booktalesy Chapter 20 Soaring Fire
Chapter 20 Soaring Fire
The book was a gift from Li Jieren.
Wu Ling intended to read two pages and then go to sleep.
Looking up again, the light filtering through the curtains was no longer the orange glow of the streetlights, but the bluish-gray light of the sky.
He closed the book, his hand still resting on the cover, feeling a lingering unease, and wanted to visit the Republican era.
Wu Ling went downstairs and walked to the back door.
The door panel was cold.
He gave it a push.
The lighting is wrong.
It wasn't the warm yellow of a teahouse from the Republican era, nor the white of a streetlamp in a back alley.
A layer of somber red was pressed against the crack in the door; there were no lights outside, only fire.
Wu Ling's first thought was to close the door.
But the hand had already let go, and the foot had stepped out.
The smell of burnt earth filled my nostrils.
It's not charcoal fire, not three kinds of flowers, and not kitchen smoke.
The ashes mixed with charred grass, wood, and bones made one's throat dry and parched.
The ground beneath my feet wasn't made of stone slabs, but of dust.
There were bits of charcoal in the ash, and when you stepped on it, you sank into shallow indentations.
He had only taken two steps when his toe kicked something.
The thing rolled halfway through the ash, revealing its charred, broken surface.
Wu Ling squatted down, brushed away the dust, and saw a ring of fine diagonal lines.
ivory.
Half an ivory tusk was stuck diagonally in the ash, with two or three other pieces nearby. The drag marks on the ground were still fresh, and the ash had not yet covered it.
The ash layer thinned out a bit, revealing bronze fragments underneath. The fish tail was still intact, but the fish head was gone.
Further ahead, a mask with protruding eyes lay beneath the fragments.
The eyeballs popped out of the gray and faced him directly.
Wu Ling squatted there, without moving.
He had seen the photograph.
In the photo, it's behind glass, with an information sign, lights, and people queuing to visit.
Now it lies in the gray at my feet, its verdigris pressed down by the dark red light of the sky, cold and unreal.
Wu Ling stood up, gripped the gavel tightly, and continued forward.
The terrain suddenly rose a bit.
He stood on a rammed earth platform.
The platform was over two meters high, and its edges were charred black.
Below the earthen platform was an open area, surrounded on three sides by city walls.
The wall is not high, and several sections have collapsed, revealing traces of bamboo weaving and wooden frames inside.
Outside the city walls, the fire was smoldering.
The fire was not in one place.
A dark red line stretched out in the distance, pushing along the base of the wall towards this side.
People ran around in front of the fire, their bare feet sinking into the ashes, their insteps turning completely black.
Two boys dragged an ivory tusk, which kept hitting the ground with a dull thud.
A woman was holding a clay pot filled with water, and her arms were shaking from the shaking.
Further away, someone was holding a stone hammer.
The hammer fell, and the bronze artifact cracked.
It wasn't broken from a fall.
It's smashing.
They smashed them one after another.
Wu Ling felt a chill run down his spine.
Modern people are afraid to breathe too much when looking at bronze artifacts through glass, but these people pressed the bronze artifacts onto the stone slabs and smashed them with their own hands.
The larger fragments were picked up and thrown into the fire.
Jade artifacts were no exception.
Several ivory tusks were arranged in a row, with the thicker end pointing towards the bronze tree, their whiteness dazzling.
No one cried.
No one shouted.
The sounds of fire, footsteps, clinking pottery shards, and panting all mingled together, yet no one dared to utter a sound.
Then Wu Ling saw the tree.
It is cast in bronze.
It was so tall it seemed unrecognizable, the trunk so thick that one person couldn't wrap their arms around it, and a dragon with its head facing down coiled around the base of the tree.
The branches are divided into three layers, with three branches in each layer, for a total of nine branches.
Every branch has flowers, and birds perch on the flowers.
Nine birds.
The wind rustled through the copper branches, making a very soft sound.
It wasn't the sound of a bell, nor the sound of wind; it sounded like someone tapping a thin piece of copper from a very, very far away place.
A row of people were kneeling under the tree.
She wore a long, narrow-sleeved robe, was barefoot, and had her hair piled on top of her head with a bone hairpin piercing through it.
The person at the very front had a golden mask covering their face.
It wasn't a frighteningly large shape like a mask with protruding eyes; it was just a thin gold leaf that fit the shape of the face, covering from the forehead to the chin.
The golden mask holds a ceramic bowl in both hands.
