The Corpse Reader (58 page)

“With this in mind, let’s think for a minute about what could have driven
me
to kill Kan. Let us not forget, Your Majesty had promised me a place on the judiciary if I were to solve the murders prior to Kan’s death.” Cí turned to Gray Fox. “So, I ask: Does a man who is starving chop down the only apple tree in his orchard?”

Gray Fox was completely composed, which unsettled Cí. It was Gray Fox’s turn to speak again.

“This is no place for wisecracks. You want to talk about motives? Fine, let’s talk about them. There’s actually only one piece of what Cí Song has said that is definitely true, which is the promise of a place on the judiciary if he solved the murders. So? Did you actually manage to uncover the murderer? I can’t remember having heard you talk about it.” Gray Fox’s expression was the epitome of self-satisfaction. “Revenge, loathing, yes. You refer to these things but neglect to mention they were precisely the feelings Kan stirred up in you when he threatened your
beloved
Professor Ming! Oh, and let’s talk about fits of rage, such as when you maimed Soft Dolphin’s poor corpse! And ambition, what about ambition? You also fail to mention the most blindingly obvious thing: that Kan’s suicide, with that rather…
opportune
confession note, was the only sure way—considering you had failed to actually solve the case—to win what the emperor had promised. I don’t know what everyone else here thinks, but your rather dramatic image of the orchard keeper would, I think, be more apt if we replaced the tree with a cow, and think about the starving man slaughtering it for meat rather than making do with drinking its milk.

“But anyway, since you also bring up judicial handbooks, yes, why don’t we think about something else stressed again and again in the literature when it comes to murder: opportunity. Why don’t you tell us, Cí, where you were the night Councilor Kan died?”

Cí’s heart was pounding. He glanced up at Blue Iris; that was the night they’d slept together. He knew he couldn’t mention that,
but he also knew if he said he was alone in his room, neither Gray Fox nor the emperor would be satisfied.

“If you don’t mind my saying so,” Cí began, “your argument has about as much sense as a stampede of elephants.” Laughter traveled around the room. “What you neglect to mention is that Kan was both feared and disliked—everyone here knows it. There must have been dozens of people with far greater motives than those you so cheaply confer on me. Why don’t we think about this for a minute? What kind of imbecile would disclose his own crime?” Cí paused. “I’ll make it simpler for you: If I had been the murderer, why would I have been preparing to tell the emperor that Kan’s death was anything but suicide, when that would have been the perfect cover?”

Cí felt he’d knocked down the last possible strut of Gray Fox’s argument, but then he saw that the emperor looked unconvinced. Eyebrows arched, he looked disdainfully at Cí.

“You told me nothing!” boomed the emperor. “Gray Fox came to me and explained how it couldn’t have been suicide.”

Cí looked straight at Feng; Cí now knew the judge’s final betrayal.

The evening rituals meant another interruption in the proceedings, which were set to resume the next morning. But the emperor had ruled that Cí had to spend the night in the dungeon, lest he try to flee.

No sooner had the guard locked Cí in his cell than Feng walked into the dungeon. He gestured for the guard to leave him alone with the prisoner. Before going outside, the guard chained Cí to the wall.

There was a bowl of soup on the floor between Cí and Feng. Cí hadn’t eaten all day but had little stomach for food now.

“You must be hungry.” Feng pushed the bowl toward Cí. “I’ll help you sip some.”

Cí kicked the bowl, and the soup went all over Feng’s robes. Feng jumped backward. Wiping the soup off, he gave Cí a resigned look, like a father whose child has just vomited on him.

“Calm yourself,” he said condescendingly. “I know you must be upset, but there’s still a way to clear everything up.” He came and sat beside Cí. “This has all gone quite far enough.”

Cí couldn’t even look at Feng. How could he once have considered such a man a father figure? If he hadn’t been chained to the wall, he would have strangled him then and there.

“Fine, say nothing. I can understand how you feel. I understand entirely if you don’t even want to listen to me and you’d rather just wait for Gray Fox to finish shredding you.” He asked the guard to bring another bowl of soup, but when it was put in front of Cí, he kicked it away again.

“You eat it, you bastard!” shouted Cí.

“Oh, so you have still got your tongue! Listen to me now. There are forces at work here you don’t know about. This trial isn’t really about you. Trust in me and forget about trying to win. Kan’s dead; what does it matter how? Just keep your mouth shut and wait for me. I’ll step in and discredit Gray Fox, and you’ll be off the hook.”

“Just forget about it? Like it’s someone else here in this cell, someone else who’s had his ribs cracked?”

“Damn it, Cí. All I wanted was to keep you out of this so Gray Fox would take over the investigation. It would have been far easier if he hadn’t been so envious of you and dragged you into it with these accusations.”

“Why would I believe anything you say? Gray Fox said
he
worked out that Kan’s death wasn’t a suicide. And you said nothing about how
I
had explained it all to you!”

“I would have, if it would have done any good. If I’d broken cover then, it might have made the emperor doubt me somehow. And the most important thing, if I am going to help you, is for the emperor to continue to trust me.”

For the first time since Feng had come in, Cí looked him in the eye.

“The same way you helped my father?” he spit.

Feng’s jaw dropped. “I—I don’t know what you mean.”

“There’s a piece of paper in the pocket inside my jacket. Reach in and get it.”

Feng leaned toward Cí, pulled the paper out, and unfolded it, astonished. His hands trembled as he read it.

