Misty Rain over Shaoxing

When the first snow of 1941 began to fall, Wu Heng was kneeling before Xu's father's grave, digging into the earth.

The frozen soil was hard as iron. His dagger chipped after prying up barely half an inch. He switched to clawing at the dirt with his bare hands, oblivious even as his fingernails split, until he touched the clay seal of a wine jar. It was the daughter-red wine the Xu family had buried seventeen years earlier, meant to be opened when Xu Jiaqi married.