The Six Records of Agarwood — Side Story IV: The Seventh Scent

The Six Records of Agarwood — side story, part four

The blood-ledger lay under the lamp like a peeled scrap of old wall. Liu Zhiqiang pried open the adhesion on page thirty-seven with a bamboo spatula; bits of paper sifted into the bronze tray. Wang Guanshu stood half a step behind him, pinching half a scent-seal — the Liu family's "keep" character, a corner missing, the piece snatched from the fire in its day.

"Turn faster," she said. "Wen Ye has waited half a watch downstairs."

"Let him wait," Liu Zhiqiang did not lift his head. "What he waits for is Grain Rain, not today."

The page turned; ink-breath met the face. Northern Song ink was pine-soot mixed with musk, and after nine hundred years still bit the paper. Yet this page was wrong — the lower half of page thirty-seven bore seven lines of small regular-script, each beginning with the three characters "seventh scent," and where a name should follow, all were covered with heavy ink, sealed airtight, as if someone had stabbed the brush down seven hard times.

"Painted over seven times," Wang Guanshu bent to look closely. "The same hand. The last time was the fiercest — the brush-tip even broke the paper."

"Count the lines," Liu Zhiqiang brightened the lamp-wick.

Seven lines. From the Northern Song to the Republic, from the Liu house to the Wang house, each generation's incense-recorder added a stroke of "seventh scent" to the ledger, then immediately covered it. By the seventh line the ink suddenly broke — the eighth line had only the three characters "seventh scent," and after them lay empty, clean, as if awaiting someone to fill it.

"Empty," Wang Guanshu's voice softened. "Empty means..."

"Means still alive," Liu Zhiqiang turned the ledger toward the light. To the right of the empty line was a very faint scratch, left by a brush-tip hovering too long. He fished out the magnifier; in the scratch was embedded a bit of cinnabar — the cinnabar of the scent-seal, the Liu family's sole recipe, mixed with agarwood water.

"Your father's inkstone," Wang Guanshu said.

"Your father's ink," Liu Zhiqiang returned to her.

Both fell silent at once. Wang Shouzhuo died in the fire of the incense-hall, yet the inkstone remained with the Liu family. The ink was the last pool Wang Shouzhuo ground in his life, mixed with crumbs of Lan She Dai sent from the Shosoin — that was the mother incense's token, used only to calibrate, never entered in the ledger. Yet this stroke had used it precisely.

From downstairs came Wen Ye's voice: "Boss Liu, I've brought the Grain Rain invitation — give me a definite word, will you."

Liu Zhiqiang closed the ledger. "Send him up."

Wen Ye brought in a pre-rain earthen reek as he entered. He wore plain clothes, his lower back bulging — a gun. Wang Guanshu stepped aside, revealing page thirty-seven of the ledger.

"The seventh scent," Wen Ye swept a glance and laughed. "Your Liu family's hereditary riddle. My grandfather Wen An wrote a line in his supplement to 'Records of the Eastern Capital' — 'the seventh scent is no incense, but the one who keeps the incense.' I thought the old man had lost his wits then."

"He had not lost them," Liu Zhiqiang pushed over the magnifier. "Look — beside this empty line, someone has newly added characters."

Wen Ye lowered his head. Below and to the right of the empty line, three tiny regular-script characters, ink still fresh, gleaming as if not yet dry:

Grain Rain.

"Three days hence," Wen Ye straightened. "Who wrote it?"

"Unknown," Liu Zhiqiang said. "But the ink is the old formula of the Liu family incense-hall — agarwood water mixed with pine-soot, unchanged in nine hundred years. Only three people could grind this ink: me, Guanshu, and..."

"And my father," Wang Guanshu took up the thread. "But he is already dead."

Wen Ye stared at those three characters a long while. "Grain Rain is the day the incense market opens its vaults. On Kukiku's side, Yagyu Shizuma arrived in the capital yesterday, staying at the Japanese lodge on Dongsi Tiaoler. The luggage he brought held a case of incense-ash; customs checked it — said it was soil from the Kosovo battlefield site."

"He mixed his sister's ashes into the incense," Liu Zhiqiang said. "Kukiku's rule: the blood and bone of the dead entered into incense, called 'soul-uniting.' He means to light one great burner on Grain Rain."

"For whom to see?"

"For the still-living seventh scent to see," Wang Guanshu turned the ledger back to the first page. "Look — beneath these seven lines of covered ink, I scanned with raking light — beneath the Northern Song line faintly shows a 'Wen' character. Beneath the Southern Song line, a 'Wang.' Beneath the Yuan line — 'Qu.'"

Wen Ye's brow twitched. "Qu Huaisha?"

"The Qu house are descendants of the Chu people, that line of Qu Yuan's incense-fire. The Chu honored the orchid, to divide and revere the gods — directly opposed to Kukiku's 'gather incense by chrysanthemum.'" Liu Zhiqiang closed the ledger. "Seven lines, seven surnames beneath the ink — all incense-keepers. Not incense, but people. Each generation had a living 'seventh scent,' specially to watch that the six incenses never reunite. This person could not be written into the ledger — once written, they died; hence covered. Covered to the end, until even those who covered were gone."

"Then this empty line now..."

"Now no one covers it, which means this generation's seventh scent is still alive, and someone knows who he is," Liu Zhiqiang tapped the two characters "Grain Rain" with a finger. "This person has made an appointment with us three days hence."

Wen Ye pressed the gun back at his lower back. "Might also be an appointment with Yagyu."

"Same thing," Wang Guanshu suddenly spoke. "If the seventh scent falls into Kukiku's hands, the six incenses truly could reunite. My father left a line before he died — 'while the incense lasts we last; scattered, we perish.' I thought then he meant the incense-hall's fire; only now do I understand he meant people. While people live, the incense can be kept divided; when people die, the incense goes to those who gather."

Downstairs came a car horn. Wen Ye peered out and his face changed: "Yagyu's car. He's coming this way."

Liu Zhiqiang unhurriedly put the ledger into the camphor-wood case. "Officer Wen, on Grain Rain day, bring a few men to the Chen-Tan shop. Not many — three will do."

"What are you going to do?"

"Wait for someone," Liu Zhiqiang locked the case. "Wait for the person whose name belongs in that empty line, to walk in himself."

Wang Guanshu saw Wen Ye downstairs. At the stair landing, Wen Ye suddenly turned: "Your father's inkstone is still with the Liu family?"

"Yes."

"Before Grain Rain, let no one touch it."

Wang Guanshu did not answer. She watched Wen Ye's car merge into the traffic, then turned back inside. Liu Zhiqiang stood before the ledger-desk, pinching that half scent-seal of the "keep" character, studying the cinnabar remnant at its base against the lamp.

"Guanshu," he did not turn. "When your father ground that pool of ink, were you beside him?"

"Yes."

"What did he put into the ink?"

Wang Guanshu was silent a long while. "He put in a strand of hair. His own."

Liu Zhiqiang turned the scent-seal over; sure enough, embedded in the cinnabar at its base was an extremely fine white hair, its break clean, as if cut with scissors.

"The seventh scent," he said softly. "So you have been on the ledger all along."

Outside the window the wind rose, but the rain had not yet fallen. Grain Rain countdown: three days.

— "The Six Records of Agarwood," Side Story IV, complete · continues in Side Story V