Chapter 182

I hear the shout that arrives from the bow in mid-morning.

“Sanjiang in sight!” shouts the sailor.

And he shouts it stretching out the last syllable, with that joy usually had by people who have spent too long doing a job and have just seen the end of that job.

I, after hearing that, do nothing of what the others do, who within two seconds are all talking at once from one end of the ship to the other, what I do is let out the air slowly and lower my gaze toward the table.

Because on top of the table, arranged in a perfect row that I myself placed this morning like someone laying out the cards for a game of solitaire, there are five Freezing Talismans.

Five.

And they are not five because they are the last five I have manufactured, but because, upon manufacturing them, I exhausted down to the last talisman-making material I had, and that means that right now, I have neither paper nor ink left.

I take the first one and lift it to the height of my eyes, letting the light pass through it, and I stay looking at it since that talisman, and the four accompanying it, are literally all that remains of a plan.

And it was a good plan, besides. It was the plan I brought with me from the Empire, and it consisted of something as unheroic as setting up a small talisman-selling business in Sanjiang that would give me a constant and modest income to be able to live on.

What happens is that that plan was frustrated by two hundred-odd spirit salmon and a level seven serpent.

And there, when I told the captain that I knew how to make Freezing Talismans, I made a decision that today still strikes me as the correct one and that at the same time, looking at this row of five papers, produces a fairly disagreeable sensation in my stomach.

Because preserving the fillets, roe and fins of more than two hundred salmon is not an expense one makes once. The ice melts, that I said myself aloud in front of everyone, and it had to be replenished exactly three times along the river, just as Chen Mo had correctly calculated.

And then, on top of that, there was the serpent.

Because from the serpent it was not only the skin and the core that were made use of. A frankly generous quantity of meat was also made use of, and the meat of a level seven beast, as Chen Mo himself explained to me, is not food, it is medicine in the shape of food. And a medicine of that price is not allowed to spoil in order to save paper.

So I put everything I had into making sure the business came to a good port, however bad that play on words may be.

And the result is that right now, beneath my feet, there is a hold full of frozen merchandise that is worth a fair amount of money, and therefore I am a thirteen-year-old businesswoman who has converted ninety percent of her capital into perishable merchandise.

I let go of the talisman, which goes down to its place on the table, and I do what I have been doing for three days, which is to go over the accounts for the umpteenth time to see whether they come out differently.

In the right-hand column is what I have, and it is not as bad as it seems when it is said aloud. There are the spirit stones I obtained on my own account. Then there are the ones my father passed to me discreetly through my mother. And there is, above all, whatever the House of the Long Journey may have managed to accumulate at the Tower thanks to my inventions, which is a figure I don’t know and that I have spent months imagining with an optimism that is probably imprudent.

For that reason alone I am not totally ruined, that is clear and it is advisable to tell oneself so from time to time.

The problem is the other side, which is that I have not the remotest idea what things cost.

And that is the part that truly keeps me awake, because I don’t know what a sack of rice costs, nor a sheet of talisman paper, nor what is paid monthly for the rent of a dwelling.

And that, whatever world you may be in, is called going in blind.

Although, being fair and without letting myself be carried away by the exercise in professional bitterness I have spent days practicing, this whole matter has not been a loss either even if in the end I gain nothing, because it has had two consequences, and both are good.

The first is standing three paces from my chair and occurred eleven nights ago.

Lianhua has spent years condensing her Earth Core, and had been at it long enough that I had stopped asking her out of politeness after ordering her to condense it as fast as she could.

What neither of the two of us had foreseen is that this voyage would become, without intending it, the best dietary regimen she has had in years, even if we count our stay at the Sect of the Celestial Sun.

Because Lianhua can indeed eat what would kill me. And in this hold there has been spirit salmon to spare for weeks, and afterward, in small and very measured quantities, meat from a level seven beast.

And eleven nights ago, while I was in my corner creating talismans, she approached my chair, waited for me to lift my gaze and told me with exactly the same tone with which she announces to me that she has gathered the laundry, that she had finished condensing her Earth Elemental Core.

It took me a second to react, because she told me in such a flat voice that it almost slipped past me, but afterward, when I managed to process it, an absolutely disproportionate joy came over me. And not because of the core itself, which also counts, but because of what is behind the core, because that core is half of a key.

