Extra Chapter 23: Half Seal

I.

The rain in Beijing is drier than in Hong Kong.

Wang Guanshu went straight from the airport to her mother's home. Liu Zhijiang followed behind, carrying the iron box. The motion-sensor lights in the hallway lit up floor by floor, then went out floor by floor.

Wang's mother opened the door. She saw the iron box, wiped her hands twice on her apron, said nothing, and turned to the kitchen to boil water.

The living room was small. An old sofa, an old tea table, and on the wall hung a black-and-white photo of Wang Shouzhuo when he was young, standing in front of the red walls of the Forbidden City, holding a scroll of painting.

"Mom." Wang Guanshu placed the iron box on the tea table. "The things Dad sent to Hong Kong twenty years ago, we've brought them back."

Wang's mother brought out three cups of tea and set them down one by one. She sat down, looked at the iron box, and looked for a long time.

"The three years before your father left," she finally spoke, "he was away from home one night every month. He said it was overtime. I didn't believe it, but I didn't ask."

"And later?"

"Later he left. A week before he left, he gave me that incense box and said, keep it safe, don't open it."

Wang Guanshu and Liu Zhijiang both looked toward the kitchen. Next to the stove was an old-fashioned cupboard, and on top of it was a lacquered wooden incense box, palm-sized, with orchids painted on the lid.

"That incense box," Wang Guanshu said, "I saw it when I was little. I thought it was for needles and thread."

Wang's mother got up to fetch it. When she took it down, there was a layer of dust on top. She blew on it and placed it on the tea table.

"Your father said not to open it. I never did."

II.

Wang Guanshu opened the incense box.

It was empty inside. The bottom was lined with old velvet, and beneath the velvet was a thin wooden board. Between the board and the bottom of the box was an extremely fine crack.

Liu Zhijiang took the half bronze seal from the iron box and placed it next to the incense box. The seal was a Chu-style nose button, and only half of the seal face remained—the upper part of the character "分" (fen, meaning 'to divide'), with clean, sharp cuts.

Wang Guanshu pried along the edge of the wooden board with her fingernail. The board lifted, and there was indeed another layer underneath.

Half a bronze seal.

The seal face was the lower part of the character "分".

When the two halves were put together, they fit perfectly. The character "分" was complete—the cuts, the rust color, the bronze quality, all identical.

Wang's mother looked at the two halves joined together and said one sentence.

"That person's surname was Qu."

Liu Zhijiang looked up.

"He said he was from Wuhan, doing research on Chu culture. Your father called him Mr. Qu," Wang's mother said. "Every time they met, it was at home, with the study door closed. When I brought tea in, they would stop talking. There were papers spread on the desk, with diagrams I couldn't understand."

"What did that Mr. Qu look like?"

"Thin, wore glasses, spoke slowly. He called your father 'Brother Shouzhuo,' and your father called him 'Mr. Huaisha.'"

Wang Guanshu glanced at Liu Zhijiang.

"Twenty years ago," she said, "Qu Huaisha was not yet forty."

III.

The next afternoon, Qu Huaisha came.

He received them in his research room at the National Museum. After listening to Wang Guanshu, he took the two halves of the bronze seal in his hand and turned them over and over for a long time.

"A Chu-style split seal," he said. "Late Warring States period, generally used for sworn alliances. When the two halves are joined, the pledge is made; when split, each keeps their part. Your father and my teacher did something together back then."

"Your teacher?"

"Qu Boheng. I did my doctorate under him. He passed away in 2003." Qu Huaisha put the seal back on the table. "He spent his whole life studying the incense customs of the Chu region, and in his later years he was always looking for something. Your father helped him find it."

"What thing?"

Qu Huaisha took a piece of paper from a drawer and spread it out. It was a photocopy of a page from the 'Six Incense Manual,' with a line of small characters in the margin, crossed out with ink, but not completely—it could still be made out against the light.

"This was photographed from the Palace Museum's copy. The person who crossed out this line was your father."

Wang Guanshu leaned in to look. The line read: "Wenji blended incense, with orchid as the guide, divided into three and then combined, can extend the incense signal for seven days without dissipating."

