When she reached the bedroom door, she paused and turned her head, the warm light of the floor lamp tracing her profile in alternating light and shadow.
"Lord Yongye."
"When Toyotomi Hideyoshi was alive, what he feared most was people saying he came from monkeys, saying he wasn't worthy of me, saying he couldn't hold on to anything he'd gained."
She paused, rapid calculations and probing assessments churning in her light brown eyes.
"He is in Takamagahara now, too."
"If you're interested, you could take me along to see him and proclaim your might and power to him!"
With that, she turned, pushed open the door, and entered the bedroom, ready to spread out a welcome.
The smile at Yongye's lips deepened from satisfaction into a more profound delight.
"Just what you'd expect from an ancestor of the Fusangese. She knows how to play!"
He murmured those words and bravely went to his rendezvous alone, armed with a single spear, as though possessed by a hundred thousand Zhao Yuns of Changshan...
Outside the window, the night over Lower Manhattan sank from dark blue into inky black, neon and the cold lights of office buildings weaving a sea of shattered gold across the glass curtain walls.
The bedroom door closed from within.
As for how many new positions Asano Nene learned that night, and how many old rules she dismantled, only she knew.
Yet the next morning, she stood before the bathroom mirror for a long time in silence, looking at her own flushed face, her disheveled hair, and the lingering trace of languor at the corners of her mouth.
Then she raised her right hand and traced a single word on the mirror with her fingertip.
"Change."
She withdrew her hand and gave her reflection a slight nod, as though