Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The first time I met Shen Jianwei was in the restoration room of the city archives.

That day, I was wearing gloves and repairing a Republican-era Marriage Contract that had been badly damaged by moisture. The pages were brittle; the corners shed flakes at the slightest touch. None of my colleagues wanted to take it on. I was the only one who liked this kind of work. Old paper was honest. Fire, water, insects, mold-everything it had endured left a trace. As long as you had enough patience, you could read the past from its cracks.

When Shen Jianwei pushed the door open, he happened to see me lifting a paper fiber as thin as transparency with my tweezers.

He didn’t disturb me. He stood by the door and waited for twenty minutes.

Only later did I learn that he had come to deliver a batch of old deeds donated by the Shen Family. His face was very pale. He wore a black overcoat, his cuff links fastened with meticulous care, like someone who had stepped out of an old photograph. The director introduced him to me. He nodded politely, but his gaze fell on the Marriage Contract.

“Can it be restored?” he asked.

I said, “As long as the original paper is still willing to live.”

As if he understood, he smiled faintly. “What about people?”

At the time, I thought the question was strange, but I answered anyway. “People are harder than paper. When paper is torn, it admits that it’s torn. People don’t.”

After that, Shen Jianwei often came to the archives. At first, it was to discuss the donation. Later, he brought over all kinds of old books that needed restoration. Later still, he simply sat by the window and watched me work. He didn’t talk much, and his health really was poor. In spring, when everyone else had taken off their coats, he still wore a scarf. In summer, if the air-conditioning was turned up even slightly, his fingertips turned as cold as if they had just been pulled from water.

After we got together, he never avoided talking about his illness.

He said his heart and lungs had been weak since childhood, but the doctors told him that as long as he lived carefully, there wouldn’t be any major problems. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, and even kept his emotions steadily under control. The only time he lost control was when my grandmother was critically ill.

That night, he drove me to the hospital. He drove very fast, and while we waited at a red light, his fingers kept trembling on the steering wheel. I thought he was worried about me, until my grandmother woke up and saw him standing at the door of the hospital room. Her originally cloudy eyes suddenly brightened.

She asked, “Your surname is Shen?”

Shen Jianwei was silent for a moment before saying, “Yes.”

My grandmother called me to her bedside and gripped my hand. When she was young, she had also restored old paper, and there were thin calluses on her palms from years of holding blades.

“Mianmian, remember this. You may attend a Shen Family wedding, but you must never sign the Shen Family’s second Marriage Contract.”

I was crying too hard to speak. I only thought she was giving me her final words.

Then she said, “There is a red mole behind your shoulder. That is not an auspicious mole. It is a Life-Sealing Mark. Don’t let them see it.”

After my grandmother passed away, I grieved for a long time. Shen Jianwei stayed with me through the funeral and helped me sort through her belongings. When he saw the old wooden chest she had left behind, he asked if I wanted to open it. I said we could do it later. He didn’t press me.

Looking back now, that hadn’t been consideration. It had been fear.

I slipped into the bathroom at the end of the corridor, locked the door, and immediately replied to Shen Jianwei’s message.

“What do you know?”

He replied quickly. “Come out first. I’m waiting for you by the small west-side gate.”

I typed, “Xu Lingyi wants me to sign a Life-Borrowing Marriage Contract.”

This time, a full half minute passed before he replied.

“I knew she wanted to perform the old rite, but I didn’t know she would move it up to tonight. Mianmian, trust me. Leave first.”

Trust.

Those two words almost made me laugh out loud.

If a person were truly innocent, his first reaction wouldn’t be to tell me to leave. It would be to ask if I was hurt, to ask what exactly his mother had done to me. Shen Jianwei was too clever-so clever that even his panic was measured.

Footsteps sounded outside the door.

The old butler’s voice came through the door. “Miss Lin, Madam is waiting.”

I turned on the faucet, creating the sound of rushing water, and quickly dug the small knife out from the hidden compartment of my handbag. It was a fine-bladed knife used for paper restoration. I was in the habit of carrying it with me. I had originally planned to take it out tomorrow when I switched to my wedding purse. Fortunately, I hadn’t had the time.

There was a very small frosted window in the bathroom that opened toward the greenhouse in the back courtyard. I stepped onto the sink and used the knife to pry open the window latch. Outside, the night air was damp and cold. Rows of white roses bloomed in the greenhouse, all flowers meant for tomorrow’s wedding.

When I climbed out, the window frame scraped a cut across my calf, and blood streamed down my skin. I had no time to care about the pain. Bending low, I circled around behind the flower racks, avoided the night patrol, and headed toward the small west-side gate.

Shen Jianwei was there, just as he had said.

He wore a white shirt with a long black trench coat draped over it, his face even paler than the day I first met him. When he saw the blood on my leg, his pupils shrank slightly, and he reached out to support me.

I dodged him.

His hand froze in midair.

I asked, “Shen Jianwei, when were you planning to tell me?”

Wind poured in through the gap in the gate. He coughed twice, his voice very low. “I was going to take you away before the wedding tomorrow.”

“Take me away, and then what? Tell me your mother is just superstitious, that the Shen Family is just traditional, and that nearly being forced to press a bloody handprint was all a misunderstanding?”

He pressed his lips tightly together.

I stared at him. “That Marriage Contract said, Transfer Lifespan and Borrow the Soul, Substitute for Calamity and Extend the Years. Do you know what those words mean?”

“I do.”

His answer was so soft, yet it landed on my face like a slap.

I gave a small laugh. “Then you also know the Shen Family didn’t marry me because you love me.”

“I love you.”

“Don’t disgust me with that line.”

Shen Jianwei’s expression went rigid.

I thought he would argue. I thought he would say he had been forced too, use his weak health and his mother’s control as shields. But he didn’t. He only took a set of keys from the pocket of his trench coat and placed it in my palm.

“Third floor of the West Building. The room at the very end. After you’ve seen it, if you’re still willing to hear my explanation, I’ll wait for you here. If you aren’t, leave through the small gate. The car is already parked at the mouth of the alley. The key is in the car.”

I looked down at the keys. The one on top had an old label stuck to it, with the words “Mingche” written on it.

Shen Mingche.

I had seen that name in the Shen Family’s genealogy donation records.

Xu Lingyi’s eldest son. Shen Jianwei’s half-brother, born of the same mother. He had died in a fire eighteen years ago.

Why did a dead man’s room still need to be locked?