“Rénga, I mean no disrespect, but you sound like a fisherman with a hold full of rotting fish laughing at another with a bigger hold of rotting fish.”
“Perfection cannot be achieved in a brief span of time! The ladder of Imperial testing will not elevate all men and women of talent, yet it offers a beam of hope for the studious and the poor. You come from a sharecropping family without power, yet today you stand among the most honored of Dara’s scholars. You are the fulfillment of my trust and hope for the system.”
“I am hardly a good example,” said Zomi. “I have been blessed with instruction from… a teacher few could aspire to, and when it seemed I was about to be denied the chance to take the examinations, strangers came to my aid. Luck is not much of a promise.”
Despite the surging pride Luan Zya felt in his student, he had to keep his emotions hidden. Zomi was determined to make it through the examinations on her own merit, and he could not reveal his relationship to her no matter what. You are a fledgling eagle heading for the skies; you’re the hatchling turtle diving into the sea.
“Then it is the will of gods that you should be elevated above others,” said Kuni. “I ascended to the Throne of Dara by equal measures of skill and luck, and random chance governs our fates more than we’d like to admit.”
“That is the counsel of despair, Rénga. If you seek true talent, then your system of examinations resembles the man who seeks pearls only by diving from the wharf because it is safe and convenient, all the while arguing that the random motion of the tides will move pearls of great value into his reach.”
For a long while after, the Grand Audience Hall was silent.
Unexpectedly, Prince Phyro spoke up. “It sounds like you are just jealous that they’re rich while you’re not. But their families have worked as hard as yours to accumulate their wealth, and why should their children not gain the advantage of having been born to a wealthier family?”
Both Risana and Kuni looked at the young boy. Risana was about to reprimand the boy for speaking in this solemn hall, but Kuni waved for her to be quiet.
“I suppose that is one way to look at it,” said Zomi. “But let me try to explain it another way.” She walked to the side and stood in front of Zato Ruthi and bowed.
“May I borrow these?” she asked, pointing to the stack of thin wooden boxes for holding the examination essays. “I haven’t prepared a presentation, as you now know. So I must improvise.”
Surprised, Ruthi nodded.
Zomi picked up four of the boxes, walked back, and laid them out in a row on the floor. She knelt down and hid the boxes from view with the hem of her robe, appearing to place some objects into the boxes. Then she stood up and unveiled the boxes, walking to stand behind them.
“I have placed some humble gifts for you in these boxes,” Zomi said, looking at each of Timu, Théra, Phyro, and little Fara. “One of them contains a piece of thousand-layer cake, steeped in sweet honey and filled with lotus seed. The other three boxes are empty. The princes and princesses may each pick a box, and whatever you find in the box, that is your dessert for tonight. If you find yourself in possession of the thousand-layer cake, you have no obligation to share with your siblings. And if you find yourself holding an empty box, you must not complain. Do you like this arrangement?”
“Um…,” said Phyro.
“That’s unfair,” said Fara, her voice crisp and childish. “We should share!”
“Why is it unfair?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” said Phyro. “Why should I get an empty box?”
Zomi looked at Phyro. “Before birth, all of us are mere potentials. We have no control over the moment of incarnation, when we might end up as the son of an emperor or the daughter of a peasant. The veil is lifted as we come into the world, and we find ourselves holding a box that determines our fates without regard to our merit. Yet all the great philosophers have always said that our souls are equal in weight in the eyes of the World Father, Thasoluo. It would be most strange if our own sense of justice, after being cultivated by the wisdom of the sages, cannot match that of a child of four.”
Phyro’s face turned red, but he had no response.
Unexpectedly, Prince Timu came to his rescue. “That is mere sophistry, Zomi Kidosu.”
Zomi Kidosu regarded him coolly.
“You misunderstand the Classical philosophers. That our souls are equal in the eyes of the World Father does not mean that we’re meant to achieve material equality. The sages teach us that men and women are born into different ranks, but all of us have our roles to play in the harmonious play of life. You speak as though it is bad to be a peasant, but there is also the nobility of being virtuous in poverty; you speak as though it is good to be a king, but a king’s cares are as great as his fortune. Neither one is inherently better than the other: Each should strive to excel in his assigned position. Not everyone prefers thousand-layer cake. That is true wisdom.”
“I see,” said Zomi. “Prince Timu, you will surely not object then if I eat the thousand-layer cake and give you the wrapping paper to lick? In fact, why don’t we switch places so that I can experience the suffering of your many cares in the palace, and you get to experience the nobility of poverty in my muddy hut?”
It was now Prince Timu’s turn to be at a loss for words. “You—you—”
Empress Jia looked at Zomi, her face frosty. “Timu, speak no more.”
“So which box holds the thousand-layer cake?” asked Fara, still staring at the boxes. “Can I see?”
Zomi nodded.
Fara opened the first box; it was empty.
“Can I try again?” she looked at Zomi, who nodded.
Fara opened the second box, then the third, and finally the last. All were empty.
“Where’s the cake?”
“There never was any cake.”
Fara squinted at her. “But you said there was!”
“For most people of talent in Dara, that is the kind of promise made by the Imperial examinations.”
“You clearly have a proposal that you did not write down in your essay,” Kuni said. “Perhaps it’s time to present it.”
Luan Zya had been staring at Zomi, his face tense. But Zomi refused to meet his eyes, instead gazing calmly at the emperor.
“I propose that we abolish the use of Ano logograms and Classical Ano in the Imperial examination altogether.” Her voice was steady and sure. “Testing should be done using only zyndari letters writing in the vernacular.”
Kuni froze, as did all the assembled ministers and generals and nobles. The Grand Audience Hall was so silent that the noise of the distant crowd was the only sound.
Murmurs of incredulity began to grow among the assembled ministers, and a few began to chuckle.
Théra hung on every word of the young scholar. She had never heard anyone so bold, so original. Zomi was like a lightning bolt that had lit up a dark sky; she had never believed that it was possible to turn the world upside down like this, to reimagine it as though nothing that had come before mattered.
“Surely you—” Kuni started to say.
“Preposterous!” Ruthi seemed to not realize or care that he was interrupting the emperor. “Without knowledge of the Classical Ano logograms, you might as well abolish literacy!”