The Corpse Reader (50 page)

“You’re crazy! Let me go!”

“The eunuch’s work had to do with the salt monopoly. I haven’t yet figured out if he uncovered something in the accounts and you bribed him, or if it was blackmail. But you knew all about his love of antiques, and you offered him one he couldn’t refuse! And once you had him in your grip, that’s when you had him killed!”

“Get out!” she sobbed. “Out of my house!”

“You were the only one who knew I was going to look at the remnants from the bronze workshop! You sent someone to kill me, too—probably the same person who took the life of Soft Dolphin and all the others!”

“I said get out!” she cried.

“You felt protected by what had happened to your ancestors; the emperor would never risk accusing the granddaughter of the betrayed hero. But your thirst for revenge knew no limits. You lied when you told me the emperor’s father died of lovesickness. You poisoned him, the same as you did me yesterday with your seduction!”

Blue Iris tried to get past him to the door, but he blocked the way.

“Admit it!” he roared. “Admit that you lied to me. That you made me believe you felt something for me.”

“How dare you! You were the one who lied to me! What’s your real job? You who are so loyal to Feng that you slept with his wife.”

“You put a spell on me!” Cí howled.

“Pathetic,” she spit. “I don’t know how I ever felt anything for you.” Crying, she tried to push past him again.

“Think your tears will save you? Kan was right about you.”

Blue Iris’s eyes, wet with tears, were also inflamed with rage.

“I thought you were different,” she said. “But you’re not. You think I’m just a used-up
nüshi
whom you can condemn, use, despise. That all I’m good for is toying with in the bedroom. Yes, I seduced you, so what? You don’t know me. You have no idea of the hell I’ve lived through.”

Cí’s mind turned to his own hell. He knew very well what it was to suffer, but that understanding certainly didn’t make him think she wasn’t guilty. She had no right to reproach anyone, especially after what he’d just found out.

“Kan warned me,” he said again.

“Kan? He’d sell his own children if he thought it would benefit him. What did he tell you?” She slapped Cí on the chest. “That I tried to poison the emperor? Wrong! Much as I might regret it now, I didn’t. Do you really think I’d have been allowed to live if I did something like that? Kan didn’t tell you the real reason he despises me: the thousand times he tried to take me, and the thousand times I rejected him. I bet he didn’t tell you he proposed to me! He didn’t tell you what it means to a councilor to be refused by a lowly
nüshi
…”

At this, she fell to her knees, overcome with tears.

“I found your name in the registry for Soft Dolphin’s quarters. I don’t know how you managed it, but you gained access. There was a canvas there with the eleventh of Li Bai’s poems—an antique
I know
belongs to you, an heirloom that belongs on
your
walls. The one on Soft Dolphin’s wall is something he never could have afforded.” Cí waited for her denial, but Blue Iris had fallen quiet. “I read the stamps of ownership. Those verses belonged to your grandfather.”

“Ask Kan! He kept dozens of vials of Essence of Jade to woo me with. And the poem—my husband gave it to Kan, so again it’s Kan you should be asking about how it ended up on Soft Dolphin’s walls. Yes, I’ve been to Soft Dolphin’s quarters. I went to retrieve some porcelain figures I gave him. Yes, he was a friend of mine. Which was why, I thought, Kan told me he’d disappeared. If you don’t believe me, ask Kan.”

Having let Blue Iris leave, Cí tried to get things clear in his head. Once he’d calmed down, he took out the mold again to try to finish piecing it together. He followed the numbers he’d written on the pieces to arrange them, but one of the pieces crumbled in his hands. His hands were shaking like those of a frightened child. He swiped the pieces across the floor.

He regretted pushing the woman who’d loved him so sweetly the night before. He’d felt so sure of her guilt, but then the way she’d reacted didn’t seem like the behavior of someone who was guilty. Cornered, perhaps, but to blame? There was plenty of proof against her, but there were plenty of holes in the case, too.

What on earth could make her want to kill
those
men? He turned it over and over. Maybe the answer lay in the ceramic pieces. Or maybe Kan was the only one who really knew.

He went back to working on the mold, more carefully this time. Little by little, it took shape, becoming a prism about the size of someone’s forearm. He moved a leftover piece aside, noting that it seemed to be some kind of internal spoke, then joined the two halves of the mold together with a belt. Then he mixed up some plaster and poured it in. Now he had to wait for it to harden. Eventually, when it seemed solid, he undid the belt and parted the mold.

It looked more like a scepter than anything: two palms in length and about as wide as a sword hilt. Cí could just about fit his hand around it. What could it be for? He decided to put it aside, hiding the scepter and the spokelike interior piece under a loose floorboard and the mold in his wardrobe.

