“Good morning, Tauber . . .”

The voice came from above. It wasn’t the stone, but Mrs. Yi herself speaking.

“I was thinking about you just now. Are you making house calls?” said Tauber excitedly.

“Yes. I was thinking about you, too. What a coincidence! I want to have a good talk with you under the acacia tree one of these days. Now I have to go—a newcomer’s wife is going into labor.”

She left, carrying the medicine box. As he watched her leave, Tauber felt strong emotions surging in his chest.

Then his gaze rested on the ground again. In the morning light, he saw that each of the small stones looked impassioned. Suddenly, a shadow moved toward him. Tauber looked up and saw the big gray horse.

“Did you recognize me, brother?”

The horse moved close to him, and Tauber immediately smelled the reeds and the lake. He put his arms round the horse’s neck, closed his eyes, and murmured, “How did I miss you, man? I’m thinking of you even in my dreams! We’ve covered thousands of miles together, and it’s true . . . I remember that you were always waiting for me at a fork in the road and never stood me up. There were white locust flowers all over the ground.”

The big gray horse fell to its knees. It understood Tauber’s words, and a distant memory floated in its eyes.

When Tauber’s ceremony with the big gray horse was over, he noticed Grandma Mao standing nearby.

Grandma Mao waved to him. She was laughing, her toothless mouth agape.

“Tauber, it’s predestined that you would like this fellow who is dear to me. This guy’s been running around for about a week,” Mao said. “I knew he was looking for someone who had known him long ago, perhaps known his mother . . . It didn’t cross my mind that it was you! I was really surprised. What happened in the old days of war?”

As she spoke, the horse went home on its own. Pondering what Grandma Mao had said, Tauber was puzzled: it was a beautiful but odd narrative. Is it because I’m dead that Grandma Mao is talking to me this way?

“Grandma Mao,” said Tauber, thinking for a moment, “your words have inspired me. Perhaps this gray horse is me. I remember now. Extraordinary things did happen! But I had just a few memories, and it was this horse that kept them in my mind. Grandma Mao, I am so grateful to you . . .”

But Grandma Mao seemed unwilling to listen to Tauber’s expression of gratitude. Her eyes wandered, and she murmured something as she left.

After meandering all morning, Tauber finally met it by the well. It was at that moment that Tauber realized he had been looking for it. It was an ordinary tortoise. When the well water rose to the opening of the well, it climbed out. Tauber sat on the edge of the well, and it climbed onto Tauber’s knee.