HNYWEF -Chapter 168 Revisiting the Old Place

The twenty-eighth day of the third month, Zhenguan Year Five.

After finishing work at the Directorate of Construction, Zhou Xiong did not head back into the city.

He mounted his horse, rode out through the city gates, and headed south.

He did not stop along the way, nor did he pay attention to the road. The horse knew the path. Before long, it stepped onto the little road he had walked for nine years.

The road was still the same road, though the woods on both sides had grown denser. The saplings that had sprouted last year now shot up taller than a man, covering the sky until only a narrow strip remained visible overhead.

After a quarter of an hour, the forest suddenly opened up.

Ahead was an empty clearing.

There was nothing there.

The grass had grown waist-high, yellowish and wild, clumped here and there.

Wind blew through the mountain pass, pressing the grass flat before letting it rise again.

Rustle, rustle.

Like someone whispering.

Zhou Xiong dismounted and stood there.

He remembered there used to be a door here. Behind the door was the main room: a table, two benches, farming tools hanging on the wall, clutter piled in the corners.

Further inside was the inner room. A heated brick bed. Along its edge was a chipped corner Zhou Yi had made with a hammer when he was little.

Now, none of it remained.

The door was gone.

The walls were gone.

The kang was gone.

Even that chipped corner was gone.

He had asked around. People said the house had collapsed long ago, and the village head had called people to clean it up.

The broken walls had been cleared away. The shattered bricks and roof tiles hauled off. Even the foundation had been leveled flat.

Only this empty clearing remained, along with tufts of wild grass.

Zhou Xiong stood there, staring at the grass.

He had lived here for nine years.

Nine years. More than three thousand days and nights.

Behind that door, he had endured the darkest years of his life. On that kang, he had lain awake waiting for dawn. At that table, he had set out two bowls—one for himself, one for her.

But now, standing here, he could find nothing.

The corner where he used to squat was gone.

The door he had pushed open and shut, shut and opened, was gone.

The path he had walked from the doorway to the alley entrance, and from the alley entrance back to the doorway, was gone too.

He lowered his head and looked at the grass beneath his feet.

Under the roots was soil.

Under the soil was the foundation.

Under the foundation were his nine years.

But they could never be found again.

Everything was gone.

He slowly crouched down.

Crouched there among the grass, just as he had once crouched before that pile of rubble years ago.

He reached out and touched the earth beneath him.

The wind swept through again, flattening the grass before it sprang upright once more.

Rustle, rustle.

As though it were saying—

Gone. It’s all gone.

Suddenly, he froze.

His fingers stopped in the dirt.

A memory surfaced.

Something he had forgotten for a very long time.

Back then, she had sat on the edge of the kang, holding baby Zhou Yi in her arms, and told him about it.

She said her new home was beyond the mountains. Cross two ridges, and there would be a small river, with persimmon trees growing along the banks.

She said that once the world was at peace, she would take him back there to see it.

He had agreed.

Later, he never got to go.

Later, she died.

Later, he left carrying the child, wandered for nine years, and eventually forgot all about it.

He crouched there as memories surged through his mind.

Back then, she had sat on the edge of the kang, holding the child, smiling softly.

He had stood beside her and said, “Alright.”

Just one word.

He owed her that “alright.”

He had owed it for fifteen years.

Zhou Xiong suddenly stood up.

He turned, swung onto the horse, snapped the reins. The horse neighed sharply and spun around, galloping back the way it came.

The sound of hooves rang along the official road, growing farther and farther away before finally disappearing beyond the forest.

Zhou Yi was standing in the courtyard holding a book, reading.

He heard hoofbeats approaching from the alley entrance—closer and closer, faster and faster.

He looked up, but before he could see clearly, someone had already rushed inside.

Zhou Xiong strode in with large steps. There was no expression on his face, but his eyes—

His eyes were frighteningly bright.

Zhou Yi froze for a moment.

“Pack your things.”

Zhou Yi stared blankly.

“When we leave, I’ll let you know.”

Zhou Yi opened his mouth.

“Dad? What happened?”

Zhou Xiong did not answer.

Zhou Yi asked again, “Have you been assigned somewhere outside the capital?”

Zhou Xiong looked at him for two breaths.

He neither confirmed nor denied it.

“Have everything ready and wait.”

After saying that, he turned and walked into the inner room.

The door curtain swayed gently, then stilled.

Zhou Yi remained where he was, still holding the book in his hand.

He looked at the curtain for a while.

Then he set the book down, turned around, and walked toward his own room.

He did not know where his father intended to go, when they would leave, or how long they would be gone.

But if his father told him to pack, then he would pack.

Over these years, he had already learned not to ask.

He thought back to the look in his father’s eyes when he had entered the courtyard.

That kind of brightness—he had never seen it before.

It was not the brightness of happiness.

Nor the brightness of madness.

It was the brightness of someone who had remembered something.

Finally remembered something.

He stood there for a long time.

Then he walked out beneath the corridor and looked toward his father’s closed door.

The door stayed shut. No sound came from inside.

He stood there for a very long time.