Lao Zhou's Grindstone
Lao Zhou, the last knife grinder to carry his whetstone through town, reads a blade by its steel and water. An old woman brings a thick-backed cleaver stained with something no scrubbing lifts and asks him to sharpen it for the night. Forty years at the stone taught him to tell animal blood from human. He returns the blade with a hidden flaw: sharp to look at, useless against anything alive. She vanishes with winter; the cleaver stays at the bottom of his load, the wheel creaking after dark.
Lao Zhou was the last knife grinder left who still carried his trade on a shoulder pole through the streets.
One end of his load was a wooden stool, the other a frame for a water basin, and between them he set a slab of grey whetstone. He walked the lanes ringing a clapper, and whenever a kitchen knife went dull or a pair of shears lost its bite, someone would bring it out. Lao Zhou took a blade, read the steel first, ran his thumb along the edge, listened to the ring of it, and knew at once whether it was folded steel or crude iron. His hands were good and his temper was hard; if a blade would not take an edge, he would rather return the money than fake the work. People on the street said Lao Zhou's stone knew its master, that a dull blade through his hands would cut meat half a year longer.
After the first cold days of winter, an old woman moved into the far end of the lane. She spoke little. Every five or six days she came with a thick-backed cleaver. It was old folded steel, heavy along the spine and thin at the edge, and on its face clung a dark red that no scrubbing would lift, as if old blood had soaked into the iron. The first time Lao Zhou ground it, a film of rust-red spread across the water in his trough; he did not even lift an eyelid, took it for mere offal.
The second time, the woman said, "Sharpen it well. I have use for it tonight." Her voice was flat, as if asking for a jin of turnips.
Lao Zhou's palms went cold at that. Forty years at the stone had taught him to read what a blade had cut. Animal blood only clouded the water. Human blood turned it red, and sent up a metallic smell that crept into the nose with the steam and would not wash away. This blade carried both.
He said nothing. But his hands kept their measure. He ground a hairline notch into the edge — it still shone, yet would shatter at the first hard thing it met. He handed the cleaver back. "The steel is too old, its temper is gone. It won't take an edge." The woman took it, said nothing more, and turned into the depths of the lane.
Later Lao Zhou learned that the woman's husband had died the previous winter, the cleaver clenched in his hand; the neighbors muttered something vague about a sudden illness and would say no more. And then, when the cold had bitten through, no one in the lane saw the woman again.
Lao Zhou wrapped that cleaver in an old cloth and tucked it at the very bottom of his load. Each night when he packed up, he turned the stone two extra rounds; the wheel sang its creak, as if grinding something flat for someone who was no longer there.