“It is imperative that we continue with our efforts,” she continues. “We will not allow dissidents to disrupt the course of the competition. For Dàxī is a mighty river, and they are only broken branches, to be carried away by the current.”
Her words are meant to provide reassurance, but I’ve learned to see through the platitudes of court officials, how their actions sometimes conflict with their grandiose pronouncements. After all, with enough dissidents, one could build a dam that could divert the most powerful of rivers.
“Behind me are the Piya, the embodiment of the phrase ‘attack poison with poison.’ We train the birds from birth. They are continually fed a diet of poisonous creatures, until they are both immune to poison and are poisonous themselves.” She smiles at our shared confusion and unfamiliarity with such creations.
“I thought they were birds of legend,” Guoming says. “They aren’t real.”
“I assure you,” Elder Guo says, “they are very real. You may recognize them by another name: the poisonfeather bird. Their bite, their claws, their tears, their excrement … all contain poison. They are also excellent poison detectors, for they will not ingest what they cannot endure. Now, for your next task…”
She gestures at the birds. “Only by working closely with your partner will you be able to succeed. One of you will transform a lethal poison so that the Piya will willingly ingest it against its nature. The other will counter the poison and save the bird’s life. If the Piya refuses to ingest the poison, you will fail. If the bird dies, you will fail. Only if your team fulfills both tasks will you be able to move forward.”
“What sort of poison will need to be transformed?” Wenyi asks, a question befitting one who has dedicated his life to the academy.
Elder Guo’s eyes gleam, and she utters with doting affection, almost as one would say the name of a dear child, “Jīncán.”
Gasps of revulsion, my own included, join the sounds of the birds.
“She’s mad,” Lian comments under her breath, and I agree.
The jīncán is a gold silkworm, an abomination of nature. Mother said it was folklore, an ancient ritual practiced by those who used to tamper with darker magics. It is a chaotic magic that will eventually devour anyone who delves too deeply into it.
The silkworm about to form its cocoon is harvested and sealed into a jar with poisonous creatures gathered under the darkest night of the new moon. The jar is buried, then opened one week later. The creatures will have slaughtered one another, and the pupa will turn gold, having subsisted on the blood of the ones that devoured each other beside it. The pupa never emerges from the cocoon, residing there in a suspended state. It is not alive, but neither is it truly dead.
Some say the spirit of the silkworm leaves the body entirely, and the spirit can only be satisfied with blood. One drop of the creator’s blood binds the jīncán spirit to do its bidding, but you run the risk of being devoured if you do not keep it fed.
Once I might have laughed at the absurdity of such a horror. But then last night I pulled a snake wearing three human faces out of a woman’s body. There are darker and stranger forces out in the vast, wide world than I could ever comprehend with my limited imagination.
“Tomorrow you will have access to the storeroom of the royal physicians. We will reconvene in the evening, after the summer rites have been performed.” I had forgotten that tomorrow is the Call to Summer, a festival signifying the change between seasons. “Tonight you will choose one of these birds and tend to it in your residences.
“These birds are national treasures,” Elder Guo says as we survey the Piya, considering the daunting challenge presented before us. “If they come to harm, it is not only your position in the competition you should worry about, but what sort of punishment you will receive.”
Shao and Guoming elbow each other with confident smirks, not worried about the threat. They are the ones who rush to the pedestals first, swiftly ushering away their chosen bird. I look at Lian and she gives me a shrug. I know nothing about the care of animals, but the choice is made for us soon enough. I lift the one remaining bird from its pedestal, and it gives me an indignant squawk at being jostled.
“What about the jīncán?” Shao asks when we all return to our places, birds in hand.
I trust none of the other competitors apart from Lian, even though Wenyi and Chengzhi are amicable enough. But of the remaining shénnóng-tú, I trust Shao the least, after having seen him in the residence of the marquis.