The Old Man Who Waited by the Canal
The lantern hummed. Not the low, warning thrum Shen Lu had grown used to over the years—the sound that meant a ghost was near, or a memory was fraying at the edges. This was different. This was a song, thin and reedy, like a voice calling out across a great distance. A-Yu’s spirit had not fully manifested since the night before, when he had stepped out of the lantern’s glow and revealed himself as a young man of seventeen, not the child Shen Lu had always imagined. Now the lantern sat on the windowsill, its cracked glass pulsing with a soft, amber light, and the hum would not stop.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Shen Lu said, not turning from the window.
The hum grew louder. Then it stopped.
A-Yu’s voice came from behind him, close enough that Shen Lu felt the cold breath of it on the back of his neck. “There’s someone at the canal. He comes every night. He’s been coming for forty years.”
Shen Lu turned. A-Yu stood in the corner of the room, half-formed, his body made of the same pale light that leaked from the lantern. He was tall for seventeen, with a narrow face and dark eyes that held too much weight. His clothes were the kind a boy might have worn four decades ago—a simple tunic, water-stained, the fabric clinging to his frame as if he had just stepped out of the river. He had been dead for a long time, and it showed in the way he moved, each gesture slow and deliberate, like a man wading through deep water.
“Every night?” Shen Lu asked.
“Every night for as long as I can remember.” A-Yu’s gaze drifted toward the window. “He stands on the bridge. The one with the cracked railing, just past the noodle shop. He waits for someone. He doesn’t know who.”
Shen Lu felt the familiar ache settle into his chest. He had seen men like that before, in the years he had spent ferrying the dead. They stood on bridges and canal banks, staring into the water, waiting for a face they could not quite recall. The Memory-Eaters had been at work long before the River God died, long before the moon began to dim. He had just never wanted to see it.
“Show me,” he said.
The Lantern District was quieter than the rest of Qianshui, if such a thing was possible. The buildings leaned toward each other like old women sharing secrets, their wooden beams warped and dark with damp. The canal here was narrow, barely wide enough for two boats to pass, and the water moved with a sluggishness that felt unnatural. Shen Lu walked beside the water, A-Yu drifting at his shoulder, a faint shimmer in the corner of his eye.
The bridge came into view. It was old, older than the district itself, its stone worn smooth by decades of rain and footsteps. The railing on the left side had cracked long ago, and someone had patched it with a length of rope and a plank of wood. A man stood at the center of the bridge, his back to them, his hands resting on the railing. He was old—seventy, maybe more—with a shock of white hair and a coat that had been mended so many times it was more patch than cloth. He did not move when they approached. He did not seem to breathe.
“That’s him,” A-Yu said. His voice was barely a whisper. “He’s always here. He never leaves before the moon rises.”
Shen Lu stepped onto the bridge. The wood groaned beneath his weight, and the old man turned. His face was a map of wrinkles, deep lines carved by years of weather and worry. His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and they looked at Shen Lu without recognition.
“Evening,” Shen Lu said.
The old man blinked. “Do I know you?”
“No. I’m just passing through.” Shen Lu leaned against the railing, careful not to put too much weight on the cracked section. “You come here often?”
“Every night.” The old man’s voice was thin, reedy, like wind through dry grass. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
The old man’s brow furrowed. He stared at the water, his lips moving silently, as if he were testing a name he could not quite remember. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I used to know. I had it in my head, clear as day. But now…” He shook his head. “I just know I’m supposed to be here. Someone’s supposed to meet me. I can feel it.”
Shen Lu’s throat tightened. He had heard this before, in the early days of the cult’s work, when the erasures were still new and the victims still felt the hollow places where their memories had been. But those people had been young, their love stories still fresh and sharp. This man had been waiting for forty years. Forty years of standing on a bridge, watching the water, not knowing why.
“What do you remember?” Shen Lu asked. “Anything at all.”
