Have you ever had those days? You know something's broken, but can't say exactly what. Early June, the plane tree leaves shouldn't be yellowing—but that old tree on the street corner was half-yellow.
Yellowed quietly, like someone had sprayed the whole tree with matte paint while you weren't looking. You pass by every day, never notice a thing. Until one day you stop and look closely, and your heart skips.
Xu Le first noticed that plane tree on June 3rd. He came out of his shop to take out trash. When the bin lid lifted, his peripheral vision caught the tree across the street. He froze for a moment.
His memory wasn't bad. That tree had only sprouted buds in April, bright green—he'd stood at the window table and watched it for a while. How had it turned yellow two months later?
He dumped the trash, stood at the shop door and looked twice more. The hardware store owner next door dragged out a recliner to cool off, glanced along his line of sight. "Heat turned it yellow, probably. This weather." The hardware store owner opened the recliner and collapsed into it. Xu Le didn't answer, went back inside.
Duozui stood on the beam, looking down at him. This blue-and-gold macaw was quieter than he'd expected. Most days it couldn't even get out a few sentences, spent most of its time perching on the beam dozing.
When Xu Le first took over the shop, he'd worried the parrot would be noisy. The previous owner had waved it off: "It's lazy. Ten days or half a month without opening its mouth is normal." Truly lazy—Duozui's most common activity was tilting its head to watch people, amber eyes tracking customers as they moved, like a silent surveillance camera.
The previous owner's surname was Zheng, early sixties, graying hair, spoke with a Fujian accent.
When he transferred this "Brazilian-Themed Coffee Shop," he explained everything clearly: how to maintain the espresso machine, which supplier to get Brazilian beans from, that the hand-painted porcelain cups were stored in a cabinet and needed gentle handling. And Duozui.
"If Duozui lands on a customer's table," Boss Zheng had pointed at the beam, "the teacup those guests used must be smashed. Not a single piece can remain."
Xu Le was squatting on the ground taking inventory when he looked up: "Why?"
Boss Zheng didn't answer immediately. He wiped the cup with the blue macaw painted on it at the bar, flipped it over to check the mark on the bottom, and gently set it back. "You'll find out when you've done it," he said. "Don't ask too much. Just remember."
At the time Xu Le thought this old man was probably into some superstition. But the shop was transferred to him without extra cost. He just agreed to this one rule.
He nodded. Boss Zheng looked at him for a moment, then suddenly grinned, showing a set of smoke-stained teeth: "Actually smashing cups isn't the hard part. What you have to fear is after smashing them... some cups shouldn't have existed in the first place."
Xu Le didn't understand. Boss Zheng didn't explain either, grabbed a canvas bag and left. Before leaving, he tapped Duozui's cage and said: "Old friend, you watch this shop well."
Duozui had tilted its head at the time, pecked the beam twice with its beak.
That was last November. Seven months now, Xu Le had smashed nearly thirty cups. Every cup's fragments were wrapped in kraft paper and placed in cardboard boxes under the counter. The boxes had grown from one to three. The third one was almost full.
The first cup he'd smashed belonged to an old man who came for American coffee every Tuesday afternoon. Xu Le didn't know the old man's surname, only that he always sat by the window, reading a newspaper with curled edges.
The day Duozui landed on his table, Xu Le was doing pour-over coffee behind the bar. He looked up and saw the blue-and-yellow shadow drop down, a chill ran down his back. When he walked over, the old man was still smiling, saying what a beautiful parrot, could he take a photo.
Xu Le waited until the old man finished his coffee and left, then picked up that cup painted with an anteater. Inside the rim was a hairline crack that hadn't been there last night when he washed it.
He smashed the cup. The old man never came back.
About a week later, Xu Le was scrolling his phone and saw a local news push. An elderly man in the east district had suffered a sudden heart attack while waiting at a bus stop. Died despite rescue. The date, pushed back three days, was exactly the day the old man last came to the shop.
The news had a blurry photo of the scene, but Xu Le saw the old man clutching a folded newspaper, edges curled.
He didn't look further. Flipped his phone face down on the bar and stood there for a moment. Duozui flapped its wings once on the beam.
