Читать книгу The Color of Jadeite - Eric D. Goodman - Страница 13

5

Begin with the End in Mind

I wasn’t sure Mackenzie would know the clue if she came across it, not being up on her Chinese history—and I knew Salvador wouldn’t know a clue if it jumped out of a ding pot and bit him on the ass. Much as I wanted to split up and conduct a search alone with Wei Wei, we stuck together after cutting the petty thief loose.

“So, what’s the story?” Mackenzie asked. On the flight over, I’d given Mackenzie and Salvador the skinny: that I’d been hired—and them with me—to search for an ancient Chinese treasure and that we’d be meeting someone in Beijing to point us in the right direction. But aside from that and a few pointers on Chinese culture and customs, I figured we’d get filled in together upon arrival.

We didn’t.

At the center of Beijing’s Forbidden City, Wei Wei led us into the Hall of Middle Harmony, where the emperor used to wait before greeting guests or attending events in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

“Why here?” Salvador asked.

Wei Wei said, “I imagine an emperor would consider his suicide and the mercy killing of his women to be a ceremonious event. This hall makes sense.”

Salvador stood watch to make sure no guards or officials came near as Wei Wei, Mackenzie, and I crossed the “no entry” ropes and began poking around the ornate hall.

“It’s been a few decades since the jade tablet crossed my path,” I said. “Last I heard, it had been discovered after being lost for centuries. But it was in the hands of a private collector. That was a good thirty years ago, and once it was privately held by an undisclosed collector, I figured it was as good as lost to the world—again.”

Wei Wei looked behind a metal door that seemed to serve no more purpose than to look nice. “That’s part of the story,” she said. “Yes, it was in the eighties that the tablet was found. It didn’t really make international news, barely even registered here in China, because it was not something most people were aware of in the first place. It wasn’t put in a museum or shown off, always kept private. And the world was still under the spell of another Chinese treasure: the discovery of the Terracotta Army in Xi’an. That was very public, very big, and instantly became a wonder of the world. So the tablet was all but forgotten by everyone but the handful of scholars and collectors focused on it.”

Mackenzie peered underneath the bed-like throne at the center of the room. “Does that mean our clues will eventually lead us to the man who has it in his living room? This is all for the jollies of some rich Ross Perot-type prankster?”

“Not at all.” Wei Wei glanced behind another metal door. “The owner of the tablet, who never allowed his identity to be revealed, died—of natural causes. But before he did, he cast elaborate plans to preserve the tablet.”

“Guys,” Salvador called in to us. Mackenzie, Wei Wei, and I looked up and saw that, in addition to the watching tourists, a uniformed guard was strolling toward the hall. The three of us rushed toward the center of the room to hide behind the large yellow flags draped from ceiling to floor. We stood, just waiting to be apprehended and kicked out for trespassing (at best)—or thrown into a Chinese prison (at worst).

“Coast is clear,” Salvador called in. We released sighs of relief and went about searching the last nooks and crannies of the hall.

Mackenzie picked up the cushion of an ornate chair as she picked up the conversation. “So Daddy didn’t leave the treasure to the kids in his last will and testament, or try to sell it?”

Wei Wei looked startled at the thought. “No. The collector decided the tablet was more valuable than any amount of money offered for its sale. And he believed that the average citizen did not deserve to view such a wonderful possession of such an important emperor. That included his own children. He didn’t think it belonged in a museum or university or with the government for just anyone to enjoy.”

“Interesting concept,” I said, “coming from a Communist society. Don’t the people, in theory, enjoy all the same privileges in the People’s Republic?”

Wei Wei led us out of the Hall of Middle Harmony and toward the Hall of Preserving Harmony. “You’re assuming that wealthy elitist collectors share the same view as the idealists,” she said. “Obviously a person who values Imperial history so highly holds both the Empire and its fragments in equally high regard.”

We entered the Hall of Preserving Harmony and searched for something out of the ordinary. All connected in a line, each hall had its own charms, but they felt very much the same. Wei Wei continued. “The owner of Emperor Xuande’s tablet decided that it should not fall into the hands of anyone who did not deserve it. And since he knew of no one who could prove themselves worthy of the prize, he hid it.”

