Clockwork Samurai by Jeannie Lin Read Free Book Online Page B

you?”
    â€œI sent him a letter a few days ago.” Mother sighed. “Soling, I’ve been in a waking dream for so many years. It’s . . . it’s difficult to be back here, in this city. And to have to see everything and feel everything. To not be able to close my eyes.”
    I knew it was hard for her to talk about the past.
    â€œPeking is no longer our home. I don’t know if we have a home anymore. And the days are so long now. They stretch on forever. We get by from the money you and Engineer Chen provide, but—”
    â€œChen Chang-wei gives you money?”
    She looked surprised that I hadn’t known. “For Tian’s studies.”
    I remembered Chang-wei mentioning he would help my brother when we reached Peking, but I had thought he meant securing him entrance to one of the science academies within the capital.
    â€œWe have to give it back.”
    Mother didn’t argue with me. Instead, she smiled faintly. “So you understand why I contacted Kuo. I asked him if there was any way I could be of service to the Ministry. I was trained in the scientific branch of the Hanlin Academy, did you know? I would have passed the exams as well, if it weren’t for . . .”
    Her voice trailed away, and she looked sullen. As if a light had sparked within her for only a moment before slowly fading away, starved of oxygen.
    â€œOld Liu Yentai told me you were a gifted mathematician,” I told her gently.
    She touched her finger once more to a brass dial on the calculating machine. “We didn’t have a calculating machine in my father’s shop when I was growing up. When I first came to the Academy, I used only an abacus. But I was faster than most of the other candidates. Confucian scholars insist it is wrong for a woman to take such glory, to boast about her accomplishments, but it was mere fact.”
    â€œYou met Father at the Academy?”
    â€œI met your father at the Academy.” She folded her hands before her. Her tone sounded faraway and wistful. “I met Kuo Lishen as well. We were all candidates for the exams, can you believe it? Your father had already failed one attempt. Kuo had failed twice. I believe the examiners at that time expected one to fail. They wanted to select candidates that were determined enough to come back. Science is inherently full of failure, Soling. Failures and retrials.”
    It was strange to hear her talking like this. Not like the mother I remembered as a child or the stranger who had been confined to her room, her eyes glassy with opium smoke filling her lungs.
    She sounded almost like my father used to when he spoke of his work at the Ministry. In front of me, their conversations had been brief. Reports of what happened that day. But what had their conversations been like in private?
    I fell silent, eager to hear more of Mother’s secret past—which was apparently only secret to us, her children.
    â€œWhen I was discovered, another candidate threatened to expose me. I had to leave the Academy and pursue a different life, but I still loved numbers. When the figures come together, when they balance out, there’s indescribable beauty in it. Peace.”
    She closed the lid of the calculating machine gently, as if it held her most precious jewels.
    â€œSo you asked Chief Engineer Kuo to give you work?”
    â€œI was so proud of you when you were appointed to a position within the palace. Envious and proud.” She reached out to tuck back a strand of my hair, and I stiffened, then immediately felt bad for doing so. But Mother continued. “Kuo said it was impossible to employ me at the Ministry. Too many people there knew of my marriage to your father—and of the unfortunate incidents that happened.”
    His execution. How the Daoguong Emperor had condemned him. Even though Yizhu had promised to officially clearFather’s name, people still remembered.
    â€œBut