Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5 Amy walked with the rest of her tour group toward the Gate of Heavenly Peace, wondering if Dan had located the mysterious Janus crest they had spotted in the movie. The tiny twists of fortune that spelled the difference between discovering a Clue and being left clueless could be so minor. It would almost be funny— if the fate of the world didn't hang in the balance. As for the thought of her eleven-year-old brother on the loose in the Forbidden City— well, it made her nervous, but she was learning to live with it. Over the past weeks, the two of them had survived near misses that made this seem like playtime at day care. Anyway, they would be reunited when they met Nellie in— she consulted her watch— half an hour. She hoped the au pair had found them a decent hotel.

艾米和旅行团的其他成员一起走向天门，不知道丹是否找到了他们在电影中看到的神秘的雅努斯徽章。 命运的微小转折决定了发现线索和毫无头绪之间的差异，可能是如此微小。 如果世界的命运不是悬在天平上，这几乎会很有趣。 一想到她11岁的哥哥在紫禁城里四处游荡——嗯，这让她很紧张，但她正在学着适应。 在过去的几个星期里，他们俩侥幸躲过了几次，这让他们看起来像是在日托所玩耍。 不管怎样，他们将在半小时后——她看了看表——见到内莉时团聚。 她希望保姆给他们找了一家像样的旅馆。

The thought made her frown. Lately, there had been hints that Nellie might be more than she seemed. Or maybe I'm just getting paranoid…. She had no trouble believing that paranoia was very Madrigal. Her parents had been paranoid— and with good reason. Everybody had been out to get them. And one had succeeded. Yet even with their small children, Mom and Dad had been strangely secretive. Thinking back, there had always been rules— keep out of the basement or a certain closet; don't open that crate or that duffel bag. Only now did it occur to her to wonder what they'd been hiding— black-market grenades, a severed head, uranium 235, the Ebola virus, the lost remains of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. They were "Nudelmans," after all. She cringed as if shrinking from something horrible. She had so few memories of her parents, and now even the tiny scraps that were left had to be put through the Madrigal detector— every word, every gesture scanned for signs of evil. How

想到这里，她皱起了眉头。 最近，有迹象表明，内莉可能比她看上去的要厉害。 或者我只是有点偏执.... 她毫不犹豫地相信，妄想症很像牧歌。 她的父母一直很偏执——而且有充分的理由。 每个人都出去找他们。 其中一个成功了。然而，即使是对他们的小孩，爸爸妈妈也奇怪地遮遮掩掩。 回想起来，一直都有一些规则——远离地下室或某个壁橱；别打开箱子和行李袋。 直到现在，她才想到他们藏了些什么——黑市手榴弹、一颗头颅、铀235、埃博拉病毒、丢失的沃尔夫冈·阿玛迪斯·莫扎特的遗骸。 毕竟，他们是“Nudelmans”。 她畏缩着，好像害怕什么可怕的东西似的。 她对父母的记忆是如此之少，现在，即使是留下的微小碎片也必须通过牧歌探测器——扫描每一个字，每一个手势，以寻找邪恶的迹象。 如何

pathetic was that? A member of her tour interrupted her tortured reverie. "Excuse me, dear, but isn't that your little brother over there? Why does that soldier have him in handcuffs?" Just inside the gate stood an angry-looking man in a military uniform, with Dan in custody. Amy rushed forward. "What are you doing to my brother?" The guard spoke up. "You are in charge of this boy? You yourself are a child." "We're meeting our au pair in Tiananmen Square," Amy explained. "Dan, what happened?" Dan winked at her and shrugged. "I couldn't find you, so I climbed up on some temple for a better view. And this guy got all bent out of shape about it." The guard reddened and unlocked the cuffs. "You will leave and never return." "How about that," Dan said mildly as they were escorted through the Gate of Heavenly Peace, across the footbridge, and over the moat. "Forbidden from the Forbidden City. Oh, well, if

可怜是吧？旅行团的一个成员打断了她痛苦的遐想。 “对不起，亲爱的，那边不是你弟弟吗？” 为什么那个士兵给他戴上手铐？”就在大门里面站着一个穿着军装的人，满脸怒气，丹被拘留了。 艾米冲上前去。“你在对我弟弟做什么？”卫兵大声说。 “你负责这个男孩？” 你自己也是个孩子。” “我们要在天安门广场见我们的互惠生，”艾米解释说。 “丹，发生什么事了？”丹朝她眨了眨眼，耸了耸肩。 “我找不到你，所以我爬上了一座寺庙，想看得更清楚一些。 这家伙为此大发雷霆。” 警卫涨红了脸，打开了手铐。 “你会离开，永远不会回来。” “怎么样，”丹温和地说，他们被护送着穿过天和门，穿过人行桥，越过护城河。 “禁入紫禁城。 哦，好吧，如果

