Embers of the Broken River

Chapter 23 A Sigh

The two discarded boards leaned against the wall for three days.

Old Cui didn't touch them. Every morning when he sat down at his workbench, the first thing he saw were those two boards. The first one had a crack, and the second one had three. The cracks continued to deepen in the dampness, and the broken wood fibers turned from light yellow to brown. He neither looked at them nor moved them.

In three days, he carved six ledger blocks. The distillery's revenue, the cloth shop's purchases and sales, the canal wharf's invoices. Each one was as precise as before, each stroke clean and precise. Master Yu, passing by, clicked his tongue twice, remarking that Old Cui's craftsmanship had been strangely steady these past few days. He didn't know that Old Cui was using the ledger carving to keep his hand still; his hand couldn't stop, because if it did, he'd start thinking about that particular block.

Chu Xiaosong sensed something was wrong. His master never carved in the blanks before starting; he would take the sample and begin immediately. That steadiness was a natural, habitual steadiness; after carving hundreds of thousands of characters, the knife knew where to go on its own. During the two nights carving the triangular diagram, each stroke was first run over the board, the wrist angle and depth of penetration tested before the blade was applied; that meticulousness came from treating each stroke as if it were the first. Now, his master had returned to the state of "never carving in the blanks," the sound of the knife exactly the same as before. Chu Xiaosong had watched for three days, and he felt that his master was holding something back under the knife. He wasn't guessing; he could hear it. His master had told him while sharpening the knife: "If a person has something on their mind, their knife will reflect it; if the mind is anxious, the knife will be fast; if the mind is heavy, the knife will be heavy; if the mind is empty, the knife will be erratic." For the past three days, his master's knife hadn't been fast, heavy, or erratic; it was a different sound he had never heard before—too steady, so steady that the spacing between each stroke was perfectly uniform, as if even his breathing was being timed. This wasn't reassurance; it was suppression.

On the evening of the third day, the last shipment template was delivered. Old Cui put his carving knife back in his toolbox, walked to the corner, picked up the two scrap templates, and placed them on the workbench. Both had problems on the seventh layer; the first had the last "1" carved crookedly, and the second had a deeper cut on the fifth number. Cracks spread upwards from different locations, branching off on the third layer. He stacked the two templates back-to-back, face to face, took two hemp ropes, cut two equal lengths, wrapped them twice around the templates, and tightened them firmly. The pressure of the ropes prevented the cracks from deepening. He placed them against the table leg, not in the scrap template pile. He kept them.

Chu Xiaosong was sweeping the floor, his eyes fixed on his master's hands. He saw his master's mouth move slightly as he tied the boards, as if he was saying something, but he didn't make a sound.

After dark, the other craftsmen left. Lanterns were hung in the restaurants across the river, and the sound of a pipa drifted over from the Cai River. Old Cui sat at his workbench, with no mold, no template, and no carving knife in front of him. He picked up the two discarded molds bound together from the edge of the table and placed them on his lap. His hands rested on the hemp rope, which cut into his palms. He slowly closed his fingers, remaining silent as he sat there.

Then he sighed.

It was short. Squeezed from his throat. Not a lament; a lament would be drawn out, tremble, and fall at the end. This sigh didn't fall; it broke off as soon as it came out of his throat, like a cough that had been choked. His hand was still pressed on the scrap board, his knuckles white. It was a craftsman admitting: this thing was harder to make than I could. Not admitting defeat; a person who admits defeat wouldn't tie up the scrap board and leave it at their feet; a person who admits defeat would throw it into the pile of scrap boards and never look at it again. He didn't throw it away, but he knew that expectation was beyond his reach. The hand can control the knife, but it can't control expectation.

The sigh was soft. But in the empty bookstore, it was clearer than the sound of a carving knife striking a printing plate.

Chu Xiaosong heard it.

