Chapter 169

Lianhua places me in front of the desk, Xia comes in behind her and closes the door, and I wait to hear the click of the bolt before taking the privacy talisman out of the little bag I always carry on me.

I activate it, and all the noises of the corridor disappear, leaving the room submerged in that cushioned and slightly unreal silence I have already grown accustomed to and that lately is becoming the soundtrack of all my important conversations.

“Sit down”, I tell them.

Lianhua gathers her skirt with a gesture and sits in a chair with her back as straight as if she were standing. Xia drops into another of the chairs at her side with considerably less ceremony, crosses her legs and looks at me with that face of absolute expectation she puts on whenever she senses that something interesting is going to happen.

“Yesterday, when we spoke with my mother to tell her that we are leaving, the only thing she told me was to prepare myself to depart as soon as the delegation of the Tower of the Five Dragons finishes its affairs here”, I tell them. “So we have to begin preparing ourselves.”

Xia furrows her brow upon hearing me.

“And why such haste? I didn’t understand it when Guifei Xiang told us and I don’t understand it now”, she asks me.

“Because a delegation that finishes what it has come to do and leaves the next day doesn’t draw anyone’s attention”, I answer her. “But a delegation that finishes its affairs and then stays waiting two more weeks without any apparent motive does draw attention. And people would begin trying to find out the reason.”

Xia opens her mouth, closes it and nods slowly, and by her face I see perfectly the moment in which she understands.

“So, since I don’t know exactly how much time we have available, this meeting is to decide what we take with us”, I finish. “And right now I declare it begun.”

I join my hands on my lap and go directly to the first thing, which is also the most obvious.

“Let’s begin with what should be evident”, I say. “Everything important and everything that has any value goes inside the Storage Bag. We carry the backpacks only to disguise.”

Xia tilts her head without quite following me, so I explain it to her.

“Because if we go about without luggage, and every time we need a blanket, a pot, a coin or a handkerchief we take it out of the Storage Bag, in three days everyone will know that we have one”, I continue. “So the backpacks will carry the day-to-day things, what is seen and what is used in front of people. And the Bag will carry everything else so that no one knows it exists.”

Xia nods, this time with conviction, and I turn my head toward Lianhua, because there is a piece of information I have spent five years without asking about for the simple reason that until now I had never needed it.

“Lianhua”, I tell her. “How much really fits in the Bag?”

“The interior space is a cube of a little less than one Zhang on each side, Zhāohuán Wen”, she answers me without hesitating an instant. “Although it has an evident drawback, which is that only objects that fit through the opening can be stored.”

After listening to her, I stay a second in silence doing the math, so the bag is a cube of approximately three meters on each side, only that it will be hanging from Lianhua’s shoulder inside a threadbare satchel that draws no one’s attention.

“With that we have more than enough”, I say aloud, and I don’t manage to entirely camouflage the satisfaction that piece of information produces in me.

I take a breath and begin with what is already decided beforehand.

“The first thing is that what is already inside, stays inside”, I say. “The tablet with the sand technique, the flask with the sand full of Qi, the gem in the shape of an eye, the tablet of the Myriad of Hands with the uses it has left, the feather Tianyu Feng gave me and the jade tablets we brought from the Sect that we still have not used.”

Lianhua nods a single time, registering the list.

“To that must be added the greater part of the spirit stones we obtain between now and then, including the ones my father gets to me”, I continue. “And clothing. A good deal of clothing, and varied, apart from what we carry in the backpacks to keep up appearances.”

And the moment I say it, I remember that afternoon in my room, with Lianhua taking garment after garment out of the Bag until forming a mountain of tunics, skirts, shawls and headdresses on top of the table while I wondered what kind of person carries on them such a valuable artifact and decides to fill it with clothing.

And now it turns out that the kind of person who does that is me.

So, wherever he may be now, that poor man whose skeleton Lianhua found beneath a column in the Celestial Fragment of the Sands, I mentally beg his pardon for everything I thought about him that afternoon, and I grant him, with years of delay, that he probably had his reasons.

“And since we are speaking of clothing”, I continue before the pause becomes too noticeable. “We have to go see my mother’s dressmaker.”

I give a moment for Lianhua to register it, and then I go to the detail.

“I am going to order from her a good few brassieres, enough that they last us a good long spell for the three of us”, I say. “But above all I am going to ask her for the patterns.”

Lianhua looks at me.

“The patterns?” she repeats.

“The drawings and the measurements, with the detailed explanations on them”, I answer her. “Because clothing ends up tearing, ends up becoming too small and ends up getting lost, and I have not the remotest idea of whether in Sanjiang there will be anyone capable of copying one we bring them. But if we carry the patterns on us, any halfway decent seamstress can make us new ones without too many problems.”

Lianhua, who was my first and long-suffering guinea pig in that matter, inclines her head after my explanation in what in her is equivalent to applause.

“And with that the indispensable is over”, I say. “Now comes what we take simply because there is space to spare.”

I raise a finger.

“A good few mops”, I begin.

