Ch. 011| The Wooden Box

March 18, 2065. Wednesday, 06:30.

Gu Mingye woke.

Different from waking at 06:30 yesterday.

Yesterday his mother hadn't come home, and the living room had been quiet.

Today his mother was home. From his door he could hear the sounds of someone cooking in the kitchen — a pot going onto the gas burner, the tap turning on, his mother's slippers crossing the tiled floor.

The ordinary sounds of home.

He didn't get up right away. He listened for a while, confirming that these sounds were the ordinary ones — not that wrong dripping in the kitchen at 02:30 last night, not those footsteps with no one there beneath the balcony in the middle of the night.

It was a Wednesday morning, his mom home frying eggs and heating soy milk, an ordinary house.

He lay in bed a little longer, then got up, opened his door, and came out.

---

His mother was frying an egg in the kitchen.

"Awake," she said.

"Mm."

"Wash your face first. Breakfast's almost ready."

Gu Mingye went into the bathroom.

The Gu Mingye in the mirror looked like the same Gu Mingye he'd seen at 06:30 the past two mornings.

But he himself knew he was different from both of those two Gu Mingyes.

He finished washing his face and came out.

---

07:00. The dinner table.

Two fried eggs, two slices of toast, a cup of soy milk.

The eggs his mother fried were half-done, the yolks still a little runny.

The eggs his grandmother had fried for him when he was small had been like this too.

The two of them ate.

"The school's already excused you," his mother said. "I called the homeroom teacher and said you had a fever, under observation at the hospital."

"We didn't go to the hospital."

"I know people at the hospital. If anyone checks, there'll be a record."

"Mm."

"But today you're just off. I'm off too. We're both home."

"Mm."

His mother finished her soy milk and set the cup down.

"After we eat, we'll open the box."

"Mm."

"No rush. Mom's made tea. We'll look at it slowly."

"Mm."

Gu Mingye finished his toast. The yolk ran out, and he sopped it up with the edge of the bread and ate it.

Usually he saved the yolk. Today he finished all of it.

He wasn't hungry. He just knew that during the stretch when they opened the box, he probably wouldn't feel like touching food. While he could still eat, he'd fill his stomach first.

---

07:30. The living room sofa.

On the coffee table, the wooden box sat in the same spot where his mother had set it down at 18:00 last night.

Sunlight came in from the balcony, slanting across the box. The grain of the lid, seen in the morning light, was clearer than it had been last night.

"Come sit next to me," his mother said.

Gu Mingye moved over.

His mother pulled the box to the middle between her and Gu Mingye.

She didn't open it right away.

"Mingye."

"Mm."

"This is the first time I'm opening this box too. Grandma's been gone six years. These six years, every time I thought of opening it, I'd remember what she said — to wait until the next one in the family who can see started asking about it."

"I started asking two nights ago."

"Yes."

His mother took a deep breath.

"We'll open it together."

She put both hands on either side of the lid.

Gu Mingye put his hands on it too.

"Three, two, one."

The two of them lifted the lid open together.

---

There were three things in the box.

The first — a piece of paper.

Red paper, black ink.

The paper was exactly the same as the one in Gu Mingye's notebook, the red and the black ink the same too.

But the character in the middle wasn't 過.

It was 返.

The strokes were thick, the openings hidden, the horizontal stroke dragged a little upward. The final falling stroke not too heavy. The hand was the same hand, the same system, as the 過 character.

But the 返 character was the opposite end from the 過 character.

His mother reached out and, gently, lifted the red paper.

With her thumb, through the paper, she felt the 返 in the middle.

Two seconds.

She looked up at Gu Mingye.

"Cold or warm?"

Gu Mingye reached out and touched it.

"The edges warm. The middle cold."

The same state as the 過 slip in Gu Mingye's notebook this morning.

"The two papers are in the same state now," his mother said.

"It's as if — they know the other exists."

Gu Mingye didn't say anything.

He knew that the "know" his mother meant wasn't a metaphor.

It was at a physical level — the temperature and humidity of the two papers were now doing some kind of synchronizing he didn't understand.

