Chapter 326: White River Town

The black book at the center of the bridge slowly opened.

“If someone has more than one place of origin, which one is true?”

The line of text lit up from one end of the bridge to the other. Beneath the wooden planks, layers of paper shifted, revealing countless old words buried underneath.

“Little Stone Village.

“North Crossing.”

“The Gu family.

“Nameless.

“The Lu family.

“Pending verification.”

Each place of origin seemed like a hand, clutching Lu Yuan and White Reed by the ankles and trying to drag them back into their respective old records.

Xu Erxiao gritted his teeth and pressed the iron shovel harder into the crack.

“So what if there’s more than one place of origin?”

The black characters on the bridge suddenly stopped moving.

Xu Erxiao looked up and shouted toward the center of the bridge:

“I grew up in Ma Family Gully, and I’ve lived in Little Stone Village too. My mother is from Liu Family Gully, and we still haven’t figured out who my father is. Does that mean only one of those places gets to count?”

Beside “Xu Erxiao” on the plank, three lines appeared:

“Liu Family Gully, place of origin through the maternal clan.

“Little Stone Village, childhood residence.

“Ma Family Gully, current witness.”

The three lines stood side by side, without overwriting one another.

Xu Erxiao froze for a moment, then grinned.

“See? One person can have several places of origin.”

Wang Cheng'an immediately caught on.

He set the abacus frame on the bridge plank, took out his brush, and wrote on a blank wooden tablet:

“Separate categories for places of origin. Bloodline, birthplace, residence, witness, and current residence must not replace one another. If any category remains unverified, that does not prevent the others from being recorded first.”

Lin Zhaoxuan took the wooden tablet and fixed it to the bridgehead with an inked thread.

The cinnabar seal came down, and the black characters on the bridge immediately split into several streams. The words “Gu family,” “Lu family,” “Little Stone Village,” and “North Crossing,” which had been tangled together, began returning to their proper places.

Gu Changgeng stood at the center of the bridge, watching. His expression did not soften.

“You can only separate them for now. The master register will join them together again.”

“Then we’ll keep separating them,” Lu Yuan said.

He looked at the two wooden tablets in front of Gu Changgeng.

“Why are my old tablet and White Reed’s in your hands?”

Gu Changgeng fell silent.

“Answer me.”

“Because they were supposed to be sent into the master register.”

“Who was sending them?”

“Your mother.”

Lu Yuan’s blade dipped slightly.

White Reed raised her head as well.

Gu Changgeng said, “She didn’t hand them over willingly. That year, the Gu family was caught in a fire, and people from the master register came to collect the old household records. Your mother hid the children’s two wooden tablets beneath the stove, but they found them.”

“She handed over the tablets in exchange for your lives.”

“But the master register only accepts one.”

“So she split the two tablets apart. One said ‘youngest son of the Lu family,’ and the other said ‘eldest daughter of the Gu family.’”

“She told them the two children had been separated, one going with the father and the other with the mother.”

White Reed slowly clenched her hand.

“She lied to them?”

“She did.”

“What happened to her afterward?”

Gu Changgeng looked at the white fog beneath the bridge.

“She stayed in the fire.”

No one around them spoke.

Water sounded through the fog, as though someone far away were washing a garment stained with ashes.

“She gave the tablets to you?” Lu Yuan asked.

“She gave them to Shen Bonian.”

“And Shen Bonian gave them to you?”

“He gave me only one.”

Gu Changgeng took an old wooden tablet from his sleeve and set it on the table.

Half of its face was charred, but a blurry “Yuan” could still be seen.

“The other one is in the master register.”

White Reed looked at her own wooden tablet.

“You brought me aboard the boat to find the other one?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

Gu Changgeng closed his eyes briefly.

“To make the master register believe the witness register was still in my hands.”

“You locked me inside the wooden box to fool it?”

“I thought that if it couldn’t find your name, it wouldn’t go after Lu Yuan.”

