That afternoon, Old He accompanied me to the city archives.
He had a friend who worked there, and together we pulled up the car accident records from the late 1990s near Liuyin Alley. There weren't many files. After searching for over an hour, we found the yellowed document.
November 7, 1998. National Highway 207, Liuyin Alley section. A small truck crashed into the drainage ditch. Deceased: Li Ming, male, 21 years old, resident of Liuyin Alley Back Street, auto repair apprentice.
A photo was clipped inside the file. I looked at it once, and the file nearly slipped from my hands.
The photo showed the truck's cab. A coat was draped over the steering wheel, and a plastic bag sat on the passenger seat. The bag was open—inside was a pair of black cloth shoes.
Thousand-layered soles. Fine stitching. The soles worn so thin the tread patterns were invisible.
The photo was black and white, but I recognized those shoes. They were identical to the pair the man in black had placed on my wooden box.
Old He saw it too. He pointed to a detail in the corner of the photo—under the passenger seat, there was also a paper bag with three characters printed on it.
"Lao Chen Ji."
Lao Chen Ji was my grandfather's stall name. My grandfather's surname was Chen, and he repaired shoes at Liuyin Alley entrance. Everyone in the neighborhood called him Old Chen. His stall had a wooden board hanging above it, painted with red characters: "Lao Chen Ji Shoe Repair."
November 7, 1998. Li Ming drove the truck, carrying those shoes, and passed through Liuyin Alley. He'd been to Lao Chen Ji. He'd taken the shoes my grandfather had refused.
Then he died.
"This doesn't make sense," I said. "If he died in that accident with the shoes, they should have been destroyed with the truck. Why did they reappear later?"
Old He thought for a moment. "Check the accident report."
The report was brief: Vehicle steering failure, driver error, crashed into drainage ditch. Deceased died on impact. No other anomalies detected at scene.
But on the last page, there was a handwritten note, the writing scribbled like a police officer's private observation:
"Deceased was not wearing shoes. No footwear found on or near body. Family stated deceased wore black cloth shoes when leaving home, matching the shoes found in plastic bag on passenger seat. Reason for removing shoes remains unknown."
My fingers went cold.
Li Ming had worn those shoes when he left the house. But when he died, he wasn't wearing them. The shoes were in the plastic bag on the passenger seat.
He'd taken them off while driving. Or something had made him take them off.
"That pair of shoes was never burned or buried," Old He closed the file. "It's been circulating in the living world all this time. You alone have seen three identical pairs—Li Ming's in the truck, the one the man in black brought to your stall, and the one Aunt Fang took after you fixed it.
But they're all the same pair. The source is just one—those shoes left by that traveling shoemaker years ago."
"It's been looking for someone to wear it."
"Yes. Each person who wears it replaces the last."
I remembered something and pulled up the photo on my phone—the cloth shoes "Ping'an Shi Fu" had posted. In the photo, the shoes sat on an old wooden cabinet, background with 90s-style furniture, a calendar hanging on the wall showing the year 1998.
1998. The year Li Ming died.
"Ping'an Shi Fu" had said in her message that the shoes were left by a traveling shoemaker, kept by her sister. After Mingzi's accident, a fortune-teller said they were unlucky, so her sister took them to Liuyin Alley and gave them to the old shoemaker.
Which meant—after Li Ming died, the shoes returned to his aunt. His aunt took them to my grandfather.
How had my grandfather handled them?
I called my uncle again. This time I asked specifically: I'd found records of the 1998 accident, the deceased was Li Ming, and the shoes had been taken to my grandfather's stall. I wanted to know what he'd done with them.
My uncle was silent for a long time.
"Your grandfather didn't accept those shoes," he said. "When the woman brought them, your grandfather took one look and said, 'I can't take these. Take them back and burn them in a crowded place, during the day, in the sunlight.'"
"Did she burn them?"
"She did. Burned them right in front of your grandfather. At the Lao Chen Ji stall, poured gasoline, lit a match. Burned for ten minutes, turned to ash completely." My uncle said. "Afterward, she swept up the ashes and left. Your grandfather thought that was the end of it."
