Detective Yuki

20. Huangdi

1. Huangdi

With the portal from Taiwan closed, and the fate of the temple left sealed by the Chinese navy, Yuki and Aibo helped each other up in an unfamiliar location, in the middle of a large square set on stone overlooking the suburb of a city in a place with slanted roofs, colorful signs and a menagerie of scents and smells. 

"Where are we Yuki?" Aibo stuttered with his companion.

 "judging from the kanji writing on these signs, I would say we are somewhere in China. The portal would have probably not sent us too far away, but I am not sure where Senbi is, or his golden bull" Yuki elaborated. 

"in a place like this, who knows where he could be?" Aibo concurred. Little did they know they were on the steps of a decorative art gallery, guarded by soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist army, serving in Peking, a huge magnificent city teeming with life in a place where the ways of the ancients had come into conflict with the modern world.

It had been only thirteen years since the last emperor was overthrown, leading the once mighty force of China down a recently dark road of violence and bloodshed. Even the president of the fragile republic himself, a man by the name of Duan was a warlord among many fighting over the remains of the former empire in the face of trickery from the western powers and its eastern rival Japan, which did not suffer the fate of the disgraced China. The recent string of attacks by meddlesome naked giants and scaly devious dragons had damaged many parts of the Peking suburbs, but the Nationalist army managed to hold them at bay from the old city, recognized by the unusual military presence of armed soldiers patrolling the streets.

The soldiers had bared witness to the sudden appearance of the two foreigners apparently by magic and were unwilling to accept their pleas. Held up at gunpoint, Yuki told Aibo "it would seem the Chinese are not too happy that we are here". 

The two were to enter into the custody of the soldiers, taken in a prison transport truck to the nearest holding facility, a dank area of the city for the worst criminals unlucky enough to be captured by the fledging state police. Inside, they would see several hundred rusted prison cells holding those bearing the marks of war or the scars of previous encounters with the law. Yuki and Aibo were treated with no mercy by neither the prisoners or the staff, as neither side could understand the other's native speech, making it improbable that the duo could plead their case to the authorities.

On each side of the cells were bright windows overlooking a vacant open courtyard and other sections of the prison for those deemed better or worse than those present in the current section of the prison as the two Japanese were thrown into the next clear cell, with a blood stained floor and random Chinese graffiti on the tainted walls next to two rickety bunk beds. Aibo looked around the cell in despair and sat down on the lower bed while Yuki stared out of the cell window into a courtyard with a lush green area under a majestic old tree.

 "this does not look very good, Yuki. We cannot find Senbi or his golden bull, and what is more, we are now in jail. There are only two ways to escape in my opinion: in a box or months of meticulous planning" Aibo assessed the current situation and how dire it had become in the space of around two hours.

Yuki continued to look outside at the tree and the contours of its holes. With a hand bowed on her head, she saw that at the center of the mighty oak tree in full bloom were three holes that took the shape of a wide pair of eyes and a mouth that all seemed oddly specific and human. She peered closer through the windows, only separated from the tree by a layer of glass and steel bars. Suddenly, the tree appeared to move its "face", to the astonishment of Yuki, who was even more amazed by hearing the tree had something to say. 

"just passing through, are we?" the tree said.

 "how is this possible?, where I come from, trees cannot talk" Yuki spoke out of a large hole in the window. 

"I am a Penghou, spirit of the tree, I can understand you and vice versa. You do not look like the kind to get stuck in a place like this" the tree spoke.

"it is a long story, but it involved me and my friend trying to find this person who is hiding a golden bull in the city" Yuki replied to the tree. 

"that sounds very important, and in all my years here, I have never witnessed a prisoner in these walls of such well manners and etiquette. Obviously your task is very important, and you obviously cannot do anything about it here, so if you can solve this riddle, I will assist you on your quest" the tree proposed.

 "very well, what is the riddle then?" Yuki requested. 

"what the hell are you doing?!!, Yuki" Aibo spat in disbelief that his friend was actually talking to a tree, and the tree in turn was talking back. He watched from the other side of the window sill as the tree gave its riddle to Yuki.

 "A prisoner is forced to go into one of three rooms, but he can choose which room.The first room is ablaze with fire. The second one is rigged with explosives that will go off as soon as he enters. The third contains a pair of lions who haven't eaten in years. Which room should he choose to survive?" the tree questioned the human.

 "The third room—any lions who hadn't eaten in years would be dead!" Yuki responded.

 The Penghou smiled to Yuki before raising one of its giant roots out from the earth, cracking the stonework of the prison courtyard. The roots amassed into a powerful appendage that grabbed a rugged wheelbarrow from the courtyard and stood it next to the cell holding Yuki and Aibo.

 "please stand back" the tree told the two as it reared its giant root and swung it into the cell wall, bringing it down in one foul swoop. The prisoners of the surrounding cells began to howl in surprise, alerting the guards to the concurrent events.

"climb into the wheelbarrow" the tree advised Yuki and Aibo, who readily took its orders before being held aloft by the root arm of the Penghou and thrown out of the prison, sent sky high out into the city. 

"Where are we going to land?" Aibo questioned as the wheelbarrow hurled through the air towards the ground. 

"brace yourself!!!" Yuki ducked into the cart as it crashed next to a dew pond in an empty public park surrounded by cherry trees. Even though they had just crash-landed in a wheelbarrow thrown by a talking tree, Yuki took the initiative once more and led Aibo back to the museum where they had entered from the Taiwan portal.

Evading carefully from the attention of their acquainted security guards, the duo managed to ask passers-by with what limited Mandarin Chinese they knew to find out about the sighting of a golden bull statue near the museum. One witness, an elderly woman in a flowery robe, had a grandson who could speak Japanese, giving Yuki and Aibo some relief. The grandson translated on behalf of his elder, stating that she had seen the golden bull being carried by Japanese soldiers on the road to the Forbidden City palace, giving Yuki and Aibo the next lead in their attempt to stop whatever Senbi was planning.