From then on, he never hesitated about smashing cups. No matter how beautiful the cup, if Duozui landed on it and the guest left, he smashed it. Wu Hai stuck his head out from the kitchen and asked once, then stopped asking. Wu Hai had worked at this shop for three years—he was there when Boss Zheng was still running it, already used to it.
But some things can't get used to. Like the increasing number of smashed cups. Xu Le had tallied the cups he'd smashed in these seven months: four in March, six in April, nine in May. June was only a week old and he'd already smashed seven.
The frequency was increasing, doubling. Fragments in the cardboard boxes piled up to the brim. When he squatted under the counter flipping through those kraft paper packages, he always felt something moving at the bottom of the box. It was an illusion, but the feeling got more real each time.
On the afternoon of June 7th, a woman in a gray windbreaker came to the shop.
Xu Le was wiping the bar when the doorbell rang. He looked up and met the woman's eyes. She was thirty-five or -six, hair casually tied, face a bit pale. She chose the booth on the side of the bar, sat down and placed her phone on the table, screen face down.
Xu Le recognized her. She'd come last Friday, sat by the window at that time, and Duozui had flown down from the beam to land on her table. The woman had clearly been startled, pulling herself back. Duozui stood for about ten seconds then flew back. The woman immediately got up and changed seats.
There were many people in the shop that day, Xu Le didn't have time to go over. Later when clearing the table, he found her coffee was only half drunk.
"Still hot American?"
The woman paused, clearly didn't expect the boss to remember her order. "Yes. Hot American."
Xu Le turned to make the coffee. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Duozui on the beam move its claws. That blue-and-yellow shadow shifted two inches from the middle of the beam to the left, head lowered, facing the booth direction. A chill crawled slowly up his spine. Xu Le shook his hand and continued making the coffee.
"Coffee's ready." Wu Hai carried out a plate of newly baked Basque cake from the kitchen, put the finished American on the tray. "That woman was here last week, right?"
"Yeah." Xu Le carried the tray over. When he placed the coffee down, the woman's phone screen lit up briefly. On the screen was a child's photo—an eight-year-old boy, missing a front tooth, smiling so his eyes crinkled. The woman flipped the phone face down on the table, thanked him.
"You were here last Friday. We were busy, didn't take good care of you." Xu Le stood by, wiping the bar.
"Just passing through." The woman picked up her coffee and sipped, hand trembling a little. "Boss... that parrot of yours... still here?"
"Yes, name's Duozui. Doesn't bite."
"I know." The woman put down the cup, fingertips drawing two lines on the cup wall. "It landed on my table last Friday. I was a bit afraid of birds, so I changed seats. Later I thought... it was actually quite pretty."
Xu Le made an mm-hmm. Duozui let out a low gurgle on the beam, like it had water in its throat. Xu Le looked up at it. It had already moved to the far left of the beam, less than two meters above the booth.
"Boss," the woman suddenly stopped him, "do you believe in fate?"
The rag in Xu Le's hand paused. He'd heard this kind of question a lot since taking over the coffee shop, but most customers were just chatting. This woman's tone was different—flat, like stating something unrelated to herself.
"Why do you ask?"
"My son was diagnosed with leukemia last year," the woman said, picking up her coffee and drinking again. "Last Friday I passed by here, saw the parrot on the sign and came in. My son loved parrots when he was little. He could be happy for days after seeing one at the zoo."
She paused, looking at the dark brown liquid in her cup. "That night the hospital called—said they found a bone marrow match. We'd waited eight months."
Xu Le stood behind the bar without moving. Duozui had already moved down from the end of the beam, claws gripping the wooden crossbar, creeping step by step toward the booth. Its beak slightly opened, throat making that fine, almost inaudible clicking sound.
"That's great," Xu Le said. "Finding a match is great news."
The woman smiled, faintly. "It is. But I suddenly thought today—what if I hadn't come in for that coffee last Friday?" She looked up at Xu Le. "What if I hadn't passed by, hadn't seen that parrot, hadn't come in—would the match still have come?"
