"Did you talk to the emperor yet?"
Coleridge, a glass of wine in hand, interrupts my conversation with Sun Wukong.
I grimace. "Didn't get a chance today. He was in his suite all day with his servants preparing him for tonight. And we also had to get ready."
Coleridge wears a resigned expression. "I suppose that was too much to hope for."
"I promised it when I got carried away," I confess. "I'll talk to him tomorrow morning. Now, if you'll excuse me, we have to, ah, go over our acceptance speeches."
I pull Wukong aside, and he flashes me a brilliant, blinding white smile. "The man may be a brilliant poet, but he has the devil's own timing," he growls, sucking down half a glass of plum wine. "So, you want to know about Aunt Daji and Wu of Zhou, do you?"
"That was what I asked, are you going to make me beg?"
Wukong bares his teeth. "It's not exactly cocktail-hour conversation, but before we have to find our seats for dinner, here's the short version."
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