The Emperor's Code



 The Emperor's Code  is the eighth book in The 39 Clues series. It was released on April 6, 2010. The book is written by Gordon Korman.

Quote
"For the first time, Dan's determination to escape gave way to fear. I'm being kidnapped!'"

Dan Cahill ~ Pg. 33

Overview
Amy and Dan go to China to find the next clue and "coincedentally" they are the only ones on the airplane who are watching a movie about the forbidden city instead of The Terminator. Unfortunately, they are not the first ones there, and meet Alistair Oh at the Beijing airport. He tells them that the Kabras and Holts are already in China after they refuses his offer at alliance.

After coming from the airport they go to the Forbidden City in Beijing and discover that Emperor Puyi was a Janus. Dan finds a piece of silk fabric in an attic in the forbidden city, which holds a poem as well as the Cahill crest and the branch crests in a mathematical way:

Lucian + Janus + Tomas + Ekaterina = Cahill

Amy then starts doubting their parents because they are Madrigals and she tells Dan that maybe they should be glad their parents are dead, which upsets Dan who runs away, getting kidnapped by Ian and Natalie Kabra. The Kabras put Dan in Jonah Wizard's lollipop factory after searching him and finding nothing. Jonah finds Dan and takes him around China. Nellie and Amy contact Alistair for help to find Dan and to translate the Chinese message the Cahill siblings found below the equation:

''That which you seek, you hold in your hand, Fixed forever in birth, Where the Earth meets the sky. ''

Amy and Nellie go to Jonah's concert, hoping for information on Dan's whereabouts. Jonah lies to them, saying he hasn't seen Dan. The next day, they read in the papers that Dan is indeed with Jonah.

As Dan and Jonah go to the Shaolin Temple, Dan learns Wushu and accidentally finds the remains of a burnt lab. Dan also finds a locket which holds a picture of a woman, who looks exactly like his mother but with clothes from a different time, which he keeps. Jonah's dad receives a message on his phone which the monk interprets correctly as the location of a terracotta warrior. Jonah calls Dan to go to the terracotta warriors museum. There they find a trap set by the Kabras. Jonah was going to leave but he came back for Dan at the last second, and Dan uses what he learned from Wushu to defeat the man. After return to the hotel room they meet Jonah's mother, Cora Wizard, claims Dan to be a Janus. Dan gets mad at the Wizard family after realizing that Cora was involved the night their parents die and leaves, screaming that he is a Madrigal.

Through television, Dan sees the Holts climbing Mount Everest. He thinks that the next destination might be there. Amy knows the next destination when she changed Puyi's room in the Great Wall following the feng shui requirements to achieve positive qi. She sees an image of Mount Everest projected on a wall.

The Cahill siblings meet in front of the A-Star, a helicopter. After speaking with someone on Nellie's phone (she claims it's her uncle), the reluctant pilot flies both of them up Mount Everest and where they find a Janus vial left by British Cahill mountaineer, George Mallory. The Holts and Ian Kabra catches up and they fight over the serum. Ian accidentally falls and Amy chose to save his life, cause the Janus serum to break.

When Dan thought that they've lost the clue, Amy shows him the poem on the silk and tells him the next clue is raw silkworm secretion. They also realize that the formula on the silk means that all the serum of the branches add up to one master serum. Then Dan shows Amy the locket he found at the Shaolin temple and they see a name of a woman pirate named Anne Bonny. The next destination is the Caribbean.

Chapter 1
Dan, Amy, Saladin, and Nellie get on the plane to China. As the movie Terminator Salvation runs on the plane, Dan and Amy's screens show the movie The Last Emperor.

Chapter 2
Amy spots the Janus Crest on the side of a building in the Forbidden City in the movie. As they land in China, they grab Saladin and Saladin attacks Alistair Oh. Alistair tells them that the Kabras were already in China and there is a rumor that the Holts have a major breakthrough about the clue hunt. After Saladin attacks Alistair again, Alistair tells them he is at the Imperial Hotel. Dan and Amy make their way to the Gate of Heavenly Peace.

Chapter 3
Amy and Dan get on a tour of the Palace Museum, and Dan uses his photographic memory to find the area where the Janus Crest is. Amy distracts the group by talking about soup bowls while Dan finds the crest.

Dan goes in an secret attic and finds a silk cloth with a formula:

Lucian + Janus + Tomas + Ekaterina = Cahill

Dan goes back to the group but gets caught before he could get there. Before the guard could see the cloth, Dan sneezed into it to make it seem like a handkerchief.