Xu Le didn't know how to answer. Duozui had now reached the end of the beam. It spread its wings and flew down with a flutter, landing on the booth backrest. The woman's whole body stiffened, but she didn't move.
Duozui hopped onto the table, stepped over the phone, and walked to the coffee cup. It tilted its head to look at the cup, amber eyes turned once, then lowered its head and gently pecked twice at the cup rim.
"No big deal," Duozui said. (*Sheshui la*—its favorite Cantonese phrase picked up from some customer.)
Xu Le strode over to shoo Duozui away, but Duozui flapped its wings and flew back to the beam before him. The whole process took less than five seconds, fast like nothing had happened.
The woman looked down at her coffee cup. A third of the coffee remained. The orange-yellow pattern of the bare-necked stork was half submerged by dark brown liquid. She reached for the cup, flipped it to look at the bottom, then put it down.
"It pecked," the woman said.
Xu Le stood by the table. "It's like that sometimes. Beak idle."
The woman didn't answer. She sat in silence for a while, finished the remaining coffee, took out her phone to scan and pay. Xu Le noticed her WeChat avatar was that grinning boy with the missing front tooth, eyes crinkled from smiling.
"Boss," the woman called back from the door, "if I come again tomorrow or the day after, will you still welcome me?"
"Of course."
The doorbell tinkled, gray windbreaker flashed outside. Afternoon sunlight poured in through the glass door, illuminating that line of water stains on the floor. Xu Le stared at the bare-necked stork cup on the table for a long time. A thin ring of coffee stain remained at the bottom, the stork's long legs stuck in it.
Duozui stood on the beam preening its wings. That left blue feather lifted a bit, then smoothed back down.
"Wu Hai," Xu Le called, "pull up the surveillance footage from last Friday."
Wu Hai came out of the kitchen wiping his hands. "What happened?"
"Play back last Friday around two in the afternoon. That woman in the gray windbreaker by the window."
The surveillance footage had average pixels, but watchable. Xu Le dragged the timeline to 2:27 PM last Friday. The woman pushed open the door—gray windbreaker, complexion similar to today.
She sat by the window, ordered, then looked down at her phone. At 2:34 PM, Duozui flew down from the beam to land on the table. The woman pulled herself back. Duozui stood beside the cup without moving.
The woman glanced at her phone screen, then got up and changed seats. Duozui flew back to the beam the moment she stood up.
Xu Le watched this segment four times. Duozui was on the table for about a dozen seconds. It didn't peck the cup, just stood there. The woman glanced at her phone once, and after that glance she changed seats.
"She said the match call came that night," Xu Le frowned. "But look here—the phone lit up briefly."
Wu Hai leaned closer to look. "She didn't answer. Could have been a WeChat message or text."
"What WeChat message makes someone immediately change seats? She clearly said she changed seats because she was afraid of birds."
Wu Hai paused, couldn't answer. Xu Le froze the frame at the moment Duozui landed on the table—blue-and-yellow wings slightly spread, beak two-three centimeters from the cup rim. No pecking.
But today it pecked.
"Last Friday it only landed. Today it pecked," Xu Le said.
Wu Hai rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know." Xu Le turned off the surveillance, leaned against the bar. "Did Boss Zheng leave anything behind? Besides the shop's things?"
Wu Hai thought about it. "There was an iron box, on the top shelf of the kitchen storage room. He said you should look at it when you have time. I forgot to tell you."
Xu Le stepped on a stool to reach the iron box. Palm-sized, heavily rusted, the lid was stuck—he pried it open with a screwdriver. Inside was a stack of yellowed paper, handwritten, scrawled characters.
First page, only one line: July 97, seventeen cups smashed.
Second page: February 98, smashed twenty-one boxes, boxes couldn't fit anymore. I restocked from Sao Paulo.
Xu Le flipped page by page. Boss Zheng's handwriting got messier toward the back, mixed with place names and dates. One page had a rough sketch, the beam's position marked with an X, next to it: It doesn't sleep in a cage, only on the beam. Don't lock it up.
