The Mute Old Man

The affair of the slime boy was like a pebble tossed into water: after a few ripples, it faded away.

The menials in the front hall gossiped about it for two days. Some said Qian Buyi had taken a nasty fall this time; others said the child merely had a little more innate Soul Power, and that his Martial Soul was still a puddle of muck that would never amount to anything. The talk went round and round before settling on Ning Buhui-the orphan from Bluestone Town, whose courage was inversely proportional to his build.

Ning Buhui said nothing in response. He rose early as usual, drew water, swept the courtyard, and did whatever work needed doing. Then, on the evening of the third day, he saw that the door to the low house in the farthest corner of the west courtyard was open.

He had noticed the house when he first moved in. Its door was pitted with wormholes, and the window paper had been pasted on in layer after layer, billowing in the wind like a broken bellows. An old man lived there, a mute with a badly hunched back who had spent most of his life sweeping. It was said that he had injured his throat in his youth and had never spoken again. The menials called him "Uncle Ya," but few had ever really spoken to him. Every day, he came out before dawn, carrying a broom. He swept from the back courtyard to the stone steps of the front hall, then from the steps to the mouth of the alley, over and over, as silent as the broom handle itself.

Ning Buhui had crossed paths with the old man on the day he moved in. The old man had been sweeping when he lifted his eyelids and gave him a glance. It was brief, like the tip of a broom brushing a flagstone, too light to leave a trace. But Ning Buhui remembered it, because it was not the look an ordinary menial ought to have.

For the next few days, each went about his own life, and they said nothing when they met. Ning Buhui occasionally carried water for the old man, who neither thanked him nor refused. He took the bucket and, as usual, sprinkled the water on the few half-dead vegetable seedlings in the corner of the courtyard.

That evening, Ning Buhui was crouching in the courtyard, gathering up bamboo poles scattered across the ground, when he caught sight of the old man coming out of his room. Clutching half a black stick of charcoal, the old man walked up to him, bent down, and drew something on the ground.

Ning Buhui looked down.

It was a circle. It was uneven and crooked, as though the hand drawing it had trembled. A tiny solid dot marked its center, like an eye. The old man tapped the circle with his toe, then pointed at Ning Buhui and raised the charcoal to make a stroke toward Spirit Hall.

Ning Buhui did not understand.

The old man stared at him for a moment, his deeply wrinkled face expressionless. Then he straightened and walked away, his broom trailing over the ground and raising a thin line of dust. Ning Buhui remained crouched where he was, watching the wind scatter half the crooked circle. Without thinking, he traced it on his knee with a fingertip. A circle, a dot in the center, and a line that did not close. It looked like an eye, but also like a symbol he had seen in a burial chamber in his previous life. Back then, Professor Chen had spent some time studying patterns on artifacts left by ancient civilizations. One pattern, round at the bottom and pointed at the top, was called the "Spirit Pivot Pattern," but this was clearly not it.

He thought about it for a while, but could not make sense of it, so he committed it to memory for the time being. There were too many things in the world that could not be solved in haste. The first thing archaeology had taught him was to wait for evidence.

But the old man had clearly not been drawing at random.

Ning Buhui began paying attention to the mute old man's routine. The old man went out at the same time every day and followed a fixed route: first he swept the west courtyard, then went around the back kitchen and swept along the base of the wall to the small door on the west side of the front hall before turning back. Along the way, he would sit under the old locust tree for a while, eat some dry rations, drink some water, and then resume sweeping. Day after day.

One evening, it rained. Ning Buhui saw the old man prop his broom beside the door and crouch on the threshold, looking up at the sky. He walked over and offered him an extra dark-flour steamed bun he had picked up from the back kitchen. The old man accepted it, broke it in two, and pressed the larger half back into his hands.

Ning Buhui paused, took it, and bit into it. Then he crouched beside the old man and watched the rain with him. He suddenly felt the urge to confide in someone. Perhaps he had been lonely for too long.

"I'm six," Ning Buhui said suddenly. "I didn't leave Bluestone Town until I was six. No one there took care of my awakening. I begged a cousin of my father's for three days before he agreed to bring me to Nuoding City."

The old man slowed his chewing for a moment.

"Once I got here, there still wasn't anyone to look after me." Ning Buhui gazed at the curtain of rain. "But at least I can fill my own stomach now."

