I learned it from the old man, in front of the old wooden house in the dilapidated country in the North. There are not many such villages left in the North, for the others have disappeared little by little. The people there never knew the village existed, and of course they do not remember when it disappeared, and if they return to the place, they leave only the ruins. No one will return to the site, though, because it never existed, and future archaeologists may celebrate their nothfulness by building campfires and holding a silent party to the long sound of the erhu.

The village was not yet up to that time, and people in thick coats swayed along the paths between the courtyards. All along the way, people are familiar to each other. Their wrinkled faces smiled without squeezing, and they nodded their heads slowly, which made no sense. Nothing here made any sense. But to outsiders, it seemed like a high-five to celebrate their friend's passing through the disaster, or a show off. The lorry driver smoked two or three cigarettes at the edge of the village and collected his load for the day. Wrinkles and paper money were mixed into the farmer's wide hands, which squeaked like dead wood as they clenched.

Before 5 p.m., as the sun sets over the village, the women spill the dirty water from their dinner into the backyard gardens and exchange greetings across the path, while the men walk home together from the cabbage fields. If you are a hungry old black dog, when you lie on your stomach, you will see the old man in the middle of the slow steps, his hands in the sleeves, never taken out, sitting on the doorframe, his body swaying slowly with the trunk of the old sophora tree in front of the door, the doorframe and the whole old house made a sigh like the old tree creak. You can't tell which will die first, you or him. The thin face was wrinkled like the rings of an old tree; the beard around the mouth, though trimmed, was as tangled as a cliff-side vine; the cheekbones were like gravel; the ridges on the forehead were like the clouds before a storm, folded and thickly enfolded with weariness. The only evidence of life was the eyes under the sinkhole, which, even when hidden in the narrow gap, shone uncomfortably through the whiteness. In his youth, he was probably the brightest eye in the village.

The old black dog was his companion, and when he came back to the village tired from his long journey, the old dog had just been born, and had been left in a corner, limping like a vine through a crevices in the earth. Through the dilapidated courtyards, he found the old house where he had played as a boy, now empty, so dilapidated that there was not even a skeleton to be found, and he had spent three years repairing it, three years as short as a moment in this village count in century, just long enough to repair it against the wind and rain, and the candlelight shivering in the night. His savings from years of travel have saved him from daily labor, and there is little worth spending in this village where locates on the edge of memory, where everything is born from earth and will return to earth.

On a snowy day when the candles could not be lit, night took most of his soul, and he was so ill that he almost did not survive the winter. His beard, which had been covered with snow, was never black again, and even in summer he dared not leave his jacket. With his hand in his sleeve, he guarded the faint warmth between his hands as an old dragon guards the keys to the treasure. It was also in that spring that wrinkles, along with the vines, covered his face and the old house. He was no longer capable of hard work, but there was no hard work need to be done. One summer in the third year after his recovery, he declared victory in his battle with the disease, knowing that this was the best he could do. For the past eight years, he has been standing in front of the old house day after day, closing his eyes, shaking with the house and keeps murmuring , "Once and once again."