The Old Shopkeeper and the Damaged Half-Volume

In late autumn in Yanwei City, the sky was always gloomy, like an old piece of grey cloth stained with oil residue from years past, heavily draping over the dense blue-tiled roofs of the city.

Just after the Mao hour, Chen Ping'an woke up.

He was not disturbed by the night watchman's clapper, nor was he awakened by the neighbor's rooster; rather, he was woken by a dull, swelling ache quietly spreading from deep within his waist. Now past fifty, his physical body was no longer under his own control. Like a harsh creditor, whenever the weather changed to damp and rainy, it would arrive on time to demand an old debt called "illness."

He did not get up immediately, but lay quietly on his back on the slightly hard wooden bed, listening to his own gentle and long breathing. The old elm bed beneath him had kept him company through twenty years of heat and cold, long accustomed to emitting a tiny *creak* with his breathing whenever he turned over. He listened closely; outside the door, dry leaves brushed against the window paper with a rustling sound, and the barking of dogs on the street a few alleys away came over, distant and faint.

Only when that dull ache turned into a dense, prickling sensation did he slowly prop up his upper body with his elbows. His movements were slow, every joint feeling like rusty gears; during his movement, there was only a silent stiffness. He fumbled to put on an old, patched cotton coat, slipped into his slippers, moved to the corner of the room by the stove, and poured hot water from the thermos flask, wetting a slightly worn cloth towel.

The hot towel was pressed against his back, and a stream of warmth instantly poured into his skin, dispersing more than half of the coldness and pain. Chen Ping'an let out a sigh of relief as the white steam curled and dissipated in the cold morning light.

This was the beginning of his day. Year after year, through heat and cold, it never changed.

Once prepared, he consumed a bowl of plain congee slowly simmered over a low fire, accompanied by a small dish of his own pickled vegetables. Only then did the tendons and bones of Chen Ping'an's entire body fully loosen up. He locked the courtyard door and walked unhurriedly toward Zhouji Pawnshop in the south of the city along the bluestone road covered in Cold Dew.

Encountering neighbors occasionally along the way, whether they were vegetable farmers carrying baskets or street vendors rushing along, they would nod to him from afar and say: "Good morning, Appraiser Chen."

He would only nod slightly in return, responding with a faint smile that was almost imperceptible.

He had lived in Yanwei City for over fifty years and had worked as the manager of Zhouji Pawnshop for thirty years. He recognized more than half of the people in the city, yet he remained separated from everyone by an invisible thin veil. He did not like socializing, nor did he care for alcohol. His sole passion was collecting damaged ancient books and slowly restoring them with his skilled hands when the night was quiet. The neighbors all said that Appraiser Chen was a steady man, but also a dull one.

Chen Ping'an never explained this. Only by being steady could one live long. Only by being dull could one avoid gathering dust.

The storefront of Zhouji Pawnshop was not large. On a faded black-painted wooden plaque, the two large gold-plated characters "Zhouji" had long since become patchy. He practicedly removed the door panels, and a unique scent of ancient wood blended with ink struck his face, carrying a faint hint of mustiness. He had smelled that scent for thirty years; it had long since been etched into his bones.

The pawnshop business was always neither too hot nor too cold.

A woman with a sorrowful expression carefully took a silver hairpin from her bosom. The head of the hairpin was a cloud pattern, but the design had been rubbed so much it was almost indistinguishable. Chen Ping'an put on his reading glasses, accepted the hairpin, and without using a scale, knew its weight and quality almost instantly just by weighing it in his hand. He then took a small, sharp copper rod from the table and lightly scratched the inconspicuous inner edge of the hairpin, leaving a faint white mark.

"The silver is pure, but it is old and heavily worn."

His tone was gentle, betraying no emotion. "For a temporary pawn, three mace of silver. If you are in urgent need, take it for now, and I will give you an extra two hundred copper coins."

The woman bit her lip, a struggle flashing in her eyes, before she finally nodded: "A temporary pawn then." Chen Ping'an opened a pawn ticket, counted out the copper coins from the cash box, threaded them with hemp rope, and handed them over. From beginning to end, his gaze only lingered on the item and the money, as if completely blind to the bitterness and reluctance in the woman's eyes. Yet only he knew that from the wear marks on the hairpin, he saw that it had been lovingly caressed countless times; from the woman's rough knuckles, he read the hardships of her life.

See clearly, keep one's mouth sealed like a bottle. This was the Dao of self-preservation he had comprehended in his thirty years as a pawnshop manager.

