Читать книгу The Color of Jadeite - Eric D. Goodman - Страница 14

6

Heavenly Hunt

When we got to the Palace of Heavenly Purity, we found it was not pure—but contaminated by two middle-aged Chinese men. We stood and looked in at the ornate rooms, trying to blend in with the rest of the tourists. The half-dozen others here consisted of Chinese, Europeans, and Americans, so we were a perfect fit. Salvador shifted from one leg to another, looking antsy, and Mackenzie nudged him, moaning, “Quit it.”

“It’s my knee!” he barked back, “I can’t help it!”

“Shhh,” I hushed, and Wei Wei shot us each a stern glance.

We continued to watch as the crowd around us changed, one or two people at a time. Mackenzie whispered, “Are they workers?”

“Maybe,” I whispered back. But Wei Wei shook her head. As Salvador watched the men suspiciously, I looked at all of the details of the room: three carpeted stairwells, each with three steps, ascending to a platform above the marble-tiled floor holding the Emperor’s desk and throne. Before the platform, pedestals held four ding pots, each one supported on three legs. Behind the desk stood an enormous golden screen with five panels, engraved with the teachings of ancestors. A crane statue guarded each end. A side-staircase came off of both the left and right sides of the platform, leading back to giant mirrors on the main floor. The ceiling, as three dimensional as the statues and columns below, was festooned with dragons.

The two men in the palace were rummaging around the desk and throne on the platform, looking in the turquoise ding pots and around the statues. One of them had sterling silver hair, wavy and long. The silver pony tail contrasted with a black blazer. The other man sported a shiny, black bowl cut to go with his larger frame—more muscle than pudge. Neither of them seemed to notice us or anyone else in the crowd. They went about their search as though they worked here.

“They say the key to not getting caught is to look like you belong,” Mackenzie said.

A loud pair of Chinese tourists came from the courtyard behind us; I turned to see that they were towing a uniformed guard with them. Just shy of making a citizen’s arrest, the Chinese tourists insisted that the guard dispose of the intruders. Reluctantly, the guard did, calling Silver Hair and Bowl Cut down, escorting the two men back into the courtyard and out of sight.

“There’s a better way,” I said to Mackenzie. “Don’t let them see you.” With the guard and other intruders walking away, and the concerned citizens and other tourists watching the commotion, I crossed over and walked beyond the platform, behind the golden screens, and out of view. When I turned around, I noticed Wei Wei had followed me and I almost ran into her. “Fancy meeting you here,” I said.

“Fancy’s a fitting term,” she said, turning away from me and beginning to inspect the treasures around us. Mackenzie came up behind her.

“Why are we sneaking around back here?” Mackenzie asked. “Isn’t it more likely we’ll find our clue in the throne or desk?”

“If that’s where it was,” I said, “those jokers would have found it already.”

Mackenzie shrugged. “That’s assuming those two were looking for the same thing we were.”

“They were,” Wei Wei said without a note of doubt in her voice. “We’re not the only people looking for the tablet.”

“How do you know?” Mackenzie asked.

Wei Wei looked at Mackenzie, then came close to shaking her head. “A priceless treasure, only one like it in the world, worth millions. I can’t imagine why anyone else would be looking for it.”

Mackenzie huffed. “Point taken.” But not taken well, her body language said.

I looked in the urns and ding pots collected behind the screens. “I’m thinking we’ll know it when we see it.”

Mackenzie inspected the shuttered windows at the back of the room. “What, exactly, did Zongchen—”

“—Chongzhen,” Wei Wei corrected.

Mackenzie looked annoyed. “What did Chongzhen write before fleeing the Forbidden City?”

“His final missive,” Wei Wei said.

“His last will and testament,” I explained.

Mackenzie fished around in a large, turquoise ding pot. She pulled out a scroll and unrolled it. The red calligraphy was beautiful enough to frame, but I knew Mackenzie couldn’t make it out any more than I could.

Wei Wei looked at Mackenzie in disbelief. She rushed over and read the scroll out loud. When neither of us responded to the foreign sounds, she translated it. “Great blessings come from Heaven; small ones come from man.”

Mackenzie looked almost as confused as before the translation. “What’s that mean?”

“Chinese proverb,” Wei Wei said. “The western equivalent, I suppose, would be to store up your treasures in heaven instead of here on earth.”

“Or maybe don’t look for the treasure on earth, but in heaven,” I mused.

“I know where we need to go!” Wei Wei slipped the scroll into her purse and darted out of the Palace of Heavenly Purity.

“Let me guess,” I said. “The Temple—”

“—Don’t say it out loud!” Wei Wei warned. But I didn’t have to. The two men who’d been searching the palace before us, now standing outside with the tourists, overheard us. Salvador was looking for trouble, not tourists, and he hadn’t even noticed the blended-in pair. The tall Chinese man with silvery long hair and his companion with the black bowl cut darted off—and the four of us followed them.

“Where are we going?” Salvador asked, already huffing.

“Temple of Heaven,” I said.

“Thought that’s where we were!”

“Nope,” I said. “We were in the Palace of Heavenly Purity.”

“Why can’t this place just use addresses like everywhere else?” Salvador blurted out.

The men kept a steady pace before us. Mackenzie panted. “I don’t think we’re gonna overtake them.”

“Only if we get the right taxi driver,” Wei Wei said. “The Temple of Heaven is not in the Forbidden City.”

“101 Maple Street,” Salvador huffed imagined addresses. “464 Lotus Way.”

I estimated. “The temple’s about twenty minutes away by taxi.”

“Or ten,” Wei Wei huffed. “If we find the right driver.”

Salvador, barely able to keep up, ran with a limp. “Why such a hurry?”

“Because!” I pointed to the two men in front of us, already getting into the back of a sedan. “We need to get there before they do!”