TRCT_01
Chapter 1: Time Travel — Republic of China, Seventh Year
"Qiu Wenxin was born in Suzhou, though his ancestral home was Shaoxing.
"In the early twentieth century, in the Suzhou-Shanghai area, many of those in the used book trade came from Shaoxing. Qiu Wenxin's father was originally one such book peddler who came from Shaoxing..."
In Suzhou, even on an early April spring day, the lingering chill of late winter could still be felt as the sun sank westward.
This was especially true inside the main hall of this former residence of a notable figure, where the front doors were wide open, the furnishings sparse, and the wind came from all directions, causing the visiting tourists to pull their sleeves and collars tighter.
The young tour guide wore a long black trench coat, the hair at her temples lifted by the breeze, her speaking pace unhurried and composed as she narrated to the tourists the contents she had long since committed to memory.
"According to Qiu Wenxin's memoirs, his early childhood was marked by extreme poverty at home. It was not until he was eight years old, when his father took over a shop on Hulong Street and opened a classical studies bookstore, that the family's financial situation gradually improved.
"Not two years after that, they moved into this building on West Zhongshi Street, the very former residence we are visiting today.
"In those days, West Zhongshi Street was the most prosperous area in Suzhou, which shows that by the time Qiu Wenxin reached school age, his family had already become quite well-off.
"Now, everyone please follow me forward..."
Ji Qingzhou had left his suitcase at the security deposit by the entrance, and just as he stepped into the main hall, he caught the tail end of the tour group.
He made a quick, cursory loop around the former site of the 'Classical Studies Bookstore,' then caught up with the tourists ahead and entered the main hall of the rear residence.
Today being neither a weekend nor a public holiday, there were few visitors. The free guided tours held at the top of each hour every afternoon had reached their last session at four o'clock.
Ji Qingzhou had only gotten out of the taxi five minutes ago. He had originally planned to go directly to the guesthouse he had booked, drop off his luggage, and then head out to explore. But upon stepping out of the cab, he discovered that the guesthouse happened to be right next door to one of the stops on his travel itinerary— the former residence of Qiu Wenxin, a renowned modern literary figure.
Since he had caught the last free guided tour of the day, it was only natural to go in and listen, saving him the trouble of finding time to come back the next day.
Surrounded by the slightly distorted male voice of the tour guide amplified through a headset microphone, a dozen or so tourists made their way up the gleaming black wooden staircase to the second floor.
Pairs of soles struck the solid floorboards, footsteps falling in an uneven, echoing rhythm.
The first room to be visited after reaching the second floor was the one at the first corner on the left.
It was a room measuring four by five meters. The windows were shut, the lighting dim. In the right corner beside the entrance stood an old-style carved wooden bed, while across the room by the window sat a square table, an armchair, and an assortment of small writing implements.
Along the left wall hung several restored old photographs. Apart from those photographs, all the other furniture had barrier tape in front of it to keep visitors from getting too close.
"This is Qiu Wenxin's bedroom. Both the bed and the table and chairs are original pieces of furniture used by Mr. Qiu himself.
"Right up until he moved to Shanghai in 1910, Qiu Wenxin spent the greater part of his childhood and adolescence in this very room...
"It was also precisely because his family ran a bookstore downstairs, giving him ready access to literature from all eras, that he was later able to become a distinguished writer and scholar."
The air inside the room was stuffy, and a few tourists found it too crowded, so after a quick look around they came back out, leaving Ji Qingzhou more room to explore.
He listened to the guide while weaving around the cluster of people, making his way to the photo wall on the east side to browse through the yellowed old photographs.
As his footsteps carried him along, blurred faces and aged figures passed before his eyes one by one.
Then, all of a sudden, he stopped in his tracks, his gaze settling on a photograph positioned just below Qiu Wenxin's wedding portrait.
"Regarding the restoration and reconstruction of the former residence, please direct your attention this way."
The tour guide turned around, just about to begin her introduction, when she suddenly noticed a visitor standing before the photo wall.
The person wore a baseball cap, a cream-white hoodie, and straight-cut dark grey jeans, with a black leather crossbody bag slung over one shoulder. Judging purely by his clothes, he looked like an ordinary male university student, yet his excellent proportions and the clean lines of his face beneath the brim of the cap made it difficult not to look twice.
After a two-second lapse, the tour guide quickly drew her gaze back and resumed her explanation:
"In the year 2000, the former residence of Qiu Wenxin underwent restoration and reconstruction. Mr. Qiu's second wife and his daughter made a special trip from Hong Kong to visit the rebuilt residence. The photograph here was taken at that time..."
