Selling Knives on Credit

"Dad, I, Zhou Yang, am back."

A tall, spindly jujube tree stretched beyond the fenced yard, its withered branches resting on the thatched gateway.

Beneath the gateway, a tall, thin man whose yellow face looked as though it had been coated in wax was bracing the head of a hoe against the ground. Holding the handle in both hands, he was driving it against the hard earth to tighten it.

Tightening a hoe meant wedging the handle more firmly into the socket so it would not wobble or come loose, making it last longer.

Zhou Yang looked at the man, who was so thin he seemed to be nothing but skin, and called out a greeting.

His father in name went through this exercise at the same time every day.

The section wedged into the socket had already been worn smooth and loose, but the man kept at it tirelessly.

Hearing Zhou Yang's greeting, his father, Zhou Laogou, turned his face and stared straight at him. The yellowing whites of his eyes were unusually large, making his pupils look tiny.

After a long while, Zhou Laogou finally grinned. "You're Zhou Yang-Zhou Yang is my son, so you're my son.

"Go back to your room. Huang Shaozi will have dinner ready soon."

Huang Shaozi was Zhou Laogou's wife and Zhou Yang's current mother in name.

A whistle, an old dog, and a sheep-all they needed was a shepherd.

Zhou Yang paid no mind to Zhou Laogou's distinctly strange words. He nodded and walked through the gateway.

"Mom, I, Zhou Yang, am back!

"Bring dinner to my room!"

Once inside the yard, he shouted at the top of his lungs, then turned and plunged into his room in the west wing.

The persona Zhou Yang had chosen for himself was that of a young man who was cold toward others and spoke little.

When he had first appeared in Guan Village, he had seized an opportunity at the dinner table to deliberately pick a fight with the two brothers in the family, Zhou Baigou and Zhou Heigou. They had even come to blows, and the fight had become a complete uproar. Afterward, he had been spared the trouble of eating at the same table as the family.

Huang Shaozi would bring his meals to his room.

As a result, Huang Shaozi particularly disliked him, and the food she brought him consisted of scraps left over from each meal.

But he could often just about force down these two daily meals of scraps. The seemingly abundant dishes on the dinner table, on the other hand, were something he could not eat a single bite of.

"Go back to your room and die!"

Huang Shaozi's voice, shrill as a whistle, pierced into the west room.

Sitting on his plank bed, Zhou Yang sighed. He pulled the Knife Credit Ledger and the small blade from behind his waist, opened the book to its first page, and stared blankly at his personal record listed there.

"Name: Zhou Yang.

"Mindfulness: 5.

"Identity: knife seller on credit.

"Ability: blacksmithing... (copied).

"Good Karma: none."

He still had not sold the knife on credit.

He would have to wait until after dinner, when everyone had settled down in bed, before he could make an attempt.

Then, even if something slightly unusual happened, it would not alarm the family too much.

Zhou Yang focused on the words "Mindfulness." They abruptly turned into a blot of ink, then spread out again into a longer line of writing: "Mindfulness is the awareness an ordinary person develops amid all manner of hardships and setbacks, the heroic resolve to press on alone despite the influence of fear, anger, hatred, and despair.

"An ordinary person's Mindfulness ranges from 1 to 9."

The Knife Credit Ledger's explanation of Mindfulness was too abstract. As Zhou Yang understood it, Mindfulness could roughly be regarded as the strength of one's willpower.

His willpower was within the normal range, at only 5.

When he had first come to Guan Village, his Mindfulness had been even lower, at only 2.

As for what would happen if his Mindfulness exceeded the range of an ordinary person's?

Zhou Yang did not know.

As for "Good Karma," planting a good cause would create it.

He felt that after selling the small knife on credit this time and resolving Ding Ling's predicament, he might gain a little Good Karma.

While Zhou Yang was lost in thought, Huang Shaozi barged through the door.

She came in carrying a small wooden table. Her figure was like a water vat, completely at odds with her whistle-like voice.

She slammed the little table down on an empty patch of floor and whipped her head around, her slightly curly hair flying wildly. Her beady eyes fixed on Zhou Yang from her fat, pale face. "You really are a young master, aren't you!

