At dawn, Yan visited the disposal yard where he and Ning had first worked. The furnace crew sorted the morning carts in pairs. Someone called out the weight of a cracked iron grate, and a worker marked the number on a board. The old lift groaned as it raised a load from the pit.
Yan had not meant to linger. He stood beside the scale and watched two apprentices check the same cart from opposite sides. The place felt smaller now, but the smell of hot iron and wet stone was unchanged. He remembered the first time he had tried to carry a warped frame alone, convinced that refusing help proved he could endure anything.
Ning came to stand beside him. “You’re looking at the lift like it owes you money.”
“It used to.”
“Did it pay?”
“Only in splinters.”
She glanced at the furnace crew. “We learned a lot here.”
“I learned not to lift that grate by the bad handle.”
