Extra Chapter 18: Wen Ye's Letter

1. The Letter Arrives First

The letter arrived in the afternoon.

Wen Ye's handwriting was on the back of official letterhead, in blue-black ink, each line pressed firmly. Liu Zhijiang spread the letter on the counter. Wang Guanshu stood beside him, fingers holding down the corners of the paper lest the draft blow it away.

I had someone inquire in Quanzhou. The old storefront of Wenji Agarwood and Spice Shop was demolished long ago, and the descendants no longer make incense. The returned package was sent back from a collection point; the sender left no name.

But beside the postmark there is an old number, from a postal storage service number range twenty years ago. I checked the archives: that range corresponds to a storage warehouse in the south of the city. It was cleared in '98, and the remaining unclaimed items were returned to their original senders.

Liu Zhijiang paused as he read this.

"Cleared in '98," he said. "The returned package has no date written on it."

"It does," Wang Guanshu said. She turned the returned cloth bundle over and pointed to a faint blue stamp on the seal, almost invisible. "Here. Winter of '98."

2. Another Box

On the second half of the page, Wen Ye wrote more briefly.

Only one damaged volume remains of the storage warehouse's old accounts. I had someone copy the entries related to the surname "Wang"; there are two. One is in Quanzhou, stored in '97, returned when the warehouse was cleared in '98. The other is in Bianliang itself, stored in '96, still unclaimed.

In the depositor column for the Bianliang entry, only the character "Wang" is written, followed by a circle. The handler's note: one box, several incense samples, to be collected by seal.

Liu Zhijiang put the letter down.

"Collected by seal," he said. "Not by receipt, not by name."

Wang Guanshu did not reply. She turned and went upstairs, her steps light, then stopped at the top of the stairs.

"My father's seal," she said. "Only half remains at home. The other half, he never mentioned while alive."

3. The Hidden Compartment

In the back room of the shop was an old camphor wood cabinet, left from Liu Zhijiang's grandfather's generation. He had known about the third removable board at the bottom since childhood but had never opened it.

Wang Guanshu held up the lamp. He pried up the board. Beneath was a shallow groove covered with a thin layer of dust. In the groove lay a stone seal, broken edge up, only half of the seal face remaining.

Beside it was a receipt. The paper was brittle, edges curled. It bore the storage warehouse's letterhead, dated autumn of '96, with a "Wang" in the depositor column, followed by a circle.

Exactly as copied in Wen Ye's letter.

Liu Zhijiang turned the half seal over. The broken edge showed old wear, not a fresh break. Two characters remained on the seal face: the left half was "Shou," the right half only a horizontal stroke.

"Shou..." Wang Guanshu brought the lamp closer. "The next character starts with the first stroke of 'Zhuo.'"

She turned the receipt over. The back was blank except for a very faint pencil mark in the lower right corner, as if written and then erased. Holding it to the lamp, she made out two characters:

Split storage.

4. Split Storage

It began to rain again.

Liu Zhijiang sat on a small stool in the back room, the half seal on his knee. Wang Guanshu placed the receipt under a glass pane to keep it from crumbling further.

"Stored in '96, and another box stored in Quanzhou in '97," she said. "Two boxes, one south, one north. He left no full name, only half a seal each."

"Not half a seal each," Liu Zhijiang said. "The same seal, broken in two. One half in Bianliang, one half went with the Quanzhou box."

Wang Guanshu looked at the receipt under the glass.

"He planned it long ago," she said. "Half stored in each place, so no one holds the whole. To retrieve it, the two halves must be joined."

"Guard the split, not the whole," Liu Zhijiang said.

"Split means separated," Wang Guanshu said. "And also measured."

After she said this, they were both silent for a moment. Rain struck the tiles, dense then sparse.

Liu Zhijiang put the half seal into a wooden box beside the porcelain vase. The lid closed with a soft sound.

"The Quanzhou box was returned," he said. "This Bianliang box is still there."

"The storage warehouse was cleared once in '98," Wang Guanshu said. "This one wasn't returned, which means someone renewed it."

Liu Zhijiang looked up at her.

"The person who renewed it," he said, "must know this box is still there."

5. The Person Who Renewed

Wen Ye's second letter arrived at dusk, shorter than the first.

One more note. The last renewal record for the Bianliang entry was the year before last. The renewal column is blank; the money was wired in, and the remittance slip's note had only four characters:

Temporarily stored, do not move.

Liu Zhijiang placed the two letters side by side.

"The year before last," he said. "I took over the shop the year before last, too."

Wang Guanshu said nothing. She turned up the lamp wick a little.

"The Quanzhou box had Wang as depositor," she said. "The Bianliang box's renewer left no name."

"But left words," Liu Zhijiang said.

"Temporarily stored, do not move," Wang Guanshu repeated. "He doesn't want it retrieved, and he doesn't want it forgotten."

Outside, the rain gradually lessened. Someone in the alley closed an umbrella, and the sound of shaking off water carried in.

Liu Zhijiang took the receipt from under the glass and examined the two characters on the back again by lamplight. The pencil marks were faint, as if the writer had hesitated.

"Split storage," he said. "He divided one matter into two halves, one placed where we can see it, the other..."

He did not finish.

Wang Guanshu finished for him: "One half in Quanzhou, returned."

"And the other half," Liu Zhijiang said, "in the storage warehouse, not returned."

He put the receipt back under the glass and pressed it flat.

"Tomorrow we'll ask at the storage warehouse."

"Ask what?"

"Ask if that box of incense," he said, "is still there."

6. The Lamp

The rain stopped at night.

Liu Zhijiang closed the shop and, before going upstairs, returned to the back room. The wooden box sat beside the porcelain vase, the half seal inside, broken edge up.

He lifted the lid a crack, glanced inside, and closed it again.

Upstairs, Wang Guanshu called for him to turn off the light.

He answered and put his hand on the switch.

Under the glass, the receipt lay face up, the two characters "Split storage" toward the lamp, like an unfinished sentence.

He thought of Wang Shouzhuo. A painting restorer who split a box of incense into two places, leaving half a seal in each, so no one held the whole.

Guard the split, not the whole.

He turned off the light.

In the darkness, post-rain Bianliang was very quiet. In the distance came the sound of a train crossing an iron bridge, muffled, as if rising from underground.

The wooden box was on the counter, its lid tightly closed. But he knew the broken edge of the half seal inside was facing south.

—To be continued · Extra Chapter 19