His grandfather left a steelyard. Brass pan, jujube beam, iron weight, and the graduation studs on the beam set in brass, driven in one at a time.
Weighing the bones is not supposed to involve weighing anybody. It is worked out from the birth date. But in his grandfather's notebook every generation has a figure, and there are circles drawn beside them — his grandfather actually put people on the scale.
He was lifted onto the pan once as a child. The notebook says four taels seven.
At forty he found the notebook, had the steelyard repaired, and worked it through the way his grandfather had written it out.
Four taels seven. The same as when he was a child. Bone weight is fixed; it is not supposed to change.
He did it once a year and wrote it in the back of the notebook.
Third year: four taels five.
Fourth year: four taels two.
He recalculated three times, thinking he had made an error. Then he wondered about the scale, and held the beam up against the window light.
A section of the graduation studs has been redone. The holes are new — the wood still white in them — and the studs driven into them are old and dark from handling.
He counted the studs. He knows how many there should be on a sixteen-tael beam.
Three short. The three missing are at the far end of the beam, where the heaviest of the range is marked.
He read the notebook from the first page to the last. Of all the family's recorded weights, the heaviest is five taels two.
With the beam as it now is, five taels two is as far as it will go.