Sect Year 2 · ninth month · night of day 14 · the twenty-fifth life: the valley under Silent Terrace, Ah Dong’s eighth year
Spring came up the valley a week at a time. First the willows by the bridge went green at the tips. Then the bean rows lifted their pale heads out of the black earth, and one morning the stream under the forge found its voice again, loud enough to hear from the bench. Ah Dong stood at the top of the terrace with the linseed pot in both hands and watched the change climb toward him, the way water fills a trough from the bottom.
“Hold it level,” said Xu Anning. “Not like that. Level, or you’ll spill it on the step.”
“It’s heavy.”
“It’s oil. It is always heavier than it looks.”
The teacher had set a stool by the house door, and on the stool lay a folded rag. He knelt on the top step with his back to the valley. The doorframe rose on either side of him, two posts of dark timber and a top door beam across the top, all of it worn smooth by years of hands. Where the oil had soaked in, the wood had gone the colour of strong tea. Through the grain ran fine grey lines, like the veins on the back of an old man’s hand.