“But it came after him anyway.”

“Because you were bound to meet eventually.”

White Reed let out a cold laugh.

“So you let us live apart, but wouldn’t let us know who the other was.”

Gu Changgeng did not deny it.

“That was where I went wrong.”

“That wasn’t the only thing you did wrong,” Lu Yuan said.

Gu Changgeng looked at him.

“After you sent me away, why didn’t you come back for me?”

“I did go back.”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Because you were no longer in Little Stone Village.”

“Where did I go?”

“First to Ma Family Gully, and later you were taken to Old Dragon’s Back.”

Lu Yuan’s fingers tightened.

“Gu Changgeng, you knew where I was, but you didn’t come for me?”

“I went to Old Dragon’s Back.”

“When?”

“Before Shen Yanshan took you away.”

Lu Yuan suddenly remembered the charred scrap in the mine tunnel at Old Dragon’s Back, the old words Gu Changgeng had left on the stone shard, and Shen Yanshan standing in the morning light. When Shen Yanshan picked up that piece of red paper, he hadn’t followed them.

“You saw Shen Yanshan.”

“I did.”

“Did he know where I came from?”

Gu Changgeng did not answer directly.

“He knew you couldn’t pass through the master register.”

“Why?”

“Because if the master register identified you as the Name-Bearer of the Lu family, everyone connected to you would be reassigned under the old seal.”

“Did Shen Yanshan stop it for you?”

“He stopped it for himself.”

Gu Changgeng looked at the stone shard at Lu Yuan’s waist.

“That shard on you was brought out of Old Dragon’s Back by him.”

Lu Yuan took out the stone shard.

In the morning mist, a fine line of writing appeared among the old notes on it:

“The old seal recognizes not the living, but the choices of the living.”

He had seen those words before, but had never truly understood them.

Gu Changgeng seemed to know what they said.

“Shen Yanshan was once a seal-keeper too.”

“Which petal did he guard?”

“None of them.”

Gu Changgeng said, “He guarded against the six petals joining together.”

Wang Cheng'an lowered his eyes to his abacus frame.

“So he had no seal.”

“Without a seal, the master register couldn’t count him as a seal-keeper.”

“Then why didn’t he destroy the master register outright?”

Gu Changgeng gazed at the fog below the bridge.

“Because there are many true names in the master register.”

“If it were destroyed, those names would scatter with it.”

“All he could do was wait for someone to separate the true names from the false accounts.”

The tip of Wang Cheng'an’s brush trembled.

“So what we’ve been doing all along is what he was waiting for.”

“Not you,” Gu Changgeng said. “Anyone who refuses to write a person down as nothing more than an entry.”

The black book suddenly turned a page by itself.

A sheet of paper flew out and landed on the table at the center of the bridge.

It read:

“Gu Changgeng, refuses reassignment.

“Shen Yanshan, refuses to bear the seal.

“Lu Yuan, refuses ancestral recognition.

“White Reed, refuses her original name.”

A black palm impression was stamped beneath each of the four names.

The layers of paper beneath the bridge began to tear.

The black book seemed to realize they were separating the old accounts, so it branded every refusal with the same crime.

“No return.”

Lu Yuan looked up at Gu Changgeng.

“You’ve been on the other side of the bridge all this time because you refused reassignment?”

“I was reassigned once already.”

“Where to?”

“The master register.”

Gu Changgeng opened his right hand.

A black fish-shaped brand marked his palm, and beneath it lay countless tiny, densely packed characters.

“That year, to get you out, I pledged my name to the master register.”

“It agreed to let me take one child away.”

“You took two.”

“So it split my name in two.”

“One part stayed in the master register, and one part stayed on the bridge.”

“As long as the two parts don’t join, I can keep guarding this place.”

White Reed stared at the brand.

“You can’t leave?”

“No.”

“Then split the name,” she said. “Just as you split us apart.”

