The first thing to return was the sound of water.
It never faded or faltered, and for a long time, Gu Yan could not tell where the sound was coming from—outside him or inside his head. Then came the cold, as his wet clothes clung to his body, followed by pain. It did not descend upon him all at once. Instead, it stirred in stages as he slowly regained consciousness. His shoulder hurt the most; the rest of his body simply ached, as though he had been beaten for a long time.
He opened his eyes. Branches swayed above him, and the low, yellow light of the setting sun filtered through the leaves. The day was drawing to a close.
Why am I not at home?
The thought was almost calm. He had not fully woken up yet. In the mornings, home smelled of smoke from the hearth. Here, the air smelled of stagnant water and damp clay.
He tried to sit up. His arms gave way, and his cheek struck the gravel. On his second attempt, he managed to roll onto his side; on the third, he braced himself with his uninjured arm and lifted his upper body. Dark spots swam before his eyes, and he remained still until the world stopped spinning.
The bank was a narrow strip of gravel and silt. The stream rushed past, swift and murky, carrying broken branches along with it. The front of his shirt and one sleeve had stiffened, turning brown. It took him a moment to realize it was blood. And another moment to understand that it was his own.
Then he remembered.
The bridge. The old ropes had creaked beneath his feet as he walked without looking down. Two steps from the other side. He had turned around to tell them they could cross. And then a shadow had fallen upon him from above. Fangs had sunk so deeply into his shoulder that, at first, the pain was white and soundless. The ropes had snapped, and the planks had vanished beneath his feet. Above it all, he had heard his mother's voice calling his name in a way he had never heard before.
Then came the water.
"Mother," he breathed. "Gu Er."
No one answered. He turned his head sharply, searching for the wolf, but found neither the beast nor any trace of it. Gu Yan did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad one, and the uncertainty only made him more afraid.
He had to get up. Clutching a protruding root, he pulled himself upright, and at that moment, a deep chill pierced his thigh.
It was not pain, but cold—a profound cold, like the chill of a well's stone wall. It came from his pocket, where something had suddenly grown heavier. The cold crept up his side, toward his shoulder, and then farther still, straight into his head.
And someone began to speak inside his mind.
The voice did not come from outside. The stream continued to rush as before, while the voice sounded over it, muffled yet strangely clear. The words crumbled like wet sand slipping through his fingers, and he could not make out a single one. Only a question remained. The voice was cracked and ancient, but whether it belonged to a human being, he could not tell.
Gu Yan cried out and fell to his knees.
"Who…?" he whispered. "Who's there? Who…?"
The stream. Nothing else.
He waited, holding his breath. The voice did not speak again, and the cold in his pocket slowly receded. Only then did Gu Yan dare to reach inside and pull out the black slab.
He had completely forgotten about it. It was because of this stone that he had gone to Uncle Sun and returned home disappointed. Now the slab lay in his palm, smooth, heavy, and utterly unremarkable. While he had been unconscious, blood had soaked through the fabric of his pocket and reached the stone. The stains were barely visible against its black surface, but the grooves of the characters had turned brown, as though someone had traced each one with a brush.
Nothing else happened. The stone was just a stone.
I must be imagining things, Gu Yan decided. It's the exhaustion.
He had eaten nothing, lost a great deal of blood, and had probably hit his head. Anyone might hear strange things after all that. His mother would have said, Eat first, then start making things up. A lump rose in his throat, and he quickly tucked the stone back into his pocket. For some reason, throwing it away seemed worse than keeping it.
His throat burned as though he had swallowed hot sand. Gu Yan crawled to the water and drank until his breath caught in his throat. The water tasted of silt, but he could not remember ever tasting anything so delicious. He washed the dried blood from his face and hands, and the water along the bank turned pink before flowing away.
Once his mind had cleared, he forced himself to think.
The bridge had stood over the stream, and the current had carried him downstream. He had lived beside water since childhood and knew one thing: water always flowed downhill. So to go back, he had to move against the current.
"I'm going home," he said aloud. After a pause, he added more quietly, "I'll make it."
He needed to hear his own voice. It came out thin and trembling, but at least it was his own.
