The village rooster had not yet crowed when Zhì Yuǎn opened his eyes. The light that passed through the bamboo slats was weak, almost gray, and he lay still for a few moments, feeling the weight of his own body against the mat. At twenty-two, he had broad shoulders and a chest marked by the daily work with wood and stone.
He tried to move his right arm, but he could not.
Yù Qíng was lying on top of him, one leg crossed over his hip like a heavy lock while her left arm pressed hard against his chest, fingers dug into the skin just below the collarbone. Even in sleep, she held him with an instinctive need, as if someone might take him away during the night, her breath hot and steady against his neck.
With slow movements, Zhì Yuǎn began to free himself, removing her fingers from his collarbone one by one before lifting the leg that pinned him and placing a pillow in the place of his own body. Yù Qíng grumbled at once, clutching the cloth against her chest before she even opened her eyes.
"The bed got cold…" she murmured, her voice hoarse with sleep.
"I'm going to wash my face and finish the flute," Zhì Yuǎn answered, already rising and putting on a loose gray tunic. "The wood has rested long enough."
Yù Qíng buried her face in the pillow he had left, eyes still half-closed.
"The water in the stream is freezing at this hour."
Zhì Yuǎn stopped at the door of the room and looked back with a small, teasing smile.
"Less freezing than the tea you made yesterday."
Yù Qíng narrowed her eyes and, without warning, pulled the pillow and threw it hard at his back. The throw hit true, making Zhì Yuǎn laugh low as he stepped out onto the rear veranda.
The morning air was damp and cold. He filled a basin with water from the stream that ran behind the house and washed his face, feeling the icy shock chase away the rest of his sleep, before sitting on the low wooden bench and picking up the knife along with the black bamboo stalk that had been drying for a week.
The work was methodical. He scraped the dark surface with firm movements, feeling the resistance of the wood under the blade, attentive only to the direction of the fibers and the natural thickness of the stalk so that the hole would draw a clean sound when the wind passed through it.
Scrape. Scrape.
The scrape of iron was the only noise in the yard until the boards of the door creaked.
He smelled her before he even heard the steps. Yù Qíng came down from the veranda barefoot, heedless of the cold wind that blew against her thin nightgown, and stopped behind him. Her cold hands slid over Zhì Yuǎn's shoulders as she leaned forward, resting her cheek against the back of his neck and rubbing her face slowly to breathe the scent of his skin.
"Put that away," she whispered against his neck. "The sun is about to rise, and my father will be grumpy today because of the tribute."
Zhì Yuǎn stopped the blade, tilting his head back to feel her cold face against his warm skin.
"There's still time to finish."
"Not if you stay here until the sun is high," she answered, pressing his shoulders harder. "I don't want to hear him complaining during lunch."
He let out a low laugh, put the knife away, and stood, but Yù Qíng did not pull away at once, pressing her body against his for a few more moments as if she needed to absorb a little more of his heat before releasing him.
The sun was already high when they reached the main house of the Yù family.
The courtyard was filled with piles of jute sacks full of the coal that would be sent as tribute, mixing the dry smell of soot with the steam of the bone broth boiling in the open kitchen. Sū Huì had her arms dirty with flour as she stirred a large pot and, upon seeing the two enter, opened a tired but sincere smile.
"Sit down, lunch is almost ready," she said. "Méi! Bring the bowls!"
At fourteen, Yù Méi appeared running from the back of the house with her ponytail swinging, her eyes lighting up the instant she saw Zhì Yuǎn.
"Brother-in-law! Sister said you finished the black bamboo flute! Play for me?"
Before Zhì Yuǎn could answer, Yù Qíng stepped forward and placed herself between the two with a gentle smile, though the hand that settled on the youngest's shoulder had enough force to make her stop in place.
"The wood is still delicate," Yù Qíng said calmly. "And your hands are dirty. Go fetch the bowls."
Yù Méi pouted, but obeyed, while Yù Qíng ran her hand along her husband's back in a slow gesture before sitting beside him.
Lunch passed quietly. Yù Chéng arrived shortly after, with callused hands and a face marked by fatigue, commenting in passing about the war in the north, the arrival of the imperial officials the next day, and the care needed to weigh every sack without error. No one argued at the table.
When the clay plates began to be cleared, Yù Méi rested her elbows on the wood and looked at Zhì Yuǎn with expectation.
"Can you play now?"
Zhì Yuǎn nodded without complaint and rose from the table, accompanied by Yù Qíng, who once more touched his back in an automatic gesture as they walked to the porch. The afternoon sun was already beginning to tilt over the high rows of jute sacks stacked in the courtyard. Zhì Yuǎn sat on the edge of the wood with his legs hanging out, Yù Méi sitting on the dirt floor right in front of him, legs crossed and chin resting on her hands, while Yù Qíng leaned her shoulder against the pillar just behind her husband with arms crossed.
Zhì Yuǎn took the black bamboo flute from his belt and began to play.
It was a simple, old melody, made in the first months after the marriage, blown without exaggeration only to test the new wood and feel the passage of air through the freshly opened hole. Yù Méi listened without moving, while Yù Qíng remained silent, watching her husband's broad back.
As soon as the last note died in the air, the youngest clapped, animated.
"You should play in the square! Everyone would want to hear!"
"The sound is too low for the square," Yù Qíng answered before Zhì Yuǎn could open his mouth, her voice calm and final. "It was made for smaller places."
Yù Chéng, who had followed the end of the music standing beside the pillar with the tally board in his hand, let out a heavy sigh.
"The music was good, but the work doesn't wait," he said. "Zhì Yuǎn, come with me to take a look at the sacks now. The men are waiting."
Zhì Yuǎn put the flute away and stood, Yù Qíng at his side for a few steps down from the porch before she finally released his sleeve.
