The silhouette of the plane sliced through the clouds like a silver blade cutting through dirty cotton.
Inside the stifling cabin, under a cold light that made every face look too pale, Tiān Shù kept his forehead pressed against the window. He watched the world below dissolve into patches of green and grey, while the glass vibrated against his skull in an uncomfortable whisper that rattled through his bones like an omen.
His destination was Wuyuan. A tiny dot on the map, but an abyss of memories.
Tiān Shù, the adopted grandson of Xuan Zhao.
The boarding pass was so crumpled between his fingers that the edges had begun to fray. He only noticed the force he was exerting when his fingertips started to throb. He released the paper slowly, letting out a shaky sigh that fogged the glass.
"Grandpa..." he murmured, the word sounding foreign in his own mouth.
A student of history and archaeology, Tiān Shù spent his days excavating the past of others, analyzing ruins and fragments of dead civilizations. Ironically, he was now returning home to deal with his own rubble. The text message still burned in his memory, dry and final.
Death by heart attack. Immediate passing. No goodbyes. No last instructions. Just a brutal period placed by a hurried fate.
"What kind of grandson am I?"
The thought was an acid that had been corroding him since the previous night.
The memories of Xuan Zhao were made of gaps. Tiān Shù had been an orphan adopted by a man who seemed made of granite and ancient roots. He remembered silences more than dialogues, austere gestures more than declared affections. Xuan Zhao's love was like the duality between light and shadow.
He never said it, yet he expressed it through gestures: a bowl of hot soup left on the table, school clothes ironed with rigor, tuition money delivered in clean brown envelopes.
Never an "I love you." Always a "eat before it gets cold."
In the arrogance of youth, Tiān Shù had mistaken that reserve for indifference. I thought he didn't care... how stupid, he thought, feeling his eyes sting. Now, the archaeology of his own life revealed that those silences were, in fact, protections.
The impact of the wheels against the runway jolted him from his stupor. His body was thrown forward, and he had the strange sensation that the present was forcing him back into the past. Upon disembarking, the smell of kerosene mixed with the damp, heavy air of the countryside. The sky was overcast, a funereal grey that seemed to respect the earth's mourning.
At the taxi stand, a driver with a sun-weathered face raised his hand.
"Where to, young man?"
Tiān Shù hesitated. Saying the address seemed to make the death official.
"Rural zone... near Likeng village. The old Zhao house."
The driver let out a low whistle, sizing up the young man in urban clothes and a designer backpack.
"That's far. Dirt roads. It'll be expensive."
"It doesn't matter," Tiān Shù replied, getting into the car.
The taxi set off, leaving civilization behind. Buildings gave way to valleys, and asphalt surrendered to gravel. The constant sound of stones hitting the chassis echoed like a broken clock, marking the time he no longer had.
Closing his eyes, flashes of the past struck him.
The crackle of wood being split at dawn. The scent of old wood and jasmine tea. Xuan Zhao's hands—immense, calloused, and firm—covering his own to teach him a sailor's knot.
"A man needs to know how to use his own hands," his grandfather's raspy voice echoed in his mind.
Tiān Shù gripped the strap of his backpack. He remembered a harsh winter when he was too small to reach the table, and felt the phantom weight of the thick coat his grandfather had thrown over his shoulders without a word, merely adjusting the collar with a tenderness he only understood now.
"Returning to visit family?" the driver tried to break the ice.
Tiān Shù looked at the rice fields passing by like a green blur outside.
"Funeral."
The man nodded, his tone instantly shifting to solemn respect.
"I'm sorry, young man."
Those three words hurt more than the silence of the plane. Tiān Shù only bowed his head, hiding his face in the shadows of the cabin. He realized he wasn't just returning to bury a man, but to face the void left behind... the rocking chair facing the mountains, the rooms that now held only the smell of dust and the echo of a life he never bothered to truly know.
There was a fear growing in his chest. Not the fear of ghosts, but the fear of discovering that Xuan Zhao was a stranger he had loved too late.