Wall-Breaking

An iron box. Welded shut. It had fallen out of a cavity in the wall.

There was nothing else inside. Just a copper plaque, about the size of a palm, its patina black with age.

He asked me for fifty yuan.

I paid. He left.

I turned to that page in the ledger. Ten years ago. A two-hundred-thousand-yuan invoice. A twenty-thousand-yuan deposit.

The payment line was blank.

The next day, someone came to my door: a woman in a gray trench coat who called herself Xiaoyun.

“Number 16, Hefang Street, three days from now. The owner will be there in person. If you come, everything will change.”

A slip of paper was pushed through the door. It had only two words on it: Don’t go.

The date on the plaque was today’s date. Someone had planned this. Someone had been waiting all along.

There was just one problem: seven people had handled it.

The seventh was me. But I don’t remember.

Then I’ll tear down that wall.