Keys of Pangzhen

In Pangzhen the doors stand shoulder to shoulder: Lan Manor, Huang Manor, Tianxiang Pavilion, the Lion Dance Hall, the Pavilion of Knowledge, the dyehouse, and a few courtyards tucked into the backstreets. Most of these keys carry the care of better days — orchid engravings, a Qian trigram cut into the teeth, a silver lion with a ball in its jaws. Their owners spared no expense, down to the neat little key of a backstreet courtyard.

In the end the doors remain, the keys remain, and the people behind them have changed.

• Lan Manor Key: An ornate bronze key engraved with delicate orchid motifs. A century of passing hands has not dimmed its luster; children are still held inside the manor.
• Backstreet Courtyard Key: A small key left behind by the Maskwalker, Chen Zhu. It looks new, and opens a courtyard in Pangzhen's backstreets.
• Pavilion of Knowledge Rooftop Key: Four inches long, its teeth cast in the shape of the Qian trigram: three unbroken yang lines. It opens the uppermost level, where the world's secrets are gathered.
• Heavy Lion Hall Gate Key: A silver key shaped like a lion dance ball, opening the Lion Dance Hall. Sunlight through its openwork casts the silhouette of a lion with a ball in its jaws.
• Tianxiang Pavilion Key: An engraved key carrying a faint scent of rouge and powder. It opens the pavilion's main gate.
• Huang Manor Key: Adorned with a gold auspicious cloud charm, and worth a fair sum by the look of it.
• Backstreet Cellar Crank: A rough metal crank with red cloth wrapped tightly around its handle, probably to keep it from slipping.
• Pangzhen Dyehouse Courtyard Key: Nothing more than an ordinary dyehouse — the fermented scent of indigo and the blue that never washed from the dyers' fingers faded into tattered remnants beneath that strange illness.

Six of the eight are door keys; two are cranks for a cellar and a hidden chamber. They open manor gates, a rooftop, halls, and back courtyards — and behind them lie children, secrets, or a banquet long since ended. The good days of Pangzhen survive only in the patterns on these keys; neither side of the door can go back. All the key can do now is prove that these doors once existed.