Chapter 324: First Establish Her Origin, Then Cross the Bridge

Lu Yuan did not fold the paper.

He pressed his thumb against the seal with the missing petal and, by the fading glow on the stele, read the sentence word by word.

“Ayuan and White Reed cannot reach the Main Register at the same time.”

Wang Cheng'an spoke first. “This doesn't mean you can't travel together.”

“Why not?”

“If Gu Changgeng wanted you to separate, he wouldn't have left the words ‘at the same time.’ He wrote ‘reach the Main Register,’ not ‘reach North Ferry.’”

Lin Zhaoxuan crouched and took the rubbing from the stele.

“The Main Register might not be a book.”

“It could also be a place,” Song Qinghe said. “A place where names, physical evidence, and origins can all be established once and for all.”

White Reed lowered her head and looked at her wrist.

“I remember something.”

Everyone turned to her.

“When Gu Changgeng taught me how to recognize the Day Seal, he said something.”

She paused, as if struggling to fish the words out of a murky darkness.

“A name can be kept in safekeeping, but evidence cannot be claimed on someone else’s behalf.”

“He also said that if anyone forcibly wrote a name and its evidence on the same page, we had to tear it up at once.”

Wang Cheng'an lowered his eyes to the half sheet of paper.

“That’s why Gu Changgeng wrote that you couldn’t reach the Main Register at the same time.”

“He wasn’t stopping us from meeting,” Lu Yuan said. “He was stopping them from writing us down as a single account.”

White Reed raised her head.

“I provide the evidence, and you bear the name?”

“That’s their version of things, too,” Lu Yuan said. “Don’t claim anything yet.”

White Reed hesitated for a moment, then nodded gently.

“All right.”

The fog over the river grew thicker and thicker.

Before the stele at the ferry crossing, the scattered black papers had already been sorted into several piles by Shen Qiushuang. She marked the source on each sheet, set aside the parts without physical evidence, and stamped them “Pending Investigation.”

Wang Cheng'an put the paper left behind by Gu Changgeng into the corrections register.

“Let’s go back to Yongji first.”

Xu Erxiao gazed into the northern fog.

“What about North Ferry?”

“First, we keep the accounts here safe,” Lu Yuan said. “Otherwise, we’ll barely have left before it takes the names back again.”

Shen Qiushuang tucked her father’s bronze piece close to her body.

“I can guard them.”

She looked at White Reed.

“There are three old storehouses behind the depot. The safekeeping evidence inside hasn’t all been registered. If I leave now, no one will know which item belongs beside which name.”

“I’ll stay and help you,” White Reed said.

Shen Qiushuang shook her head.

“You can’t stay on the boat, and you can’t stay near the master register.”

“But I can recognize many of the old things.”

“That’s exactly why you should stay alive,” Shen Qiushuang said. “Stay alive and explain each one of them clearly.”

Lu Yuan looked at the two women.

“The depot can’t be left unguarded.”

Shen Qiushuang nodded.

“I’ll stay in Yongji for now. Once I’ve sorted this batch of safekeeping evidence, I’ll go to North Ferry and find you.”

“On your own?”

“No.”

She looked toward the grain depot.

“Among the old hands my father left behind, there are still a few whom the Southern Register hasn’t completely altered. After they woke up, they remembered some things.”

“What if someone comes to seize the accounts again?” Xu Erxiao asked.

Shen Qiushuang gripped the key ring tightly.

“Then I’ll let them see what kind of seal Yongji Grain Depot uses now.”

At daybreak, everyone returned along the old river route.

The ferry crossing wasn’t far from the grain depot, but the Southern Register had altered the paths through the fog several times. A journey that should have taken the time to burn one incense stick took them nearly two hours. Only then did they see the grain depot’s rear wall again.

The black smoke above the depot had dispersed.

The broken roof revealed a gray-white sky, and several partly burned scraps of paper hung from the eaves. The names that had once been written on them were gone, leaving only blank circles.

Several workers stood at the grain depot’s entrance.

When they saw Shen Qiushuang, they froze for a moment, then lowered their heads one after another.

