Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 12 Picking up manuscripts

Wang Shi's hands were covered in scars.

It wasn't a knife scar, it was a burn scar. There was one on the web of his left hand, one on his right index finger, and a ring of light white old marks at the base of his little finger. That was last winter when he was boiling water for Shangguan. The handle of the copper kettle was red-hot, and he didn't dare let go and drop the kettle, so he held the handle firmly and put it on the ground.

The kettle was saved, but his finger was scalded, and three layers of skin peeled off. A low-ranking physician from the Imperial Hospital came to examine him, washed it with salt water, and said to let it rest. He rested for half a month and then went back to boiling water.

He was a menial laborer in the Chongtian Division, not even listed on the roster. The roster listed him as "Three Menial Laborers," without even writing his name. The previous menial laborer was surnamed Liu, who was fired after coughing up blood. The successor was surnamed Zhang, who stole a copper button from a bronze instrument to sell, and was beaten, had his leg broken, and thrown out.

Wang Shi came three years ago and has stayed until now because he is not talkative, not lazy, and gets up to boil water before dawn every day.

The water boiler room was located at the foot of the west wall of Chongtiansi, one wall adjacent to the stables and the other to the kitchen. In winter, the cold wind blew in, causing the stove fire to flicker; in summer, the stove fire never went out, making the whole room feel like a steamer. His thin shirt always clung to his back, soaked with layers of sweat, making the coarse linen stiff. He didn't care. He only knew that the water had to be boiled, the tea had to be brewed strong, the official's porcelain cups had to be wiped clean, and there had to be no tea stains on the spout.

The quietest time of day for him was when he was wiping the porcelain cups. He would hold the celadon cup up to the window, turn it halfway in the sunlight, and check the rim for any lipstick marks that hadn't been wiped clean the day before. The sunlight filtered through the torn window paper, falling on the porcelain surface and giving it a very faint glaze sheen.

He would run his finger along the rim of the cup, his fingertips calloused, but the nerves beneath them were still alive, able to feel the slight unevenness of the glaze. That unevenness was a tiny chip, about the size of a grain of rice, that had been worn smooth; you wouldn't notice it unless you felt it carefully. In the entire Chongtian Division, only he knew where that chip was.

Three years have passed. He recognizes the footsteps of everyone in this government office. The officials walk with hard-soled boots, making a clattering sound on the blue bricks; the clerks drag their feet, their heels scraping the ground; the servants walk quickly and lightly, afraid of being stopped and scolded. He also recognizes Jia Xian's footsteps—not dragging, not hard, always steady, like someone silently counting numbers in their head.

He first noticed Jia Xian last December.

It snowed all night that day, and before dawn, he got up to tend the stove and saw that the light in the duty room was still on. He thought it had been forgotten to be turned off, so he went over to blow it out, and through the crack in the door, he saw Jia Xian asleep on the table. The oil lamp was almost burned out, with only a tiny blue glow the size of a mung bean remaining, flickering on the wick, as if it might go out at any moment.

The table was covered with counting rods, black and white, arranged in a shape he couldn't decipher. Jia Xian's face was pressed against his arm, his eyebrows slightly furrowed, and his lips were still moving in his sleep, as if he were silently reciting numbers. He still held a counting rod between his right fingers.

Wang Shi stood outside the door for a while, then tiptoed back inside. He didn't blow out the lamp. He went to the water boiler room, poured in half a spoonful of oil, reached through the crack in the door, and refilled the lamp.

The wick, saturated with oil, simmered back to the size of a soybean. He saw Jia Xian's eyebrows slowly relax; he wasn't awake, but the light on his face changed from a cold white to a warm yellow. Then he stepped out and closed the door. The hinges creaked, but Jia Xian remained asleep.

He didn't tell anyone about this.

His hands were still trembling as he put the tea tray back on the table.

The cold tea in the celadon cup sloshed for a while before finally stopping. He looked down at the rim of the cup; the tiny chip, the size of a grain of rice, was still in its original place. He suddenly thought: Everyone in this government office has flaws, but others' flaws are hidden in unseen places, while his flaw is on his fingertips.

Just now in the main hall, Shangguan's gaze fell upon the tea tray. Shangguan didn't see Jia Xian, at least not for a few moments. A servant carried the tea tray to the center of the main hall, blocking the sixth-rank official's view. He knew he could only block it for a few moments; after that, everything would return to normal. But he still blocked it.

He thought of his father.

My father was a blacksmith when he was alive. He worked as a blacksmith in the north of Bianjing (Kaifeng), and he held the hammer in his hands for twenty years. When he was a child, he would squat by the anvil and watch the hammer strike the red-hot iron, sending sparks flying. His father would always tell him to stand back.

Later, his father inhaled too much iron filings into his lungs, and his phlegm was full of black foam. Before he died, he called him to his bedside and said, "Put this hammer of mine on my chest." He did as he was told. His father placed his hands on the hammer handle, his knuckles, which were stiff from years of holding the hammer, so that his knuckles dug into the old wood of the handle.

Then he closed his eyes. The hammer pressed against his father's chest, his father's ribs protruding through his thin chest like a row of old iron bars bent under the weight of a heavy object.

He knew what it was. A person keeps the most important thing in their life close to their heart.

Today he saw Jia Xian do the same thing, his hand pressed against his chest, not to cover his heart, but to cover a piece of paper. The soaked paper was pressed against his chest, and he could feel the texture of the paper through his wet clothes. He had never heard of the word "center of gravity," but he recognized the gesture.

The first person in the world to stand up and protect the right to ask questions was a lowly servant whose name wasn't even on the roster.

He turned and walked toward the kitchen. As he passed the side door, he glanced toward the main hall. Jia Xian was still kneeling in the rain, holding the stack of soaked papers in his arms, his knees soaked in the puddles on the blue bricks, motionless.

He stood in the shadows of the corridor, with the kitchen behind him and the main hall in front of him. The two rooms were not separated by a brick wall, but by the distance between stars.

He continued walking towards the kitchen. He pushed open the door; the stove fire was still burning, but the water in the kettle had boiled dry, and the bottom of the kettle was glowing red. He picked up the kettle, filled it with cold water, and put it back on.

Steam hissed out of the kettle spout, hitting his face and making him squint. He blinked, squeezing out the steam from his eyes—not tears, but steam. Steam filled the kitchen.

He squatted down in front of the stove, adding firewood. The firewood crackled, and the firelight shone on the old scars on the back of his hands, making the burn marks flicker.

For three years, he has filled the teapot with water every morning. Because he is the only one in the entire Chongtian Division who knows that the first thing everyone who has stayed up all night wants to do when they wake up in the morning is to have a hot drink.