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墨書 Inktalez
As the magnesium powder drifted down onto Yu Ji's sword tassel, I heard the old gramophone behind the curtain sputter like it was stuck.
The children in the audience, wearing red scarves, huddled together, while a female cadre in a Lenin suit in the front row stuffed sunflower seed shells into the pages of the Red Flag magazine. The smell of ink mixed with the sweetness of snowflake cream, momentarily reminding me of the duck egg powder Mei Lan used to remove her makeup back in the day.
"Even a fledgling dares to play Yu Ji?" A crisp sound of a teacup clinking against the dressing table came from behind the side curtain. The gray-haired Old Qin Master shot me a sidelong glance, his fingers wrapped in tape, "Back then, Boss Mei could flick her sleeves and knock down the glass lanterns hanging from the box seats."
I wiped at the wig stuck to my nape, my birthmark the size of a copper coin glistening with sweat. Three months ago, I found a yellowed score at an old book stall in Hongkou, and half a jade earring fell out from between its pages, cutting my hand as I picked up the score—blood droplets mingled with the lyrics of Farewell My Concubine, blurring Mei Lan's breath marks made with lipstick.
Suddenly, a draft rushed through the gap in the curtain, causing Yu Ji's Fish Scale Armor to clank. I stumbled to steady myself against the sword rack and caught sight of a white mist hovering over an empty seat in the last row, where water sleeves rolled like snow waves crashing against the shore.
Old Qin Master's Jinghu abruptly shifted its tune; it should have been a gentle phrase urging the king to drink and listen to Yu songs but instead morphed into Mei Lan's swan song from that fateful night—Ku Zumiao.
"Child, Yu Ji's sword needs to tilt three inches to the left." A soft voice whispered in my ear; cool fingers covered my grip on the sword's hilt. "When A Qiang took a bullet for me back then, blood splattered right here."
The sword light sliced through the beam cast by the overhead lamp, revealing golden dust floating like outlines of a Qipao.
Applause erupted from below, startling pigeons perched on the beams. Seventeen feathers spiraled down onto the sunflower seed shells before an empty seat, forming an unfinished character for "Lan."
As we dispersed, Granny sweeping up murmured about how heavy the scent of incense was. The scraps of paper money she lifted with her broom still bore lead type that read "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere."
In front of the mirror in the changing room, I began to dismantle my headpiece; a silver hair strand was caught in my hairnet. At that moment, as the neon sign turned red, it reflected Cyanide's distinctive bitter almond glow.
"Boss Mei said you should check backstage."
The young apprentice delivering hot towels suddenly spoke up; he had a gold-plated pen tucked into his Zhongshan Suit pocket—the scratch on its cap matched perfectly with the missing piece of my jade earring.
The bulb in the fire escape buzzed ominously as faded scores were scrawled on the iron door with chalk.
Pushing open the storage room door unleashed a musty odor mixed with that of exploded plaster powder, reminiscent of advertisements for Jintan Pills tucked inside my father's war diaries.
Atop a hill made of discarded costumes stood a white satin Qipao swaying gently in the draft; its lapel was crafted from shrapnel.
"The day they burned down Shen Bao Pavilion, A Qiang buried parts of the printing press under that sycamore tree in French Concession." A misty figure emerged from among mildew stains; fingers stained with Red Nail Stain lightly touched my wrist's birthmark. "Now that sycamore has sprouted new buds; someone needs to plant those lead types back into the soil."
I chased after water sleeves drifting across the courtyard but collided with the director who was burning old files in the Boiler Room.
Flames leapt from an iron bucket, consuming yellowed telegrams; one corner of paper that hadn't fully burned bore the name "Mei Lan," and as flames licked at it, they twisted into a submarine's cross-section drawing.
"Are you mesmerized, little comrade?"
The director adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses; reflections danced within his lenses revealing Boss Lu and Jade Ring's secret signals. "A new era calls for new plays; these debts of rouge from old society..."
His words were abruptly cut off by the sudden blast of a whistle. A sharp pain shot through the birthmark on my wrist as the Wusongkou Lighthouse swept over the eaves of Longhua Temple, and thirteen startled sparrows shattered the moonlight.
As the waves crashed against the breakwater, sending a jade pendant ashore, I was busy copying the gongche notation on the back of a bulletin board. The residue of Cyanide inside the pendant began to froth in the rain, and the sound of the bubbles bursting matched perfectly with my father's description of the "Jade Shattering Plan."
The new female officer from the propaganda department hummed "Bai Mao Nu" as she passed by, her red silk ribbon tied in a special knot—exactly like the secret code I learned from Mei Lan on page 28 of my Password Book. Last night, while transcribing the lyrics from "Red Detachment of Women," my fountain pen suddenly wrote an entire page of Japanese kana.
The ink revealed a floor plan of Hongkou Dojo in the morning mist, and on one marked room's window frame, there were still blood fingerprints left by A Qiang when he climbed over the wall years ago. This morning, the glass display window of the City Library suddenly shattered, sending shards flying and cutting strange patterns into a propaganda poster—clearly a Morse Code that Mei Lan had taught me to recognize, which translated into a floor plan for next week's charity performance.
After the show, a thin mist with a hint of sea salt lingered over the stage. Old Qin Master said it was from the evening tide of Huangpu River. But when I opened the hidden compartment in my violin case, I found it contained an original encrypted message from the Japanese Army that smelled faintly of bitter almonds, with half a suture thread tangled in the horsehair bow.
"Yu Ji must smile," white mist coalesced into the silhouette of a Qipao as Mei Lan whispered amidst the distant ferry whistles, "Back then, I smiled at Tanaka Ryokichi's gun barrel; only then would his hand tremble on the trigger."
Her flowing sleeves brushed against my sword tassel, and suddenly, my steel sword quivered and began to sing "Eighteen Farewells," each tremor precisely corresponding to Wu Songkou's tidal moments.
In the storage room, I found an old curtain soaked in kerosene; when unfurled, it revealed a complete Shanghai Underground Pipeline Map. The hole gnawed by rats was precisely at Guangci Hospital's old site, while Mei Lan's Jade Earrings fit snugly into a mark on the French Concession's substation.
On the day our propaganda team set out, the truck rolled over streets covered in sycamore fluff. I clenched tightly onto the Cyanide capsule hidden in my script book and suddenly heard the tune of Youyuan Jingmeng’s Soap Pod drifting through the air. In the rearview mirror, City Hall's spire reflected sunlight into shapes resembling triangular bayonets.
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