The Corpse Reader (59 page)

Not long before, Cí would have jumped at the chance of joining the judiciary, but now his only desire was to bring honor back to his father—and that meant unmasking this lunatic imposter, this murderer here in the cell with him.

“Get away from me!” Cí shouted.

Feng laughed.

“What? Do you really think you can turn me down? Think I’m going to tell you all this and then let you ruin me?” He laughed again. “Or maybe you think you can beat me!”

“I don’t need you to tell me anything,” muttered Cí. “I’m going to take you down anyway.”

“I see! I wonder, what might you be thinking of saying about me? Hmm. That I killed Kan? That I embezzled money? Gods, boy. You must really have lost it if you think anyone’s going to believe you now.”

“I’ve got proof,” Cí managed to say.

“Really?” said Feng, going to the far end of the cell and taking something from a bag. “You wouldn’t mean this, by any chance, would you?” He walked back over to Cí with the model of the hand cannon. “You weren’t hoping this could save you, were you? Oh, well.” And at this, he threw the plaster to the floor, shattering it in a thousand pieces.

Cí shut his eyes as the fragments hit his body. He couldn’t look at Feng. Not while he was still alive.

“What now?” sneered Feng. “Going to beg for mercy like your miserable parents before they died?”

Cí almost ripped the chains from the wall. Feng stood back and watched with enjoyment as Cí grappled with the shackles.

“Pathetic,” said Feng, laughing. “Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to let you bring me down? I could have you tortured right now, and do you think anyone would hear your cries? Or bother to save you if they did?”

“Well, go on then!” screamed Cí. “Why don’t you? What are you waiting for?”

“Hah! Just so I can get sentenced later? I don’t think so. Clever boy.” Feng shook his head. “Guard!” he called.

The guard came in with a bamboo staff in one hand and an implement resembling pliers in the other.

“Sometimes prisoners lose their tongues. Did you know that? Shame, it
does
make it awfully difficult for them to defend themselves.”

These were Feng’s final words before he went out, leaving Cí alone with the guard.

Just as Cí doubled over from the first blow to his gut, the next one came down across his back. The guard grinned and rolled his sleeves up as Cí tried to protect himself from someone he knew would deliver as much pain as necessary to get paid. Cí had seen it all before. First the beating, then he’d have to sign the confession. Then his nails would be pulled out, his fingers broken, his tongue cut out. With all this done, no prisoner could write down or speak the truth. He thought about his family and the fact that, no matter how desperately he wanted to, he might not be able to avenge their terrible deaths.

The blows continued to rain down. His vision clouded over and he drifted in and out of consciousness. His parents whispered to him:
Fight
, they said.
Don’t give up
. His mouth and throat filled with the iron-like taste of his own blood. What was left of his spirit was draining away. He could let himself die now and bring an end to this useless torment, but his father’s spirit urged him on. Another blow. And another. Through his nose, he inhaled a mix of blood and air, and when he felt it reach his lungs, he exhaled as hard as he could, expelling the cloth that had been stuffed in his mouth. Finally he could say something.

“I’ll confess,” he mumbled.

This didn’t stop the guard from hitting him once more, as though Cí’s sudden decision had interrupted his fun. Satisfied, the guard removed the chains from Cí’s wrists and handed him the confession document. Cí took the brush in his trembling hand and scribbled at the bottom of the page. Then the brush fell from his hand, leaving a trail of blood and ink on the page. The guard
looked disgusted but said it would do. He gave it to another guard outside the door, told him to take it to Feng, then came back and stood over Cí with the pliers in hand.

“Now,” he said, “let’s have a look at those fingers of yours.”

Cí was too weak to resist as the guard grabbed his right wrist and clamped the pliers on the edge of his thumbnail. He tightly squeezed the pliers and yanked. Cí barely flinched, which annoyed the guard. He prepared to pull off the next nail, but instead of yanking this one straight out, he ripped upward so the nail stood loose from the finger. Cí let out only a grunt.

Annoyed by this passivity, the guard shook his head.

“Well,” he growled, “since you aren’t using that tongue of yours to complain, maybe we should relieve you of that as well.”

Cí felt his father’s spirit coursing through him, spurring him on.

“Have you ever pulled out a tongue before?” Cí managed to ask.

The guard squinted his small dark eyes.

“Now you talk?”

Cí tried to force a smile, but instead found himself spitting bloody phlegm.

“Pulling out the tongue will bring the neck veins with it. I’ll bleed out like a pig, and there will be no way to stop me from dying.” He paused. “Do you know what happens to someone who kills a prisoner before he’s been sentenced?”

“Save it,” said the guard, but he let go of the pliers, knowing full well that it was a crime punishable by death.

“You really don’t get it,” said Cí. “Why do you think Feng left? So none of this could be blamed on him!”

“I said shut it!” He punched Cí in the stomach. Cí doubled over on the floor.

“Where are the doctors who are supposed to stop me from bleeding out?” he gasped. “If you obey Feng, you know I’ll die, and
he’ll deny having given the order. You’ll be signing your own death warrant.”

The guard hesitated, and Cí was sure the guard knew Cí was right. Plus there had been no witnesses, so it would be Feng’s word against the guard’s. Still, he picked up the pliers again and turned on Cí.

“Stop right there!” came a shout from outside the cell.

Cí and the guard looked up in unison. It was Bo, accompanied by two sentries.