He managed to stand only by gripping a branch above the bank. He held his injured arm against his chest because the pain was more bearable that way, then began walking along the water. The gravel gave way to mud, and the mud to a tangle of roots he had to step over, lifting his feet high. He placed each foot carefully, as he did on the slippery stones beside the pond, and found that this made walking easier.
He kept expecting the bridge to appear around the next bend—or rather, whatever remained of it: broken ropes dangling from the edge. He dreaded seeing it and longed for it at the same time. But beyond each bend lay only another bend. The trees stood tall and unfamiliar, and he could find no hill, boulder, or fallen trunk that might make him think, I've been here before.
Then his legs turned to water, his head began to roar, and his stomach cramped so violently that he doubled over. There had always been enough food in their home every day, and he had never truly known hunger. He sat down on a fallen trunk, promising himself he would rest for just a minute, and closed his eyes.
His mother came to him at once.
Not her cry, but the moment before it. Disheveled, her face flushed red by the fire, she had seized him by the shoulders and spoken quickly and evenly, as though calling him to dinner.
"Take Gu Er and run. I'll gather everything we need and catch up with you."
His sister, barely awake, had clutched his sleeve and asked why it was so bright.
He had done as he was told. And on the bridge, he had still turned around.
If only I hadn't turned back. If only I'd reached the other side before calling to them…
He shook his head because the thought only made everything worse, then forced himself to his feet. He wanted to run, but he managed only twenty steps before his knees buckled and he fell into the mud, barely catching himself with his uninjured hand. He lay there, listening to his heart pound, his shoulder throbbing so fiercely that he wanted to scream.
He could not go on like this. He had known that before, just as children knew the rules adults repeated to them. Now he understood it with his whole body: if he fell and could not get up, he would never reach home. Twenty steps, then rest. Another twenty, then rest again. He counted as he walked.
He did not become braver. He still flinched at every rustle in the bushes. But his fear for himself shrank beside another fear: he did not know whether his mother and Gu Er were alive, and that uncertainty was worse than any wound.
The bank came to an abrupt end. Ahead, the stream disappeared into a narrow cleft between the rocks, too tight for even a cat to squeeze through, while a sheer stone wall towered over the water. He could go no farther along the stream.
Gu Yan stood before the wall, feeling everything inside him sink. Turning back meant losing the little ground he had covered. He raised his head and scanned the slope, noticing something he would not have seen before: a narrow, dark line running through the bushes above the bank. He scrambled up on all fours, gripping whatever he could with his uninjured hand.
It was a path.
Narrow and barely visible, but well-trodden. The grass grew more sparsely along it than elsewhere. It wound up the slope and continued onward, in the direction where he thought the village must lie. Someone had walked this path. And people did not go where they had no reason to be. So it must lead to other people.
Gu Yan did not know who they were, but for now, that was enough.
"You must lead somewhere," he whispered. "Please."
And he set off.
The path wound back and forth, dipping into ravines before climbing out onto open slopes. The sun had long since disappeared, and the forest grew dark. Then the first stars appeared in the sky. Gu Yan walked, counting his steps, stopping when he had to, then forcing himself to rise and continue. Once, his head spun and he fell. For a few moments, he lay there, unable to tell which way was up and which was down. Then he got back to his feet.
He had lost track of how far he had gone when the forest suddenly opened up, revealing a stretch of sky. Stars filled the heavens, scattered above the black edge of the earth. And where that edge rose into an enormous dark mass, a transparent crescent gaped in the mountainside. Stars shone through it, as though someone had cut a window into the mountain's black flank.
Gu Yan stopped.
The Star Mountain.
He would have recognized it anywhere. How many times had he watched it from the pond, waiting for a fish to bite? Tears began to stream down his face, and he did not even bother to wipe them away. Now he knew where he was. He was not home yet, but neither was he in some distant, unfamiliar place. He knew the way from the pond to the village.
The path really did lead there. Soon, familiar grass rustled beneath his feet, and then dark water glimmered ahead. He recognized the pond before he could make it out clearly. This was the very spot where he had caught the swollen fish. As he walked, he instinctively touched his pocket, but the stone lay there, cold and silent.
