Chapter 3: Debts at the Old Shop

The alley narrowed as it went, moss in the cracks of the bluestone slabs snagging at her shoes and spreading a damp, dark stain. The sun had dipped to the west, and no light found its way into the lane; just a thin line of grey-white seeped through the gap above the high walls. Su Jin stopped in front of the old shop, slipping a key into the lock, but it wouldn't turn. The lock was new, the brass face gleaming with a cold light.

She wiped the surface of the lock, and beneath the dust, a slick, oily yellow showed through. It had been changed just a few days ago. Half the door panel had been swapped out too, the paint mismatched. The wood grain on the new section looked raw, the corners not sanded smooth, rough enough to prick your skin.

She didn't rush to pry it open. Instead, she stepped back half a pace and looked up at the sign—the varnish on the characters for "Su's Shop" had peeled away another layer, but they hadn't removed the sign itself. That meant the other side was still leaving her a shred of dignity, or a shred of patience.

The shop suddenly seemed shorter than she remembered. As a kid, she couldn't reach the cutting board and had to stand on a little stool to watch her mother cut fabric. Back then, the room felt big enough to swallow the whole alley. Now, with the new door and the new lock, it felt like a box being squeezed in someone's hand.

"Miss Su." Old Chen from the tea stall next door poked his head out, his voice kept low. "They came the day before yesterday afternoon. A man and a woman. The man said he was from the Liu Family and claimed this shop had long been mortgaged, pressuring your mother to sign. She didn't. Her hands were shaking."

As he spoke, his eyes flicked toward the alley entrance, as if afraid someone was listening.

Su Jin nodded, asking when they'd come back.

"They said three days. Today's day two."

After thanking Old Chen, she ducked into the back alley. It was even narrower, with broken jars stacked against the wall, filled with rainwater and floating green duckweed. The latch on the back window was old, and she knew the routine perfectly, unhooking it and flipping inside with a landing lighter than a sheet of cloth.

The shop smelled damp, mixed with old paste and camphor. The chalk lines on the cutting board were still there, her mother's thimble resting on the pin cushion, untouched. The needles were arranged neatly by length. Her mother was gone, but the discipline in her hands remained. Su Jin reached out, and the moment her fingertip touched the brass thimble, a hazy Color Halo surfaced—grey and white. Anxiety, mixed with the hardness of someone backed into a corner, holding on for dear life.

Su Jin closed her eyes for a second, pushing the grey-white sensation back, and turned to the ledger first. Her mother had always kept the books clear, but the last page was mostly blank, save for one line of small text: Shop mortgage deed, handled by Liu Wenyuan. The ink was fresher than the rest, the stroke at the end trembling slightly.

Beneath it lay a copy of an IOU. The numbers were written smoothly, but the interest was buried in a line of small text at the very end: a three-day term, shop forfeit on overdue. The signature—Liu Wenyuan—was written with unshakable confidence.

Liu Wenyuan, Liu Ruyan's cousin, managed a few shops on the Gu Family side. Su Jin held the IOU up to the light leaking through the window gap. The paper was new, the ink new, even the creases looked freshly pressed. She recognized her mother's handwriting, but this thumbprint had been pressed too perfectly, as if someone had been standing right there, watching.

She folded the IOU and tucked it into her bosom, then crouched down to flip through the boxes. Old fabrics, scraps, and a few faded pattern books sat at the bottom. Lifting the lid released a pungent wave of camphor that made her turn her head. At the very bottom was a blue cloth-bound book, its corners frayed—her mother's sample book from her younger years.

Her finger brushed the cover, and a very faint pink hue seeped out, a warmth left behind by her mother in her youth, still carrying the irritation of staying up late tracing patterns.

Flipping to the third page, the paper felt suddenly thicker between the sheets. She pinched it; it was a false bottom. She picked the seam open with a needle tip, and a sliver of thin paper fell out. It wasn't a pattern, but a page of Needle Chart. The script was older than anything she'd ever seen, the strokes thin and hard, like they'd been carved. The opening lines read: Emotions have texture, texture can fix color; the needle follows the meridian, color returns to its place.

Below were diagrams of Color-Fixing Needlework, every stitch's start and end marked with direction and force.

Su Jin's palms suddenly felt hot. What was written here matched what she'd been groping around for on her own these past days, but it was far more detailed. She had assumed a Color Halo could only be borrowed or guided, but this said color could be fixed, and if fixed, it could last; if it lasted, it could be moved. As she read, she mimed the movements on the cutting board with her fingertips, following the diagram's path.

On the third stitch, a faint, elusive warmth actually rose from beneath her fingertip, as if the words on the paper were responding to her.

Turning to the last page, the paper was missing a chunk. The bottom edge had been cut cleanly, the slice straight, clearly from scissors, with some fraying at the end where the final cut had snagged. There was no bleed-through on the back, meaning the missing half had been densely drawn, heavy with ink. The remaining half had just four characters: Color-Fixing Needlework.

Beneath the text, half a diagram started, the stitch lines breaking off midway, like a road leading up to a cliff edge.

Su Jin held it up to the light, examining the broken edge. There was a slight residue of ink at the break. She tried to deduce the path from the remaining stitches, and the moment her fingertip touched the start of the first needle, a color spread along the needle path—an extremely deep ink-black, thick enough to almost coagulate.