And here I do get a reaction, because Xia straightens up all at once.

“Mops?” she blurts out.

“Mops”, I confirm to her without being altered in the least. “Because wherever we go, sooner or later we are going to have to clean a floor that is dirty. And at this point in my life I do not intend to see anyone on their knees with a rag again when I could be using the Myriad of Hands with the mops.”

I raise a second finger before anyone says anything.

“A good few copies of the latest revision of Journey to the West”, I continue. “Along with a couple of spare backpacks, because the ones we have are going to end up getting ruined and there no one will know how to make them.”

And I raise the third, which is the one that truly matters.

“And, above all, the plans of the latest version of the printing press”, I finish. “Because only by carrying them will we be able to find out whether there are possibilities of making money selling them in the cities we pass through.”

After that I fall silent, because I have finished my part and I have already spent too long talking to myself.

I look at Lianhua and then at Xia.

“What do you two think?” I ask them. “Does anything else occur to you?”

Xia raises her hand as if she were in a class, and half a smile escapes me.

“The cooking utensils”, she says the moment I make a gesture to her. “In the backpack I can carry the same as I carried when we went to the Sect, which is just enough to make the food along the way. But that is all small, because it has to fit in the available space and weigh little.”

She joins her hands, getting enthusiastic on her own as she speaks.

“But we can put the big ones in the Bag, the ones that wouldn’t fit in a backpack”, she continues. “That would mean that when we finally have a place to stay, I will be able to cook properly from the first day instead of waiting until we can buy them.”

“It is an excellent idea”, I tell her, and I mean it, because it had not crossed my mind. “Approved.”

Xia puffs up like a peacock, and I turn my head toward Lianhua.

“All of that strikes me as good ideas, Zhāohuán Wen”, she tells me. “And, if you will permit me to expand on Xia’s, I believe we should also stock up on supplies.”

“Of what type?” I ask her.

“The kind that don’t spoil”, she answers. “Grain, salt, oil, tea, spices, rope, cloth, paper, oil for the lamps and household textiles. Everything that here, in the palace, we can go obtaining without paying absolutely anything if we request it little by little and through the usual channels, and that outside would have to be bought with money we are not going to have.”

And I stay looking at her a moment, because that woman has just saved us a quantity of problems I am not even capable of estimating.

“Very good idea”, I tell her. “And besides they have priority, because we don’t know what the prices are like out there. Everything we don’t have to buy is money we save ourselves, and what terrifies me is not spending, it is spending without knowing whether they are charging me double the normal amount for having the face of an outsider, so having those supplies would provide us time to check what the real prices are.”

And that word leads me directly to the next thing, which is something that had been circling around me for a while without quite coming out.

“And speaking of money”, I continue. “We have to exchange almost all of it for spirit stones.”

Lianhua doesn’t even blink, because we already did this once.

“The money of the Empire, the instant we cross the border, stops being money and becomes a pile of metal with a pretty seal”, I explain above all for Xia. “On the other hand spirit stones are worth something everywhere since they serve as universal currency.”

I make a pause.

“So we exchange everything we can”, I conclude. “Everything except a small quantity for the expenses of the journey while we are still inside the Empire, because there it will indeed be needed. And do it little by little so that no one has motives to remember your face.”

“I will do so, Zhāohuán Wen”, Lianhua tells me.

“Anything else?” I ask looking at the two of them.

Xia shakes her head and Lianhua does the same with a much more contained gesture, so I settle into the chair, let my back drop against the backrest and stay a moment going over the list mentally in case I have left something out.

And then, while I change posture to lean better, I lower my gaze and let out a sigh.

“Lianhua”, I say. “We have to notify my mother.”

Lianhua lifts her head instantly, attentive.

“Have her order a new chair made discreetly”, I continue. “And have it gotten to the delegation of the Tower of the Five Dragons.”

I point with my chin at the arms of the one I am using.

“Because if we have to leave here in secret, and we are going to have to leave in secret, there is no way of taking this out with me”, I say. “It is large, it is cumbersome, and it doesn’t fit through the mouth of the Bag either.”

Lianhua stays very still for an instant, and then she inclines her head more than she usually does.

“You are right”, she tells me. “And I beg your pardon for not having realized it before. It is a grave failing on my part.”

“Don’t worry”, I answer her, and I make a gesture with my hand to play it down. “Sooner or later all three of us would have realized, and I prefer that we have realized today, seated and with sufficient time, than at the last minute and in a hurry.”

Lianhua nods, although I suspect she is going to keep turning the matter over for a while.

And since thinking about the chair has opened the door for me to think about the rest of the house, I suddenly remember two other things.

“Since we are on the subject of what I was forgetting”, I say. “We have to pack the books.”

“Which ones?” Lianhua asks.

“Master Mu’s and the ones the Shangshu sent me about formations and enchantments”, I answer her. “All of them.”

Xia looks around her, in particular at the piles that have spent months invading every free surface of the study, and puts on a face of calculating the quantity.