“Miss.”

Shen Qiushuang stopped.

She hadn’t heard that form of address in many years.

She didn’t respond, only asked, “How much do you remember?”

One of the older workers said, “I remember my surname is Zhao. I used to keep the books in the rear warehouse.”

A younger one said, “I remember I had a younger sister. She was sent to North Mountain Pass, but I can’t remember her name.”

“Don’t rush,” Shen Qiushuang said. “What you can’t remember, mark as Pending Investigation for now.”

The young worker looked up at her.

“Can we still keep accounts like that?”

“Yes.”

Shen Qiushuang turned and pushed open the grain depot’s doors.

“From today on, Yongji will record only what can be proven. Not remembering doesn’t mean something never existed; lacking evidence doesn’t mean we can write down whatever we like.”

Everyone entered the front hall.

The grain sacks overturned the previous night had been stacked against the wall again. The words “Awaiting Recognition” on the wooden tablets outside the sacks stood out clearly in the morning light. Some of the physical evidence sent to the bottom of the boat had already been washed back into the channel behind the depot. It lay in a dripping heap by the unloading entrance.

Wang Cheng'an led the workers in checking each item in turn.

“Three torn pages from old households in Liu Family Gully. One copper abacus from Ma Family Gully. Two lengths of Red Cord from Little Stone Village. One wooden tablet from North Ferry. One bronze Day Seal piece belonging to Shen Bonian.”

When he reached the last item, he suddenly stopped.

“One silver plum-blossom lock, missing a petal.”

Lu Yuan looked down at the piece in his hand.

The other half of the lock had been separated from the pieces left by White Reed and Shen Qiushuang. Though the six-petaled plum blossom’s impression was complete, they still didn’t have all the lock pieces together.

“That petal isn’t in our hands,” White Reed said.

“Is it with Gu Changgeng?” Xu Erxiao asked.

Lu Yuan didn’t answer.

Shen Qiushuang went to the rear of the grain depot and opened a small door sealed with wooden planks.

Beyond it was her father’s old counting house.

No one had entered for years, and a thick layer of dust covered the tabletop. An abacus hung on the wall, its beads all made of black wood. In the corner stood a narrow cabinet. Its door had no lock, but a strip of cracked yellow talisman paper had been pasted across it.

The paper read:

“The north cabinet remains unopened; Yongji remains unsettled.”

Shen Qiushuang stood in the doorway, motionless for a long time.

“My father wouldn’t let me open it.”

Wang Cheng'an said, “He isn’t here anymore.”

Shen Qiushuang reached out and peeled away the yellow paper.

There was nothing written on its back, only a fingerprint.

She slid the key ring into the gap in the cabinet door. She tried the keys one after another. When she inserted the last, long key, the cabinet door sprang open by itself.

There was no gold or silver inside, only six flat wooden boxes.

Five of the boxes bore these words:

“Name.”

“Household.”

“Deed.”

“Object.”

“Road.”

The sixth box was empty. Its lid was carved with an unfinished character: “Kin.”

Song Qinghe looked at the six characters and said softly, “The six petals don’t represent six people.”

“They’re six kinds of evidence that can prove a person existed,” Lin Zhaoxuan said.

Shen Qiushuang opened the box marked “Name.”

Inside was a stack of thin paper, each sheet bearing only one name and one place of origin.

The “Household” box held old papers recording household transfers, marriage registrations, births, and adoptions.

The “Deed” box was full of land deeds, rental contracts, and loan agreements.

The “Object” box held copper coins, wooden tablets, Red Cord, and old clothing buttons.

The “Road” box was the thinnest. It held only a few ferry passes, carriage records, and documents for crossing the river.

The last box, marked “Kin,” was empty.

There was only a broken wooden key.

Wang Cheng'an took a piece of paper from the bottom of the box.

It bore Shen Bonian’s handwriting:

“A name can be forged, a household altered, a deed seized, an object exchanged, and a road cut off. ‘Kin’ cannot be established by recognition at a glance. The person must willingly acknowledge it; no one else may do so on their behalf. If the Kin box is empty, the Six Sealkeepers are incomplete.”

