Chapter 6:
Bronze Mirror
XUE XIAN CAREFULLY PEEPED around the pillar from his perch on Xuanmin’s shoulder. Fortunately, the paper doll was inconspicuous and easy to overlook. The voices, which sounded a little familiar, grew clearer. They waited until the door creaked open and a youth took a step through, his movements clumsy. Only then did Xue Xian realize that the voice belonged to Scribe Liu’s son, Liu Chong.
Had they really managed to find someone else so effortlessly? Who was he speaking to, Jiang Shining?
But Xue Xian wasn’t the type to jump to conclusions. He quickly sensed that something was amiss. While Liu Chong was still clad in a thick robe, it wasn’t the one he’d been wearing earlier. The original one had been blue-gray, but he was now dressed in maroon. His sleeves were even trimmed with crimson, imparting a somewhat festive vibe.
As the thought crossed Xue Xian’s mind, he saw Liu Chong turn around to help another person out the door. His movements were awkward—even the action of supporting someone required considerable effort on his part—but they also revealed the depths of his sincerity.
The person he was helping was an elderly woman with her hair in a bun. Her hair was white and sparse, her bun only a small, limp tuft on the back of her head. Her face was gaunt and full of deep-set wrinkles, the corners of her eyes drooping. There was a purplish hue to her lips that marked her as ill. She had one hand on Liu Chong’s wrist, gripping it tightly the way a withered root clung to the earth. Her other hand rested on a dull wooden cane.
Despite the aid, she still struggled to step over the threshold. The elderly often had trouble lifting their legs, and it was obvious that the threshold was too high for her.
After a moment, the old lady finally stood outside. She supported herself with both hands on the cane and smiled at Liu Chong. “Chong-er is so capable. Go inside and bring me a wooden stool.”
Liu Chong nodded. When he stepped into the building, the old lady added, “Oh, bring the lanterns and the paper ingots as well.”
Unfortunately, Liu Chong only had the capacity to focus on one thing at a time. The old lady had given him three instructions at once, which proved too complicated for him. He stood with one foot inside and the other outside, staring blankly at the lady as he struggled to articulate his words. “Wooden stool… Ingots?”
The old lady sighed almost soundlessly, then smiled at him. “Mm. Chong-er is so smart.”
Liu Chong smiled foolishly in her direction and hurried into the room. Moments later, he emerged holding a wooden stool in one hand and a large cloth bag in the other. With both hands occupied, he seemed unsure how to step outside. He hesitated at the threshold for a moment before awkwardly stumbling out, then handed the stool and the bag to the old lady. He tried to help steady the stool and open the bag, but in his clumsiness, he almost toppled the stool and inadvertently pulled the cloth bag’s knot too tight. It was hard to tell if he was genuinely helping or making more trouble.
However, the old lady showed no sign of impatience. She continued to smile at Liu Chong as she said, “Go back inside and get two lanterns.”
Liu Chong, feeling commended, became even more enthusiastic. “Okay!” he said, before heading into the house and rummaging around. Not long after, he returned with two red lanterns.
“It’s almost New Year’s. Time to replace the white lanterns.” The old lady instructed Liu Chong to swap the lanterns hanging over the door for the festive red ones, then sat back down on the wooden stool, squinting her eyes as she tugged on the knot he had tangled.
After a long while, she managed to loosen it. The bag opened, and the pile of paper ingots within spilled to the ground. The old lady carefully pulled a fire starter from her pocket. Using the flame of the white lantern to light the material inside, she tossed it onto the pile.
Warm yellow flames instantly roared to life, and the heap of ingots rapidly shriveled in the heat, as if the essence had been sucked out of them. One ingot in the corner escaped the flames and was caught by the wind instead. The gust blew it over to the pillar, and Xuanmin reached out, catching it in his hand.
He turned the ingot over. Sure enough, there were several characters written on the bottom. The messy handwriting identified it as Liu Chong’s work.
Xue Xian leaned closer, squinting to decipher the writing. It seemed to be a name: Liu Xian. He recalled the illegible scribbles on the ingots in Liu Chong’s room. Could they have said this name?
On further thought, that didn’t seem right. The characters for Liu Xian were clear and legible, so why would they have been a jumbled mess on the ingots? Besides, those smudged ink stains had looked like more than two characters.