Hainan Dao

Book II Chapter 02

HAINAN DAO BOOK II

CHAPTER 02

Shuying followed the men away with her eyes. She stepped over to the boy with the short-cropped hair, still lying on the ground, clutching his left shoulder. She crouched down beside him.

“Are you hurt?” she asked.

Still biting down on his lip, he slowly shook his head.

“Oh, look at you.” She reached down and wiped the blood from his lip. “Here. Can you get up?” She helped him to his feet.

“I’m all right.”

“We better get back to work. Can you go on?”

He nodded.

They picked up the rocks that still lay by the edge in a pile and placed them into the basket. They heaved the load onto their shoulders and resumed their task. Shuying noticed that the boy was no longer using his left shoulder or any other part of his left arm.

The rest of the day droned on like it would never end, but as with all things, it did end eventually, and the labourers were dismissed and allowed to go home. The boy with the short hair began lumbering off down the field, still cradling his left arm in his right.

On the far side of the worksite, the sun was setting and the sky all around the young girl glowed a deep lavender in patches. The courtyard was soon empty of people, as everyone hurried off for home. Of a sudden, the field seemed a lonely place, no longer a busy rock quarry, filled with the noise of splitting boulders and labouring men and women.

For a while, Shuying remained where she was, standing still, and watched as the boy slowly faded away like a shadow, first tasted then swallowed up into the darkening ether of the night. In one of the pockets on her trousers, she could feel the paper envelope there still, the one that she had stuffed into it from lunchtime that same day. She closed her eyes. She could still taste the gritty sweetness of the chip of rock candy on her tongue. She opened her eyes again.

She raced after him.

She caught up. “Are you all right?”

He nodded.

Rivers of sweat were coursing down his face and he was breathing hard. His lips were the colour of dead fish as he bit down on them, huffing and puffing with every step. She marched alongside him, expecting him to collapse at any minute. But he didn’t. Soon, they were both back at the beginning of Market Street. Another block from the intersection where they were now, and she would be back home at the teashop.

All around her, the street was silent. Everyone had turned in early. She sighed. She stopped walking and touched the boy on the arm. “Please…”

He turned around.

“…you must come with me.”

He tilted his head and frowned at her.

“Come.” She took his arm and led him down the first side street.

The boy followed Shuying down the alleyway, and then another, and another, until they came to a two-storied building about three blocks over on the other side of Market Street.

The boy gazed up at the structure in front of him, hidden here away in a maze of corridors and passages, with a half-shaded upstairs window that was glowing now with wavering light.

“What is this place?” he asked her.

“Follow me.”

Shuying ducked through the entrance and began snaking her way upstairs. She waved him on. At the top of the stairwell, they came to a door. It was unlocked. With a resentful creak, the panel was nudged aside. Shuying wedged past it and slipped herself into the room beyond. The boy didn’t follow her in at first, but stayed outside in the doorway, only peering through it.