The Color of Jadeite - Eric D. Goodman

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      Mackenzie huffed. “Point taken.” But not taken well, her body language said.

      I looked in the urns and ding pots collected behind the screens. “I’m thinking we’ll know it when we see it.”

      Mackenzie inspected the shuttered windows at the back of the room. “What, exactly, did Zongchen—”

      “—Chongzhen,” Wei Wei corrected.

      Mackenzie looked annoyed. “What did Chongzhen write before fleeing the Forbidden City?”

      “His final missive,” Wei Wei said.

      “His last will and testament,” I explained.

      Mackenzie fished around in a large, turquoise ding pot. She pulled out a scroll and unrolled it. The red calligraphy was beautiful enough to frame, but I knew Mackenzie couldn’t make it out any more than I could.

      Wei Wei looked at Mackenzie in disbelief. She rushed over and read the scroll out loud. When neither of us responded to the foreign sounds, she translated it. “Great blessings come from Heaven; small ones come from man.”

      Mackenzie looked almost as confused as before the translation. “What’s that mean?”

      “Chinese proverb,” Wei Wei said. “The western equivalent, I suppose, would be to store up your treasures in heaven instead of here on earth.”

      “Or maybe don’t look for the treasure on earth, but in heaven,” I mused.

      “I know where we need to go!” Wei Wei slipped the scroll into her purse and darted out of the Palace of Heavenly Purity.

      “Let me guess,” I said. “The Temple—”

      “—Don’t say it out loud!” Wei Wei warned. But I didn’t have to. The two men who’d been searching the palace before us, now standing outside with the tourists, overheard us. Salvador was looking for trouble, not tourists, and he hadn’t even noticed the blended-in pair. The tall Chinese man with silvery long hair and his companion with the black bowl cut darted off—and the four of us followed them.

      “Where are we going?” Salvador asked, already huffing.

      “Temple of Heaven,” I said.

      “Thought that’s where we were!”

      “Nope,” I said. “We were in the Palace of Heavenly Purity.”

      “Why can’t this place just use addresses like everywhere else?” Salvador blurted out.

      The men kept a steady pace before us. Mackenzie panted. “I don’t think we’re gonna overtake them.”

      “Only if we get the right taxi driver,” Wei Wei said. “The Temple of Heaven is not in the Forbidden City.”

      “101 Maple Street,” Salvador huffed imagined addresses. “464 Lotus Way.”

      I estimated. “The temple’s about twenty minutes away by taxi.”

      “Or ten,” Wei Wei huffed. “If we find the right driver.”

      Salvador, barely able to keep up, ran with a limp. “Why such a hurry?”

      “Because!” I pointed to the two men in front of us, already getting into the back of a sedan. “We need to get there before they do!”

      7

      Abundant Harvest

      We found the right driver and made it to Temple of Heaven Park in twelve minutes—thanks in part to the driver speeding along sidewalks and plowing through crowds of people, all of whom moved casually and intuitively out of the way as though this were a normal traffic pattern.

      Buying our admission tickets stalled us momentarily, but we made it through the gates and into the park before seeing any sign of our rivals. Inside the park grounds, men and women did tai chi, aerobics, and played badminton. Men sat along cement walls and at tables playing chess and cards and Othello. Others played instruments and smoked pipes and cigarettes. Not one of them had a “Chinese Checkers” board out.

      “Where’s the temple?” Salvador asked.

      Wei Wei looked around. “Temple of Heaven refers to the entire park system here. It’s even bigger than the Forbidden City.”

      Salvador seemed relieved to have a momentary break from running. He kicked back his leg, holding his foot behind him to stretch it, grimacing.

      Wei Wei’s eyes scanned the surroundings. “The trouble is figuring out where to start.”

      I ended our resting period and darted along the outdoor corridor. “A good place to start is the main one,” I said. Wei Wei, Mackenzie, and Salvador followed.

      When the main temple came into view, we found out that our friends had a good driver, too—better than ours. They were already running up the marble stairs. “Now what?” Mackenzie asked.

      “Let’s hold tight, see if they find anything,” I said. “There’s four of us and two of them. If they do, we can confront them.”

      Salvador scoffed. “I could take them myself.”

      “You may get a chance,” I said.

      We took cover in the crowd and walked slowly around the magnificent circular structure like dogs around prey. We weren’t tourists, but it was hard not to appreciate the elaborate temple. Planted on an enormous platform of white marble, the hall towered high with three round eaves covered in blue-glazed tiles. The inner hall was visible from outside, and the handiwork even more masterful than the outside. My eyes darted from Silver Hair and Bowl Cut—both of them rummaging around inside the temple—to the interior itself. Multi-colored wood beams made up the elongated caisson ceiling, painted with the golden dragons and phoenixes, filled in with tall pillars of red and gold. My eyes followed one of the intricately painted poles up to the visual explosion of a multi-colored wood ceiling. “Inspiring.”

      Wei Wei nodded. “This is the where the emperor, as the Son of Heaven, would come to make sacrifices or pray to the ancestors in heaven, or take counsel with the gods.”

      “We could use some guidance from the gods,” Salvador said, though I doubted he believed in any.

      “Tian Tan, or Temple of Heaven, refers to the entire area,” Wei Wei reminded. “The park itself is a temple. This is actually the Altar of Prayer for Abundant Harvests.”

      I considered. “This is where the emperor used to make sacrifices?”

      “That’s right,” Wei Wei said. She had a sparkle in her eye, anticipating where I was going with this.

      “What are the names of other structures in the park?”

      Wei Wei looked around us and recalled. “Palace of Abstinence …”

      “Let’s avoid that one,” I said, noting an eye roll from Mackenzie and a smirk from Salvador.

      Wei Wei offered a playful frown. “The Circular Mound Altar. Divine Music Hall … Imperial Vault of Heaven …”

      As Wei Wei’s voice drifted off, a thought fell into my mind like a coin into a beggar’s cup. “What did the clue say? The proverb?”

      Wei Wei recited it. “Great blessings come from Heaven; small ones come from man.”

      The two temple raiders poked around in the animal-shaped sacrificial altars along a side of the interior.

      “This Altar of Prayer for Abundant Harvests would be a place where men offered gifts to the gods,” I said. “Great blessings don’t come from man, they come from heaven.”

      “The Imperial Vault of Heaven?” Mackenzie asked.

      Wei Wei’s face illuminated, her eyes glistening

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