Yin Yang Diviner

By the time we got back to Lao Liu's place, the moon was already setting in the west.

He took the ink line out of his pocket and placed it on the coffee table.

The remaining half-spool of ink thread lay quietly wound on the reel, and the "boundary" inside the thread core had fallen asleep—not in a deep sleep, but like a guard dog that had stayed up all night, now lying on its front paws at dawn, its ears still perked up, but its eyes closed.

Old Liu took out the seven copper coins and arranged them one by one next to the ink line.

The coins bear seven reign titles: Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng. The hemp rope passes through the hole in the coin, and the ruyi knots at both ends have been held in the palm of the hand all night, making them slightly damp.

"Those voices," he sat down, his hands resting on his knees, his knuckles still white, "will they come back?"

"Tomorrow, when the sun has shone enough, the world's energy will sink back into the cracks in the bricks, and the sound will dissipate." I took Zhenyuan out of my bag and placed it on the coffee table. The golden light deep within the mirror membrane receded, leaving only a very faint layer floating on the edge of the mirror. "But you heard it. Having heard it makes a difference."

"Why is it different?"

I did not answer immediately.

Old Liu's living room wasn't big; the sofa was upholstered in fabric, and his plaid shirt from yesterday was draped over the armrest.

A potted green ivy sits on the TV cabinet, its vines hanging down, bathed in moonlight in a color between blue and gray.

Every now and then, a drop of water drips from the kitchen faucet, landing on the sink wall with a soft "ding".

Everything in this room—the fabric sofa, the plaid shirt, the potted plant, the dripping faucet—reeks of Lao Liu's worldly ways.

Every day after get off work, he would collapse onto the sofa, drape his shirt over the armrest, water the pothos plants, and turn on the tap.

Day after day, his worldliness accumulated layer by layer on these things.

But tonight is different. Tonight he walked into that ruin, stepping into the "memories" accumulated by a hundred or so families over several decades. The sizzling sounds of cooking, the lullabies for children, the weak sobs of crying, filled his ears and were brought back to him.

"After you heard those voices, your own worldliness gained an extra layer." I held Zhenyuan in my palm, the mirror angled towards Old Liu. "It's not evil, it's not malevolent, it's 'shared'. You walked through that alley, not because you encountered ghosts, but because you shared a short time with them."

Old Liu looked down at his hands.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, falling on the back of his hand and clearly outlining his knuckles. "And then? Can they hear me?"

"You can't hear them. But your worldliness carries their memories. In the future, when you walk at night and pass by old houses that have been half demolished, old factory areas that are deserted, and old playgrounds overgrown with weeds, the memories of those places will recognize you. Not to harm you—but to know that someone can still hear them." In Zhenyuan's mirror, Old Liu's worldliness rose from the fabric sofa, from the plaid shirt, and from the leaves of the green ivy.

It was originally a clean, warm yellow, like straw that had been dried in the sun all day in autumn.

Tonight, the warm yellow hue is surrounded by a very faint grayish-white ring—not because it's been contaminated by anything, but like a small spoonful of overnight chilled tea added to a bowl of warm tea. It's still warm, but with an indescribable, heavy undertone.

"What did you see?" Old Liu stared into my eyes.

"You brought it back. Not much, just one lap."

He was silent for a long time.

Another drop of water dripped from the kitchen faucet, making a clear, tinkling sound in the silence.

"The person crying was a woman." His voice was very soft, as if afraid of waking something. "She cried for a long time, until she had no strength left, and it turned into sobs. In the end, she didn't even have the strength to sob anymore, and she just kept exhaling long, long breaths. It was like she was giving back all the anger she had accumulated in her life, breath by breath."

About a hundred households, for thirty or forty years. Which family does that crying woman belong to?

do not know.

Maybe it was the day her husband left, maybe it was the night her child was sick, maybe it was nothing at all. It was just that one evening she was sitting alone in front of the stove, the fire was out, the pot was cold, and someone was passing by outside the window humming a song.

She suddenly felt like crying, and so she cried. She cried for a long time.

She herself had forgotten, but she hadn't forgotten that cry.

It came from her throat, seeped into the cracks in the brickwork, was loosened by the noise of the demolition, evaporated by last night's moon, poured into that alley, and was stepped on by Old Liu.

A stranger heard her cry one night, decades later.

"You heard it for her, and then you left after that cry." I put Zhenyuan back into my bag. "The most frightening thing about memories in this world is not that no one listens—it's that those who listen are afraid of them. If you're not afraid, they'll dissipate."

Old Liu strung the seven copper coins on the coffee table back onto the hemp rope one by one.

The coins bear seven reign titles: Shunzhi, Kangxi, Yongzheng, Qianlong, Jiaqing, Daoguang, and Xianfeng. The ruyi knots at both ends of the hemp rope are slightly damp from being gripped in the palm of the hand, and their color is a shade darker than yesterday.

He put the copper coins in his pocket, stood up, walked to the window, and opened it a crack. The night wind blew in through the crack, carrying the earthy smell of the fields outside the city and the coolness of the dew.

The moonlight shone on his face, and the bluish tinge had faded.

"I listened to the woman who was crying. Did she say anything when she left?"

"No. Memory is not a soul, it cannot speak. It is just a cry. You heard it, and then it loosened from the crack in the brick."

Old Liu closed the window, and the moonlight was filtered through the glass, becoming a thin layer of bluish-white.

He turned around, leaning against the windowsill, the copper coins in his pocket swaying slightly in the shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach. "Will I hear you every time I walk at night from now on?"

"Not necessarily. Some memories are buried deep, and the noise of demolishing a house won't shake them. Some memories are too light, and the moon can't evaporate them. What you can hear are those that really have nowhere to go. People move away, houses are demolished, and they are driven out from the cracks in the bricks and corners of the walls, floating in the air, waiting to be blown away by the wind. You stepped on them, thus tidying up their mess."

Old Liu walked back to the sofa and sat down, picking up the ink line from the coffee table.

The remaining half-spool of ink thread lay quietly coiled on the reel, the "boundary" within the thread core fast asleep.

He put the ink line into another pocket, one on each side, through his clothes and the copper coins.

"I'll carry this with me from now on. If we run into each other again, I'll draw my own line." His voice came from behind the sofa, muffled, but no longer trembling.

Outside the window, the moon has moved from the west to the far west, and it will set in a little while.

Old Liu's breathing gradually slowed and deepened, and he curled up on the sofa and fell asleep.

The copper coins and ink marker in his pocket were pressed against his stomach through his clothes, rising and falling with his breath.

I took Zhenyuan out of my bag and placed it on the coffee table with the mirror facing up. The golden light deep within the yang membrane receded to the size of a pinhead, like a half-closed eye keeping watch for its master.

When the sun rises tomorrow, the worldly atmosphere in those ruins will sink back down.

The sizzling of stir-frying, the lullabies for children, the weak sobs of someone crying until they're exhausted—all these are scattered by the morning light. But in Old Liu's worldly air, that extremely faint gray-white ring will not dissipate.

That wasn't evil spirits or demons; it was a person who took care of the tails of about a hundred strangers who had nowhere to go.