Shen Zhiyi’s hands paused, and she looked up.
With his eyes still closed, Zhou Xubai frowned faintly, as though reliving a painful memory.
“The combat engineers were clearing mines ahead of us, and we followed behind them. But there were too many mines. They couldn’t clear them all. The company commander said we couldn’t wait. We had to reach the designated position before dawn.”
He paused, his breathing growing heavier.
“I was leading the assault squad at the very front. There was a new recruit, only nineteen years old. Everyone called him Little Sichuan. He was terrified. His legs had gone weak, and he couldn’t move. I grabbed him and told him, ‘Stay behind me. Step exactly where I step.'”
The fire in the stove crackled, sending a few sparks dancing into the air.
“When we were halfway through, I heard a click beneath my foot.”
Zhou Xubai’s voice was calm.
Calm enough to be frightening.
“It was a tripwire mine. The moment I lifted my foot, it would explode.”
Shen Zhiyi unconsciously held her breath.
“Little Sichuan was right behind me. He was so terrified that he froze in place.”
Zhou Xubai slowly opened his eyes, staring into empty space with a vacant expression.
“I shouted at him to run. He didn’t move. I panicked, turned around, threw myself at him, and shoved him away.”
He stopped speaking. A long silence followed.
“And then?” Shen Zhiyi asked softly.
“And then the mine exploded.”
His gaze dropped to his right leg.
“The blast threw me through the air. By the time I hit the ground, this leg was gone. Everything below the knee had been blown to pieces.”
He spoke of it simply, as though he were telling someone else’s story.
But Shen Zhiyi saw the fist clenched tightly at his side. She caught the flash of pain deep within his eyes.
It wasn’t physical pain.
It was the wound in his heart that would never truly heal.
“What about Little Sichuan?” she asked.
“He survived,” Zhou Xubai replied. “Just a few cuts and bruises. Later, he wrote to me. He’d been discharged from the army, gone home, gotten married, and had a child. There was a family photograph tucked inside the letter. The three of them were smiling so happily.”
He smiled faintly.
“Losing this leg was worth it.”
By May, even the wind on the fishing island in the South China Sea carried a heavy, sticky humidity.
That morning, Secretary Chen called from outside the tin shack.
“Little Shen! There’s a letter for you at the post office!”
Shen Zhiyi was hanging Zhou Xubai’s faded military uniform out to dry.
At his words, her hand jerked, and the wet uniform slipped back into the wooden washbasin, splashing water all over her cloth shoes.
Leaning on his yellow rosewood crutch, Zhou Xubai came out of the house.
He glanced at her without saying a word.
After drying her hands, Shen Zhiyi followed Secretary Chen toward the eastern end of the village.
As they walked, he chatted casually.
“It came all the way from Jiangnan. The stamps are pasted on crooked. One look and you can tell it’s your brother’s handwriting.”
Her footsteps faltered.
Her fingernails dug into her palm.
The post office was a small stone building with windows covered by yellowed newspaper.
The elderly postman in a green uniform searched through a drawer before handing her the letter with a sigh.
“From your family, young lady?”
The envelope was thin.
Shen Jianguo’s handwriting slanted awkwardly across it like reeds bent by the wind.
Holding the letter tightly, Shen Zhiyi walked out to the reef and sat down on a flat rock.
The sea breeze kept lifting the paper, forcing her to press it down several times before she could unfold it.
Dear Zhiyi, my little sister,
I hope this letter finds you well. How is life on the island? Your sister in law is pregnant. She’s already more than three months along. It should be a joyful occasion, but the family is having a difficult time. A few days ago, she fainted in the kitchen. The barefoot doctor said she needs brown sugar and eggs to replenish her strength and blood.
I know life isn’t easy for you either, but we’re truly struggling. If you can send some money home, even ten or twenty yuan would help.
As for the Zhao family, there’s nothing more to worry about. Live your life well.
Your brother, Jianguo
April 28
Shen Zhiyi stared blankly at the words brown sugar and eggs.
Before her eyes appeared Wang Xiulan’s thin, gaunt face.
The previous winter, Wang Xiulan had sat by the stove drinking watery porridge.
After finishing it, she had even licked the rim of the bowl.
Meanwhile, her brother had squatted in the doorway smoking, the drifting smoke shrouding his hunched back.