Xu Erxiao looked at White Reed.

“So this means my mother’s relationship to me can’t be settled just because someone else says so.”

Wang Cheng'an nodded.

“Nor can it be settled outright by a page in a register.”

Lu Yuan picked up the broken wooden key.

“The Kin box isn’t empty.”

“The key is just broken.”

Shen Qiushuang stared at the break.

“My father said the key to the Kin box wasn’t kept in the counting house.”

“Where is it?”

“In the hands of the people who need to acknowledge their kinship.”

“Then where is it now?”

Shen Qiushuang shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

White Reed suddenly went to the “Object” box and took out the old wooden tablet.

The back of the tablet had originally been carved only with “Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition.” Now, in the morning light, a line of tiny writing emerged, almost impossible to see:

“To acknowledge kin, cross North Ferry. Not through the Main Register.”

Her fingers trembled slightly.

“Gu Changgeng knew.”

“He sent us to North Ferry not to open the Main Register,” Lu Yuan said.

“But to find the key to the Kin box,” Wang Cheng'an said.

“Or maybe to stop someone else from finding it.”

Suddenly, a sound like paper rubbing against paper came from outside the counting house.

Everyone turned.

A sheet of black paper slowly squeezed under the door.

There was no name on it, only a circle.

Inside the circle was written:

“Kin.”

The black paper crawled across the floor toward the empty wooden box.

Shen Qiushuang stepped on it.

A faint sob came from beneath the paper.

“Let me go.”

“Who are you?” Shen Qiushuang asked.

“I have a name.”

“Say it.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“If I say it, I’ll have to enter the register.”

Shen Qiushuang lifted her foot.

The black paper immediately darted forward half a foot, and a line of crooked writing appeared on it:

“Gu Qiniang.”

Lu Yuan’s gaze suddenly sharpened.

He had never heard this name before, but the character “Gu” pierced his heart like a needle.

White Reed stared at the paper, too.

“It isn’t me.”

“How do you know?”

“When I woke up, I remembered they called me a witness. No one ever called me Qiniang.”

The writing on the paper changed again.

“Gu Qiniang, eldest daughter. Mother unknown. Younger brother’s name pending verification. Traveled north in the same carriage.”

Wang Cheng'an hurriedly flipped through the papers in the “Name” box.

Sure enough, at the very bottom was an old record torn in half:

“The Gu family, eldest daughter Gu Qiniang, youngest son…”

The rest of the name had been burned away.

“This isn’t Lu Yuan,” Lin Zhaoxuan said. “His name doesn’t appear.”

“But it says ‘youngest son,’” Song Qinghe said. “That means there were at least two children at the time.”

Black water kept seeping from the words “Gu Qiniang” on the paper.

White Reed closed her eyes, as if a sudden headache had struck her.

“I remember a voice.”

“Whose?”

“Someone called me Qiniang.”

She raised a hand to press against her brow.

“It wasn’t Gu Changgeng.”

“It was a woman.”

“She said, ‘Qiniang, take your younger brother and go.’”

The lock piece in Lu Yuan’s palm grew hot.

The abacus on the counting-house wall suddenly began moving by itself.

One bead, two, three.

The clacking grew faster and faster, then finally stopped at a number.

Six.

Wang Cheng'an stared at the abacus.

“Six isn’t the total.”

“What is it?”

“The missing sixth piece of evidence of kinship.”

The black paper suddenly flipped over, exposing its back.

A line of tiny writing was on it:

“Gu Qiniang was never entered in the household register; the youngest son was never entered by name. Evidence: one pair of twin locks. The eldest daughter carried one; the youngest son carried one. If one person recognizes the other, the other may return.”

Lu Yuan looked up at White Reed.

White Reed didn’t avert her gaze.

She said slowly, “If I really am Gu Qiniang, then you…”

“Don’t claim anything yet,” Lu Yuan said.

White Reed froze.

“Don’t you want to know?”

“I do,” Lu Yuan said. “But a piece of paper can’t acknowledge you for me, and neither can I.”