I looked underneath a chair. I’d heard a good bit about the jadeite tablet’s history, but this chapter about the collector’s game was news to me. “He must have had faith that someone deserving would come along and follow the clues.”

Mackenzie agreed. “Otherwise, why wouldn’t he just destroy it?”

Wei Wei shrugged. “He was open to the possibility of a worthy heir materializing.”

“And who would be the judge of worthiness?” Mackenzie asked.

I answered. “The person worthy of the prize is the person with the knowledge and skill and intelligence and determination to find it. The ability to find the treasure is the test.”

Wei Wei smiled at me, and I felt like I’d won a prize. “Quite right,” she said. “He hid the jadeite tablet, and he developed an elaborate web of riddles and clues, not unlike those he himself had to crack to find the tablet when it was hidden by the Imperial court. He cast the clues throughout China. No individual person or place holds more than one of the keys. In most cases, the person entrusted with the clue doesn’t even know about it.”

Mackenzie swooned. “Sounds complicated.”

I nudged Mackenzie. “You’re more checkers than chess, aren’t you?”

Wei Wei led us back out of the room where Salvador waited, sweat beading on his nervous forehead. Wei Wei looked at Mackenzie and said, “There’s room for pawns on the game board,” then at me, “but we’re definitely playing a game of chess.” She looked at Salvador, who appeared even more confused now than when we left the last room.

“You know the main difference between chess and checkers?” I asked.

“There are a lot of differences,” Mackenzie said.

Salvador added, “The pieces are different, for one thing.”

Wei Wei answered as though telling rather than guessing. “In chess, as in life, every piece moves differently, has a different role to play.”

Mackenzie said to Salvador under her breath, “And I guess she’s the queen.”

Mackenzie smirked at me when she saw I’d heard her. I frowned and asked, “Are you going to be nice or are you going to be gone?”

“Moi?”

“Wrong foreign language,” I said.

Salvador grimaced as Wei Wei led us through the Gate of Heavenly Purity. “Dammit, Clive, I missed the first half of the conversation. What’s she talking about?”

“Calm down.” Mackenzie filled Salvador in. “Crazy old dude hid the tablet and left a bunch of clues. To find the tablet, we’ve got to find the clues. That about sums it up.”

Wei Wei dropped an adorable chuckle. “It’s so easy to make things sound simple in English.”

Mackenzie counted the dragon guardians on the roofs before us. “Americans don’t feel the need to convolute things. You can bet that if the collector had been American, it would already be securely in the hands of the next-of-kin. And probably tax-deferred, too.”

“We excel at complicated puzzles in China,” Wei Wei said. “That’s the challenge we’re up against. Find the clues, we deserve to find the prize. But the clues won’t be easy to find or figure. They were put into place by a cunning mind.”

Salvador scoffed. “How do you know so much about this guy?”

Wei Wei frowned at him. “Gossip hovers in the air like pollution.”

We stood in a circle in the courtyard, surrounded by the trappings of Imperial China. “We’re getting nowhere slow,” Salvador griped. “Are we really going to search ten thousand rooms for a clue?”

“It’s not in the main halls; we’ve searched them,” Wei Wei said. “We need to think this over carefully.”

“Take your first step where the last Ming took his last,” I repeated. “We know the last Ming emperor was Chongzhen. And that he killed his daughter and concubines while an angry mob of peasants came to storm the Forbidden City. But where did he do it?”

Salvador and Mackenzie stared blankly at each other. Wei Wei strained to remember. “Wait a minute! He didn’t hang himself in the Forbidden City—he hung himself behind the Forbidden City. On the hill, Jing Shan.”

“Should we look there?” Mackenzie asked.

“No,” Wei Wei said, still thinking. “His last step as a man was to kill himself. His last step as the last emperor of the Ming dynasty, before the killing, was to write his final missive—in the Forbidden City.”

I remembered, now that she mentioned it. “In red ink.”

Wei Wei nodded. “In the Palace of Heavenly Purity.”

“Let’s go!” I started, and we rushed toward the palace.