Around midnight, a knocking sounded on the door—hurried yet light, with the rough scraping of fingernails against wood, again and again, piercingly clear in the deathly silence of the night.
Lu Dongnuan got up and opened the door.
Aunt Zhang was standing outside, her padded jacket thrown on in a rush, one of the buttons misaligned.
In her hand, she held half a candle, wax slowly dripping down, like frozen tears.
The flame wavered violently under the corridor’s draft, casting flickering shadows on her face.
Her eyes were bright, as red as dying embers in spent charcoal, lips trembling, white breath dispersing into the cold, black dark.
“My old man’s awake… he’s awake… he can talk…”
Lu Dongnuan said nothing, stepped aside to close the door, and followed her out.
A single word echoed in her mind—sorrowful, miraculous.
‘Rallying before death.’
The corridor stretched endlessly, the candle’s faint glow barely illuminating the ground at their feet.
The peeling, mottled walls on both sides twisted into sinister shapes as the light quivered.
Wind gusted in from some broken window, letting out a hollow wail, swirling the thin layer of dust on the floor.
From afar, a high window let in a dim, snowy light, reflected on glass caked with grime—a murky, cold gray, like the eyes of a dying fish.
Their shadows stretched and distorted, stuck to the wall, lumbering along with their heavy steps.
The door ahead was ajar, a strip of warm light leaking out from below, forming a blurred line between the darkness of the corridor and the inside.
Pushing open the door, a slow wave of warmth rolled out—the dry heat of smoldering charcoal, the sweet, foul tang of a festering wound, and a tensioned, brittle calm.
The room was warmer than the corridor, but the air was stifling, dust drifting slowly in the glow from the single source of light.
The old man lay against a pile of quilts, propped up by Aunt Zhang’s worn jacket.
That frightening purple-black hue on his face seemed forced back by some strange strength, revealing a floating, nearly translucent pink, like the faint glow behind rice paper.
His eyes were open, mostly dull but focused now, gazing quietly at the door, as if waiting.
The harsh, bellows-like breathing had softened, steadied a little, but every breath was still shallow and brief, flecked with the faint sound of phlegm.
The charcoal in the stove burned a deep red; occasionally, as it cracked within, there was a gentle “crack,” spitting out a few fleeting sparks of gold.
The orange-red light warmly wrapped around half of him and the bed’s edge.
On the other side, a huge, trembling shadow climbed the peeling wall, its outline indistinct.
Aunt Zhang nearly flung herself to the bedside, stirring a faint chill as she did, and the candle flame gave a wild shudder.
She gripped the old man’s withered, spotted hand tightly, the back of her hand taut.
“Old man, look, the doctor is here. You’re better now, aren’t you? Aren’t you?” Her voice was quick and light, each word stepping on a knife’s edge.
The old man slowly turned his head, his neck joints emitting a barely audible “crack.”
He looked at Aunt Zhang first, for a long while.
His clouded eyes reflected the candle and the fire, and the corner of his mouth slowly tugged upward, forming a deep, gentle crease.
Only then did he shift his gaze to Lu Dongnuan, standing in the shadows at the foot of the bed, nodding slightly.
His weak voice was rough, flecked with phlegm: “Trouble… you…”
Lu Dongnuan stood where she was, the shadow swallowing most of her form.
She watched the abnormal, quick pulse of blood vessels beneath the old man’s neck, the distant, unfocused depths of his pupils.
Aunt Zhang, with frostbitten red hands, wiped at her eyes in a rush, new tears welling up, streaming down her deeply lined cheeks.
She ignored them.
“I knew it… I just knew you’d pull through.” She wrapped both hands around the old man’s, gently rubbing as if they were fragile porcelain.
“Hungry? Cold? The stove… the stove’s burning, look, how warm it is.”
The old man gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, gaze clinging to Aunt Zhang’s face like a dying butterfly clings to the last bit of winter warmth.
“Not cold… with you… here, not cold.”
