Dao of Language

Today is the day my father comes to fulfill his marital duties with my mother, and therefore today is also the day he is going to have with me the talk about my future, that talk that has spent a month hanging over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles.

What I don’t know, and it is the concrete detail on which I have been stuck since breakfast, is whether that talk is going to be before or after being with my mother.

And it is not an idle doubt, because the other times my father has come to see my mother and has decided to dedicate a few minutes to me to ask about my studies or my state of health, it has always been before. He would come in, remain standing just long enough, let loose the two or three obligatory questions with someone from his retinue planted a step behind while he listened to the answers, nod and leave for my mother’s apartments.

The problem is that those visits lasted as long as it takes to serve a tea, and it is clear that this one is going to last a good while, because a daughter’s future is not dispatched in two sentences and, besides, it has to be reasonably confidential, which rules out from the start a courtier accompanying him as on all previous occasions.

So the precedent is of no use to me, and without a precedent the only thing left to me is to wait.

I am exactly at that point of the reasoning, which is also the point around which I have been going in circles all morning like a hamster in its wheel, when the courtyard of the Pavilion fills with noise.

I lift my head from the report I am reading upon hearing the noise and I don’t need to make the least effort to know what is happening out there, because ever since I opened the Yin Gate, finding out what is going on on the other side of a wall has stopped being an exercise in deduction to become an exercise in restraint.

There are footsteps, many, and they are not the disordered footsteps of the handmaidens crossing the courtyard while they carry out their tasks, but footsteps that all stop at once. There are low voices giving short orders together with that unmistakable noise of armor moving in a group. And, above everything else, there is that strange and sudden silence that installs itself in a place when the people who work in it stop talking all at once because someone has just entered in front of whom one does not speak.

It is my father’s retinue.

I could listen more. I could, if I concentrated a bit, find out perfectly what they are saying out there, and for a second I consider it with all the seriousness in the world.

But I don’t do it, because one of the few good things the infernal half month I spent learning to live with my own senses has left me is the habit of asking myself beforehand whether I truly want to hear something. And in this case the answer is no, since what happens in the courtyard really doesn’t interest me, and setting about spying on my own father’s servants out of pure impatience would be, besides undignified, completely useless.

So I close the report, push it to one side and don’t have to wait long until the door opens, Lianhua enters and closes it at her back before giving me her report.

“Zhāohuán Wen”, she tells me positioning herself to one side of the table. “The Emperor has entered the Pavilion and has headed directly to Guifei Xiang’s apartments.”

Directly, without stopping in the courtyard, without asking for me and without making the obligatory protocol visit.

I let the air out slowly and let myself fall against the backrest.

“Then there will be no talk until tonight, since if he had wanted to dispatch the matter first he would have come here upon entering, like all the previous times”, I tell her. “Which means he is going to come when he can do it without half the Pavilion devoting itself to investigating how long he spends in my study.”

And once I realize that, the only thing left for me to do is prepare myself.

“Lianhua”, I tell her straightening up in the chair. “Bring me a teapot and some refreshments. Cold, so that it doesn’t matter what time my father presents himself.”

Lianhua bows.

“As you wish, Zhāohuán Wen”, she answers me.

And she leaves the room without adding more words and closing the door behind her gently.

The moment she has gone, I open the drawer of the table where I keep the finished talismans and rummage until I find the two I want.

The first is a Heating Talisman, and the second is a Privacy Talisman. I place them to one side of the table, aligned, and with that I consider the preparations finished.

And since I still have ahead of me an indeterminate time of waiting, I do the only reasonable thing that can be done with that time, which is to devote it to something useful.

So I take one of the books on enchantments I have on top of the table and set about reading, because the ones on formations I have already finished, and although they cost me considerably more than I expected, the sensation upon closing the last one was satisfying enough to move directly on to the next ones without giving myself a single day of rest.

And one doesn’t have to be especially perceptive to realize why enchantments might turn out fascinating or useful to me, since being able to create a chair that moves on its own, or better still, that floats, is a good long-term objective.

