Extra Chapter 19 · Split Storage

1. Daytime Accounts

The rain stopped the next day.

Liu Zhijiang rose early, carried the wooden box from the counter into the back room, and set it on the painting-restoration table. The table was left by Wang Shouzhuo—elm surface, with old color lodged in its several carved marks.

When Wang Guanshu came downstairs, he had already laid out the contents one by one: half a fragrance seal, its broken edge facing south; a receipt with the two characters "split storage" on the back; and a small piece of old paper that had lined the box, its edges brittle.

"You didn't sleep well last night," she said.

"I slept. Dreamed someone knocked at the door."

"Who."

"Didn't open it. Don't know."

Wang Guanshu did not reply. She put on gloves and turned the receipt over. On the front was a line of small regular script: "One box of agarwood, weighing four liang seven qian, stored." The date was September twenty years earlier; the signature space was blank, stamped only with half a seal.

"The seal is the Liu family's," Liu Zhijiang said. "But it's not the complete Shouji seal."

"My father's half is in the old archives at the Palace Museum." She paused. "Before he left, he handed over everything he should have. Only this receipt he did not hand over."

"Because whether handed over or not, it's still only half."

2. Old Accounts

Behind the shop was a small storeroom piled with account books from over the years. Liu Zhijiang dug out the volume from twenty years before; its pages were evenly yellowed, with mouse-gnawed gaps at the edges.

On the seventeenth of September, one entry read: "Received one box of stored agarwood; issued half seal as receipt." The handwriting was his father's, the strokes pressed heavy.

Flipping further, on the twenty-second of October, the same entry had another line: "Receipt kept in hidden compartment; seal handed to the Wang family."

"Handed to the Wang family." Wang Guanshu repeated it. "My father hadn't yet been transferred to the Palace Museum then."

"So he had half a seal in hand, and you have half a receipt." Liu Zhijiang closed the account book. "Your father split one box of incense into two places, and split the seal into two halves as well. Neither side has the whole."

"Keep the parts, not the whole."

"Right. But who the owner of this box of incense was, the account doesn't say."

Wang Guanshu held the receipt up to the window light. The paper had curtain lines, the weave of old official paper. In the lower right corner was a very faint ink mark, as if blotted by water, or scraped by a fingernail.

"Someone wanted to erase the name," she said.

3. The Hidden Compartment

The hidden compartment was behind the baseboard on the north wall of the storeroom, made by Liu Zhijiang's father himself. A loose brick pulled out to reveal a flat box inside.

The box was plain, unlaquered. Opened, it held a layer of oil paper, and wrapped in the oil paper was another small wooden box, half an inch shorter than the one on the counter.

On the lid was half a seal, its broken edge facing north.

Liu Zhijiang took out his own half seal and placed the two side by side on the table. The broken edges matched, as if the same piece of material had been split by a single knife stroke.

"Two halves," Wang Guanshu said. "One south, one north."

"The southern half is in Quanzhou," Liu Zhijiang said. "The returned-mail postmark Wen Ye mentioned in his letter—its number belongs to the same series as the code on this receipt."

"So there's another box in Quanzhou."

"At least one box."

He opened the small box. Inside was a piece of agarwood, less than an inch long, honey-wax in color, its cross-section marked with fine oil lines. Wang Guanshu leaned close and sniffed, saying nothing.

"How is it."

"Like wood after rain," she said. "Nothing else I can detect."

"If you can't detect it, that's right. It's only a token, not a key."

4. Wen Ye's Letter

In the afternoon, a courier delivered an envelope. Sent from Quanzhou, postmark clear.

Wen Ye wrote that he had checked the old number behind the returned-mail postmark; it corresponded to a batch of storage archives handled in the 1990s by a shopkeeper surnamed Wen. The depositor column was blank, leaving only a rubbing of half a seal.

"A shopkeeper surnamed Wen," Liu Zhijiang said, handing the letter to Wang Guanshu. "Wen Ye's ancestor."

"Wen An's branch." She finished reading, folded it. "He says in the letter that the stored box was later forwarded. Where to, the archive doesn't say. But the recipient address on the forwarding slip was Bianliang."

"That's our shop."

"Yes. But we only received one box."

The two were silent for a moment. On the street after the rain, someone rode past on a bicycle; a bell rang once.

"There's still one box in Quanzhou," Liu Zhijiang said. "It was never sent out."

"Or it was sent and lost on the way."

"Wen Ye says he's looking into it."

5. The Back of the Receipt

At dusk, Wang Guanshu turned the receipt over and looked at it again under the lamp.

Beneath the two characters "split storage" was another line of very faint pencil writing she had not noticed before. Tilting it to the light, she made out each character:

"Quanzhou Wenji, forwarded on behalf."

"Wenji," Liu Zhijiang said. "Wen An's elder sister, Wen Nuan, also ran a Wenji incense and medicine shop in Bianliang."

"Two Wenji shops," Wang Guanshu said. "One in Quanzhou, one in Bianliang. Twenty years ago, someone transferred agarwood from Quanzhou to Bianliang through the hands of the Wen family."

"Then the other box may also have been forwarded by the Wen family. It just never reached us."

She set the receipt down. On the table the two pieces of agarwood lay side by side, broken edge facing broken edge, a thin seam between them.

"Tell me," she asked, "did your father know there was another box in the hidden compartment."

"He knew. He kept the accounts."

"Then why didn't he say."

"Because the time hadn't come." Liu Zhijiang closed the box lid. "Those who keep the parts are in no hurry to tell the whole story."

6. Night

It rained again at night.

Liu Zhijiang put the two wooden boxes into the cabinet and locked it. Upstairs, Wang Guanshu lit a small lamp and leafed through an old painting album.

He sat behind the counter and read Wen Ye's letter again. At the end was a postscript, written hastily, as if added just before mailing:

"Here in Quanzhou, someone else is also asking about this batch of archives. Asking in great detail. I didn't say who. Before you come, don't make it known."

He folded the letter and put it in the drawer. In the sound of rain, a train passed over an iron bridge in the distance.

He thought of Wang Shouzhuo. A painting restorer who split one box of incense into two places, leaving half a seal in each, so that neither side had the whole.

Keep the parts, not the whole.

But what has been split apart will always have someone who wants to join it back together.

He turned off the light. In the darkness, the broken edges of the two pieces of agarwood in the cabinet faced each other through the wooden boards, one south, one north.

—To be continued · Next: Extra Chapter 20