He paused, chest rising and falling as he gathered his strength, his voice softer, more broken: “Sorry… for dragging you down… all these years, nothing but hardship.”
“Nonsense!” Aunt Zhang’s tears splashed onto his dry hand, staining it darker.
“Who dragged who down? Back at the factory, when the crane’s steel cable snapped, wasn’t it you who shoved me aside and took the hit? If not, I’d have lost my arm, been crippled long ago.” She choked, words tumbling out, afraid time would run out.
“Later, when we fled, freezing cold, I had a raging fever, couldn’t walk. You said we couldn’t stop, picked me up and carried me, trekking for dozens of li through snow… I was dazed, just remember you puffing and panting, and later your feet were so swollen you couldn’t take your shoes off, lost most of your toenails… nearly all fell off.”
The old man’s eyelids drooped, heavy with fatigue, but he tried hard to lift them, the faint light in his eyes quivering.
“I remember you then, light as a bundle of twigs… clinging to my back, complaining I was too wobbly.”
“You hadn’t eaten for two days, only half a compressed biscuit in your pocket, but you forced it on me, said you could manage on your own, so how could you not wobble?” Aunt Zhang bowed her head, pressing her forehead gently against their joined hands, gray hair falling over.
“In that broken warehouse we hid in, you found a half-box of expired biscuits in a corner. Didn’t eat a single one yourself, saved them all for me, said your stomach could take it…”
“Your stomach’s not good, eating cold food… curled up in pain at night.” The old man looked away, eyes drifting toward the trembling air above the stove, as if seeing something distant and warm.
“That jasmine on the balcony… you always said, it smelled so good.”
“I remember.” Aunt Zhang followed his gaze, her voice softening, lost in some distant haze, “You got it at the South Flower Market, said it was the most fragrant kind, called Tiger Head. On hot summer nights, when it was hard to breathe, we’d move two little stools out, sit on the balcony, waving that broken palm fan, savoring the waves of scent. Old Zhou’s Family next door always had their radio blaring, noisy with opera, you’d complain, I’d say, with that sound, that fragrance, that’s what makes life feel real—what’s not to like?”
“Not to like.” The old man echoed, the faint smile at his lips deepening, his breathing tightening a bit, yet his face oddly calm, even relaxed, “Then… that damn winter… so cold the jasmine died… the porcelain pot even cracked.”
“When spring comes and it’s warm, we’ll find another one, I’m sure we can.” Aunt Zhang said, her voice dropping, as if speaking to herself.
The old man didn’t reply.
The charcoal crackled softly, red light flickering over the hollows of his face and eyes.
The huge shadow on the wall swayed with it.
After a while, he blinked very slowly and said, “Old woman, let me sing you a little song.”
Aunt Zhang’s lips began trembling uncontrollably.
She looked into the faint but stubborn fire in her husband’s eyes, at the red charcoal in the stove, then quickly glanced at Lu Dongnuan, who stood like a clay statue in the shadow by the door.
“Don’t… don’t wear yourself out… just rest… all right?”
The old man’s clouded eyes slowly narrowed, but the light in them seemed to shine brighter.
“I want… I want to sing.” He looked at her, eyes muddled but earnest, pleading almost like a child, as if making his last confession, “That song… called… ‘Yilan Love Story,’ you… you always liked it…”
The old man’s voice grew weaker and weaker.
He didn’t wait for Aunt Zhang’s answer, took a long, shallow breath—so faint it was barely a tremor in his throat.
Then, in a hoarse, breathy, tuneless whisper, he began to sing in broken phrases:
“Old girl… wait for me a bit…” He paused, his clouded gaze gentle as he stared into the void above the fire, as if he truly saw a braided young woman washing clothes by the riverbank—he’d waited his whole life for her, and now it was time to say goodbye.
“Let’s share a little joy…”
His breath was too weak; the next words were swallowed by a faint rattle of phlegm.
He paused, chest rising faintly.
“When you smile… I get all itchy inside…” His voice was even softer, like wind slipping through a cracked paper window.