The other half is Air, which is the next root it is her turn to condense, and when she has both she will finally be able to use that second tablet she took out of the Celestial Fragment of the Sands and that has spent years stored away without being of any use to her because it requires elemental Qi of Earth and Air.

And that day, this woman is going to stop being an extremely competent handmaiden who besides fights well, to enter fully into the Naruto franchise.

The second good consequence is smaller and makes me even happier, and it is that Xia has turned twelve.

Actually she turned twelve shortly after embarking, on a ship full of busy men and without absolutely anything a twelve-year-old girl’s birthday should have, above all for what that age represents, and that still stings me a little.

There was no party, there was no decent gift, and the most I could organize was for the second cook, who by this point adores her, to let her make that day’s meal all by herself, something that struck Xia as, and this is literal, the best possible gift.

But above all, that means that without having any more restrictions on cultivation because of her age, she can finally eat spirit food.

So the day Lianhua placed in front of her a bowl with a piece of spirit salmon fillet made by herself and told her that she now could, Xia stayed looking at the bowl for a fairly long while before picking up the chopsticks.

And the face she made upon tasting it is one of the three or four things I intend to take away from this voyage.

Because it was not a face of pleasure, nor of surprise, but a face of indignation. The face of someone who has just discovered, with proof, that the world had spent years hiding something from her and who is mentally making the list of all the people responsible.

And to me, who that day laughed until my side hurt, that face struck me as perfectly worth all the paper that has gone on this voyage.

I am still smiling at that memory when I hear footsteps coming toward my corner, and I don’t need to turn my head to know whose they are, because on this ship there are only two people who walk toward me knowing exactly where I am before looking.

Chen Mo positions himself beside the table, takes a look at the row of five talismans without making any comment, something I thank him for, and afterward he looks at me.

“Xiaojie”, he tells me. “It would be better for you to start getting ready.”

“So soon?” I ask him.

“The moment we dock we go directly to the headquarters of the Tower of the Five Dragons”, he answers me. “Without stopping anywhere else and without dawdling along the way.”

And I, who have spent the whole morning with my spirits in a wretched state and who desperately need to think about something else, do what I always do in these cases, which is to needle someone.

“Chen Mo”, I tell him with my best smile. “Are you already eager to get rid of us?”

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Chen Mo laughs upon hearing me.

It is not a guffaw, it is a short laugh, of those that escape people when the question truly amuses them but they don’t intend to grant it too much merit.

“I am going to answer you with all the sincerity of which I am capable”, he tells me. “Your company is among the best I have had the pleasure of carrying on a voyage, and I have made quite a few voyages.”

He makes a very brief pause.

“But yes, I am eager to arrive”, he continues. “Although not to get rid of you, but to be able to go home and see my wife.”

And I am left with my mouth slightly open, because I did not expect that sentence at all.

“You are married?” I ask him.

“For almost sixty years”, he answers me tranquilly.

And there a smile comes out on me that I have no interest whatsoever in disguising, because I have spent since the Empire cataloguing this man, I have a fairly complete mental file on him, and it turns out that in that file a woman capable of putting up with him was missing.

“Well then I withdraw the question”, I tell him. “And I assure you I have no desire whatsoever to interrupt the reunion of the happy couple.”

“I thank you”, he answers me with an absolutely theatrical inclination of the head.

“So I only want to know one thing”, I continue. “Are we going by carriage or on foot?”

“On foot”, he tells me without hesitating. “The headquarters is not far from the dock area.”

He raises his hand and points toward the bow.

“The docks are where the Xun River and the Rong River flow into the Miao River, which is the one we are navigating right now”, he continues. “Everything important in terms of commerce in this city is built around that point, so going on foot poses no problem at all.”

I nod, make my calculations and turn my head toward my left.

“Lianhua”, I tell her. “You have heard him, so go get the luggage ready.”

“Yes, Xiaojie”, she answers me.

“And one more thing”, I add. “Have them also prepare the wheelchair to be unloaded the moment we arrive. I don’t want it to stay in the hold while we leave.”

Lianhua inclines her head.

“I am going to find Xia to get everything ready”, she tells me, and she leaves toward the hatch with a light step.

