Agarwood Chronicles · Side Story One · The Fir-Wood Mount

Agarwood Chronicles · Side Story One · The Fir-Wood Mount

[Series structure note] The main narrative of Agarwood Chronicles comprises Part One, Volumes One through Six, and Part Two, Volumes Eight and Nine; Side Stories One through Five conclude the modern Bianliang storyline, while Side Story Six, 'Frost's Descent,' and Side Story Seven, 'Start of Winter,' open the new Quanzhou arc. Each chapter may be read independently; read in sequence for the full picture.

I. Biaobei Alley

The first rain of autumn fell on Biaobei Alley. Liu Zhijiang had taken down half the door panels of the chen-tan shop, and the damp rushed in, the smell of aged timber pressing down the smoke of coal stoves in the street. Wang Guanshu was in the back room settling accounts; the abacus beads clicked sparsely.

The visitor was a mounting craftsman surnamed Ji, around sixty, in a blue cloth jacket washed to a pale white, carrying an oil-paper parcel in his arms, wrapped square and neat. He stood outside the threshold a while, first scraping the soles of his shoes clean on the stone step, before coming in.

'Shopkeeper Liu. This painting has been in my hands three years; the owner never came to collect it, and the address left was this alley, but the house number doesn't match.' Master Ji set the parcel on the counter. 'I asked along half the street; they said this shop is surnamed Liu and hasn't moved in generations.'

Liu Zhijiang untied the parcel. It was an old painting, on silk, the painted core darkened, the edges worm-eaten. It depicted a fir tree, the brushwork coarse and loose, unlike the hand of a master. Of the inscription only two characters remained, blurred by water beyond recognition.

'What was the owner's surname?'

'No full name left; only that the surname was Wen.'

The abacus in the back room stopped. Wang Guanshu came out, stood half a step behind Liu Zhijiang's shoulder, looked down at the painting, and said nothing.

Master Ji said, 'There's a lining behind the painted core; I lifted a corner and saw old paper beneath, but dared not touch it further. Old silk like this falls apart at a lift. If you know the owner, best to tell them in person.'

II. The Lining

After Master Ji left, the shop was quiet for a long while.

Wang Guanshu laid the painting flat on the worktable and fetched a bamboo spatula, tweezers, and a basin of warm water. Her hands were steady; the craft of unmounting she had learned from her father. Liu Zhijiang held the lamp beside her, the wick trimmed low, the light falling only on a square inch of the painted core.

'The lining paper is Song paper,' she said. 'Fine chain lines—it's bamboo paper. Not of this painting's period.'

'The painting is Ming.'

'The painting is Ming; the lining paper is Song. Someone laid Song paper beneath a Ming painting and mounted it back.'

She entered from the corner with the bamboo spatula, parting it inch by inch. The old paste was brittle and fell away like crushed snow. At the third layer, there was indeed paper in the lining, folded in four, the color yellowed to brown, the edges bitten by paste.

Unfolded, it was a page of a register. Vertical columns, ink writing, the ruled lines hand-drawn and uneven. The heading read in three characters: Six-Aroma Register.

Liu Zhijiang's fingers stopped at the paper's edge and did not touch it.

The register listed six aromas: orchid, green, purple, black, yellow, and raksha. Beneath each aroma were small characters recording origin, flame color, and method of discernment. The writing was lean and clear, the downward strokes drawn long—the manner of Huang Tingjian's hand.

After the six aromas there was one more line. That line had been painted over with heavy ink, laid on thick, darker than the main text, as if by a later hand. Viewed sidelong under the lamp, the ridge of strokes showed through the ink layer—faintly, the upper half of a '同' character.

'The seventh aroma,' Wang Guanshu said.

'Whoever inked it over didn't want it seen.'

'Inked so thick—afraid others would see, and afraid he himself would forget.' She turned the paper over; in the blank space on the back was a line of small characters, written extremely faintly, as if jotted with a worn brush dipped in thin ink:

If you see the seventh aroma, go ask the one who painted it.