Gu Changgeng froze.

“What did you say?”

“Since you split your name in two, why can’t the two parts stay in different places?”

“Because the master register forbids it.”

“The master register forbids it. That doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

Wang Cheng'an suddenly opened the corrections register.

“Brother Lu, there are two pieces of evidence for Gu Changgeng’s name.”

“One is the wooden tablet on the bridge, and the other is the black seal in the master register.”

“If we record these two pieces of evidence separately and forbid either from standing in for the other, it won’t be able to force the two parts of his name together.”

Gu Changgeng’s expression changed.

“Don’t touch my name.”

White Reed looked at him.

“Haven’t you always hoped we’d do something about it?”

“I stayed here to wait for you to take the names away.”

“Then let us try.”

Gu Changgeng shook his head.

“You don’t understand. Once my name is recorded separately, the master register will lose its bridge-keeper. All the old names beyond the North Crossing will surge back. The bridge will collapse, and everyone still on it will fall into the Nameless River.”

“What is the Nameless River?” Xu Erxiao asked.

“A place where no one knows who they are.”

“Then we’ll give those people names first.”

Gu Changgeng looked at him.

“Easy for you to say.”

“I don’t understand your big ledgers,” Xu Erxiao said, shouldering his iron shovel, “but I know one thing. If people fall into a river, you reach out and pull them up first. You can’t leave everyone there just because there are too many of them.”

His words were blunt, but the center of the bridge fell silent.

White Reed walked over to the table in front of Gu Changgeng.

“You’re afraid the bridge will collapse, but you’re not afraid that others will fall.”

“You’re afraid that once they fall, no one will know where to record them.”

Gu Changgeng did not answer.

“But you’ve guarded this bridge all along, and you still haven’t sent them back.”

“Because I can’t.”

“Then let those who can do it.”

She turned to look at Lu Yuan.

“Didn’t you want to investigate where we came from?”

“I did.”

“Then start with Gu Changgeng.”

Wang Cheng'an split the wooden tablet in two.

On one piece, he wrote, “Gu Changgeng, old name on the bridge, refuses reassignment, currently guarding the North Crossing.”

On the other, he wrote, “Gu Changgeng, black seal in the master register, place of origin pending verification, evidence: brand on palm.”

He did not put the two pieces together. Instead, he placed one at the bridgehead and the other beside the table.

“Record the evidence separately,” he said. “Neither record stands in for the other.”

Lin Zhaoxuan split the inked thread in two.

He wrapped one end around the wooden tablet at the bridgehead and the other around the black brand on Gu Changgeng’s palm.

“If it tries to force them together, the thread will snap first.”

“What if it snaps?” Zhou Heng asked.

“We reconnect it.”

Xu Erxiao stuck his iron shovel into the bridge planks.

“I’ll hold the bridge down too.”

Song Qinghe raised her lamp toward the black book.

“It’s turning the master register.”

The pages of the black book flipped rapidly, and streams of black characters surged out, rushing toward the two wooden tablets.

“Gu Changgeng, seal-keeper.

“Gu Changgeng, traitor to the register.

“Gu Changgeng, substitute name.

“Gu Changgeng, evidence of guilt.”

Wang Cheng'an swung the corrections seal.

“A description is not a classification!”

The seal came down, and the black characters scattered.

At the same time, Lin Zhaoxuan tightened the inked thread, ensnaring the words rushing toward the wooden tablet at the bridgehead. Song Qinghe placed the green lamp between the two tablets. Its light did not fall on the black book, only on the evidence recorded on the wooden tablets.

“The same name can belong to both, but the evidence cannot be mixed.”

The black book shook.

A tremendous rumbling rose from beneath the bridge.

Countless paper hands reached through the cracks and grabbed at everyone’s ankles. Zhou Heng cut them off one after another with his sword, Xu Erxiao smacked them back with his iron shovel, and White Reed wound the Red Cord around the Wooden Stake at the bridgehead. Each time she tightened the cord, a section of black paper lost its strength.

