Antonio Garrido - The Corpse Reader

Soon Bo returned, accompanied by the artist who would be drawing the portrait of the young corpse. Unlike the perfumer, the artist had had his job explained to him, but he shrieked when he saw the state of the corpse. When he recovered, Cí explained what he wanted drawn, emphasizing that the artist was to make his representation as accurate as possible.

As the artist took out his brushes and began, Cí started reading the information Bo had brought. The first was a report on the eunuch, whose name was Soft Dolphin. He had begun working in the Palace of Concubines at age ten. He’d acted as overseer of the harem and as a chaperone, a musician, and a reader of poems. His keen intelligence had apparently made him a favorite of treasury officials. Eunuchs were considered trustworthy with money because they would never have an heir to pass it on to, and at age thirty, Soft Dolphin had been made aide to the administrator. He’d kept the post until his death at forty-three.

According to the report, a week before Soft Dolphin’s disappearance, he’d requested leave to see his sick father. Because he’d been given permission to take leave, there was no immediate alarm when he disappeared.

As far as the eunuch’s vices or virtues went, the report only mentioned an unbounded passion for antiques, a small collection of which he kept in his private quarters. The report closed with notes on his daily activities and the people with whom he tended to have contact—primarily eunuchs of a similar rank.

Cí then studied the map of the palace grounds. His accommodations had been marked out, and he noticed that even though Kan said he wasn’t allowed there, his room adjoined the Palace of the Concubines. He gathered his tools and glanced at the artist’s half-finished sketch; it was turning into a very accurate likeness, and he thought it would be a great help. He gave Bo instructions for a small lance he wanted made, then left.

Cí spent the afternoon and evening exploring the areas of the palace where he was allowed to go. Walking the exterior of the imposing, squarish building, he realized just how isolated the palace was: its crenellated walls were at least the height of six men, and four watchtowers, situated according to the cardinal points, overlooked the four ceremonial gates.

Having completed his tour of the perimeter, Cí made his way to the lush gardens, where he let himself be bathed by the dappled light and the intense emerald tones of the damp mosses, the olive-brown of minerals, the muted reds and paler greens of fruit and leaves—a splendid and exuberant palette. Peonies, orchids, and camellias drew his eye toward groves of pine and bamboo. The fragrance of cherries, peaches, and jasmine scrubbed the stink of rotting flesh from Cí’s lungs. He shut his eyes and breathed it all in. He felt life coming into him anew.

He sat down in a pavilion next to a stream. A goldfinch warbled nearby. He took out the map of the palace, which had with it the palace rules related to the number of workers allowed to remain on the premises after their day’s work. The rules established the hour of shen as between three and five in the afternoon—this was when all workers were required to have their identity papers checked by an official. The same official made sure they all left via the same gates through which they’d entered. It was no light matter: workers caught on the premises beyond their allotted time would be subject to prison and then death by strangulation.

Cí couldn’t understand why this warning was included with his copy of the map; the pass he’d been given meant none of these restrictions applied to him. Maybe it was to impress upon him that his stay wasn’t permanent, or perhaps it was a warning to be careful. It occurred to him that, for all the beauty and opulence of the gardens and the architecture, this was really little more than a prison.

He got to his feet and made his way toward the palace’s southern buildings, where the offices for the executive branch and many government councils were situated. Then he made his way to the siheyuan , the gigantic porticoed patio that formed the facade of the Interior Court, the Palace of Concubines, and the Imperial Palace itself.

He took in the majesty of both of these palaces, whose rooms—two hundred, according to the map—were hidden by the interior facade. The emperor resided in them along with his wives and concubines, the eunuchs, and a permanent detachment of Imperial Guards.

From his view from the portico, he was also able to locate the East Wing, opposite the Palace of Concubines, which held the warehouses and kitchens, and the West Wing, where the stables and grooming yards were located. He thought the dungeon could be beneath them, but given how labyrinthine the underground sections were, they could really have been anywhere. Finally there was the North Wing, which held the two summer palaces: Morning Freshness and Eternal Freshness.

Much as Cí thought it both enjoyable and productive to familiarize himself with the palace grounds and buildings, he knew it was time to get back to work. He sat on the portico and pulled out the reports to compare them again with his own notes. Soon enough he was gritting his teeth in frustration.

His only certainty was that he was up against a dangerous and cruel killer who was also brilliant in his ability to disguise his crimes. That Cí had identified the first corpse as a eunuch was in his favor because he presumed the killer wouldn’t imagine that this would be discovered, but there remained considerable obstacles to the entire investigation. The first, as he saw it, was having absolutely no idea of motive. Given the advanced decomposition of the corpses, it seemed particularly important that he establish this. Then there was Kan’s hostility. But these were mere grains of rice next to his worst problem, which was having Gray Fox around.

Cí went to his quarters, deep in reflection.

His room was clean and private, with a low bed, a desk, and a view of the interior courtyard. Cí liked the simplicity. He intended to put his thoughts in order and try to move the case forward, but he quickly realized that he was relying on others—the perfume maker and the portrait artist, in particular—for any real progress. The results of their tasks weren’t guaranteed to lead anywhere. He had to take charge of the investigation and his own fate. He headed back to the examination room.

He took the corpse hand from the conservation chamber. Now that he had some proper light, he noticed that the fingertips were dotted with dozens of what looked like pinpricks, or perhaps marks from a fu hai shi , he thought, the bumpy Guangdong pumice stone. He guessed that these were old marks, but he wasn’t ready to proclaim that. Then he turned his attention to the fingernails, under which there were several black fragments akin to splinters. When he removed them he found that, unlike wood, they crumbled under a small amount of pressure; they were actually tiny bits of carbon. Putting the hand back in the chamber, he turned his mind to the strange craters the murderer had left in the three main wounds. Why might he have applied perfume to these? Why that brutal scrabbling around inside the wounds? Could he really have been trying to extract something, or might Ming and the magistrate have been right when they said it was the result of some ritual or an animal attack?

He got up, shutting the folder. If he wanted to make any real progress, he knew he had to go back to the first murder and track down people familiar with Soft Dolphin.