The Biography of Lin Jin Qi:
Lin Jin Qi, a native of Jinling, was the eldest grandson of the Lin clan, whose patriarch served as Minister of Personnel. At seven, he was betrothed to Shen Jialan. Before they could wed, the court was thrown into turmoil, and the Shen clan was condemned for treason and executed to the last. The Lin clan broke off the engagement to protect themselves and married him to a woman of the Zhao family instead.
At seventeen, Jin Qi burned the marriage contract. At eighteen, he volunteered to serve beyond the frontier. He returned at twenty-four. That winter, the household took in a maid to tend the stove. She gave her name as Xu Lanxiang. The final stroke of her writing curled into a small hook. He had practiced writing those three characters when he was seven.
For the next six years, he watched her manage accounts, solve cases, save lives, and open a shop. He watched her stand in the household as a slave, then walk out of its gates with the status of a free person. At thirty, he petitioned the throne to marry her, using an imperial marriage decree to bind her to a surname that could never be changed back. At thirty-three, he was made Marquis of Jing'an. At thirty-five, they consummated their marriage. At thirty-six, they had a daughter, Zhang Cheng. At thirty-seven, they had a son, Zhang Run. At forty-four, he rushed to deliver provisions and reinforcements, clenching a burning fire striker in his bare hand. His palm was charred, and he had two knife wounds in his back. At forty-five, he refused to stay in the capital, claimed illness, and returned to Jinling.
At fifty, on the nineteenth day of the second month of spring, he died. As he lay dying, he wound a red thread around his wife's wrist three times and tied a knot, making a vow to find each other in the next life.
His wife, Lady Xu, was born a Shen and was the granddaughter of Grand Academician Shen. She died at eighty. She wrote A Record of the Shen Family and added more than seventy annotations to the unfinished book he had left behind.
One book, two inscriptions.
He wrote: I knew that the woman I married was her. She wrote in reply: I also knew that you knew.