"What happened next?"
"That night, when your grandfather closed up, he found a pair of shoes under the stall."
"The same as the burned ones?"
"Identical. Brand new uppers. Worn-out soles."
I closed my eyes.
Can't burn it. Can't bury it. It always comes back.
"Later, your grandfather found his senior apprentice—Old He's father—and they performed a three-day ritual." My uncle said. "After the ritual, the shoes finally stopped appearing. But your grandfather never took cloth shoe repairs again. Anyone bringing cloth shoes, he'd say he couldn't fix them. Two years later, his health worsened, and he passed the stall to me."
"He passed the rule to you too."
"Yes. Worn soles, new uppers—can't fix." My uncle's voice trembled slightly. "But I never thought you'd encounter this. I thought it was just a strange thing your grandfather had experienced decades ago, never to happen again."
"Uncle, you said it took three days of ritual to send it away. How was the ritual done?"
"I don't know the details. But your grandfather mentioned something." My uncle said. "He said, to send something like this away, someone has to take its place."
"What does that mean?"
"It means someone must put on those shoes and walk its path. Only when it has a new replacement will it let go of the old one. Your grandfather refused to let an innocent person take the fall, so his senior came up with another way—using a paper effigy. The paper man wore the shoes, was burned, and that counted as taking its place."
A paper effigy took its place. But how long had that lasted? Thirty years. Thirty years later, it came back.
Back to Liuyin Alley. Back to Lao Chen Ji's stall. Found me.
"Old He," I said after hanging up. "Your father used a paper effigy once. Thirty years later, it came back. Can we use a paper effigy again?"
Old He shook his head.
"A paper effigy works once, for thirty years. The second time, it won't. It already knows the way—it recognizes whoever sits at Lao Chen Ji's stall. Your grandfather's gone, your uncle's gone. Now it's your turn."
"It doesn't recognize people. It recognizes the position."
"Yes. You sit in that seat, you become its target."
That night, I returned to the temporary apartment in the new development. Old He stayed with me until midnight before leaving. Before he went, he sprinkled a circle of white ash at my door and stuck a few talismans on the doorframe. He said these would buy some time, but not for long.
"You can't go alone tomorrow afternoon," he said.
"I have to," I said. "Aunt Fang asked for me."
"If you go, she'll put on the shoes, and you won't be you anymore."
"If she wanted to replace me, why wait until tomorrow afternoon? She could come find me anytime."
Old He was silent for a moment. "Maybe she's missing something. Maybe she needs you to go willingly."
Willingly. I suddenly remembered those three words Old Zhou had sent me on WeChat: Don't open the door.
He hadn't opened the door. But whatever was outside still got in. Because the shoes were already in his room.
The next afternoon, Liuyin Alley.
Late autumn sunlight flooded the alley, casting the locust tree's shadow on the ground. Most leaves had fallen, bare branches swaying gently in the wind. Steam rose in clouds from the steamed bun shop, oranges piled like little mountains at the fruit stall. Everything was the same as always, the same as every afternoon that had come before.
I sat in my usual spot, beside the manual shoe repair machine, the wooden box open, awls and waxed thread neatly arranged inside. The sunshade was tied to the locust tree trunk, sunlight filtering through holes in the fabric, dancing on my knees.
Aunt Fang arrived on time.
She wore that dark blue coat, her hair neatly coiled, carrying the cloth bag on her arm. She walked very lightly, each step like stepping on cotton. If you didn't look closely, she seemed no different from the day she'd come to me for shoe repairs.
But I noticed her feet.
She was wearing black cloth shoes. Thousand-layered soles, fine stitching. The soles were new, the patterns clear—the shoes I'd fixed.
She walked to my stall and sat down on the stool.
"Master Chen," she said.
"Aunt Fang."
She placed the cloth bag on her knees, hands folded on top. She looked at me, and I looked back at her. Someone rode a bike past the alley, the bell jingling, then silence returned.
