Dao of Language

I contemplate my mother planted in the threshold of the study, with her mouth still half-open in the middle of the word she was going to pronounce and her eyes fixed on the scene she has before her, and for an instant the whole study seems to hold its breath at the same time as she does.

And I know exactly what would come now.

I know it because I have seen it dozens of times throughout my previous life, so I know all too well what the canon of this scene would be, the script that any screenwriter of romantic comedies with a minimum of a career would have written for this precise moment. It would be my turn to go red as a festival lantern, to begin stammering, to wave my hands in the air and let loose a string of half-strung-together explanations while Lianhua covered her chest with a scandalized gasp and my mother, planted in the doorway, drew several conclusions each more outlandish than the last from what she was seeing.

But it turns out that I have no intention whatsoever of following the stupid adolescent canon, so, instead of complying with the script, I do the only thing that one truly ought to do in a situation like this, which is to behave as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Mother”, I tell her with the same tone I would use to comment that it looks like it’s going to rain. “Come in, please. And let Lingxi come in too and close the door, please.”

And, without waiting to check the effect of my words, I lean over Lianhua again to keep reviewing the fit of the garment right where I had left off, sliding a finger along the edge of the cup to make sure that the fabric neither digs into her nor leaves an extra gap, as if in the threshold of my study there were no one suffering a small mental collapse.

My voice, by the look of it, has the effect of a bucket of cold water, because I hear how my mother takes a breath and, after a second of hesitation, finishes crossing the threshold. Behind her enters Lingxi and the door slides shut at her back with a soft click of the bolt fitting into its place.

“Wen”, my mother tells me once inside, and by her tone I notice she is making a conscious effort to recompose her composure. “May I know what exactly it is you are doing?”

I lift my gaze from the seam just long enough to look at her and reply to her without altering the rhythm of my inspection.

“Do you remember a conversation we had the other day?” I tell her. “The one in which I mentioned to you that I was working on an invention for my own comfort.”

I see how my mother slightly furrows her brow as she searches her memory, and before she has to strain too much, I continue.

“Well, this is the result”, I add, pointing with my chin at the garment Lianhua still has on. “It is a piece conceived to replace the Xiyi, since even without having ever used it, it is clear that it is too uncomfortable for my taste. Having the chest flattened will never be comfortable, whatever anyone may say.”

My mother wrinkles her brow a bit more and lowers her gaze toward my hands, which at that moment are checking precisely that the lower band sits well against the torso without marking anywhere, and I glimpse on her face the beginning of a sentence, that small tension in the lips that always precedes an objection.

But I don’t give her time to formulate it, since I consider the inspection finished with one last critical glance, lean back in the chair and nod to myself, satisfied with what I see.

“Very well”, I tell Lianhua, deliberately ignoring the sentence my mother has stuck in her throat. “Wear it for a good few days and test it in movement. I want to know how it behaves when you walk, when you bend down and when you carry weight. And, if possible, do also some training combat with it on, because what interests me most is to see how it holds up during intense exercise, which is just the moment in which the Xiyi might be superior to my invention.”

Lianhua, who during all this while has remained standing with her back stiffer than usual and a blush that betrays how awkward she finds my mother’s unexpected presence, does not need to be told twice. As soon as I finish speaking, she hurriedly gathers the upper part of her clothing and places it on with a speed and an efficiency that I suspect are the fruit, more than of habit, of the desire to stop being half-undressed in front of my mother.

And when she finishes dressing and the garment is in its place, I dedicate an instant to evaluating the result just as I would evaluate any other of my inventions.

The conclusion draws from me a nod of satisfaction, because the difference, although subtle beneath the layers of clothing, is there. Where before the Xiyi flattened her chest against the body until leaving her with a flat and almost straight silhouette, the new garment gathers her figure and respects it, so that now Lianhua’s line is, without a doubt, rather more feminine than before, which, for a first version made by eye and with improvised materials, is no small thing.

