‘Never mind that,’ she says with surprising vehemence, stabbing the button for the twelfth floor. ‘We are in so much mafan, Lady Jing! Please help us!’
After that, I cannot get another word out of her, she’s too busy weeping and clutching the damned vase.
When we get to their rooms, the remaining four hulijing courtiers are huddled by a sofa covered in blankets. Kanhoo cards are scattered on the floor while empty bottles and cocktail glasses litter the table.
The four hulijing turn when Lady Min enters. They too look like half-drowned whelps, make-up smeared down their cheeks, eyes red and puffy as Lady Min’s.
‘A vase, Min? How is that going to—’ Lady Mo registers my presence behind Lady Min and stops mid-sentence.
Lady Xi pulls at a dark blue robe on the sofa, as if hiding something. I recognise the robe – Lord Aengus was wearing it last night. He’s nowhere to be seen, which is odd. I can clearly smell he’s here, but where?
‘Why’d you bring her? We will be in so much trouble!’ Lady Xi wails, wringing her hands.
‘What in Tian is going on here?’ I demand.
None of them move. The image of a desiccated corpse with Lord Aengus’s face flashes in my mind. Did they drain him? A cold sweat pricks my neck.
I move closer but they only huddle tighter, blocking my way.
‘MOVE,’ I say in Celestial voice.
They jump apart as if electrocuted.
On the sofa, Lord Aengus’s robe is tangled with a hideous fuzzy beige blanket. It’s not hotel issue, and there is no way the hulijing would use or even own something like that. It goes against every aesthetic principle that underpins hulijing identity.
Putting that question aside, I point at Lady Xi. ‘You hid something under the robe. Show me.’
The fear scenting the room spikes. With a trembling hand, Lady Xi pulls back the dark blue fabric.
Lord Aengus peers at me over a tangle of blankets. ‘Ah, um, uh, good morning, Lady Jing.’ He smiles sheepishly.
There’s something not right with him, but I can’t put my finger on it. The envoy’s face seems larger, puffier than normal. I try to puzzle out what’s bothering me. The more I stare, the morewronghe looks.
From the angle of his head, he should be upright. He’s not. He’s reclining. But a neck doesn’t bend like that. And the blankets don’t have enough bulk to account for the rest of Lord Aengus.
It takes me a moment to understand what I’m looking at. And when I do, I stumble back.
Lord Aengus is slumped –no.Slumped is not the right word. Melted. Liquified. Goopey. I hadn’t noticed because his hair obscured the shape of his head – but it’s flat at the back, as if his skull has been extracted. The fuzzy blanket? His body. He’s a fleshy puddle, deboned and deflated.
Lady Min places the vase next to the sofa. ‘We can’t lift him, he gets all stretchy and falls from our hands. Like sticky rice dough! So I thought if we put him in the vase we could at least bring him to a healer.’
I swallow my horror. ‘What in Tian happened?’ My voice is only slightly pitchy.
Lord Aengus gives me a pained smile. ‘Let the ladies put me in the vase. It’s so undignified to be spread out like this.’
I can feel my eyebrows pushing at my hair line. I nod and watch the courtiers manoeuvre the vase so Lord Aengus’s body slips and slides into it, ending with his face balanced on the vase’s neck. A perfect stopper.
They put him on the table in front of the sofa.
Lord Aengus coughs. ‘Could someone prop up the back of my head with a cushion or rolled-up cloth so I’m not staring at the ceiling?’
Lady Min immediately grabs a small velvet pink cushion from the sofa. She hesitates, hand hovering over Lord Aengus’s face, unsure how to insert the pillow, when Lady Mo grabs a fistful of blond hair and pulls up, allowing Lady Min to shove the cushion behind his head – but his head has no structure, it only slides off the cushion.
Lady Min’s gaze darts to me, then to Lord Aengus. She seems to make a decision, and in one smooth movement, she copies Lady Mo and grabs a fistful of the envoy’s hair, shoves the pillowbehind his head, then takes a hairpin from her head and pins the mop of blond to the cushion.
We all stare. He looks like those red-faced bare-bottomed babies with their wispy hair tied into a fountain at the top of their heads. The tension pulls at his eyebrows, giving him a too smooth and startled expression. I can’t look at him. The urge to either scream or snigger is overwhelming.
I crack every knuckle on both hands, cross my arms, and count to ten twice. Even after all that, my voice comes out reedy. ‘Explain yourselves.’