Brownish-red, plain noodles, bowl with an uneven rim and uneven sides.
There is water in the bowl.
The first thing Wu Ling looked at was the bowl.
The bowl wasn't pretty at all, but the golden mask held it very steadily.
The water at the rim of the bowl swayed only briefly for a long time before settling back down.
A fire outside the city wall flickered briefly.
A heat wave swept in.
Among the kneeling people, some had trembling shoulders.
The woman holding the pottery jar took a half step back, and the jar almost slipped from her grasp.
The men dragging the ivory stopped, one looking at the other, unsure whether to continue.
The golden mask did not move.
Before Wu Ling could even process what was happening, he blurted out.
"Hey! It's burning over there!"
The golden mask turned its head.
Two eyes were looking at him from beneath the mask.
Wu Ling pointed outside the city wall.
"Fire! Over there, fire!"
The golden-masked man tightened his grip on the bowl, but his feet remained stationary.
"You have to go!" Wu Ling pointed at him, then at the people under the tree, making a running gesture. "Go! Run! If you don't run, you'll be roasted alive!"
The man in the golden mask had a steady gaze, seemingly waiting for him to finish this strange performance.
"The fire is coming!"
Seeing that these people didn't react, Wu Ling assumed that he had been gesturing too fast just now, so this time he gestured with his hand after saying each word.
When talking about "burning," all ten fingers tremble upwards, making even themselves feel ashamed.
The short man looked up at him.
The man was young, his face was covered in ash, and he was holding a mask with protruding eyes in his arms.
The mask was bigger than half his body, and he had a hard time holding it.
Wu Ling quickly pointed at him.
"Yes, it's you. Get up and run."
The short man lowered his head even further than before.
Wu Ling almost laughed in anger.
"Your rules are too strict."
He walked around to the side of the golden mask and pointed to the ceramic bowl.
"A bowl of water can't stop such a big fire, you know? Just one bowl."
He held up one finger, then spread his arms wide, gesturing to the fire outside the city wall.
"A bowl of water can't stop it. What's burning over there isn't just a stove fire, it's an entire field."
The golden mask looked down at the bowl, then looked up at the fire, and finally raised the bowl even higher.
Wu Ling's words stuck in his throat.
"No... I didn't mean for you to lift it higher."
The man with the golden mask held up a bowl, his gaze earnest.
Wu Ling finally understood a little bit.
But the people under the tree could no longer hold their ground.
The woman carrying the pottery jar stepped back a second time, and the man dragging the ivory loosened his grip, causing the ivory to fall to the ground and kick up a small cloud of dust.
Some of the kneeling people looked up, some turned around, and the formation began to break apart.
Even so, the golden mask remained silent.
He was just holding the bowl.
Wu Ling's palm tightened.
He touched the gavel.
What are storytellers most afraid of?
It's not that there was no one in the audience.
The party is over.
Once the event is over, even the best books can't be retrieved.
Wu Ling took a step forward, intending to strike the gavel.
When I raised my hand, I realized there was no table.
There was no storytelling platform, no tea table, and no counter.
The ground was covered in ash, next to me stood a bronze tree, and in the distance, fire raged.
In his desperation, he blurted out, "How can I tell stories without a stage?"
No one could understand it.
Wu Ling looked around and found a flat slab of burnt earth in front of the bronze tree roots.
The board wasn't big; it had once held ceramic bowls, and the edges were blackened by fire.
He squatted down and placed the gavel on it.
The first tap didn't produce the crisp sound you hear in a teahouse.
It's so boring.
thump.
The sound sank into the earth and then rose back up from under the bronze tree roots.
Wu Ling himself was stunned.
The nine birds on the bronze tree trembled simultaneously.
It's not alive.
The copper branch trembled for a moment.
But after that, the earthen platform fell silent.
The short man was holding a mask, his eyes wide open.
Even the people who had just run away looked back.
Wu Ling placed his hand on the gavel, his throat tightened, and he opened his mouth to say something.
"Don't panic."
While everyone was silent, the golden mask moved.
He slowly placed the ceramic bowl back in front of the tree roots and took off his mask.
There is no god beneath the mask.
It was an old man's face.
High cheekbones, deep-set eyes, and chapped lips.
The lines on his forehead were made very deep by the firelight.
He was considerably shorter than Wu Ling, and even when standing straight, he didn't reach Wu Ling's shoulder.
The old man looked at the gavel, then at Wu Ling.
