Chapter 3: Ein halber Anhänger aus weißer Jade

The carriage rolled forward.

Cui Jiu pushed the wooden box across to her. "Open it."

Shen Du lifted the lid of the box. Inside were two things: an invitation card flecked with gold, and half a white jade pendant. The card was from the Gu family, and written on it were the words "Plum Viewing Banquet," and the date was today.

"The Gu family is holding a plum banquet today," Cui Jiu said. "You are going."

"Me?"

"You." Cui Jiu picked the jade pendant up between his fingers and held it against the lamplight to look at it. "Second Master Gu of the Gu family knows this thing."

The pendant was broken, with half of it missing, the broken edge worn smooth and round, the jade tinged green, and half a plum blossom carved on its face.

"A thing of the Liu family," Shen Du said.

"You know it?"

"My mother has one. The other half."

Cui Jiu glanced at her and put the pendant back into the box. "Second Master Gu has a register of names in his hands. I want you to take one look at it and remember a few of those names," he said. "There will be crowds of people at the plum banquet. You are a cousin of the Liu family, and no one will stop you."

"A cousin of the Liu family," Shen Du repeated. "Whoever is left in the Liu family, I do not know a single one of them."

"You do not need to know them. You only need to let Second Master Gu see this half of the jade."

Outside the carriage, the sky had not yet grown fully light. Shen Du held the invitation in her hand and asked, "Why would the Gu family recognize jade belonging to the Liu family?"

Cui Jiu gave a small smile. "Did your mother never tell you?"

Shen Du did not answer. Her mother had departed in haste and had told her nothing at all. In the winter eight years ago, her mother had lain ill for three days, and on the night of the third day she had drawn her last breath. On the fourth day, Madam Liu had come through the door as the new wife.

"We are here." Cui Jiu knocked against the wall of the carriage.

The carriage stopped at the mouth of a lane. He handed the box to her. "Take the invitation, and keep the jade close against your body. Gu Jun, around fifty years of age, with a scar across his left eyebrow. When you see the man, show the jade, and he will come looking for you on his own."

"How long am I to stay inside?"

"One hour. If you have not come out in one hour, I will go in and fetch you."

Shen Du got down from the carriage.

At the end of the lane was a side gate of the Gu residence, and people were already coming and going through it. She looked down at what she was wearing, a moon-white blouse and a skirt of blue cloth, neither respectable nor shabby. She tucked the jade into her sleeve, held the invitation in her hand, and walked toward the side gate.

The plum garden of the Gu family was three times the size of the Shen family's grounds.

Once inside the gate, Shen Du moved along with the flow of people. Only a few blossoms had opened on the plum trees, but there were plenty of people. She found a place by a wall to stand, and her eyes swept over the garden. To the east was a waterside pavilion, to the west a stage, and down the middle ran a gravel path, with tea tables set out on both sides. Everyone who had come was rich or noble, and the fabrics of their clothes were all finer than the one she was wearing.

Then she saw someone she knew.

Shen Lan. She wore a suit of goose-yellow clothes and stood beneath a cluster of plum trees, with two girls of about her own age gathered around her. Madam Liu was there too, a few steps away, talking with a woman dressed in dark crimson.

Shen Du stepped back half a pace behind a pillar.

It was too late. Shen Lan's eyes had already swept across to her.

"Well, well." Shen Lan came walking over, with the two girls following behind her. "Is this not my elder sister?" She laughed. "How did you come to be here as well? Since when does an invitation from the Gu family get sent to the Shen family?"

Shen Du did not move.

"I am asking you a question." Shen Lan pressed in close before her. "Did you come alone? Who let you in?"

The round-faced girl beside them asked, "Lan'er, who is this?"

"My elder sister," Shen Lan said. "Of the Shen family. Her mother died early, and my mother is the wife who filled the place afterward."

The round-faced girl looked Shen Du up and down, and her mouth curled in disdain. "Dressed like that, and she still comes to a banquet? Since when has the threshold of the Gu family been set so low?"

The other girl, tall and thin, covered her mouth and laughed. "Lan'er, your father is an official, after all. How can your elder sister be dressed like a maidservant?"

Shen Du gave her a look and paid her no mind, and said to Shen Lan, "Whether I come or not has nothing to do with you."

"How can it have nothing to do with me?" Shen Lan's voice rose a little. "What kind of place is the Gu residence? You, a mere --"

"Lan'er."

Madam Liu had come over. She wore a suit of pale lotus-root color, with a gold hairpin stuck in her hair, and her face was smiling, though her eyes were not.

