noveltune Chapter 52: Words on Bamboo Paper
Chapter 52: Words on Bamboo Paper
When Cheng Xiaojin came out of Tieguai Li's studio, the sun was already setting in the west, shining obliquely on the cement pavement of Panjiayuan Back Street, so hot that you could fry an egg on it.
He took off the cotton-padded coat he had been wearing all day and threw it to Tieguai Li. Wearing a cotton-padded coat in the middle of summer wasn't because he was sick, but because after the exorcism, he felt cold from the bone crevices. His shirt was soaked with sweat but he was still cold.
He climbed onto the broken bicycle.
"where did you go?"
Liulichang.
"You're still running around Beijing looking like this?"
"I can't wait any longer. The matter mentioned in that text message has already been delayed for almost a day."
Tieguai Li leaned on the door frame, watching his back as he pedaled the bicycle. He opened his mouth but didn't say anything more.
Cheng Xiaojin rode for forty minutes to Liulichang.
The stationery and general store was squeezed into a narrow alley east of Rongbaozhai. The storefront was small, with faded Spring Festival couplets pasted on the two glass doors, and a stack of Xuan paper samples placed at the entrance, weighed down with bricks to keep out the wind.
The bald boss was dozing off at the counter when he heard the door open. He looked up, saw that it was Cheng Xiaojin, and stood up from his stool.
"You've arrived?"
"You texted me saying that person came again, when did that happen?"
"Yesterday afternoon, around four o'clock, I stayed for less than twenty minutes."
"Should we buy bamboo paper instead?"
The bald boss shook his head and pulled a brown paper envelope from under the counter, placing it on the counter.
"I didn't buy anything this time. After I came in, they asked me if I knew a young man surnamed Cheng who runs a stall in Panjiayuan."
Cheng Xiaojin's hand remained on the envelope without taking it.
"What did you say?"
"I said I didn't know him, and he smiled and didn't ask any further questions. He put the envelope on the counter and said, 'Please pass this on.'"
"And then? You just left?"
The bald boss nodded. "They're leaving. They came from the east, so they're heading east."
Cheng Xiaojin picked up the envelope; it wasn't sealed, and there was only one piece of paper inside.
He pulled it out and spread it on the counter.
Handmade bamboo paper, burnished, with a slightly yellowish surface, the texture is exactly the same as the card he received in his rented room.
The words above were handwritten in blue-black ink, in semi-cursive script, with elegant but not flamboyant strokes. Each stroke, from beginning to end, carried the meticulousness of an old-fashioned scholar.
"Brother Cheng, I am aware of the matter of removing the stakes throughout the city, and I have heard of your act of guiding evil spirits. We urgently need to meet in person, or things may change. Tomorrow at noon, under the third locust tree inside the gate of Baiyun Temple. I will go alone."
There was no signature or inscription.
Cheng Xiaojin brought the note to his nose and smelled it. It had a sandalwood scent, faint, just like the one in the rented room.
He pinched the edge of the paper with his right thumb and forefinger, and rubbed it twice with his fingertips.
The fiber orientation of burnished bamboo paper is very special. The fiber orientation of paper from Jingxian County, Anhui Province is different from that of paper from Jiajiang County, Sichuan Province. Even within Jingxian County, the density of spring paper and autumn paper differs.
Previously, his judgments could be accurate down to the place of origin, batch, and season—for example, the first-stage pulping and polishing of bamboo paper from Jingxian autumn materials, all within a second.
The signal coming back from my fingertips is now blurry, only enough to spell out two words: good paper.
He folded the note twice and stuffed it into his pocket.
"Boss, did he mention living nearby when he bought the bamboo paper?"
The bald boss thought for a moment and shook his head.
"They never mentioned it. They come, pick out their paper, pay, and leave. They never chat."
"Do you have any other habits?"
"Well... there is one. He always comes from the east, and he walks at a leisurely pace. His shoes are never dirty."
"Aren't the soles of your shoes dirty?"
"You know the alley in front of my shop, it turns into a muddy mess after it rains, but every time he comes here his shoes are spotless, leather shoes, flat-soled, and polished to a shine."
After the bald boss finished speaking, he thought for a moment and then added a sentence.
"By the way, yesterday he stood at the door for a while before coming in, looking down at the ground, right there at the door, for about half a minute before he came in."
"Look at the ground?"
"I was just looking, I didn't pick anything up, I just stared at the ground."
Cheng Xiaojin's gaze fell on the floor tiles outside the glass door; thankfully, the boss was observant.