The old man’s hands tightened on the railing. “There was a song,” he said slowly. “A song I used to hum. I don’t remember the tune, but I remember the feeling of it. Warm. Like sitting by a fire in winter.” He paused, and a tear slid down his cheek. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I haven’t cried in years.”
A-Yu moved closer, his translucent form flickering in the lamplight. He stood beside the old man, close enough to touch, though the old man could not see him. A-Yu’s face was pale, his jaw tight. He looked at the old man the way a drowning man looks at the shore.
“He was beautiful,” A-Yu said, so softly Shen Lu almost missed it. “He had a laugh that made you want to laugh too, even when you didn’t know the joke. He used to bring me tea from the shop on Willow Street. The one with the red door. He said the tea was better there, but I think he just liked the walk.”
Shen Lu’s heart stopped. “A-Yu.”
“His name was—” A-Yu stopped. His mouth opened and closed, and a look of horror crossed his face. “His name was. I had it. I had it in my mouth, and now it’s gone.”
The old man turned, as if he had heard something. His eyes scanned the empty air, searching for a face he could not see. “Is someone there?” he asked. “I thought I heard—I thought I heard a voice.”
Shen Lu forced himself to breathe. “No one’s here,” he said. “Just me.”
The old man nodded, but his eyes lingered on the spot where A-Yu stood. For a moment, Shen Lu thought he saw something flicker in those pale eyes—a spark of recognition, a memory rising to the surface. But then it was gone, and the old man turned back to the water.
“I should go,” he said. “It’s getting late. My wife will be wondering where I am.”
“Your wife?” Shen Lu asked.
The old man smiled, a thin, tired smile. “Yes. I’ve been married for thirty-eight years. Her name is—” He stopped. His brow furrowed. “Her name is. I don’t—I don’t remember.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “Funny. I was just talking to her this morning. I think. I must have been.”
He shuffled off the bridge, his steps slow and uncertain, and disappeared into the mist. Shen Lu watched him go, his hands clenched at his sides. When he turned back, A-Yu was standing at the edge of the bridge, staring at the spot where the old man had been.
“He doesn’t remember me,” A-Yu said. His voice was flat, empty. “He doesn’t remember anything.”
“He remembers the feeling,” Shen Lu said. “He remembers the song. He’s been coming here for forty years, waiting for someone he can’t name. That’s not nothing.”
A-Yu’s shoulders shook. “I was seventeen. I was supposed to meet him at the bridge. I was going to tell him—I was going to tell him that I loved him. I had it all planned. I was going to say it before he could say anything else, because I knew he would try to talk me out of it. He always thought he was too old for me, too plain, too ordinary. He never understood that I didn’t care about any of that.” A-Yu’s voice cracked. “I was on my way to the bridge when they found me. Three of them, wearing those masks. They dragged me into the water and held me under until I stopped struggling. And then they took my memories. They took my name. They took his name. They took everything.”
Shen Lu stepped forward. “A-Yu.”
“I didn’t even get to say it.” A-Yu’s form flickered, the light of his body dimming and brightening like a candle in the wind. “I spent forty years in that lantern, not knowing why I was there, not knowing who I was. And he spent forty years on that bridge, waiting for a ghost he couldn’t remember. We were both waiting. We were both waiting for the same thing, and we never got it.”
Shen Lu reached out, his hand passing through A-Yu’s shoulder. The cold bit into his palm, sharp and painful, but he did not pull away. “You’re here now,” he said. “You remember. That’s more than the cult wanted you to have.”
“What good is remembering if he can’t?” A-Yu’s voice was raw, ragged. “He’s old. He’s lived his whole life without me. He doesn’t even know I existed.”
Shen Lu had no answer. He had spent years ferrying the dead, guiding them across the canals to whatever waited on the other side. He had seen grief in all its shapes—the sharp, fresh grief of the newly bereaved, the dull, aching grief of those who had lost someone long ago. But this was different. This was grief without a name, love without a memory. It was the cruelest thing he had ever witnessed, and he had witnessed a great deal of cruelty.