Another page had a paragraph, characters crowded together: Cups are just containers, like coffee cups. Karma poured in, cup filled, Duozui saw it. Smashing isn't throwing away—it's locking the overflowing karma in the fragments. But what to do when the boxes are full, I haven't figured out yet.
Xu Le read this paragraph twice. At the bottom of the box was a folded paper. Opened it, an invoice printed with a line of Portuguese text, with a handwritten translation below: Sao Paulo, Clara Street No. 17, Porcelain Workshop.
Date was 2003. Another line in smaller text below: Workshop boss said each cup had a parrot feather placed in it when fired. Another line, fainter, like added much later: Workshop boss understands the flow of karma. Even separated by mountains and seas, she can glimpse the fate sealed in fragments.
Xu Le flipped the invoice over. On the back was a simple sketch of a parrot, lines very old.
Next to it: Duozui was found in the rainforest next to the workshop in 2001. Its wing was injured, couldn't fly. The workshop boss said this bird wouldn't live long. I kept it for half a month, and it lived.
Later I discovered it could see some things. Duozui can only observe and bear overflowing karma, has no power to change human fate, but it can nudge fate's crossroads a tiny bit.
Xu Le closed the iron box. The storage room wasn't lit, dark. Wind from the vent carried a chill. He stood there for a while, put the box back on the shelf. When he came out, Wu Hai was wiping cups behind the bar.
"Boss Zheng left this?"
"Yeah." Xu Le walked to the bar, looking at the three cardboard boxes. "He said fragments accumulate, and when they're full he doesn't know what to do."
Wu Hai paused with the cup in his hand. "So what do we do now?"
Xu Le didn't answer. He squatted down and lifted the box lid. The kraft paper packages inside were piled up to the brim. He opened several to look. Flipped to the May and June fragments, and found brown patterns on the back starting to branch out. The more branches, the deeper the pattern.
He picked out those fragments with three-pronged patterns and laid them side by side on the bar. Five pieces total, from five different cups, guests all different. But the shape at the end of the pattern was almost identical—three prongs, branching angle very uniform, like some kind of symbol.
While he was looking, the doorbell rang.
Xu Le looked up. Gray windbreaker pushed the door open. The woman's face was paler than in the afternoon, lips had little color. When she walked to the bar, she stumbled a bit, propped herself on the counter to steady herself.
"Boss, did I leave something here this afternoon?"
Xu Le shook his head. "No, you left after drinking."
The woman frowned and thought for a moment. "After I left... did that parrot land on my table?"
Xu Le looked at her eyes. "Yes."
"Did it peck the cup?"
"It did."
The woman closed her eyes, let out a long breath. She took out her phone, swiped to unlock and handed it to Xu Le. On the screen was a text message, from a Brazil number with +55 area code. Only four words: Cup broken, don't be afraid.
Xu Le looked at those four words. Fine goosebumps rose on the back of his neck. He checked the send time: 3:42 PM today, about forty minutes after the woman left. "Who is this?"
"I don't know," the woman shook her head. "I only saw it when I got home. At first I thought it was spam, but the area code is Brazil. I don't know anyone in Brazil."
As she spoke, her fingers tapped lightly on the bar surface twice. "Boss, I told you this afternoon that my son's match was found. Later when I got home, the hospital called again—said the donor backed out."
The phone in Xu Le's hand felt heavier.
"When I sat here this afternoon, my heart was racing," the woman stared at him. "Last Friday Duozui landed on my table, and that night the match came. Today it landed again, and pecked the cup. Boss, tell me the truth—what's really going on with that parrot in your shop?"
Xu Le gave her back the phone. He didn't know how to start. He turned and took out the fragments of that bare-necked stork cup from under the counter. The largest piece, flipped over, had a light brown pattern on the back, winding from the edge inward, ending in three prongs.
He placed the fragment on the bar, pushed it toward the woman. "Smashed after you drank this afternoon. This cup had no crack before it was broken."
The woman looked down for a long time. Her hand slowly raised, fingertips hovering above the fragment, didn't touch. "This shape..." her voice tightened, "when my son was diagnosed, the doctor showed us a bone marrow aspiration report. There was a diagram on it—this exact pattern."