"Why did you come back for me?" I asked.
Aunt Fang didn't answer directly. She looked down at the cloth shoes on her feet.
"You fixed these shoes," she said. "You did a good job. I've worn them for days, and they haven't broken at all."
"You said you'd burn them for your son."
"I intended to," Aunt Fang said. "But I put them on to try, and I couldn't take them off."
She looked up, meeting my eyes. Her irises were a deep brown, calm and still like a deep well. But something moved beneath the surface.
"Master Chen, do you know—some people's roads have ended, while others' have yet to begin. Roads connect to roads. Shoes are for walking on roads. Your craft repairs more than just shoes."
"Who are you really?"
Aunt Fang fell silent. A wind blew, causing the locust branches to sway, a few dead leaves drifting down onto the stall.
"My son's name is Li Ming," she said.
I froze.
"His name isn't Zhou Mingsheng—it's Li Ming." Aunt Fang's voice remained calm. "I lied to you. He doesn't have my surname; I'm Fang, he took his father's surname Li. He was twenty-one, working as an apprentice at the alley's auto repair shop. That night, his master sent him to deliver a repaired truck to a customer. When he left, he wore the cloth shoes I'd made for him."
"Where did those shoes come from?"
Aunt Fang's mouth twitched, as if she wanted to laugh, or cry. "Those shoes were given to me by my sister. She said a shoemaker had left them at her door, unwanted. I thought the uppers looked new, and even though the soles were worn thin they could still be fixed, so I took them back for him to wear. He put them on and walked out—never came back."
I looked at the shoes on her feet. The ones I'd fixed with my own hands.
"I made these later," Aunt Fang also looked down at her shoes. "Same material, same stitching as his. I meant to burn them for him, so he'd have shoes to wear. But I heard you can't just burn them—they need to be repaired first."
"So you found me."
"Yes. I've been looking for you for three years. Since three years ago."
"That's not right," I said. "Li Ming's accident was in 1998. That's almost thirty years ago. You said you've been looking for me for three years—what were you doing during those twenty-odd years before?"
Aunt Fang's expression changed.
It was an indescribable change. Her features didn't move, but the entire quality of her face shifted suddenly. Like a thin film being peeled away, revealing what lay beneath.
"During those twenty-odd years," she said slowly, "I was walking."
"Walking?"
"Walking. Walking a very long road. Soles wearing thin, one pair after another." Her voice grew softer, farther away. "I kept walking, kept walking, but couldn't find my way. Then someone told me—I needed to retrieve the shoes I'd made. So I came back."
I stared at her face—the face of a woman in her fifties, calm and still, but the things in her eyes had changed.
"Aunt Fang—are you still alive?"
She didn't answer.
A sudden wind swept through the alley. Not a natural wind—no direction, blowing from all sides at once. The locust branches shook violently, the sunshade's rope snapped, the canopy swirling into the air before falling into the middle of the alley.
Oranges rolled across the ground from the fruit stall, the steamed bun shop's steamer lid was blown off, a cloud of scalding steam billowing upward.
Everyone on the street stopped for a moment, looking around, then hurried away.
Only Aunt Fang remained motionless on the stool. The wind blew a few strands of her coiled hair loose, but her body didn't move.
"You fixed my shoes," she said, her voice cutting through the wind. "So I have a way back."
She stood up.
The moment she stood, I saw the cloth shoes on her feet change. The tread patterns on the soles began to fade, as if invisible sandpaper was grinding them away. One by one, the patterns disappeared, the soles growing thinner, flatter, until they were smooth as mirrors. But the uppers remained new, the black fabric glowing faintly in the wind.
Identical to the pair I'd seen that first day.
"But I'm not going back," Aunt Fang said. "You walk my road instead."
She walked toward me. My legs felt nailed to the ground—I couldn't move. Her hand emerged from the cloth bag, not holding shoes, but a photo. The same photo she'd shown me the first time—the black-and-white picture, yellowed at the edges, the young man in a white shirt smiling faintly at the camera.
