The Copyist at the Bottom of the Well

In the twenty-fifth year of the Republic of China, a new history teacher arrived at Nanjing Zhongshan Middle School. At midnight, he would walk alone into the abandoned library and lecture to an ancient well that had been sealed shut. Students whispered that the well held a librarian buried alive by the Japanese army during the War of Resistance. Then, on the night of the school anniversary celebration, ink-black water suddenly seeped from the well, and blood-red Japanese characters appeared around its rim: “The day the books are returned is the day I claim your lives.” The history teacher stood quietly beside the well, smiling, with the Japanese commander’s saber from that era in his hand.