My mother, who up to this moment had opted to keep silent and limit herself to observing the whole process with a patience I recognize as dangerous, chooses precisely this instant to speak.

“Wen”, she tells me, and the tone has gone from the initial bewilderment to something rather more like a reprimand. “You were supposed to be discreet and to stop inventing new things for a while.”

I sigh, because I saw this reproach coming from the moment my mother crossed the door, and I reply to her with the same calm with which I have been conducting the whole conversation.

“And I am”, I tell her. “Since, as I already explained to you at the time, this is not one of those inventions. It is a garment I want for my personal use and my own comfort, not something conceived to be commercialized.”

I make a pause to leave the sewing basket to one side and continue.

“And, even if I wanted to, it would be one of the most difficult things to commercialize that I can think of”, I add. “Because, unlike a mop, this is not an object that is manufactured the same for everyone. Each piece has to fit the exact measurements of the person who is going to wear it, so it has to be made to measure, and the one made for Lianhua would hardly fit anyone else. It is not, by a long shot, the kind of invention with which someone could set up a profitable business.”

My mother stays quiet, meditating on my words with an expression that is no longer of reproach but of calculation, the one she puts on when something I have said has given her something to think about.

And while I watch her meditate on my words, I decide to ask her the question that has been going around my head for a while, because, now that the initial commotion has calmed, I realize that there is something that doesn’t quite fit.

My mother does not usually appear in my study at these hours, and when she wants to speak with me, the normal thing is for her to send a handmaiden or Lianhua to fetch me. That she has come in person, walking all the way here instead of summoning me, means that what brings her is no trifle.

“Mother”, I tell her, leaving aside the sewing for a moment. “What have you actually come for? Because you could have sent someone to fetch me instead of coming yourself all the way to the study.”

My question seems to draw my mother out of her musings, because she shakes her head slightly, as if pushing aside the thoughts that my previous words had provoked in her, and fixes her gaze on me again with a renewed seriousness.

“You are right, I have not come for pleasure”, she tells me. “I have come because you have to prepare yourself. Despite all the efforts I have made during this last month to delay it or prevent it, in the end the Hùbù has decided to summon you for an urgent audience.”

I furrow my brow upon hearing her, because of all the institutions of the empire that might want something from me, the Hùbù was not exactly at the top of my list, since the Hùbù is, more or less, what in my other life would have been a ministry of finance and one of industry thrown into the same sack. It handles the taxes, the censuses, the granaries, the currency and, by extension, everything that has to do with the production and the large-scale commerce of the empire.

“What the devil does the Hùbù want me for?” I ask her without bothering to disguise my puzzlement. “And what is all this urgency about?”

My mother approaches a couple of steps more and leans with one hand on the edge of my desk before replying.

“The summons, in reality, is now almost a month old”, she confesses to me. “But I have been trying to annul it until the last moment, and I had not told you anything so as not to worry you needlessly while there was still some possibility of stopping it.”

She makes a brief pause and, when she resumes speaking, I notice she chooses one of her words with a deliberate care.

“The reason they want to interview you is that someone has cast doubt on whether a young woman of your age could have created, all by herself, so many useful inventions one after another”, she tells me. “And from that doubt, a rather concrete accusation has been formulated.”

Here my mother lets out a small snort before continuing.

“They maintain that your latest inventions were not conceived by you, but rather developed by the merchant guilds in charge of selling them”, she goes on telling me. “So that they merely use the name of the Zhāohuán to shelter their own commercial interests under the protection of your rank.”

I snort imitating my mother as soon as she finishes speaking, because the accusation is as clumsy as it is brazen.

“So, someone has decided to very conveniently forget about the abacus”, I say with a touch of sarcasm I don’t bother to contain. “And about everything that came after, to conclude, suddenly, that the guilds are using me as a cover. Whoever has accepted swallowing such a story while ignoring my track record is either a complete fool or has pocketed a good fat bribe. And, sincerely, I lean toward the latter.”

I shake my head and continue, because the solution seems to me most evident.

