Sensei Madame Liao directs me into the Pagoda of Filial Sacrifice. She does not enter. She slides the door closed behind me.
The space inside is round and sealed, like an ossuary. The Chairman stands at the back of the chamber and watches me enter. He sips his tea anemone. He’s powerfully built but holds his body oddly. He’s tipping forward like he’s being dragged down by some great weight. Is he ill?
He doesn’t speak, holding me in his unblinking gaze. The charming Chairman from this morning is gone. There’s nothing that looks like it could belong to Hisashi’s father in this man. The occasional tap of the long nail of his littlest finger against the porcelain is the only sound in the chamber.
At last, the Chairman smiles and flashes his dimples. “Little bird. I’d like to ask you to please turn in place. Slowly. Can you do that for me?”
I can’t think of a reason to disobey, so I reluctantly begin to turn.
“Stop,” he says. “Please.”
I stop two-thirds through the rotation.
“Look straight ahead,” he says. “Please.”
Why is he doing this? From the corner of my eye, I see him take the blunt knife used to score the tea anemones to release their flavor. My Chi flashes.
“Open your mouth,” he says. “Please.”
This is beginning to frighten me, but surely he wouldn’t hurt me with Sensei Madame Liao waiting right outside the door. He skates to me and places the handle of the knife in my mouth.
“Bite down, please.”
I clench my teeth on the knife. He adjusts it. Then the Chairman balances his cup of tea anemones on the flat surface of the blade. He returns to the back of the room where he can see me but I can only catch a glimpse of him.
Now I understand. He’ll use this method to detect any lies. He wants to see my reaction to his questions, and if anything he says makes me turn my head to him even the slightest, he’ll know, because the cup will fall.
“I find it easier to get the truth this way, rather than rely on spoken answers,” the Chairman says. Then he begins speaking question after question in a steady voice.
“Where were you last night, little bird?”
I need to stay calm. I can’t react, or the knife will shake and spill the cup of tea.
“Did you bring anything from Shin to Pearl Famous?”
He has no right to be doing this. I want to cry out and deny what he’s suggesting.
“Have you communicated with anyone in Shin since you arrived?”
I don’t want him to read anything I do as guilt.
“Do you love the Empress Dowager?”
He’s not a sensei. He’s not a government official.
“Do you love your country?”
He’s just a businessman.
“Do you love Pearl, little bird?”
How is this an effective way to tell if I am lying? Just because I react to one of his questions doesn’t mean I’m guilty. It could mean that I’m angry or insulted. Both of which I am right now.
All of a sudden, I see why he’s doing this. It’s not to tell if I’m guilty. It’s to frighten me into confessing that I’m guilty. I refuse to be afraid of him. I refuse to give him anything.
I can see at the edge of my vision that he’s read nothing from my reaction. The Chairman comes to me and takes the cup and the knife from my teeth. He stands over me. I stare straight ahead at his shoulder, where the complicated mandalas embroidered in pearlsilk match perfectly across the seam where shoulder meets sleeve.
He lifts his hand. With the long nail on his small finger, the Chairman digs the toggle open on the breast pocket of his robe. He reaches in and pulls out something. He straightens his posture.
He holds out the object in his palm.
It’s a cord with some sort of trinket. Something small and black.
“A token for you, little bird.”
He lets it slide off his hand. When it hits the floor, it’s so heavy that it doesn’t bounce or slide. It simply stays where it lands.
He skates toward the door.
“You did not do well, little bird,” the Chairman says as he passes me. “I would ask you to do better the next time, but there will not be a next time. Do you understand?”
Without waiting for my answer, he leaves. It’s one thing to have someone like Suki as an enemy. Suki practices a school of treachery I understand. It’s all heat. The Chairman’s strange, quiet attacks are different. They are chilling.
I bend to pick up the pendant.
I try to lift it by the cord with a finger. Then I grip with my whole fist and heave it up. It weighs as much as a great jug of water.
The trinket suspended from the cord looks like a little black house with a sloped roof.
The number 2,020 is carved on the back.
I look closer and see a little indentation in the house. A minuscule door.
But it’s been sealed shut.
As if something is trapped inside.