Suddenly Cí was being pulled, but in what direction he had no idea…Was he standing now? Salts were waved beneath his nose, and he was jolted into awareness.

“Come on!” said Bo. “We must hurry. The trial’s about to begin again.”

It was morning. Cí realized he’d survived a night of torture.

On their way to the courtroom, Bo told Cí everything he’d learned, but Cí was finding it hard to listen. His mind was that of a predator, and all he could focus on was the thought of Feng’s jugular. But as the court came into sight again, he began to pay attention to Bo’s discoveries. Bo stopped just before they went in, wiping Cí’s face and giving him clean robes to put over his bloody, grimy clothes.

“Be careful,” said Bo. “Try to make it look like you’ve got yourself together. Remember that accusing a court official amounts to the same thing as accusing Ningzong himself.”

When the two soldiers made Cí kneel before the throne, the emperor himself let out a gasp. Cí’s face was a mess of bruises and cuts. His two nailless fingers were bleeding. Feng smiled nervously. Bo stood a few paces from Cí, a leather bag slung over his shoulder. The gong sounded to announce that the court was in session again.

Feng took the floor first. He was wearing his old judge’s robes and the mortarboard that indicated he was on the side of the prosecution.

“Some of you here, I’m sure, have felt the blows of disappointment from time to time—when unscrupulous colleagues have threatened to ruin you, or when a woman has betrayed you for a wealthier suitor, or when unfair claims are brought against you.” Feng turned to the audience. “But I can assure you that none of those situations compare with the suffering and bitterness I now feel in my heart.

“Here before us, kneeling in front of our beloved emperor, you see the worst of imposters, the most ungrateful and insidious man alive. The accused has been living under my roof, and until yesterday I treated him like a son. I nurtured him, saw that he had an education, urged him to mature. I am childless, and I placed all my hopes in Cí Song. But to my deep, deep regret, I have learned that beneath that lamb’s clothing there is the worst kind of vermin imaginable: perverse, traitorous, and, yes, even murderous.”

“Once the proof was brought before me, I felt I had no choice but to support Gray Fox. It pained me to have to spill Cí’s blood, I can tell you, but I knew we had to see this confession.” He held the document up for all to see. “These are the hardest words a father could ever have to read. Unfortunately, though, it was the will of the gods, so that we might be saved the spectacle of more lies. Justice must now be served in regard to this despicable lowlife.”

The emperor carefully read the confession note before handing it to the official to register its content. Ningzong stood and looked at Cí with a dark hatred.

“With this document in mind, I hereby—”

“Not my signature…” groaned Cí, spitting blood on the floor.

The astonishment in the room was palpable. Feng came forward, trembling.

“It’s not my signature on that document!” cried Cí, the effort almost causing him to topple forward.

Feng flinched as if listening to a ghost.

“Your Majesty,” he said quietly. “He confessed—”

“Silence!” roared Ningzong, peering around the room as he considered what to do next. “Maybe he did ratify this document,” he said, pausing, “and maybe not. But in any case, every prisoner has the right to make his case.”

He sat on his throne once more. His face couldn’t have been more severe, or more regal, as he nodded at Cí to proceed.

Cí touched his forehead to the floor.

“Dear Sovereign,” he said, but just these two words brought on a bloody coughing fit. Bo stepped forward to help him, but a guard stood in his way. Cí took as deep a breath as he could before continuing. “In front of all the people present here today, I should confess my guilt. A guilt that’s eating me from inside.” Another murmur ran around the room. “I’m guilty of ambition. Ambition blinded me, and I became unable to distinguish right from wrong. And in my blindness, I trusted a man who is hypocrisy incarnate, the very body and soul of evil. Just as he says he looked on me as a son, I once regarded him as a father, but I now know him to be the worst of criminals, a snake of the most poisonous kind.”

“Hold your tongue!” warned the official who had been directing the proceedings. “You know that anything said against one of the emperor’s men is a slur on the emperor himself.”

Cí nodded to acknowledge that he knew the seriousness of his accusations, then fell into another coughing fit.

“Majesty!” shouted Feng before Cí could recover. “Are you really going to listen to this? Slander and lies! He knows it’s his only chance to save his skin.”

The emperor pursed his lips.

“Feng is in the right. Either show us some evidence, Cí Song, or I’ll have you executed immediately.”

“I can assure you, Majesty, there’s nothing in the world I would like more than to prove my innocence.” Cí shook his head, and when he looked up the determination had returned to his face. “And that’s why I’ll now demonstrate that I was the one, not Gray Fox, who worked out that Kan didn’t commit suicide. I was the one who told Feng of the evidence. And it was Feng who, rather than bringing the news directly to Your Majesty, broke his promise to me and gave the information to Gray Fox.”

“I’m waiting,” said the emperor, clearly losing his patience.

“In that case, I need permission to ask
you
a question, Majesty.” Ningzong nodded. “I suppose Gray Fox would have talked you through the details that led him to his conclusion.”

“Yes,” confirmed the emperor. “He did.”

“Details so strange, so specific, and so obscure that no other judge could possibly have observed them beforehand.”

“Exactly.”

“Things that have not been spoken here.”

“Get to the point!”

“In that case, Majesty, tell me, how could I possibly know those same details? Like the fact that Kan was made to write a false confession, that he was drugged and stripped naked by two people who then strung him up.”

“What kind of nonsense is this?” said Feng. “He knows because
he
was the one who carried out the act!”