"Chromosome abnormality?"
The woman looked up at him. "How do you know?"
Xu Le pointed at the three prongs on the fragment. "You just said it."
The woman picked up the fragment and held it up to the light, lips pressed into a line. She looked for a long time. When she put it down, her fingers were trembling. "Boss, this cup was used by me. Duozui pecked it, and you smashed it. Then this appeared in the fragments. What does this mean?"
Xu Le didn't know. He remembered that line in Boss Zheng's notes—cup filled, Duozui saw it. Smashing locks the overflowing karma in the fragments. What is karma? Is it a person's fate? Or the crossroads within that fate?
He subconsciously glanced at the beam. Duozui crouched in the dim dusk light, amber eyes fixed on the bar. That feather at the root of its left wing was slightly lifted, revealing a bit of dark red underneath—almost invisible in the shadow not reached by the light.
The woman suddenly put down the fragment. "I need to go back." She grabbed her phone and headed for the door. After two steps she stopped. "The hospital said the donor backed out this afternoon, but right before I came out, they called again."
Xu Le looked at her.
"I didn't answer," the woman said. "Afraid it would be bad news again."
She stood by the door. Sunset slanted in through the glass door, painting half her face orange-red. Pedestrians passed by on the street outside, some carrying vegetables, some walking dogs—everything was unnaturally normal.
"Answer it," Xu Le said.
The woman stared at her phone for a few seconds, swiped the screen, and put it to her ear. Xu Le couldn't hear what was said, but he saw the woman's shoulders slowly relax, like a string that had been too tight suddenly loosened.
She mm-hmm'd twice, asked "are you sure," mm-hmm'd again, then hung up.
She stood there frozen for a long time before turning to look at Xu Le.
"That donor didn't back out. The hospital said it was a communication error among staff, the message was sent incorrectly," the woman said with little expression, but her eyes were red-rimmed. "From the beginning, he never backed out."
Xu Le nodded. He wanted to say congratulations, his throat was dry.
After the woman left, Xu Le locked the shop. Wu Hai had gone home after his shift. Kitchen lights were off, only the warm yellow spot light above the bar was on. Duozui shifted position on the beam, wings spread then folded. That lifted feather on the left side flashed once under the light.
Xu Le squatted under the counter to find all the fragments of the bare-necked stork cup, piecing them together one by one on the bar. They broke cleanly, edges matched. But after piecing for over ten minutes, he found a small piece missing from the cup bottom. It had half a stork's foot on it.
He searched through trash cans and cardboard boxes, didn't find it.
Duozui flew down from the beam, landed on the bar edge. It lowered its head, tapped twice on the bar surface with its beak, then spat out a piece. Thumbnail-sized, orange-yellow, with half a bird's foot painted on it.
Xu Le looked at that piece of porcelain. It had Duozui's saliva on it, warm. He flipped it over. The back had the same light brown pattern, followed it to the end—three prongs. At the branching point of the three prongs, there was an extremely tiny black dot, pinpoint-sized.
He picked up the larger fragment the woman had looked at to compare. The three-pronged branching point of the large fragment was clean, nothing there. The small one had an extra black dot.
Xu Le stared at that black dot for a long time, then looked up at Duozui. Duozui tilted its head. That feather at the root of its left wing was completely lifted now. The dark red underneath was deeper than before, like a patch of dried rust embedded in the gap between blue-and-yellow feathers.
Xu Le suddenly understood Boss Zheng's incomplete sentence. Cup broken, karma transferred from the cup wall to the fragments. But one fragment was caught by Duozui, and the karma stopped on Duozui. It swallowed it. That dark red was the backlash.
"You..." Xu Le's throat felt rough, "you've been like this all along?"
Duozui didn't call out. It just tilted its head to look at him. In the amber eyes, there was an extremely thin line of dark red at the edge of the pupil, same as the color on its wing. It pecked the bar surface twice more with its beak, then spread its wings and flew back to the beam.