"Wenji," Liu Zhijiang said. "The Wenji Incense and Medicine Shop of Bianliang in the Northern Song Dynasty."

"Wen An, Wen Nuan's Wenji," Qu Huaisha said. "Your father crossed out this line because someone didn't want it to be passed on."

"Who?"

Qu Huaisha joined the two halves of the bronze seal again and pushed them toward the two of them.

"The seal is split in two, each keeping half. Your father kept 'not gathering,' Qu Boheng kept 'not scattering.' But there was a third person."

He pointed to the thin wooden board in the lining of the incense box. On the back of the board was another line of extremely small characters, which they had not noticed earlier.

Liu Zhijiang turned it over. Carved on it were four characters, the strokes very shallow, as if scratched with a needle tip:

Orchid outside the box.

"The words your father left when he took the box back then," Qu Huaisha said. "Orchids are not kept together with the contents of the box. The orchid is the Lanshe Dai. The contents of the box are this half seal. He was saying that the mother incense and the split seal were never in the same place."

"Then who carved this line?"

"Carved on the back of the board," Qu Huaisha said, "by your father. He was reminding those who came later—between this half seal and the Lanshe Dai, there is still a line."

IV.

Wang Guanshu put the incense box away and returned the bronze seal to the iron box.

"Teacher Qu," she said, "the line my father crossed out—Wenji blended incense, divided into three and then combined. What does 'divided into three' mean?"

Qu Huaisha was silent for a moment.

"Wenji blended incense is a formula created by Wen An in the Northern Song Dynasty. Wen An was a hidden line of the Liu family; his sister Wen Nuan was the manager of Wenji. This formula combines three kinds of incense, with orchid as the guide, and can make the incense signal last seven more days. Divided into three and then combined—the three portions of incense are stored separately and only combined when used. Once combined, the signal is made, and after seven days it dissipates on its own."

"So the formula itself is 'keep the division, not the gathering.'"

"Yes. But the problem is, this formula is lost. Wenji disappeared after the southern migration. Your father crossed out this line, probably afraid that someone would follow it to find the old site of Wenji and dig out the formula."

"Why afraid?"

Qu Huaisha looked at the iron box.

"Because the old site of Wenji is in Bianliang, but when Wen An fled south back then, he took the 'guide' of the blended incense with him. That guide was a little powder scraped from the Lanshe Dai. Your father crossed out this line to hide a path—a path from the Lanshe Dai to Wenji."

Outside the window, a flock of pigeons flew by. The whistling sound fell from above, very light.

Wang Guanshu suddenly said, "My mother said, the three years before my father left, he was away from home one night every month. He said it was overtime."

Qu Huaisha nodded.

"He was looking for Wenji."

"Did he find it?"

Qu Huaisha did not answer. He took out another envelope from the back of the drawer, unsealed, containing a photograph. The photo showed Wang Shouzhuo and Qu Boheng standing at the entrance of an old house, with the characters "Wenji" faintly visible on the lintel.

On the back of the photo was a line in Wang Shouzhuo's handwriting:

The incense is divided, the people are not scattered.

"When is this photo from?"

"2001," Qu Huaisha said. "Two years before your father passed away."

Wang Guanshu turned the photo over and back again.

"Teacher Qu, when did you get this photo?"

"Your father sent it to me," Qu Huaisha said. "In 2003, after Qu Boheng passed away. There was only this photo in the envelope, no letter."

Liu Zhijiang closed the iron box. The lock made a soft click.

"So what we need to find now," he said, "is the old site of Wenji."

Qu Huaisha put the photo back into the envelope.

"No," he said. "Your father has already found it for you. He wrote the address on the back of the photo—only it was covered by ink."

He held the photo up to the desk lamp. The light shone through from the back, and beneath the ink, a line of characters was faintly visible.

Wang Guanshu leaned in to look.

The line read:

Kaifeng, Shudian Street, third shop on the west side.

"Shudian Street is still there," Qu Huaisha said. "But the third shop on the west side was demolished the year before last."

Wang Guanshu looked up.

"And before it was demolished?"

"Before it was demolished," Qu Huaisha said, "it was a shop selling old books. The owner's surname was Wen."

—To be continued·Next: Extra Chapter 24