The Emperor's Tomb

A jungle of flat cables sprouted from metal boxes and a transformer resting on the ground nearby. He stared at the opening, the bright lights burning on the other side.

“It’s a new chamber, Minister,” the curator said. “Not known before.”

“And the anomaly?”

“It’s inside, waiting for you.”

A shadow danced along the interior walls.

“He’s been there all day,” the director said. “Per your order. Working.”

“Undisturbed?”

“As you requested.”

SEVEN

ANTWERP

NI STUDIED PAU WEN, IRRITATED WITH HIMSELF FOR HAVING underestimated this cagey man.

“Look around,” Pau said. “Here is evidence of Chinese greatness dating back 6,000 years. While Western civilization had barely begun, China was casting iron, fighting wars with crossbows, and mapping its land.”

His patience had drained. “What is the point of this discussion?”

“Do you realize that China was more advanced agriculturally in the 4th century BCE than Europe was in the 18th century? Our ancestors understood row cultivation, why hoeing of weeds was necessary, the seed drill, the iron plow, and the efficient use of the harness centuries before any other culture on the planet. We were so far ahead that no comparison can even be made. Tell me, Minister. What happened? Why are we not still in that superior position?”

The answer was obvious—which Pau obviously realized—but Ni would not speak seditious words, wondering if the room, or his host, could be wired.

“A British scholar studied this phenomenon decades ago,” Pau said, “and concluded that more than half of the basic inventions and discoveries upon which the modern world is based came from China. But who knew this? The Chinese themselves are ignorant. There’s a story, recorded in history, that when the Chinese were first shown a mechanical clock by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century they were awestruck, not knowing that it was their own ancestors who had invented it a thousand years before.”

“All of this is irrelevant,” he made clear, playing to any audience that might be listening.

Pau pointed to a redwood desk against a far wall. Items needed for calligraphy—ink, stone, brushes, and paper—were neatly arranged around a laptop computer.

They walked over.

Pau tapped the keyboard and the screen sprang to life.

The man stood straight. He appeared to be in his thirties, his features more Mongolian than Chinese, black hair wrapped in a loose coiffure. He wore a broad-sleeved white jacket trimmed at the collar with pale green. Three other men, dressed in black trousers and long gray garments under short indigo jackets, surrounded him.

The man shed his robe.

He was naked, his pale body muscular. Two of the attendants began to tightly wrap his abdomen and upper thighs with white bandages. With their binding complete, the man stood as a third attendant washed his exposed penis and scrotum.

The cleansing was repeated three times.

The man sat in a semi-reclining position on a chair, his legs spread wide and held firmly in place by the two attendants. The third participant stepped to a lacquered table and lifted from a tray a curved knife with a cracked bone handle.

He approached the man on the chair and asked in a clear, commanding voice, “Hou huei pu hou huei?”

The man remained poised as he considered the question—will you regret it or not?—and shook his head no, without the slightest show of fear or uncertainty.

The attendant nodded. Then, with two quick swipes of the knife, he removed the man’s scrotum and penis, cutting close to the body, leaving nothing exposed.

Not a sound was made.

The two attendants held the man’s shaking legs steady.