Chapter 5
Amy bails Dan out, and Dan gives Amy the cloth. Dan and Amy talk about their parents. Dan says there was a bug and Amy thought it was a electric bug. Then Amy says that maybe that they should be glad their parents are dead. Dan runs off saying, "I HATE YOU!," and gets kidnapped by big tough guys.

Chapter 6
Dan discovers that he was actually kidnapped by the Kabras. The Kabras try to get information about the clue but get nothing but the part about the Holts. Then the Kabras knock out Dan. Amy and Nellie search for Dan but do not find him.

Chapter 7
Dan wakes up on a conveyor belt with plastic and jams the plastic in to the belt to slow it down. Eventually it works. Dan gets off the conveyor belt and sees Jonah Wizard. Jonah Wizard takes Dan with him.

Chapter 8
Nellie talks to a mysterious person on the phone, and then she calls Alistair for help. Alistair tells Amy that the Qing dynasty were Cahills and translates the message under the message on the cloth.

''That which you seek, you hold in your hand, Fixed forever in birth, Where the Earth meets the sky.''

Alistair looks through newspapers and finds that Jonah is performing at the Bird's Nest and Amy and Nellie go thinking that Dan would be there.

Chapter 9
As the concert ends, Dan gets attacked by Jonah fans and gets pinned to the ground. Amy and Nellie run past him and find Jonah. Jonah says that he has not seen Dan at all. After Dan was patched up, Jonah tells Dan that he could not find Amy or Nellie and that they should follow the clue hunt so they could find Amy and Nellie. Dan and Jonah go to the Shaolin Temple

Chapter 10
Alistair Oh draws a symbol representing charm and tells Amy and Nellie that he found out Dan is with Jonah. Amy and Nellie go to the Great Wall thinking that Jonah will go there. Dan and Jonah go on a tour of the Shaolin Temple.

Chapter 11
Jonah and Dan are led to a secret room of the Shaolin Temple and Dan is offered a wushu lesson. Amy and Nellie see the Great Wall and discuss the riddle and Puyi, the Chinese Emperor while Nellie discusses on the phone with someone saying that finding Dan is important but they still should be on the clue hunt.

Chapter 12
After Dan's lesson, he goes on the grounds and sees the Buddha on a mountain which Grace had told them about. He decides to go up to the Buddha.

Chapter 13
Jonah's father gets a message with the numbers 1, 38, 53 and with help from the monks, discover that is related to the Terracotta Army.

Chapter 14
Dan goes up to the Buddha and finds a hole in the side. Dan goes and finds burnt lab equipment and a picture of a woman. Dan hides the lab equipment but keeps the picture of the woman. Jonah then tells him that they are going to the Terracotta Army.

Chapter 15
Amy and Nellie look for Dan but do not find him. After Saladin plunges off the Great Wall, they go and find food and a place to stay.

Chapter 16
Dan and Jonah sneak in. Jonah was keeping an eye on the guards while Dan checks the warrior of row 38, space of 53 of the first pit.

Chapter 17
Jonah and Dan find out that the warrior is a trap and tries to kill Dan. Jonah runs for it but comes back for Dan. Dan uses the warrior's momentum and defeats him. The alarm sounds and the warrior runs for it. Jonah and Dan run and get caught.

Chapter 18
Dan and Jonah are bailed out of jail and go back to the hotel, Jonah saying that he quits. There, they find Jonah's mom and tells Dan that he is part of the Janus. Dan notices the bug from the fire on Jonah's mother's neck and goes to the elevator, screaming that he is a Madrigal.

Chapter 19
Amy and Nellie find no hints to the clue hunt. Dan calls Nellie's cell phone and leaves a message saying he is okay. Dan goes in an arcade and sees something on the TV. Amy and Nellie look more at the Great Wall and finds the symbol Alistair was drawing on a door. They go in the tower and find bunch of random objects. Amy uses feng shui in the room since the symbol also meant grace and Grace taught her about feng shui. Then a picture of Mount Everest appears on the wall.

Chapter 20
Dan sees the Holts climbing Mount Everest. Dan goes online and find a train to sneak on to get to Mount Everest. Amy and Nellie get on a plane to Mount Everest and hears Dan's message.

Chapter 21
The Holts see Ian Kabra being lifted to the top of Mount Everest. Amy thinks about riding the A-Star to get to the top.

Chapter 22
Dan goes to the place where the A-Star is and finds Amy and Nellie there. The man in charge of the place comes and tries to get them out of there until Nellie calls someone on her phone which convinces the man to carry Amy and Dan and Nellie tells them it was her uncle.

