When Su Sheng woke up, he was picked up from the river bend and could not remember anything.
People in the town saw that he "saved his life when he woke up" and called him Ah Sheng. The old temple manager took him into the temple and taught him how to recognize incense, monuments, and the inexplicable old rules in the town. He thought he was an orphan, thought he was just a skilled clay sculpture apprentice, and thought his life would just go on like this.
Until that night, half of the smiling Clay Bodhisattva's broken face emerged from the bottom of the dry well.
His hands were itchy and he patched up half of his face.
My mind exploded - gray sky, shadows covering the sky, broken smiles, countless pieces crushed into the mud.
Then he made the first clay figurine that could move.
From that day on, he knew three things: first, he could not leave the temple town and would lose his life quickly if he crossed the border; second, the clay figurine could get stabbed for him, find paths for him, and do anything he didn't want to do for him; third, he was not only guarding the temple in this town, he was nailed here.
But he never stopped thinking about going out.
This river holds grudges and also remembers roads. Every time he looked up a folklore legend, he was picking out a piece of the puzzle of "how to get out".
He is afraid of death. People who are afraid of death think too much.
But the clay figurine he made was not afraid.
——