A few tourists had also noticed Ji Qingzhou standing motionless for so long, and assuming there must be something special about the photograph he was staring at, gathered around out of curiosity, only to find it was an ordinary group photo.
Photographs taken a hundred years ago had naturally grown faded and indistinct, though one could still make out the general features of the people in them. The figure who came across as most familiar was, naturally, the owner of this former residence himself, Qiu Wenxin.
But beside Qiu Wenxin, anyone who looked at the photograph carefully would find it hard to overlook a certain young man.
He was dressed in a classically coloured shirt and trousers, and was quite tall, standing nearly a full head above Qiu Wenxin, yet without appearing the least bit slight.
Despite his relaxed posture, the uprightness of his figure remained evident. Beyond that, his features were equally striking.
His facial features were so strikingly handsome that at first glance, one almost had the impression that the area of the photograph where he stood was somehow sharper and clearer than the rest of the yellowed image.
After the tour guide finished recounting Qiu Wenxin's marital history, she noticed that several tourists were showing keen interest in the photograph below, and so elaborated on it:
"The photograph below was taken at the steamship dock, a group farewell portrait captured when colleagues and friends came to see Qiu Wenxin off as he departed on a newspaper-sponsored trip to France for an exchange and study visit.
"As you can see, the person standing in the very centre of the row is Qiu Wenxin. The two taller individuals on either side of him were childhood friends of Mr. Qiu's and the two closest companions of his youth.
"Why do I say his youth specifically? Because both of them passed away at a very young age, one might say they died in the prime of their lives."
Ji Qingzhou glanced at the tourists gathering around, raised a hand to pull the brim of his cap down slightly, and slipped sideways out of the crowd.
He intended to step outside the room first and listen to the guide from the doorway, but halfway there, he paused for two seconds and, unable to help himself, turned back and raised his phone. Using his height to his advantage, he zoomed in and took a shot of the photograph.
Without question, the person he wanted to capture was the handsome young man in the picture.
But what had caught his eye was not the other's exceptionally defined features, striking as they were, but rather—in the eyes of a designer—a perfectly proportioned frame built like a natural clothes hanger.
Even having attended no fewer than a hundred major fashion shows and having met no small number of celebrity models, Ji Qingzhou had rarely come across a physique and bone structure that satisfied him as thoroughly as this one.
At least in this photograph, the man's bearing, his head-to-body ratio, and the proportions of his upper and lower limbs all perfectly matched his aesthetic sensibilities.
What a shame. If this gentleman had been born in the present day, Ji Qingzhou would have gotten him to model for him by any means necessary.
After looking at the photo he had just taken, Ji Qingzhou walked out of the crowded room with his phone in hand, leaned against the doorframe with one hand tucked in his pocket, and breathed in the fresh air of the corridor as the unhurried voice of the tour guide drifted out from inside.
"In Qiu Wenxin's later years memoirs, there are several dedicated chapters written in memory of his departed friends.
"There is a passage that reads, 'Looking back on the past, the companions I miss most are: the resolute and composed one, who perished in a sudden misfortune, and the mischievous and guileless one, who was lost to war.' These words refer to precisely these two individuals.
"If anyone is interested in their stories, there are copies of Mr. Qiu's memoirs available for purchase downstairs..."
.
By the time he had finished touring the former residence of Qiu Wenxin, it was nearly five o'clock.
The sky had gradually filled with heavy clouds without him noticing, darkening the surroundings considerably all at once.
"This wretched weather, don't tell me it's going to rain."
Ji Qingzhou glanced at his watch and, feeling a bit put out, wheeled his suitcase over to the guesthouse next door.
The place he had booked was a boutique guesthouse that claimed to have a history of a hundred years.
Both were old buildings, but Qiu Wenxin's former residence was purely Chinese in style, its layout, courtyard design, and every brick and tile carrying the distinctive flavour of the Jiangnan region.
The guesthouse next door, by contrast, was unmistakably Western in architecture, with red walls and red roof tiles, a two-storey building with an attic, its eaves and window frames all painted in an off-white cream, the rounded iron railings adorned with vivid flowering plants, the whole effect giving off an air of elegant, vintage charm.
Judging by the exterior alone, Ji Qingzhou found it reasonably satisfying.
This was his first trip back in China after returning from abroad. The reason he had chosen Suzhou as his first destination was partly because it was relatively close to Shanghai and easy to get to by train, but also because he wanted to immerse himself in the cultural atmosphere of the city.