“Recognize that, by any chance?”

“Where did you find this?” Feng stammered.

“Is that why you prevented my father from coming back to Lin’an? Just so you could carry on embezzling salt shipments? And is that why you did away with the eunuch? Because he figured it out, too?”

Feng backed away as if confronted by a ghost, his eyes wide.

“How dare you? After all I’ve done for you!”

“You duped my father, you duped us all!” Cí strained at the chains. “You really expect me to be thankful?”

“Your father should have kissed my feet rather than crossing me.” Feng’s face still had the contorted look. “I raised him out of poverty! And you, I treated you like a son!”

“You would dirty my father’s name by even speaking it!” The chains shook as Cí tried to get free.

“You really don’t get it!” Feng bellowed, his eyes smoldering madly. “I nurtured you like the offspring I could never sire. I protected you! With the explosion, I allowed you to live! Why do you think it was only the others who died? I could just as easily have
waited for you to get back.” He reached out his trembling hand to stroke Cí’s face.

Cí felt torn apart by Feng’s words.

“What explosion? Wh—what do you mean, allowed me to live?”

He felt his world crumbling around him.

Feng stood with his arms outstretched, inviting Cí to embrace him.

“
Son
,” he sobbed.

Cí moved toward Feng for the embrace. The instant he was close enough, he wrapped his chains around Feng’s neck and pulled them tight. Feng kicked and struggled but couldn’t get free. Cí strangled his old master with all his might. Feng’s face turned blue, and saliva frothed from his lips. Cí knew Feng was near death, but just then, the guard rushed in and delivered a hard blow to Cí’s head.

The last thing Cí saw before he lost consciousness was Feng, on the floor, gasping for air, coughing violently, and promising Cí the most horrific of deaths.

From what seemed like very far away, Cí could hear the guard saying he didn’t see the point in reviving a man who was about to be executed. But he did as he was told and emptied several buckets of water over Cí’s bloody, insensate body.

Cí moaned, trying to open his swollen eyes.

“You should take better care of yourself,” said Feng, handing Cí a cloth. “Here, clean yourself up a bit.”

Cí’s focus gradually came back. Feng stood over him like a man inspecting an insect he’d just crushed. Cí tried moving but found he was still chained to the wall.

“These guards can be so brutal sometimes!” said Feng. “Still, I suppose that’s their job. Water?”

Cí didn’t want to accept anything from Feng, but he was so thirsty he felt as if his insides were burning up, and he drank a little from the cup.

“I must say,” said Feng, “I’ve always held your astuteness in high esteem, but today you really surpassed yourself. Shame, really, because unless you take it all back, that same shrewdness is going to get you hanged.”

Cí managed to open one of his eyes, only to get a glimpse of Feng’s insincere smile.

“Bastard,” he muttered. “Same
shrewdness
you used to frame my brother?”

“Oh, you managed to work that out, too? Took you some time, didn’t it? Well, from one expert to another,” he said as he nudged Cí playfully, “you must agree it was a rather excellent play! Once Shang was out of the way,
someone
needed to be incriminated for it, and your brother, well, he was perfect. The three thousand
qián
one of my men
somehow
lost to him in a bet…the purse swap once we’d arrested Lu…the drug we used on him so he wouldn’t be able to speak at his trial…and the best bit, the sickle, and the way we smeared blood all over it and waited for the flies to do the rest.”

Cí was struggling to understand. His skull was still ringing with the blow to his head.

“So it seems that nosing around in other people’s books runs in your family. Nasty habit,” he said, shaking his head. “Your father wasn’t even satisfied sticking his beak in my accounts; he had to go and blab about it to his little friend Shang! I didn’t really have much choice after that. I tried to warn him, but when I visited that night, he really became
quite
unreasonable. Talking about reporting me to the authorities! Refusing to hand over the papers that would incriminate me! So we had to blow up the house. Should’ve done it sooner, really. Oh, and the idea of using the gunpowder rocket to mask the wounds? That idea came to me that evening, too; it was the thunder that made me think of it.”

Cí couldn’t talk. So that was why Lu had taken Cí’s sickle when he hadn’t been able to find his own—Feng had taken Lu’s for the setup.

“Come on, Cí!” Feng suddenly roared. “Did you really think a bolt of lightning came down from heaven and finished your
parents? Let me know when you decide to stop dreaming and join us in the real world.”

Cí wished he could believe this was all some terrible nightmare. It was too much to absorb. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Feng was still in front of him with a nearly rapturous look on his face.

“What did your family ever do for you, anyway? Compared with me? You should thank me for having extracted you from that rat hole.” He began pacing the room. “I made you! Ingrate. You’d have been the same as any other canal rat if it weren’t for me…You were the one good thing about the Song family, its saving grace! And I thought, when you showed up, we could all be happy together—you, me, Blue Iris.” He smiled at the thought of his wife before whispering, “You were like the son I never had…”

Cí felt numb watching Feng’s demented display.

“We could still be that! A family!” Feng continued. “Let’s put this all behind us! This is where you belong, with us! Anything you want, you can have. Wealth? To study? You can have it all! A little push from me here, and you’ll be taking the exams like you always dreamed; a little shove there, you’ll have a top spot in the administration. What you’ve always wanted! Don’t you see what I could do for you? Why would I be telling you all this otherwise? I want us to be a
family
, Cí. Just the three of us!”