The sun gradually sank to the west, and the light in the shop grew dimmer. Xiao Zhang, the newly arrived apprentice, was squatting in a corner, sorting through a pile of old items temporarily pawned during the previous dynasty. Among them was a decayed chest filled with moldy, ruined books whose pages were stuck together, emitting a faint, foul odor.

"Master Chen," Xiao Zhang called out, holding his nose with a look of disgust, "this chest of ruined books is almost rotting into mud. I'm afraid even using them to start a fire would be too damp. I think we might as well use them as firewood for the back kitchen?"

This chest of books came from the house of a ruined scholar in the west of the city. His ancestors had once been illustrious, but his descendants were incompetent, and their vast family fortune had trickled into the pawnshop bit by bit. This pile of waste paper was the last remaining keepsake.

Chen Ping'an raised his eyelids, his gaze shooting out from above his reading glasses: "Do not rush. Bring it over for me to see."

Xiao Zhang grunted and reluctantly dragged the broken chest over.

Chen Ping'an set aside his work, rolled up his sleeves, and bent down to slowly sort through the pile of ruined volumes that were almost turning into pulp. His movements were extremely gentle, as if he were handling rare treasures that would shatter at a touch rather than a pile of decaying matter. This was his instinct as an ancient book restorer.

Most of the books were indeed beyond saving, their pages turning to powder at a touch. Xiao Zhang stood by, curling his lips, unable to comprehend why the old man was wasting his effort.

Suddenly, Chen Ping'an's movements paused.

He pulled out a coverless, damaged volume, its dry, yellowed pages curled, showing signs of having been soaked in water and then forcibly dried. He carefully turned a page; most of the characters on it were faded and illegible, but he could barely make out the title, *Qingnang Miscellaneous Records*, which seemed to be an ordinary medical book on herbal theory.

There were dozens, if not hundreds, of such medical books printed on the streets, utterly ordinary.

However, when Chen Ping'an's gaze fell upon a section explaining the preparation of mugwort leaves, his brow furrowed imperceptibly.

The book recorded: *'Take aged mugwort leaves, dry three parts in the sun, and seven parts in the shade... gather the dew of the Hai and Zi hours, and pound them into wool...'*

"Three parts sun-dried, seven parts shade-dried?"

He murmured in his heart. As far as he knew, all medical books in the world regarding the preparation of mugwort wool emphasized Pure Yang, requiring exposure to the blazing sun to completely remove its dampness. This concept of balancing Yin and Yang was simply unheard of and absurd. If an ordinary physician saw this, they would certainly scoff at it, dismissing it as nonsense.

However, Chen Ping'an was different. The number of ancient books that had passed through his hands was vast, and his knowledge was broad. He had once glimpsed a similar principle of medicine preparation in a long-lost Daoist miscellany, which emphasized "reducing its nature to preserve its essence." Verifying the two against each other, this seemingly absurd preparation method was no longer nonsense. Instead, it faintly pointed to a completely different, mysterious path—perhaps a hidden inheritance unknown to the world.

Suppressing the waves in his heart, he continued to look down. The subsequent pages were even more damaged, but they vaguely mentioned that in coordination with this specially prepared mugwort wool, there was a unique method of breathing and exhaling.

"Breathing Art..."

Chen Ping'an's fingertips gently caressed the ancient page, feeling its rough and unique texture.

"Master Chen, are you done looking? It's getting dark," Xiao Zhang urged impatiently.

Chen Ping'an slowly sat up, pulled out the damaged half-volume of *Qingnang Miscellaneous Records* along with a few other incomplete illustrated books that were still legible, and placed them aside. He dusted off his hands and said to Xiao Zhang in his usual flat tone: "These volumes have some decent illustrations. I will take them back to examine; perhaps I can peel off the drawings and sell them to painters for reference. You may dispose of the rest."

A normal reason, perfectly logical.

Xiao Zhang felt as if he had been granted a great amnesty, and quickly disposed of the remaining books to use as kindling.

Chen Ping'an carefully wrapped the damaged books in oil paper and placed them in his cloth bag. Having done all this, he tidied up the counter as usual, locked the shop door, and walked into the gradually deepening night.

The cold autumn wind whipped the corners of his coat, and his slightly hunched figure cast a long shadow under the dim light of the lanterns.

Only tonight, his heart, which had been tranquil for half a lifetime, was like an ancient well into which a mischievous child had thrown a stone. Although it did not stir up giant waves, it had shattered the reflection of the full moon.