them were staring at Mia now, of course—Jake with his stupid grin, their mother with a long-suffering sigh, and Mia’s stranger-uncle with his eyebrows raised. If Aunt Lin were there, she might have intervened on Mia’s behalf. But she’d insisted on washing the dinner dishes while everyone else prepared for bed.

  Grudgingly, Mia met her uncle’s gaze. More than anything, she wanted to retreat to Aunt Lin’s room without answering. Every time she spoke with her uncle, she felt like she was on the edge of saying something wrong—offending him, maybe. Or just disappointing him.

  And this, with her mother and Jake watching, was even worse.

  “It’s nothing,” she managed finally. “It’s just a compass my friend gave me . . . and a sewing kit, and matches, and stuff.”

  Her mother shook her head as she smoothed out the coverlet over the couch, pulling the sheet into perfect lines. “I’m surprised they let her on the plane with those matches. Or the scissors she has in that sewing kit—”

  “I told you they would,” Mia said. “I looked it up.”

  “What do you think you’re going to need them for?” her stranger-uncle said. He wasn’t laughing at her, but his eyes twinkled. Mia had the distinct impression he was making fun of her the way adults sometimes did, like they thought she wouldn’t be able to tell.

  So she drew herself up and said, with as much dignity as she could, “For emergencies.”

  * * *

  The apartment wasn’t large, so there weren’t enough beds for each of them. Mia had a pallet spread out on the floor of Aunt Lin’s room. She didn’t mind. It was like a sleepover.

  It was hard to believe, though, that six people had once spent their days here—or at least their nights. Aunt Lin said that none of the children had stayed indoors much. The city streets had been their playground from the moment they were old enough to toddle down the five flights of stairs.

  Mia had just slipped back into her room to fetch her toothbrush when she saw Aunt Lin hunched over the small desk by the foot of the bed. The room was dark but for her reading light, which lit her in a yellow glow.

  “What’re you doing?” Mia asked, twirling over on her bare feet. Her towel trailed on the ground behind her.

  “Hm?” Aunt Lin was so focused on her notebook, and on the ponderous movement of her pen, that she hardly seemed to realize Mia was there.

  This wasn’t unusual when Aunt Lin got interested in something, and Mia just craned her neck to look over Aunt Lin’s shoulder. Her aunt had never been a good artist, limited to stick figures and the occas
ional sketch of a floppy-eared dog. The drawing she worked on now, though shaky, was unmistakably a small, old-fashioned well.

  She’d already drawn the hexagonal outer edge and the dark circle in the middle where the bucket descended. Mia watched as she labored over a decorative geometric border etched into the stone.

  “Is that Zhu Yunwen’s well?” Mia’s mouth was right by Aunt Lin’s ear, and her voice finally broke the woman from her faraway thoughts. She turned to Mia, blinking. “I thought you didn’t remember the pattern on the stone.”

  “I thought I didn’t, either,” Aunt Lin said. “But speaking with Ying today jogged my memory.”

  Together, they studied the drawing of the well. If Aunt Lin’s memory was accurate, then this was a replica of the well she’d seen down in the Fujian countryside as a teenager. The very well Zhu Yunwen had drunk from during his harried escape from his murderous uncle. According to local legend, anyway.

  He’d been so appreciative of its cool, clear water that years later, after he’d hidden his treasure, he’d left a clue to its location on the well.

  Exactly what that clue was, no one knew.

  There were many stories about Zhu Yunwen, each a little different. Over the years, Mia had heard them all. Her favorite involved Zhu Yunwen spending the end of his life in a monastery high in the Fujian mountains. On his deathbed, he’d gathered the people closest to him—the few who knew of his real identity—and directed them to hide his treasures someplace safe.

  Someplace that could only be found by future generations who understood the clues passed down by his supporters.

  Unfortunately, six hundred years is too long for most secrets to be kept alive. The years muddle them into myths, dilute them into hearsay.

  Maybe the well did give some indication of Zhu Yunwen’s hiding place. Maybe it didn’t.

  “You don’t know how many days and nights Ying and I studied this thing.” Aunt Lin’s voice had gone distant again. “There wasn’t a lot else to put our minds to out there. Tilling fields and planting rice don’t exactly take a lot of mental effort. This was our big mystery. Our puzzle.”

  Mia leaned against Aunt Lin’s shoulder, picking at the woven bracelet around her aunt’s wrist. Mia had just made it for her during the plane ride here. “I thought you guys weren’t friends anymore. I thought you fought over what you’d do with the treasure if you ever found it.”

  Aunt Lin laughed. “Oh, we did. We got pretty upset with each other. But that was so long ago. And it was all theoretical in the end. We never figured out Zhu Yuwen’s clue.” She looked up at Mia. “You don’t like him much?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia said, shrugging. She didn’t want to talk badly about Aunt Lin’s old friend, but there had been something about Ying that made her uneasy. “He doesn’t smile. Not ever. He’s so serious.”

  “Well, his wife is very sick,” Aunt Lin said. “That’s enough to get anyone down, don’t you think? Ying told me he was trying to save up money to take her on a trip back to her hometown. It would be very expensive, because she needs a lot of care.”

  “Couldn’t it wait until she got better?” Even as she asked the question, Mia thought she knew the answer.

  “Darling, she might not get better again.” Aunt Lin kissed Mia on the forehead, her graying curls tickling Mia’s cheeks. “Go on and take your shower. Leave an old woman to her memories.”

  * * *

  When Mia returned, freshly showered, Aunt Lin was still reminiscing at her desk. She’d pulled out the photo album they’d flipped through earlier that afternoon.

  Mia thought about asking her what they might do tomorrow—where they could go first. She hadn’t been excited about this trip to China. She’d dragged her feet all the way here, pushing off her packing as long as possible and hoping even as they boarded the plane that something would happen and they’d have to turn back around.