Carefully folding the letter, Shen Zhiyi tucked it into her pocket.
As she stood up, her fingers brushed against the faded handkerchief inside.
It still held the money her brother had secretly pressed into her hand at the entrance to the village.
Thirty yuan. Now only twenty remained.
Last month she had spent two yuan on needles, thread, and soap.
Three yuan had gone toward buying brown sugar for Zhou Xubai.
Another five had paid for a length of blue cloth to make herself summer clothes.
The remaining twenty yuan had been her hope.
She had planned to save it until the end of the year, perhaps enough to cover the fare back to Jiangnan.
Now… Even those twenty yuan would soon be gone.
The walk back to the tin shack was painfully slow.
As she passed Granny Lin’s house, the steady swish, swish of weaving shuttles drifted from inside.
Granny Lin leaned out the doorway.
“Little Shen, come by this afternoon and teach them the new weaving pattern!”
Forcing a smile, Shen Zhiyi nodded.
“I will.”
When she pushed open the door to the tin shack, Zhou Xubai was sitting at the old desk organizing his weather journals.
Hearing her return, he looked up, his eyes settling on the tightly clenched hand in which she still held the letter.
“A letter?” he asked.
“Mmm.”
Shen Zhiyi placed it on the table before turning toward the stove to fetch water.
The fire in the metal stove had already gone out.
She crouched down to relight it, but it took three strikes before the match finally caught.
Zhou Xubai unfolded the letter.
After reading it, he folded it neatly back along its original creases and remained silent for a long moment.
“How much do they need?” he suddenly asked.
Still facing away from him, Shen Zhiyi froze, the ladle suspended above the pot.
“What?”
“Your sister in law needs brown sugar and eggs to recover,” Zhou Xubai said calmly. “How much money?”
The firewood cracked loudly inside the stove.
Shen Zhiyi slowly stood, wiping her fingers on her coarse apron.
“I… I have money.”
“Those thirty yuan?”
Leaning on his crutch, Zhou Xubai walked over to stand before her.
“Didn’t you say you were saving it so you could return to Jiangnan?”
Shen Zhiyi’s head snapped up.
She had never told him about those thirty yuan.
Nor had she ever mentioned saving money to return home.
How did he know?
Zhou Xubai glanced toward the corner of the faded handkerchief peeking out from her pocket.
Its blue background patterned with tiny white flowers had faded badly, and the edges were already fraying.
It was the only thing her mother had left behind.
She always kept it close to her.
“That day on the reef, when you took the hand plane out of your bundle, I saw it.”
His voice remained casual.
“The money was wrapped inside the handkerchief. You counted it three times.”
A flush instantly spread across Shen Zhiyi’s face.
The shame of having her secret discovered washed over her, mixed with all the grievances she had quietly bottled up over these past days.
She turned her face away.
“That’s my business.”
“It’s my business now too.”
Zhou Xubai reached into the inner pocket of his military jacket and took out a kraft paper envelope.
Pulling out a stack of banknotes, he placed them on the table.
“There’s fifty yuan here. Send thirty home, and keep the remaining twenty for emergencies.”
Shen Zhiyi stared at the money.
Five crisp ten yuan bills.
On a fishing island in 1975…
It was an enormous sum.
Zhou Xubai’s monthly martyr’s family subsidy was only twenty eight yuan.
How long must he have saved to put together fifty?
“I don’t want it.”
She heard her own voice trembling.
“I didn’t come here to ask you for money.”
“It’s not for you.”
Zhou Xubai set the money firmly on the table.
“It’s an advance on your living expenses. You cook, wash clothes, and teach people to weave nets. That work has value.”
His words reminded her of something Wang Xiulan had said before she left home.
“Once you’re married, you’re part of his family. If you eat their food, then it’s only right that you do their work.”
Back then, those words had filled her with humiliation.
Now, hearing Zhou Xubai say something that sounded strangely similar…
“Zhou Xubai.”
For the first time, she called him by his full name.
“I stayed on this island because I refuse to live off anyone else’s charity. I work, and you provide me with a place to stay. That makes us even.”
Her eyes fell upon the money.
“So what is this supposed to be?”
“Charity?”
The hand gripping Zhou Xubai’s crutch tightened.
Outside, the waves pounded endlessly against the reefs, each one more forceful than the last.
“You think this is charity?”