He was up before the birds.
This was not difficult.
He had been waking before dawn for thirty years out of habit, and the habit had apparently survived the transfer into a smaller body without any trouble at all.
His eyes opened in the dark.
His mind was immediately and completely alert.
He lay still for exactly the amount of time it took him to remember where he was and why.
Then he got up, put on his outer robe, and went to find the axe.
It was leaning against the woodpile behind Chen Yulan's house. He found it by following the smell of dried wood and the thin grey light that preceded dawn.
The woodpile was substantial — she had been collecting through the summer — but the logs were uncut, stacked in rough rounds that were no use for a cooking fire.
Someone had apparently been meaning to split them for some time without quite getting around to it.
He picked up the axe.
It was heavier than he expected.
The body of a ten-year-old boy, it turned out, had certain practical limitations that his fifty-two-year-old mind had not fully accounted for.
He adjusted his grip.
Set the first log on the splitting block.
Swung.
The axe bounced off the side of the log and he nearly lost his footing.
He set the log up again.
Adjusted his stance.
Swung with more attention to form than force.
Better.
Not good — but better.
The log split about two-thirds of the way through and required a second strike to finish.
He noted the angle.
The position of his feet.
The distribution of his weight.
He had never chopped wood in his life — scholars did not, as a rule, chop wood — but he had read extensively about physical labor in military training manuals and agricultural records.
He acknowledged that this was not quite the same thing.
But it gave him a theoretical framework.
By the tenth log he was finding a rhythm.
By the twentieth he had stopped thinking about it consciously and let the rhythm do the thinking for him.
The sky lightened from black to grey to the pale washed color that came just before the sun cleared the eastern ridge.
His arms ached.
He stacked the split wood neatly against the wall, each piece fitted carefully so the stack would not lean.
Then he stood back to examine the result with the critical eye of a man who had promised not to stack it like he was angry at it.
It looked correct.
Possibly even good.
"You're bleeding."
He turned.
Chen Yulan stood in her doorway in her sleeping robe, white hair loose, holding a cup of something hot that steamed gently in the morning air.
She was looking at his hands.
He looked down.
A blister on his right palm had split open during the last few logs.
He had not noticed.
He considered this information.
"It's fine," he said.
"Come inside."
"It really is fine —"
"Come inside, Lin Chu."
He went inside.
She cleaned and wrapped his hand with the brisk efficiency of someone who had treated injuries for decades and had no patience for people pretending not to be injured.
He sat on the stool and let her work.
It stung considerably more than he would have expected from a blister.
"You've never chopped wood before," she said.
Not a question.
"I have now," he said.
"That is not the same thing."
"No," he agreed. "But most skills start that way."
She tied off the wrapping and looked at him with sharp dark eyes.
"Your father was a carpenter."
"He was."
"And he never taught you to use an axe."
"He was going to," he said.
This was true. The borrowed memory included a patient man who had been saving the teaching for when the boy was older — which the boy had not had the chance to become.
"He ran out of time."
Something shifted in her expression.
She patted the back of his wrapped hand once, briefly.
Then she stood and went to the stove.
"Congee is almost ready," she said in her normal tone. "Wash your face."
He washed his face.
After breakfast he walked to the market town.
It was called Qinghe — Clear River — which was more ambitious than Wuming but not entirely inaccurate.
A river did run along its eastern edge, and on dry days it was reasonably clear.
The walk took just under two hours at a child's pace.
He noted this carefully.
He would need to manage this route in worse weather.
And with loads to carry.
He went for three reasons.
First, to understand what was available and at what price.
Before making decisions, establish the facts.
Second, to sell something.
In his sleeve, wrapped in cloth, he carried five sheets of paper covered in his own handwriting — copies of three farming almanac passages and two simple land contract templates written from memory that morning.
In Wuming, people relied on memory or on the headman to record agreements.
That meant the headman controlled what was officially remembered.
In his experience, people with that kind of power were not always careful with it.