And the moment she disappears, Chen Mo speaks again, and he does it with a different tone.

“Xiaojie”, he tells me. “If you are going to go through the city in the wheelchair, you are going to make a great many people notice you.”

And I shrug my shoulders, because that is something that has been happening to me for years.

“Chen Mo”, I answer him. “If I go in the chair, everyone is going to stare at me. And if I go in Lianhua’s arms, everyone is going to stare at me. The two results are identical.”

I settle myself a bit in my nailed-down chair.

“So, faced with two options that are going to have exactly the same result, I choose the one that turns out more comfortable for me”, I finish. “And I assure you that going seated in my chair is infinitely more comfortable than going hanging from another person’s neck.”

Chen Mo opens his mouth, but I have not finished yet, so I smile at him.

“And besides, don’t you worry about that”, I add. “I have spent my whole life drawing attention wherever I go. Absolutely all of it, without a single day of rest. So as long as that attention is limited to their looking at me and whispering about me, I can assure you it matters to me rather little.”

Chen Mo looks at me a moment and afterward nods slowly.

“That is a good attitude”, he tells me.

And then he turns serious, and it is not the serious of when he negotiates, but the other one.

“But even so, be very careful”, he continues. “And I tell you this because it is the last useful thing I am going to be able to tell you for free.”

He rests his right hand on his hip.

“The first thing you have to understand is that Sanjiang does not resemble your Empire”, he tells me. “There, most of the people you crossed paths with in the street had not gone beyond the Tempering of the Muscles, perhaps a few would have reached the Tempering of the Bones and Tendons. Here there are also a great many people who don’t consider themselves cultivators, but the general level is considerably higher, and an ordinary person of this city is not the same as an ordinary person from there.”

He raises a finger.

“And second, this is a center of commerce”, he continues. “Small compared to other places, but a center of commerce all the same. And in a place like that there abound wandering cultivators, who are people who owe accounts to no one, and cultivators from sects of other places who have come to trade and who are passing through.”

And he raises the second finger, and this one he leaves still a while.

“But above all there are the Disciples of the three sects that govern the city”, he tells me. “And those are the ones who can give you an unpleasant surprise.”

“Why?” I ask him.

“Because they are forbidden to cause problems inside the city”, he answers me. “And they are forbidden it seriously, because this city is an enormous source of income for its three sects and none of the three is going to allow a brat to ruin that for them.”

He lowers his hand.

“The problem is that a prohibition does not change what people believe themselves to be”, he finishes. “And many of those disciples believe themselves the owners of the city. They are not, but they believe it, and there is a very small difference between someone who is forbidden to cause problems and someone who does not cause them.”

I listen to all of that with a great deal of attention, because it is exactly the type of information that cannot be obtained by contemplating a city.

“I truly thank you”, I tell him. “And while we are at it, I am going to ask you the obvious question.”

“Go ahead”, he tells me.

“Where can I get more information about this city?” I ask him. “And I am not talking to you about curiosities, I am talking about what I need in order not to commit a grave error in the first week. Who commands, which neighborhoods are avoided, to whom one does not raise one’s voice and what customs there are here that in my Empire would be a rudeness and here are an insult.”

Chen Mo smiles.

“That you are going to be able to obtain at the headquarters of the Tower of the Five Dragons”, he answers me. “We have that type of information perfectly ordered, updated and in writing, because it is one of the things we do best.”

And then the smile widens a bit.

“But as you can imagine, that is information that costs money”, he adds.

I make a grimace that comes out on its own.

“Of course”, I tell him.

“Merchants”, he answers me shrugging his shoulders. “Everything else comes afterward.”

“I’ll manage somehow”, I tell him, and I sigh. “In any case, I won’t keep you any longer, since you surely have things to prepare before disembarking.”

“Quite a few”, he confirms to me. “And some of them fairly boring.”

After those words he leaves, and the moment he leaves I am left alone in my corner, so I do the only thing I can do, which is to look.

And the first thing I see is that the omnipresent trees are coming to an end.

First clearings open up on the bank, then the clearings become larger, and then there are no longer trees, but a clean, worked bank, with the cut of the earth held up by stone placed by someone.

And soon buildings begin to appear.

