THE PACIFIED DOMAIN
(Sui Fu)
Beyond. Within the first 300 li, the people cultivate lessons of learning and moral duty. In the second 200, they are exhorted to devote themselves to war and defense.
MORNING SLITHERED IN DARK AND WET. THE OVERHEAD FAN swirled thick air, and a smell of mildew permeated the room. David took a shower and dressed but felt little refreshed. Hulan, who didn’t own a pair of shorts, let alone a T-shirt, dressed for the humid weather as a peasant might, in loose cotton pants that came to just above her ankles and a short-sleeved blouse with hand-tied frog buttons, all soft and faded from washings and age.
They were the first to arrive in the dining room. A radio blared news about the storm. Some evacuations had been ordered in the middle reaches of the Yangzi, and the People’s Liberation Army had been sent downstream to Hubei and Anhui Provinces to shore up levees, dikes, and embankments. As they listened, David and Hulan helped themselves to a breakfast buffet that included watery scrambled eggs, canned ham, fresh deep-fried crullers, and congee with pickled turnip, salted fish, and ginkgo seeds for garnishes.
Once they sat down, David stirred a little soy sauce into his congee and said, “Dr. Ma’s done a good job convincing the people out here that Brian’s death was accidental, but I don’t get Angela going along with it so easily.”
“Sometimes it’s hard to understand the emotions and actions of survivors.” Hulan blew into her tea, sipped, then said, “She’s suffering….”
David set his spoon down. “See, that’s what bothers me. She didn’t ask us for information and she didn’t share much either, except for making sure we knew who Brian slept with. I would have expected her to ask more questions. Wouldn’t you be curious if an investigator showed up? Wouldn’t you want to walk the site with someone from the police?”
A few of the scholars straggled in, but there was no sign of Angela or Lily.
“Maybe she already has with the locals,” Hulan said.
They ate quietly for a few minutes, then Hulan said she was far more concerned with Ma. “He hasn’t been forthright. He doesn’t want you here, and he wants me here even less. The innocent explanation is that running this dig is a big opportunity for him and he doesn’t want you to make him look bad to his superiors back in Beijing.”
“A not-so-innocent explanation,” David added, “is that he’s somehow involved with the thefts. But to me this all seems like a lot of trouble for some miscellaneous objects that have so little importance Ma didn’t bother to catalog them properly.”
Hulan disagreed. “If these artifacts have no value, then why are you here?”
“Director Ho may have arbitrarily picked this site as a lesson to others.”
“‘Beat one monkey to frighten the whole pack,’” Hulan recited. “That could be, but I doubt it.”
David signed the check, and they left the restaurant just as Stuart and Catherine entered. David and Hulan stopped back at their room so he could pick up a notebook and water bottle, which he put in his satchel, then they met Ma at the Jeep a little after 7:30.
“Lily’s coming with us,” David said, holding the front seat forward so Hulan could climb in the back. Then they waited. After fifteen minutes, Hulan volunteered to go in and call Lily’s room, but David jumped out because he was in the front seat. The desk clerk—an older man in a gold-braided uniform—called the room but reported no answer. David followed the main corridor back to Room 5 and knocked on the door. Lily didn’t respond. He looked around the courtyard, then walked quickly to the dining room. The others were grouped together. Lily wasn’t with them or even sitting alone, as she’d been the night before. He retraced his steps to the lobby, said a few words to the clerk, and went outside to get Hulan. Once they were back inside, he said, “I think something’s happened.”
“Lily?”
He nodded and watched Hulan’s features harden. They hurried back through the corridors to Lily’s room. David waited there while Hulan went to get her weapon. She kept it aimed down at her side as she returned to Room 5, where the elderly desk clerk now stood with David. At first the clerk tried to allay their fears, explaining that foreigners didn’t always spend the night in their own rooms. But when Hulan showed him her credentials, he turned the key in the lock. Hulan lifted her weapon. The clerk’s eyes widened, and he moved aside.
Hulan slowly pushed the door open with her foot. The shutters were closed and the lights off, making it hard to see anything in the dimness other than the shape of the bed illuminated by the hint of light that emanated from around the edges of the window. The smell of death oozed from the room.
David reached out and held Hulan’s arm to prevent her from entering.
“There’s no danger now,” she blurted staccato. “No one’s alive in there. Send the clerk to call the police.”
Hearing the cold detachment in Hulan’s voice, David felt a sense of dread that extended far beyond what awaited them in the room.
“Try the light,” Hulan ordered as the desk clerk scurried away.
David reached around the doorjamb and flipped the switch. He wasn’t sure if the whoosh of breath he heard came from himself or his wife.
Lily lay atop the bedcovers. Her naked body was in calm repose, her hands folded delicately over her heart, her eyes and mouth closed. This peaceful tableau was covered in what looked like a layer of rust-colored paint, but the dried blood was only on the body and nowhere else—not on the bed linens or the floor.
Hulan stepped into the room, and David followed in her tracks to a couple of feet inside the door. From where they were standing, they could see that Lily’s feet were gone. Her stumps rested in two small puddles of coagulated blood. She had to have been killed and drained elsewhere. Even the smearing—the careful coating of blood over Lily’s body—had to have been done somewhere else, then her body posed in its peaceful aspect.
Otherwise the room appeared tidy. Lily’s clothes were put away and the drawers shut. A pile of papers sat in a neat stack on the left side of the desk. The phone was on the hook. The room had the same furnishings as David and Hulan’s, right down to the thermos for hot water that stood on the nightstand. Nothing was askew; nothing seemed out of order. Again, at least to the unassisted eye, there were no pools or even spatters of blood.
“Are you okay?” Hulan asked at last.
“Yes. And you?”