Cí left the Water Lily Pavilion for some much-needed air.

His specialties were corpses and scars, not intrigue and rancor; he knew how to find invisible clues on dead bodies, not how to unpack madness and lies.

The more he thought about it, though, the clearer it became that Kan had manipulated him from day one. If what the councilor had said about Blue Iris contained any truth, he’d surely have taken action against her already. And now it seemed his dislike for her might have different motivations. Kan could easily have accompanied her to Soft Dolphin’s rooms, and if he really did have access to Essence of Jade, it would also make sense for him to have left traces of the perfume on the corpses to incriminate her. Why he might have done so, thereby incriminating himself, Cí couldn’t understand. And Blue Iris had made no secret of her resentment toward the emperor, which made her an easy person to frame. On top of that, Kan was the last to be seen with the bronze maker, he had kept an appointment with the Jin ambassador, and he offered only obfuscation when it came to giving explanations. Maybe the councilor really
was
the person to turn to for answers.

What to do? Cí clearly couldn’t go to Kan, who would only try to get in his way. Maybe he was the murderer, or the one who had given the orders. Or maybe he had nothing to do with it and had just tried to take advantage of the killings to get back at someone who had humiliated him.

Maybe Cí needed to speak to the emperor. Perhaps that was the only way to get answers before it became far too dangerous. And for that he needed Bo’s help.

“Protocol’s protocol, Cí, and we all have to respect it.”

Cí had gone straight to Bo’s quarters, where he found the official just finishing his bath. Perhaps it was because he’d been interrupted, but Bo didn’t seem very disposed to help.

“If you try and circumnavigate protocol, heaven help you.”

The ritual nature of the emperor’s every movement was well known. But what Cí also knew was that if he was going to solve this case, he couldn’t have more delays.

“I’ve solved the crimes.” The words were out of his mouth before he knew it. “It can’t wait, and I definitely can’t talk to Kan about it first.”

Bo looked skeptically at Cí.

“Have you forgotten,” asked Cí, “the attic’s collapsing on my head? If you don’t help me, I might not be around tomorrow to tell anyone what I’ve found.”

Bo agreed, gritted his teeth, and went to his superior, who within a matter of hours had passed the request up the chain of command. Bo learned that, although there was consternation among the officials over Cí’s request, one of the elders grasped its importance and took the petition to the emperor himself.

To Cí, the time passing felt like years. Then he was summoned.

The elder official’s face was cold as stone as he considered Cí. Finally he spoke.

“His Majesty will receive you in the Throne Room.” He lit a stick of incense the length of a fingernail and handed it to Cí. “This is the time you have allotted to speak. Not a moment longer.”

As Cí followed the man to the Throne Room, he licked a finger and touched it to the side of the incense, hoping it would slow its burning a little. Suddenly the elder stood aside, and Cí was face to face with the emperor.

Cí was dazzled by the emperor’s golden tunic. Before he could think of what to say, the elder official hissed at him to kneel. Cí, regaining his composure, got down and kissed the floor. The incense was already burning low, and the elder was taking an eternity with the formalities. When he was finally ushered forward, everything came out in a jumble: his suspicions about Kan, all the lies, and the councilor’s blatant attempts to frame Blue Iris.

The emperor listened in silence. His pale eyes scrutinized Cí. His waxen face was utterly devoid of emotion.

“You are accusing one of my most loyal men of dishonorable acts.” Ningzong’s voice was slow and deliberate. “An Imperial Councilor who would willingly chop off his own hand if I said so. If your accusations turn out to be wrong, the penalty will obviously be death. And yet, you’re still here. Keeping the embers of a tiny stick of incense between your fingers…” He brought his hands together and placed them over his pursed lips.

“Yes, Majesty.”

“If I give the order for Kan to be brought here and he refutes your allegations, I’ll be obliged to have you executed. If, on the other hand, you think better of it and decide to withdraw your accusation, I shall be magnanimous. I shall forget the nerve you have shown in coming here. I want you to think properly about this. Are you prepared to uphold your accusation?”

Cí took a very deep breath. The incense was all but gone.

“Yes,” he said without having to think about it at all.

An official was sent to fetch the Councilor for Punishments. When he burst back into the Throne Room, he looked as if he’d seen a devil; he was bathed in sweat and shaking all over. He ran and threw himself at the emperor’s feet, and the emperor recoiled as if touched by a leper. Several guards were on the man immediately, pulling him away. He was incoherent. His dilated pupils spoke pure terror.

“He’s dead, Your Majesty! Kan has hanged himself in his room!”