Old Xing's Foot-Knife
Thirty years Xing ran a foot-care stall in the lane. One glance at a man's soles tells his trade; a blade thin as paper trims corns painlessly. He takes nothing from the poor and surcharges the rich. A widow's cracked heels betray her nightly toil; he warns her and gives her herbs. A clerk in gray hides an old knife scar beneath a clean sole; Xing sees and says nothing. Years later the scar marks a thief. Feet do not lie, Xing says; men do. He mends feet, not hearts, keeping truth upon the sole.
Xing Jiu set up his foot-care stall at the mouth of Locust Lane and kept it there for thirty years.
A low wooden stool, an enamel basin steaming with warm water, and against the wall seven little knives, their edges thin as paper, each wrapped in three layers of coarse cloth that no one was allowed to touch.
The lane called him Old Xing. Old Xing had a living eye. He never asked; he only looked at the feet and knew which bowl of rice a man ate from. A thick callus at the ball of the foot meant a pole-carrier. Cracks at the heel meant one who crouched through the long business of making a living. A constant damp between the toes meant one who walked the streets selling fish and vegetables. He said the foot was the ledger of the body, where all its sorrow and ease were written, and it could not hide from him.
His blade-work was the greater wonder. Foot-care is a thing of measure: too light and the ailment stays, too heavy and the blood shows. His hand was steady as if nailed to the bench; the tip of his knife traveled along the skin, and in a moment corns, warts, and thick calluses were gone, the client feeling no pain. Some closed their eyes and let him work; they opened them to find the sole smooth as a new shoe.
He kept two rules. First, beggars, laborers, and widows paid nothing. Second, those in silk and long gowns paid the going rate plus three tenths. Others laughed at his foolishness. He said, 'Feet are earned by suffering; money is spent by those who enjoy. It is only fair.'
Widow Liu of the tofu shop, after her husband died, raised two children alone and crouched at the mill before first light. That winter she came to have her feet tended; the soles were cracked like the mouth of a dry field. Old Xing held her foot and sighed. 'This callus on your left heel, it was worn by crouching at the mill in the night. Give it half a year more and the foot is ruined.' Widow Liu smiled and said once the children were grown it would be well. Old Xing took no money; at her leaving he pressed a packet of herbs into her hand and told her to soak her feet each night.
What truly made men catch their breath was the clerk in gray who came one year. The man's soles were clean as could be, yet there was an old thin scar. Old Xing felt it, his fingertip resting on the mark. 'This was not made by frost,' he said. 'It is a cut from iron. Beneath your feet you hide a matter.' The clerk paled, then laughed. 'You mistake it, sir; it was a fall in childhood.' Old Xing spoke no more and bent to his work.
Three years on, the clerk absconded with his master's silver and fled by night. The magistrate came to the lane to inquire and said the man could be known by a scar upon his sole. Old Xing listened, rewrapped his seven knives, and said nothing.
Someone asked him why, having seen through it at a glance, he had kept silence. Old Xing said, 'Feet do not lie; men do. I mend feet, not hearts. But the truth written on the sole I keep for you.'