“We’ll find a way,” he said, though he did not know if it was true. “We’ll find a way to give him back his memories.”
A-Yu shook his head. “You can’t. The cult doesn’t just steal memories. They destroy them. They grind them into dust and feed on the remains. There’s nothing left to give back.”
“Then we’ll make new ones.”
A-Yu looked at him, his dark eyes searching. “What?”
“You’re here,” Shen Lu said. “You’re not a ghost anymore. You’re a spirit with a name and a face and a story. You can go to him. You can talk to him. You can tell him who you are, and even if he doesn’t remember, he’ll know you. He’s been waiting for you for forty years. That has to mean something.”
A-Yu’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked at the spot where the old man had disappeared, and something shifted in his expression. It was not hope, exactly—Shen Lu did not think A-Yu was capable of hope anymore. But it was something close. Something that might grow into hope, given time.
“I don’t know how to talk to him,” A-Yu said. “I’ve been dead for forty years. I don’t know how to be alive.”
“Neither do I,” Shen Lu said. “But we’re both still trying.”
They stood on the bridge in silence, the mist curling around them. The moon was a pale smear in the sky, its light weak and uncertain. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, and a door slammed, and the city of Qianshui shifted in its sleep.
Shen Lu thought of Wei Yan, asleep in the boarding house, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the river. He thought of the faceless woman in her porcelain mask, speaking in the voices of everyone he had ever lost. He thought of his mother, whose face he could no longer remember, and the hollow ache that had taken up residence in his chest.
“We’re going to stop them,” he said, more to himself than to A-Yu. “We’re going to find that temple, and we’re going to tear it down, and we’re going to make sure no one else has to wait forty years for a memory that will never come back.”
A-Yu did not answer. He was staring at the water, his reflection rippling in the dark. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“He used to call me Little Fish. Because I was always in the water, he said. Always swimming. Always moving. He said I was like a fish that had learned to breathe air, just so I could stay close to him.”
Shen Lu closed his eyes. The ache in his chest was almost unbearable.
“I would have stayed with him forever,” A-Yu said. “I would have followed him anywhere. I would have given up the water, the river, everything. I would have learned to live on land, just for him.”
“I know,” Shen Lu said.
A-Yu turned to him, and for the first time, his eyes were dry. “Find them,” he said. “Find the ones who did this. And when you do, make them remember. Make them remember every name they’ve stolen, every heart they’ve broken. Make them remember what they did to us.”
Shen Lu nodded. “I will.”
They walked back to the boarding house in silence, the lantern swinging at Shen Lu’s side. The hum had stopped, but the light inside the cracked glass was brighter than it had been before, burning with a fierce, steady flame. A-Yu had retreated into the lantern, but Shen Lu could feel him there, watching, waiting.
When they reached the door, Wei Yan was standing in the threshold, his dark hair loose around his shoulders. He held a cup of tea in one hand, and his eyes were fixed on Shen Lu with that quiet, searching intensity that always made Shen Lu feel like he was being read like a book.
Wei Yan raised his hand, and water rippled in the air, forming words that hung between them like a question.
*What did you see?*
Shen Lu looked at him, at the concern etched into his features, at the way his fingers tightened around the cup. He thought of the old man on the bridge, waiting for a love he could not remember. He thought of A-Yu, seventeen and drowned, his last words never spoken.
“I saw what the cult does,” Shen Lu said. “I saw what they take. And I saw what they leave behind.”
Wei Yan’s eyes softened. He set the cup down and raised his hand again, the water forming new words.
*Then we will give it back.*
Shen Lu wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that the memories could be restored, that the old man could remember the boy who had loved him, that A-Yu could finally say the words he had been holding for forty years. But he had seen the cult’s work up close. He had felt the hollow where his mother’s face used to be. He knew that some things could not be undone.
Still, he looked at Wei Yan, at the stubborn set of his jaw, at the fire in his eyes, and he found himself nodding.
