The bus jerked, waking Shijun. The Greyhound was speeding down a wide North American road.

What am I doing here?

The coach window framed the landscape: White clouds floated against a blue sky over the vast rolling peaks of the Rockies. Squat, wide buildings came in and out of view on both sides of the road as the bus wheels squeaked.

Where are you? His watch lit up with a message from Jiayuan. We have to leave by 2 p.m.!

Shijun sighed. He tipped his head back, reached into his bag, and pulled out an amber bottle. The dazzling crystal held about 10 ml of rippling, clear liquid.

His underarms ached.

“Is it worth it?” he asked himself.

For the past three months, his brazen pursuit of an old flame had consumed him day and night as he’d set out to capture lightning in a bottle. He was a young man following his heart, a man who’d flown across the Pacific to get his bride back.

But the calm landscape outside made him doubt himself.

From China to Canada, from Beijing to Calgary—am I really doing this out of love? Or am I just obsessed with the idea of love? Am I drowning, unable to save myself?

Exhausted faces surrounded him, each passenger heading toward their own destination.

I’m doing all this to prove myself.

“I’m being ridiculous,” he said aloud.

His watch lit up again. I can only help you so much. When are you going to be here? An angry emoji followed Jiayuan’s message.

Shijun brought the crystal bottle to his nose and inhaled deeply. It was a gift for Manzhen, but right now, he needed it more. His olfactory cortex burst to life, sending him three years back to a rainy spring night.

---

“I don’t blame you,” Manzhen murmured. Passengers rushed past with suitcases big and small to board the train.

Shijun wanted to say something, but he found himself unable to speak a single word. He wanted to ask how he could get her to stay.

It won’t be any use.

Train stations around the world have a distinct smell: the metallic tang of wheels against rails infused with the ammonia of urine. Fog intensified it. Manzhen rested her head against Shijun’s shoulder and squeezed him tight, which only underscored the inevitability of fate. A sweet, familiar perfume wafted up from her neck, blending with the pungent train station odor and etching itself into his memory.

The train pulled away, leaving him alone on the platform, once again an insignificant grain of sand in a vast city.

---

The sting of the memory was sharper than he expected—in fact, what he felt now was five, even ten times more intense than he’d felt originally.

He didn’t exist anymore. Proof he was losing meaning.

When he first saw the words “Memory Fragrances,” he never thought that he would end up here.

---

Still reeling with the news of Manzhen’s engagement, Shijun tripped on a curb as he staggered down the street. When he glanced up, he saw a lonesome-looking man locking his shop with a heavy clang. Compelled to take a step forward, Shijun read aloud the signboard hanging over the man’s head: “Memory Fragrances.”

The man turned around. He was a tall and elegant man, his features fine and graceful.

“Don’t bother looking. We’re closed.”

“What do you sell?” Shijun asked, intrigued. “Do you sell memories or perfume?”

“Both,” he replied. He glanced at Shijun, hesitated, then said, “It seems that you’re also feeling a bit down. Want to grab a drink?”

The bar next door was closed, so they went to the café on the opposite corner.

Caffeine helped both of them relax. Warmed, Shijun opened up about Manzhen to a complete stranger.

“Isn’t there a saying—‘The first love is just practice’?” Shijun tried to make light of the situation, but something still weighed heavy on his chest.

“Ah, but it’s not easy for you two, either. You were classmates in middle school and college, you stayed together in Beijing after graduation, and your relationship continued long-distance when she went abroad. Half of your lives have been devoted to this love.” The man then asked ruefully, “Are you really giving up now?”

“Do I have a choice?” Shijun looked up and smiled wryly. “I’m not as devoted as you think. After graduation, Manzhen stayed in Beijing to go to graduate school. If I’d found a better job, she would have felt more stable.”

---

He remembered that summer evening. Manzhen had picked him up from work. They’d held hands as they walked to the supermarket and bought some vegetables and fish. At the counter selling products from Baiyang Lake, they bought some lotus leaves and a lotus flower. The Beijing summer night air was cool and clear. People were flying kites beside the moat—kites with candles, swaying higher and higher, turning into bright stars.

They had seen sky lanterns before but not stars that could fly. Huddling together, they watched the kites for a long time. The vapor rising from the summer river mixed with the fragrance of the lotus flower and suffused their hearts with a gentle warmth.

