September 13th, Wednesday, the fourteenth day of the eighth lunar month. Moderate rain. The temperature plummeted.
It had started raining in the capital last night. Dense raindrops carried a shivering autumn chill, driving away the last traces of summer heat.
When many workhorses got up for work that morning, they could not help shuddering from the cold. Some middle-aged people in their forties had aching waists, aching legs, and aching knees.
Heaven was kindly reminding the workhorses of this world that autumn had arrived. It was time to prepare sweaters and padded jackets, or people would freeze to death in winter.
This was no superstition. Ask the old people in the village if you did not believe it—weren't winter days the hardest to endure? Once they made it through winter, even the sickly ones could live another year.
Old Dai left the General Affairs Section with an umbrella and headed all the way toward the First Branch Factory. When he ran into several colleagues moving things through the rain, he did not forget to smile and tease them a few times.
"I'm telling you, Old Zhang, take it easy. Don't let your bad back flare up again and make Old Li give you cupping treatment. He'll turn the whole office into an alcohol-scented mess."
"And you too, Old Li. Why are you in such a hurry on a rainy day? Why not wait until the sun comes out tomorrow? What, don't your legs hurt anymore?"
"."
Old Dai was forty-three that year. Nothing was wrong with his waist, legs, or knees. Whenever the sky was overcast or it rained, he most enjoyed mocking those worker colleagues who had done hard labor, saying things like, "You're weak," and, "Your yang energy is insufficient."
Yet he never stopped to think that since