The Red Heart of Jade by Marjorie M. Liu Read Free Book Online

center of deep thought and learning, she found herself welcomed by the dark brittle faces of mummified bodies. Two men and one woman, all of whom were curled in poses of ceremonial burial, foreheads touching knees, arms crossed over their chests.
    Beautiful people. Less than two weeks out of the ground, thanks to Miri’s mentor, Owen Wills. A rare find, deep within Taiwan’s Yushan National Park, a mountainous region at the center of the island, and one of the few preserves of its kind in a country ravaged by industry and a population unmindful of the dangers concurrent with environmental degradation.
    The air smelled like chemicals, which Miri did not mind. Labs of this kind were home, no matter where in the world she found herself. The examining tables were wide and clean and made of stainless steel. They sat on wheels, so that when the professors and assistants and technicians were done poking (very gently) and prodding (even gentler) the ancient dead, the bodies could be easily returned to the pressurized chambers connected to the lab. The men and women were old—several thousand years more ancient than Miri, at any rate—and every time they were examined in the lab it was a detriment to the continued well-being of their corpses.
    So, it was with some surprise that Miri found all three bodies exposed and unattended. Only the woman had a light over her. She was still new enough not to have been christened with an official name, which Miri thought was a shame. But the only name that would have been appropriate—and respectful—was a native name of her time, which was so far removed, so distant, that Miri could not begin to imagine what would have been considered feminine and appropriate for the woman while she had lived.
    It mattered to Miri. She knew the assistants had their own pet names for the mummies, but she could not bring herself to use them. It did not seem respectful, and it was bad enough tearing a person from her grave, from the land of her birth and death, and only for the purposes of cold, hard science.
    It’s more than that , Miri reminded herself, staring down at the shriveled face, so remarkably and impossibly preserved. She is teaching us about her world .
    And when she was done teaching, this woman and the others would rest anew—not in the earth, but in the Royal Palace Museum in Taipei, as part of a growing exhibit on Taiwan’s ancient history. The country’s native aborigines were already up in arms, but the government was good at throwing money at people when it wanted silence. It made Miri uncomfortable to be part of the controversy—by virtue of her deep ties to Owen— but that was part of the job when you studied someone else’s past. When what you found was not yours by culture to claim, you were bound to step on toes.
    Miri bent over the preserved woman and peered down at the corpse’s chest, half hidden by its spindly arms. There was a spot that bothered Miri, that was different from her memory of the last examination she had participated in; a section of delicately woven cloth that appeared to have been lifted and then replaced. A skilled job, and only one person currently at the university had the guts—and the authority—to do so much to the body. Miri’s frown deepened.
    “Owen?” she called, leaving the body and walking deeper into the lab, on loan to her mentor for the duration of his stay. He had been in Taiwan two months already as the lead excavator on the Yushan site—a position obtained, much to the chagrin of some, by personal invitation from the Taiwanese government, which had granted Owen all kinds of oversight powers. That was not the standard way of doing things, but Owen Wills was the world’s foremost expert in Chinese artifacts— with Miri close on his heels—and there were some who cared more about having the right name attached than proper procedure.
    Not that Owen was complaining; or Miri. She had spent a month in Yushan before heading back to