Third — most practically — to buy medicine.
Chen Yulan's cough was not serious.
He was almost certain.
But almost certain was not certain.
He had arranged enough medicines in his previous life to know that treatment should begin before things became urgent.
The physician's shop was easy to find.
Dried herbs hung in bundles near the doorway.
The scent hit him immediately.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, breathing it in.
The physician was a woman in her fifties with grey hair, ink-stained fingers, and the slight squint of someone who read small characters in poor light.
She was grinding something at her worktable.
"Wait your turn," she said, without looking up.
"There is no one else."
"Of course," he said — and waited.
After a moment, she looked up.
A thin ten-year-old boy stood very quietly, hands folded, watching her work with calm attentiveness.
This was not what she had expected.
She set down her pestle.
"What do you need?"
"Something for an elderly woman's chest cough," he said.
"Dry cough, mostly at night and early morning. No fever. No change in sputum. Seventy years old, generally healthy, but some lower back weakness since summer. I suspect autumn air affecting the exterior wei qi."
She stared at him.
"Who taught you that?"
"I read a great deal."
She studied him.
Then she turned to her shelves.
"Your assessment is reasonable. If her back has been weak, kidney qi deficiency may be contributing. I'll prepare something that supports both lung and kidney."
"That would be ideal."
"For ten days — eight copper coins."
He had seventeen.
He calculated immediately.
Eight for medicine.
Nine remaining.
Two perhaps for food.
Seven reserve.
Manageable.
"I also have written materials," he added. "Almanac copies. Contract templates. Clean characters. Standard format."
She looked at him again.
"You write contracts."
"Yes."
"How old are you?"
"Ten."
"Show me."
He unfolded the pages.
She examined them carefully — not politely, but critically — tracing characters with her finger.
"These are correct," she said, sounding faintly annoyed about it.
"Yes."
"Where did you learn to write like this?"
"My father taught me."
Plausible. Not entirely false.
She looked at him a long time.
Then counted out four copper coins.
"I'll take the contract templates. The town scribes charge twice this for worse work."
He accepted without reaction.
Internally, he adjusted future pricing.
"If you need more, I can copy texts," he said. "Accurately."
Another pause.
"Come back in five days. I have a water-damaged materia medica volume. If you can reconstruct sections properly, I'll pay you well."
"I'll need to see it first."
"Obviously."
Conversation over.
He left with medicine in hand.
Four coins gained.
Eight spent.
Twenty-one total.
He bought a pork bun for one coin.
Because he was ten.
And his body had opinions.
Then he walked back to Wuming.
He handed the medicine to Chen Yulan that evening.
She turned it over in her hands.
"Where did you get money for this?"
"I sold writing."
"What writing?"
"Contract templates. The physician in Qinghe bought them."
She examined the physician's seal.
Real medicine.
Not a street remedy.
"I don't have a cough," she said.
"You cough three times before sleep and twice in the morning," he replied. "Dry. Increasing with the cold. Not serious yet. Easier to treat now."
Silence.
"You sound like a physician."
"I read a great deal."
She watched him.
Re-evaluating.
"The dosage?"
"Half measure steeped at night and morning. Return by day seven if no improvement."
Another silence.
Then she placed the medicine on the shelf.
And put the kettle on.
"Sit down. Dinner is almost ready."
He sat.
He watched her move around the kitchen.
The medicine now resting beside her ceramic jars as if it had always belonged there.
As if an orphan bringing her medicine was simply an ordinary thing.
"Can you teach me to make dumplings?" he asked.
She turned slowly.
"Why?"
"I never learned properly."
True. In both lives.
She studied him.
"After harvest," she said. "When there's time."
Not a yes.
But the kind of not-yes that meant yes.
"I understand," he said.
She made a small dismissive sound and ladled soup into bowls.
Twenty copper coins.
A physician appointment in five days.
Medicine for a cough not yet serious.
A promise of dumpling lessons someday.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
End of Chapter 3