That night, Shen Ni receives the long-desired clearance to enter the Supreme Bureau of R&D, with the right to peruse any of its documentation she wants and to reallocate its resources. This is subject to one condition: that she must first get the approval of Li Shan, as the head of the bureau.
She thinks about the Liu Ji incident. Notwithstanding the terrible force of the Black Box virus itself, the only real losses arising out of that, other than a houseful of alarmed mourners, had been Liu Ji’s expensive coffin and Shen Ni’s lovely cloak. Shen Ni finds this suspicious: she doesn’t believe in coincidences.
Shen Ni has a message from Zeng Qingluo on an encoded channel. The message says that the Lijing Bureau has already tracked down all eyewitnesses to the Liu Ji incident and forced all of them to install confidentiality modules to prevent them from speaking about it. If they do, all of their senses will be immobilised, and only the Lijing Bureau will be able to reverse it.
Shen Ni tells Zeng Qingluo that she’s going to send over all of Liu Ji’s movement and location data (which, naturally, she has obtained through hacking), so that Zeng Qingluo can start constructing a virtual map of all the places he’s been. Once that is complete, they can use it to narrow down where he was infected by the Black Box virus.
Zeng Qingluo assures Shen Ni that she’ll get it done in three days (instead of five, which would normally be expected), such is her hatred of the Black Box virus for all the losses it has caused her. Shen Ni tells her that the virus will have difficulty spreading through Chang’an; Zeng Qingluo is reassured by this, believing that Shen Ni has a strategy to counter it.
Shen Ni then sends a message to her contact in the northern territories, asking them to find out of Liu Ji has ever been there. The contact doesn’t respond, at least not yet. Shen Ni recalls that this contact has been responding more and more slowly. She wonders if this has something to do with ‘that mad emperor’ Qin Wushang, who has been launching occasional skirmishes against TangPro’s northern border.
Later that night, Shen Ni is about to walk into the bedroom she shares with Bian Jin, then recalls that she walked in on Bian Jin changing her clothes the last time, and knocks instead. Bian Jin tells her to come in. Bian Jin herself is sitting on the bed, not looking at Shen Ni.
Shen Ni gets the feeling that she’s about to be banished to the floor again, so without Bian Jin saying anything, she collects her blankets and pillows from the bed — just as Bian Jin is pushing hers further to the side to give Shen Ni more room on the bed. They each do a double take. Then Shen Ni, pretending that nothing’s happened, places her things back down on the bed and lies down next to Bian Jin.
Bian Jin, lying with her back to Shen Ni, tells her they should just treat this as a rehearsal. Bian Jin adds that she needs to practise being Shen Ni’s wife, telling herself that it’s just like a military drill. She immediately regrets it because it all sounds so suggestive. She also thanks Shen Ni for sewing up the cut across the palm, as well as all the efforts she’s gone to in crafting the new spine and new jade core. She adds that, since she has nothing else to repay Shen Ni with, she can do a few small things to make Shen Ni happy (implication: like playing the happy couple in front of Shen Ni’s friends).
Shen Ni replies that Bian Jin used to take great care of her too when she was younger, and never asked for anything in return. Then she promptly falls asleep. In her sleep, Shen Ni knocks the goldfinch plushie that basically functioned as a barrier between her and Bian Jin to the floor.
Bian Jin lies awake, thinking back to the first time she taught Shen Ni to ride a horse, when Shen Ni was ten years old. She had placed Shen Ni on the saddle in front of her, and at one point, when they were galloping down a slope, Bian Jin had put an arm around Shen Ni to stop her from falling over.
Just as Bian Jin is smiling over the memory, Shen Ni rolls over and wraps an arm around her, believing drowsily that Bian Jin is her goldfinch plushie, and wondering why the plushie has suddenly gotten so thin. Still, Shen Ni decides, the plushie smells really nice, and is really huggable.
And then we get several paragraphs of Shen Ni, mostly asleep, basically groping Bian Jin as she wonders about her plushie’s sudden shrinkage, and it making Bian Jin incredibly horny, because Bian Jin is now very, very sensitive to Shen Ni’s touch for some reason. Bian Jin is reminded of the day she and Shen Ni went horseback riding, only now their positions are reversed. Bian Jin thinks about pushing Shen Ni’s arm away, but then realises that it would only disturb Shen Ni’s sleep, and she’s not going to do that given how worn out Shen Ni from repairing her.
All Bian Jin can do is resign herself to her fate. Even after Shen Ni stops groping her and falls deeply asleep, Bian Jin is still wide awake, dealing with the ah aftermath.