From then on, he almost ran, as fast as his legs would allow. The sky was already beginning to brighten above the treetops. The wind blowing from the direction of the village carried a strange smell, and Gu Yan suddenly realized it was the smell of cold ashes.
The sky was turning gray. In the gray light, the village looked as though something had crushed it.
Gu Yan stood at its edge, unable to move.
The houses were gone. All that remained were blackened, charred beams jutting out of heaps of ash and rubble like ribs. Ash lay everywhere in an even gray layer, and in places, it still smoldered faintly. Fences had collapsed, doors had been torn from their hinges, and something enormous and heavy had smashed into one wall, causing it to cave inward.
He took a step, and the ground squelched beneath his foot. The earth was dark and sticky.
Blood.
There was so much of it that it had soaked into the dust, dried into brown stains and puddles, and still glistened in places. Among the blackened ruins lay scraps of clothing: someone's shirt, a torn piece of a headscarf, a child's shoe.
Then he saw the bodies.
There were several. He did not count them. One lay face down by a fence; another was slumped against a broken piece of wall, as though sitting. Gu Yan looked away, then forced himself to look again. He had to know. None of them was his mother, Gu Er, or anyone he could recognize from a distance. But his stomach suddenly clenched, and his throat tightened. He doubled over, nearly retching, but his stomach was empty, and only bitter saliva came up. He caught his breath, wiped his mouth with his sleeve, and staggered onward.
"Mother!" His voice came out hoarse. "Gu Er!"
Silence. The wind stirred the ash.
"Mother!"
He moved from one pile of rubble to another, calling out and listening. He called until his voice grew raw. He peered beneath the debris wherever he could reach, each time afraid of seeing what he dreaded—and each time finding only ash and stones.
He did not find his own home at first because he failed to recognize it. Only when a familiar, crooked pole emerged from beneath the collapsed roof did he realize he had found the right place. His fishing rod had hung from it every day, and now it was burned halfway through.
The roof lay where the floor had once been. The walls had caved in. The corner where his mother had told them stories every evening, where he and Gu Er had sat pressed against her, was buried beneath blackened beams. He crawled over to it and tried to pull away a charred plank with his uninjured hand. Pain shot through his shoulder, and his vision turned white. He pulled again and again until he collapsed. Then he sat in the ashes and wept in earnest, crying aloud like the little boy he was.
They were nowhere to be found.
Neither in the house nor among the people he had dared to examine. He did not know whether that was a good thing or a bad one, and the uncertainty made him want to howl. His mother had said, "I'll gather everything we need and catch up with you." But she had never caught up.
He did not know how long he sat there. The sun climbed higher, and the gray light grew pale. When his tears had run dry, he suddenly heard a sound in the silence.
It was faint. Neither a sob nor a whisper, but something in between. It came from somewhere beyond the neighboring ruins.
Gu Yan froze. The sound came again.
He rose and walked toward it, hardly believing he was moving. His legs seemed to carry him on their own. The sound led him to a low house near the center of the village, half of which had survived: one wall still stood, and the roof had slid to one side. He recognized the house. It belonged to Granny Hua.
Granny Hua was the village elder and its oldest resident. She had neither husband nor children and lived alone. His mother often sent Gu Yan to visit her, sometimes with freshly made flatbreads, sometimes to run an errand, and sometimes simply to keep her company because the old woman had no one to talk to. Gu Yan was always happy to go. Granny Hua could always find something for him: a piece of something sweet, a story, or a kind word.
Once, he had asked his mother why Granny Hua was always alone. His mother had remained silent for a long time before finally answering softly.
"She once had a fiancé. He went off to war with the army. They made a promise: if he returned alive, they would marry. He never came back. And she waited. She waited for more than fifty years. Don't laugh at her. There is nothing funny about it."
He had not laughed. He simply could not imagine waiting for someone for so long.
He entered the house, ducking beneath a crooked beam.
"Granny Hua?"
At first, there was no answer. Then the faint sound came again, and this time he realized it was not crying. She was whispering.
She lay against the wall, where part of the roof had caved in. By some miracle, the fallen beam had missed her. Her white hair was disheveled. A dark stain spread across her clothes at her side. Her eyes were half-open and clouded, and her lips barely moved.
