Zhang Ankang

The Zhang family's restaurant sign had been hung, smashed by troublemakers, refurbished, and finally stabilized after many twists. On the day they went to collect the new sign, Zhang Ankang was seven years old, only reaching his mother's waist. He followed her across the street, past Harmonic Span. The towering horses loomed taller than him. The shops displayed wonders he'd never seen. His mother pulled him along, steering him clear of the bustling crowds and lavish storefronts, but though she dragged his body forward, his eyes lingered behind. At the carpenter's workshop, saws and planes screeched, wood shavings swirling in the air. His mother crouched to inspect the new sign, while he sat on a stool, looking around, at the sign, and at her. The freshly carved sign was huge, the characters for "Zhang's Eatery" bold and imposing, making his mother seem even thinner, even smaller. Her old wooden hairpin, worn for years, swayed before his eyes, blending into the flurry of wood shavings, just another tiny speck in the storm of sawdust. He stared longer than he had at the horses and fancy shops on the way here. He remembered the customers at the eatery often saying to his mother: "Find yourself a supporter, at least then you could afford a new hairpin. Zhang Ankang wondered: "What would a new hairpin look like?" By ten, he understood. A new hairpin was like the tall horses on the street, the exotic treasures in the shops, the grand new signboard in the carpenter's workshop. It was something bright and unmistakable, something that wouldn't disappear into a cloud of sawdust. With it, his mother would become someone who "lived well", someone with backing, someone spared from the world's gossip. On the way back, crossing Harmonic Span again, the horses still loomed over him, the shops still overflowed with strange, nameless wonders. His gaze shifted from his mother's wooden hairpin to a jewelry shop, where customers streamed in and out, and glittering hair ornaments lined the displays. A shopkeeper called out, "Jin's Jewelry here..." His mother yanked him roughly, "Watch where you're going, you scamp!"

For a modest household on South Gate Avenue, life was less about living and more about scraping by, a kind of existence that teenage Zhang Ankang despised .A family, three meals a day, counting every scrap of silver. If they were lucky, they might buy discounted scraps of meat from the butcher, and that would be considered a feast. The neighbors bickered endlessly. Today, one family gossiped about another. Tomorrow, the east end quarreled with the west. If it rained at noon and one household took in their laundry without warning the other, then next time the sky darkened or birds flew low, they'd return the silence. When Zhang Ankang was young, he thought these were the most important matters in the world. As he grew older, he realized how petty people could be. Why waste years squabbling over such nonsense? But his life was made of these trifles. The place was stifling, too small. He longed for something big. In his mind, before something big happened, there ought to be earth-shattering omens, like in the tales of wandering heroes. But when the truly big things come, they arrive in silence. No damp prelude of rain, no low-flying insects, no suffocating tension in the air. The omen of a massacre was quieter than a drizzle in Kaifeng City. The bell of Hopewell Academy still rang at the usual hour. The streets buzzed with the clamor of merchants. Back then, few had ever stopped to wonder: What is it that most people in this world would fight to the death for? Within hours, that question would no longer need answering. For some, the thing they'd give their lives to reclaim was once just an ordinary moment, taken for granted. A home. Three meals a day. A handful of coins. They would beg for the return of a life so mundane that a quarrel over forgotten laundry could stretch on for years. Don't be afraid. After the rain, the fires of Kaifeng City will burn out. No, how could they? A fire kindled by human lives cannot be extinguished until the last who remember them are gone. Instead, it fractures into tiny embers, seeping into the fabric of fate. It burns beneath the skin of countless souls, scorching their days, one after another.

People say you can see a child's future at three, but from the moment Zhang Ankang was born, Liu Yueying began to fret. Her boy was louder and wilder than other children, and the livelier they are, the harder it is to get them to stay put. Sooner or later, they're bound to leave. But what could Liu Yueying do? She had never been one to wander. She knew the world was vast, and she knew none of that vastness belonged to her. The pastry shops lining the streets in Kaifeng City, the lanterns that burned day and night, the high officials and nobles people whispered about in hushed tones, the splendid courtyards mentioned in teahouse gossip, rumors of gold, jewels, and exotic beasts sent from afar... But those were just dreams spun from words. What did that Kaifeng City have to do with her? There were two Kaifeng Cities in this world: one for those who stood high above, and another for the common folk. She lived in the latter. To her, this city held only one house, one shop, and now, this child. Softening her voice, she soothed the wailing infant. Outside, the summer sun cast dappled shadows through the trees. Wind rustled the leaves, slipping through their small window, brushing against their faces. The unknowing child reached up, grasping at the dancing shadows and then she heard it: laughter so pure it drowned out every worry in her heart. In the years that followed, she would shake a woven grass leaf before the child's eyes, teasing out those same gurgling giggles. "No more tears? You laugh at the wind in the leaves and stop crying at the sight of them. You're destined for the trees, my love. How about the nickname Shusheng?" "Our Shusheng... May all the trees in the world watch over you... Keep you safe..." People said children changed when they grew up. Neighbors and relatives would reassure her: Don't fret if he's small now, he'll grow. Don't worry if he's timid, he'll brave the world in time. But what kind of man would her child become? She would never see it. The boy who once laughed at the whisper of wind through leaves grew into a man who wept at the sight of trees. When the breeze stirred the leaves outside, Zhang Ankang ached with longing and yet feared that sound. No one can command the wind. It does not rise for nostalgia, nor still for fear. "The tree may crave calm, but the wind will not cease", as the saying goes. He tried not to think of it, yet could not stop. In another wind, one he could never reach, across an endless field of wheat in Plainfield, where the gale rippled the stalks like waves, did that sound even momentarily deceive a dying mother into believing she had returned to that summer afternoon? To the dappled shadows, the child's laughter at the door? And so she mistook it for home. She was home. Back to when— The bell of Hopewell Academy still rang. A bowl of locust leaf noodles simmered on the stove. The Immortal Tree was just an ordinary old locust tree. And the legend of the Gold Leaf Warrior did not yet exist.