Forbidden City by Vanessa Hua

Author:Vanessa Hua [Hua, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Though the music had stopped in the Chairman’s quarters, the air was still charged. Sitting at his desk, he asked what I’d seen that afternoon. He must have been notified after we’d left the Lake Palaces. “Where did you get out?” he asked.

“We stayed in the car.” I slipped off my shoes.

He got up so quickly he swayed on his feet, almost losing his balance. He steadied himself on his desk. “Then you didn’t see a thing!”

“Secretary Sun said we couldn’t.”

His face darkened. Until now, he hadn’t concerned himself with the finer details of my training, and this oversight irked him. Anything could have set him off, though, even if I’d answered differently.

“We overheard some students,” I added.

“What did you make of them?” he asked.

“Xiao cong ming,” I said. Clever, but only in the most trivial matters.

He touched my arm. “You weren’t intimidated. You weren’t blinded.”

I remembered what Secretary Sun had said: Silly as the students seemed to me, the highest leaders counted on their support. With the Chairman in such a mood, wouldn’t he want that reminder?

“They’re loyal to you, though,” I said. But not to the President, if our plan succeeded.

At the knock at the door, the Chairman barked, “Come in.”

Busy Shan entered, squirming in her uniform and pushing a cart with a fresh pot of tea and snacks.

Flustered, I sat down on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were swollen, as though she’d been crying.

I reached for the tea she poured. As I figured out what I’d say to her, she looked at me with such hatred that I inhaled tea, coughing. I set down my cup with a clatter, and when I looked up, she was gone.

The Chairman studied me. “Something caught in your throat?”

“She…we used to share a bunk.”

“You thought you’d have an ally, didn’t you?” The Chairman leaned both arms on his desk, which wobbled on its wheels. “Someone you could talk to about me?”

Someone I’d worried about and wanted to protect, but he’d never understand. I stared at my feet, knobby with calluses.

“It’s those closest to you who can turn on you the quickest,” he said.

“Isn’t she wanted elsewhere?” I looked up at the Chairman.

“Not until you’ve learned you should never drop your guard,” he said. “You may think you know everything, but don’t let that be your downfall.”

He drained his cup. After I served him more tea, he tapped three fingers on the table.

I’d already poured it to the brim. “More?”

He tapped again, and I set down the teapot and copied him in return.

“It’s how to say thank you without saying anything at all,” he said. “It comes from the Qianlong Emperor, who wanted to see how the common people lived.”

“What happened?” I asked.

In school, we’d learned about the emperor, one of the country’s longest-reigning and longest-living rulers, who’d doubled the expanse of our borders. I’d never heard the story that the Chairman now shared. One day, he told me, the emperor decided to travel the country dressed as the servant of a high official, who was played by his most trusted advisor.

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