Jean Genie
Copyright© 2026 by Rachael Jane
Chapter 120: The Bracelet’s Sale
Singapore 1931
Singapore has changed over the two decades since I last talked with Lian. The shop-houses along Telok Ayer Street are taller now, rebuilt with concrete and tile. The port is louder, filled with steamships instead of sailboats. The streets are crowded with rickshaws, motorcars, and merchants from every corner of the world. Even the air feels different ... heavier with smoke, sharper with the scent of petrol, restless with the hum of a city growing faster than anyone can keep track.
Zhao Lian has changed too. She is fifty‑eight now. Her hair is streaked with grey, pulled back in a neat coil. Her hands are calloused from years of work ... cooking, cleaning, helping Chen Wei with the shop, being a mother to three children, copying manuscripts when she can. Her posture is still straight, her movements still quiet, but her eyes carry a heaviness that was not there when she first arrived in Singapore.
She sits at her table in the shop-house one evening, her notebooks stacked neatly beside her, her brush resting between her fingers. She has not written in months. She still reads occasionally ... scrolls, manuscripts, temple inscriptions ... but her search has slowed. Not because she has lost interest, but because she no longer feels me.
But I am still awake. Still aware. Still anchored to the bracelet. And absorbing the results of her research.
But I cannot reach her. Not in any way that she can sense.
The exact location of the Directional fragment is still unknown but Zhao Lian’s research has narrowed it down to near the border between Siam and Malaya.
She touches the bracelet lightly, her thumb brushing the gold surface.
“I wonder if you’re still there,” she whispers.
I drift within the bracelet, trying to pulse ... faintly, gently, anything she might feel. But she feels nothing.
She closes her eyes, steadying herself. “I suppose it doesn’t matter.”
She doesn’t say it with bitterness. She says it with resignation. With acceptance. With the quiet dignity she has carried all her life.
1931 is a difficult year. Chen Wei’s trading business suffers from the global economic depression. Prices fall. Shipments are delayed. A merchant he trusted disappears with a large payment. The shop-house repairs cost more than expected. Their savings shrink. Their debts grow.
Zhao Lian doesn’t complain. She and the children, now in their twenties, work harder ... cooking, cleaning, helping with the accounts, taking in sewing from neighbours. But the numbers do not improve.
One evening, Chen Wei sits at the table, his head in his hands. “I don’t know what else to do,” he says softly.
Zhao Lian places a hand on his shoulder. “We will find a way.”
He looks up at her, his eyes tired. “I don’t want to lose the shop.”
She nods. “I know.”
He hesitates. “We may need to sell something.”
She nods again. “Yes.”
He looks at her carefully. “Do you have anything of value?”
She hesitates. Her gaze drifts toward the small wooden box beneath the bed ... the box where she keeps the bracelet when she isn’t wearing it.
She whispers, “Yes.”
She opens the wooden box that night, sitting on the edge of the bed with the lantern casting warm light across her face. The bracelet rests inside, wrapped in the same cloth Rebecca used years ago. The gold gleams faintly, untouched by time.
She lifts it gently, holding it in her hands. “I kept you safe,” she whispers.
I drift within the bracelet, listening.
She touches the Solar fragment lightly.
“I tried to find the Directional piece. I tried to understand the tetrad. I tried to hear you.”
I pulse faintly ... a soft, fragile pulse, but she doesn’t feel it.
She closes her eyes. “I’m sorry.”
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