Xu Le sat behind the bar, a pile of porcelain fragments spread out beside him. He picked up that small fragment with the black dot and examined it again and again under the light. The black dot was so tiny, you wouldn't notice it without looking closely. But he suddenly remembered something.
That woman's American coffee this afternoon—she drank it all. The liquid in the cup went into her stomach, then the cup was smashed, karma locked in the fragments. But what about what she drank? American coffee was just espresso and water, all liquid.
Xu Le slowly walked to the kitchen, turned on the tap and rinsed his hands. Water flowed with a rushing sound, as smooth as always. At the edge of the sink drain filter, a few faint brown filaments occasionally floated out, dissolving into the clear water in an instant. He stared for a while, turned off the water, dried his hands.
When he came out, Duozui had already come down from the beam, squatting beside the porcelain fragments on the bar, head lowered, like it was looking at those three-pronged patterns. Xu Le approached two steps. It raised its head and suddenly said something.
The voice was completely different from its usual mimicked tone—muffled, nasal, like speaking with a candy in its mouth. Xu Le didn't catch it, leaned closer. Duozui said it again.
"Ma."
Xu Le's back went cold. The tone was childish, broken, completely different from its fluent "no big deal" imitation—didn't sound like something a bird could learn. He remembered the gray windbreaker woman saying that when her son was hospitalized, he called her "ma," the dialect from their hometown.
After saying that one word, Duozui turned its head away. It jumped down from the bar, walked to the three cardboard boxes, and lifted the lid slightly with its beak. Fragments glowed with cold white light in the moonlight. It looked down at them, then turned and walked away.
When Xu Le left the shop that night, it was almost eleven. He locked the door and walked to the street corner. Night wind blew from the plane tree direction, carrying an unexplainable dampness.
He took two steps, then his left shoulder suddenly went numb. Like something lightly touched it, or like something thin was drilling outward from under his skin.
He raised his hand to touch it, felt nothing. But that numbness crawled down from his shoulder blade, stopping at the left side of his neck. Different from the afternoon chill—this time with a subtle sinking weight, like a small lump of wet sand stuck under his skin.
He stopped and stood there for a while. The streetlight stretched his shadow long and thin. His left shoulder looked no different from the right in the shadow. He touched the back of his neck again, fingertips touched a small warm, damp patch.
He held his hand up to the light to look. Fingertips had a bit of dark brown something on them—not blood, more like dissolved coffee grounds.
Night wind blew, and that dark brown dried into extremely fine powder, sifting down from his fingertips into the wind. Nothing left.
Xu Le rubbed his fingers on his pants and continued walking. When he reached the community entrance, he looked back at the coffee shop direction. That plane tree on the corner stood quietly under the streetlight, half its leaves yellow.
A night bird flapped up from the canopy, drawing an arc across the dark blue sky.
He entered the community gate, didn't look back again.
Next morning when Xu Le opened the shop, Duozui stood on the bar, looking energetic. Its left wing feathers were smooth, no abnormalities visible. Xu Le approached it. It tilted its head to look at him, then said clearly: "Morning, boss."
Xu Le stared at it for several seconds. Morning light streamed in through the window, landing on its blue-and-yellow feathers, glittering.
He looked down at his left shoulder again. Clothes were clean, skin no longer numb. But that area vaguely retained a heavy feeling, like wearing a very thin small garment—extremely light, but there.
He went to the kitchen to boil water, turned on the tap—water ran clear, filter clean. Filled a kettle and placed it on the espresso machine. Turning, his peripheral vision caught something on the kitchen windowsill. A small piece of orange-yellow porcelain, with half a bird's foot on it.
Xu Le walked over and picked it up. It was that missing fragment from last night. Black dot still there, three-pronged pattern still there. He distinctly remembered leaving it on the bar last night, but now it appeared on the kitchen windowsill—separated from the bar by the entire shop.
Duozui poked half its head in from the doorway, amber eyes looking at him. Then it withdrew.
Xu Le tucked the porcelain piece in his pocket, continued boiling water and preparing to open the shop. After Wu Hai arrived, they greeted customers all morning. Thursday morning business was good, line at the bar. Duozui didn't move all morning, squatting on the beam dozing. Occasionally someone pointed at it to take photos, it didn't even react.
