At half-past four in the morning, the sky wasn't fully light yet, murky grey like the cooling embers in a hearth. Old Zhang rubbed his bleary eyes, shuffled in his cloth shoes, and carried his chipped enamel mug out to the courtyard tap. The faucet sputtered twice before reluctantly spitting out a thin, ice-cold stream of water.
Wang Laowu, known as "Old Man Wang," wasn't ancient, just past sixty, his back a bit stooped, like the old walnut tree at the village entrance—looking withered but still sturdy-boned. He'd spent over half his life scraping a living from this yellow earth in eastern Henan, knowing the dirt clods better than his own kin. The village, Wangjia Gada, wasn't large, just a few dozen households where chickens and dogs were familiar sounds. Life flowed like the river at the village edge—seemingly moving, yet always the same old routines, undisturbed by waves.
Wang Erguang, known as Little Wang, wasn't actually little anymore. Pushing fifty, his hair had anxiously whitened halfway on its own. But in this yámen [government office], going by seniority, he still counted as "Little Wang." Who could blame them? He'd joined late. Pulling strings through countless relatives, burning who knows how much incense money, he'd finally managed to snag a shiye bian position in this bland, unremarkable archives department. The iron rice bowl! Thinking of those words, Wang Erguang could chuckle aloud in his sleep. A wife, a child, a warm kàng bed-stove, plus the salary arriving on time each month and those not-too-high, not-too-low benefits – this was Wang Erguang's dream for the latter half of his life, the capital that let him walk tall in the hutong.