Mountain and Sea Salesman

On the day his grandfather was buried, Lu Xun inherited a grocery store without a sign. The shop sells tobacco, wine, sugar and tea during the day, and everything is business as usual. Only after sunset every Friday does another group of guests come: dripping raincoat men, girls who haven't grown up in forty years, and migrant workers who have lost their shadow. They don't pay - they use memory, obsession and lifespan in exchange for "something that can't be bought elsewhere". Under the counter are seven ledgers, recording forty-six years. On the last page, there are four words written by my grandfather with trembling hands before his death: Don't go to the reservoir. Under the reservoir lies the entire village where Lu Xun was born, as well as his brother who walked into the water when he was thirteen years old - in a place called "Guixu", where he paid off the family's debt for thirteen years. There are only five rules in the shop, and the most cruel one is: you don't have to do business, but if you refuse once, an innocent person will die. Lu Xun quickly understood that what this shop had been doing for three thousand years had never been about business - it was about repaying all the debts and waiting for someone who was willing to pay them back.