The next day, Shen Ni wakes up hugging the goldfinch plushie. As she puts it aside, she realises there’s something a bit off about it. There’s dust on the plushie, but how did it get there? She eyes Bian Jin, who is standing with her back to Shen Ni, getting dressed. Shen Ni says a soft ‘good morning’ to Bian Jin, who eyes her silently and walks out of the room without saying a word. Confused, Shen Ni dusts off her plushie and asks it, ‘Do you know why shijie is angry with me?’
Bian Jin doesn’t quite know, either. She’s confused as to why Shen Ni’s touch would have that effect on her — to the point that she’s still, right this moment, experiencing its after-effects. She drinks a cup of cool water to settle her nerves. Then she goes into the courtyard and experiments a little with her new prosthetics. She pulls out the whip she bought online, tosses a stone into the air, and strikes it with the whip, not particularly hard (by her standards).
This produces dramatic results: the stone is reduced to powder, the force of the blow lops off a corner of a distant hill, and the whip itself literally goes up in smoke. Bian Jin is, for the first time in a long while, excited by this development, and starts wondering about how much more powerful she’ll become once Shen Ni perfects both her new spine and new jade core.
Shen Ni breakfasts by herself, after which she’s informed that her guests have arrived. She walks out of the dining room to see Bian Jin wearing the cloak Shen Ni got her for their wedding, and holding Shen Ni’s matching cloak in her hands. Bian Jin puts the cloak on Shen Ni in the most conscientiously, wifely manner possible. Shen Ni looks into her face, noting the dark circles under her eyes, and asks if Bian Jin slept badly last night. ‘It’s fine,’ Bian Jin replies coolly. ‘I just have to get used to it.’ Shen Ni wonders what on earth she’s talking about.
Diwu Que and Zeng Qingluo turn up, laden with gifts, and Bian Jin immediately recognises Diwu Que as Shen Ni’s ‘girlfriend’. She asks Shen Ni if she should leave the room, and Shen Ni is immediately certain that Bian Jin saw Diwu Que hugging her that evening at Firewall Construction HQ.
‘There’s no need,’ says Shen Ni. ‘Can I borrow your waist to put my arm around?’ Bian Jin surmises that Bian Jin and Diwu Que must have had some sort of lovers’ tiff, and Shen Ni is trying to get back at Diwu Que. Bian Jin swallows at the memory of last night, and thinks to herself, ‘This is ridiculous.’ But what she says to Shen Ni is, ‘Yes.’
Tech watch: Does mechanically-enabled horniness count Named men: 6.5 Reverse Bechdel passes: 0
Chapter 19
She thinks about the Liu Ji incident. Notwithstanding the terrible force of the Black Box virus itself, the only real losses arising out of that, other than a houseful of alarmed mourners, had been Liu Ji’s expensive coffin and Shen Ni’s lovely cloak. Shen Ni finds this suspicious: she doesn’t believe in coincidences.
Shen Ni has a message from Zeng Qingluo on an encoded channel. The message says that the Lijing Bureau has already tracked down all eyewitnesses to the Liu Ji incident and forced all of them to install confidentiality modules to prevent them from speaking about it. If they do, all of their senses will be immobilised, and only the Lijing Bureau will be able to reverse it.
Shen Ni tells Zeng Qingluo that she’s going to send over all of Liu Ji’s movement and location data (which, naturally, she has obtained through hacking), so that Zeng Qingluo can start constructing a virtual map of all the places he’s been. Once that is complete, they can use it to narrow down where he was infected by the Black Box virus.
Zeng Qingluo assures Shen Ni that she’ll get it done in three days (instead of five, which would normally be expected), such is her hatred of the Black Box virus for all the losses it has caused her. Shen Ni tells her that the virus will have difficulty spreading through Chang’an; Zeng Qingluo is reassured by this, believing that Shen Ni has a strategy to counter it.
Shen Ni then sends a message to her contact in the northern territories, asking them to find out of Liu Ji has ever been there. The contact doesn’t respond, at least not yet. Shen Ni recalls that this contact has been responding more and more slowly. She wonders if this has something to do with ‘that mad emperor’ Qin Wushang, who has been launching occasional skirmishes against TangPro’s northern border.
Later that night, Shen Ni is about to walk into the bedroom she shares with Bian Jin, then recalls that she walked in on Bian Jin changing her clothes the last time, and knocks instead. Bian Jin tells her to come in. Bian Jin herself is sitting on the bed, not looking at Shen Ni.
Shen Ni gets the feeling that she’s about to be banished to the floor again, so without Bian Jin saying anything, she collects her blankets and pillows from the bed — just as Bian Jin is pushing hers further to the side to give Shen Ni more room on the bed. They each do a double take. Then Shen Ni, pretending that nothing’s happened, places her things back down on the bed and lies down next to Bian Jin.