  But now that she was here, things were less awful than expected. She missed Thea and Lizbeth and all the things they would have done together this month. But she did have uninterrupted time to hang out with Aunt Lin. When Mia hung out with Aunt Lin, it always felt like anything could happen—like the line between the imaginary and boring reality got muddled up.

  Tomorrow could be the start of an adventure.

  Mia curled up amid the blanket-pile beside Aunt Lin’s bed and smiled to herself. For years and years, Aunt Lin had shared this exact room with her middle sister. She’d told Mia how they used to tent the blanket above their heads at night, whispering and giggling when they were supposed to be asleep.

  It was one thing to hear about a place, though, and another to actually be here.

  It made everything that much more real.

  Mia closed her eyes, letting herself sink into all the stories Aunt Lin had told her about this apartment. She fell asleep to the soft buzz of the desk lamp.

  She woke just once in the middle of the night. Her mind was too sleep-blurred to guess at the time. The desk lamp was still on, but Aunt Lin had moved to sitting cross-legged on the bed, her notebook in her hand. Mia’s bleary eyes caught a glimpse of Zhu ­Yuwen’s well.

  Aunt Lin’s attention was focused on something else—­something laid out in front of her. The blankets blocked it, whatever it was, from Mia’s view.

  She seems very excited, Mia thought drowsily. Then her eyes slid shut again, and the rest of her thoughts dispersed into dreams.

  * * *

  When she woke the next morning, Aunt Lin’s bed was empty. That in itself didn’t worry Mia. Her aunt had always been an early riser. Even on weekends, she never got up more than an hour past dawn.

  It wasn’t until Mia crept into the stillness of the living room, and then the bathroom and the kitchen, that her stomach began to tighten. Everyone else was still asleep. Her mother and stranger-uncle’s doors were shut. Jake was sprawled across the couch, his face muffled against his pillow.

  “Aunt Lin?” Mia whispered. Then, louder, “Aunt Lin!”

  Jake woke with a confused groan. “Be quiet, Mia.”

  But Mia couldn’t be quiet.

  Aunt Lin was gone.

  4

  MIA’S MOM WAS THE ONE who found the letter beside the shoe racks.

  It had been folded in fourths and was half hidden in the shadow of Jake’s tennis shoes, as if someone had shoved it just a little too hard beneath the front door. Mia and Jake crowded on either side of their mom as she unfolded the piece of paper. Their stranger-uncle was a heavy sleeper and hadn’t woken as they’d tossed the apartment, looking for signs of Aunt Lin.

  Their mom, careful and meticulous in all things, took her time reading the note.

  “What’s it say?” Mia said impatiently. Unlike Jake, Mia could read some Chinese. But she was accustomed to the perfectly formed, typed characters in her ­Chinese school textbooks, not the hastily scribbled marks on the note.

  “It’s from Aunt Lin,” Mia’s mom said. The words came out like a sigh. “It looks like she got a call from old friends early this morning. They wanted her to come visit, so she set off. She’ll be gone a couple of days.”

  Jake was already turning away. “I knew it.”

  Mia’s mom gave Mia an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. I know you two had plans.”

  Mia shook her head. She and Aunt Lin had had more than plans—they’d had a pact. Aunt Lin had promised, and she didn’t break her promises. Not to Mia.

  “You know how Aunt Lin can be sometimes,” her mom said gently. She tried to put a hand on Mia’s shoulder, but Mia shied out of the way. She was too upset to be touched.

  “She can’t be gone.” Mia switched back into English, latching on to something familiar and comforting. “She wouldn’t leave me here like this.”

  Something unreadable flashed across her mother’s face. Mia snatched up the letter and stared at the words, trying t
o remember what Aunt Lin’s handwriting looked like. She did recognize Aunt Lin’s Chinese name at the bottom—Guo Lin.

  So who else could have written it?

  Confusion pushed at Mia’s insides like a stormy ocean.

  Gently, her mom took the paper from her hands and leaned down so they were eye to eye. Mia had pulled her out of bed to search for Aunt Lin, so she wore nothing but a faded T-shirt and plaid pajama pants, her long hair unbrushed. Even like this, there was something sure and perfect about her.

  It should have made Mia feel better, but it didn’t.

  “I’m sure she’ll be back soon, Mia. In the meantime, you and I can still go places, right?”

  Her mom didn’t understand that that wasn’t the point. Aunt Lin was gone. She’d known how unhappy Mia was about this trip—how little she’d wanted to come. How much she’d relied on the thought of spending time with Aunt Lin to cheer herself up.

  And she was gone anyway.

  That meant that either her aunt had abandoned her—or that something else terrible had happened.

  She opened her mouth to explain, then shut it again. She could already tell from the look on her mom’s face, and from the sigh in her voice when she’d said It’s from Aunt Lin, that she didn’t doubt Aunt Lin had run off again.

  Nothing Mia said would convince her otherwise. Especially if the only proof Mia had was the fact that Aunt Lin had made her a promise. She’d think Mia was being silly. Even if she didn’t say that, Mia would be able to see it in her eyes.

  Sometimes, her mother was too sure about things.

  “Here,” her mom said, reaching for her purse. She took out a few coins and pressed them into Mia’s hand. “You and Jake need to get out of the apartment a little. Why don’t you go see what the street venders are selling for breakfast?”

  * * *

  Despite the early hour, the sun was already out in full force. Mia scuffed her shoes as she and Jake wandered beyond the apartment complex’s tall, metal gate. In the town outside Memphis, Tennessee, where she usually lived, the sidewalks and roads would be all but abandoned at this hour. Here in Fuzhou, the streets weren’t exactly clogged, but they weren’t empty, either.