"Granny Hua!" Gu Yan dropped to his knees beside her. "It's me, Gu Yan! Can you hear me? What happened? Where is everyone? Have you seen my mother? Gu Er?"
She did not answer. Only her weak, uneven breathing stirred her chest.
He looked around and spotted an intact clay jug by the doorway, with a little water left inside. He grabbed it and brought it to her lips, supporting her head with his uninjured hand.
"Here, drink. Please, just drink…"
Suddenly, her fingers closed around his wrist. Her grip was unexpectedly strong, though her fingers were thin and cold as twigs. She held his hand firmly, preventing him from tilting the jug. Her cloudy eyes slowly shifted and settled on him. But she was not looking at him. She was looking through him, at someone else.
And something extraordinary passed across her deeply wrinkled face.
A smile.
"You… finally came?" Her voice rustled like dry leaves. "Have you come to take me away?"
"Granny…" he began.
"How long I've waited for you…"
A tear slipped from the corner of her eye, ran down her temple, and disappeared into her white hair. She did not release his hand.
Gu Yan froze, the jug still in one hand. He knew what he should say: It's me, Granny. Gu Yan. It's me, Xiao Yan. He opened his mouth, but no words came. Fifty years. He could not imagine such a span of time, yet he could see it laid out before him: thin, cold fingers clinging to his wrist, and a smile meant for someone else.
He did not know what to say. He knew only one thing: his mother would have told him not to pull his hand away.
So he did not.
He carefully set the jug on the floor and remained beside her, holding her cold fingers. Outside, the morning sun shone over a village where neither his mother nor Gu Er could be found.
Her fingers suddenly closed around his wrist. Her grip was unexpectedly strong, though her fingers were thin and cold as twigs. She held his hand firmly, preventing him from tilting the jug. Her cloudy eyes slowly shifted and settled on him. But she was not looking at him. She was looking through him, at someone else.
And something extraordinary passed across her deeply wrinkled face.
A smile.
"You… finally came?" Her voice rustled like dry leaves. "Have you come to take me away?"
"Granny…" Gu Yan began.
"How long I've waited for you…"
A tear slid from the corner of her eye, ran down her temple, and disappeared into her white hair. She did not release his hand.
He knew what he should say: It's me, Granny. Gu Yan. It's me, Xiao Yan. He opened his mouth, but no words came. Fifty years. He could not imagine such a span of time, yet he could see it laid out before him: thin, cold fingers clinging to his wrist, and a smile meant for someone else.
"I'm here," he said softly. It was the only thing he could say that was both true and kind.
Granny Hua exhaled. It was not a sigh, but a long, slow breath, as though a burden she had carried longer than he had been alive had finally been lifted from her shoulders. Her eyes closed. Her face became remarkably peaceful, almost young, as if the wrinkles had smoothed away.
"Now… I can go," she whispered.
Her fingers relaxed. Her hand slipped from his wrist and fell to the ground, palm up.
Gu Yan waited for her next breath. Then he waited again. He listened for so long that he began to hear his own heartbeat, the little stream beyond the wall, and a distant bird. But there was no more breathing.
"Granny Hua?" he whispered.
She did not answer. She lay there with a faint smile, as though she had simply fallen asleep and was having a pleasant dream.
He did not understand at once. The realization came quietly and stayed beside him, like the cold of the stone in his pocket. She was gone. She had passed away peacefully, without suffering, believing that the person she had waited half a century for had finally come to take her away.
Gu Yan sat beside her and did not cry. The tears he had shed among the ashes of his home were spent, and no new ones came. He gently folded her hands over her chest, the way his mother did when putting Gu Er to bed. He picked up a blanket from the floor, gray with ash, and covered her to the shoulders. Then he sat with her a little longer.
"Thank you for giving me flatbreads," he finally said. "And for the stories."
The silence offered no reply, but neither did it feel hostile.
He rose, steadying himself against the wall with his uninjured hand. His shoulder hurt, his legs trembled, and his stomach was empty. But he was standing, looking toward the bright doorway beyond which the ruined village lay.
His mother had said, "I'll catch up with you." Gu Er had asked why it was so bright.