He squatted beside the pile of discarded printing blocks, clutching half a dry biscuit in his hand. The biscuit was so hard it hurt his teeth; he ate half of it and stuffed it into his pocket. He had heard his master sigh before—sighing when he ruined a printing block, sighing when Master Yu berated him, and sighing when Old Zheng said, "You don't know a single word." After sighing, his master would either curse, take a sip of tea, or stand up and walk to the door to ponder for a while. Then he would leave.

This time it wasn't. After sighing, the master didn't curse, didn't drink tea, and didn't stand up. He just sat there, with two pieces of scrap wood tied together on his lap, his hands resting on the hemp rope.

Chu Xiaosong wanted to speak. He wanted to say, "Master, the water's boiled." But he opened his mouth halfway and then closed it again. It wasn't that he was afraid; he suddenly realized he wasn't ready to speak yet. He had been an apprentice for two years and was still sharpening his knife, never having carved a single block. He didn't know what the resistance the wood gave him when the blade entered, nor did he know that expectation had weight. He only saw his master ruin two blocks, but he didn't know what those two blocks meant to his master. They weren't just two blocks; they were materials stored for half a year, the first time he had carved what he wanted to carve, all his hopes pressed into it, and then the wood grain cracked.

He didn't know. Therefore, he had no right to speak.

He put the pancake in his pocket, retreated back into the corner, and squinted even more. He wanted his master to think he was asleep, so that his master wouldn't have to worry about him and could sit for as long as he wanted.

Old Cui stood up and blew out the oil lamp. The bookstore fell into darkness. He gently placed the two discarded printing blocks on the table. He stood in the darkness for a moment, then turned and walked out. He paused as he passed the pile of discarded blocks. Chu Xiaosong's breathing was light and even, but he knew the apprentice wasn't asleep. He heard the soft sound of crumbs hitting the ground; the apprentice had put the cake in his pocket too forcefully, causing it to break, and crumbs leaked from the pocket seams and fell to the ground. He didn't expose him. He walked around the pile of discarded blocks, his hand pausing briefly above the apprentice's head, not touching him, just for a moment, before continuing out, into the night of Bianjing.

Chu Xiaosong opened his eyes in the darkness.

He heard his master's footsteps on the blue bricks of Shufang Street, turning out of the alley and heading towards Caihe. He didn't follow. He got up and went to the workbench, looking at the two discarded woodblocks bound together by the moonlight. The hemp rope was tightly bound, the front of the blocks facing outwards, two cracks casting shadows in the moonlight. He reached out and touched them, his fingertips tracing the cracks, the wood fibers prickling his hand. The feel of the cracks was completely opposite to the feel of testing the blade when sharpening it; the blade was smooth, cold, and slippery; the wood fibers were rough, astringent, and pricking. This was the first time he had touched a woodblock his master had discarded. He had touched the woodblocks his master had carved, the knife marks as smooth as a riverbed. Now, touching the cracks, he suddenly understood why his master had sat all night—not because he regretted the woodblocks, but because he regretted the shape. His master had measured that shape countless times with his fingers, remembering every layer from the top "1" to the bottom "1". But now it was split open by the cracks.

He opened his toolbox and took out his master's horn knife. The knife had just been sharpened; its blade reflected a cold gleam in the moonlight. He didn't carve patterns, but he could keep the knife sharp. He placed the knife on the whetstone, added a few drops of water, and gently sharpened it. The sound of sharpening was very soft, even softer than a sigh. After a few strokes, he held the knife up to the moonlight to examine the blade. The light on the edge was continuous and unbroken, so clean it could cut through the air. After inspecting it, he put it back in the toolbox and closed the lid.

Moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the hemp rope binding the two discarded printing blocks. The rope's shadow fell on the table, the dark shadows of two cracks overlapping with the rope's shadow, making it impossible to distinguish which was which. The sound of the Cai River still echoed. The study was quiet, save for the sound of water. The two discarded printing blocks lay side-by-side against the table leg, the rope tightly bound. It questioned the first failed footnote on the chain, and the first person to hear the sigh. Silence was another form of catching. The silent one caught the one who spoke, in the darkness, beside the pile of discarded printing blocks, on a blade sharpened for two years.