He looked at the black paper.

“It says you’re Gu Qiniang, but that doesn’t mean you are.”

Wang Cheng'an clipped the paper into the “Pending Investigation” register.

“Record this first: Gu Qiniang, suspected eldest daughter. Evidence: one pair of twin locks. One younger brother traveled with her. Kinship pending verification.”

The black paper began to shake violently.

As if someone couldn’t bear to see those words.

Shen Qiushuang picked up the safekeeping seal and stamped cinnabar beside “Kinship Pending Verification.”

The black paper suddenly fell still.

The three characters “Gu Qiniang” on the paper were pressed beneath the red seal. Below them appeared a line of tiny writing, almost rubbed away:

“Birth name undetermined; self-identified as White Reed.”

White Reed stared at the words, and her eyes slowly reddened.

“I wrote that myself.”

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Maybe after I woke up. Maybe a long time ago.”

She reached out and touched the four characters.

“At least for a while, I knew I didn’t want them naming me for me anymore.”

“Then we’ll use White Reed for now,” Lu Yuan said.

“Gu Qiniang will remain pending verification.”

White Reed nodded.

She wrote her name in a blank booklet. There was no surname beside it, nor any column for family members. It said only:

“White Reed, current name, self-chosen.”

When she was done, she handed the booklet to Wang Cheng'an.

“Keep it for me.”

Wang Cheng'an accepted it and put it away with care.

Suddenly, the sound of hooves came from outside the counting house.

They weren’t the grain depot workers’ horses.

The hooves landed slowly on the snow, one sound at a time, and stopped outside the grain depot’s main entrance.

Shen Qiushuang went to the window.

There was no one outside, only a thin horse.

An oilcloth bundle hung from its back. Snowmelt had soaked one corner, revealing half a piece of blue cloth.

An old copper bell was tied beside the saddle.

A piece was missing from the bell’s body. It was exactly the kind Gu Changgeng used.

Lu Yuan went out and untied the bundle.

There was no letter inside, only three things.

A pass for North Ferry.

A section of carriage shaft, burned black.

And a complete piece of the plum-blossom lock.

There were no words in the center of the lock piece, but its back was engraved with a sentence:

“Don’t let the Main Register recognize her first.”

White Reed stood inside the doorway, her face turning terribly pale.

“Is this Gu Changgeng’s handwriting?”

Shen Qiushuang glanced at it.

“Yes.”

Xu Erxiao asked, “What does he want us to do?”

Wang Cheng'an took the pass.

It read:

“North Ferry opens in three days. No more than seven may travel together. One person’s name must be verified first. One person’s evidence must be verified afterward.”

Lin Zhaoxuan frowned.

“It knows we’re going.”

“Even how many of us there are,” Song Qinghe said.

There was another line of tiny writing on the back of the pass:

“If the Name-Bearer is verified first, the evidence register may cross. If the witness is verified first, the name register may cross. If the order is wrong, one of those traveling together must remain before the bridge.”

Xu Erxiao cursed. “They’re making us choose again!”

Lu Yuan folded the pass.

“It isn’t asking us to choose who stays behind.”

“It’s trying to make us believe only one person can cross.”

White Reed looked at the complete lock piece.

“If the Main Register recognizes me first, it might record me as Gu Qiniang.”

“If it recognizes you first, it’ll record you as the Lu family’s Name-Bearer.”

“And then?”

“Then it’ll use one person’s name to explain the other person’s origin.”

Lu Yuan placed the three lock pieces together.

The six-petaled plum blossom was complete.

But when the pieces fitted together, they didn’t glow or produce any other strange effect.

They only made a faint click.

Like a lock finally snapping shut.

From the north, beyond the grain depot and the mountain range, a distant carriage bell suddenly rang.

White Reed looked up.

“Gu Changgeng will come again before North Ferry opens.”

“How do you know?”

“Every time he’s about to leave, he knocks on the carriage board three times.”

She closed her eyes.

After the distant bell, three muffled knocks indeed rang out.

One.

Two.

Three.