------
The afternoon passed slowly in the courtyard. Walking among the hundreds of coal sacks, Zhì Yuǎn barely looked at the tally board his father-in-law held, preferring to touch the sisal ropes, press the thick fabric with his fingers, and feel the weight of the contents inside.
"This one is light," he said, stopping before the third pile. "And that one in the corner is still damp in the middle."
Yù Chéng frowned.
"They were all weighed early."
"The scale is rusted on the axle," Zhì Yuǎn answered, in a flat tone. "And the coal in the center of that sack didn't dry properly. When the water evaporates on the road, the official will deduct it from the quota."
He kept walking between the rows and, for half the afternoon, pointed out sacks with loose stitching, wrong weight, and coal mixed with gravel, without missing a single one. When they reached the end of the last pile, however, Yù Chéng did not call the porters. The father-in-law lowered the tally board and braced his callused hand on the wooden pillar, looking across the courtyard to make sure the miners were far away.
"The provincial scout passed along the road before lunch," Yù Chéng said, his voice low and hoarse with fatigue. "The northern line broke and the war broke out in the east as well. The army forges are swallowing everything."
Zhì Yuǎn stopped tying a sack and raised his gaze.
"They're going to raise the tribute?"
"Double," Yù Chéng passed a hand over his face dirty with soot. "The official coming tomorrow will only take this normal shipment, but he already brings the decree with the war seal. Two thousand sacks by the end of the month. If the next wagons leave empty, the regiment will punish the village leadership for treason."
Silence hung heavy under the porch while Zhì Yuǎn looked toward the northern slope.
"The veins of the middle shafts thinned last month," Zhì Yuǎn said, direct. "The pick is already hitting hard stone. Even doubling the men's hours, the current mine won't deliver half of that."
"I know," the old man murmured, shoulders falling under the weight of the sweaty shirt. "Only the southern shaft is left, but that hole has been rotten and shored with dead wood for ten years. Working there is asking for the tunnel to collapse on our heads."
Yù Chéng lightly patted his son-in-law's shoulder, forcing his body to straighten.
"Don't mention anything to your mother-in-law or the girls today. Let me deal with the official tomorrow first."
The father-in-law turned and went to organize the men, leaving Zhì Yuǎn standing for another moment with his gaze fixed on the dark line of the mountain before he walked to the water barrel to wash his hands.
"Zhì Yuǎn."
He turned at the low call and saw Yù Lǎo Tàitai seated in the shaded corner of the veranda, her clouded eyes fixed on him. Approaching in silence, he knelt on the earth before the chair and let the old woman's wrinkled hand rise to touch his temple.
"You are changing," she said softly. "Your eyes are different, deeper. Be careful not to sink so far that you forget how to live up here."
Zhì Yuǎn remained quiet, feeling the weight of those words without knowing exactly how to answer, until a pale hand settled on his shoulder from behind.
"He doesn't need to live only on the surface, Grandmother," Yù Qíng said, her voice gentle contrasting with the firmness of the fingers on his shoulder. "He has our house."
The old woman lowered her hand without insisting, and Yù Qíng soon interlaced her fingers with Zhì Yuǎn's to pull him away.
"Let's go to the peak," she murmured. "You owe me the new song."
The trail to the Peak of the Setting Sun was steep and narrow, but Yù Qíng climbed in front, pulling him by the hand in a constant grip, as if releasing him for a single instant would be dangerous. When they reached the top swept by the strong wind, Zhì Yuǎn sat on the edge of the stone with his legs dangling over the void, while his wife settled tightly against his side, leaning her shoulder against his to shelter from the cold.
He took the black bamboo flute and began to play.
The first note came out hoarse and heavy. He adjusted the mouthpiece little by little, measuring the vibration of the bamboo against his fingers while shaping the melody as the sunset dyed the ridge.
After some time, as the shadows on the peak grew quickly over the rock, something changed in his perception.
He began to follow the way the brightness retreated and the cold air advanced over the mountain, seeing a constant cycle in that exchange. Without thinking, he adjusted his breath to the very rhythm of the dusk—inhaling when the light diminished, holding the air at the exact point where heat and cold met, and exhaling when the shadow took the space.
On the fourth cycle, the air around him suddenly grew dense.
Zhì Yuǎn inhaled deeper, and something descended down his throat.
It was heavy and cold like a thick liquid, forcing its way into his chest before exploding in a sharp pain that locked his entire body and made the flute slip from his fingers, striking dry against the stone.
Yù Qíng opened her eyes at the same instant.
"My love?"
He could not answer. The air that had entered no longer left, lodged just below the sternum in a space that had never existed before, churning his bones, his muscles, and even the course of his own blood from within.
Feeling her husband's shoulder harden like rock, Yù Qíng was seized at once by the old terror that the quiet boy her father had brought from the forest years ago would finally disappear into the wind. She seized his right wrist with both hands and dug her nails into the skin with all her strength, letting the blood run hot between her fingers.
Zhì Yuǎn barely felt the burn in his arm, keeping his dark eyes open and fixed on the valley below, where the torches of the main mine lit small as embers on the northern slope.
The sharp pain below the sternum eased little by little, giving way to a cold and solid core that seemed to fuse his bones from the inside out. For the first time in his life, as he faced the black rock wall of the mountain, he did not see an impassable limit for human flesh, feeling in the very traction of his tendons how the weight of the air and the hardness of the stone obeyed a force he still did not know how to name.
If that could be accumulated in the body, no condemned shaft or raw rock would stand in the way. He himself would open the mountain and pay the debt to the family that had taken him in.
Zhì Yuǎn closed his left hand over the cold stone of the summit and turned his face to his wife, who remained clinging to his bloodied arm as if her life depended on it.