Lu Yuan stood in front of Gu Changgeng.

“What other evidence do you have?”

Gu Changgeng looked at him.

“What?”

“Evidence of why you guarded the bridge.”

Gu Changgeng was silent for a moment, then pulled a sheet of paper so thin it was almost transparent from the bottom of the black book.

It showed a snowy mountain. Two children stood at its foot, with a person carrying a saber beside them.

On the back of the picture were just a few words:

“If I cannot return, tell them for me: the bridge is not a gate.”

Lu Yuan took the paper.

“Who wrote this?”

“Your mother.”

“What was her name?”

Gu Changgeng’s eyes trembled.

“Gu Lanzhi.”

White Reed abruptly covered her mouth.

It was as though she had heard a voice sealed deep within her body.

“Lanzhi…”

She murmured the name once.

The three characters “Gu Baizhi” on the bridge suddenly lit up.

Lu Yuan looked at the line of text.

“Was she your mother?”

White Reed closed her eyes. Tears slipped from the corners of them.

“I don’t know.”

“But that name… I’ve heard it before.”

She reached for the paper, her fingertip resting on the three characters “Gu Lanzhi.”

A memory surged into her mind.

Firelight.

A broken house.

A woman handing two wooden tablets to two children.

“Seven-niang, take your younger brother and go.”

“Xiao Yuan, don’t be afraid. Your sister is here.”

“Don’t look back.”

“Once you cross the bridge, someone will remember you.”

The memory broke off there.

White Reed opened her eyes, her voice trembling.

“She called me Seven-niang.”

Lu Yuan said nothing.

“She called you Xiao Yuan too.”

“I remember now.”

White Reed looked at Lu Yuan.

“You’re not my younger brother.”

Lu Yuan’s gaze darkened slightly.

White Reed continued:

“You were another child she carried out of the fire.”

“She said you and I didn’t have the same father.”

“But she treated you like my real younger brother.”

“So later, Gu Changgeng wrote you down as siblings of the Gu family just to make the master register recognize that you traveled together.”

Lu Yuan looked at the two names standing side by side on the bridge.

So the true relationship between “eldest daughter of the Gu family” and “youngest son of the Lu family” had nothing to do with blood.

It was the choice a woman had made in the middle of a great fire.

White Reed raised a hand and wiped away her tears.

“I can acknowledge you.”

Lu Yuan did not answer immediately.

“But not because the master register says you’re my younger brother,” White Reed said. “And not because we rode in the same carriage.”

“I acknowledge you because I remember our mother entrusting you to me.”

“She said you were afraid of the dark, and told me to hold your hand.”

Lu Yuan’s fingers slowly loosened around the hilt of his blade.

He saw the Red Cord on White Reed’s wrist.

The knot in that cord was exactly as he remembered holding it when he was little.

“I remember too,” he said.

“What do you remember?”

“You always walked so fast.”

“Because it took you forever to stop crying.”

Xu Erxiao sniffed beside them and murmured, “Does that mean they’ve acknowledged each other?”

Wang Cheng'an was still staring at the bridge.

“Oral testimony alone isn’t enough.”

White Reed nodded.

She untied the little wooden tablet from the Red Cord and turned it over.

The back of the tablet had originally been inscribed only with “Temporarily Kept, Awaiting Recognition.” Now, reflected in the complete plum-blossom lock in Lu Yuan’s palm, a new line appeared:

“Eldest daughter of Gu Lanzhi, self-identifies as Seven-niang.

“Lu Lanzhi took in a son, named Lu Yuan.

“Relationship through shared journey: not by blood, acknowledged by mother.”

Wang Cheng'an quickly wrote it down.

“We have the mother’s keepsake, memories of traveling together, and both parties’ own acknowledgment. Their relationship can be provisionally recorded.”