Manzhen nudged him and said, “Shijun, work hard. Don’t quit again. I’ll do my best too, and then both of us can settle down here in Beijing and live every day like today. Promise?”

“Promise.”

He hadn’t known that it would be impossible to fulfill his promise. He was always on the lookout for better opportunities, but he became more anxious as the days passed. When the financial pressure began to weigh on him, he would job hop for just a few hundred more yuan. Four companies in ten months!

Manzhen returned to their hometown, Hangzhou.

“I don’t want to be a burden on you. Without me around, at least you can live in the staff quarters and save on rent.”

He was speechless. It was hard to swallow, but it was the truth. At the train station, he already knew that this departure would be a long one. The smell of the station made him uneasy. Even as he hugged her one last time, he couldn’t get himself to say two precious words: “Please stay.”

---

“If I were to create a memory perfume based on what you’ve just told me, I would have to find several distinct olfactory signals significant to both of you associated with the memories of your decade-long relationship. Then, I can convert them into the base notes, middle notes, and top notes of a perfume. Production would take at least three months, and the cost . . . ”

He thought for a while, then threw out an outrageous figure.

“Are you serious?!”

“See, this is why I’m going out of business,” the man said. He nodded but didn’t miss the opportunity to smile gracefully.

His interest piqued, Shijun asked, “What exactly is a memory fragrance? What does perfume have to do with memory?”

“It’s quite a long story,” he said, looking up and letting out a long sigh. “Would you like to hear it?”

---

Thirty years ago, Zuo Xiaotian was a vivacious three year old. His parents, both devoted to their careers, were very accomplished in their respective fields. Xiaotian’s mother had quit her job to stay at home for two years after Xiaotian was born. When Xiaotian started school, she went back to her job and worked harder than ever. When Xiaotian went from preschool to kindergarten, he became more mischievous, full of pent-up energy ready to be released. Whenever his nanny picked him up, he would insist on going to the neighboring park to watch the goldfish.

On a warm winter afternoon, Xiaotian was abducted from the park and trafficked to a city thousands of kilometers away. The new environment, new family, and new father and mother were difficult for him to cope with at first. But he was only a child, and children adapt to their environment. The brain had evolved to endure changes. New experiences and memories replaced old ones. The overwhelming input locked away the secret of the first three years of his life into the recesses of his mind.

Unable to hold himself back, Shijun interrupted him. “Why didn’t you want to remember? Didn’t you want to find your parents?”

“I was a child. I didn’t have control over the world and could only accept what happened. Since I didn’t have a way to go back in time, all those gossamer traces only intensified my pain. If I had been a little older, ten or so, I would have had the urge to learn the truth, but, at three or four years old, I couldn’t do that. I would have been terrified; a three-year-old’s memories are fragile to begin with. So, when I was seven and was rescued and brought home, I no longer recognized my parents.”

The couple before him had called him by a strange name as they pulled him into their arms.

“Tiantian, Tiantian!”

The boy turned away awkwardly from their tearstained faces.

“I’m your mom!”

“I’m your dad!”

“My name is Guigui! You’re not my mom and dad!” He freed his arms and hammered at them with his fists. “I want my mom! I want my real mom!”

Hearing that, the woman’s face went blank. She forced him to face her. “Look! Have a good look at me, Tiantian!”

“No! No! I hate you! You’re not my mom! I want my mom back!” He stubbornly held his head high. He was no longer a three year old who would give in so easily. All he remembered was his kind and caring adoptive parents.

The woman raised a hand, furious—then trembled for a long time before she finally lowered her hand again. She closed her eyes, her tears falling once more.

“I can’t blame you. Mommy doesn’t blame you.”

Xiaotian’s biological father had stood beside her, his ashen face showing a thread of sympathy. The abduction had destroyed their marriage and turned them against each other. They’d been divorced for two years.

Forgetting his own misfortunes, Shijun found himself listening raptly to the man’s story.

“Then what? Did they reconcile?”

“Probably. They worked together to invent this.” Zuo Xiaotian pulled a small pendant out from his collar—a miniature perfume bottle. The silver chain was tarnished, but the crystal bottle still glittered.

“Memory perfume?”

