Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 25 In the Dark

As dawn approached, Cui Laodao took the stencil out of the oilcloth. He touched every knife mark, knowing there were no cracks, but he wanted to touch it again—not to check, but to memorize. He wanted to verify each number by hand before applying ink, something that had taken three attempts to complete.

He recognized every single cut on this slab—not just the numerical value, but the moment they marked in his life. The "1" at the top was the beginning; after six months of saving material, he finally had something worth carving. The large number in the middle of the third layer was the first cut that made him truly understand "what this is." The notch at the corner of the fifth layer was from when he lost control of the force while changing the direction of the cut, leaving a shallow mark from his fingernail. The numbers on the sixth layer, almost imperceptible, were carved by hand using his calluses after the oil lamp went out. The "1" at the bottom of the seventh layer was the first step after three failures, finally finding his footing.

He glanced out the window. The fog on the Cai River hadn't lifted yet, and the restaurants on the opposite bank were faintly visible in the mist, like an unprinted printing plate. He had seen these scenes for three years, but today they felt distant, his mind elsewhere, focused on that unprinted plate.

He closed his eyes. He had done this countless times. When carving arrow shafts, the officer would throw an empty shaft in front of him and announce its number. He would close his eyes, reach for the end, and the knife tip would penetrate the wood a fraction of an inch. When he opened his eyes, the carving was finished. Ma the Cripple said that when he closed his eyes, his eyeballs moved beneath his eyelids, like walking a path in a dream. He said it wasn't a dream, but rather a mental rehearsal of the knife path. Arrow shafts are round, and the number only has a few characters, so the knife path could be completed in advance. But the printing plate is flat, with hundreds of characters on a single page, making it impossible to complete the carving path. Therefore, one cannot close their eyes when carving. But today he did. The oil lamp was still lit, but he didn't want to look. He looked three times; the first time the plate cracked, the second time it cracked again, and the third time he didn't look, and it was finished. His eyes would deceive him. The eyes see the numbers on the design, the marks left by the knife, and the depth of the characters under the light, but they cannot see the rebound of the wood fibers at the knife tip—deep enough for a hard rebound, shallow enough for a soft rebound. This difference is less than half an inch; the eyes cannot see it, but the calluses do.

He placed his finger on the top of the printing plate. The moment his fingertip touched the surface, he thought of his grandfather. His grandfather fired kilns, judging the firing temperature not with his eyes, but with his eyes stained red from forty years of kiln fire. His grandfather used his ears. The sound of the fire in the kiln came from the bellows, roaring high flames, hissing low flames, and buzzing like bees flying in the kiln when the temperature was right. His grandfather would tilt his head and listen for a while, then say, "It's ready." And indeed, it was ready when the kiln was opened. Someone asked him how he could hear it, and his grandfather said, "It's not hearing, it's my bones. The ears are like doors; the sound of the fire enters the ears and goes down to the bones, and the bones know the temperature." He was seven years old then and didn't understand. Later, while carving arrow shafts in the arsenal, he suddenly understood in his third year—not with his brain, but with his hands. His hands knew in a certain instant how deep the blade should penetrate the wood, without seeing with his eyes, without thinking with his brain; his hands knew it themselves.

Beneath his fingertips, the jujube wood grain was cool to the touch, feeling like the fine cracks on his grandfather's kiln bricks. His grandfather's hand emerged from the pile of bricks, fingers spread, as if still measuring something. There was a coin-sized burn scar on the knuckle of his ring finger. That hand had never made a mistake in its measurements.

The sky outside the window changed from dark gray to grayish-white. The fog was too thick; even holding the plate to the window, he couldn't see the knife marks. If he couldn't see them, he wouldn't look anymore. He closed his eyes and began to feel the first line with his fingers.

The first number, a solitary "1". Halfway into the wood, the edge clean. This cut was the lightest of all, not because it was simple, but because it stood at the highest point, and every layer below had to emanate from it; it had to be straight. He carved three blocks, and this number was never crooked. Because there was no reference point, his hand was free of distractions while carving it. The further down he went, the more numbers there were, the busier his hand became, and the easier it was for distractions to creep in. The "1" at the bottom was exactly the same as at the top, but by the time he reached it, his hand had already traversed six layers of carving, his wrist couldn't bear the strain, and he almost crooked it each time. The first time it was crooked, the second time he carved too deep, and the third time he finally got it right by groping in the dark. He suddenly understood that carving the same number at the top and the bottom were two completely different cuts. The top was the beginning, the hand was still new, the heart was still pure; the bottom was the end, the hand was tired, the heart was full, and each cut was heavier than the last. But the final cut had to be as light and as straight as the beginning. When Jia Xian drew the "1" at the bottom of the seventh layer, no one knew if his hand was shaking, but he drew it correctly. What Cui Laodao had to do was to carve it correctly as well.

