Chen Du opened a shop that nobody ever visited, called the Bond Renewal Hall. He specialized in reconnecting severed bonds between mothers and children, masters and disciples, brothers, and lovers. If a bond could be restored, he restored it. If it couldn't, he let it go.
He charged no money, only tangerine peels.
Auntie Liu next door called him foolish. The neighbors said he was strange. He didn't know why he did it either. But every time he mended a bond, he would go home that night and carve a mark into the wall. When the character for "upright" filled one wall, he moved on to another.
Later, he took one customer after another, helping them find the people they'd forgotten. Everyone said he was a good person. He felt he was becoming one, too. Until one day, he opened his ledger. Every page held just one name.
The bond he had been renewing all along was his own.