“Yes,” he said. “We will.”
The lantern flickered once, warm and golden, and then went still.
“You’re doing that on purpose,” Shen Lu said, not turning from the window.
The hum grew louder. Then it stopped.
A-Yu’s voice came from behind him, close enough that Shen Lu felt the cold breath of it on the back of his neck. “There’s someone at the canal. He comes every night. He’s been coming for forty years.”
Shen Lu turned. A-Yu stood in the corner of the room, half-formed, his body made of the same pale light that leaked from the lantern. He was tall for seventeen, with a narrow face and dark eyes that held too much weight. His clothes were the kind a boy might have worn four decades ago—a simple tunic, water-stained, the fabric clinging to his frame as if he had just stepped out of the river. He had been dead for a long time, and it showed in the way he moved, each gesture slow and deliberate, like a man wading through deep water.
“Every night?” Shen Lu asked.
“Every night for as long as I can remember.” A-Yu’s gaze drifted toward the window. “He stands on the bridge. The one with the cracked railing, just past the noodle shop. He waits for someone. He doesn’t know who.”
Shen Lu felt the familiar ache settle into his chest. He had seen men like that before, in the years he had spent ferrying the dead. They stood on bridges and canal banks, staring into the water, waiting for a face they could not quite recall. The Memory-Eaters had been at work long before the River God died, long before the moon began to dim. He had just never wanted to see it.
“Show me,” he said.
The Lantern District was quieter than the rest of Qianshui, if such a thing was possible. The buildings leaned toward each other like old women sharing secrets, their wooden beams warped and dark with damp. The canal here was narrow, barely wide enough for two boats to pass, and the water moved with a sluggishness that felt unnatural. Shen Lu walked beside the water, A-Yu drifting at his shoulder, a faint shimmer in the corner of his eye.
The bridge came into view. It was old, older than the district itself, its stone worn smooth by decades of rain and footsteps. The railing on the left side had cracked long ago, and someone had patched it with a length of rope and a plank of wood. A man stood at the center of the bridge, his back to them, his hands resting on the railing. He was old—seventy, maybe more—with a shock of white hair and a coat that had been mended so many times it was more patch than cloth. He did not move when they approached. He did not seem to breathe.
“That’s him,” A-Yu said. His voice was barely a whisper. “He’s always here. He never leaves before the moon rises.”
Shen Lu stepped onto the bridge. The wood groaned beneath his weight, and the old man turned. His face was a map of wrinkles, deep lines carved by years of weather and worry. His eyes were pale, almost colorless, and they looked at Shen Lu without recognition.
“Evening,” Shen Lu said.
The old man blinked. “Do I know you?”
“No. I’m just passing through.” Shen Lu leaned against the railing, careful not to put too much weight on the cracked section. “You come here often?”
“Every night.” The old man’s voice was thin, reedy, like wind through dry grass. “I’m waiting for someone.”
“Who?”
The old man’s brow furrowed. He stared at the water, his lips moving silently, as if he were testing a name he could not quite remember. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I used to know. I had it in my head, clear as day. But now…” He shook his head. “I just know I’m supposed to be here. Someone’s supposed to meet me. I can feel it.”
Shen Lu’s throat tightened. He had heard this before, in the early days of the cult’s work, when the erasures were still new and the victims still felt the hollow places where their memories had been. But those people had been young, their love stories still fresh and sharp. This man had been waiting for forty years. Forty years of standing on a bridge, watching the water, not knowing why.
“What do you remember?” Shen Lu asked. “Anything at all.”
The old man’s hands tightened on the railing. “There was a song,” he said slowly. “A song I used to hum. I don’t remember the tune, but I remember the feeling of it. Warm. Like sitting by a fire in winter.” He paused, and a tear slid down his cheek. “I don’t know why I’m crying. I haven’t cried in years.”