After all, Suzhou and Hangzhou had been centres of silk and textile production since ancient times, and Suzhou women's fashion, renowned for its refinement and exquisite craftsmanship, had long been famous in earlier decades.
Coming to Suzhou to draw inspiration from its varied architecture, old photographs, and textiles, as preparation for establishing his own design studio in the future, was the main purpose of Ji Qingzhou's trip.
He carried his luggage up the front steps and into the entrance hall, where the first thing that caught his eye was the semi-circular reception desk on the right.
Ji Qingzhou checked in at the front desk, declined the manager's offer to help carry his suitcase, took the key marked with room number '206,' and headed upstairs.
These days, very few hotels in China still used physical keys, though given that this was a guesthouse converted from an old building, it was understandable enough.
To create a quiet atmosphere, the spiral staircase and the second-floor corridor were both laid with thick carpeting.
But being an aged building, as Ji Qingzhou carried his luggage upstairs, he could still hear the faint creaking of the wooden boards beneath the carpet at their joints.
After reaching the second floor, he turned left as directed and entered the corridor, making his way to his room while admiring the photographs hanging along the walls.
The photographs documented the appearance of the building before its renovation, most of which remained consistent with how it looked now.
Among the more noticeable changes was that the sitting room to the right of the ground-floor entrance hall had been converted into a guest room, and a set of double doors with coloured glass panes, which had once stood at the point where the second floor opened into the corridor, had since been removed.
Ji Qingzhou quietly lamented the loss in his heart, then walked a few more steps to his room at the far end of the corridor.
Just as he was absentmindedly turning the key to align it with the keyhole, a flash of brilliant white light swept past the window beside him, and for a brief moment the corridor lit up as bright as day.
Ji Qingzhou's fingers gave an involuntary jolt and the key dropped onto the deep red carpet.
He turned to look at the window, just about to go over and see what had happened, when a rumble of thunder reached his ears.
"Thunder?"
"Wonderful, how is anyone supposed to do anything in this..."
Ji Qingzhou clicked his tongue softly, harbouring a silent grievance against the unreliable weather forecast, and bent down resignedly to pick up the key and fit it into the lock.
The moment he stepped into the room dragging his suitcase behind him, he was suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness and nausea, a chill spreading through his entire body.
It was as though something unclean had run its hands over him from head to toe, giving rise to an inexplicable and indescribable palpitation.
But this strange sensation lasted only a few seconds before it vanished, disappearing so swiftly he could barely hold on to the thought, and in its wake came a powerful, overwhelming drowsiness.
A drowsiness so heavy it was impossible to resist.
Was it the jet lag still not sorted out?
Ji Qingzhou furrowed his brow slightly, carelessly pushed the door shut behind him, slipped off his crossbody bag, and tossed it onto the sofa by the window.
He was so exhausted that he had even lost the inclination to look around the expensive room.
He kicked off his shoes, lay straight down in the middle of the bed, pulled a corner of the blanket up over his stomach, and prepared to sleep first before going out to find something to eat.
Sleep surged over him, and the moment he closed his eyes, he was already drifting under.
— He would have dinner at Songhеlоu Restaurant, then.
That was the last thought to pass through Ji Qingzhou's mind before he lost consciousness.
.
Knock, knock...
"Mr. Ji."
Knock, knock...
The muffled sound of knocking drifted in from a distance, drawing closer, pulling Ji Qingzhou out of his sleep.
He struggled to pry his eyes open and stared blankly up at a corner of the ceiling bathed in the morning light, his mind taking a good while to fully clear.
Then, all at once, he snapped his eyes wide open, flipped over and sat up, raised his wrist and checked the time, only to find that it was already ten past eight in the morning.
What on earth, he had slept this long?
Knock, knock...
"Mr. Ji..."
His thoughts were interrupted by the persistent knocking. Ji Qingzhou called out toward the door: "No need to clean the room."
At that, the knocking stopped for a moment, then started up again.
Ji Qingzhou let out a sigh, accepted his fate, and got up to open the door.
He had expected to find a housekeeper with a linen cart. He opened the door, and there was indeed a woman, but her attire was decidedly peculiar.
She wore a grey padded jacket¹ fastened on the right side in the traditional style, a bulky black cloth skirt, and old cloth shoes on her feet. She looked like a servant straight out of a Republic of China period drama.
"What is..."
Ji Qingzhou had barely opened his mouth when the other person cut him off.
"Mr. Ji," the woman in old-fashioned dress asked in pure Suzhou dialect, "are you ready? The Madam and the Young Master have been waiting downstairs for quite some time."
