Chinese GL

The next morning, Shen Ni and Bian Jin wake up at about the same time. They don't speak to each other. Shen Ni quickly leaves the room, puts on her official robes, and leaves for the palace without having breakfast but having instructed Auntie Wan as to what sort of medicinal tonics Bian Jin should be given.

Shen Ni takes the hovercraft to the palace, instead of riding. It's described as being about the same size as a motorcycle, and she puts on a scarf around her head, cloak and sunglasses as she gets on. She steers the hovercraft onto a pre-set route and the autopilot takes over. She turns on the control screen to find some messages from Yanluo, the territory she used to fight in, where she still has some trusted subordinates and retainers.

It seems Shen Ni has been secretly investigating exactly what happened to Bian Jin during the last three years when she went missing. She has inspected Bian Jin's memory module, which was pretty heavily damaged. Now that she's repaired it, Bian Jin should be able to remember something as serious as committing high treason, which would take up a large part of the memory module, yet she doesn't. Shen Ni also doesn't think Bian Jin is lying, as Bian Jin would find it beneath her.

Shen Ni recalls the popular version of the story: that Bian Jin was so enamoured of the emperor of Xuanzhou that she handed over the keys to two cities that she was supposed to protect, allowing Xuanzhou to conquer those cities effortlessly. The popular accounts also claim that Bian Jin and her royal lover spent their days in endless sexual debauchery, which Shen Ni has a very difficult time believing. She thinks to herself that Bian Jin is probably even less sexual than a horse hitching-pole. She recalls having seen the emperor of Xuanzhou once, from a distance. She couldn't see the other woman's face clearly, but her impression is that the emperor of Xuanzhou was deeply unhinged.

Since Bian Jin's memory module shows no signs of being infected by the Black Box virus, Shen Ni thinks that the only thing that could have happened is that someone hacked into it and either locked up her memories of those three years, or overwrote them. A hacker capable of doing this would be a match for Shen Ni's own technical abilities. What she's absolutely certain of is that Bian Jin would never betray the empire.

Shen Ni thinks to herself that, the last time Bian Jin left for war, she expected that the next time she saw Bian Jin again would be as a corpse — and she would recognise that corpse as Bian Jin, even if it was otherwise unmarked. Getting a heavily injured Bian Jin back, she thinks, is not the worst case scenario.

Shen Ni and various other officials (all on hovercraft or mecha horseback) arrive at the palace for the month's only morning court session. Some of them express surprise that she would be there so soon after her wedding.

And then we get a whole lot of world-building information. Apparently all the technological information to which we owe the cyberpunk element of this universe was discovered by the founder of the current dynasty (and Li Ruoyuan's ancestor), sealed up in a capsule from, quite literally, the future. Alongside the capsule was a letter from its senders, who claim that they're sending all this technology back in time to help their ancestors. The letter states that the senders aren't sure where (or when) the capsule will end up. This, the narrative tells us, has resulted in a society that venerates the future, to the point that the empire is named TangPro: Tang for the Tang Dynasty (described in the text as a 'future dynasty').

Li Ruoyuan makes her appearance, and we learn that she's been on the throne for more than three decades. Shen Ni reflects on the fact that, despite all the technological advancements they've had so far, they still haven't managed to invent time travel yet. She also wonders whether the supposed 'descendants from the future' really sent all this technology back solely out of the goodness of their hearts. There's an interesting suggestion here that she thinks of the empire as being so decadent and twisted that it's now on its last legs, a kind of last days of the Roman Empire vibe.

We get a lot of detail about Shen Ni's planned firewall defences, and Shen Ni asks Li Ruoyuan for clearance to to enter the Supreme Bureau of R&D, so that she can get her hands on the tech needed to perfect the firewall. Li Ruoyuan is reluctant to say yes, but Shen Ni is persistent, and says that she's happy to wait until Li Ruoyuan has had time to do make all the necessary arrangements. Meimei would never agree, thinks Li Ruoyuan. Shortly after Shen Ni leaves, Li Ruoyuan falls into a weary slumber. A person approaches, lifts her up by the chin and, we're told, carefully scrutinises every inch of her child-like face.

We then cut to Bian Jin back at the house, where she's testing out her physical capabilities: she's able to walk around the courtyard a few times, jump up onto a tree and jump down again, easily and nimbly. She contemplates trying to jump onto the roof, but then remembers what Shen Ni said about not straining her temporary spine, and doesn't. She doesn't want to make Shen Ni's job of repairing her more difficult than it is, after all.

The digital watch around her wrist (which Shen Ni gave her) buzzes with a message from the Messenger Pigeon app. Bian Jin reflects that people used to have secondary brains implanted into their bodies, but that provided the Black Box venue with an easy route to invasion, so people have now largely moved on to external devices.

The message Bian Jin has received is from the Ministry of Personnel, appointing her to a position which is basically an archivist. She muses that Li Ruoyuan has done this to keep her staying in Chang'an, the better to investigate the claim that she betrayed the empire. She to accesses her memory module, and notes that her main long-term memories of the past are intact, thanks to Shen Ni's repairs. However, when she tries to recall her memories of the lost last three years, she finds her access blocked. Only a very skilled machinist could have done this, Bian Jin thinks.

Auntie Wan comes in with Bian Jin's tonic, which is so bitter than even she, the terror of battlefields, makes a fact over the taste. She asks if there's anything sweet to go with it, and Auntie Wan grins and hands over a piece of osmanthus candy. She tells Bian Jin that Shen Ni specifically told her that this was Bian Jin's favourite, and that Bian Jin was sure to want it after she'd taken the tonic.

Bian Jin thinks about how, although Shen Ni is no longer in love with her, she's still taking full responsibility for Bian Jin's well-being within the scope of this loveless marriage. Perhaps, she thinks, no matter who becomes shimei's wife, shimei would be just as attentive to her.


Tech watch: facial recognition scanners used at court; time travel; digital watch; I'm not counting the sunglasses as they have also been around a perhaps surprisingly long time.
Named men: 1.5
Reverse Bechdel passes: 0