Although, however tempting the idea may be, if someday I manufacture a floating chair it will be better not to paint it yellow. Now that I know destiny exists, that could make me end up bald, and that is a destiny it really is better to avoid.

So I read slowly, without haste, and thus the afternoon goes by, with the only interruption of Lianhua, who returns after a while with a tray on which there is a teapot, a set of cups and a plate of cold refreshments that she leaves in a spot on the table where it isn’t in the way.

The sun ends up going down, the shadows of the courtyard lengthen, someone lights the lanterns of the courtyard and I keep reading by the light of the lamp without any intention of stopping, because at this point the chapter is considerably more interesting than my own impatience.

And then there is a knock at the door, the leaf opens and Lianhua enters, who approaches the table and waits for me to close the book before speaking.

“Lingxi has sent word”, she tells me. “The Emperor will come shortly.”

She makes a minimal pause before continuing.

“She insisted that I communicate it to you and that I wake you if you had fallen asleep”, she adds.

And there I cannot help arching an eyebrow, because the detail is of such meticulous consideration that it turns out slightly offensive, since it takes for granted that I could have fallen asleep waiting for my father to find a gap to come see me.

I push aside the closed book and look at the teapot.

“Then it will be better to start preparing the tea”, I tell her.

I extend my hand toward the Heating Talisman, activate it and stick it against one side of the teapot, where the paper stays adhered an instant before the porcelain increases its temperature from the point where it is stuck and, after a moment, a fine thread of steam begins to rise from the spout.

Lianhua observes it a moment, nods and heads toward the door.

“I will be outside”, she tells me, after which she leaves, closes the door behind her and seems to remain on guard in the corridor.

And I am left alone, with the steam rising from the teapot and beginning to smooth the folds of my clothing for the third time in a minute.

After a while I hear footsteps in the corridor followed by two knocks at the door, after which the leaf opens and my father enters the study.

The first thing that draws my attention is not his face, but his attire. Instead of the imperial robes, he wears a long robe of dark silk, as luxurious as it is discreet and with a sober embroidery that costs much more than any ostentatious adornment.

It is the clothing of a man who has come out of his wife’s room and traveled an interior corridor without any intention of crossing paths with anyone.

Lianhua closes the door behind him and stays outside.

“Good evening, Father”, I tell him inclining my head as much as being seated permits me, and I indicate with my hand the chair I have had placed to one side of the table. “Sit, please.”

“Good evening, Wen”, he answers me.

And in those three words I obtain the first useful information of the night, because he has not said we are glad to see you, nor we have come, nor any of the plural formulas the Son of Heaven uses when he speaks. He has said good evening in the first person singular, the same as any father who enters the room of any daughter in any house of the Empire.

And that, coming from him, is practically a declaration of intentions.

My father crosses the room without further ceremony and heads toward the chair I have indicated to him, and while he settles into it I raise two fingers barely a couple of centimeters above the table and make the bolt of the door slide and fit into its place with a dry click.

Afterward I take the second talisman, activate it and notice how all the small noises that reached me from outside, the crickets of the courtyard, a badly fitted shutter somewhere and the footsteps of someone two corridors beyond disappear all at once and leave the room submerged in that thick silence that is only achieved this way.

“This way we can speak with more tranquility”, I tell him.

My father observes my two acts without saying anything, first the bolt and afterward the talisman, and I notice on his face an expression I interpret without difficulty as satisfaction.

But I have not finished, because next I deploy the Myriad of Hands and with it I bring the two cups from the other end of the table, lift the teapot, serve the tea, bring the plate of refreshments closer and place each thing in its spot, all at once and without touching absolutely anything with my hands while I leave them resting in my lap.

My father follows the movement of the objects with his eyes, one after another, and speaks while he does so.

“Is that the technique Master Mu gave you as a gift?” he asks me.

“It is”, I answer him without stopping serving. “And it is a shame that I still cannot use it in front of anyone.”

I place the last cup and release the technique.

