"Squeal creaaak!!!
The cart came rolling in at noon.
One wheel wobbled with a squeal that made the village dogs bark, and its frame creaked with the sound of old nails and long miles. A copper bell jingled faintly on the ox's collar as it pulled the cart past Qinghe's southern path and came to a halt at the central square.
Dust curled behind it like smoke.
Yun Long was crouched near the stream at the time, fishing pebbles out of the water.
He only looked up when the bell rang again.
---
"I didn't hear about a caravan today," said Elder Hu, stepping from his teahouse.
"Neither did I," replied a woman weaving baskets nearby. She squinted at the cart. "It's only one."
The merchant hopped down slowly. He was tall and thin, with sleeves too long for his arms and a straw hat that hung low enough to hide his eyes.
But his voice was cheerful.
"Good day, good folk!" he called. "My wheels may squeak, but my prices sing."
No one laughed.
The villagers approached with the cautious politeness of rural people. Old Yun arrived just as a small crowd had formed.
The merchant spread a cloth and began to set out items: polished bone whistles, tiny incense jars, thread bundles of every color, toys carved from cloudwood, simple talismans etched with curling script and every other thing else.
---
Yun Long drifted closer, as children do. His hands were muddy, and his knees scraped. He didn't notice the merchant watching him from beneath the straw hat.
"Little one," the merchant said softly, "find anything you like?"
Yun Long stared at the table. His eyes caught a smooth stone — dull silver, about the size of a date pit — carved with a tiny spiral.
"I like that."
"Ah." The merchant picked it up. "This one?" He let the light shine through it.
It was just a stone. Nothing more.
But for a single moment, it pulsed warm in the man's hand — so faintly no one noticed.
Except the merchant.
He tilted his head confused. "Strange…"
Yun Long tilted his head too. "What?"
The man smiled. "Just old hands playing tricks."
---
Old Yun stepped in behind the boy and looked over his shoulder.
"Not from any province I know," he said, pointing to the spiral. "Where are you from?"
"South," the merchant said. "Very far south."
Old Yun frowned. "Far south of what?"
The merchant's smile didn't change. "Everything."
He handed the stone to Yun Long. "A gift. No charge."
Yun Long blinked excited. "Really?"
"Really, For being the only child I've seen all day who hasn't asked for sweets."
Yun Long beamed. "Thank you!"
He slipped the stone into his small pouch and ran back toward home, shouting that he was going to show his mother.
---
The merchant watched him run off smiling at the child innocence.
His fingers tapped the cart's edge — once, twice, then paused.
A young man beside the basket-seller whispered, "Who is he?"
"Don't know," she replied. "He said he's just passing through."
A moment later, she added, "But I've never seen his kind of ox before."
---
That night, Old Yun sat beside the hearth and puffed on his pipe.
Madam Su stirred a pot of soup and glanced at him.
"He gave Long'er a gift?"
Old Yun nodded.
"What kind of merchant gives things for free?"
"Well am just as confused as you are...maybe he's just that kind" he answered simply as he watched the flame.
Inside his pouch, Yun Long slept with his straw chicken tucked under his arm. The stone lay forgotten, tucked beneath his pillow.
And in the night, for the briefest moment, it glowed — a single spiral of light no wider than a strand of hair.
It faded before morning.
---