Chapter 23
Eisenhower Holt climbs to Mount Everest by himself and starts to beat Ian. Amy and Dan land on Mount Everest and find a bottle with the symbol of Puyi and discover that the equation means that the formula of each branch forms to make a serum to make them have all of their abilities. Just as they were taking off, a hand grabs the A-Star.

Chapter 24
Amy and Dan fell out of the helicopter. Part of the mountain crumbles and Ian hangs on for his life.

Chapter 25
Amy saves Ian but the bottle falls and breaks. As Amy and Dan get in the helicopter, they realize from the riddle that the clue is silk. The thing that they are holding is the silk cloth, the silk in its liquid form is raw silk worm secretion, and where the earth meets the sky is Mount Everest. They also realize that the bottle had raw silkworm secretion.

Chapter 26
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Jonah is forced by his mom not to quit the competition and Jonah's mom supplies the terracotta soldiers that Jonah and Dan broke. Amy and Dan talk about their experiences. Dan shows the picture to Amy and on the frame was Property of Anne Bonny which was a pirate so their next destination was the Caribbean.

Characters

 * Dan Cahill


 * Amy Cahill


 * Nellie Gomez


 * Saladin


 * Alistair Oh


 * Natalie Kabra


 * Ian Kabra


 * Hamilton Holt


 * Eisenhower Holt


 * Reagan Holt


 * The Wizard Family
 * Mr. Lee (the man in the airplane allergic to Saladin)


 * Li Wu Chen (The Buddhist leader)


 * Mr. Chen (the man the Kabras hired to beat Dan up)

I love The 39 clues books

Cover Art Messages
The cover art on the Emperor's Code contains 4 secret codes. If you go to the 39 Clues Website, you can zoom in on the cover and look for them here. If you find at least 3, you can read an excerpt from the book.
 * 1) BECAUSE IT'S THERE - On the crown
 * 2) GM - Base of the right side of the helmet, near the ear, it stands for George Mallory who said the quote right above this sentence.
 * 3) Henry - Somewhere in the left part of the background, beneath the left ear. Henry is the name that Emperor Puyi changed his name to after he moved out of the Forbidden Palace.
 * 4) Tenzing knew too - On the copyright page, there are some ancient symbols and a message under it: get no kwiz. The symbol above each letter represents the code, and the code is on the forehead of the mask on the inside front cover.

Page Messages
Throughout the book, certain words, or even parts of words are circled.


 * Madrigals(Pg. 2)
 * are (Pg. 3)
 * behind (Pg. 40)
 * everything (Pg. 43)
 * . (Pg. 43)
 * They (Pg. 45)
 * lay (Pg. 48)
 * out (Pg. 50)
 * the (Pg. 66)
 * path (Pg. 71)
 * the (Pg. 107)
 * others (Pg. 123)
 * will (Pg. 148)
 * walk (Pg. 152)
 * . (Pg. 152)
 * The (Pg. 153)
 * end (Pg. 154)
 * is (Pg. 159)
 * coming (Pg. 178)
 * . (Pg. 178)

If you put the words together, they spell:


 * Madrigals are behind everything. They lay out the path the others will walk. The end is coming.

Letter
William, "All falls into place. Cahills across the globe embrace their destiny and begin the hunt for the 39 Clues. More join the hunt with each hour, but for the plan to work, still more are needed. Continue your work, William. Convince the young Cahills that they just might conquer the world." Imagine if they knew the truth.

-F

Synopsis
 Split in two

'' One belief has sustained fourteen-year-old Amy Cahill and her younger brother, Dan, on their hunt for the 39 Clues: They are the good guys. But then a shocking discovery about their parents discovery shatters everything Amy and Dan think they know, dividing the two sibling for the first time ever. When Dan disappears in a country more than a billion people, Amy has to make a terrible choice- find the next Clue...or find her younger brother. ''

Cards

 * Card 161: Lollipop Jonah
 * Card 162: Everest Rescue
 * Card 163: Nellie's Lie
 * Card 164: Xian Surveillance
 * Card 165: The Nudelmans
 * Card 166: George Mallory

Audio Extra
This is only available by listening on the audio book. In it, you listen to Cora Wizard's acceptance speech for her Noble Prize in Literature. In her speech, she adds several things about the clue hunt including Isabel. She ends it with saying she has to leave for London, the supposed location of the next Clue. The fact is that Cora was preparing Jonah for what was to come in Into the Gauntlet.