On the seventeenth day of the twelfth lunar month, Luo Wuyi had gone four days without eating anything but evil spirits. His bones itched and his hands trembled, so he fired up the stove with three jin of mixed rice to settle himself. Chen Wang, the second steward of Jufeng House, arrived with three men and pounded on the door to collect the thirty-five-copper stove fee. If Luo couldn’t pay, they would tear out his stove the next day. Luo Wuyi couldn’t read, but he caught the stench of the old soup pot from the fish market on Chen Wang. He pointed out that Chen had spent ninety copper coins on a certain item last month, then pressed a red-hot stove brick against Chen’s outstretched hand. Flesh sizzled, and Chen dropped into the slushy snow.
The three lackeys raised their clubs. Luo retreated to the doorway and held the stove brick against the doorframe. “Anyone who tries to tear out my stove gets this on their hand.” Chen backed away to the mouth of the alley and threatened to inspect the stove on the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month. “You won’t get past it this time.”
After they left, Luo’s palm throbbed with pain. He returned to the stove and pried up the loose brick. The space beneath it was empty. He had been little when his father buried something there. All he remembered was that the fire had burned all night, his father hadn’t slept, and his right hand had rested on that brick. But who had taken what lay beneath it first?
