Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 13 Fire Breaks Out

The news that Jia Xian had been transferred to Junyi County to manage horse feed spread throughout the Chongtian Division for three days.

It wasn't an official document, it was the wind. It first leaked from a clerk's mouth, then drifted down the corridor into every duty room, finally landing by the stove in the servants' quarters. Some said the superior had already drafted the transfer order, just waiting for the seal; others said it wasn't a transfer order, but a direct dismissal; still others said Jia Xian was still setting up abacuses in the duty room yesterday afternoon, until dark, not at all like someone who was about to leave.

Wang Shi heard these words in the kitchen but didn't respond. He lifted the kettle off the stove, the bottom of which hit the iron rack with a clang. The speaker was interrupted for a moment by the sound, turned to look at him, and saw that he was already bent over poking at the fire.

On the fourth night, the wind changed.

It wasn't because of the transfer order. It was because of those old account books in the west corridor.

The clerk in charge of the accounts in the west corridor was surnamed Wu. He had worked in the Chongtian Division for seven years and was in charge of the procurement accounts. The flow of money, such as timber for repairs, lamp oil and charcoal, and replacement parts for bronze instruments, went in and out of the accounts, and every entry bore his personal seal.

Over the course of seven years, he used his personal seal in places where it shouldn't have been. He overstated the timber by 30%, used inferior lamp oil, and never bought any replacement bronze instruments. He didn't embezzle much, but it was enough to get him beheaded.

Last winter, the Ministry of Revenue came to investigate, but he managed to get away with it by using falsified accounts. But this time is different. The day before yesterday, the Ministry of War requested files to verify the timber accounts for the defense of Bianjing using the purchase records of the Chongtian Division.

Once the two accounts match up, the falsely reported "repair timber" will become a bombshell. The ledger states that the timber has been "used for the repair of the Chongtiansi main hall," but in reality, the roof tiles of the main hall are still leaking.

Wu, the clerk, panicked. These old account books were to be reviewed tomorrow. He had started burning his own private accounts yesterday afternoon, tearing them off page by page and throwing them into the charcoal brazier. The firelight illuminated his face, and beads of sweat streamed from his temples to his collar. By midnight, only one stack remained, and the brazier couldn't hold it all.

He looked up at the window. The wind was blowing in from the direction of the Bian River, carrying the smell of water. The paper windowpane of the broken window at the end of the west corridor had long since rotted away, leaving only the wooden frame, through which the wind rushed in unimpeded.

He suddenly remembered that the broken window was one of the replacement parts falsely reported by the previous accountant when repairing windows. The window was originally broken, but he fabricated a replacement record. The window paper hadn't been pasted back on for ten years, and now the wind was blowing in through it. It was as if that window had taken a big detour to find him.

An idea popped into my head by the brazier.

He picked up the last stack of account books and pushed open the door to the west wing. The wing was empty. He walked to the end and stuffed the stack of papers into a crack in the wall beneath the broken window—a patch of plaster soaked by rain, filled with dry grass and wood chips, where rats had once nested. He pulled a tinderbox from his sleeve, blew on it, and brought it close to the dry grass.

He didn't notice which direction the wind was coming from. The wind from the Bian River rushed into the broken window, curling up the burning paper sheets like a white butterfly on fire. The butterfly flew up to the ceiling and landed on the dry wooden beams that had accumulated over ten years.

The surface of the beam was covered with a fine layer of sawdust, traces of insect infestation. The insects had hollowed out the wood, and the sawdust became tinder. The moment the flames touched it, the entire beam burst into flames as if it had been doused in oil.

Wu Li saw the flames leaping upwards and turned pale. He reached out to put them out, but the fire had already passed over his head and spread along the beams into the depths of the corridor. He took a step back, then another, and then turned and ran. As he ran, he still clutched the fire extinguisher in his hand, only letting it go when it burned his palm.

The fire had caught up with his silhouette as he ran.

When the fire alarm rang, Jia Xian was copying calculations in the duty room.

The oil lamp sat on the corner of the table, its flame flickering suddenly—not because the wick was nearly burnt out, but because a draft had swept in. He looked up and heard someone calling in the distance, the sound drawn out by the corridor, as if muffled by water. He put down his pen, rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, and stood up to walk to the door.

The moment he pushed open the door, he saw a red light coming from the direction of the west corridor.

That wasn't the light of a lantern. It was the entire wall burning.

The oarsmen carried buckets of water and ran towards the west corridor. The water in the buckets splashed out and spilled all over the ground, leaving water stains on the blue bricks behind them. Some people shouted, "Fire in the west corridor!" Others shouted, "Quickly move the files!" Still others stood motionless in the courtyard, looking up at the flames shooting out from the cracks in the tiles. They weren't scared, but they didn't dare to go forward.

Jia Xian stood at the door of the duty room, his mind clearer than ever before.

The archives were right next to the west corridor. He had walked that corridor for three years; he could find the door with his eyes closed. In the second drawer against the wall on the innermost shelf of the archives was his draft of the triangular diagram. Last time, Shangguan almost burned it, so he dared not leave it in the duty room again. Instead, he wrapped it in two layers of oiled paper and stuffed it behind a stack of old calendar records.