At first they are few and ugly, which is exactly how all the cities of the world begin. Warehouses, sheds, wooden lean-tos with the door facing the river, things built for working and not for show.

But as we advance there are more, and they are better, and within ten minutes there are no longer gaps between them while, at the same time, the river fills with activity.

A boat appears, then three, then a dozen, and from there on I stop counting them. They are small, flat, with one or two rowers, and they go in all directions at once with the internal logic that river traffic has on all the rivers of the world.

And I, with a curiosity I recognize perfectly because it is the same one that paid my bills in the other life, set about looking at the architecture to check the differences with my old home, which I right away notice are many.

The roofs are different, with less overhang and a considerably more aggressive pitch than that of the Empire, which normally means rain. The eaves are not decorated the same, there is a great deal more stone on the ground floors, and the dominant color is no longer that dark red I have spent thirteen years accustomed to, but a range of grays and light wood that gives everything a more sober and commercial appearance.

But it is, without any doubt, the same trunk. It continues to be eastern architecture, with the same logic of courtyards, of beams and of roofs that lift at the corners, and it produces in me an absurd satisfaction to confirm it, because it is exactly what is supposed to happen. Two regions separated by thousands of Li and an imperial border do not produce two worlds, they produce two dialects of the same world.

And there is one more thing, and this one takes me a bit longer to see because it is an absence, and it is that there is nothing with too much height.

I see the occasional building of several floors, and even so those buildings, at least what I can see, reach at most what would be a fifth floor.

Meanwhile, the ship keeps advancing, and at some moment I realize that I have spent a fairly long while looking at city and that not a single dock has appeared.

I look backward, toward the stern, and confirm that the forest can no longer be seen. I look ahead and there are more buildings. I look toward starboard and the city loses itself inland without giving me a single clue as to where it ends.

And then, at last, I realize the scale of the city, because what I have been doing this while is not approaching a city. What I am doing is crossing a city, from inside, and I have still not reached what are supposed to be its docks.

I contemplate the river on which I am navigating and its impossible dimensions, and soon I realize that its tributaries, although they are probably not so large, certainly share its scale to a certain extent.

And this city is built on all three.

In my other life, a city that sat astride an estuary of those dimensions would not be a city, it would be a province with its own name and a population that would be counted in millions.

I am still chewing on that idea, with my mouth a bit dry, when the river opens.

And it is not a manner of speaking, since the port bank withdraws all at once, the starboard one does the same a bit later, and in less than a minute what I have in front of me no longer looks like a river, but a lake.

An enormous lake, tranquil and of a different color from the water we were coming through, and it takes me a long second to understand that what I am seeing is the point at which two other rivers flow into this one.

And at that point, occupying everything I am capable of taking in with my sight, are the docks.

There are so many that I cannot manage to see them as a whole. There are ships moored in rows of three, there are ships entering, there are ships leaving, there are minuscule fishing boats crossing in front of merchantmen that triple them in size with a tranquility that makes me nervous from here, and above all that there is a noise that begins to reach us over the water and that is, without any doubt, the noise of a great many people working.

But at that moment I hear the hatch, so I look at it and see how Lianhua comes out first, with one of the backpacks on her shoulder, and behind her comes out Xia, loaded with the other and with the face of one who has run up the last steps so as not to miss anything.

And behind the two of them, two sailors bring my wheelchair up from the hold.

They bring it up carefully, between the two of them, holding it by places that are not the correct ones but without letting it scrape anywhere, and they leave it on the deck a couple of paces from me.

It is exactly the same as the day they put it down there, with the cushion tied with a rope so it wouldn’t move during the voyage and with a fine layer of hold dust on top that Lianhua is already removing with a cloth without anyone having asked her to.

After that work, Xia positions herself to my right and Lianhua to my left, in the usual spots, and the three of us stay watching how Shen Fei’s ship slowly gets into all that confusion of masts looking for the gap someone will have assigned it.

None of us says anything for a while, but finally I notice that Xia takes in air to ask something, and I decide to get ahead of her because I have spent a long time waiting to be able to say this aloud.

“Well”, I tell them. “That’s it, then.”

I point with my extended hand at all that mass of buildings, of ships and of noise that we have before us.

“We have arrived now”, I continue. “This is the place that I hope will be our home for the next few years.”