“Not blood relatives,” Lu Yuan said.

“Not blood relatives,” Wang Cheng'an confirmed.

“But she is my sister.”

White Reed looked at him.

“You’re willing?”

Lu Yuan nodded.

“I am.”

The black line that had always stood between their two names on the bridge suddenly turned red.

The red line did not join their names into one entry. Instead, it tied a knot between them.

Four characters appeared beside the knot:

“Not blood-related kinship.”

The black book let out a thunderous roar.

It seemed to tear apart from within, and all its pages flew into the air at once. Fog from the Nameless River below swept up and wrapped around the pages one by one.

Gu Changgeng suddenly collapsed beside the table.

The black seal in his palm cracked. What flowed from it was not blood but strings of tiny black characters.

“Quick!”

“Separate the two pieces of evidence for my name!”

Lu Yuan grabbed the wooden tablet at the bridgehead, while Wang Cheng'an seized the black paper bearing the brand from Gu Changgeng’s palm. The two of them pulled in opposite directions at the same time.

Lin Zhaoxuan’s inked thread stretched to its limit.

Song Qinghe’s green lamp flared.

Zhou Heng used his sword to pin down the corner of the table at the center of the bridge.

Xu Erxiao pressed down hard on the splitting planks.

White Reed wound the Red Cord around Gu Changgeng’s wrist.

“Gu Changgeng!”

Gu Changgeng looked up.

“You choose.”

“The bridge, or the master register?”

He looked at the surging fog below the bridge.

After a long time, he pressed the black seal in his palm against the wooden tablet at the bridgehead.

“The bridge.”

The moment the black seal left his palm, Gu Changgeng seemed to age ten years. His hair turned white in an instant, and the wrinkles on his face deepened, as though carved there by wind and snow.

Lu Yuan caught the wooden tablet at the bridgehead.

The words “Gu Changgeng, old name on the bridge” gradually became clear on its surface.

Wang Cheng'an pressed the other sheet of black paper beside the master register and stamped it with “Evidence Recorded Separately.”

A shrill howl rang out from inside the black book.

The three characters “Gu Changgeng” in the master register were torn in half.

One half fell at the bridgehead.

The other fell beside Gu Changgeng’s feet.

The two halves of the name did not join again.

The fog in the Nameless River suddenly dispersed.

A real river appeared beneath the bridge.

Its waters were clear, and its bed was covered in white stones. Many names that had been trapped in the fog rose out of the water and landed beside their respective pieces of evidence on the bank.

A wooden tablet found its way back to its owner.

A copper coin found the village name that belonged with it.

Several scraps of household records were carried by the wind toward different villages in the north.

With its foundation gone, the black book slowly closed.

It did not disappear. Instead, it shrank into an ordinary black leather register and fell beside Gu Changgeng.

Gu Changgeng did not pick it up.

He stood and looked at Lu Yuan.

“Now you can cross the bridge.”

“What about the master register?”

“At the end of the North Crossing.”

“Aren’t you going?”

Gu Changgeng shook his head.

“I have to stay here and send the scattered names back.”

“You’ve guarded this place for so long. Now you can finally leave.”

“I can’t.”

He looked at the wooden tablet at the bridgehead.

“I’ve only gone from being the master register’s Gatekeeper to the North Crossing’s record-keeper.”

Xu Erxiao said, “Then I’ll write an entry for you too.”

He went to the wooden tablet and used the handle of his iron shovel to carve into the blank plank beside it:

“Gu Changgeng, living person, on the bridge. The records he guards remain unresolved.”

Gu Changgeng looked at those words. It was as though a layer of snow that had accumulated for years in his eyes had finally melted.

“Thank you.”

Lu Yuan handed him the wooden tablet bearing his name.

“Don’t hand your name over to anyone again.”

Gu Changgeng took the tablet.

“You remember that too.”

White Reed walked to the edge of the bridge.

“What lies at the end of the North Crossing?”

