The light stabbed his eyes, making them sting.
He squinted, waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust, and slowly made out what was above him.
A beam. Wooden, thick, blackened by smoke to a dark brown, hung with strings of dried chili peppers and several braids of garlic. In the crevices of the beam, old things were stuffed—unidentifiable, except for a yellowed corner of paper poking out.
Lin Jianguo froze.
He knew this beam too well. As a child, he'd climbed up to raid bird nests and been chased half the street by his father with a broom. In summers, he'd lie on the kang staring at this beam, counting the wood grains until he fell asleep. In winters, icicles would hang from it, glittering in the sun like a row of transparent teeth.
This was the old house.
He hadn't set foot in this house for over fifty years. After the fire of 1978, after his parents died, he'd gone to the city with his uncle and never returned. Later he heard the house had been torn down, a new building erected in its place—one more reason never to go back.
But now, this beam was right above his head.
Lin Jianguo slowly sat up.
Beneath him was the earthen kang, covered with an old mattress—blue cotton with white patterns, washed pale, patched in several places. The stitches on the patches were crooked and uneven—his mother's handiwork for sure. She could never sew a straight line, but everything she sewed was solid, lasting ten years without wearing through.
The quilt was bunched at his feet, also old, cotton batting escaping from the corners—soft, white. He pulled it up and sniffed. It smelled of sunshine, with just a hint of smoke from the cooking fire.
This was the smell of every morning of his childhood.
He looked down at his hands.
Those weren't the hands of a sixty-five-year-old man—skin loose, veins prominent, covered with age spots. These hands were young: fingers long and slender, skin smooth, a few mosquito bites on the back, red and scratched open.
He raised his hands, turned them over, looked at them a long time.
Then he threw off the quilt, moved his legs to the edge of the kang, and set his bare feet on the ground.
It was an earthen floor. Cool to the touch, a little hard, but solid. His toes could feel the graininess of the soil, a hint of dampness.
He stood up and took a couple of steps.
His legs were strong again. No back pain, no creaking knees. He looked down at himself—wearing a white undershirt and blue cotton pants, the cuffs rolled up twice, revealing skinny calves.
He walked to the wall and looked at the old newspapers pasted there.
The papers had yellowed, edges curling up, some torn, revealing the earthen wall beneath. The characters were still legible—it was the People's Daily. The date read: October 10, 1978.
Lin Jianguo stood there, looking at that newspaper for a very long time.
October 10, 1978.
Sixty-eight days until that fire.
He pressed his hand against the newspaper, feeling its rough, slightly brittle texture. The lead type was still sharp—the characters for "Grasp Revolution, Promote Production" showing between his fingers.
From outside the window came a cough.
That cough was so familiar. Not the weak, feeble cough of old age, but a vigorous cough tinged with tobacco—the distinctive cough of a man who'd done physical labor his whole life, clearing his throat every morning before shouldering his hoe and heading to the fields.
Lin Jianguo's hand trembled.
He turned and walked toward the door, stumbling a little, nearly tripping over the threshold. He grabbed the doorframe, pushed open the creaking wooden door, and stepped into the yard.
Sunlight filled the yard.
It was that deep autumn sunlight—neither hot nor cold, golden, warming everything it touched. In the yard stood a jujube tree, most of its leaves fallen, the few remaining fluttering in the wind. Beneath the tree, a work uniform hung drying, water still dripping from its sleeves, drop by drop, hitting the ground and darkening small patches of earth.
At the gate stood someone.
With his back to him, about to leave. A hoe on his shoulder, fresh mud clinging to it—probably just back from the fields. No—if he'd just come back, he'd be walking toward the yard. So he was going out?
The man wore an old gray cotton jacket, sleeves worn shiny. His pants were rolled up, revealing mud-spattered calves. He stood there, as if waiting for someone, or hesitating about something.
Then he coughed.
That same cough from before.
Lin Jianguo opened his mouth, tried to call out, but his throat seemed stuffed with cotton—no sound would come. He could only stand there, staring at that back, that old cotton jacket, that hoe.
As if sensing something, the man turned around.
A face. Sun-blackened, deeply lined like knife cuts, but with bright eyes. A slightly crooked mouth, missing a tooth—pulled last year, couldn't afford to replace it. Thick eyebrows like two caterpillars crouching above his eyes. Hair cut short, graying, but still bristling upright.
Lin Dasuan.
Lin Jianguo's father.
There he stood, alive, three meters away.
Lin Jianguo felt his eyes grow hot.