Bian Jin, lying with her back to Shen Ni, tells her they should just treat this as a rehearsal. Bian Jin adds that she needs to practise being Shen Ni’s wife, telling herself that it’s just like a military drill. She immediately regrets it because it all sounds so suggestive. She also thanks Shen Ni for sewing up the cut across the palm, as well as all the efforts she’s gone to in crafting the new spine and new jade core. She adds that, since she has nothing else to repay Shen Ni with, she can do a few small things to make Shen Ni happy (implication: like playing the happy couple in front of Shen Ni’s friends).
Shen Ni replies that Bian Jin used to take great care of her too when she was younger, and never asked for anything in return. Then she promptly falls asleep. In her sleep, Shen Ni knocks the goldfinch plushie that basically functioned as a barrier between her and Bian Jin to the floor.
Bian Jin lies awake, thinking back to the first time she taught Shen Ni to ride a horse, when Shen Ni was ten years old. She had placed Shen Ni on the saddle in front of her, and at one point, when they were galloping down a slope, Bian Jin had put an arm around Shen Ni to stop her from falling over.
Just as Bian Jin is smiling over the memory, Shen Ni rolls over and wraps an arm around her, believing drowsily that Bian Jin is her goldfinch plushie, and wondering why the plushie has suddenly gotten so thin. Still, Shen Ni decides, the plushie smells really nice, and is really huggable.
And then we get several paragraphs of Shen Ni, mostly asleep, basically groping Bian Jin as she wonders about her plushie’s sudden shrinkage, and it making Bian Jin incredibly horny, because Bian Jin is now very, very sensitive to Shen Ni’s touch for some reason. Bian Jin is reminded of the day she and Shen Ni went horseback riding, only now their positions are reversed. Bian Jin thinks about pushing Shen Ni’s arm away, but then realises that it would only disturb Shen Ni’s sleep, and she’s not going to do that given how worn out Shen Ni from repairing her.
All Bian Jin can do is resign herself to her fate. Even after Shen Ni stops groping her and falls deeply asleep, Bian Jin is still wide awake, dealing with the ah aftermath.
The next day, Shen Ni wakes up hugging the goldfinch plushie. As she puts it aside, she realises there’s something a bit off about it. There’s dust on the plushie, but how did it get there? She eyes Bian Jin, who is standing with her back to Shen Ni, getting dressed. Shen Ni says a soft ‘good morning’ to Bian Jin, who eyes her silently and walks out of the room without saying a word. Confused, Shen Ni dusts off her plushie and asks it, ‘Do you know why shijie is angry with me?’
Bian Jin doesn’t quite know, either. She’s confused as to why Shen Ni’s touch would have that effect on her — to the point that she’s still, right this moment, experiencing its after-effects. She drinks a cup of cool water to settle her nerves. Then she goes into the courtyard and experiments a little with her new prosthetics. She pulls out the whip she bought online, tosses a stone into the air, and strikes it with the whip, not particularly hard (by her standards).
This produces dramatic results: the stone is reduced to powder, the force of the blow lops off a corner of a distant hill, and the whip itself literally goes up in smoke. Bian Jin is, for the first time in a long while, excited by this development, and starts wondering about how much more powerful she’ll become once Shen Ni perfects both her new spine and new jade core.
Shen Ni breakfasts by herself, after which she’s informed that her guests have arrived. She walks out of the dining room to see Bian Jin wearing the cloak Shen Ni got her for their wedding, and holding Shen Ni’s matching cloak in her hands. Bian Jin puts the cloak on Shen Ni in the most conscientiously, wifely manner possible. Shen Ni looks into her face, noting the dark circles under her eyes, and asks if Bian Jin slept badly last night. ‘It’s fine,’ Bian Jin replies coolly. ‘I just have to get used to it.’ Shen Ni wonders what on earth she’s talking about.
Diwu Que and Zeng Qingluo turn up, laden with gifts, and Bian Jin immediately recognises Diwu Que as Shen Ni’s ‘girlfriend’. She asks Shen Ni if she should leave the room, and Shen Ni is immediately certain that Bian Jin saw Diwu Que hugging her that evening at Firewall Construction HQ.
‘There’s no need,’ says Shen Ni. ‘Can I borrow your waist to put my arm around?’ Bian Jin surmises that Bian Jin and Diwu Que must have had some sort of lovers’ tiff, and Shen Ni is trying to get back at Diwu Que. Bian Jin swallows at the memory of last night, and thinks to herself, ‘This is ridiculous.’ But what she says to Shen Ni is, ‘Yes.’
Tech watch: Does mechanically-enabled horniness count
Named men: 6.5
Reverse Bechdel passes: 0