Lu Yuan tucked the complete lock piece into his clothes.

“Shen Qiushuang, stay in Yongji.”

“I know.”

“Keep Gu Qiniang’s paper separate from the records of the Kin box.”

“Understood.”

“If anyone comes to seize them, don’t protect the papers. Protect the people first.”

Shen Qiushuang glanced at White Reed.

“Is she going with you?”

“I’m going to North Ferry,” White Reed said.

“You might really be Gu Qiniang.”

“Maybe.”

“Or maybe you aren’t.”

“I know.”

Shen Qiushuang nodded and handed her a small wooden box containing White Reed’s new booklet.

“Then don’t let them decide for you at North Ferry.”

Xu Erxiao had already slung the iron shovel over his back and taken a small cloth bundle from the storeroom.

Inside were Liu Sanniang’s osmanthus candies, a copy of the land deed, and the wooden tablet inscribed with “Liu Sanniang, the land deed is here.”

“I’m going too.”

Lu Yuan looked at him.

“The road to North Ferry is long.”

“I still haven’t finished finding out what happened to my mother’s name.”

Xu Erxiao said, “If she was sent north, I have to go ask what happened. If she wasn’t, I still have to take back the things she left behind.”

Wang Cheng'an stood beside him, holding the abacus frame.

“I’m going, too.”

Lin Zhaoxuan, Zhou Heng, and Song Qinghe said nothing. They each gathered up the lamp, cord, and sword.

Seven people stood at the entrance to Yongji Grain Depot.

Seven.

The pass said no more than seven could travel together.

Shen Qiushuang looked at them and suddenly remembered something.

“Wait.”

She turned and ran back to the counting house, taking the broken wooden key from the empty “Kin” box.

At some point, a small new grain of wood had appeared at the broken end.

She handed the wooden key to Lu Yuan.

“My father said the key to acknowledging kin wasn’t in the counting house.”

“Then why was it in the box?”

“Maybe it isn’t a key.”

Shen Qiushuang looked at the new grain in the wood.

“Maybe someone far away sent half of it back.”

Lu Yuan put the key away.

The horizon had already turned gray-white.

The snow on the northern mountain range gleamed cold silver in the morning light. There were no carriages or people on the distant old road, only two parallel lines of footprints stretching from deep within the blizzard all the way to the grain depot’s entrance.

One line of footprints was large, the other small.

The larger footprints were on the left, the smaller on the right.

At the entrance, the two lines of footprints suddenly overlapped, then continued north together.

White Reed stared at the footprints and said softly:

“This is the road we walked as children.”

Lu Yuan didn’t ask how she recognized it.

He simply looked north.

Beyond the mountains, the carriage bell rang once more.

This time, Gu Changgeng’s weary voice came with its sound:

“Ayuan, find her surname first.”

After the voice faded, an empty lantern hanging from the eaves of Yongji Grain Depot suddenly lit up.

A new line of writing appeared on its surface:

“North Ferry, eldest daughter of the Gu family, awaiting recognition.”

Immediately afterward, another line seeped up from the bottom of the lantern:

“Youngest son of the Lu family, origin pending verification.”

A thin black line separated the two lines.

Lu Yuan drew his saber and cut through it.

The empty lantern did not go out.

It brought the two lines back together and changed them to:

“The two travel together; their evidence is recorded separately.”

Wang Cheng'an looked at the lantern and slowly smiled.

“This time, those are our rules.”

Lu Yuan sheathed his saber.

“Let’s go.”

The seven set out along the North Route.

Behind them, Shen Qiushuang stood at the entrance to Yongji Grain Depot, holding the safekeeping seal. She didn’t accompany them far. Once they had walked a dozen or so yards away, she pressed the seal hard against the wooden tablet at the entrance.

“Yongji Grain Depot, Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition.”

The cinnabar flashed in the morning light.

The grain depot’s doors slowly closed.

And at the end of the northern snowfield, a black bridge that should not have existed began to emerge from the fog, bit by bit.

A new wooden tablet stood at the head of the bridge.

It bore just six characters:

“First establish her origin, then cross the bridge.”