Fifth day of the second month, second year of Zhenguan.
Wei Zheng came again.
Zhou Yi saw him first.
It was raining that day. A thin rain, fine as needle tips.
Zhou Yi was squatting by the doorway with nothing to do. The moment he looked up, he saw someone walking down the alley.
Thin. High cheekbones. Still wearing that half-old robe.
Wei Zheng.
Zhou Yi froze for a moment, then stood and glanced into the smithy.
Zhou Xiong stood by the long workbench, hammering iron.
“Clang.”
“Clang.”
Zhou Yi opened his mouth, about to call for his father.
But the words never came out.
Because Wei Zheng had already reached the door.
Wei Zheng glanced at him without speaking. He walked past him, stepped over the threshold, and entered the shop.
Zhou Yi hurried after him.
Wei Zheng stood inside the smithy, looking at Zhou Xiong.
Zhou Xiong did not turn around.
The hammer kept falling.
“Clang.”
“Clang.”
Wei Zheng waited a while.
Then he spoke.
“Zhou Xiong.”
Zhou Xiong ignored him.
Wei Zheng waited a little longer.
Then he spoke again.
This time, not just two words, but a whole string of them.
“I’ve been thinking about something.”
The hammer did not stop.
“Clang.”
Wei Zheng continued:
“The day you left, I started wondering.”
“Clang.”
“So many people at Wagang. You saved so many of them. Shan Xiongxin, Qin Qiong, Cheng Yaojin, and all those others whose names no one remembers. You helped everyone. Saved everyone.”
“Clang.”
“But when you left, you told no one.”
The hammer stopped.
Zhou Xiong’s hand hung in midair, not coming down.
Slowly, he turned around.
And looked at Wei Zheng.
As though he completely failed to understand what the man before him was talking about.
Wei Zheng met his gaze without retreating.
He continued:
“I thought about it for nine whole years.”
He paused.
“Eventually, I figured it out.”
He looked at Zhou Xiong.
“You saw through it.”
Zhou Xiong said nothing.
Wei Zheng said, “Li Mi was no good. Wagang was no good. You saw it long ago, so you left.”
Zhou Xiong stood there. Something twitched faintly across his face, but his body did not move.
He stared at Wei Zheng.
His eyes narrowed.
Wei Zheng did not notice.
He kept talking.
“I left around that time too, but later than you. I stayed until the very end. I watched Wagang fall apart. Watched those men die or scatter.”
He paused.
“Afterward, I kept thinking… if only I’d listened to you back then.”
At last, Zhou Xiong spoke.
The words squeezed out of his hoarse throat.
“Listened to me?”
Wei Zheng nodded.
“You must’ve warned people. You must’ve said something. But no one listened.”
He looked at Zhou Xiong.
“You were right. Li Mi was no good. Wagang was no good. You knew it long ago.”
Zhou Xiong stood there looking at him.
For three breaths.
Then he sighed.
“Wei Zheng.”
Wei Zheng froze for a moment.
Zhou Xiong stepped forward.
“Did a donkey kick your damned brain loose?”
Wei Zheng’s face instantly flushed red.
“You—”
Zhou Xiong did not give him the chance to speak.
“When I left, it was because my wife had died, and my son was only a few months old. In times like that, carrying a nursing baby around, if I didn’t run, was I supposed to wait to die? And you call that ‘seeing through things’?”
Wei Zheng opened his mouth.
Zhou Xiong stepped forward again.
“And fellow travelers? The hell kind of fellow travelers? I’d known you less than a month. We barely exchanged a few words, and you already decided I was your bosom friend?”
Wei Zheng’s chest began to rise and fall.
Clearly unable to swallow this humiliation.
“Zhou Xiong! Don’t be so rude—”
“Rude?” Zhou Xiong cut him off. “You barged into my house, spent nine years making up nonsense about me in your head, and you want to lecture me about rude?”
Wei Zheng’s face had gone from red to purple.
“I was—I respected you as a remarkable man—”
“Respect my ass!” Zhou Xiong’s voice was not loud, but every word landed like a nail. “You respect me by slapping some ‘he saw it all long ago’ title onto me? You respect me by turning me into some prophetic mystic?”
Wei Zheng stepped forward aggressively.
“You—you’re utterly unreasonable!”
Zhou Xiong looked at him.
“Unreasonable? You read a few books and now think everyone has to be like you, always digging for some grand meaning behind everything?”
Wei Zheng’s voice rose too.
“At least I’m not as crude and vulgar as you!”
Zhou Xiong laughed.
Not an ordinary laugh.
The kind of laugh that only comes when someone has become speechless to the extreme.
Zhou Xiong looked at Wei Zheng and let out a short laugh.
Then he said:
“Crude? No shit! I’m a blacksmith. Never studied much. But what about you? You studied all those years just to learn how to pin labels onto other people?”
Wei Zheng’s hands were trembling.
“You—you’re slandering me!”
Zhou Xiong stepped forward.
“Slandering? Then tell me—what exactly did you come here for?”
Wei Zheng opened his mouth.
Zhou Xiong answered for him:
“You came to see whether I was like you. Whether I’d seen through Li Mi, seen through Wagang, seen through this whole world! You came looking for a kindred spirit!”
Wei Zheng said nothing.
Zhou Xiong looked at him.
“You didn’t come looking for me. You came looking for yourself!”
Wei Zheng stood there motionless.
Looking at Zhou Xiong.
That expression—
Zhou Yi, standing nearby, saw it clearly.
It was the look of someone who had just been exposed.
Zhou Xiong stepped back.
He returned to the workbench and picked up the hammer.
“Clang.”
Wei Zheng stood there watching him.
The furnace crackled.
He remained there a little longer.
Then he turned and walked outside.
At the doorway, he stopped.
Without turning back.
He stood there for one breath.
Then he pushed open the door and left.
His footsteps faded into the distance.
Zhou Yi stood there staring at the swaying door curtain.
Then he turned to look at his father.
Zhou Xiong was still hammering iron.
“Clang.”
“Clang.”
“Clang.”
Zhou Yi finally could not hold it in anymore.
“Dad, he—”
Zhou Xiong did not turn around.
“He left.”
Two words.
Zhou Yi stood there, not knowing what to say.
That man had actually dared to shout insults at his father.
Even though he lost the argument.
Still, he dared.
Zhou Yi had never seen anyone like that before.
He stood there, staring at the blacksmith’s back.
For a very long time.
Outside, the rain still fell.
Thin and fine, like needle tips.
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