"What are you doing here?" Madam Liu asked Shen Du, her voice not loud, though several pairs of ears all around had pricked up to listen. "Does your father know?"

"He does not."

"Then you --"

"I am a guest of the Liu family." Shen Du raised the invitation. "Invited by the Gu family."

Madam Liu's eyes rested on the invitation for a moment.

"The Liu family?" She laughed. "Who is left in the Liu family? Your mother has been dead for eight years, and no one from the Liu family has kept up any contact for a long time. Who are you trying to fool with an invitation card?"

People nearby were looking over at them.

Shen Du did not hurry. She opened the invitation out and showed it to Madam Liu. "A card issued by the Gu family, with their seal on it. If Aunt Liu does not believe it, go and ask the gatekeeper."

Madam Liu's expression shifted slightly. "Who are you calling Aunt?"

"Then what should I call you?" Shen Du looked at her. "Mother?"

Madam Liu did not take up the word.

Shen Lan tugged at her mother's sleeve. "Mother, she --"

"Enough." Madam Liu patted her daughter's hand, then turned and smiled at Shen Du. "Since you have come, stay here properly. Do not disgrace the Shen family."

She led Shen Lan away. The two girls went with them, and the round-faced one looked back at Shen Du and muttered under her breath, "The Liu family. The Liu family died out long ago."

Shen Du heard it, and did not turn her head.

She put the invitation away and walked deeper into the garden.

At the eastern end of the garden there was a waterside pavilion.

When Shen Du walked over to it, several people were sitting inside the pavilion. In the center was an older man, around fifty years of age, with a scar across his left eyebrow.

Gu Jun.

Shen Du stopped beneath the covered walkway. She did not go over to him at once. She waited for a while, until the people around Gu Jun had thinned out a little, and only then did she walk up, stand outside the waterside pavilion, take the half piece of jade pendant out of her sleeve, and hold it between her fingers up against the light.

The jade was green, and when the light struck it, a touch of white showed through.

Gu Jun was talking with someone, and out of the corner of his eye his gaze swept across. His words stopped.

He turned his face and stared at Shen Du's hand.

"Come over here."

Shen Du walked over.

Gu Jun held out his hand. "Let me see it."

Shen Du handed the jade to him. Gu Jun took it, turned it over and over and looked at it three times, and then drew something out from his own breast, the other half of the jade pendant.

The two halves made a pair, and the broken edges fitted together without the slightest gap.

Gu Jun raised his head. "Are you one of the Liu family?"

"A cousin of the Liu family."

"Cousin." Gu Jun repeated the word, separated the two pieces of jade, and returned her half to her. "A cousin from which branch of the Liu family?"

"My mother's family name was Liu," Shen Du said. "Her given name was a single character, Yuan."

Gu Jun's hand stopped in midair.

"Liu Yuan," he said. "You are Liu Yuan's daughter."

"Yes."

Gu Jun said nothing. He put the half piece of jade he held away, and looked at Shen Du for a long time.

"Your mother..." He began, and then stopped. "Is she well?"

"She has been dead for eight years."

Gu Jun's face sank.

"Eight years." He said it in a low voice, as if he were working something out. "The winter eight years ago?"

"Yes."

Someone was walking up outside the waterside pavilion.

"Second Uncle Gu."

Shen Du turned her head. Madam Liu was standing beneath the covered walkway, her face wreathed in smiles, her eyes moving back and forth between Shen Du and Gu Jun.

"This child belongs to my household," Madam Liu said. "My stepdaughter. She does not know how to behave, and she has run over here to disturb you --"

"She did not come looking for me," Gu Jun said.

Madam Liu froze for a moment.

"She is a guest of the Liu family," Gu Jun said, looking at Madam Liu. "Liu Yuan's daughter. Madam Liu, your stepdaughter is Liu Yuan's daughter. Did you not know that?"

Madam Liu's face went stiff.

"I..."

"What dealings Liu Yuan had with the Gu family in those days, you ought to know perfectly well." Gu Jun's voice was not loud, but everyone inside and outside the waterside pavilion could hear it. "Her daughter has come to the Gu residence because I invited her. Those words you said out there just now, I heard every one of them."

Madam Liu opened her mouth. "I --"

"Enough." Gu Jun waved his hand. "You may go back. I have a few words to say to this child."

Madam Liu stood there for a while, then turned and left. When she left, her steps were quicker than when she had come.

Only Shen Du and Gu Jun were left in the waterside pavilion.

Gu Jun had a servant bring tea, and he sat down across from her himself, looking at Shen Du.

"What is your name?"

"Shen Du."

"Shen Du." Gu Jun repeated it once. "Did your mother give you that name?"