The broken lyrics barely made sense, but in those few remaining words, there was strangely enough the clear ripple of youthful waters and the dazzling glow from her smile in the sun.
He fell silent again, only the hiss of phlegm in his throat.
Aunt Zhang gripped his hand tight, her nails digging crescents into her own palm.
The fire’s glow danced on his face, making the fragile flush seem almost unreal.
The old man’s other hand, lying on the worn blanket, began to lift and drop his index finger, ever so slightly—tapping stubbornly to a simple, warm rhythm only he could hear.
“The moon shines by the wall…” He finally managed another line, his breath thin as gossamer, yet strangely steady, as if the melody itself were carrying him on.
“I sing you… a little tune…”
After that, his voice faded completely, lips moving soundlessly.
Only his tapping finger persisted, again and again, ever slower.
His lips barely moved, almost no sound, but Aunt Zhang could read them.
They weren’t lyrics; it was him, using his last ounce of strength to pluck out the hottest words from the song, and hand them to her:
“As long as I live… I’m yours…” His breath was so weak it nearly vanished.
He paused, gathering, his chest almost unmoving.
Then his cracked lips touched once more: “…Dead, I’m your ghost.”
Lu Dongnuan turned her face away, gazing at the high, dust-covered little window.
Outside, heavier clouds had gathered at some point, swallowing even the pitiful snow-glow, leaving only endless, crushing darkness pressing against the glass.
The cold wind found a new gap, shrieking inside.
The fire suddenly bent sideways, red light darkening abruptly, the huge shadows on the wall tossing wildly, as if about to shatter and disappear.
The singing stopped abruptly.
Aunt Zhang, as if spent her last breath, made a soft, choking sound, burying her face deep into their clasped hands, her shoulders shuddering violently and silently.
The old man’s hand—the one Aunt Zhang had gripped the whole time—slowly, almost imperceptibly, squeezed her fingertips.
Cold, withered, with the last faint hint of response.
His lips moved one final time—this time, even the shape was blurred.
But Aunt Zhang felt she heard it, or rather, she had to hear it—another line from the song, the trick he’d always used to coax her when they squabbled, the one that always worked: “When you cry, my heart skips… go ahead, pinch me… calm down, all right…”
The old man’s eyelids slowly, heavily closed, as if he’d at last laid down a thousand-pound burden.
Lu Dongnuan stood in the shadow by the door, quietly witnessing everything.
Even she, who prided herself on being a rational, calm Doctor, felt something inside collapse, a wave of sorrow swelling up.
She remembered a line she’d once read in a book somewhere.
Now, it surfaced in her mind with unusual clarity, offering her an almost passable excuse for her lapse: “I’ve always felt that when the elderly cry, it’s not just their own tears—it’s the whole weight of their lives weeping through them. Their years have become long and slow, like a quiet river in the mountains—how could you possibly comfort a river’s sorrow?”
She knew the river belonging to these two elders had finally come to its end, merging into the sea of eternal silence.
A few days later, the old man was buried.
No funeral, no ceremony, not even a tombstone—just a small mound of fresh earth on the frozen ground at the edge of the camp, telling that someone had once been here, and quietly departed.
The sun rose as always, and set as always, seemingly unmoved by the joys and sorrows of the world, casting only brief, pale light upon the frozen ground.
That day, it was Lu Dongnuan’s turn, along with a few of the weaker members, to reinforce the camp’s outer defenses, not far from the new grave.
As she bent to dig, she caught, from the corner of her eye, a familiar figure flitting past behind a broken wall nearby.
It was Lin Mo.
Just as Lu Dongnuan was about to look away, Lin Mo suddenly winked at her—fast, subtle—then straightened his face, as if the wind had merely stung his eyes.
But the look in his eyes was complex, hard to decipher—not accidental at all.
He pressed his lips together, chin tilting almost imperceptibly toward the camp’s core, then turned and disappeared behind a crumbling wall.
Lu Dongnuan’s hand paused slightly on the shovel.
“What’s that rascal up to?”