She flipped the photo over.
Written on the back was a line of text, the handwriting fresh as if just written.
"Chen Dong, Lao Chen Ji Shoe Repair, Liuyin Alley, 2026."
My name. My stall. This year.
"Every shoemaker's name appears on the back of this photo," Aunt Fang said. "Your grandfather's name is there, your uncle's name is there, and now yours."
"My grandfather's name is on there too?"
"Yes. First line."
I suddenly understood. That ritual hadn't sent it away—the paper effigy hadn't been enough. It had been waiting all along, waiting for someone to sit at Lao Chen Ji's stall, waiting for the next shoemaker. My grandfather had held it at bay for thirty years, then my uncle, then me.
"Come," Aunt Fang's voice was soft, as if coming from very far away. "Put on the shoes. Walk my road."
My vision blurred. The alley, the locust tree, the stall—everything faded. I looked down at my feet, and the tread patterns on my sneakers began to disappear.
At that moment, a sharp pain shot through my wrist.
I looked down—it was the watch I'd worn for eight years. Leather strap, passed down from my grandfather to my uncle to me. The dial had yellowed, it didn't keep perfect time, but I'd always worn it.
The strap suddenly tightened. The leather band seemed to come alive, constricting my wrist, digging into the flesh.
The pain cleared my head for a moment.
"I'll walk for him," a voice said from behind me.
Old He walked toward the alley entrance. He was carrying something—a paper effigy, life-sized, wearing paper clothes, with painted features. On its feet were paper shoes.
Old He placed the effigy in front of my stall.
"Chen Dong," he looked into my eyes. "The day you fixed those shoes, it started coming for you. But I'm from the He family—my father helped your grandfather once, now it's my turn. A paper effigy won't work, but a person can."
"Old He—"
"I'm not walking for you," Old He said. "I'm sending it back where it belongs."
He straightened the effigy, pulling a box of matches from his pocket. His hands were shaking, but his movements were steady.
Aunt Fang turned to look at Old He. For the first time, her expression faltered.
"You can't send me away," she said.
"Can't send you away," Old He struck the match. "But I can cut your road."
The match touched the effigy. Flames erupted, consuming the effigy from the feet up—legs, then body. The paper clothes curled and distorted in the fire, the painted face melting away. Those paper shoes burned fastest, turning to ash in an instant.
Aunt Fang screamed.
It wasn't a human scream. High-pitched, thin, like metal scraping glass. Every window in the alley shook, leaves raining down from the locust tree like a storm.
The cloth shoes on her feet began to burn. Not from the outside, but from within. The soles caught fire first, then the flames spread up the ankles, calves, knees. Her body grew increasingly transparent in the firelight, fading away.
Finally, she scattered into a cloud of ash.
The ash fell to the ground, swirling toward the alley entrance, carried by the wind. One piece of ash landed on my wooden box. I looked down—embedded in the ash was a fragment of the black-and-white photo. Half a face remained visible—the young man in the white shirt, still smiling faintly.
Then the ash too was scattered by the wind.
Silence returned to the alley. Sunlight streamed down again, bright as before, unchanged. The steamed bun shop owner bent to pick up the steamer lid, Aunt Zhao chased rolling oranges across the street.
Everything was normal.
I looked down at my feet. Gray sneakers. Tread patterns clear. Nothing had changed.
Old He stood in front of my stall, still holding the matchbox. His face was pale, forehead covered in sweat, but he was smiling.
"Your grandfather owed my father a favor," he said. "Now we're even."
I opened my mouth to speak, but my throat tightened, no sound coming out.
Old He waved and turned toward the alley entrance. After a few steps, he stopped and looked back:
"Oh, and Old Zhou's fine. He's in a safe place I arranged. He'll be back in a couple days."
With that, he walked away. Step by step, not fast, not slow, turning the corner at the alley entrance and disappearing into the afternoon sunlight.
