Shen Zhiyi simply smiled without saying anything.
Deep down, she wasn’t completely certain either, but she trusted Zhou Xubai. The man who had used his crutch to retrieve her plane from a crack in the rocks, the man who recorded the weather every day and stayed up late into the night making calculations, wouldn’t be wrong.
On the morning of the third day, Shen Zhiyi woke before dawn.
She pushed open the tin door and saw Zhou Xubai standing at the edge of the cliff with his back to her, gazing out at the sea.
“Today?” Shen Zhiyi walked over to stand beside him.
“Mhm.” Zhou Xubai nodded. “It’ll begin this afternoon.”
The two of them stood shoulder to shoulder, looking toward the horizon.
A thin strip of pale dawn had just begun to appear, but it was quickly swallowed by the rolling black clouds gathering overhead. The wind blew fiercely, making it difficult to keep their eyes open.
“Let’s go back. It’s about to rain,” Zhou Xubai said.
Sure enough, no sooner had they returned inside than the rain began.
Raindrops as large as beans pounded against the tin roof, producing a relentless drumming sound. The wind howled through the cracks around the door, making the flame of the kerosene lamp sway wildly.
Shen Zhiyi shut the door tightly, yet she could still hear the furious roar of the storm outside.
Time passed little by little.
The rain grew heavier. The wind grew fiercer.
By dusk on the twenty-fifth, the storm had finally passed.
The wind died away. The rain stopped.
All that remained was devastation as far as the eye could see.
But no one had died.
That was what mattered most.
Standing at the doorway of the tin house, Shen Zhiyi looked toward the village.
Thin columns of smoke rose from the chimneys of several homes. Those belonged to the fishing families who had returned early.
Meanwhile, the families who had ignored the warning were busy digging through the wreckage of their collapsed sheds, their cries, curses, and shouted voices mingling together and carrying far through the damp air after the storm.
Leaning on his crutch, Zhou Xubai stepped outside and stood beside her.
“Let’s go.”
“Where?”
“To the village committee. They’re dividing the fish.”
Shen Zhiyi blinked. “Dividing the fish? Now?”
“Mhm! According to the island’s rules, after a storm, every fishing boat that went out to sea has to hand over thirty percent of its catch to the collective, and then it’s redistributed among the households.”
He paused briefly.
“This year… the situation is different.”
Shen Zhiyi understood immediately.
The boats that had returned early had brought back only small catches.
The boats that hadn’t listened had either sunk or lost all of their fishing nets, leaving them with almost nothing.
This distribution was bound to cause trouble.
“I… have to go too?”
“You’re the advisor for the fishing net weaving group.”
He glanced at her, his gaze deep and meaningful.
“And now you’re also the one who predicted the typhoon.”
The village committee was located inside an old ancestral hall.
When Shen Zhiyi followed Zhou Xubai inside, the hall was already packed with people.
The men squatted along the walls smoking cigarettes, the women gathered together whispering among themselves, while children darted between the adults’ legs.
The air was thick with the smell of sweat, fish, and the lingering mustiness left behind by the storm.
Secretary Chen stood beside an old square wooden table, holding a registry book with beads of sweat covering his forehead.
The moment he spotted Zhou Xubai, his eyes lit up and he hurried over.
“Comrade Zhou! You’re finally here! About… about the typhoon forecast, I wanted to…”
He rubbed his hands together, forcing an awkward smile.
“My wife calculated it.”
Zhou Xubai interrupted him.
His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried clearly through the noisy ancestral hall.
The hall instantly fell silent.
Dozens of eyes turned toward Shen Zhiyi all at once.
Some were filled with surprise.
Some with doubt. Some with gratitude.
Others…With jealousy.
Shen Zhiyi felt her face grow hot as her fingers unconsciously tightened around the hem of her clothes.
She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears.
“R… Really? Little Shen figured it out?”
A round-faced woman, the very auntie who had first agreed to call her husband back early, squeezed through the crowd and grabbed Shen Zhiyi’s hands.
“Oh, my dear girl! You saved my husband’s life! If his old boat had run into last night’s storm, it definitely would’ve…”
Before she could finish, her eyes had already reddened.
“And my family too! We’d just finished repairing our fishing net. If we hadn’t come back early, it would’ve been completely destroyed in the sea!”
“Mine too! Little Shen, thank you so much!”
The women crowded around her, each expressing their gratitude in turn.