Those were old files from the retired Imperial Observatory, no one bothered to look at them. Just like the mathematical manuscripts that Boss Qi tucked into his books when he sold them, the safest place was the place no one cared about.

The fire is now spreading from the west corridor toward the archives. He doesn't know how far the flames will reach that wall, but he knows the wind is blowing in this direction.

Jia Xian put down the hemp rope in his hand.

His original plan for tonight was to finish copying the last page of the calculations. He had borrowed the hemp rope from the servants' quarters to bundle the papers together and submit them to the Imperial Observatory again tomorrow. His superior had rejected his previous submission, arguing that "it is not official business without the superior's authorization," but he was unwilling to give up and wanted to try again. The rope wasn't tied yet, and the whole stack of papers leaned against the edge of the table, like a half-built wall about to collapse.

He doesn't need the bundle anymore. He only needs the original page of the manuscript.

He didn't run outside. He turned and rushed towards the archives.

There were no lights in this section of the corridor leading to the duty room, only the flickering firelight at the end. He wasn't running very fast; his old knee injury hurt more at night than during the day, and with each step he felt like needles were pricking him from between his kneecaps.

He leaned against the wall, his fingers tracing the cracks in the blue bricks as he moved forward. He could feel the wall was hot. Not from fire, but from fire that had burned through the cracks in the bricks of the partition wall.

His colleague, Clerk Lu, rushed out from around the corner, nearly bumping into him. Clerk Lu, carrying a stack of official documents under his arm, saw Jia Xian running in the opposite direction and reached out to pull him back: "That side collapsed, are you looking for death?!"

Jia Xian didn't stop. He glanced back at him as he ran. Lu, the registrar, stood frozen in place. He saw that the mad official's eyes were blazing brightly in the firelight, so bright that it didn't seem like he was going to his death, but rather like he was going to keep a long-awaited appointment. Then Jia Xian turned the corner at the end of the corridor and was swallowed by thick smoke.

Half of the west corridor has collapsed.

The wooden beams had burned through and crashed down, blocking the entrance to the corridor. Fire poured in from the broken section, forming a curtain of flames. Jia Xian stood three steps in front of the curtain of flames, the heat blowing his hair back and the sweat on his face instantly drying.

He covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve and looked down to see a pool of water on the ground. It was from the afternoon rain that had seeped in through the leaky roof. Burnt bamboo slip fragments floated on the surface of the water, like a black river flowing through fire.

He stepped through the puddle. The water went over the soles of his shoes, and he felt a brief chill on the insteps of his feet, which were then dried by the steam.

The archive door was open. The previous clerk had fled when the fire alarm went off. Jia Xian ran past the dusty old bookshelves to the innermost shelf of the archives. Half of the wall was blackened by the fire, the paint bubbling up. Using his memory, he pulled an oiled paper package from behind a stack of discarded scrolls. The package was light and dry. The fire hadn't reached this point yet.

As he pulled the oiled paper package from the shelf, his fingers brushed against an old book beside it. It was the manuscript of the previous Grand Astrologer, recording daily events from the Chongning to the Daguan eras. The paper was yellowed, and flames were licking at him from the cracks in the brickwork of the adjacent wall.

His hand paused. This old record was the only practical record he could borrow, and he always put it back after reading it. At that moment, the flames were burning through the cracks in the bricks, and the corners of the paper were beginning to curl. He had no time.

He also tucked the old record under his arm.

As I rushed out of the archives, a dull thud echoed overhead. It was the main beam of the partition wall; the burning wood fibers, finally unable to bear its own weight, were bending downwards. Flames squeezed out of the crack, accompanied by a sharp hiss, like someone inhaling air from the fire.

He turned the corner of the corridor as fast as he could. A loud crash followed behind him as the main beam slammed into the spot where he had just been standing, sparks flying into the back of his neck and drawing blisters. He didn't turn around.

I pushed open the door and went out into the yard.

Cold rain poured into his collar, rubbing against the blisters on his neck that had just been burned, stinging like blades cutting into his skin. He gasped for breath, his chest filled with the smell of smoke, his throat feeling like it was being rubbed with sandpaper.

He squatted down in the courtyard and opened the oil paper package. The triangular diagram was wrapped tightly, with only a small corner scorched by the fire. The yellow scorch mark landed right in the blank space at the lower right corner of the diagram, without touching any numbers. Half of the previous Grand Astrologer's manuscript had been burned, and the other half was still under his arm, with embers still smoldering at the edge. He extinguished it with his fingers.

Father said, "Focus." He pressed the oiled paper package to his chest; through the two layers of oiled paper and his soaked clothes, he could feel the manuscript being warmed by his body heat. It contained all his questions from the past three years. He didn't burn it.

Behind them, the west corridor let out its final lament under the dual torment of rain and fire, and finally collapsed. The firelight illuminated the figures of those running out of the Chongtian Division courtyard, casting their shadows on the screen wall, swaying, stretching, and twisting.

There was a crack in the screen wall, and the firelight pierced through the crack, casting a very thin line of light behind the screen wall.