you have to get forbidden, I suppose this is the place for it." "Very funny," Amy hissed as they crossed the boulevard into Tiananmen Square. She shuddered. Considering the vast size of the square, it was packed with people. Amy didn't like crowds— and here she was in the most crowded place in the most crowded country on earth. "Now we can't go back and look for—" "I've already got it," Dan said, removing the folded silk from inside his shirt. "Here, hold it by the edges. I had to blow my nose in it so Mr. Happy would think it was a handkerchief." He handed it to her. Amy nearly dropped it. "You put snot on the clue?" Dan was annoyed. "You want to see it or not?" Amy unwrapped the soiled, wrinkled silk, keeping it hidden from curious passersby in the bustling square. In the bright sun, they could see that the pale gold silk was overlaid with a pattern of butterflies:

你必须被禁止，我想这是适合你的地方。” “很有趣，”当他们穿过林荫大道进入天安门广场时，艾米低声说。 她战栗。考虑到广场的巨大规模，里面挤满了人。 艾米不喜欢拥挤的人群——而她现在却在世界上最拥挤的国家里最拥挤的地方。 “现在我们不能回去找——”“我已经找到了。”丹说着，从衬衫里拿掉了叠好的丝绸。 “拿着，抓住它的边缘。 我只好用它擤鼻涕，好让快乐先生以为那是手帕。” 他把它递给了她。艾米差点把它掉在地上。 “你在线索上涂了鼻涕？”丹很生气。 “你到底想不想看？”艾米打开那件又脏又皱的丝绸，把它藏在熙熙攘攘的广场上，不让好奇的路人看到。 在明亮的阳光下，他们可以看到淡金色的丝绸上覆盖着蝴蝶的图案。

"'Lucian plus Janus plus Tomas plus Ekat equals Cahill,'" she recited aloud. "What could that mean? That if you add up the branches you've got the whole family?" "If that's the big message," Dan concluded, "then it wasn't worth getting arrested. That's like saying hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs make a deck of cards." "What's this shape?" Amy traced a line that circled the Lucian crest. "There's one around each symbol, including the Cahill coat of arms." Dan frowned. "I wish we could translate some

“‘卢西恩+贾努斯+托马斯+埃卡特=卡希尔，’”她大声背诵道。 “这是什么意思？”如果你把所有的分支加起来，你就得到了整个家族？”“如果这是重要的信息，”丹总结道，“那就不值得被逮捕。 这就像说红心、黑桃、方块和梅花组成一副牌一样。” “这是什么形状？”艾米画了一条线，绕着卢西恩的徽章。 “每个标志周围都有一个，包括卡希尔的盾形纹章。” 丹皱起了眉头。“我希望我们能翻译一些

of this writing." "Uncle Alistair knows Chinese," Amy mused. "No way!" Dan was adamant. "I'm never trusting that guy again! We know he was with Mom and Dad the night Isabel set the fire!" Amy tried to choose her words carefully. "You know, Dan, I've been thinking about something that won't go away." Dan was alarmed. "I don't like that look on your face. It usually means I have to do research on Mozart or Howard Carter or some other boring dead guy." "Be serious," she chided gently. "There's something pretty big we have to face up to." She took a deep breath. "Mom and Dad were Madrigals. Did it ever occur to you that the fire had something to do with that?" Dan was wide-eyed. "You don't think they helped Isabel burn their own house down!" "Of course not. But who knows what kind of weird stuff a couple of Madrigals could have been into? We look at the other teams as the bad guys. But what if, back then, that's how the rest of the

关于这篇文章。”“阿利斯泰尔叔叔懂中文，”艾米若有所思地说。 “不可能!”丹很坚决。 “我再也不会相信那个家伙了！”我们知道伊莎贝尔放火烧的那天晚上他和爸爸妈妈在一起！”艾米尽量小心用词。 “你知道吗，丹，我一直在想一些挥之不去的事情。” 丹吓坏了。“我不喜欢你脸上的表情。 这通常意味着我必须研究莫扎特、霍华德·卡特或其他一些无聊的死人。” “严肃点，”她温和地责备道。 “我们必须面对一些非常重大的问题。” 她深吸了一口气。“妈妈和爸爸都是牧歌人。 你有没有想过这和那场火灾有关？”丹睁大了眼睛。 “你不会认为他们帮伊莎贝尔烧了自己的房子吧！”“当然不是。 但谁知道一对牧歌会有什么奇怪的事情发生呢？ 我们把其他球队视为坏人。 但如果，那时候，其他的