“Yes. This is the very first bottle of memory perfume in the world. My mother works in neuroscience. My father, believe it or not, is a perfumer at a world-renowned fragrance company. They come from completely different backgrounds. I don’t know how they crossed paths again that year. Some old research materials had inspired my mother: In the 1930s, Wilder Penfield conducted a series of experiments on epilepsy patients, stimulating certain areas of their brains with a tiny electrode. The patients had flashbacks of long-suppressed childhood memories. These memories were invariably associated with strong smells.

“You see, within the cerebral cortex of mammals, the olfactory cortex—which is intricately connected to other cortices—plays a central role in information processing. The German naturalist Treviranus once suggested that the hippocampus is involved with a higher mental function, perhaps that of memory, which is greatly affected by olfactory sensations. Scientific research shows that the olfactory cortex stores a sequence of past smells, which helps the brain create a sensation of the passage of time.”

Shijun found himself remembering moments when a familiar smell on a street corner would throw him back to a distant point in time. Like the sweet smell of candied chestnuts that would take him back to a night during his first year at primary school, when he’d been walking hand in hand with his mother and had passed a street vendor at the corner of Xixi Road.

So, it really is possible to invoke a memory with a scent.

He thought of his past with Manzhen, recollecting how all those important moments smelled. If he could gather those scents, would they stir Manzhen’s memories?

The man continued.

“My parents mulled over my first three years of life, searching for the scents that I would find most familiar. The main olfactory signals were my mother’s body odors, her breast milk, the natural pinewood scent of my cot, and the fragrance of the gardenias in the flower beds downstairs. After countless experiments and tests, they created my memory fragrance.

“My mother suffered greatly, as many of the ingredients had to be extracted from various glands in her body. She even got pregnant again to produce breast milk and delivered a little sister. It was probably a bit unfair to my sister, even if my parents loved her. But they always felt that they owed me so much more.”

Shijun had his doubts. Some parts of the story seemed suspect. He said, “I feel like your story’s far too simple. I believe in the unique properties of scent. I myself have experienced flashbacks invoked by smells. But in all my life, it’s only ever happened two or three times. A scent so precise that it sends your mind traveling back in time can’t be created by merely combining a few familiar odors.”

“It seems fate has brought us together,” Zuo Xiaotian said, pleased. “You’re right. Mental walls cannot be torn down simply by using a few familiar odors. You need brain scans to locate signals in specific regions. But you can only work backward with this method. First, the olfactory signals must be identified. Then, the signals must be simulated to awaken memories. From there, you’d have to find three compatible olfactory signals from those memories to create the perfume.”

“How do you replicate those signals without making the perfume first?”

“By trial and error with direct and continuous stimulation of the olfactory cortex. If the right scent emerges at the testing stage and the original source is no longer available, a replacement must be found. Then, during production, my brain would have had to have been stimulated repeatedly to provide a baseline for the accuracy of that replacement, which makes the process even more painful. My mother didn’t have to get pregnant again to reproduce the scent of her milk, but she chose to take on that burden instead of passing the suffering on to me.”

“But you still went through the first stage.”

“Yes. At the time, I really resented my mother for it. But as my memories began to emerge, our relationship improved. Eventually, I remembered my mother, and with her, my father. Zuo Xiaotian had returned.”

Shijun looked off into the distance. It was hard to believe that the man before him had gone through such an ordeal. Yet, as he took a step back from Zuo Xiaotian’s story, he realized something—the person before him wasn’t the swanky owner of a fragrance shop but a mad scientist.

“Then . . . your perfume shop is actually an unlicensed medical practice.”

“If you say so. I’ll be shutting down my shop soon, anyway.” Zuo Xiaotian slapped a hand on the table and stood. “My parents are using this technology to research possible treatments for Alzheimer’s. I just borrowed their equipment to do something I found interesting.”

“Would you mind me asking,” Shijun said with a heavy heart, “how many bottles of memory perfume you’ve sold?”

“Only two people dared to place an order after listening to my story. But both of them gave up halfway.”

“Why?”

“There are generally two kinds of people who are attracted to the idea of a memory perfume. One kind wants a souvenir of a happy relationship. The other wants to keep memories after a bitter breakup. The former has no need to honor their happy experience in such an expensive and agonizing way, while the latter . . . ”

He simpered.

