The mine lamp Grandpa left behind recognizes people. When it lights up, it means someone below is still waiting for him to come back.
But the missing miner from 1973 was listed as "Ma Dacheng" in the household register and "Zheng Dacheng" in the mine's records: one person, two names.
In my first year working underground, I discovered that Grandpa's ledger wasn't about money. It recorded thirty years of water, fire, and lives lost beneath the mine.
Twenty-two-year-old Ma Xiaochuan, a safety engineering graduate, is assigned to Heilonggou Coal Mine, where he learns to work underground from Zhou Deshun, his grandfather's former apprentice. On his first day, his master hands him a packet of salt. "You'll need it down there."
Knocking sounds come from behind the sealed wall of an abandoned tunnel. An old mine lamp lights up by itself in an empty passage. On the records for the tunnel sealed in 1973, Grandpa's name is the last signature. The old folks say: Sha is not a ghost, but the fear in people's hearts.
The town's fortune-teller, Zhao Banshen; Song the Lame, the one-legged attendant at the tunnel entrance; and mine manager Wang Jianjun, who keeps three accounts in his hands: everyone knows something, and no one tells the whole story.
A packet of salt, a red cord, and a lamp that recognizes people. Following the marks Grandpa left behind, Ma Xiaochuan makes his way step by step toward South Tunnel Three, sealed for thirty years. A person is buried there, along with the deepest secret of the mine.
There's an old rule underground: don't take the lamp past the water outlet.
But Grandpa's lamp has been wet.
