Lao Kan's Castration Knife

Lao Kan's Castration Knife

Forty li west of Locust Lane lies a stretch of paddy fields, a low wet country of dykes and ponds. The people there keep no clocks; they keep time by the rattle of Old Kan's pellet drum. When the drum sounds, the pigs in their pens squeal first, and the farmer comes out smiling — Old Kan has come, and the beasts that need cutting are due to be cut.

Kan has castrated livestock all his life. His tool is a three-inch blade, thin enough to let light through, left to him by his master. The pigs, sheep, chickens and ducks that pass under his hand heal without swelling or rot, and within three days they are rooting and scratching as if nothing happened — livelier, some say, than before. The hamlet swears he never looks when he cuts; eyes shut, his hand is truer than his eye. It is no lie. One night by borrowed lamplight he finished a black boar, and when the farmer lit the lamp he could not find a single drop of blood.

But Kan's wonder is not the speed of the knife. It is a pair of hands that listen.

Before he cuts, he presses his palm to the beast's crown and stands with his eyes closed for the length of a pipe. The villagers take it for a craftsman's superstition. In truth he is listening. Through the small warmth under his hand he can tell whether the creature is well fed or hungry, whether it was raised by its master or taken from elsewhere, even whether the household has had an easy year or a hard one. Once a man surnamed Diao brought a fat sheep from the west bank; Kan laid a hand on it and frowned. "This sheep is not yours," he said. Diao flushed and insisted it was barn-raised. Kan did not argue. He slipped the blade into his sleeve. "If it is not yours, I will not touch it." It turned out later that the sheep was a neighbor's lost breeding ram, intercepted on the road.

Kan keeps one iron rule: he will not cut a companion. Any beast a family keeps as a friend he knows at a glance — its coat shines too brightly, its eyes cling, it does not fear strangers, because it has been loved. Such a one he would rather walk home empty-handed than lay a blade to. People call him stubborn. He says, "Beasts know human hearts. If you keep it as a friend, it keeps you as a master. One cut, and its spirit scatters; then you grieve for it anyway. I will not take a man's wages to break what he holds dear."

The words reached Qian the Paunch, the richest man east of the hamlets — a hundred mu of good land and a temper harder than a field ridge. That autumn he had a great red rooster carried in: glossy wings, tail feathers dragging the ground, a crooked comb, full of fire. "For the pot," Qian said, and ordered Kan to cut it.

Kan laid his hand on the bird and knew at once it was wrong. The claws were too tender, the comb crooked yet evenly red, and the throat pulsed in time with a human voice — plainly a treasure coaxed and coddled by someone, never a yard bird fed on chaff. He listened again and heard a heart that seemed to want to speak: this was a companion.

Kan put the blade away. "This one, I will not cut."

Qian slammed the table. "I pay, you cut. You have no say."

Kan said quietly, "If you want a bird for the pot, the hamlet has fat ones by the score. This one was someone's life. Cut it, and you sever another's longing, not the bird's."

Qian would not hear it. He set his men on the bird's wings. Kan turned and left, with a parting line: "A twisted melon is not sweet, and a forced bird will not sit well in your belly either."

The rooster was indeed cut by Qian's own men, clumsily, blood running to the floor, and it did not recover its breath for half the night. Qian, finding it unlucky, tossed it against the wall.

The next day Old Widow Sun crept into Qian's great courtyard. She lived alone, no son, no daughter, and for three years had raised a red rooster that could call "Grandma — grandma —" in a human voice; it was the only sound in her house. The bird had been stolen, and she had wailed along the dykes for two days. Kan had quietly sent word the night before that the rooster was with Qian. When Sun came to ask, Qian, finding the thing unlucky, gave it back.

Kan went to Sun's to see the bird. The wound was grave; he dressed it fresh and fed it rice broth for three days, and against all odds the rooster drew breath again. Sun held it, tears falling. "Old Kan," she said, "these hands of yours do more than cut. They save."

Kan said, "I did not save a chicken. I saved the warmth in an old woman's heart."

And Qian? The next year, when the fields were measured and registered, the dozens of hidden mu he had falsely claimed were exposed, and the fine flayed him to the bone. The hamlet whispered it was the price of bullying the widow. Kan only shook his head. "Retribution or not, I cannot say. I only know the work under my hand must answer to the heart under my hand."

After that the pellet drum sounded as before, and the hamlet people still came out smiling. Only now no one dared bring a companion to test him.