“Besides, if it worries them so much, they have a very easy way to clear up their doubts”, I add. “They can go ask a certain ill-mannered elder of the sect who has not the slightest doubt that I conceived them. If they want, let them go look for him to tell him to his face that he is mistaken. Let’s see who is brave enough.”

But my mother, far from being encouraged by the proposal, shakes her head slowly.

“The idea is good, Wen, and I won’t dispute it”, she tells me. “In fact, mentioning the Elder Feng would free you from the accusation instantly, because no one in their right mind would dare to contradict someone of his position.”

“But precisely for that reason it is a card that it is not advisable to play unless we have no other remedy left”, she continues as her voice becomes more serious. “To bring the sect to light would draw its attention onto you, and that is just what, as I have already told you more than once, it most interests us to avoid for now. We cannot summon a dragon just to scare off a couple of flies.”

I sigh because I know she is right, and that route discarded, I grasp at the next one that occurs to me.

“Very well, no sect”, I concede. “Then, can’t we turn to my father and have the Emperor settle this whole matter with a single stroke? He has authority to spare to do it.”

My mother shakes her head again, this time with the swiftness of someone who has already thought of that possibility and discarded it.

“I have already spoken about the matter with the Emperor”, she tells me. “And we have both arrived at the same conclusion, that his intervention could be even worse than doing nothing.”

Before the gesture of incomprehension that escapes me, she explains herself.

“If the Emperor intervenes in person to defend you, the other party can turn it around and use it in their favor”, she continues. “They can allege that, if the Emperor himself has had to come out to protect you, it must be because the accusation had some foundation and there was something to hide. They would turn your defense into evidence against you, would increase the repercussion of the matter and, in passing, would set in motion a chain of moves that would end up harming the businesses that depend on your inventions. Sometimes, defending something too forcefully is the best way to make everyone believe that the initial reason was true.”

I let out a long sigh and lean back in the chair as I go fitting all the pieces together, and, when I do, the picture that emerges has a signature I recognize perfectly.

“Mother”, I ask her, although I already intuit the answer. “Was it the Fei Lan who presented the accusation?”

“Not directly”, my mother replies to me. “Those who have moved the matter for the gallery have been a small group of functionaries of the Hùbù. But I am more than clear that it is she who is behind it all, pulling the strings without letting herself be seen.”

That makes me incline my head, because there is something that doesn’t quite add up for me.

“Well, I don’t understand it”, I confess. “It is clear that the accusation is flimsy and that it is going to be difficult for it to prosper. I can defend the authorship of my inventions without too much effort. So, what does the Fei Lan gain by attacking us in a way that has so many chances of going wrong for her?”

My mother sketches a smile that has nothing of joy in it, that tired smile she puts on when she is going to explain to me one of the many cruelties of the court.

“Winning the case is not what she is after, Wen”, she tells me. “What she is after is to sow suspicion. And a suspicion, once planted, is very difficult to fully tear out, however much you may afterward be officially cleared of charges. There is always someone who remembers that an investigation came to be opened, and that where there was fire, ashes remain.”

She crosses her arms before continuing.

“And that suspicion makes a dent in our reputation”, she goes on. “From now on, anyone who considers associating with you for one of your future inventions will know that, in doing so, they expose themselves to those same rumors, because for whoever wanted to harm them it would suffice to stir them up again to splatter your associates as well. So many will prefer, simply, not to take the risk and to stay on the sidelines. It comes much cheaper to the Fei Lan to stain your name a single time than to fight with you every time you come up with something new.”

And while I listen to my mother, the last piece fits into its place with an almost audible click inside my head.

Because now I see it clearly. The Fei Lan does not even expect to win this battle, since she has no need to. The only thing she intends is to leave a small but permanent stain upon my reputation, a latent shadow that she can reactivate later on, when it suits her, and upon which she can keep building something else.

It is not a blow, it is a seed. A long-term move, patient and cold, proper to someone who has spent eighty years playing this game and can afford the luxury of waiting however long it takes for the damage to bear fruit.

