Han Shouren, deputy company commander of the Second Company, publicly crossed Shen Yanqiu off the roster. She would earn no work points, receive no food rations, and be assigned no place to live. She stepped off the train with a wicker suitcase, and as she walked to the well platform to drink, the second hand on the pocket watch over her left breast, which had been stopped for three years, suddenly moved. She felt along the wall and found a cold draft escaping from beneath the third brick at the edge. The mortar had crumbled away, and she declared that if no one repaired it, the well platform would partly collapse when winter ended. The village would have to pay for blue bricks, white lime, and labor out of its accounts. She immediately asked for half a day's work credit to repair it herself. Before Han Shouren could answer, an old man who had been chipping stones by the wall stood up and began feeling and pressing the bricks. Why had the watch moved just then, and where was the draft in the cracks coming from?
