Extra 14 · Nara's Ruler

I.

The rain in Nara was finer than at sea.

Liu Zhijiang's group took a local train from the dock, then walked for another quarter hour before stopping in a lane south of Todai-ji. The mark on the route map, pinched by a fingernail, landed right beside the chipped stone Jizo at the lane's entrance.

Yanagiu Shizuma crouched and ran his fingertips around the base of the stone Jizo.

"Here," he said.

Behind the stone Jizo was a low stone, its surface worn shiny as if touched by many hands. Yanagiu Shizuma pushed it aside; beneath was packed earth. Wen Ye offered a folding shovel, but Yanagiu Shizuma didn't take it.

"With hands," he said. "Grandfather wouldn't bury it deep."

II.

The soil was wet, mixed with broken tiles and charcoal bits. At a foot deep, Wang Guanshu saw the soil color change—blackened, with a faint burnt smell.

"It's been burned," she said.

Yanagiu Shizuma's hands paused, then continued digging.

When the bronze box appeared, the rain suddenly thickened. The box surface was covered in green rust, but the engraved pattern on the lid was still clear: a ruler pressing diagonally on a chrysanthemum. The chrysanthemum's carving was shallower than the ruler's, as if added later.

"The Yanagiu family crest is a ruler," Yanagiu Shizuma said. "The chrysanthemum was given by the Nine Chrysanthemums."

He lifted the lid.

There was no incense in the box. Only a ruler, about half a foot long, dark brown, with fine grain like silk. One end was sharpened to a thin blade; the other had a small hole threaded with half a faded red cord.

Qu Huaisha leaned in for a look, then stepped back and took a magnifying glass from his cloth bag.

"Agarwood," he said. "But lighter than Ranjatai. The grain is from Aquilaria sinensis, not the same tree."

Wang Guanshu picked up the ruler with tweezers and held it to the sky. The surface had graduations, one inch per mark, with tiny characters carved between them. She studied them for a while.

"Not Chinese characters," she said.

Yanagiu Shizuma took it and looked for a long time.

"It's Man'yogana," he said. "Grandfather's handwriting. It says... 'fen.'"

III.

The bell of Todai-ji came through the rain, muffled and distant.

Qu Huaisha sat on the stone steps by the Jizo, the ruler on his knee, and pulled up photos of Chu bamboo slips stored on his phone.

"The Chu people valued orchids and honored the gods with fen," he said. "Fen doesn't mean separation; it means each returning to its place. Ranjatai is the ruler that measures the proportion among the six incenses. This ruler mother measures Ranjatai itself."

"The verification of verification," Liu Zhijiang said.

"Exactly," Qu Huaisha nodded. "What the Yanagiu family guarded wasn't the incense, but the ruler. The Nine Chrysanthemums had them guard the incense; they secretly guarded the ruler. The previous generation of shadow guards left the route map here and buried the ruler mother under the house—refusing to let ruler and incense come together."

Yanagiu Shizuma turned the ruler over. Near the blade edge on the back was a very fine wear mark, as if scraped repeatedly.

"Grandfather tried it," he said. "He measured something with this ruler, many times."

Wen Ye asked, "Measured what?"

"I don't know," Yanagiu Shizuma put the ruler back in the box. "But the Shosoin has something that's missing exactly a ruler."

IV.

When the rain stopped, an old man in a navy work jacket appeared at the lane entrance, carrying a paper lantern. He saw Yanagiu Shizuma and stopped.

"Of the Yanagiu family?" the old man asked.

"Yes."

The old man set the paper lantern before the stone Jizo and took a paper folded in four from his robe.

"The year your grandfather left, he left this with me," the old man said. "He said, if someone from the Yanagiu family comes for the ruler, give it to them. If not from the Yanagiu family, burn it."

Yanagiu Shizuma took the paper. There was only one line, the ink already browned:

Ruler and incense, not in the same room.

After the old man left, Yanagiu Shizuma folded the paper and put it in an inner pocket.

"He had it planned long ago," he said. "Not to hand over the incense, but the ruler. Not to go home, but to the temple."

V.

The Shosoin storehouse is not open to the public. Wen Ye made three phone calls, and finally an old researcher from the Cultural Properties Department intervened to allow them to see one thing—a replica of Ranjatai, used for daily exhibition.

The original is deep in the storehouse, behind glass and hygrometers.

Wang Guanshu held the ruler mother up to the glass and compared it with the Ranjatai replica. The graduations on the ruler matched the marks on the replica's edge exactly.

"The ruler mother is the benchmark for Ranjatai," she said. "Without it, Ranjatai is just a piece of incense. With it, Ranjatai can measure the six incenses."

Liu Zhijiang stood beside her, watching for a while.

"Grandfather's generation left the ruler in Nara and scattered the incense elsewhere," he said. "Not lost—divided."

Qu Huaisha wrote a line in his notebook and showed it to Liu Zhijiang:

Guard the portion, not the gathering. If the ruler is here, the portion is here.

VI.

Back at the lane entrance, Yanagiu Shizuma pried open the hidden compartment in the bronze box.

Inside was a thin piece of paper, more fragile than the route map. On it was a single line of small text, the ink extremely faint, almost illegible:

Frost guests are more than one. Do not gather.

Yanagiu Shizuma turned the paper over; there was no writing on the back. He held it to the light for a long time.

"Frost guests are the Nine Chrysanthemums' periphery," he said. "The previous generation of shadow guards met with frost guests more than once. But frost guests didn't know each other either."

"So that mark on the route map," Wen Ye said, "wasn't left by one person."

"By several," Yanagiu Shizuma folded the paper and put it in the bronze box. "Grandfather left the ruler mother here to let later people know: what's divided isn't just the incense, but also the people who guard it."

He closed the box and handed it to Liu Zhijiang.

"The ruler mother should return to the Shosoin," he said. "To be placed with Ranjatai. Not to gather, but to return to its place."

Liu Zhijiang took the box. The green rust on the bottom rubbed onto his hand.

"Then what about the next box?" Wang Guanshu asked.

Yanagiu Shizuma looked up at the eaves of Todai-ji. The light after the rain was thin, bleaching the patterns on the roof tiles.

"I don't know," he said. "But since Grandfather left this line, it means there are other boxes, in other places."

He paused.

"And more than one person knows where the boxes are."

—To be continued · Extra 15 follows