Around noon it quieted down a bit, and Xu Le finally had time to sit. He took out the porcelain piece from his pocket and placed it on the bar, sent a text message to that Brazil number: Who are you.
It showed sent successfully, but no reply. He stared at the screen for five minutes, flipped the phone face down on the bar.
Wu Hai came out of the kitchen carrying two bowls of noodles, handed him one. "What were you thinking last night? Distracted all morning."
Xu Le took the chopsticks, thought for a moment, briefly told him about Boss Zheng's notebook and last night's porcelain piece. Wu Hai listened, took a slurp of noodles, chewed for a long time before swallowing, then said: "That old Zheng... I worked here three years, never saw him feel unwell after smashing a cup."
"Duozui carried it for him," Xu Le said.
Wu Hai put down his chopsticks. "And now? Duozui can't carry it anymore?"
Xu Le didn't answer, took out that orange-yellow fragment from his pocket and placed it on the table. The black dot at the node of the three-pronged pattern sat there quietly, very small.
"It swallowed this piece," Xu Le said. "Karma came out of the cup, into the fragment, then was swallowed by it. It's carried it for who knows how many years, and now maybe it can't hold it anymore."
Wu Hai looked at that piece of porcelain. "What about your shoulder?"
Xu Le rubbed his left shoulder. That sinking weight was still there, attached with a thin layer of warmth. "Maybe... transferred to me."
They were silent for a moment. The shop played soft Brazilian light music. Sunlight streamed in through the window, landing on the wooden bar. Duozui shifted position on the beam, flapped its wings once, a small blue-and-yellow feather floated down, spinning and landing on the bar surface.
Xu Le picked up that feather, looked at it, and put it in his pocket.
That evening, Xu Le closed the shop early. He locked the door, didn't leave immediately, stood at the shop door looking at the plane tree across the street. June wind was hot, blowing over with asphalt smell.
The tree was half-yellow, half-green. Yellow and green intermingled, looking like a faded painting in the sunset.
He walked closer to the tree, reached out to touch the trunk. Bark was rough, warm, no different from usual. But when he looked at his fingers, his fingertips had a bit of dark brown powder again.
Same color as last night.
He rubbed his finger on the trunk, leaving a light brown mark on the bark. He looked up at the canopy. At the end of one branch, a twig was withered—blackened and scorched, like burned by fire.
Xu Le stepped back two paces, looking at that dead twig. It wasn't on the outer part of the canopy, hidden inside, wrapped by yellow and green leaves—you wouldn't notice without looking closely. But it was completely withered, scorched black, like all moisture in that twig had been drained overnight.
He walked back. When passing the coffee shop door, he heard a muffled sound from inside. Not heavy, a single *thunk*, like something falling from a height onto the floor. He took out his keys, hesitated, then opened the door.
The shop was dark. Duozui wasn't on the beam. Xu Le turned on the light. That cardboard box on the bar had its lid open, kraft paper packages inside were tossed around messily, several fallen to the floor. Duozui squatted inside the cardboard box, head tucked under its wing, not moving.
Xu Le walked over and squatted down to look at it. That dark red on its left wing had deepened, bleeding outward from the root, seeping along the feather texture into half the wing. It lifted its head and looked at Xu Le once. The dark red ring in its amber eyes was thicker than in the morning.
"Duozui?"
Duozui didn't respond. It lowered its head, tucked it further under its wing, whole body shrunk into a fluffy ball.
Xu Le reached out to touch it. Before his fingers touched the feathers, Duozui suddenly lifted its head, opened its beak, and let out a sharp, muffled cry. Not like a bird call, more like the sound of a child coughing after choking on water. It called once, then silenced itself, tucked its head back under its wing.
Xu Le pulled his hand back. He squatted beside the cardboard box for a long time, then stood up and picked up the kraft paper packages on the floor, putting them back in the box.
Halfway through organizing, he noticed a dark brown stain on the old newspaper lining the bottom of the box. It spread from the center, diameter about the size of a palm, like spilled coffee.