A-Yu moved closer, his translucent form flickering in the lamplight. He stood beside the old man, close enough to touch, though the old man could not see him. A-Yu’s face was pale, his jaw tight. He looked at the old man the way a drowning man looks at the shore.
“He was beautiful,” A-Yu said, so softly Shen Lu almost missed it. “He had a laugh that made you want to laugh too, even when you didn’t know the joke. He used to bring me tea from the shop on Willow Street. The one with the red door. He said the tea was better there, but I think he just liked the walk.”
Shen Lu’s heart stopped. “A-Yu.”
“His name was—” A-Yu stopped. His mouth opened and closed, and a look of horror crossed his face. “His name was. I had it. I had it in my mouth, and now it’s gone.”
The old man turned, as if he had heard something. His eyes scanned the empty air, searching for a face he could not see. “Is someone there?” he asked. “I thought I heard—I thought I heard a voice.”
Shen Lu forced himself to breathe. “No one’s here,” he said. “Just me.”
The old man nodded, but his eyes lingered on the spot where A-Yu stood. For a moment, Shen Lu thought he saw something flicker in those pale eyes—a spark of recognition, a memory rising to the surface. But then it was gone, and the old man turned back to the water.
“I should go,” he said. “It’s getting late. My wife will be wondering where I am.”
“Your wife?” Shen Lu asked.
The old man smiled, a thin, tired smile. “Yes. I’ve been married for thirty-eight years. Her name is—” He stopped. His brow furrowed. “Her name is. I don’t—I don’t remember.” He laughed, a hollow sound. “Funny. I was just talking to her this morning. I think. I must have been.”
He shuffled off the bridge, his steps slow and uncertain, and disappeared into the mist. Shen Lu watched him go, his hands clenched at his sides. When he turned back, A-Yu was standing at the edge of the bridge, staring at the spot where the old man had been.
“He doesn’t remember me,” A-Yu said. His voice was flat, empty. “He doesn’t remember anything.”
“He remembers the feeling,” Shen Lu said. “He remembers the song. He’s been coming here for forty years, waiting for someone he can’t name. That’s not nothing.”
A-Yu’s shoulders shook. “I was seventeen. I was supposed to meet him at the bridge. I was going to tell him—I was going to tell him that I loved him. I had it all planned. I was going to say it before he could say anything else, because I knew he would try to talk me out of it. He always thought he was too old for me, too plain, too ordinary. He never understood that I didn’t care about any of that.” A-Yu’s voice cracked. “I was on my way to the bridge when they found me. Three of them, wearing those masks. They dragged me into the water and held me under until I stopped struggling. And then they took my memories. They took my name. They took his name. They took everything.”
Shen Lu stepped forward. “A-Yu.”
“I didn’t even get to say it.” A-Yu’s form flickered, the light of his body dimming and brightening like a candle in the wind. “I spent forty years in that lantern, not knowing why I was there, not knowing who I was. And he spent forty years on that bridge, waiting for a ghost he couldn’t remember. We were both waiting. We were both waiting for the same thing, and we never got it.”
Shen Lu reached out, his hand passing through A-Yu’s shoulder. The cold bit into his palm, sharp and painful, but he did not pull away. “You’re here now,” he said. “You remember. That’s more than the cult wanted you to have.”
“What good is remembering if he can’t?” A-Yu’s voice was raw, ragged. “He’s old. He’s lived his whole life without me. He doesn’t even know I existed.”
Shen Lu had no answer. He had spent years ferrying the dead, guiding them across the canals to whatever waited on the other side. He had seen grief in all its shapes—the sharp, fresh grief of the newly bereaved, the dull, aching grief of those who had lost someone long ago. But this was different. This was grief without a name, love without a memory. It was the cruelest thing he had ever witnessed, and he had witnessed a great deal of cruelty.
“We’ll find a way,” he said, though he did not know if it was true. “We’ll find a way to give him back his memories.”
