HNYWEF -Chapter 59 Still Avoiding the Truth

Zhenguan Year Two, seventeenth day of the second month.

Another Qingming Festival had arrived.

The sky was gray and overcast, the clouds hanging low. It wasn’t raining, but the air was damp, as if rain was trapped inside the clouds, unable to fall.

There were hardly any people in the alley.

On a day like this, everyone had gone to visit graves.

The distant mountains were hidden in mist, vague and shadowy, impossible to see clearly.

The Zhou family forge was closed.

For the first time ever.

Zhou Yi stood in the courtyard, looking at his father.

Zhou Xiong sat by the stone table. On it were two things—

a jug of wine, and two bowls.

The wine had been brought by Cheng Yaojin. Less than half a jug remained.

The bowls were coarse porcelain, chipped at the edges, used for many years.

Zhou Xiong poured the wine into the bowls.

Slowly.

The thin stream of wine fell into the bowl with a faint sound.

He filled two bowls.

Then set the jug down.

He picked up one bowl.

But didn’t drink.

He simply held it there, staring at the wine inside.

Zhou Yi stood nearby, watching the side of his father’s face.

There was no expression on that face.

But Zhou Yi knew today was different.

This year was different.

Today, his father had asked him to sit here.

Zhou Yi didn’t know what that meant.

But he knew his father had something to say.

So he waited.

And waited a long time.

Zhou Xiong finally drank the bowl of wine.

Set it down.

Then poured himself another.

Only then did he speak.

His voice was terribly hoarse.

“Sit.”

Zhou Yi sat across from him.

The stone table was cold. Even through his clothes he could feel it. He rested his hands on his knees, sitting straight-backed as he looked at his father.

Zhou Xiong didn’t look at him.

He stared at the wine in his bowl.

For a long time.

Then he drank again.

After finishing it, he set the bowl down.

Raised his head.

And looked at Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi looked back at him.

All of a sudden, Zhou Yi felt that his father had grown old.

Not in appearance.

Something else.

He couldn’t explain it.

Zhou Xiong spoke first.

“Whatever you want to ask, ask.”

Zhou Yi froze for a moment.

He looked at that face, those eyes, the man sitting across from him.

There were too many things he wanted to ask.

Why his father drank alone every Qingming.

Why all those uncles always looked at him strangely.

Why his father sometimes jolted awake in the middle of the night and sat silently on the kang bed in a daze.

Why—

He opened his mouth.

But when the words reached his lips, they became only one sentence.

“Dad… how exactly did my mother die?”

Zhou Xiong froze.

Just sat there frozen.

Looking at Zhou Yi.

Without moving.

The courtyard suddenly fell silent.

So silent they could hear birds calling in the distant mountains, one cry after another, intermittent and faint.

Zhou Xiong sat there, still holding the wine bowl.

But his hand had gone rigid in midair.

The wine inside the bowl trembled slightly, then steadied again.

He looked at Zhou Yi.

For a very long time.

So long that Zhou Yi began regretting the question.

Then Zhou Xiong moved.

He set the bowl down.

Slowly.

Lightly.

The bottom of the bowl touched the stone table with a soft clink.

Then he spoke.

“She died in the chaos of war.”

The same four words again.

Zhou Yi waited a moment.

He knew there was more than that.

He stared at his father, trying to find something in his eyes.

But the fog in those eyes only seemed thicker.

He couldn’t hold back anymore.

“Dad, I want to know—”

“I already told you,” Zhou Xiong interrupted, his voice still hoarse. “She died in the chaos of war.”

Zhou Yi didn’t back down.

He looked straight at Zhou Xiong.

“I was fighting on the front lines.”

Zhou Xiong’s voice suddenly rose a little.

Just a little.

But Zhou Yi heard it.

It was a tone he had never heard before.

Not coldness.

Something else.

Zhou Xiong looked at him and said, word by word:

“Your mother died somewhere I couldn’t see.”

Zhou Yi froze.

He stared at Zhou Xiong.

At last, there was expression on that face.

Not sorrow.

It was something else.

Zhou Yi couldn’t explain it clearly.

But he understood one thing now — when his father spoke of those “places you can’t see,” it wasn’t because he didn’t want to save them.

It was because he couldn’t.

Because he was too late.

Because…

Zhou Yi’s eyes suddenly turned red.

He didn’t even know why.

They just did.

He looked at Zhou Xiong and quietly asked another question.

Very softly.

“Dad… did you see it with your own eyes?”

Zhou Xiong froze.

Just stood there stiffly.

Completely motionless.

He looked at Zhou Yi.

Something churned in those eyes.

Beneath the fog, something seemed ready to burst out.

Zhou Yi waited.

Waited for his father’s answer.

“If I had seen it…”

Looking at Zhou Yi, Zhou Xiong suddenly—

Bang!

His palm slammed onto the stone table.

The bowls jumped, and wine splashed everywhere.

Startled, Zhou Yi shrank back.

Zhou Xiong stood up.

Looked straight at him.

His voice burst from his chest in a roar—

“Just tell me this — didn’t your mother die in the chaos of war?!”

The shout was terrifyingly loud.

It made Zhou Yi’s ears ring.

He stared at his father, mouth slightly open.

That face—

he had never seen it before.

Not cold.

Not empty.

Anger.

The kind of fury buried down for countless years.

Zhou Xiong stood there, chest heaving violently.

He looked at Zhou Yi.

For three breaths.

Then he turned around.

And strode into the house.

He flung the door curtain aside. It slapped against the frame with a smack—

then fell back down.

Swayed once.

And went still.

Zhou Yi sat by the stone table without moving.

He stared at the curtain.

At the two bowls on the table.

One empty.

One with half its wine spilled.

Wine dripped down the edge of the stone table, drop by drop, onto the ground.

Far off in the mountains, birds were still calling.

Once.

Twice.

Broken and intermittent.

Zhou Yi sat there.

For a very long time.

Then he suddenly lowered his head.

And looked at his hands.

They were trembling.

Only slightly.

But he saw it.

He clenched them into fists.

Tightly.

So tightly that the color drained from his knuckles.

Then he stood up.

Walked to the curtain.

And stopped.

He didn’t lift it.

He simply stood there.

Listening for any sound inside.

But there was nothing.

A frightening silence.

He stood there for a long while.

Then he turned around again.

Walked back to the stone table.

And sat down.

He picked up the bowl that still held a little wine.

There was only a mouthful left.

He glanced at it.

Then tilted his head back and poured it into his mouth.

The wine was spicy.

So harsh it brought tears to his eyes.

The wine was bitter.

But he still forced himself to swallow it down.

He didn’t wipe his tears away.

He simply sat there.

Staring at the curtain.

And as he stared, he suddenly remembered the poems his father used to teach him when he was little.

There was one poem whose second half he had forgotten.

Even now, he still couldn’t remember it.

“During Qingming, the rains fall endlessly;
Travelers upon the road seem ready to lose their souls.”

Ready to lose their souls.

What came after that?

He lowered his head.

A tear fell onto the stone table.

He hurriedly wiped it away with his sleeve.

Then raised his head again and looked at the curtain.

The curtain didn’t move.

Outside, the sky was still gray.

It still wasn’t raining.

But Zhou Yi felt soaked to the bone.