Page 87 of The Blood Orchid
I shook my head. “Taizong died before he was born.”
“Can’t you raise the dead?” Zheng Sili said. “Isn’t that your whole thing?”
“He would be a skeleton,” I said.
Yufei paused as if actually considering it. “Have you ever tried resurrecting a skeleton?” she said.
“Don’t answer that,” Wenshu said before I could speak. “I don’t want to know. Someone a hundred years dead wouldn’t have a brain, so I doubt he would be that helpful.”
“And yet we keep Zheng Sili around,” I said, glaring at him.
He scowled. “Some resurrection alchemist you are. The one time it would actually be helpful to talk to the dead, and you can’t do it.”
I crossed my arms rather than admit he was right. We didn’t need to give Taizong a whole new body and life, just ask him one simple question.
Besides, the dead didn’t need a body to speak. I thought of Hong waiting on the river plane, of the way I’d been able to touch the Moon Alchemist’s past along the river of her soul, even though she was dead as well. Maybe I could visit Taizong’s river as well. I doubted I’d find a rushing stream there after a century of death, but maybe I could find a single drop of water trapped in the air or the soil, some small ghost of his past that lingered. That was all we needed, after all—one brief memory.
I turned to Zheng Sili. “We’re going to need some rope.”
Chapter Seventeen
The three of us stood side by side on the gray sand of the river plane, looking up at the flat sky and white coin of the moon overhead.
“So this is how you do it,” Yufei said, staring in wonder up at the moon. “I should have studied alchemy. This is way more fun than reading about Confucius.”
“Fun?” Zheng Sili echoed, arms crossed. “Alchemy isn’t about fun.”
“Again, we’re comparing this to Confucius,” Yufei said.
With Chang’an in shambles, what little time we had was running out, and I wanted help looking for Taizong in the endless forest of this plane. I had a feeling someone that long dead wouldn’t simply be sitting around in human form, waiting for me. It was more likely that I’d have to dig through the dirt for clumps of moisture left behind from his river.
Zheng Sili, despite how annoying he was, probably would be able to help. And of course Yufei had refused to be left behind.
Zheng Sili looked down at Yufei with distaste, then opened his mouth to say something he would probably regret, but Iyanked the rope and forced him to uncross his arms before he could.
“Don’t be a snob,” I said. “It’s not like you’ve been here before either.”
“Yes, shame on me,” he said, as the wind picked up in a sharp howl, blasting our hair back. “It’s practically a summer palace.”
Still, he knelt down and stared with wonder into the river. He reached a hand forward.
“I wouldn’t do that, unless you want to see all of my brother’s life,” I said.
He drew his hand back, frowning. “I can’t imagine it’s that exciting, but he’d probably murder me, so I will refrain.”
“How wise,” Yufei said, reaching out to touch one of the prickly pine needles.
The trees shifted in a cool breeze, and all of a sudden, Yufei vanished. The rope on my right wrist pulled taut, sending me spilling into the mud. I tried to stand up, the rope still dragging me forward, but I’d pulled Zheng Sili’s rope with my other arm, and he fell over on top of me, crushing me down with a muddy splash.
“Jiejie,focus!” I called out into the darkness, elbowing Zheng Sili behind me.
At once, the rope went slack. Yufei stood over me once more, looking bewildered as she pulled me up by a muddy sleeve.
“I don’t know what happened,” she said, gazing out across the forest.
“You move through this place by desire,” I said. “We need to all think of the same destination, or we’re going to get separated.”
Yufei said nothing, winding the rope around her wrist a few times so the loose end was shorter. Zheng Sili grumbled and wiped mud from his robes behind me.