The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) - R. F. Kuang Page 0,67
More credible than the existence of shamans, anyhow.”
“But there have been shamans before,” said Rin. “Back before the Red Emperor conquered Nikan.”
“There’s no conclusive proof. There are just anecdotes.”
“The Red Emperor’s scribes kept track of foreign imports down to the last banana cluster,” Rin objected. “They were hardly likely to exaggerate about their enemies.”
Kitay looked skeptical. “Sure, but none of that means the Trifecta were actually shamans. The Dragon Emperor’s dead, and no one’s seen or heard of the Gatekeeper since the Second Poppy War.”
“Maybe he’s just in hiding. Maybe he’s still out there, waiting for the next invasion. Or—maybe—what if the Cike are shamans?” The idea had just occurred to Rin. “That’s why we don’t know anything about them. Maybe they’re the only shamans left—”
“The Cike are just killers,” Kitay scoffed. “They stab, kill, and poison. They don’t call down gods.”
“As far as you know,” Rin said.
“You’re really hung up on this idea of shamans, aren’t you?” Kitay asked. “It’s just a kid’s story, Rin.”
“The Red Emperor’s scribes wouldn’t have kept extensive documentation of a kid’s story.”
Kitay sighed. “Is that why you pledged Lore? You think you can become a shaman? You think you can summon gods?”
“I don’t believe in gods,” said Rin. “But I believe in power. And I believe the shamans had some source of power that the rest of us don’t know how to access, and I believe it’s still possible to learn.”
Kitay shook his head. “I’ll tell you what shamans are. At some point in time some martial artists were really powerful, and the more battles they won, the more stories spread. They probably encouraged those stories, too, thinking it’d scare their enemies. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Empress made up those stories about the Trifecta being shamans herself. It’d certainly help her hold on power. She needs it now, more than ever. The Warlords are getting restless—I bet we’re barely years from a coup. But if she’s really the Vipress, then how come she hasn’t just summoned giant snakes to subdue the Warlords to her will?”
Rin couldn’t think of a glaring counterargument to this theory, so she conceded with silence. Debating with Kitay became pointless after a while. He was so convinced of his own rationality, of his encyclopedic knowledge of most things, that he had difficulty conceiving of gaps in his understanding.
“I notice the puppeteer glossed over how we actually won the Second Poppy War,” Rin said after a while. “You know. Speer. Butchery. Thousands dead in a single night.”
“Well, it was a kid’s story after all,” said Kitay. “And genocide is a little depressing.”
Rin and Kitay spent the next two days lazing around, indulging in every act of sloth they hadn’t been able to at the Academy. They played chess. They lounged in the garden, stared idly at the clouds, and gossiped about their classmates.
“Niang’s pretty cute,” Kitay said. “So is Venka.”
“Venka’s been obsessed with Nezha since we got there,” Rin said. “Even I could see that.”
Kitay waggled his eyebrows. “One might say you’ve been obsessed with Nezha.”
“Don’t be disgusting.”
“You are. You’re always asking me about him.”
“Because I’m curious,” Rin said. “Sunzi says to know your enemy.”
“Fuck Sunzi. You just think he’s pretty.”
Rin tossed the chessboard at his head.
At Kitay’s insistence, Lan cooked them spicy peppercorn hot pot, and delicious though it was, Rin had the singular experience of weeping while eating. She spent most of the next day squatting over the toilet with a burning rectum.
“You think this is how the Speerlies felt?” Kitay asked. “What if burning diarrhea is the price of lifelong devotion to the Phoenix?”
“The Phoenix is a vengeful god,” Rin groaned.
They sampled all the wines in Kitay’s father’s liquor closet and got wonderfully, dizzyingly drunk.
“Nezha and I spent most of our childhood raiding this closet. Try this one.” Kitay passed her a small ceramic bottle. “White sorghum wine. Fifty percent alcohol.”
Rin swallowed hard. It slid down her throat with a marvelous burn.
“This is liquid fire,” she said. “This is the sun in a bottle. This is the drink of a Speerly.”
Kitay snickered.
“You wanna know how they brew this?” he asked. “The secret ingredient is urine.”
She spat the wine out.
Kitay laughed. “They just use alkaline powder now. But the tale goes that a disgruntled official pissed all over one of the Red Emperor’s distilleries. Probably the best accidental discovery of the Red Emperor’s era.”
Rin rolled over onto her stomach to look sideways at him. “Why aren’t you at Yuelu Mountain? You should be a scholar. A sage.