Six Agarwood Records, Part Two · Chapter Eight: The Collector of Dihua Street

Six Agarwood Records, Part Two · Chapter Eight: The Collector of Dihua Street

Taipei's rain is finer than the capital's, falling almost silently on the arcade tiles of Dihua Street.

Liu Zhiqiang held up his phone screen in front of Wang Wanshu. The receipt record on the shipping platform bore a timestamp of 3:17 a.m.—"received on behalf." Two words, no name, no phone number, and a single arcade address: Dihua, Section One, some number or other.

— 3:17. Wang Wanshu read it once. — Couriers don't hand over parcels at 3:17 in the morning. — Then it wasn't a courier who received it. Liu Zhiqiang put the phone back in his pocket. — Someone was waiting there. He booked the first flight the next day. When he landed at Songshan Airport the rain still hadn't stopped; with that black umbrella with the broken rib in his hand (Wen Yi had pressed it into his hands before leaving), he counted the door numbers one by one along the arcades of Dihua Street. Dihua Street is an old street; goods from north and south, Chinese herbal medicines, and tea shops crowded beneath baroque façades, the air mixed with the smells of dong quai, star anise, and old wood.

The shop he was looking for had no signboard. The wooden door stood ajar; inside was an old perfume shop, and on the table a row of tin boxes—exactly the same style as the boxes at the Liuxiangtang shop in Kyoto.

Behind the table sat an old man, weighing a small pinch of perfume powder on a brass scale. When he saw Liu Zhiqiang he did not look up: — I've waited a long time. — Do you have white rangatay? — I do. The old man emptied the perfume powder into a paper bag: — But sit down first. Watch the rain. Liu Zhiqiang did not sit. The old man did not press him, and went on talking of his own accord: — In the Daoguang era, there was a perfume-trading house in Mengjia called "Shihwaji," specializing in perfumes coming from Tangshan (the mainland across the strait). Its owner was of the Chen family; he crossed the sea from Quanzhou, and with him was one of the six pieces of agarwood—the white one. He did not sell it, nor did he offer it as a sacrifice; instead he locked it at the bottom of his chest. Some said he was a fool, for a single piece of agarwood could buy half the street. — Did he ever say why? — He did. The old man finally raised his eyes. — He said: if the perfume is sold, only its price remains; if it is offered, only the vow remains. But if it stays at the bottom of the chest, it remains perfume. Liu Zhiqiang's fingers tightened at the broken rib of the umbrella.

— Then why receive it on behalf? he asked. — At 3:17 in the morning, standing at the door waiting for a piece of agarwood you do not own. The old man smiled. — Because it has walked this way before. Nine hundred years ago it scattered from Bianliang, traveled the sea route and the land route, until it reached this street. Now it is on its way a second time. As for the three words "scatter it all," they do not mean the end is dispersion—but that the perfume must be scattered so that no one remembers it can be gathered. Yet every time it walks, another person remembers it. The old man took out from under the table a tin box the size of his two palms and pushed it toward him. The lid was raised, and inside lay a piece of white wood the color of firm lard, its oil lines fine as brushstrokes.

— The blood ledger your father left, said the old man, has words beneath its last page, doesn't it? Liu Zhiqiang's breath stopped for half a breath.

— Three words: "scatter it all." And beneath them another line, erased. The old man tapped the table with a knuckle. — The one who erased that line was not your father. It was your grandfather. He feared your father would see it, so he erased it. But paper has memory—erased ink presses its trace until it shows. Liu Zhiqiang remembered that rainy night, and that sentence at the end of Part Six: "Only three words—'scatter it all.'" He had always thought that was the end.

— And what did the erased line say? he asked.

The old man shook his head. — I don't know. The paper is in your hands, and I do not read letters on people's behalf. I only keep perfume on their behalf. The rain suddenly intensified, streaming in a chain from the edge of the arcade tiles. Liu Zhiqiang closed the tin box and pressed it to his chest. When he rose, he took the shipping receipt from his pocket and laid it flat on the table.

— It still has to walk. he said.

— To where? — To where no one remembers it. The old man did not ask him to stay. Liu Zhiqiang stepped out from under the arcade, the rain drumming on the umbrella's surface, its broken black rib trembling slightly in the wind. He looked at what was between his arms—the box was cold, but the side pressed against his chest had slowly warmed a little.

Meanwhile, in the capital.

Wang Wanshu woke with a start in the early hours of the morning. The brocade box in her lap gave off a faint warmth in the dark—purple rangatay, without fire, warm of itself. She opened it a crack, and its powdery pink softness poured out, heavier than usual, as if something were stirring in its depths.

She called Liu Zhiqiang's number—unreachable. Then Wen Yi's number—also unreachable; he was still in the air, bound for Nara.

She stared at the rain outside the window, and suddenly it came clear to her: the six pieces of agarwood had never been six. They were six petals broken from a single piece of agarwood, separated by nine hundred years, and each of them remembers its name.

And at that moment, a seventh something was looking for them.

— Part Two, Chapter Eight · End

> This is a serialized work of fiction from "Six Agarwood Records"; the characters and plot are fictional. The knowledge of agarwood and aromatics contained herein is drawn from public sources and does not constitute investment or medical advice.