The location at the entrance is less than three meters away from the counter inside the store. The ground is made of old blue bricks with cement filling the gaps between the bricks, just like anywhere else.
But he knew what place was two hundred steps east of that direction.
When he pushed open the glass door and went outside, the sun had already dipped low, and the shadows in the alley completely covered his bicycle.
When he arrived at the entrance of Rongbaozhai, he paused and glanced back in the direction of the stationery and general store.
The location marked on the seventh marker is 200 paces east of Rongbaozhai in Liulichang.
He was standing less than fifty meters away from the stationery and general store.
The ground beneath my feet was no different from anywhere else: a cement road with a few cracks, and withered grass roots squeezed into the cracks.
But he knew that eight or ten meters or even deeper beneath his feet, there was a stake that had been driven in six hundred years ago.
Nobody knows who moved it, when they moved it, or what happened afterward.
The person who had been buying bamboo paper from this shop for more than half a year was squatting directly above the seventh pile.
Before entering the room yesterday, I stared at the ground for half a minute with my head down.
Cheng Xiaojin got on his bicycle and rode back.
It was already dark when he arrived at Tieguai Li's studio. He took out the note and placed it on the worktable. Tieguai Li leaned over and read it.
"Baiyun Temple, you can go there alone tomorrow at noon."
"right."
Are you going?
"I have to go."
Do you know who this person is?
"I don't know, but he knows who I am, what's going on in the city, what's going on with the evil spirits, and my relationship with the owner of the stationery and general store. This guy knows everything about me, but I don't even know his name."
Tieguai Li's hexagonal wrench spun twice on the table.
"If you go alone and something happens, who will come to your aid?"
"He said he'd go alone. If I bring someone with me, I'm afraid we won't be able to meet."
"What if it's a condom?"
"Baiyun Temple, in broad daylight, at noon, when the sun is at its strongest, there are a lot of tourists at the entrance. If he wanted to harm me, he wouldn't have chosen this place."
Tieguai Li stared at him for a long time.
"Your hand hasn't fully recovered yet. What will you do if you encounter a situation where you need to use your hands to appraise things?"
"I'm not going there to appraise treasures, I'm going there to listen to what he has to say."
Cheng Xiaojin took out his phone from his pocket, scrolled through it, found Master Ma's number, and dialed it.
"Master Ma, I'm going to Baiyun Temple tomorrow at noon, alone. I'll arrive at 12 o'clock. If I don't call you back before 2 o'clock, please have Master Qi send someone to the temple to find me."
Master Ma scraped the lid off his teacup.
"Who made the appointment?"
"right."
"Be more careful..."
It's over.
Tieguai Li watched him put his phone back in his pocket, his lips twitched but he didn't say anything, and he put the hex wrench back on the tool rack.
Cheng Xiaojin lay on his cot, staring blankly at the water stains on the ceiling.
Eleven days until the return to the training grounds. The formation diagram is in Boss Lin's hands. Yin energy is testing the training grounds on living people, and the sense of touch is still declining.
Every line felt like it was pressing down on his head, making his temples throb with pain.
My phone rang; it was an unknown number.
Cheng Xiaojin answered the call.
A young male voice came from the other end of the line, his tone steady and his manner polite: "Brother Cheng, this is the note I left. Baiyun Temple, tomorrow at noon."
Cheng Xiaojin held his phone without saying a word.
"If you come, don't bring that friend who has difficulty walking."
Cheng Xiaojin's fingers tightened.
"It's not that I mind, it's just that there are many steps in the temple, and I'm afraid it will be inconvenient for him."
The phone hangs up.
Cheng Xiaojin stared at the ceiling for five seconds, holding his phone, then sat up and looked at Tieguai Li, who was tightening screws in front of the workbench opposite him.
Tieguai Li looked up.
"Whose call was that?"
"That's the person."
"What did you say?"
Cheng Xiaojin gripped her phone tightly in her hand, opened her mouth briefly, then closed it again.
He told me not to take you with me.
Tieguai Li stopped using his wrench.
He said there are many steps in the temple, and he was worried it would be inconvenient for you.
Tieguai Li's expression slowly changed.
"He even knows about my legs."
Cheng Xiaojin didn't reply, put her phone back in her pocket, and lay down.
He stared at the ceiling and pondered a question: This man knows everyone around him so well, he even touched Tieguai Li's prosthetic leg, so what about Tong Kexin, Master Ma, and Zhou Banxian?
How much does he know?
A drop of gray water was trickling down the rust lines from the water pipe joint next to the cot.