Red Phoenix

Masters have returned?
    All but three, my Lord, Gold said. They are in the Western Palace, ready to assist in moving the students down here when Bright Mansions is ready.
    ‘Are the workmen human?’ I whispered.
    Yes, Gold said. Can you understand them?
    ‘What? You mean they’re speaking Cantonese and I can understand them?’
    Gold grinned. ‘Good. It’s working. And it’s Fukien, not Cantonese.’
    I had a sudden evil idea, and called out to the workmen. ‘How long before you’ll finish painting the ceiling?’
    They stared at me with their mouths open. One of them snapped out of it. ‘About an hour, miss.’
    ‘Thanks.’ I turned to Gold. ‘What’s next?’
    ‘We’ll meet with Jade in the sixth-floor common room and talk about the budget.’
    ‘Oh, damn. Budgets.’
    ‘Miss?’ one of the workmen called.
    I turned back to them. They grinned at me. ‘How come you can understand our dialect?’
    ‘Magic.’ I grinned back. ‘Come on, let’s talk to Jade and have this over with. I hate dealing with accountants.’
    After Jade had gone, I tapped the papers into a stack. ‘I need a folder to put all this stuff in.’
    A black manila folder materialised in front of me. ‘Thanks, Gold.’
    I leaned on the table and looked at John. ‘You’ll need to rewrite the orientation material. The students will probably appreciate some information on the new location, and they’ll need help adjusting to life in Hong Kong.’
    Gold grinned broadly. John glared at him. ‘What?’ I said. Neither of them spoke.
    ‘You’d better tell me before I start shouting, guys.’
    Gold gestured towards John. John grimaced. ‘Gold has been harassing me to write orientation material for years, and I’ve never done it. No time. But nobody else can do it; it has to be me.’
    ‘That’s his Lordship’s decision, not mine,’ Gold said, his boyish face cheeky. ‘I think anybody could do it. But the Dark Lord disagrees.’
    ‘I’m the only one with the expertise to prepare the material,’ John said. ‘Nobody else has the knowledge to do it. Not even you, Gold.’
    ‘John, after we’ve been to Central tomorrow, we’ll sit down together, and you can tell me what you want to say, and I’ll write it,’ I said. ‘We can do it together.’
    John hesitated, then put his hands out. ‘Oh, all right. You’re the only one with the brains to do it anyway.’
    Gold’s face lit up with a wide grin of triumph, making him look even younger, barely out of his teens.
    Three days later we sat together in the dining room at the Peak for a follow-up.
    ‘Do we have a nomination for a chair for the meeting?’ Gold said.
    ‘No, we don’t,’ I said. ‘And if you pull that “voted and seconded” and “minutes of the last meeting” crap ever again, I’ll take your head completely off. I don’t have time—I have an assignment due next week, and Simone’s only going to sleep for about half an hour.’
    John made a soft sound of amusement. I ignored him.
    ‘Very well, my Lady,’ Gold said, unfazed. ‘First matter: housing the Disciples in Happy Valley. About a quarter of the flats are vacant now, but we need to make arrangements for who goes where.’
    John explained. ‘The barracks on the Mountain housed a large number of juniors together with a senior supervising: standard military style. As they moved up through the ranks they received more private accommodation. We can’t do that here; the walls have to stay put, they’re supporting walls.’
    I flipped through the papers in my black folder. ‘I don’t have a copy of the floor plan, Gold. Do you have a spare?’
    Gold waved one hand and a floor plan appeared in front of me. ‘Thanks. Four three-bedroom, four two-bedroom units to a floor. That’s nineteen to a floor with one supervisor. Too many; we need a common area and some study rooms.’ I thought for a moment.
    ‘You think so?’ John said.
    ‘What we’ll do is give the supervisor one of the three-bedroom units, make the other two bedrooms study areas, and the living room a common room for all of them.’ I scribbled on the paper in front of me. ‘How many students to a floor?’
    ‘Seventeen students, one supervisor to a floor,’ Gold said. ‘Twelve floors will handle two hundred and four. Enough.’
    ‘What’s the cube root of six thousand, seven hundred and fifty-three?’ I said.
    ‘To how many decimal places?’ ‘Ten.’
    ‘Eighteen point nine zero one six one five one five