That evening when I closed up, I searched the bottom of my wooden box thoroughly. No shoes. Nothing. The towel covered nothing but a few spare rubber soles.
I leaned against the locust tree and sat for a long time. The bark was rough, digging into my back. Sparrows chirped in the branches above, children chased each other in the alley, the steamed bun shop's lights came on, casting orange light on the opposite wall.
I spread my palms and looked at my hands—eight years of shoe repair. Calluses on my fingers, black shoe polish and glue under my nails. These hands had fixed thousands upon thousands of shoes, new and old, expensive and cheap.
If anyone ever brings shoes with worn-out soles and new uppers again, I'll still say those words.
Can't fix them.
But when I say it, I'll remember Old Zhou, my grandfather, Old He, and that woman who scattered into flames. She'd searched for her son's path for thirty years—and finally found me.
I stood up and began packing. The machine went into the wooden box, awls returned to their places, stools stacked. The sunshade's rope was broken, so I rolled it up and leaned it against the tree trunk. I'd find a new rope tomorrow.
The alley lights came on, casting the locust tree's shadow on the ground. I stared at the shadow for a moment, confirming it was only the tree.
No one stood beneath it.
I picked up the wooden box and walked down Liuyin Alley toward my home. Behind me, the alley grew quieter, the streetlamp stretching my shadow long.
Halfway there, I stopped.
Looking down at my feet.
The outer edge of my right shoe was more worn than the left. Normal—I've always walked with my feet turned out.
I stared at the soles for a long time. The streetlamp's light was dim, but the tread patterns were still there, line by line, clear.
I kept walking.
Step by step, not fast, not slow. The same as every evening when I close up and go home.
But suddenly, the road beneath my feet felt harder than usual. I couldn't say why—just that something felt off.
I didn't look down again.
Sometimes, not knowing is better than knowing.
Back at my place, I took a shower and lay in bed. My phone screen lit up—a message from my uncle.
"Dongzi, is everything handled?"
I typed four characters: "It's done."
After sending the message, I placed the phone beside my pillow. Closing my eyes, I listened to the sounds outside—a dog barked twice downstairs, someone walking it; an ambulance siren wailed in the distance; next door, someone talked on the balcony, voices indistinct, as if discussing what to eat.
These sounds were ordinary, familiar, reassuring.
Listening, I drifted toward sleep.
Half-asleep, I thought I heard a sound.
Very soft—like fabric brushing against the ground. Once, twice, in a steady rhythm.
Like someone walking.
Step by step, coming from the alley entrance direction.
I tried to open my eyes, but sleep weighed too heavily. The sound grew closer, clearer. The soft, rustling sound of cloth shoe soles on asphalt.
It stopped beneath my window.
Then a very, very soft sigh. So faint it was like wind through a crack in the door.
"The soles are worn thin again," the voice said.
I jolted awake.
Outside, the streetlamp's light filtered through the curtains, casting faint patches on the ceiling. The room was silent. No footsteps, no sigh—nothing.
I sat up, walked to the window, and pulled back the curtain.
The street below was empty. Dim streetlights illuminated the quiet alley, locust branches swaying gently in the wind.
As I turned to go back to bed, my peripheral vision caught something on the windowsill.
Something was sitting there.
I looked down.
My heart stopped.
It was a piece of leather. Black, palm-sized, edges neatly cut. Shoe repair leather. Identical to the pieces in my wooden box.
But I couldn't remember bringing it home.
I stared at the leather for a long time. It lay quietly on the windowsill, as if it had always been there.
Wind blew through the window crack, lifting the curtain slightly.
I didn't reach for the leather. I closed the window, drew the curtain, and returned to bed.
Closing my eyes.
I don't know how long passed before the streetlamp outside went out. The room went completely dark. I lay in the darkness, eyes open, listening to my heartbeat.
One. Two. Three.
I reached for the watch on the nightstand. The leather strap was warm. Still there.
I held the watch in my hand and closed my eyes.
It wasn't dawn yet.
But dawn would come.
---
The End