“Both of them said, ‘Turns out I didn’t love them that much.’”

“He or she?”

“Both.”

Shijun braced himself and asked, “What about me? Do you think I’m the kind of person who would quit halfway? Manzhen is getting married in three months. If I want to win her back, is it possible for me to get a bottle of memory perfume before then?”

Zuo Xiaotian narrowed his long eyes. Then, he smiled.

“Let’s give it a try.”

---

Calgary was a new energy capital that had emerged from the discovery of oil sands. With such a short history, it wasn’t rich in culture, but the University of Calgary—one of the top ten universities in Canada—was located there. Even though it wasn’t as ancient or austere as schools in Europe and the USA, the verdant campus was still lively.

Shijun passed fit athletes in water polo uniforms as he crossed campus to arrive at the ground floor of an ordinary-looking building. It was the closest apartment complex to campus, home to students who didn’t live in the dormitories.

After two years of seeing this place through video calls, I’m finally here, Shijun thought.

Shijun stood before the building, feeling the reality of life on the other side of the globe. Not long after Manzhen returned to Hangzhou, she was accepted for a graduate program with a fellowship at the University of Calgary. Shijun had just joined his current company and was working days and nights. He would lose his job if he took time off to take her to the airport in another city. Even if he had seen her off to Shanghai Pudong Airport, it wouldn’t have meant much. He still couldn’t fulfill his promise to provide her with a stable future.

So, he'd put his nose to the grindstone and didn’t see her off, hoping to prove to her with his actions that he would work hard to put roots down in Beijing while waiting for her to return.

Jiayuan’s anxious messages kept popping up on his watch.

She’s leaving soon!

Shijun took a deep breath and stepped into the apartment building. He didn’t wait for the elevator—he rushed up the three flights of stairs instead.

He rang Manzhen’s doorbell. The door opened to reveal a relieved-looking Jiayuan. Behind her, Manzhen was donning her veil. When she met his gaze, her eyes widened with shock. But they might have also shown a glimmer of joyful surprise.

Courage surged through Shijun. In a few quick steps, he closed the distance to Manzhen. He got down on one knee, pulled out the amber bottle, and sprayed the air three times.

“Manzhen, please,” he said, “Accept this gift. Forgive me and come back to Beijing with me.”

---

Manzhen felt as if she were dreaming. She gawked at Shijun, who had traveled thousands of miles to suddenly appear before her. And with so much aplomb, he’d offered her such a strange gift.

Time flowed in reverse, thrusting her back to the train station where they’d last seen each other.

The mild spring rain of the Beijing night fogged up the air. She took in the smell of the embrace, her own scent mixing with his and with the stench of the train platform.

Her legs gave way. Her whalebone panniers cracked as she collapsed into a chair, startling her back into the present—now—this moment: she was about to get married.

“Shijun, we can’t go back.”

She didn’t cry. She couldn’t muster up the grief.

“Manzhen, let him explain. Talk it out now so you won’t have regrets later,” suggested Jiayuan. A hidden traitor, she was still lobbying for Shijun. “I think there are still misunderstandings between you two.”

Jiayuan was their high school classmate. She would definitely hope that their love, which had lasted for more than a decade, would continue.

“Last year on Christmas Eve, when you called me while I was at the KTV—I had stepped out and left my phone on the table, so my colleague answered for me. You must have heard the other people there. It really was a company activity, and she and I are just—”

“Don’t lie to me!” Manzhen said, cutting him off. “You’re telling me she didn’t have feelings for you?”

Shijun sighed. A woman’s intuition was truly terrifying.

“Yes, she did have some interest in me, but I didn’t care for her. How many times do you want me to repeat this before you believe me?”

He took Manzhen’s hand and pressed the exquisite little bottle into her palm.

Manzhen held the bottle and hesitated. A strong scent wafted up from the nozzle. A mixture of scents. Another note floated up from the back of her hand, unlocked after the perfume melded with her skin chemistry: powdery lotus flowers in full bloom on a summer river. But, when she took a deeper breath, she realized that it also smelled faintly of a lotion she loved.

She stared at him, dazed.