“There are still years to go before the earrings simulate that I have a Gate open”, I continue. “And taking them off now would be counterproductive, because I’m afraid explaining how I have opened two Gates at thirteen years old would be considerably more complicated than continuing to wait.”

My father doesn’t answer right away, what he does is take his cup, and I take mine at the same moment, so that we both drink at once, each looking at the other over the rim of their own cup in a symmetry that turns out considerably more comfortable to me than I expected.

“It would draw a great deal of attention, yes”, he tells me when he lowers it. “Although, depending on what you decide to do with your life, drawing attention may be exactly what suits you.”

And there it is, so I let the air out through my nose and leave the cup on the table.

“Since you have come precisely to speak of that, I propose that we first get the most bothersome part out of the way”, I tell him. “And if there is time left over, then we can speak afterward of more agreeable things.”

My father smiles as he extends his hand toward the plate, takes one of the refreshments, eats it without any haste and only then answers.

“If that is what you prefer, we will begin with the worst”, he tells me, and with those words the smile leaves his face.

“Your mother and I have gone over all the options that exist for you”, he begins. “One by one, and some more than once. And of all of them, only four struck us as realistic.”

And I, who have spent half a year thinking about two, have to make a conscious effort not to move a single muscle of my face.

“Although of those four there are two I am reasonably sure are not going to interest you”, he continues. “So, in practice, there are two.”

There it is, two options, a choice and a mythological bird telling me that very soon I was going to find myself obliged to choose between them.

I sigh and lean back against the backrest.

“Then begin with the ones you think I am going to discard”, I tell him. “That way I will be able to concentrate on the other two with a clear head.”

My father drinks a bit of tea.

“The first is the evident one”, he tells me. “Reveal your real level of cultivation and enter the Sect.”

I nod slowly because I expected that one, and because besides I have had the answer prepared since the exact moment I crossed the main gate of that place.

“I imagined as much”, I tell him. “And until a few months ago I probably would not have known what to answer you. But I have been there, and after having been there I don’t think it is a good idea.”

I take my cup again, more to have something between my hands than out of thirst.

“And I don’t say it because of the Sect itself”, I continue. “The Sect, as a place, is fascinating. The problem is how it is built, because everything that connects one terrace with another is staircases. Thousands of steps that never end and up which I, personally, cannot climb.”

I let the sentence settle before finishing it off.

“Which leaves me exactly two possible paths”, I tell him. “One consists of depending every day, for everything, on there being someone disposed to carry me up and down those staircases. And the other consists of staying permanently shut in the residence they assign me and never going out of it again. And of the two, sincerely, I wouldn’t know how to tell you which strikes me as more depressing.”

My father nods while he listens to me, without interrupting me a single time, and when I finish he takes a moment to answer.

“That is what I thought myself”, he tells me. “And that is why I put it among the ones that were not realistic.”

He leaves the cup on the table before continuing.

“The second is to marry outside the imperial family”, he continues.

And here he begins to explain the reasons to me, because he knows perfectly that anyone’s first reaction to that sentence is to wonder what that has of a solution.

“Upon marrying you would pass to form part of another family and would stop being tied to the Imperial one”, he tells me. “And that means that the next Emperor, whichever of your brothers ends up sitting on the throne, would no longer have any authority over you. And it also means that it would turn out considerably more uncomfortable for the Sect to insist on calling you, because a married woman is not called alone and one would have to invite her husband as well along with any possible children, and that kind of complication tends to make interest cool very quickly.”

And I don’t even wait for him to finish the last word, so I cross my arms in front of my chest forming an X so large and clear that it doesn’t need translating into any language of either of the two worlds I know.

“No”, I tell him firmly, and my father blinks upon seeing me so determined.

“Before that I’ll go to the Sect”, I continue lowering my arms. “I say it completely seriously. I prefer to spend the rest of my life climbing staircases in the arms of a different stranger every week than to marry someone who would almost certainly want me for a single thing, which is access to the money my inventions produce.”