That woman strikes me as frankly unpleasant. But, unfortunately for me, she is no idiot, and acknowledging that is what most enrages me of all.

I shake my head to push aside the grudging admiration that has slipped in among the displeasure, because I will have time to hate the Fei Lan calmly later, since right now there is a more immediate problem to solve.

“Very well”, I tell my mother with decision. “Don’t worry about the accusation, since I can defend the authorship of my inventions easily. But, for that, first I have to prepare myself and dress properly. I have no intention of presenting myself before the Hùbù in everyday clothes however much I hate my official clothing.”

“You have time”, my mother reassures me. “The audience is not until mid-morning. In fact, precisely so that you would have plenty of margin to prepare yourself is why I came to tell you as soon as this morning I received the Hùbù’s definitive refusal to annul the appearance.”

She moves away from the desk and smooths her clothing with an elegant gesture before adding the last thing.

“When you are ready, come find me”, she tells me. “Because, unlike a certain inspector of the Yushitai, the Hùbù does follow the rules. And the rules say that, since you are still a minor, they cannot interview you alone. You are going to go accompanied, and I am going to be at your side throughout the entire appearance.”

The memory of the Yushi Xuang and of his little theatrical function in the study of the Ruīyī Junning draws a half-smile from me, and I nod grateful for the difference.

“Don’t worry, Mother”, I tell her. “I will be ready right away.”

My mother dedicates to me one last look, one of those in which severity mixes with an affection she rarely puts into words, and then she turns about. Lingxi, who has witnessed the whole conversation in her habitual silence, opens the door for her and follows her out.

Once the study falls silent again, I stay thinking a moment, mentally reviewing the best way to face the appearance, and right away I am clear about where to begin.

“Lianhua”, I tell her turning toward her, who has already entirely recovered her habitual composure now that my mother has left. “Open the trunk where we keep all my old papers and take out of it all the sketches we have kept. I want the ones for the mop, the ones for the printing press and also the ones for the backpack, the ones we never got to hand over to the Office of Military Affairs at the time.”

Lianhua nods without need of further explanations and heads toward the trunk that rests in one of the corners of the study. She opens it, leans over it and rummages for a few instants among its contents until she finds what she is looking for, and then approaches the table again.

But, before leaving anything on top, she first removes the sewing basket, which still occupies a good part of the desk, making it float in the air and depositing it with care on the floor to clear the surface. Only then does she place on the now free table the bundle of papers she has taken out of the trunk.

I bring the papers toward me and check them quickly.

There is the whole trail of my work, and seeing it comforts me more than I expected. The first clumsy sketches of the mop, with their crossings-out and their margin annotations about which materials served and which did not, together with the successive tests I made until hitting on the wedge-and-crossbar system that the carpenter made with ease.

The schematics of the backpack with its straps and its measurements.

And lastly the pages on which I went turning over the printing press. All in my own hand, with the doubts, the errors and the corrections that only someone who is truly thinking something from scratch commits, and not someone who merely copies an already finished result.

I reorganize them with care, from the first tentative tries to the final versions, so that anyone who takes a glance at them can follow the thread of the reasoning and see with their own eyes the complete process of each idea being born, stumbling and correcting itself, because one thing is to affirm that you have invented something and quite another to be able to show the whole road you traveled to arrive at it.

“With this, and taking into account that I am capable of answering any question they might think to ask me about how each of these inventions works and why I made each decision, it should be more than enough to get through this accusation without too many problems”, I tell Lianhua while I give a few satisfied taps on the pile of papers. “Let them ask whatever they want. It is hard to accuse of being an impostor someone who knows their own work better than anyone in the room.”

I leave the papers well stacked on the table and turn toward Lianhua with a small smile.

“And now dress me”, I tell her. “The sooner I go find my mother, the sooner we will finish with this bothersome matter. And, frankly, today I have far more interesting things to do than to go demonstrate to a handful of bribed functionaries that I know how to add.”

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