But Xu Le was certain this box had never held liquid.
He opened the other two cardboard boxes to check. Second box bottom had a stain too, smaller than the first, also dark brown. Third one was the lightest, bottom clean.
He squatted on the ground looking at these three stains, suddenly remembering that line in Boss Zheng's notes: What to do when the boxes are full, I haven't figured out yet.
Whether Boss Zheng figured it out or not, two of the three cardboard boxes had seeped through. The third was estimated to be soon. Those karmas were locked in fragments, fragments stuffed in cardboard boxes, but the boxes themselves don't block karma. They can't—they're just temporary storage.
Xu Le closed each box lid, pressed them down with his hand. When standing up, his left shoulder went numb again, more obvious than last night, like a small electric current running down from his shoulder blade, stopping at his lower back.
That sinking weight also increased a bit. The warmth under his skin slowly spread open like a soft thing. He moved his shoulder, numbness and warmth slowly dispersed, but that patch of skin at his lower back always retained residual warmth.
He turned off the light, locked the door, and came out. Sky was completely dark. June night wind carried dampness, blowing on his face sticky. The plane tree across the street stood in the dark, yellow leaves showing matte under the streetlight.
Xu Le paused when passing it, carefully looked at that scorched dead twig under the streetlight. It was a bit blacker than in the evening, like ink seeping upward along the branch. The yellow leaf next to the dead twig had curled edges, dried out.
He took out his phone. The Brazil number still hadn't replied. He put the phone away and headed home.
After walking ten or so steps, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Xu Le took it out to look. The screen showed a text message from that +55 number.
Only two words: Thank you.
Xu Le stood under the streetlight looking at those two words, didn't know how to reply. Night wind blew again, plane tree leaves rustled. He looked up at the sky, moon thin, hanging at the horizon like a thin piece of porcelain.
He put the phone back in his pocket and continued walking. The hot spot at his lower back slowly cooled, but the sinking weight on his left shoulder didn't completely dissipate—attached thin against his skin, like an invisible small garment. Not heavy, but he knew from now on it probably wouldn't ever completely go away.
Duozui squatted in the cardboard box, the dark red on its left wing deepened again in the moonlight. It lifted its head, glanced toward the door direction in the dark, then tucked its head down again.
The plane tree outside had a leaf fall from the branch, spinning and landing on the coffee shop's doorstep. The leaf was still mostly green, but the petiole was completely withered, brittle as paper.
Xu Le lay on his bed at home, eyes closed. Warmth attached to his left shoulder, heavy, like a very small bird squatting there, quietly. Night was deep, he suddenly thought of the opening question—have you ever had those days, where you know something's broken but can't say exactly what?
He knew now. The broken thing doesn't need to be spoken—it moves on its own. From the cup to the porcelain piece, from the porcelain piece to the parrot, from the parrot to a person's shoulder.
He rolled over, pressed that warmth under his pillow. Moonlight leaked in through the curtain gap, a thin strip landing on the nightstand. That orange-yellow fragment sat on the cabinet, black dot still there, three-pronged pattern still there.
Before Xu Le closed his eyes, his phone screen lit up again. He picked it up. A text message from an unfamiliar number, area code +55.
Only two words.
"Still there?"
Xu Le stared at the screen for a long time. He didn't reply, flipped the phone face down on his pillow, closed his eyes. The sinking weight on his left shoulder slowly spread, slid down along his back a bit, stopping at the left side of his heart.
Outside, June night wind passed through the plane tree canopy, yellow leaves rustled. A leaf fell, light and drifting, hit the window glass with a *tap*, then slid down.
He thought again about that question at the beginning of the month—some decay doesn't happen gradually. It can arrive overnight. Like that plane tree, sprouting buds in April, half-yellow in June.
When you notice something's wrong, decay has already taken root. It crawls up from places you can't see, along roots, along branches, along some unknown gap, seeping in bit by bit.
Xu Le opened his eyes, looked at that blurry moonlight on the windowsill. The warmth on his left shoulder didn't dissipate. It sat there quietly, like a bird squatting there, eyes closed, not calling, not leaving.