Surrounded by them, Shen Zhiyi felt completely at a loss.
She wanted to say, It wasn’t me who calculated it.
But Zhou Xubai’s words, My wife calculated it, still echoed in her ears like an invisible wall, trapping the truth behind her lips.
She looked up at him.
He stood outside the crowd, leaning on his crutch with his back perfectly straight.
“Alright, alright, everyone settle down!”
Secretary Chen tapped the table.
“Let’s get to the important matter first. The fish distribution!”
The crowd dispersed and returned to their places.
But the atmosphere had already changed.
The men who had been smoking by the wall now looked at Shen Zhiyi with newfound respect.
Even the women who had once mocked her behind her back as “the bargain bride from the marriage swap” had fallen silent.
Secretary Chen cleared his throat.
“This time, thirteen boats from our village went out to sea. Five returned early. Their catches were small, but both the boats and the crews came back safely. The other eight ignored the warning. Three boats sank, the fishing nets on the remaining five were completely destroyed, and their catches… were practically nonexistent.”
Quiet murmurs spread throughout the ancestral hall.
“So this time, we’ll have to make a new arrangement.”
Secretary Chen raised his voice.
“My proposal is to divide the fish equally among every household! Whether they went out to sea or not, every family gets a share! We’re a socialist collective. Unity comes first!”
“I disagree!”
A rough, booming voice exploded through the hall.
The crowd parted as a broad shouldered man strode forward.
He looked to be in his early forties, wearing a greasy blue work shirt. A long scar ran diagonally across his face from his brow to the corner of his mouth.
He was the village’s notorious fishing bully, surnamed Wang, nicknamed King Yama Wang.
His family owned three fishing boats.
None of them had returned early.
All three had been destroyed.
“Why should we split it equally?”
King Yama Wang marched to the table and slammed his palm down with a loud bang, making the teacups jump.
“I had three boats! Three! Every one of them sank! Do you know how much my fishing nets and equipment were worth? And now you’re telling me we’re splitting the fish equally? Secretary Chen, are you playing favorites or what?”
Secretary Chen’s expression stiffened.
“Old Wang, you can’t put it that way…”
“Then how should I put it?”
King Yama Wang sneered.
“So the people who listened to this little woman kept their boats, kept their lives, and now they’re going to take a share of my fish? Since when is there any justice in that?”
He turned toward Shen Zhiyi, his eyes as sharp as knives.
“I’ll say this, Comrade Little Shen. Your calculations were awfully accurate. What, did you already calculate that you’d be dividing up my family’s fish too?”
The atmosphere inside the ancestral hall instantly became tense.
Shen Zhiyi felt her palms growing damp with sweat.
She wanted to answer, but her throat had gone dry, and no words would come out.
Just then, she saw Zhou Xubai leaning on his crutch as he slowly walked over to stand beside her.
He didn’t even look at King Yama Wang.
Instead, he addressed Secretary Chen.
“Follow the rules.”
“The rules?”
King Yama Wang let out a mocking laugh.
“Comrade Zhou, you’re an outsider. What do you know about our rules?”
Only then did Zhou Xubai turn his head to look at him.
His gaze was calm.
As calm as the sea before a storm.
Yet beneath that calmness lay a whirlpool capable of swallowing a person whole.
“In the 1958 typhoon, seventeen boats were destroyed and eleven people died. According to the regulations at the time, fishing households that lost their boats received compensation from the collective equal to thirty percent of their losses and were exempted from grain taxes for three years.”
“In the 1965 typhoon, nine boats were destroyed and five people died. The regulations were exactly the same.”
“This year, three boats were lost, and no one was killed.”
He looked directly at Secretary Chen.
“As for which regulations should apply, Secretary Chen already knows the answer.”
The ancestral hall fell deathly silent.
King Yama Wang’s face alternated between green and white.
He wanted to say something, but under Zhou Xubai’s unwavering gaze, the words caught in his throat as though he’d swallowed a stone.
Sweat once again began beading across Secretary Chen’s forehead.
He wiped it away, opened an old yellowed ledger, and hurriedly nodded.
“R… Right! Comrade Zhou is correct! We’ll follow the old regulations! Fishing households that lost their boats will receive compensation from the collective equal to thirty percent of their losses and will be exempt from grain taxes for three years! As for distributing the catch… it will be divided equally among all households!”
“Wait.”
Shen Zhiyi suddenly spoke.