“And yes, I already know there are a lot”, I concede before she opens her mouth. “But even if I never read them again, something I doubt, I would take them with me all the same, if only to place them somewhere clearly visible.”

“What for?” asks Xia, genuinely lost.

“So that they see them”, I tell her. “Because if we end up earning our living with talismans and enchantments, people are going to come to the house to commission things from us. And a person who comes in through a door and finds themselves face to face with an entire wall of books of the profession no longer needs anyone to explain to them whether we do or do not know what we are doing.”

I shrug my shoulders.

“It is advertising”, I conclude. “Expensive, extremely heavy and that doesn’t say a single word, but advertising.”

And with that I arrive at the last thing, which is what is truly going to sustain us the first months.

“And with the books goes the entire talisman-creation equipment”, I add. “The brushes, the bowls, down to the last flask of ink and the last sheet of talisman paper we have left.”

Lianhua arches an eyebrow barely a millimeter.

“I already know what you are thinking”, I tell her. “And you are right, in Sanjiang there will be better things. In fact, and thanks to Master Mu, I take for granted that what I am using here would strike any real master as a child’s toy.”

I raise a finger to emphasize what I am going to say next.

“But to buy better tools money is needed, and to have money one needs to begin selling talismans, and to begin selling talismans one needs to be able to make them the first day”, I continue. “And the first day we are not going to have a house, nor contacts, nor a spare coin to buy a brush.”

Lianhua lowers the eyebrow and nods, conceding me the point without saying anything, and after that the three of us fall silent.

It is a working silence, of those there is no haste to fill, with Xia looking at the ceiling moving her lips while she goes over her part, Lianhua with her gaze fixed on an indeterminate point of the wall and me turning over the entire room mentally, piece of furniture by piece of furniture, searching for what has not occurred to me.

But in the end I am the one who breaks the silence, and I do it because I have arrived at the conclusion that there is not much more.

“I think that’s it”, I say. “Because the limitation of the Bag rules above everything else. If it doesn’t go through the opening, it doesn’t go in, and that rules out all at once anything that is bulky. The furniture, the shelves, the table and, much to my regret, the bed.”

Xia lets out a little laugh, and I raise a hand before anyone takes it into their head to propose creative solutions.

“And we have no need to fill it to the top either”, I continue. “On the contrary, I prefer that space be left over. We are going to spend months crossing places I don’t know, and it would be absurd to come across something along the way that I truly need and not be able to take it because in its day I decided to put in three more mops.”

I join my hands and look at the two of them.

“So the tasks of the next few days are now decided”, I conclude. “To go obtaining all this little by little, without haste, without written lists lying around and without anyone taking it into their head to wonder what we want it for.”

Xia nods with an enthusiasm that comes out of her ears and Lianhua inclines her head as a sign of agreement.

But she does not get up.

“Zhāohuán Wen”, she tells me. “Before declaring the meeting concluded, I have to ask you for one thing.”

I look at her, a bit surprised, because Lianhua does not ask for things.

“Tell me”, I say with curiosity.

“When the exact day on which we leave is known, I ask you for the previous night off”, she tells me. “I have some affairs to resolve before going.”

After her request, I stay looking at her a moment, because that is not what I expected to hear at the end of a meeting about assorted supplies.

“Can’t you resolve them beforehand?” I ask her. “Does it have to be precisely that night?”

“I could resolve them beforehand, yes”, she answers me without moving her gaze a millimeter. “But if I did, it is possible that I would draw attention to myself. And if I draw it with sufficient time to spare, someone might begin asking questions, or watching me, and that would complicate our departure quite a bit.”

She makes a very brief pause.

“If I do it the night before, on the other hand, even if I draw attention, by the time anyone wants to investigate we will no longer be here”, she concludes.

And the request leaves me a bit thrown, I am not going to deny it.

Because the reasoning is impeccable, as clean and as well constructed as everything she does, and at the same time it explains absolutely nothing, since at no moment has she said what affairs they are, nor with whom, nor why some affairs of hers would draw anyone’s attention.

And I could ask her, of course, but this is the woman who a month ago, seated on the floor of the formation room, told me without my having asked her for it that she was coming with me to the end of the world and that she was renouncing a comfortable life to keep being my legs in a place she does not know.

So I have not a single motive to doubt her, and I do not intend to start inventing them now.

“Agreed”, I tell her. “That night you have off. Go and do what you have to do.”

“I thank you, Zhāohuán Wen”, she answers me.

And with that I declare the meeting concluded.

“Then the two of you can go now and begin with your own tasks”, I tell them as I make a gesture toward the door. “Xia, you with the kitchen and with the provisions you can go setting aside without anyone missing anything. Lianhua, you with the money, the supplies and the message for my mother.”

The two of them get up, Xia with a leap and Lianhua with that fluidity of hers of always, and they have already taken two steps toward the door when I remember to add the only thing that truly matters of this whole conversation.

“And remember one thing above all the others”, I tell them. “That the important thing about this meeting is not the list.”

I wait for the two of them to turn around.

“It is the discretion”, I say finally.