"Yes."

Gu Jun nodded. He picked up his tea, did not drink it, and set it down again.

"Your mother once held this half piece of jade too," he said. "She came to beg one thing of me."

Shen Du lifted her eyes. "What thing?"

Gu Jun did not answer. He stood up, walked to the edge of the waterside pavilion, and stood with his back to her.

"Before your mother married into the Shen family, she was the only daughter of the Liu family. The Liu family had fallen, and she held it up all on her own," Gu Jun said. "She came to find me in the autumn eight years ago."

The autumn eight years ago. Her mother had died in the winter of that same year. She had come begging for help in the autumn, and by winter she was dead.

"What did she beg of you?"

Gu Jun turned around. "She begged me to protect one person."

"Who?"

Gu Jun looked at her and said nothing.

Outside the waterside pavilion a wind had risen, the plum branches swayed, and a few leaves fell down.

"Your mother did not die of illness," Gu Jun said.

Shen Du's fingers clenched tight inside her sleeve.

"What did you say?"

"I said --" Gu Jun took half a step forward. "That illness of your mother's came on too suddenly. She was gone in three days. I sent someone to ask, and the Shen family said it was an acute illness. But afterward I heard that on the day before she died, she had still gone out to meet someone."

Shen Du stood without moving. "Meet whom?"

Gu Jun did not answer. He glanced outside the waterside pavilion and lowered his voice. "Go back for now. Three days from now, come here once more, and enter by the west corner gate, and do not let anyone see you. I will tell you the whole story of those days clearly."

Shen Du looked at him. "Why are you telling me these things?"

"Because that half piece of jade your mother had was entrusted to me," Gu Jun said. "She said that when someone came looking for me holding the other half, I was to say the words that had to be said."

He paused. "I have waited eight years."

Shen Du put the half piece of jade back into her sleeve and turned to leave.

"Wait."

She turned her head.

Gu Jun's eyes had fallen on her sleeve opening. "What is that in your sleeve?"

Shen Du looked down. Just now, when she had clenched her hand, her sleeve opening had flipped up, exposing a corner of a wooden token.

"Nothing."

"Take it out."

Shen Du did not move. Gu Jun came walking over and held out his hand. Shen Du stepped back half a pace.

"The token with the character Ye," Gu Jun said. "I saw it."

Shen Du lifted her eyes and looked at him.

"Your mother had one back then too," Gu Jun said. "Exactly the same."

The wind outside the waterside pavilion had grown stronger.

"The people of the Ye camp were gone twenty years ago," Gu Jun said, looking at her. "That piece your mother had, I thought it had been buried together with her."

Shen Du said nothing.

"Whose person are you?" Gu Jun asked.

Shen Du looked at him for a long moment, and then she smiled faintly.

"Second Master Gu," she said, "you said just now that my mother begged you to protect one person. Who was it that she wanted protected?"

Gu Jun did not answer.

"If you will not say it, then I will leave." Shen Du gathered her sleeve opening closed. "I will come in three days. Say what you have to say in full. If you do not say it all, I will not come again."

She turned and walked out of the waterside pavilion. Behind her, Gu Jun did not stop her.

She walked out of the plum garden and out through the side gate, and in the lane a carriage was waiting. It had a blue curtain.

Shen Du climbed into the carriage. Cui Jiu was sitting inside, and before him was that same wooden box.

"Did you see him?"

"I saw him."

"What did he say?"

Shen Du placed the half piece of jade on the lid of the box. "He said this half piece of jade is not Liu Yuan's." She looked at Cui Jiu. "It belongs to someone else."

Cui Jiu did not move.

"He also said," Shen Du leaned forward slightly, "that my mother had a token with the character Ye back then as well."

Inside the carriage there was silence for a while.

Cui Jiu smiled faintly. "You are cleverer than I thought."

"You knew all along," Shen Du said. "You gave me this piece of jade precisely so that he would recognize me."

Cui Jiu did not deny it.

"Why?"

Cui Jiu closed the wooden box.

"Because that piece of jade your mother had is now in Madam Liu's hands," he said. "I want you to take it back."

Shen Du looked at him.

"There is one more thing." Cui Jiu drew a slip of paper out of his sleeve and handed it over. "Just now in the waterside pavilion, Gu Jun had someone carry a note out. My people intercepted it."

Shen Du took it and looked at it. On it was a single line of small characters, which read: "Liu Yuan has a daughter, in the Shen family. Investigate."

She raised her head.

Cui Jiu looked at her. "Gu Jun is going to investigate you. Tell me, what do you think he will find?"