The 返 character his grandmother had written more than fifty years ago, the 過 paper lanterns outside the last train's window from decades back, the 過 slip he'd brought home from Platform Thirteen two nights ago — they were things of the same system.

Paper remembers who wrote it. Paper remembers who's touched it. Paper, when another paper of its kind appears, adjusts itself.

The 返 his grandmother had left was for balancing the 過 — Gu Mingye could guess that much now.

She put the 返 slip back in the box.

---

The second — an old black-and-white photograph.

Four inches, the edges already yellowed.

There were two people in the photograph.

One was young, looked to be in her twenties, standing on the right in a dress.

That was Grandma.

Gu Mingye recognized her. The grandmother in the memorial portrait in the living room and the grandmother in this photograph were the same person — only this one was younger.

The other — also in her twenties, in a work uniform that looked a little like a nurse's, standing on the left. In her hands was a cloth bundle.

The two of them stood in front of a temple.

The look of the temple was one Gu Mingye had never seen. It was larger than the Earth God shrine by the bridge, the roof tiles a dark color. There were two pillars in front, with characters on them, but the photo wasn't clear enough to make out what they said.

His mother looked at the photograph and paused for a while.

"The one on the left — I've seen her before."

"Waipo?"

His mother nodded.

"Waipo passed the year I was eight; there weren't many photos at home. But this face, I remember."

"They knew each other?"

"This is the first I'm learning of it too."

His mother turned the photograph over.

On the back was a line of writing. In fountain pen, the hand his grandmother's.

"The Red Earth Temple, April 12, 2010. She said by then she already knew."

Gu Mingye and his mother read the line together.

"The Red Earth Temple," his mother said. "I've never heard of it."

"Qingcheng has a few hundred temples. Could be in some corner somewhere."

"She already knew — knew what?"

His mother shook her head.

"I don't know. But when Grandma wrote this line, she and Waipo were both only in their twenties. Mom wasn't even born yet then."

The two of them were quiet for a while.

Gu Mingye looked once more at Waipo in the photograph.

The bundle in Waipo's hands was wrapped in a piece of red cloth. The way it was knotted was the same knot Gu Mingye had watched his grandmother tie around things when he was small.

Maybe it was a knot passed down in the family, or maybe it was just how people in some place of that era all tied things. Gu Mingye couldn't tell.

"What's inside the bundle?"

"I don't know. This is the first time I've seen this photo too."

---

The third — a paper map.

It was hand-drawn, not printed.

The paper was ordinary A4, old, water-stained along the edges.

What was drawn on the map was the Old River District of Qingcheng and the area around it.

Streets, alleys, the Rivermag Line (back then there probably wasn't a Rivermag Line yet — it was the old railway), the bridge, the old river embankment, temples.

On it were several circles drawn in red pen.

Gu Mingye leaned in.

The first circle was on the spot of the old house in the Old River District.

The second circle was on the spot of the Earth God shrine by the bridge.

The third circle was at the south end of Shuyuan Street — the stretch Gu Mingye walked every day coming out of cram school after class.

The fourth circle was on a place Gu Mingye had never been — it looked to be somewhere deeper in the old town of Qingcheng, marked on the map "Nanyang."

The fifth circle — was on a crease in the very corner of the paper where the map had been folded, only half a circle left, the place where the writing had been already blurred.

His mother looked at the map for a long time.

"These circles, Grandma drew them."

"Why did she draw them?"

"My guess — nodes."

"What are nodes?"

His mother thought for a moment.

"Grandma used to say there were a few places in Qingcheng that were 'places where you'd see things.' She said someone who can see, passing through those places, would feel it. She didn't give details — like I said, her generation didn't explain."

"The Earth God shrine by the bridge is one of them."

"Yes."

"And the old house, too."

"Yes."

"And the south end of Shuyuan Street — that stretch I walk every day, why is it one too?"

His mother shook her head.

"I don't know."

She put the map, gently, back in the box.

"What Grandma marked on the map was the Qingcheng of her era. More than fifty years have passed now, and the city's changed a lot. But these locations should still be there."

Gu Mingye looked once more, carefully.