“Manzhen, we can go back. Really.” Shijun took half a step forward and embraced her to his chest. “You graduated last week, didn’t you? Come back with me. Let’s go visit our parents in Hangzhou. Then, you and me, let’s go back to Beijing. We . . . ”

“My parents are in Calgary.”

Manzhen’s confused expression dissipated as her eyes focused again.

“They’re waiting for me at the church. Shijun, I’m the one who was responsible for the breakup. Not you.” She turned Shijun away and said, “Although that night did make me have doubts, I had already drifted apart from you. But it wasn’t just that reason that drew me to David. You know I don’t want to be a financial burden on my parents. I only got a half-scholarship for University of Calgary. And I have to wait tables to make ends meet. Of course, work is no big deal, I’m not the only one doing this, but . . . Winter in Calgary is really cold, and public transit takes such a long time . . . Maybe all I wanted was to find someone I could rely on sooner.”

Shijun looked at the beautiful bride, her eyes filled with tears. The familiar face under the white veil wasn’t glowing with happiness but pale with anguish.

Manzhen’s frankness made it hard for him to blame her for her weakness and betrayal. After all, if he’d been able to give her a better life during their time in Beijing, she wouldn’t have had to return to their hometown so defeated. And he knew that her hands and feet got cold when the weather was chilly. She needed a warmth that he wasn’t able to provide.

Shijun took a few steps back, greedily taking in her gaze. The scent of the past suffused the air, along with the powdery smell of her bridal makeup and the fragrance of her white rose bouquet.

The past retreated even further. Shijun’s olfactory senses would capture this new combination of scents, too, and etch it into his memory.

“Goodbye.” He struggled to smile at her. “I wish you happiness.”

Then, he bolted downstairs.

Jiayuan was at a total loss as to how to react. Something mysterious had happened between Shijun and Manzhen. It was only until after Shijun’s departure that she found the guts to touch Manzhen and ask, “You . . . you really have no regrets?”

Manzhen didn’t reply. She tightened her grip on the cold, hard bottle.

---

The bridal car traveled cheerfully down the wide streets of Calgary. Jiayuan was guarding the memory perfume, which Manzhen had tucked away in her purse. It seemed that whatever magic there was had been imprisoned with it.

Manzhen let out a sigh of relief.

It took ten minutes to get to the church. They proceeded to the lounge for their final preparations. Jiayuan adjusted Manzhen’s veil and applied more lipstick. There was still doubt in her eyes.

Manzhen looked down to avoid Jiayuan’s gaze. She pressed the back of her hand to her nose, something she did whenever she was nervous.

Once again, she hurtled into the past.

---

This time, she went back a full decade.

A golden tree bloomed on campus, filling the air with a sweet osmanthus fragrance that mingled with the junior high school’s familiar grassy smell. Shijun was crouching down in the first-floor corridor, so Manzhen could climb onto his back.

That had been the first semester of her junior year. She had fractured her foot. Since the old school building didn’t have an elevator, all the boys in her class who weighed over 50 kg had taken turns carrying her up and down from their third-floor classroom.

Up until then, the boys in her class had been indistinguishable to her. But this boy stood out from the others. His sweaty musk permeated through his thin T-shirt and blended with a touch of adolescent hormones, her girlish body odor, the fragrance of osmanthus, and the smell of green grass. Of all the boys in her class, this boy had made her feel the most secure as he’d carried her.

She had wanted to be with him forever.

Autumn leaves fluttered to the ground as a gust of wind whipped up a flurry of osmanthus flowers.

That had been the spark.

---

Manzhen sobbed helplessly.

How could I forget such a pure moment?

Back then, she wouldn’t have exchanged her feelings for a mere shoulder to lean on.

After so many years of studying and hard work, so many years of growth and struggle, can’t I support myself?

She took another sniff of the lingering afternote.

In the end, only a woman who trusts in herself has the freedom to pursue true love and live her own life.

She pointed to the adjoining door and called out to Jiayuan.

“Help me explain!”

Then, she turned and fled out of the church’s back door.

She didn’t have to run far. There, outside the gates of the church, a person was pacing—the very person she was looking for.

Behind him, fluffy white clouds floated over the distant Rockies: a field of snowy white peaks, brilliant against the sunlight.

“Shijun!”

He turned.

She couldn’t help but weep as he smiled.

Originally published in Chinese in Science Fiction World, January 2016.