Huan dug his fingers into the earth, feeling the rough soil give way beneath his touch, its coolness grounding him as his thoughts drifted. With every tug of a weed, every pat of the dirt around a young sprout, Huan committed his body to them fully. A full moon had come and gone since his arrival, and the work, while familiar, did nothing to ease the weight pressing down on him.

A movement from the corner of his eye snapped him back to the present. Guo was approaching, moving down the row with a gaze that lingered a moment too long. Huan could feel the man’s eyes on him, watchful yet unassuming. It wasn’t suspicion, but something deeper, as if Guo were reading the earth through each person’s hands. Guo was embedded in this land; it was in the rough callouses of his palms and the steady weariness in his step.

When Huan first arrived, Guo had asked no questions. He’d barely acknowledged Huan’s quiet request for work, nodding. And though Huan had tried to keep his presence small, Guo had assigned him to the heavy labor almost immediately, with a calm expectation that Huan would meet the demands. Of course, Huan was able to. The years of his life he had spent trying to cultivate surely weren’t all for nothing.

Even now, the sun was rising higher, casting a harsh white light over the fields, yet Huan felt the weight in his shoulders growing heavier rather than lighter. It wasn’t the physical strain that troubled him, but he didn’t know what it was.

At midday, Huan found a spot under a crooked tree by the edge of the field and chewed on a piece of hardened bread. The bread was stale, and he chewed slowly, letting the bread fall apart in his mouth and gazing out over the crops swaying gently in the breeze. The other workers gathered a short distance away, laughing and sharing rice wine. He could feel the granularity and rough texture of the bread in his hand.

The crunch of footsteps broke into his solitude, but he didn’t turn. The steps stopped, and the familiar voice of Guo spoke over his shoulder, gruff yet calm.

“Strange to see a young man acting so stand-offish,” Huan heard, the words almost drowned by the rustling leaves overhead.

Huan didn’t respond. He kept his gaze on the world, his face impassive.

Guo continued, his voice layered with the weight of years which, known only to Huan was not many more than him, “This land, it can be cruel. It takes and takes. Gives back only if you know how to stop trying to get something.” The voice paused to think. “You’re young, boy. At your age you’re s’posed to be chasing a dream.”

Huan frowned, leaning back against the tree. This old farmhand wouldn’t be able to understand his story. What he dreamt of was power, but it was all a wash. He had no means to attain it, no path forward. He’d tried cultivation and poured himself into the techniques with all the fervor of a drowning man, only to meet with failure again and again. This content man who didn’t know anything about life would never understand him, and yet, Huan envied him.

“Perhaps.”

There was a moment of silence after Huan’s response: a long moment.

Then Huan heard a quiet exhale, something close to a laugh, before the footsteps started again and faded away.

As the afternoon wore on, Huan toiled in the field, his body not the least bit fatigued. The soil yielded to his hands, warm and pliant. He glanced up, catching sight of Guo in the distance, his silhouette outlined against the sky. The old man moved with a hidden strength, each step purposeful yet unhurried. There was a peace to him, a contentment Huan couldn’t fathom. To live such a life, bound to one place, no purpose…

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It felt to Huan, like a kind of death.

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The next morning, Huan made his way to town just as the sun began to spill light over the horizon. He’d tried to not be assigned this errand for as long as he could, reluctant to step into the hustle and bustle, but the farm was running low on provisions, and Guo had ordered that he’d be the one to pick up supplies. It felt like an unwanted chore, a break from the quiet rhythm of the fields, but Huan swallowed his discontent and walked on, following the winding dirt path toward the town.

As he entered the marketplace, the town unfurled before him in a mixture of muted colors and voices. It wasn’t like the villages he’d grown up in or passed through, nor the grand cities he’d once glimpsed while serving in the army of his past life. It was something in between, neither close-knit nor anonymous—a place where people lived together without truly belonging to one another.

Stalls were scattered across the square, selling vegetables, dried meats, and simple wares, but there was a distinct weariness in the air, a sense of hardship that clung to the faces of the vendors and customers alike. Huan noted how different these people seemed from the villagers he’d known, their expressions lined not with the contentment of hard work but with a kind of resignation. Here, survival wasn’t guaranteed; it was carved out daily, one meager sale at a time.

Passing by a row of sellers hawking rice and grain, he overheard snatches of conversation—a woman fretting over the rising cost of flour, a man lamenting a poor harvest. Others murmured quietly, glancing over their shoulders as if fearful that misfortune might hear them and press down harder. Beggars sat in corners, their clothes little more than rags, hands outstretched in silent pleas.

After gathering the tools, and packing them into a sack he was given, he approached a baker’s stall. A warm, crusty loaf of bread sat atop the display, its golden surface inviting. Without thinking, he bought a loaf, the scent of fresh bread stirring memories of younger days, of simpler times when food was a luxury rather than a necessity. Breaking a piece off to have now and tucking the rest into his satchel, he turned to leave, intending to return to the solitude of the fields as quickly as possible.

But as he walked back through the street, a faint rustle drew his attention. He glanced to his right and saw her—a young girl, no older than eight or nine, sitting in the narrow shadow of an alley. Her figure was small and gaunt, her clothes threadbare, and her face drawn with a look of quiet desperation. Her hollow eyes, too large for her thin face, watched him with an intensity that made his chest tighten.

Huan paused, glancing down at the piece of bread in his hand. He hadn’t bought much, just a simple meal to last him a couple of days. But in that moment, it felt like too much for him alone. His eyes shifted back to the girl, who quickly matched his gaze.

“Some bread, sir?”

Moving closer, Huan broke off a piece of the bread, feeling the warm crust against his fingers. He knelt down beside her, his movements slow and unthreatening, and held out the bread. “Take it,” he said, his voice softer than he’d expected.

The girl’s eyes widened. She reached out hesitantly, her small hand trembling as it closed around the bread. For a moment, she simply held it, as if afraid Huan might take it away, before bringing it to her mouth in hurried, tiny bites.

He watched her eat, feeling a strange sense of satisfaction as he did. This small act of kindness, this simple gesture—he’d given her a moment’s respite, a brief relief from the gnawing hunger. But even as he watched, a sense of hollowness crept in, a reminder that this single meal wouldn’t change her life. She would be back here tomorrow, and the day after that, still starving, still struggling.

The girl looked up at him with grateful eyes, swallowing the last bit of bread. “Thank you, sir,” she whispered, her voice so soft it was barely audible.

Huan nodded, his expression unreadable, before standing and walking off. What had he really done? The hunger might fade for now, but it would return, just as fierce as before. He could feed her today, perhaps even for a year, but that wouldn’t help the others in the town. He walked away, the loaf of bread now weighing heavy in his bag, as if it bore the burden of his helplessness.

The sun had climbed higher by the time he returned to the fields, its rays stark and unrelenting. Huan went to work, hoping the labor would quiet his thoughts. But the image of the girl lingered, her hollow eyes haunting him.

Huan felt nostalgic as he worked. It reminded him of his family, his real family. The days he’d come in from the fields to his mother’s cooking. How in the winter months he’d watch his mother sew. The sun beating down on him reminded him of how he left that life in order to join the army.