The two numbers on the second layer are symmetrical. He touched the left one first, then the right one, and the depth of his touch was exactly the same. He compared the numbers three times before moving on.

The number in the middle of the third layer is larger than the two on either side, and the callus can feel the difference in the area of ​​the knife marks. The direction of the knife was changed three times when it was carved, and the callus remembers each turn. This number is not the largest, but it was the first cut that made him feel "what this is". These numbers were not randomly stacked. There is a relationship between them, like the bricks that his grandfather laid in the kiln, each one pressing on the joint between the two bricks in the previous layer.

The two middle numbers on the fourth layer are engraved differently, but their springback is exactly the same.

When I touched the fourth number on the fifth floor, my fingertip shifted slightly, leaving a very tiny notch. This was the corner where the knife turned.

The sixth layer was even denser. Each cut penetrated very shallowly into the wood, some almost imperceptible, carved after the oil lamp had gone out. Without eyes watching, his hand dared not carve too deeply, and the result was lighter and thinner knife marks, and cleaner characters. He felt something he had never experienced before in the touch—not craftsmanship, but trust. His hand, in the dark without eyes, carved characters that were cleaner than when in light. His hand didn't need to be watched, only trusted.

The seventh layer. The last "1" is at the very bottom center, vertical, half an inch into the wood, perfectly straight. The first two pieces were inverted here. Now, the "1" at the bottom is upright, carved with a corner knife, very shallowly into the wood, completed in darkness. Without expectation, without brute force, without eyes.

He withdrew his finger and opened his eyes. Dawn pierced through the mist, a beam of light falling on the printing plate. The seven layers of numbers appeared clearly in the light, each cut precisely in the place he had anticipated. Even the notch at the corner, the marked position exactly where his finger had touched. He ran his palm from top to bottom of the plate, as if wiping away an invisible layer of dust.

For him, numbers were never just numerical values. They were positions, sequences, and proof of completing a task from beginning to end.

He covered the mat with a dry cloth and went to the door. The fog had mostly dissipated, and the Cai River shimmered in the morning light. A woman was squatting on the stone steps of the ferry crossing, washing clothes; the sound of her washing mallet carried across the water. Bianjing City was awakening.

Chu Xiaosong brought over a bowl of hot porridge from the stove. It was made with millet, very thin, with a few vegetable leaves floating on top. Cui Laodao took it and drank a sip.

"Master," Chu Xiaosong said, wringing the rag in his hands, "that board... is it done?"

Old Cui looked back at the board covered with a dry cloth on the worktable: "Wait for the ink to be applied. The knife marks are just questions; the ink on the paper is the answer."

He put down his bowl of porridge and went back to sit down. The numbers on the board stood quietly in the light. The knife had been changed; it was only halfway into the wood, and the last line was carved in the dark. He used to think that carving boards and carving arrow shafts were two different things—the arrow shafts were round, so he carved numbers; the boards were flat, so he carved characters. Now he thought they were the same thing. Both were leaving a mark on the wood, waiting for someone to see it, for someone to catch it.

He resealed the ledger, picked up the ledger board, and began his new day's work. The sound of the knife was as steady as ever. The fog outside the window had completely dissipated, and sunlight shone on the Cai River. The restaurant on the opposite bank opened its doors.

Chu Xiaosong squatted by the pile of scrap boards, putting the angle knife he had sharpened the night before back into the toolbox. He saw that his master's porridge had gone cold on the threshold, so he took it back to the stove, reheated it, and put it back on the workbench.

Old Cui picked up the bowl of porridge and took a sip. The porridge was hot.

The sound of a knife rang out again. The washerwoman at the ferry crossing carried away her wooden basin. Everything was the same as yesterday. But Old Cui knew something was different; the wooden board was still covered with a dry cloth. Jia Xian drew a question on the paper with his hand, a question he didn't recognize, but he answered with his hand. The knife mark said: I caught it.