And there I stop a second, because there is a part I want to say well.

“And it is not only for me”, I tell him. “It is that the moment that happened, everything that occurred to me from then on would stop being mine, and that I do not intend to consent to.”

My father holds my gaze a moment and afterward nods.

“I also supposed as much”, he tells me. “But, the same as with the Sect, I had to tell it to you. Because it is an option that truly exists and because it is the only one that distances you at the same time from the Sect and from the imperial family. And if someday you reach a point at which that is exactly what you need, I want you to know that you have it.”

I sigh, because he is right and because I hate that he is.

“I know”, I tell him. “But of the two, that is the one I like least.”

I take a refreshment, eat it and wipe my fingers with a cloth.

“Good”, I say. “We have already gotten the bad ones out of the way. What are the good ones?”

My father drinks another sip of tea before answering, and this time he takes a bit longer than usual to leave the cup.

“The first of the two that remain I imagine you have already figured out”, he tells me. “To present yourself as a candidate for the throne.”

And I sigh for the umpteenth time so far tonight.

“Yes”, I answer him. “I rather feared that one of the two was going to be that one.”

My father nods upon hearing my words.

“If you present yourself officially, the Sect would no longer call you”, he continues. “Or at the very least it would wait for the trials of the election to end. And if you lose, and you are still alive, then perhaps they will consider it again.”

And you are still alive.

He has said it without any emphasis, in the same tone with which he has said everything else, placing it in the middle of the sentence the way one places a fact everyone knows and that there is no need to underline.

And it is true that I know it. I have spent years knowing how the election works, and no one needs to explain to me that, in the trials for the throne, not everyone comes out alive.

But one thing is to know it and quite another is to hear your own father say it referring to you, so I swallow saliva and ask the only question that can be asked from there on.

“And what possibilities do you think I would have of winning?” I ask him.

My father looks at me.

“Quite a few”, he answers me. “Above all if at that moment you stop hiding, which is the first thing you would have to do. Because from here to the trials there remains the time that remains, and at the rate at which you advance, by then only a few of your brothers will be above you. And even so you would still have an advantage none of them has.”

He makes a pause.

“Because you were Master Mu’s student”, he says. “And I am reasonably sure that means you can create talismans no one else in the Empire knows how to create.”

And I smile upon hearing his words, but only that, I smile and let the smile last just long enough without answering, which is the closest thing to a diplomatic response I have in the repertoire.

My father accepts it without insisting and goes on.

“In the end everything will depend on what trials the Sect decides to impose, which is something no one knows until they announce them”, he continues. “But whatever they may be, I have no doubt that you can come out of it well.”

And then he changes his tone.

“And I also have no doubt that you would be a great Empress”, he tells me. “Because just from seeing the things you have invented so far, and just from imagining what you would do if no one put obstacles in your way, I get the impression that the Empire would live a boom such as it has not lived in centuries. So much that perhaps even the Elders of the Sect would end up fearing the day you abdicated and became an Elder like them.”

And he says it smiling, with a small smile that loosens his face, and the atmosphere lightens enough that I permit myself to answer him in the same tone.

“It is an interesting idea”, I tell him returning his smile. “Because as an Elder the first thing I would do would be to try to get them to substitute all the staircases of the Sect for ramps up which one can climb with a chair. And that would truly be a historic change.”

My father laughs with a brief laugh, little more than a shake of the shoulders and a short sound, but it is a real laugh and I get the impression that not many escape him.

“It would be a historic change, yes”, he concedes, and afterward the smile goes out.

“For you to reach the throne would be the best thing that could happen to the Empire”, he tells me, and there no longer remains anything of lightness in his voice. “And perhaps even to the Sect. But for you, personally, perhaps it is not the best.”

He straightens in the chair.

“And that brings me to the fourth option”, he continues.

Then he holds my gaze with such firmness that I cannot take what comes for a simple suggestion, he is convinced that it is the best thing for me.

“Your best option is to leave the Empire”, he tells me.

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