He raised his hand and pointed to the slab of burnt clay.
Come again.
Wu Ling swallowed hard.
"You want more?"
The old man never put his hand down.
Wu Ling picked up the gavel and put it down again.
thump.
This time the voice was deeper.
One by one, the people under the tree knelt back down.
The man dragging the ivory tusk gripped it again, and the woman carrying the pottery jar straightened it.
The old man looked at Wu Ling, nodded, then pointed to the pottery bowl and then to the gray ground.
Wu Ling looked over.
There was a lump of burnt, wet mud that had been pressed into a thin sheet.
The edges are still soft, there is a fingerprint in the middle, and next to it is half a broken pottery blank, which already has the outline of a bowl, but has not yet been fired.
The old man bent down, picked up the clump of mud, and placed it in Wu Ling's palm.
The mud is warm.
Wu Ling's palm sank, and heat seeped into the lines of his hand.
The old man pointed to his own eyes, then to Wu Ling's hand.
Look.
Wu Ling lowered his head.
This clay is less remarkable than any bronze artifact.
It has no patterns, no golden sheen, it's just a lump of mud.
But when it landed in his hand, he didn't dare to hold it tightly.
The old man picked up the plain ceramic bowl and gently placed it on the ashes.
A handful of mud.
A bowl.
A thought almost popped into Wu Ling's head, but he forced it back down.
The old man poured a little water from the low earthenware pot behind him.
Water mixed with ash fell into the bowl and sloshed around.
The old man looked up and suddenly said something.
The sound was short and low, and Wu Ling couldn't understand a single word.
"I really don't understand."
The old man said one more thing.
Wu Ling's mind went blank.
He usually hates awkward silences. If someone in the teahouse doesn't respond, he can still manage to say three sentences.
But not now.
The ancient Shu language from three thousand years ago, when heard, is just the sound; the meaning is lost.
Wu Ling squatted down, placed the clay on the ground, flattened it with his fingers, picked up the pottery bowl, placed it next to the clay, and then drew a line of steam above the bowl.
Finally, he drew a square object next to it.
He wanted to paint a shop.
The more they drew, the more ominous it became.
Wu Ling quickly erased half of it and redraw two pillars and a top.
"shop."
Looking at Wu Ling's painting, the old man reached out and added a tree in front of the "shop".
The tree was drawn very simply, with three strokes: one vertical line and two curves, yet it was far superior to the crooked tree in Wuling.
Then the old man placed the earthenware bowl under the tree.
Under the tree, there is a bowl and an unfinished shop.
Wu Ling finally couldn't suppress the thought that had been nagging at him.
"A handful of mud, a bowl, a pot of tea, and a shop."
He stopped himself as soon as he said it.
The old man couldn't understand the words, but he understood Wu Ling's expression.
He pointed to the four items on the ground again.
mud.
bowl.
Water vapor.
The shop under the tree.
He placed his hand on his own chest, then on Wu Ling's chest.
It was a very light touch, but Wu Ling felt a sudden heat in his chest.
The old man picked up the earthenware bowl, took a sip himself, and handed it to Wu Ling.
Wu Ling took it.
The water was cold, with a smell of wood ash and a slightly earthy odor.
It doesn't taste good.
But it quenches thirst.
After he finished drinking, he returned the bowl.
"Thanks."
The old man took the bowl, looked at the water which was mostly empty, and then looked at Wu Ling.
His lips twitched slightly.
He didn't laugh very obviously.
Someone shouted from afar.
Short, sharp, and piercing to the ears.
The firelight drew closer.
The old man put the gold mask back on and picked up the earthenware bowl.
The wind rustled through the bronze tree, and the bronze flowers on the heads of the nine birds trembled slightly, making a very faint sound.
The gavel on the sintered clay board trembled slightly.
Wu Ling looked in the direction of the sound and saw that the character "唤" (call) on the bottom of the gavel was facing him.
The old man turned and walked toward the firelight without looking back.
The crowd followed behind him, their footsteps crunching in the dust.
The short man, holding the mask with protruding eyes, took two steps and looked back at Wu Ling.
Wu Lingchong waved his hand.
"Come on. Don't look at me. I don't know how I got here either."
The short man grinned, then turned and ran away.
The bronze tree still stands.
The nine birds remained motionless.
The fire didn't come over again, or rather, if it did, they took it away.
Only Wuling remains on the earthen platform.
And those four things on the ground.