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墨書 Inktalez
The sound of shattered glass crunched beneath my shoes as I stepped over the remnants of a half-melted crystal chandelier in the ruins of the casino. The acrid smoke mingled with the stench of the Suzhou River, invading my nostrils.
The officers from the Police Station were measuring the length of Tanaka Ryokichi's corpse with a piece of twine. His little finger, missing its nail, curled into an odd arc, reminiscent of Mei Lan's hand gripping my sleeve in her final moments.
"Mr. Zhou, the special train from Nanjing will arrive tonight."
Boss Lu tapped my shoulder with his pipe, a spark landing on his fur coat and burning a black hole into it. I gazed towards the direction of the French Concession, where Guangci Hospital still emitted smoke, and a bitter taste rose in my throat, reminiscent of the bowl of Almond Tea Mei Lan had fed me three days ago.
Her hand had felt as cold as the pebbles at the bottom of the Suzhou River, yet at the slit of her Qipao, she still wore that hairpin laced with Cyanide. The award ceremony at City Hall was set against the backdrop of half-collapsed Ballymen.
As an official in a Zhongshan Suit approached with a brocade box, I was embedding Mei Lan's Jade Earrings into a crack in a marble pillar. The Gilded Medal clinked against the Earrings, producing a clear sound that echoed like the tinkling of her ornaments when she had swirled her sleeves before stepping onto the stage that night.
"The award is for the Blue Sky and White Sun, but what flows is Rouge Blood."
I pushed the brocade box back; the bronze medal left two scorch marks on the red velvet. Suddenly, a Foreign Journalist holding a camera stumbled and fell, his shoe spilling out a Microfilm that rolled to my feet—on the developing film, rows of plague culture dishes from Hongkou Orphanage’s cellar glinted back at me.
Boss Lu's cough reverberated under the dome of the hall. I undid the third button of my suit, revealing a submarine docking diagram drawn in lipstick by Mei Lan on my lining. A female student in an Indanthrene fabric Qipao squeezed through the crowd of reporters; a petal from her Camellia brooch fell off and perfectly covered the sulfur soap stain on my sleeve.
"A new Ready-to-Wear Shop has opened on Rouge Alley."
In the oil paper bag she handed me, a blueprint of the U.S. Army Armory was stained with bright red fingerprints. I caught a whiff of familiar plaster powder, identical to the medicinal scent that seeped from Mei Lan’s sutures when I prepared her for burial three months ago.
As the rickshaw turned onto Si Ma Road, the driver suddenly yanked on his bell. Twenty-eight copper coins scattered across the bluestone pavement as I stepped over them like spent shells.
Emerging from behind the third utility pole was Chief Inspector Chen in his riding boots; his hat brim was pulled lower than the water level of the Suzhou River, yet his gun-wielding hand trembled—just like it had when he had aimed at Mei Lan's temple that night.
"The Boiler Room at Hongkou Bathhouse..."
He swallowed hard and tossed me a set of keys; embedded within their cast-iron teeth was half a fingernail.
I heard the sound of the keychain clicking as I caught it, containing the half-encoded password that Mei Lan had bitten down on before her last breath. Her gravestone stood in the wild peach grove behind Longhua Temple. When I pressed the jade pendant against the bluestone slab, thirteen gray sparrows, pecking at the offering fruits, took flight in alarm.
In the lower right corner of the inscription, a line of small script was fading; it was the musical notation she had written with a water sleeve dipped in rouge while teaching me to sing " Dao Xian Cao." " Bai Suzhen Dao Xian Cao was to save Xu Xian," I said, plucking a peach blossom petal that had fallen at the foot of the stone. The damp patterns formed by Dew pieced together half of the Wusongkou Defense Map. "But what I stole was your life."
Suddenly, the mountain wind swept up a flurry of paper money. Those ghostly bills, cut from " Shen Bao " obituaries, still bore the wet seal of the Japanese Third Fleet Command. As the last ferry's horn sounded, I pulled out a magnesium strip from my pocket watch and scratched a mark on the railing. The copper casing reflected Boss Lu's silhouette standing atop the dock warehouse; the glint from his Jade Ring was a signal we had agreed upon three months ago atop a barrel in the cellar.
The waves washed away coal dust on the deck, forming strange symbols. I exhaled against the porthole, tracing out the Japanese kana that Mei Lan had taught me. Those curved strokes suddenly began to bleed water, merging into a line of blood that flowed from her Qipao slit to the tiled floor when she lay on the mortuary table.
From deep within the cargo hold came the sound of chains dragging across the ground. I counted my steps back to the seventh rivet and found a piece of bitter almond candy stuck to the bulkhead—just like the one Mei Lan had handed me at Xianles Dance Hall, wrapped in its paper was half of a map of Hongkou Dojo.
As the lighthouse at Wusongkou swept across for the third time, I tossed my heated jade pendant into the waves. The arc of moonlight falling suddenly exploded into emerald fireworks, and a thunderous collapse echoed from across the shore.
At that moment, as twelve searchlights pierced through the night sky, I heard Mei Lan singing " Youyuan Jingmeng" in its final notes, mingling with the roar of waves crashing against the breakwater.
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