Agarwood Six Records · Side Story Seven: Winter Solstice

Agarwood Six Records · Side Story Seven: Winter Solstice

One: Counting the Nines

On the day of the Winter Solstice, Bianliang saw the first snow of the year.

Liu Zhiqiang unboarded the shop door at first light and looked first to the top shelf: six bundles of furnace ash wrapped in plain paper, one old camphor-wood chest — seven things in all, exactly as they had stood since Frost's Descent, not one missing. The ash was scattered; the chest was sealed. Two months sealed, and he had not touched it.

The snow lay deep in the street; footprints came out shallow. A footfall stopped at the shop door — heavy, like a man carrying something.

It was a young fellow, snow on his eyebrows, a camphor-wood chest in his arms — brass-clad corners, the green of old verdigris, identical to the one from Frost's Descent.

"Master Liu." He set the chest on the counter and drew a letter from his coat. "The Lin family of Quanzhou. I'm Lin Wandu. My grandfather Lin Peiguan passed last month. His last instruction: the chest goes to the Liu family of Bianliang — delivered by hand."

Liu Zhiqiang took the letter. The envelope was in running script, the brush carrying a hasty force, same as the ledger. Inside, two lines:

*The Wen registry to the Lin family of Quanzhou; open on the day of the Winter Solstice. The matter unfinished, return to the Liu family.*

"Old Chen, who carried the last chest, said on his way back that you had found a drawing in the ledger — three sticks of incense, one long, two short, never burned together," said Lin Wandu. "My grandfather said: you see, the two chests were never to be opened together either. The first at Frost's Descent, this one at the Winter Solstice — a month apart. Master Wen did not want them opened at the same time. Grandfather guarded this chest his whole life; no one was allowed to touch it. This Winter Solstice the whole family opened it according to the words on the lid. Inside was only this letter."

"Master Wen split the two chests into two solar terms." Liu Zhiqiang set the letter down. "One opens in autumn, one in winter."

"My grandfather also said: a matter unfinished, the chest must not rot away in Quanzhou."

Two: The Second Chest

Wang Wanshu arrived faster than the snow. A layer of white settled on the felt as she came in, even on her lashes.

"Both halves of the seal have found their place." She took off her coat and shook off the snow. "The old site of the Wen Aromatic Pharmacy was restored two years ago into a community incense hall. I had the hall make a brocade box; the two halves lie side by side — not joined into one seal, just laid in one place. Guarding a share: the share is parted, but the keeping must be kept together."

The second chest was unlocked too, held by a single bamboo pin. Slip it open: oil paper, five letters, one small porcelain box.

No seal inside. The bottom of the box was laid with dried orchid leaves, pressed over with dried jasmine petals — a fragrant flower from the southern seas that took root in Quanzhou in the Song and Yuan; dried, it still keeps a faint sweetness. Among the petals lay a small porcelain censer, cupped in one palm, single-vented, a ring of lotus petals carved around its body. Under the censer lay a stack of letters, five in all, all in one hand:

*Letters to my sister Wen. — Wen An.*

Three: Wen An's Letters

Liu Zhiqiang read one page; Wang Wanshu copied one page.

The first: "To my sister: the orchid fragrance has reached Quanzhou; the Lin ship moored, not a wisp lost. Three nights I did not break the seal. The incense in the box, the man outside it — the two left undisturbed."

The second: "I have divided the orchid fragrance into three strands. One to the clerk of the Maritime Trade Office, one to the lamp-keeper of Kaiyuan Temple, one kept for myself. Not that I could not bear to part with it — the yardstick is not only one. The mother incense in Shosoin is a yardstick; the scattered incense of Bianliang is a yardstick; Quanzhou too must have a yardstick of its own. Three yardsticks measure one thing: whose hand holds the incense matters not — who is willing to divide it, that matters."

The third was shortest: "I shall not return north. Southern ships carry incense, not homecomers. Sister, guard the Wen registry; I guard the southern strand. Each at peace in his share. Do not think of me."

The fourth was addressed to the Liu family: "To the worthy scion of the Liu house of Bianliang: entrusted to divide the orchid fragrance, the matter is now done. The strand I kept, I had a small censer carved to carry with me; when it is spent, it ends. One ledger goes into my coffin. Nothing else remains, save the three words — *divided, then at peace* — left to those who come after."

The fifth had no words, only a drawing: a censer, three sticks of incense, one long, two short.

The ink of all five letters had faded, yet the hasty force of the brush remained. As if the writer had been racing time — hurrying to finish what must be said before the incense was spent.

"Three sticks of incense," Wang Wanshu said softly. "The long one is the mother; the short ones are the shares. The long one is Ranjatai, in the Shosoin; one short one was in Bianliang — spent on the night of the Scattering Incense Rite; that is these six bundles of ash. The other is in Quanzhou, divided into three strands."

"All turned to ash."

"All turned to ash." she said. "Yet the three sticks, never burned together, have all been burned. This entry took from Frost's Descent to the Winter Solstice to finish writing."

Four: Winter Solstice Night

The snow stopped at dusk.

Liu Zhiqiang lifted the small censer out of its box and set it on the counter beside the wooden case. At the corner of the box lay an incense cake too: orchid-fragrance dust mixed with local Quanzhou eaglewood, pressed flat, the stamped face a single character — *peace* — half of it worn away.

"Jiangzhen xiang — the fragrant heartwood that came ashore at Quanzhou port in the Song and Yuan —" Wang Wanshu said. "Wen An blended local aromatics with orchid dust — adapting to the place, and each keeping his post: Bianliang's yardstick measures Bianliang; Quanzhou's yardstick measures Quanzhou."

The cake he did not light. Orchid fragrance cannot be gathered, nor burned lightly. The southern yardstick had not yet come home; the cake would wait, honored.

Six bundles of ash, one wooden case, one small censer, one cake. He counted twice: nine things.

"The Jiuju hoarded incense for eight hundred years and came away empty," Wang Wanshu said.

"The emptiness of the Jiuju is 'gone'," Liu Zhiqiang said. "The emptiness of my nine things is 'divided'."

Winter Solstice night is the longest night of the year. Wang Wanshu baked cakes; Liu Zhiqiang boiled dumplings; the two sat facing each other until midnight. She would not stay the night. Before leaving she dipped a finger into the warm tea in her cup — not the rainwater of Frost's Descent — and wrote three lines on the shop door:

*Divided the orchid at Frost's Descent,*
*Opened the chest at the Winter Solstice,*
*Drink tea in the Grain Rain.*

"Those words last Grain Rain were a promise I made with you." She turned back, standing in the snow. "Next Grain Rain will make exactly one year. The share is parted, but the promise must still be kept."

"The promise must be kept."

She left. Two lines of footprints in the snow, one walking east, one walking west, merging at the mouth of the alley, then parting again.

Liu Zhiqiang closed the shop door and turned to look at the top shelf. That small patch in the dark: six bundles of ash, one wooden case, one small censer, one cake. Nine things, quiet and still.

He thought of the last line of Wen An's fourth letter: each at peace in his share; do not think of me.

Do not think of me. He thought of him.

— To be continued · Side Story 8 (Grain Rain · New Tea)

> This is an original serialized story from *Agarwood Six Records*; characters and plot are fictional. Common knowledge of agarwood and aromatics herein is compiled from public materials and does not constitute investment or medical advice.