She pulled her finger back. The black receded into the paper, leaving only a dark ring at the edge, like a drop of ink on rice paper, spreading out and then holding. She stared at it for a long while, a chill running down the back of her neck.

Black Resentment. The original owner of this Needle Chart had been through something like this.

Just as she was about to tuck the chart away, a knock sounded from the front. Not heavy, not light—three raps. Su Jin's hand froze in mid-air. She listened. There was no other sound in the alley, just the tea kettle lid at the stall clinking against the steam. Then Liu Ruyan's voice came through the door, smiling even through the wood: "Is Sister Su home?

My cousin said there are issues with the deed for this shop. I came specifically to check in. Wouldn't want outsiders taking advantage."

Su Jin folded the Needle Chart and stuffed it into her inner pocket. She stood up, straightened her collar. Her knees felt a bit numb, so she braced herself against the cutting board for a moment, tucking the stray hair by her ear back, before going to open the door.

When the door opened, Liu Ruyan stood on the steps below. She wore a light apricot Western-style dress and carried a small leather handbag. Behind her, half a step back, was a man with gold-rimmed glasses—Liu Wenyuan. His hands were in his suit pockets, his face wearing a polite, business-like expression. The alley light reflected off his lenses, hiding his eyes.

Liu Ruyan's gaze swept over her, then looked past her into the shop, her eyes measuring a room she already considered hers.

"Sister Su, this shop really has more charm the longer you look at it," Liu Ruyan laughed. "It is a bit old, though. My cousin is kind enough to extend the deadline to the day after tomorrow. But the amount on the deed—well, it needs addressing, right?" She raised a hand, her sharp, glossy nails tapping the peeling paint on the door frame.

Su Jin didn't move aside; she just blocked half the doorway. "I've read the deed. Three-day term. Today is only day two."

Liu Wenyuan adjusted his glasses, his tone conversational. "Miss Su. Debts are debts, feelings are feelings. When your mother mortgaged the shop, I paid market price. Not a cent short. Now that it's due, I'm acting on the contract. That's not bullying, is it?" He slowed down on the phrase "market price," as if weighing those three words on a scale.

"Market price?" Su Jin looked at him. "Then how is the interest on the IOU written as one-two, and then tacked on an extra three? In small letters at the very bottom. My mother's eyesight isn't great. She probably didn't see it."

The polite mask on Liu Wenyuan's face stiffened for a split second before he broke into a smile. "Sharp eyes, Miss Su. But your mother pressed her thumbprint on it." As he smiled, his right hand came out of his pocket and went back in.

"The thumbprint is there," Su Jin said. "But who was standing next to her when she pressed it, Mr. Liu knows that."

The smile faded from Liu Ruyan's face. She took over. "That's a heavy thing to say, Sister Su. My cousin operates within the rules. It's you who's causing a scene over the broken engagement—everyone in the city knows. And now you're nitpicking these details to drag things out? Is that it?" As she said "broken engagement," the tone at the end lifted slightly, like a casual jab, or maybe a deliberate stab to the heart.

Su Jin's fingers flicked inside her sleeve, her expression unchanged. "Is Miss Liu here today to collect the shop for her cousin, or to see if the Gu Family can find anything valuable left in this shop?" She shifted to the side, letting the sliver of light from the doorway fall directly on Liu Ruyan's face.

Liu Ruyan sputtered, then her smile improved. "Sister Su is so witty."

"I'm not joking." Su Jin stepped back half a pace, opening the door wider. "The shop is here, the accounts are here. It's due the day after tomorrow; I'll give you an answer then. For today, I suggest you head back. I need to inventory my stock. I can't explain if anything is missing."

Liu Wenyuan opened his mouth to say more, but Liu Ruyan tugged his arm. She nodded with a smile. "Then the day after tomorrow. Sister Su, don't let us be unable to get in the door when the time comes."

With that, they turned and left. High heels clicked crisply on the bluestone. The handbag strap swung, brushing Liu Wenyuan's hand. They walked toward the alley entrance, one after the other. Liu Wenyuan looked back once; the light on his lenses flashed before the shadow of the alley swallowed it.

Su Jin closed the door, leaning her back against the panel for a while. The coolness seeped through her clothes, and she realized her back was covered in a thin layer of sweat. She took out the half-page of the Needle Chart and looked at it again in the light on the cutting board. The ink residue at the break was still there, like a sentence left unfinished.

She picked up a needle and tried to follow the trajectory of the last few stitches on the broken diagram, practicing on the floral pattern on her own sleeve. Start the stitch light, end it steady, a slight flick of the wrist to finish. As she reached the third petal, the flower on the cuff seemed to lift slightly off the fabric.

The needle point dropped. That layer of ink-black was teased apart thread by thread, scattering into the veins of the petals, revealing a deep, steady dark gold that traced the edge of the petal once before sinking back down.

Watching that spot of dark gold, Su Jin slowly exhaled. Without the second half of the diagram, this technique couldn't be completed, but she had finally found the edge of the path. The day after tomorrow, Liu Wenyuan would come to collect the shop. She pinned the needle back into the cushion. She already had a plan.

It was just that half-page of the diagram—who exactly had it?