The Fourteenth Day
by Huina Zheng
part 1
Tornado
In the spring of 1996, a tornado bore down on the village. Zhang Yao had no idea it was coming.
He was supposed to go to the village office, a hundred meters from his brick factory. At the age of forty, he bore the typical features of a Hakka from southern China: a high skull, rugged lines, thick brows, and dark skin.
His partner, Lin Sheng, sat grim-faced at the desk, waving away a dark-skinned man. “The factory isn’t even built yet. We’re drowning in debt. Where would the money come from?”
“I’m desperate...” the man’s voice trembled.
“What’s wrong?” Yao asked.
“Boss Zhang, my son injured a classmate at school... I need an advance on next month’s wages.” His already dark face flushed with shame.
“Sheng, give him two months in advance.”
“But—”
Yao cut him off: “Everyone has urgent times.” He patted the man’s shoulder. “Go home. Family comes first.”
Outside, across the muddy road, loomed Zhang Yao’s factory: oval kilns of red brick, tar-paper roof and a tall chimney. The air was heavy and damp, and the wind was sharper than usual. Yao reassured himself: it was spring, not typhoon season. The kilns were set to be completed within the week. From a distance, the site looked like a giant beast about to waken.
At the village office, the chief and three officers awaited him, faces grim. “Villagers are furious about the factory,” the chief said.
Yao offered Double Happiness cigarettes. The chief waved them away, so Yao lit one himself. Smoke curled as he spoke, “I understand. If the fruit trees are harmed, we’ll compensate.”
The chief snorted, lighting his own Furong Wang. A younger officer added, “But villagers aren’t easy to convince. They need guarantees.”
“I get it...” Yao stopped. Darkness had fallen suddenly, as if a pot covered the sky. He looked out. Thick anvil-shaped clouds pressed low, and headlights on the road flickered like ghost fire.
Then he heard it. Not thunder. A roar like freight trains grinding across the earth, tearing the air apart. The wind surged, stinking of sulfur and burning wood. Yao thought of the match he had struck moments ago.
The officerss rushed out with him. Someone pointed, horrified.
A funnel cloud was churning toward the village, twisting, changing shape, sometimes a rope, sometimes a cone. Trees snapped, buildings collapsed in its path.
“Run!” a villager’s cry was shredded by the wind.
Impossible, Yao thought. No one in his family — his father, grandfather, great-grandfather — had ever seen a tornado.
The twister grew monstrous, roaring like endless explosions, bearing down on his factory. Dust and debris swirled; Yao shielded his eyes, straining to see. Crashes echoed as massive objects were ripped apart and hurled to the ground.
Minutes, or only seconds, passed. The roar faded. Light returned, strangely sharp.
Blank-minded, Yao staggered toward it. Beyond, the tornado carved a path of destruction. The factory lay in ruins, reduced to rubble and drifting dust.
Sheng appeared, face ashen. “What do we do now?”
Yao did not answer. His gaze shifted to what still stood: the brick houses, his own, his brother’s, the workers’ shacks. Not one person had been hurt.
Only the factory had been leveled to the ground. Amid the ruins, Yao’s mind turned not to rebuilding, but to survival.
* * *
The Sixth Day after the Tornado
Yao had taken a four-hour ride to see his friend Chubby. They sat opposite each other in a dim living room. Yao sipped from a steaming bowl of lei cha, the fragrance of sesame and peanuts rising slowly. Chubby’s wife had prepared it by hand: grinding tea leaves, sesame, peanuts and mint into a paste, then whisking it into boiling water with a pinch of salt.
Yao studied the man before him, now a car smuggler. Yao never asked too much about how Chubby made money these days; he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Back when Yao ran his previous brick factory in another village, Chubby would come every day in his truck to haul red bricks.
After the factory collapsed, Chubby had switched trades. He was short and thickset, his belly pressing against his shirt, his round face sagging into a soft double chin. When he walked, his body swayed side to side as if each step cost him more effort than it should.
Through the window, Yao glimpsed the iron gate shut tight with a surveillance camera above it. In the corner of the yard stood a corrugated shack disguised as storage; it was really a hiding place for smuggled vehicles, ringed by tall shrubs that concealed it from prying eyes.
“The other night the police came,” Chubby said, voice lowered. “Lucky I’d left the car at a friend’s abandoned factory.”
“They’re watching you?”
“Could be. I can’t keep anything here anymore. I need more hiding spots.”
“A wise rabbit has three burrows,” Yao said.
“Exactly. I’ll lay low for a while. The heat will pass.”
