The Night Soy Milk

The nights in Qingtang begin with the turning of the stone mill. The lamp at Ge's tofu workshop lights up each evening before the small hours; old Ge pushes the mill while Xiaoman tends the fire, and white steam rises from the great stove, dampening the paper pasted over the window.

Ge is a stubborn man. On a winter night three years past, Chunxing, an apprentice at the tailor's, came to buy soy milk. He had just said "last bowl," though a little still lay at the bottom of the vat. Chunxing left without it, lips pursed. She was the last person in town anyone ever saw. Rumors said she had run off with someone; others whispered of foul play. The case faded. Yet Ge carried a thorn: had he filled that extra bowl, Chunxing might have left a step later and missed whatever it was — or maybe not.

Xiaoman was a boy Ge had picked up at the bridge. Clever, talkative, careless. He disliked these old stories and would say, "Uncle, it's all in the past." Ge said nothing, only pushed the mill more steadily.

On the night the rain came, near midnight, the door planks were tapped lightly. A young man in a gray jacket stood under the eaves, saying his mother, ill, longed for the soy milk of Qingtang. Ge ladled a bowl and passed it, studying him by the lamplight — a fair, upright face, but the way he probed was not that of a mere buyer.

The young man called himself Shen Zhou, said Chunxing was his aunt, that his mother had married away to the next county and lost touch, and he had come seeking kin. Xiaoman, feeding the fire, heard the name and nudged Ge with an elbow. Ge kept his composure and asked, "Did your aunt have a red birthmark on her left wrist?" Shen Zhou hesitated, then said yes. Ge's heart cooled by half — Chunxing's mark had been on her right wrist, plain as day to him.

When the rain stopped, Xiaoman followed Shen Zhou and reported that the man had headed for the old kiln works beyond town — the very place where Chunxing was last seen. Ge fitted the pieces together: Shen Zhou had not come to claim family but to settle accounts. Chunxing had once kept the books for the kiln owner's wife and held an old ledger of withheld wages. When she disappeared, the ledger vanished with her. Shen Zhou was the kiln owner's son, afraid the book might surface.

Ge remembered how, days before she vanished, Chunxing had pressed a blue cloth bundle into his hands. "Uncle Ge, keep this for me. If someone comes asking, you'll know what to do." He had kept it under the stone mill and never touched it.

The next day Shen Zhou returned. Ge drew the blue cloth from beneath the chopping board and handed it over. "Your aunt left this — used to pad the bowl. Take it back where it belongs." Shen Zhou pinched the cloth corner; his face shifted through several colors, but in the end he said nothing, only that he would return tomorrow for the milk. Ge nodded. "Tonight's has gone cold. Not fit to drink."

After the man left, Ge pressed the wooden box tighter beneath the mill. Xiaoman leaned in and whispered, "Uncle, is that ledger in there for real?" Ge watched the sky pale at the window. "Real or not is another matter. When someone entrusts you with a thing, you carry it. Where Chunxing went, I don't know. But she trusted me with it. That is enough."

The mill turned again, steam spilling over the sill. The town woke, and the new day's soy milk steamed as always.