"I even have to bring your meals to your room!

"Why don't you just die? I'm waiting for you to die in half a month!"

The Revelation Ceremony was to be held in half a month.

Huang Shaozi and Zhou Laogou appeared to be Zhou Yang's parents in name in Guan Village, but they were really only the dogs that herded the sheep and the whistle that sounded the alarm. The only sheep they had ever watched over was Zhou Yang.

Only Zhou Yang's other two brothers, Zhou Baigou and Zhou Heigou, were truly family with Huang Shaozi and the others.

And Zhou Yang, the sheep that had slipped into the pack of dogs, was to be slaughtered at the Revelation Ceremony for everyone to eat.

At that moment, Zhou Yang became more keenly aware of his situation.

His brows drooped as he looked at the food on the little table, saying nothing.

"Can't even speak!

"You'll die sooner or later, sooner or later!"

Huang Shaozi bit down hard on the word "die." She turned around, the flesh on her deathly pale face quivering, walked out of the room, and slammed the door shut.

Outside, her voice sounded again, talking with Zhou Baigou and Zhou Heigou.

Her tone was much gentler now. "Baigou, call your father back for dinner. Heigou, bring me the bowls."

Baigou said nothing and hurried out. Even through a wall, Zhou Yang could hear Baigou's heavy footsteps.

Heigou spoke to Huang Shaozi in a sinister voice. "What about Third Brother? Is he still not coming out to eat with us?"

"Let him die on his own!" Huang Shaozi's voice abruptly turned shrill again, full of irritation. "If you want your third brother to share your good food, then call him over to eat with you!"

"Let me see what he's eating-" As he spoke, Zhou Heigou suddenly pushed open the door to Zhou Yang's room.

He poked his head inside and stared at the food on the little table for a while. Then he turned his head and gave Zhou Yang a smiling look, but without greeting him, he pulled his head back out.

"Third Brother doesn't behave. We can't feed him too much.

"Keep him hungry and he won't have the strength. Even if he gets any unruly ideas, he won't be able to act on them."

Outside the door, Zhou Heigou's voice continued offering suggestions.

Huang Shaozi's cold reply was all he got: "Go get the bowls!"

The voices outside gradually faded.

Zhou Yang jumped off the bed, squatted beside the low table, and looked at today's meal.

A dish of pork cracklings, a small bowl of brown rice, and soup made by boiling pig brains with salt.

From the food on his table, he could guess what the Zhou family's main dishes were tonight-there would certainly be those two "dishes," lard and raw pig brains.

The people of Guan Village often ate fat, animal brains, and marrow as their main foods.

Zhou Yang had seen A Fu turn into human skin today, so he guessed that eating fat directly might be the best way for the human skins in this village to maintain themselves.

As for foods such as rice and grain, Zhou Yang did not think the villagers of Guan Village liked eating them.

They most likely simply believed that normal people had to eat rice, so they kept up the habit themselves.

In fact, Zhou Yang had once secretly watched Zhou Laogou eat a large bowl of rice, then go outside and pull the grains straight out of his throat.

Tonight's meal was fairly palatable.

After finishing dinner, Zhou Yang waited until the sounds outside the door gradually died away, then went out to wash the bowls and chopsticks and put them away.

In the dim light, he returned to his room from the woodshed, all the while feeling that someone was watching him from behind.

He suddenly turned around and saw Zhou Baigou standing in a corner, his skin seemingly blending into the mud wall.

He was like a dog guarding the house, his pitch-black eyes fixed on Zhou Yang's every move.

Zhou Yang slid the bolt into place and lay back down on the bed.

He opened the Knife Credit Ledger to the second page and saw those lines of writing again:

"Once the knife is sold on credit and entered in the ledger, karmic retribution shall take form.

"You will sell a knife on credit to Ding Ling, to free her from her life-threatening predicament.

"Ding Ling will become your Karmic Retribution Body.

"Sell the knife on credit?"

Zhou Yang held the blade between his fingers, a single thought passing through his mind: Sell the knife on credit!

Before he had even said a word, he saw the blade in his hand turn into a streak of white light and shoot straight into the ink boiling across the page!