Cleaning Up After The Ancients - Chapter 111

Chapter 111 - Above Average

“You were in the Olympics?” Eventus repeated in surprise.

“Ninteen eighty four, I won the silver medal in archery.” Xiaoyi confirmed, smiling fondly at the memory. “I was able to ply that into a scholarship to Nankai university. Which is where I spent the next rather uneventful four years earning my degree in psychology.”

There was very likely a lot more to that particular story than she was letting on given the vague memories Eventus had of just how little value China had placed on its Olympic athletes. But if she didn't want to talk about it, he wasn't going to pry.

“And from there to diplomatic endeavours?"

“No.” Xiaoyi corrected with a slight smile. “From there to five years of government funded studies with a handful of patients on the side.”

She sighed and shook her head. “And things likely would have continued on that track if it wasn't for the discovery of Lady Tushanshi's tomb within Fenghuangshan mountain.”

The emphasis she put on the name suggested the Tushanshi had been someone of particular note, sadly however Eventus's memory of Eastern based historical figures was pretty much non-existent

“I'm sorry to say I have no idea who that is.”

“She was the wife of Lord Yu-huang Shang Ti.” Xiaoyi offered, the name enough to make Eventus visibly wince.

“Oh no.” He muttered, getting the distinct sense of where the Chinese woman was going with this.

“During the excavation a jade jar was discovered.” Xiaoyi continued without missing a beat. “And when it was opened, a dragon spirit escaped to possess a nearby research assistant.”

“Oh no.” Eventus repeated with a visible wince.

Xiaoyi nodded. “Luckily there were enough others around that saw it happen that she didn't get a chance to escape the excavation site. She was captured, taken into custody by my government, and eventually I was brought in to try and psychoanalyze the alien being that was possessing the research assistant.”

Eventus frowned in concern. “Are you sure you should be telling me this? It sounds like the sort of thing that most Earth governments would consider a state secret.”

“I appreciate the consideration.” Xiaoyi said, offering him a small smile. “But one of the requirements for being in the IOA is that your country disclose any prior encounters with extraterrestrial life. So I'm not informing you of anything that's not already generally known.”

Given the way things like that tended to work, Eventus would give it equal odds that they'd discovered more than just the Goa'uld itself in that tomb. However that wasn't his problem, so he just nodded along and asked the only question he actually had about the story.

“What happened to Tushanshi?”

“Dead.” Xiaoyi admitted. “An attempt was eventually made to remove her from the research assistant, and I'm sorry to say neither host nor symbiont survived.”

Goa’uld tended to be spiteful like that, so Eventus wouldn’t be entirely surprised if that was true. Though of course, it was equally possible they had just dumped Tushanshi into a hole somewhere. Once again however that wasn’t his problem.

“As one of the new experts on these dragons psychology.” Xiaoyi went on. “I was given a rotating position as an assistant to various diplomats in hopes that I might be able to help identify any other such infiltrators amongst various country’s leadership.”

“Which eventually evolved to your current position.” Eventus followed along in understanding.

“More or less.” Xiaoyi nodded.

Given the way things tended to operate with authoritarian governments, Eventus would bet there had been a good amount of work on her part to go from what had likely amounted to nothing more than a portable psychological measuring device, to an actual diplomatic position. Which just confirmed what he’d said earlier about her path in life requiring cunning, drive, and intelligence.

“That’s certainly not what my people would consider a boring life.” He told her honestly. “Oh, sure we had our Jack O’Neill’s, Daniel Jackson’s and Samatha Carter’s. But the majority were like Robertus, who spent my entire life studying how hairstyle affects culture growth.

“Hairstyle?” Xiaoyi repeated in disbelief.

Eventus shrugged, never really getting what useful data could be gathered from that particular study either. “That was one of the less interesting studies I’ll admit. Especially since Robertus didn’t even try to do anything outside the box with it like engineering the populace to have non-standard hair colors or types. But my point with all this is that even amongst my people you’d be above average in the category of people who lived interesting lives." 

“Above average.” Xiaoyi mused ruefully. “I guess I could do a lot worse given who’s making the comparison."

One of the pockets on her blazer started ringing, and she offered him a brief look of apology before pulling a flip-phone out from it.

“Hello?”

“Are you clear?” A male voice asked.

Xiaoyi glanced over to him and rolled her eyes slightly when Eventus gave a jaunty wave to remind her that he could easily overhear both sides of her conversation. “Not at the moment, no.”

“Then make yourself so.” The voice ordered.

“I was going to check out the event schedule anyways.” Eventus offered as he got up. “Though you’ll probably still want to go outside at least since the phone’s speaker will probably carry enough for me to overhear it otherwise.”

Sure he could have just tuned it out like he was the gossiping quartet of housekeepers in one of the nearby buildings, but he was invested enough in the political games going on at this point that he’d rather avoid the temptation.

With that he headed back into his bedroom and grabbed the bamboo scroll that was still laying on the vanity. Removing the tie securing it, he unrolled the strips of wood while dutifully ignoring the half of the conversation he could still make out.

“Let’s see.” He murmured as he began to read, only to catch himself halfway across the first line and restart the process when the slightly embarrassing realization hit that the schedules writer had gone all in on its historical accuracy and used vertical writing instead of horizontal.

They’d left Stargate Command a little after six in the afternoon, and the local time upon their arrival had been a little after eight in the morning. And even with the hour or so he had spent talking with Xiaoyi, that still meant he had a good tenish hours to plan for.

The behind the scenes studio tours were immediately discarded, not for a lack of interest on his part, but because they would likely get him thinking about the various things he could do to improve studio safety standards. And that was far too close to what had been his normal day job for him to want to open his vacation with.

There was a teahouse musical performance around noon that sounded like a promising start given he was already getting a little hungry. After which he would see what Xiaoyi suggested, since her inclusion as a general guide was one of the nicer perks of the trip.

As if sensing his thoughts, the light sound of the Chinese woman’s footsteps on the villa’s wooden floor caused him to glance over just in time to see her walk into the bedroom.

“Everything all right?”

“My superiors wanted to know what you did to their listening devices.” Xiaoyi confessed with a bemused shake of her head before shooting him an odd look. “Something about nature recordings?”

“Yeah.” Eventus admitted, chuckling lightly as he imagined the faces they had likely made upon seeing those. “It was either funny proailurus recordings or using a destructive EM pulse to fry them. And there was no need to be overly confrontational about what was probably just a few guys in your government being overly paranoid.”

“They also rather hoped I might convince you to stop or reverse whatever it is you’re doing now that you know the message has been received.” Xiaoyi added in.

Eventus considered that for a moment deciding it couldn’t hurt to offer a compromise since he didn’t particularly care outside of making the point in the first place. “Tell you what, if when we return from dinner tonight the devices in our bedrooms are removed I’ll consider that enough of a lesson learned to let the ones in the rest of the Villa operate without issue.”

Xiaoyi raised an intrigued eyebrow at him. “Not just your bedroom?” 

“I thought you’d appreciate it given our earlier conversation.” Eventus said, grinning at the slight flush of Xiaoyi’s cheeks that followed the reminder.

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Author’s Notes: Xiaoyi’s backstory in this chapter is completely original, though some inspiration was taken from what happened in canon with Seth, Hathor, and Osiris. The general thinking being that there had probably been other Goa'uld encountered over the years that Stargate command just party too.