“Would you like to meet the woman?” Maomao knew this suggestion wasn’t strictly necessary, but offered it anyway. They didn’t know what had happened to Tianyu’s father’s older brother, but the woman in question would be Tianyu’s father’s niece.
“No, I suppose it’s better if I don’t,” Tianyu’s father said.
“Aw, but I want to! She’s my cousin, isn’t she?” Tianyu whined, but he was roundly ignored—except by his father, who, in the absence of Dr. Li, planted a knuckle on his head.
“Fate works in strange ways,” Jinshi said, his fingers brushing the face of the tablet. Now that the two parts were joined together, the defacement could be seen as a jagged line down the stone. It seemed somehow odd to Maomao, who studied the tablet intently. “We’ll compensate you for your injuries and the loss of your house,” Jinshi went on. “I think some of the money can come from the fools who caused all this trouble to begin with.”
“I wouldn’t feel right putting you to such effort,” Tianyu’s father said. “Instead, maybe I could ask you for just one thing?”
“What would you like?”
Tianyu’s father heaved a sigh before he spoke. “I would ask you to find the hidden treasure my older brother was seeking and destroy it.”
For a second, Maomao couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. The words hidden treasure kept echoing in her mind—and then her body moved of its own volition. “A hidden treasure!” she said, her eyes shining. “Could it be... Could it be that you’re talking about Kada’s Book?!”
“That’s right.”
“Ahhhhh!” She raced up to Tianyu’s father.
“All right, slow down,” Jinshi said, grabbing her by the collar like he was scruffing a cat.
“I thought the book burned in the fire,” Maomao said, managing to ask the question even as she kicked her feet in the air.
“No, we don’t know where this treasure is. My great-grandmother appears to have hidden it, but it was nowhere in the house that we could find. However, in her last will, which she left us along with the jade, she said that if it looked like the book was going to fall into the hands of the uncomprehending, we were to burn it.”
“Which is why Uncle left, right?” Tianyu piped up.
“You be quiet,” his father said. Another knuckle.
Even if they found Kada’s Book, it would be treated as a forbidden text. Yet the medical knowledge within it might be invaluable.
Jinshi cautiously set Maomao down and asked Tianyu’s father, “Do you know any place or object that might serve as a clue?”
“Not to speak of, I’m afraid. Except, I’ve heard that my great-grandmother never traveled very far.”
“She hid it nearby, then?” Jinshi pondered. Basen appeared to be thinking as well. Tianyu’s head whipped from side to side as he observed each of them.
Hulan seemed to have a thought; he stepped out of the tent but was soon back.
“How widely did your great-grandmother range?” he asked. He was carrying a map of the area. It showed rivers and forests and several villages nearby.
“She had passed by the time I have any memories, but I talked about her with my brother a number of times. I don’t think she would have gone farther than this.” Tianyu’s father pointed to a particular part of the forest and the nearby village.
“I assume she went to sell the pelts and meat of the game the family hunted, and to do what shopping she needed?” Maomao asked.
“I think so, yes.”
Judging by the woman’s last words, it seemed unlikely she had wandered very far from where she lived her life.
If she hid the thing close to home, where would it be?
Maomao gazed at the jade tablet. “Hm?”
“What is it?” Jinshi asked.
“If I may?” She placed the two pieces of the tablet on top of the map. Together they made a long rectangle, and the ratio of its length to its width was roughly the same as the ratio of the forest’s north-south and east-west axes.
Maomao looked again at the scratches that ran along the tablet. They cut side to side diagonally—the pattern had bothered her for some time now.
Could it be?
“Do you have a brush?” she asked.
“But of course.” Hulan held a brush out to her, and she snatched it from him.
“There are large trees in this forest, right?” she said. She was thinking of the trees Tianyu had used as guideposts.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Tianyu’s father.
“And they’ve all been there for centuries, right?”
“What are you getting at?” Basen asked, confused.
“Show me where those trees are.” Since they used the trees as guideposts through the forest, they ought to have a good idea of their location.
“Very well.” Tianyu’s father started pointing out the locations, and Maomao circled them on the map. “I think that’s all of them,” he said after a while.
Maomao lined the tablet up on top of the map and calculated the ratio of the length to the width, then drew a line between the two corresponding circles.
“The length, ratio, and the angle match,” she said. She drew a diagonal line—one that neatly matched the scratch on the tablet. Once she had drawn in all of the scratches, only one circle remained.
“Who knew...” Jinshi murmured.
No one—as long as the tablet remained broken in two.
The tablet itself had been the key. The surface hadn’t simply been effaced; the scratches had been meant to serve a purpose—this purpose.
“Now we know where we need to go.” Maomao grabbed the map and headed out of the tent.