Rain fell on the courtyard's bluestone slabs, splashing into tiny droplets. The leaves of the old locust tree had been washed bright, and a sparrow huddled beneath a branch, trembling its wings. The old man finished his bun, wiped his hands on his clothes, and picked up the broom by the door again. Ning Buhui thought he was going out, but the old man merely turned the broom around and used its handle to write a word on the wet ground.

The word was badly crooked, but still legible.

"Wait."

Once he had written it, the old man went back inside, the door clicking shut behind him.

Ning Buhui sat on the threshold, watching the rain swallow the word bit by bit and turn it to mud. The restless thing inside him suddenly grew still. When he went down into tombs in his previous life, Professor Chen often said that research and verification could not be rushed: wait for the humidity, wait for the light, wait for the surface layer to peel away, wait for the relics to speak for themselves. He had died once and waited wherever he needed to, so how was it that, now he was here, he could not even measure up to a mute old man's word, "wait"?

The next day, Qian Buyi appeared.

He did not come to the west courtyard this time. He merely sent someone to pass a message to Ning Buhui: "A reply has come from Pope City. Someone will come to take you tomorrow." The messenger said Qian Buyi had looked unwell and had barely eaten all day.

Ning Buhui simply said, "All right," and finished moving the last few bundles of firewood in the courtyard. The menials nearby heard the news and gave him even stranger looks, as though weighing whether it was still worth currying favor with someone who was about to leave. Ning Buhui ignored them. He went back to his room and rolled up his bedding, then walked over to the half-dead vegetable seedlings, crouched down, and plucked off a few yellowing leaves. The mute old man came around the corner and stood behind him, watching for a moment before a barely audible cough rumbled from his throat.

Ning Buhui turned around. "I'm leaving."

The old man nodded, as though he had known all along.

"When I come back, I'll bring you some good steamed buns from Spirit City." Ning Buhui stood up.

The corner of the old man's mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile, but in the end he only pursed his lips. He raised a hand and tapped the back of Ning Buhui's right hand with his thin, bony index finger. Just once, very lightly, as though he had tapped that spot many times before, with the practiced ease of setting a seal.

Ning Buhui looked down. No mark had been left on the back of his hand. But in the few breaths after that tap, the Soul Power flowing slowly through his body suddenly quickened, as if someone had plucked a string.

By the time he looked up, the old man had already turned and walked away. The broom made a long, soft rasp across the ground, like a very old door closing.

Qian Buyi did not show himself that evening.

Ning Buhui lay on his narrow bed, tossing and turning. At last, as dawn approached, he understood one thing: the old man was not a menial. At least, not entirely. He had swept the floors of Nuoding City's Spirit Hall for who knew how many years, seen who knew how many children undergo awakening, and kept who knew how many silent thoughts to himself. Not a single person knew his background. And that tap on the back of his hand that morning had clearly been the old man giving him something.

Ning Buhui spread open his right hand and "looked" in the darkness at the wisp of Soul Power whose rhythm had changed. It was still moving through his meridians, like a little fish lazily swishing its tail. The tower did not appear, but its presence stirred gently in the depths, answering the little fish before withdrawing again.

He closed his eyes.

Tomorrow he would leave this place. Nuoding City, the west courtyard, the old locust tree, the stray cat, the well platform, and the mute old man who had swept the ground for twenty years would all be left behind. But this time was different. He did not feel lonely, because something had been placed in his hands, like a handful of water so light that it would only take shape when he reached a place that could hold it.

Outside the window, the stray cat was calling again, its thin voice sounding as though it were seeing someone off.

Ning Buhui turned over and buried his face in the old quilt. Inside the six-year-old body was a person who had lived two lives. It suddenly seemed to him that this road might be longer than the tomb passage from his previous life, but at least, for now, someone had lit an invisible lamp on the back of his hand.

At the first faint light of dawn, he walked out of the west courtyard with his bedding on his back. There was no one under the old locust tree, only an old broom leaning against the base of the wall, as if placed there especially for him to see. He glanced at it and set off toward the front hall.

Behind him, the mute old man stood in the shadows around the corner, watching until he had gone far away. For the first time, an exceedingly faint smile appeared on his deeply wrinkled face.

The old man raised his hand and drew a circle in the air. This time, he did not draw it on the ground. The moment the circle was complete, wind rushed in from the mouth of the alley, sweeping an early-fallen locust leaf into the air. The leaf spun above Ning Buhui's head like a fish swishing its tail, then landed on his shoulder.

He did not look back.

But the "fish" inside him swiftly swam another circuit.