The third circle — the south end of Shuyuan Street — that spot was now the busiest stretch of the cram-school district. After cram school let out every Friday, Gu Mingye came out from there and walked a few steps to reach Shuyuan Station on the Rivermag Line.

His grandmother had drawn a circle on that stretch, marking it too as a "place where you'd see things."

Gu Mingye had walked it a few hundred times and never felt anything.

He'd only started being able to hear it at fourteen, and in the years before that, walking through, he simply couldn't feel it. Besides, every time he walked that stretch his mind had been entirely on cram school and exams. Or maybe that place wasn't switched on all the time. Which one it was, he had no way to tell right now.

---

08:30. His mother put the three things back into the box, in order.

The 返 talisman slip, on the bottom.

The photograph, in the middle.

The map, on top.

She didn't close the lid right away.

"Mingye."

"Mm."

"These three things, Grandma left them for you. The reason Mom opened it today is because Mom is the one in the middle — the one who can't see. Grandma put the box away for the one who can."

"After you've looked at it —"

"Yes — I've looked. I've told you what I saw, and the rest is for you to decide how to use."

"I can take it?"

"You can. But you decide for yourself whether to. The box can stay here too."

Gu Mingye thought for a moment.

"Leave it here for now. Until I've thought it through."

His mother nodded.

She closed the lid.

---

09:00. His mother stood, went to the kitchen, and brewed a pot of tea.

The two of them sat in the living room, drinking tea.

Gu Mingye thought about that map.

The fifth circle was on the folded crease of the paper, the writing already blurred past making out what place it marked.

But he knew that circle was somewhere in the deepest part of the old town of Qingcheng.

"Mom."

"Mm."

"On that map, the circle in the very corner, you can't see it clearly. Do you have any idea?"

His mother thought for a moment.

"When I looked at the map, I couldn't make it out either. But the direction of that corner — it's about the Miaoqianpu area of the old town of Qingcheng."

"Miaoqianpu —"

Gu Mingye remembered the name.

The last express train on the Rivermag Line on Fridays didn't stop there. At 00:20 the after-hours train detoured to two small stops. One of those small stops was called Miaoqianpu.

The blurred fifth circle his grandmother had marked on the map might be near Miaoqianpu.

That spot, Gu Mingye had never been to.

But he was starting to feel that one day he would go.

His mother finished her cup of tea and set it down.

"Mingye."

"Mm."

"Today we're not going anywhere. Today we stay home."

"Mm."

"Tomorrow you go back to school, and the ordinary life of school keeps going. The things in the box stay here, and you can come look whenever you want to look."

"Mm."

His mother stood and carried the teapot to the kitchen.

Gu Mingye stayed on the living room sofa. The box on the coffee table was closed, the same on the outside as when his mother had set it down at 18:00 last night.

But he knew it was already different from the box of last night.

The three things inside it — he now knew what they were. The 返 his grandmother had written more than fifty years ago, the same hand as the 過 in his notebook; the photo taken in front of the Red Earth Temple, with the line on the back about how Waipo "by then already knew"; and the map, five red circles, one of them on the south end of Shuyuan Street that he walked every day, one on Miaoqianpu, where he'd never been.

These three things were now all in a small wooden box on the coffee table in his living room.

Grandma had been gone six years. The box had sat closed on the coffee table for six years. This morning at 08:00, his mother had lifted the lid.

His mother leaned her head out from the kitchen.

"Mingye, Mom'll make some lunch around noon. Do you want to take a nap?"

"No nap."

"Then take the blanket off the living room sofa and lean back to rest. Mom won't bother you."

"Mm."

Gu Mingye didn't move.

He sat on the sofa, looking at the closed box on the coffee table.

He knew he wouldn't look at the box again for the rest of today. Today he'd let it sit there like this.

After he went back to school tomorrow, the ordinary life of school would catch him.

The "keep the ordinary life going" his grandmother had spoken of counted at home today, and counted at school tomorrow.

He pulled the blanket on the sofa over and laid it across his legs, his back against the armrest. The box on the coffee table sat closed in front of him. He just sat there like that.

---

【Ch. 011 End · the old house in the Old River District, Qingcheng】