III. Northern Song · The Night of Copying the Register

Yuanyou era, Bianliang.

That night two lamps were lit in the back hall of the Liu family chen-tan shop. Huang Tingjian sat at the desk copying the register; the Liu family ancestor ground ink opposite him. The draft was jointly compiled by the two families; the six aromas were already recorded, but the page of the seventh aroma the Liu ancestor had drawn away and pressed beneath the inkstone at the desk's corner.

'Why not record it?' Huang Tingjian asked.

'A register must not be complete,' the Liu ancestor said. 'The six aromas are a register of divided guardianship. Complete, it becomes a map for gathering aromas. If later generations seek by the full register, sooner or later they will all seek to one place.'

Huang Tingjian's brush hung over the paper, hung a long while. The ink at the tip gathered into a drop, about to fall but not falling. At last he set the brush down and did not write.

'Raksha is the mother aroma; I judge that clearly,' he said. 'The six aromas divided in guardianship, I too write clearly. Only this seventh aroma... if you do not record it, later generations will not know it exists.'

'Not knowing is better than knowing.'

'Not knowing, and someone will invent a name for it.' Huang Tingjian looked at the page beneath the inkstone. 'An invented name is harder to guard against than the true one.'

The Liu ancestor did not answer. He moved the inkstone aside, drew out that page, and burned it by the lamp. As the flame rose, Huang Tingjian reached out and snatched a corner of the paper from the fire's edge; on it remained only half a character.

He folded that half-corner of paper and tucked it into his sleeve.

'I will not write it,' he said. 'But I will leave a clue. Should anyone in future see the seventh aroma, there must be somewhere to ask.'

IV. Half a Character

Modern day. The lamp still burned.

Liu Zhijiang held the fragment of the register to the light. The heavy ink over the seventh aroma's line showed layers under the light: beneath was the original ink, and over it another layer had been applied; the one who applied it pressed hard with the brush, and at the stroke's end was a pause mark, as if he had finished and paused.

'This ink is not Song ink,' Wang Guanshu said. 'It's grayish—later. Inked over by a Ming or Qing hand.'

'Whoever inked it saw this page of the register.'

'Saw it, and wanted it to disappear. But he did not burn it.' She laid the fragment flat. 'Burned, it would be gone. He inked it over, which means what he feared was not this sheet of paper, but this sheet being understood.'

Liu Zhijiang looked at the small characters on the back. 'The one who painted it,' he repeated. 'The one who painted this fir.'

'The painting is Ming, the lining paper is Song, the register is Song, the ink was applied later.' Wang Guanshu sorted the sequence. 'Three eras' hands, pressed onto one sheet of paper. The earliest left the register; the middle one mounted the painting; the last inked it over.'

'The one who mounted it laid Song paper beneath a Ming painting—left deliberately.'

'He hid the register in the painting, and sent the painting into this alley.' She paused. 'He knew the Liu family was still here.'

Outside the window the rain had lessened. In the alley a bicycle bell rang once, then faded.

Liu Zhijiang placed the fragment of the register into a brocade box, the bottom lined with a slip of fir wood—old stock kept in the shop. As he closed the box, he caught a faint trace of scent, not chen-tan, but the smell of the fir-wood mount itself: dry, astringent, like an old paper storehouse.

'Tomorrow I'll look into the painting's provenance,' he said. 'The owner surnamed Wen—see if Master Ji has any other leads.'

'I'll go,' Wang Guanshu said. 'I know the mounting trade. You go to the cultural relics bureau and file a record of the fragment. And Wen Ye should be told as well.'

Liu Zhijiang nodded. He closed the shop door, slid the bolt, and glanced back at the fir painting on the desk. The fir in the painting was painted coarsely; on the trunk was a broken scar, as if struck by lightning, or as if cut by a knife.

The scar's position aligned exactly with the place of the seventh aroma on the register page in the lining.

*—Agarwood Chronicles · Side Story One ends · continues in Side Story Two*