Extra: Some of Wu Xie’s Thoughts

1.

I really didn’t want to admit it, but I realized that I had fallen in love with foot baths.

I came to this realization because I always thought of my foot basin whenever I stopped working. I recalled my mother’s words: Men always soak their feet every day.

I now felt that what my mother had said was reasonable. I didn’t know why, but I never really believed these words before. I just thought that it wasn’t possible to feel comfortable soaking your feet.

Now that I thought about it, I had wasted so many years. If I had known it was so comfortable, I would’ve started soaking my feet when I was eighteen or nineteen.

When I first met Jin Wantang, I should’ve soaked my feet. When I went to Uncle Three’s house to read the silk book for the first time, I should’ve soaked my feet with him. When I was on the train to the Heavenly Palace, I should’ve soaked my feet. I really should’ve soaked my feet during all those important moments in my life.

If this was the case, my life would have been filled with warm banter. If my feet had been in a hot tub of water during all those times that made me sad, then I wouldn’t have felt so sad.

2.

Xiao Hua was smiling as he suddenly came over to me and sat down without a word.

The three of us were enjoying our daily foot baths. At that time, I felt that the years had been quiet and I could boast about all the awesome things I did before.

When I talked to Fatty, Poker-Face would sometimes sleep. When Fatty talked to Poker-Face, I would be the one to fall sleep. We opened the door of the farmhouse and watched the chickens coming in and out. Sometimes the waterfalls would become bigger and the rain would look majestic, so we would watch as the water hit the eaves and formed rain curtains.

Sometimes I felt afraid. I remembered a photo I saw of two centenarians who were watching the rain curtain under the eaves and sitting around all day. The caption of the photo was: They seem to be waiting for something to appear. It’s been more than a hundred years.

In fact, there were many legendary stories in my mind that were all related to feelings and mysteries. Why were the old people unwilling to leave when they had lived for so long? What were they waiting for?

But what we were waiting for was Xiao Hua. He didn’t say too much, only talked a lot about the past. I knew from his expression that he needed to do something, so I asked him, “What’s going on? You came all the way to Fujian without giving prior notice.”

“Actually, I was hoping that you weren’t here. If you weren’t, then I could save my breath and not have to relay the message,” Xiao Hua said.

“Relay a message?” Fatty asked. “You still need to physically relay a message in this era? Why? Just go ahead and say it. I’ll buy you a basin so you can soak your feet together with us. Trust me, you won’t want to go back to Beijing afterwards.”

Xiao Hua looked at our feet and then at our walls. Fatty had put up some hanging paintings, but I didn’t know where he had found them. “Actually, people from Crescent Hotel came to ask me to pass on a message to you,” he said.

I looked at Fatty—I hadn’t heard that name for a long time—and said, “You can tell them that I haven’t been in the business recently. They don’t need to be concerned with me.”

“They’re here to collect the debt,” Xiao Hua said. “Do you still remember that you took something from Crescent Hotel without paying? I was your guarantor at that time and now I’ve come to collect.”

<The Zhang Family Log | 001 Zhang Haiyang><Table of Contents><2019 Mid-Autumn Festival Extra>