A-Yu shook his head. “You can’t. The cult doesn’t just steal memories. They destroy them. They grind them into dust and feed on the remains. There’s nothing left to give back.”
“Then we’ll make new ones.”
A-Yu looked at him, his dark eyes searching. “What?”
“You’re here,” Shen Lu said. “You’re not a ghost anymore. You’re a spirit with a name and a face and a story. You can go to him. You can talk to him. You can tell him who you are, and even if he doesn’t remember, he’ll know you. He’s been waiting for you for forty years. That has to mean something.”
A-Yu’s mouth opened, then closed. He looked at the spot where the old man had disappeared, and something shifted in his expression. It was not hope, exactly—Shen Lu did not think A-Yu was capable of hope anymore. But it was something close. Something that might grow into hope, given time.
“I don’t know how to talk to him,” A-Yu said. “I’ve been dead for forty years. I don’t know how to be alive.”
“Neither do I,” Shen Lu said. “But we’re both still trying.”
They stood on the bridge in silence, the mist curling around them. The moon was a pale smear in the sky, its light weak and uncertain. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, and a door slammed, and the city of Qianshui shifted in its sleep.
Shen Lu thought of Wei Yan, asleep in the boarding house, his chest rising and falling with the rhythm of the river. He thought of the faceless woman in her porcelain mask, speaking in the voices of everyone he had ever lost. He thought of his mother, whose face he could no longer remember, and the hollow ache that had taken up residence in his chest.
“We’re going to stop them,” he said, more to himself than to A-Yu. “We’re going to find that temple, and we’re going to tear it down, and we’re going to make sure no one else has to wait forty years for a memory that will never come back.”
A-Yu did not answer. He was staring at the water, his reflection rippling in the dark. When he spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“He used to call me Little Fish. Because I was always in the water, he said. Always swimming. Always moving. He said I was like a fish that had learned to breathe air, just so I could stay close to him.”
Shen Lu closed his eyes. The ache in his chest was almost unbearable.
“I would have stayed with him forever,” A-Yu said. “I would have followed him anywhere. I would have given up the water, the river, everything. I would have learned to live on land, just for him.”
“I know,” Shen Lu said.
A-Yu turned to him, and for the first time, his eyes were dry. “Find them,” he said. “Find the ones who did this. And when you do, make them remember. Make them remember every name they’ve stolen, every heart they’ve broken. Make them remember what they did to us.”
Shen Lu nodded. “I will.”
They walked back to the boarding house in silence, the lantern swinging at Shen Lu’s side. The hum had stopped, but the light inside the cracked glass was brighter than it had been before, burning with a fierce, steady flame. A-Yu had retreated into the lantern, but Shen Lu could feel him there, watching, waiting.
When they reached the door, Wei Yan was standing in the threshold, his dark hair loose around his shoulders. He held a cup of tea in one hand, and his eyes were fixed on Shen Lu with that quiet, searching intensity that always made Shen Lu feel like he was being read like a book.
Wei Yan raised his hand, and water rippled in the air, forming words that hung between them like a question.
*What did you see?*
Shen Lu looked at him, at the concern etched into his features, at the way his fingers tightened around the cup. He thought of the old man on the bridge, waiting for a love he could not remember. He thought of A-Yu, seventeen and drowned, his last words never spoken.
“I saw what the cult does,” Shen Lu said. “I saw what they take. And I saw what they leave behind.”
Wei Yan’s eyes softened. He set the cup down and raised his hand again, the water forming new words.
*Then we will give it back.*
Shen Lu wanted to believe him. He wanted to believe that the memories could be restored, that the old man could remember the boy who had loved him, that A-Yu could finally say the words he had been holding for forty years. But he had seen the cult’s work up close. He had felt the hollow where his mother’s face used to be. He knew that some things could not be undone.
Still, he looked at Wei Yan, at the stubborn set of his jaw, at the fire in his eyes, and he found himself nodding.
“Yes,” he said. “We will.”
The lantern flickered once, warm and golden, and then went still.