“Money never comes easy.”
“Not like you, big boss, always bouncing back. One factory fell, you built a bigger one.”
“Not this time. The tornado flattened mine. I’m broke, drowning in debt. Back when you were desperate, I helped. Now I need—”
“Brother Yao, you know my line of work. Risk is high, and cash is tight.” Chubby’s brow furrowed. “I can’t just hand out money.”
“Then at least help me through this storm.”
Chubby paused, then leaned forward. “I’ve got two cars I can move quickly. Let me store them at your factory. Once they’re sold, I’ll give you twenty thousand. Enough to get you breathing space.”
Yao drank in silence. The lei cha’s bitterness spread across his tongue, pulling him back to a winter evening from his childhood. He remembered hunger that clawed at the gut like knives. A villager’s cow had lost its calf in birth, and the dead animal was tossed into the river. His father had run miles in the dark, chasing the moonlight, until they found the carcass drifting downstream.
That night, his father hacked it apart: hide, hair, and all, and boiled it into a thick, greasy soup. It reeked of raw skin and coarse fur, yet they devoured it as if it were ambrosia. That flavor, savage and shameful, still lingered sharper than the lei cha in his mouth.
His own children had never known hunger. That thought cut deepest. Chubby’s offer couldn’t rebuild a factory; it was a drop against a tidal wave. But it could keep the wolves from the door a little longer.
The tea had gone cold. Yao drained it in one swallow, even the gritty dregs. Hardship had taught him never to waste a drop.
Chubby sighed. “Brother Yao, fairness doesn’t exist. Tell me, which rich man got his fortune clean? We only want to survive, to live a little better. This is just a stopgap. Just this once, no one will know.”
Yao nodded. He knew it was ugly. But, as the saying went, if a man has hair, why would he choose to be bald?
“This stays between us. Heaven knows, earth knows, you and I know.”
“Of course,” Chubby said, tapping his chest. “My lips are sealed.”
* * *
The Twelfth Day after the Tornado
Yao dialed Chubby’s number for the fifth time from the desk in his ruined brickyard office. The receiver filled with a clear, insistent ring. His right hand drummed on the table, heavier with each beat, until the ringing finally stopped.
Three days earlier, Chubby had sent someone to collect the cars and then vanished. Yao had clung to their friendship, their families bound almost like kin. But yesterday, when Chubby recognized his voice, he cut him off with a brusque, “I’m busy” and hung up. Every attempt since had gone unanswered. Now Yao understood: he had been used.
The betrayal pressed on his chest like a weight, leaving him breathless. Fury and humiliation fused into resolve. If Chubby would not show loyalty, Yao would not show mercy.
He called his cousin Wei, Chubby’s partner in the car trade. By making that call, Yao knew he was burying not only seven years of brotherhood but also the man who once believed “everyone has their hour of need.” From benefactor to beggar and now to hunter, the transformation had taken only days.
He told Wei: if Chubby came to sell a car, buy it but hold the payment, and above all, notify him first. Wei hesitated, but agreed.
* * *
The Thirteenth Day after the Tornado
Wei called Yao to say he had just finished a deal with Chubby, but part of the payment was still pending. Chubby would return at four o’clock to collect the balance. Yao summoned Yong, the wiry eighteen-year old who worked at the brick factory, and together they sped toward Wei’s lot.
The shop was hidden in a back alley, its entrance lined with tired used cars. Wei stood at the doorway with three of his men, then led Yao and Yong inside. The office was bare except for a desk and a tea set; the air stank of oil and gasoline under a yellow bulb.
“Have some tea,” Wei said, pouring.
They were still drinking when footsteps sounded outside. Yao and Yong rose. Chubby walked in, froze at the sight of them, then forced a smile. “What a coincidence.”
“No coincidence,” Yao said, “we’ve been waiting.”
Chubby edged back, only to find Yong blocking him. “Let’s talk this through.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Pay me back.”
“I have no money. Only my life.”
Rage detonated. Yao lunged, clamped his hand around Chubby’s throat, and slammed him against the wall.
Chubby clawed at the grip, mouth gaping, face darkening until Yao released him. He doubled over, gasping.
Yao lit a cigarette. Smoke drifted between them. “Now. Do you have the money?”
Chubby rasped, “Not on me. Wei owes me fifty thousand. Let him pay you first, then deduct it. I’ll take the rest later.”
Yao nodded. “Get out.”
Chubby staggered away.
* * *
Copyright © 2025 by Huina Zheng
