Read Wingrove, David - Chung Kuo 02 for Free Online

unnaturally calm.
    Perhaps this is
it, thought Hung. Perhaps something has broken in him and this
calmness is the first sign of it. But for once there seemed no trace
of madness in Ta-hung, only a strange sense of dignity and distance,
surprising because it was so unexpected.
    "Let the
others come," he said, his voice clear of any shade of fear, his
eyes drinking in the sight of his murdered father. "There's no
sense in delay."
    Hung Mien-lo
hesitated, suddenly uncertain, then turned and went to the door,
telling the guard to bring Fischer and Sun Li Hua. Then he went back
inside.
    Wang Ta-hung was
standing at the bedside. He had picked something up and was sniffing
at it. Hung Mien-lo went across to him.
    "What is
this?" Ta-hung asked, handing him a bowl.
    It was a perfect
piece of porcelain. Its roundness and its perfect lavender glaze made
it a delight to look at. Hung turned it in his hands, a faint smile
on his lips. It was an old piece, too. K'ang Hsi perhaps ...
or perhaps not, for the coloring was wrong. But that was not what
Ta-hung had meant. He had meant the residue.
    Hung sniffed at
it, finding the heavy, musky scent of it strangely familiar; then he
turned, hearing voices at the door. It was Sun Li Hua and the
Captain.
    "Master
Sun," he called out. "What was in this bowl?"
    Sun bowed low
and came into the room. "It was a sleeping potion, Chieh
Hsia ." he said, keeping his head bowed, addressing the new
T'ang. "Doctor Yueh prepared it."
    "And what
was in it?" Hung asked, irritated by Sun's refusal to answer him
directly.
    Sun Li Hua
hesitated a moment. "It was ho yeh, for insomnia, Chieh
Hsia ."
    "Ho yeh and what?" Hung insisted, knowing the distinct smell of
lotus seeds.
    Sun glanced
briefly at the young T'ang, as if for intercession, then bent his
head. "It was mixed with the T'ang's own yang essence, Chieh Hsia ."
    "Ah . . ."
He nodded, understanding.
    He set the bowl
down and turned away, looking about the room, noting the fresh
flowers at the bedside, the T'ang's clothes laid out on the dresser
ready for the morning.
    He looked across
at Fischer. "Has anything been disturbed?"
    "No . . .
Excellency."
    He noted the
hesitation and realized that although they knew how important he had
suddenly become, they did not know quite how to address him. I must
have a title, he thought. Chancellor, perhaps. Some peg to hang their
respect upon.
    He turned,
looking across at the open door that led out onto the balcony. "Was
this where the murderer entered?"
    Fischer answered
immediately. "No, Excellency."
    "You're
certain?"
    "Quite
certain, Excellency."
    Hung Mien-lo
turned, surprised. "How so?"
    Fischer glanced
up at the camera, then stepped forward. "It is all on tape,
Excellency. Sun Li Hua's assistants, the brothers Ying Fu and Ying
Chai are the murderers. They entered the room shortly after Master
Sun had given the T'ang his potion."
    "Gods! And
you have them?"
    "Not yet,
Excellency. But as no one has left the palace since the murder they
must be here somewhere. My men are searching the palace even now to
find them."
    Ta-hung was
watching everything with astonishment, his lips parted, his eyes wide
and staring. Hung Mien-lo looked across at him a moment, then turned
back to Fischer, giving a curt nod. "Good. But we want them
alive. It's possible they were acting for another."
    "Of course,
Excellency."
    Hung Mien-lo
turned and went to the open door, pulling back the thin see-through
curtain of silk and stepping out onto the balcony. It was cool
outside, the moon low to his left. To his right the beam of the
distant lighthouse cut the darkness, flashing across the dark waters
of the Nile delta and sweeping on across the surrounding desert. He
stood there a moment, his hands on the balustrade, staring down into
the darkness of the river far below.
    So, it was Fu
and Chai. They were the hands. But who was behind them? Who besides
himself had wanted the old man dead? Sun Li Hua? Perhaps. After all,
Wang Hsien had humiliated