Gu Changgeng gazed into the distance.

“A place no one is willing to acknowledge.”

“Where?”

“The place where Gu Lanzhi was born.”

Lu Yuan tightened his grip on the plum-blossom lock.

“What is it called?”

Gu Changgeng looked past the bridge, toward the mountains in the north.

“White River Town.”

“There used to be an old ancestral shrine of the Gu family there.”

“The first part of the master register is hidden beneath that shrine.”

Song Qinghe asked, “The first part?”

Gu Changgeng nodded.

“The master register is divided among three places.”

“The North Crossing records places of origin, White River Town records kinship, and Black Mountain Pass, at the southernmost point, records destinations.”

“If you want to dismantle it completely, you’ll have to investigate all three.”

Wang Cheng'an opened the corrections register and wrote on a new page:

“North Crossing: Gu Changgeng’s old name on the bridge, temporarily preserved.

“Gu Lanzhi: mother’s name discovered, life history pending investigation.

“White Reed: current name self-chosen, suspected eldest daughter of the Gu family, kinship supported by additional evidence.

“Lu Yuan: place of origin as youngest son of the Lu family pending verification, taken in by Gu Lanzhi, non-blood kinship recorded.”

“Next stop: White River Town.”

When he finished, he stamped the page with “Pending Investigation.”

The black wood of the bridge no longer swallowed words.

At last, the seven of them set out across the North Crossing.

Beneath the bridge, the clear river flowed slowly, its surface reflecting each of their figures. Xu Erxiao saw a woman wearing an old headscarf beside his reflection. After he had walked a few steps, she vanished among the ripples.

He did not look back. He only gripped the wooden tablet more tightly.

Wang Cheng'an was walking in the middle of the bridge when he suddenly stopped.

“Brother Lu.”

“What is it?”

“There are words beneath the bridge planks.”

Everyone looked down.

They were not the black characters of the Southern Register, but a line of carving worn faint by time:

“After crossing the bridge, if someone asks where you came from, you need not answer at once.

“First ask why they want to know.”

White Reed looked at the words and said softly:

“Gu Lanzhi wrote that.”

Lu Yuan looked up toward the end of the bridge.

The white fog on the other side had already dispersed.

A snowy road leading north stretched out from the mountain pass, with a broken stone stele standing beside it. The place name that had once been on the stele had been scraped away, leaving only the character “White.”

A new letter lay beneath the stele.

There was no recipient’s name on the envelope.

Only one line:

“For the two children.”

Lu Yuan and White Reed reached for it at the same time.

As their fingers touched the edge of the envelope, the faintest sound of a carriage bell came from inside the letter.

Gu Changgeng stood at the other end of the bridge and looked up at them.

“Don’t open it here.”

“Why?”

“What’s written in the letter isn’t about the past.”

He looked toward White River Town.

“It’s something your mother left for the future.”

The wind blew from the north, lifting the snow beside the stele.

A crack appeared in the wax seal on the envelope.

Half a line of writing showed inside:

“If you’ve finally made it here, it means I couldn’t finish crossing the bridge.”

From deep in the distant mountains came a low, resonant bell.

It was not a carriage bell.

It was the bronze bell in the ancestral hall.

One toll.

Two tolls.

Three tolls.

One lamp after another slowly lit up in the snowy fog in the direction of White River Town.

Beneath each lamp stood a person without a name.

Lu Yuan put the letter away.

“Let’s go.”

The seven of them followed the snowy road toward White River Town.

Behind them, Gu Changgeng remained at the bridgehead, his figure growing more and more distant.

The wooden tablet on the bridge turned in the wind, finally revealing two newly carved lines on its back:

“There is more than one place of origin.

“No one else may acknowledge your destination in your place.”

And beneath the first lamp in White River Town, a woman wearing an old cotton-padded coat slowly raised her head.

Her face was exactly the same as their mother’s in Lu Yuan’s memory.