He Jiu's Load
A seasoned porter on the riverside street is paid double to carry a small locked wooden chest to a house on Locust Lane. The man who hired him vanishes into the crowd. By noting a limp and a missing fingertip, the porter learns the truth: the sender is the family's long-lost younger son, returned in secret to give back what was left behind but afraid to cross his own threshold. The porter leaves the chest inside the gate and walks away, letting an unsaid reconciliation stand.
By the riverside old street, folks lived off the water, and every day men waited for work down at the wharf. He Jiu had carried loads on a shoulder pole there for twelve years. His shoulders had grown hard calluses; he spoke little, but his eye was sharp. When a family needed goods moved or a bride sent off, the neighbors came to him -- he never shirked, and he never gossiped.
That autumn there was a big market fair, and the street was packed. Around noon a man in a grey cloth gown pushed through to He Jiu and pointed at a small wooden chest by his feet. "Carry it to number three on Locust Lane, set it down, and come back. Double pay." He Jiu looked it over: the chest was no more than two feet square, brushed with tung oil, the latch intact, yet it sat heavy in the hand. The man paid, said "follow me," and was gone around the corner.
He Jiu waited a quarter hour. No one came. He hoisted the chest and went to Locust Lane. Number three was an old brick courtyard. He knocked; an old white-haired woman came out, with her daughter-in-law behind her. The woman's eyes fell on the chest, and her face went pale. "This is... what my second son left the year he ran off."
He Jiu's heart gave a jump. The man who hired me came back to return something, yet dared not show his face. So He Jiu took note: the man limped on his left leg, and the little finger of his right hand was missing. He spoke with a slight out-of-towner's accent.
Back at the wharf he sat at the tea stall and asked Old Zhou if he knew such a man. Old Zhou sipped his tea. "Grey gown? That's the old lady's second boy. Got into trouble years back and fled. Slunk home a few days ago, but won't step through his own gate." He Jiu nodded and asked no more.
Before dawn the next day, passing number three with his empty pole, he found the courtyard gate ajar. He slipped the chest just inside, and spoke across the gate: "A man hired me to bring this yesterday. He wouldn't show himself, so I'll leave it here." Then he turned and left. Behind the gate there was a long stillness, then the old woman's soft voice: "...ask him in for a bowl of rice." He Jiu did not stop.
Later he passed word that the man could often be found resting behind the brick kiln outside town. Whether the old woman ever went, he did not ask.
One day after winter set in, He Jiu was waiting for work at the wharf when he saw the man in the grey gown standing at a distance, limping, his right hand tucked in his sleeve. They looked at each other, and neither spoke. The man gave a small nod and turned away.
He Jiu shifted his pole to his left shoulder and thought: in this world, many come back, and many cannot leave. The river flows as it always did, and there is always work to be done.
The half-finished letter at the bottom of the chest, he never opened. Some things, even the writer had not decided how to end.