The Restoration Rival novel · Chapter 12 of 21

Chapter 12: The Judge's Room

I won the round.

The host read the scores off a card.

Su Ken, eighty-nine. Second place was eighty-one.

The auditorium clapped. It was a real clap, not a polite one.

Wen stood up in the fourth row and clapped with both hands over her head.

Lu Ming clapped too, still on the stage, still holding the microphone.

Then he handed it back to the host and walked off down the side steps.

I packed my things.

The bowl went back in the box and the clamps in the case and the lamp in its bag.

The stage emptied. The other students came up and shook my hand and asked about the adhesive.

At eight thirty the auditorium was down to the cleaners.

I carried everything out through the side door to the corridor behind the stage.

Lu Ming was standing in it.

He was alone. He had his overcoat over his arm.

"Su Ken."

I stopped.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"Eighty-nine. That's the highest first-round score in four years." He put his coat on. "I looked it up while they were scoring you."

I shifted the box to my other arm.

"Is there something you want?"

"There is."

He walked down the corridor a few steps and stopped at the door at the end of it.

It had a brass plate. JUDGES.

He opened it and went in.

I stood in the corridor.

"Come in," he said from inside. "I'd rather not do this in a hallway."

I went in.

It was a small room. A table. Four chairs. A window with the blinds down.

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