At three o'clock in the morning, Zhuhong Town was still immersed in ink that was so thick that it couldn't be dissolved.
Dad has woken up on Thursday. He wakes up not in the quilt, but in his bones - the old injury on his right arm is more accurate than the broken bell in the Zhentou Earth Temple. Whenever the solar terms change or the weather changes, there will be a faint soreness and swelling, like rusty ship nails in the bones, digging into the flesh. After midnight last night, the soreness came. It first lingered on the shoulder blades, slowly moved downstream, passed the elbow bend, reached the wrist, and finally stopped at the tiger's mouth, which was as deep as a cocoon carved by a knife. He knew that this was when the river woke up.
He sat up in the dark. The wooden bed made several tired squeaks under him. This bed had been with him for forty years. Since the night of his wedding, he still had to sigh even when he turned over. The pillow was empty, and the faint scent, mixed with soap locust and reed catkins, had been gone for fifteen years. He would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night, and would subconsciously reach out to explore, but what he would always touch was a cold, coarse cloth pillow.
...
This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.
