I’d assumed that he didn’t eat meat because he loved animals, but it hadn’t occurred to me that that would extend to the octopuses because I hadn’t thought of them as animals. How tenderhearted he is to love even things that are so different from us. I knew what the lanterns were made of. I just hadn’t stopped to consider the cruelty and suffering in it.
“You think the seas are beautiful now?” He sweeps an arm toward the water. “Nine years ago, before they started celebrating the Festival of Lanterns, the waters around Pearl were a sea of light. The octopuses will probably all be gone in another nine years.”
“What do you mean ‘nine years ago’?” I ask. “I thought this was the two hundredth anniversary.”
“Ah, I thought you knew. It’s only the ninth year of the festival. The company that sponsors the holiday didn’t see acceptable profits in the first eight years. They thought that this year, if they called it the two hundredth anniversary and hired poets to write some invented history, people would like it more. And everyone does seem very excited. It’s like the whole city is the set of a historical opera.”
I get that unpleasant feeling in my chest of waking from a dream. This beautiful festival is built on suffering and lies.
“This must all seem so strange to you,” he says.
“I’m not going to attend the Festival of Lanterns, either,” I blurt.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you about this being the ninth year.”
“Yes, you should have. And that’s not the only reason. Many animals will die for no reason. It’s a cruel, thoughtless tradition created for money.” My heart sinks as I realize that I won’t get the chance to wear my dress for him. But I can’t unknow what he told me.
“Thank you.” Hisashi brings his knuckles to his lips and composes himself. At last, he merely says, “Let’s make our own better tradition. Meet me on the night of the festival, and we’ll celebrate together.”
* * *
Before I can escape into the city, I’ll have to participate in the fifth Motivation. I have to get wine for Chingu to get evidence to prove I’m innocent, but I also can’t let my performance suffer or Suki will pounce.
However, the fifth Motivation is unlike anything I’ve prepared for. I don’t know why they delayed announcing it so long this time, but the anticipation has made everyone expect something very special. Even as Supreme Sensei announced it, I knew what it meant that our fifth Motivation would be “Little Pi Bao Gu and Cloud-Tamer Zwei.”
We are going to do aerial combat.
“All know the story of Little Pi Bao Gu, the creator of wu liu,” says Sensei Madame Liao in her proclamation voice during our next wu liu class. “Yet her achievement would be useless were it not for the contributions of Cloud-Tamer Zwei. A woman famed for her ugliness who hid from ridicule by living on the sea in floating houses that she built herself.
“After the Great Leap of Shin destroyed the first city of Pearl, there wasn’t enough stone or wood to rebuild. Cloud-Tamer Zwei instead used a building resource she discovered in the waters around the island during her years at sea … the pearl.
“Thus, Little Pi Bao Gu created a new and deadly martial art, but Cloud-Tamer Zwei created the city that it could be performed on. So it was that a failed courtesan and an old maid together created an undefeatable army of women and girls who defended Pearl against invasion from the greatest empire under heaven. Working together, as partners. So shall you work in pairs for the fifth Motivation.”
At the word pairs, a storm of titters arises. I assume that all the girls are plotting and considering and weighing and gossiping about whom they should each partner with so they can start training as soon as possible.
“In aerial combat, the partner above shall fight in the air using moves that are descended directly from the combat strategies of eagles and are therefore tens of tens of tens of thousands of years old. The partner below shall catch her and kick her back up into the air, skate to skate, and keep her airborne.”
Kicking a partner up skate to skate? How are my skate blades possibly going to survive that? By the end of the fifth Motivation, they’re going to be so saw-toothed that the only thing I’ll be able to use them for is combing my hair. However, I can hardly afford not to do my best at this Motivation. Suki would use my drop in ranking to support her allegations to Pearl Shining Sun or something. I’m never going to skate into one of her traps again.
“You must choose your partners by the time of the fifth Motivation,” says Sensei Madame Liao gravely. “Choose wisely.”
The girls all hum with excitement. I soon realize that as they’re talking, they’re all stealing glances at the same three girls—the only three girls not talking to anyone else in the class. Suki, Doi, and me.
Suki’s face looks like the masks they use in puppet performances of The Hideous Warthog Demon of the Western Swamp. The two people who she hates the most under heaven, the two people who cost her the third Motivation, are the two people who would be the most advantageous partners if she wants to prevail at our most difficult Motivation yet. The two people who would prefer to drink sand to death for ten thousand years than partner with her.
“Infuriate me to death!”
I look to Doi. She looks back at me. We would be unbeatable together. And maybe partnering together would gain me her trust. Then I could find out whom she was talking to about “hostages” and what she knows about the Empress Dowager’s actual plans.
“Not so fast!” says Suki as she skates between us. She’s afraid that we’re going to pair up and form an
