Glaze color
The rain in the three years of Tongzhi always smelled like rust.
Chen Jingyuan knelt in front of the yamen servant's boots and looked at the plaque of "Jingdezhen Porcelain Industry Guild" given by the emperor in the hall, stained by water in the rain. The guild president shook open the porcelain piece he painted with red underglaze lotus. The five large Chinese characters "Secret Color of the Royal Kiln" were smashed on the bluestone slab, and the splash wet his newly cut indigo shirt.
"Tomorrow at noon, we will escort you to the capital for questioning!"
When Su Wanning bumped into the yamen officer, the blue and white braid in her hair that he burned last year broke. The scraps of silver she had pawned in exchange for her ancestral jade bracelet were jingling and tumbling under the koan at the moment. The last thing Chen Jingyuan saw was her figure rushing into the rain curtain holding the remaining corner of the marriage certificate, like a red carp breaking through the ice.
The morning mist in Qixia Valley is always wrapped in the scent of rosin. Chen Jingyuan squatted down by the third mountain stream, twisting the moist soil with his fingertips - the luster between azure and moonwhite reminded him of the mutton-fat jade pendant hanging from Su Wanning's hairpin. When he cut the first piece of kaolin, tits were skimming the remains of wild kilns on the rock wall with pine needles in their mouths.
When the thin figure carrying a bamboo basket appeared at the mouth of the valley, Chen Jingyuan was using newly researched glaze to draw lines on the blank. The moment Su Wanning lifted her hijab, he saw the pottery xun she had pinched casually on her temples, and lying in her palm was the same piece of underglaze red porcelain that had been soaked by the rain.
"Now," she pressed the piece of porcelain to his heart, "we can make our own fire."