Being originally from Shaoxing and having studied in Shanghai for several years, Ji Qingzhou could understand Wu dialect with little difficulty. It was the content of what she said that left him puzzled.
Yet if she had knocked on the wrong door, she would not have addressed him by the right name.
He thought for a moment and asked, "Is your guesthouse running some kind of event?"
He had heard a colleague mention that murder mystery games had become extremely popular in China in recent years, with some venues renting out entire buildings and combining gameplay with accommodation, calling it immersive live-action mystery. All the staff would dress in costumes suited to the story's setting and deliver lines matching their characters.
So upon seeing this woman's attire, his first instinct was that he had stumbled by chance into exactly that sort of guesthouse.
The woman looked thoroughly confused and tilted her head, asking in Suzhou dialect, "What does Mr. Ji mean by that?"
Ji Qingzhou was impressed by her commitment to staying in character, and leaned against the doorframe with a smile, "I am quite happy to join your game, but you should at least give me..."
He stopped mid-sentence.
Certain details that clashed with his memory suddenly pushed their way into his field of vision, and he straightened up abruptly.
Something was wrong. When he arrived yesterday, had there been wallpaper on the corridor walls?
The wallpaper was a vivid pattern of curling green vines and foliage. A colour that bright—had it been there, he would surely have noticed it.
And the photographs that had hung along the corridor, where had they all gone?
Once he became aware of these things, more details came flooding in.
First, the carpet. When he had arrived yesterday, the corridor had clearly been laid with deep red carpeting, yet now it was bare wine-red floorboards.
Then there were the room number plaques. Every single guest room door within sight had had its plaque removed, including his own room, '206'.
Ji Qingzhou stood there in a daze for a moment, then as if suddenly remembering something, stepped around the woman and hurried out of the room.
And there, at the entrance to the corridor, the double doors with their coloured glass panes came into view.
The vivid panes of glass had been arranged in the shape of a rose, set into the lattice of the door frame, catching the morning light and shimmering with a dazzling brilliance, gorgeous as something out of a dream.
If this was a mystery game, the budget was extraordinary...
In an instant, a sense of foreboding coursed through his body like an electric current, making the hair on his arms stand on end.
He turned and went back into the room, scanning his surroundings. The room he had not had a chance to properly look at the evening before now revealed a number of peculiarities upon closer inspection.
No power outlets, no air conditioning vents, no appliances of any kind, let alone the tea bags, coffee, or bottled water typically provided for guests.
Yet even for a guesthouse converted from an old building, these were all basic amenities that should have been present.
Ji Qingzhou's thoughts grew increasingly disordered. As if trying to prove something to himself, he strode over to the window and swept the lace curtains aside.
Beyond the white latticed window, a tall camphor tree swayed its dark green branches gently in the breeze.
The street beneath the shade of its canopy was paved with flagstones, not asphalt. What moved along it were rickshaws, horse-drawn carriages, and vendors carrying shoulder poles, not cars, electric scooters, or shared bicycles.
From the second floor, the distant clouds were easily visible with nothing to obstruct the view. There were no tall buildings. Every structure was low, monochrome, and weathered, all blending together into a panorama of a bygone era that one would only expect to see in a period film.
Unease and fear expanded rapidly within him. Ji Qingzhou's entire body went rigid, and a faint ringing began to sound in his ears.
He shut his eyes, forced himself to take a slow, steady breath, then opened them again. The scene before him had not changed.
"I must have been poisoned, I'm hallucinating..."
He let out a hollow, uncertain laugh, then turned to face the woman standing in the doorway. His voice came out hoarse from the difficulty of what he was about to say, "If you don't mind, could you tell me what year it is?"
"Mr. Ji, are you alright?"
With Ji Qingzhou standing against the light, Aunt Sun, a servant of the Jie household, could not make out the expression on the handsome young man's face. But his behaviour since opening the door had clearly been anything but normal.
She hesitated, uncertain, but furrowed her brow and answered all the same, "It is the seventh year of the Republic, sir."
—
A/N
1). Padded Jacket / Mianao (棉袄, Mián'ǎo)
The mianao is a traditional Chinese padded jacket with centuries of history. Its name breaks down simply: mian (棉, mián) means "cotton," and ao (袄, ǎo) means "jacket" or "coat", together describing a quilted, cotton-padded garment designed to keep the wearer warm through harsh Chinese winters. More than just cold-weather clothing, the mianao endured as a wardrobe staple across multiple dynasties and eras, from the Song Dynasty (960 AD) through to the Republican Era (1912–1949).
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