Chapter 2: Opening the Gate
The sky was barely light, and the roosters had yet to crow when Chen Ping'an got out of bed. His thin quilt simply couldn't hold in the warmth, and besides, his time as a porcelain apprentice had ingrained in him the habit of rising early and staying up late. Chen Ping'an opened the door and stepped into the small, soft-soiled courtyard. After taking a deep breath and stretching, he walked out of the yard. Turning his head, he spotted a slender figure bent over, carrying a wooden bucket of water with both hands, using her shoulder to push open her own courtyard gate. It was Song Jixin's maidservant, who had just returned from drawing water at the Iron Lock Well near Apricot Flower Lane.
Chen Ping'an averted his gaze and ran through the alleys, heading toward the eastern side of the town. Mud Vase Alley was on the western side, and at the easternmost city gate, there was a man in charge of monitoring travelers and patrolling at night, who also collected and forwarded letters sent back from outside. What Chen Ping'an was about to do was deliver those letters to the townsfolk. His pay was one copper coin per letter—this was a money-making opportunity he had desperately begged for. He had already arranged with the gatekeeper to take over this business after the Dragon Raises Its Head festival on the second day of the second lunar month.
As Song Jixin would put it, Chen Ping'an was born to a life of poverty. Even if good fortune were to walk through his door, he couldn't hold onto it. Song Jixin often said obscure things he must have picked up from books, and Chen Ping'an usually couldn't understand them. For instance, a couple of days ago, Song Jixin muttered something about "the biting spring cold killing the young," and Chen Ping'an had no idea what that meant. But the boy did know from experience that after surviving winter, there were days in early spring that felt even colder. Song Jixin called that "late spring cold snap," saying it was as lethal as a back-thrust on the battlefield, and that many people died on that threshold.
The town had no encircling city wall—after all, there were hardly any bandits or thieves, let alone highwaymen. So while it was called a "city gate," it was really just a row of dilapidated, leaning wooden fences, barely serving as a passage for pedestrians and carts, and that was considered the town's face.
As Chen Ping'an jogged past Apricot Flower Lane, he saw many women and children gathered around the Iron Lock Well, the well pulley creaking incessantly.
Rounding another street, he heard a familiar sound of recitation coming from not far away. There was a village school there, funded by several wealthy households in town. The teacher was an outsider. When Chen Ping'an was younger, he used to run there and crouch outside the window, straining his ears. That teacher was extremely strict during lessons, but he never scolded or stopped children like Chen Ping'an who "skipped in" to listen for free. Later, when Chen Ping'an became an apprentice at a dragon kiln outside town, he never went to the school again.
Continuing on, Chen Ping'an passed a stone archway. Because the archway had twelve stone pillars, the locals called it the Crab Archway. As for its real name, Song Jixin and Liu Yangxian had very different opinions. Song Jixin swore that an old book called the County Gazetteer referred to it as the Grand Scholar Arch, an imperial gift from the emperor to commemorate the literary and martial achievements of a historical high official. Liu Yangxian, who was as much of a country bumpkin as Chen Ping'an, said it was just the Crab Archway, and everyone had called it that for hundreds of years—no reason to call it some nonsense like the Grand Scholar Arch. Liu Yangxian even asked Song Jixin, "How big is a grand scholar's official hat? Bigger than the mouth of the Iron Lock Well?" That question left Song Jixin red in the face.
At that moment, Chen Ping'an ran a full circle around the twelve-pillar archway. On each side were four large characters, all in strange scripts, each set different: "Let No One Yield in Doing Right," "Nature Speaks in Silence," "Seek Not from Without," and "Spirit Soars to the Bull Constellation." According to Song Jixin, aside from those four characters, the other three inscribed plaques had been daubed over or tampered with. Chen Ping'an didn't understand any of this and had never given it deep thought. Of course, even if the boy wanted to get to the bottom of it, it would be futile—he didn't even know what book the County Gazetteer, which Song Jixin often mentioned, actually was.
Not far past the archway, he soon saw a lush old locust tree. Beneath it, there was a log that someone had dragged over, roughly hewn, with two slabs of blue stone placed under each end, turning the section of trunk into a makeshift bench. Every summer, the townsfolk liked to cool off there. Families with means would have the elders haul up a basket of chilled fruit from the well, and after the children ate and drank their fill, they would form groups and play tag under the shade.
Chen Ping'an was used to running up and down hills. He trotted to the vicinity of the fence gate and stopped in front of a solitary yellow-mud house, his heart not pounding, his breath not short.
Not many outsiders came to the town. Now that the official kilns, once a moneymaking cash cow, had been shut down, there were even fewer new faces. When Old Yao was alive, he once got drunk and told apprentices like Chen Ping'an and Liu Xianyang that their work was the only official kiln business in the world—making imperial porcelain for the emperor and empress. If any commoner, no matter how rich or high-ranking, dared to touch it, they'd have their heads chopped off. That day, Old Yao's spirit had been extraordinary.
Today, as Chen Ping'an looked outside the fence, he noticed quite a few people waiting for the gate to open—at least seven or eight, men, women, old, and young.
And they were all strangers. When the locals went in or out, whether to fire porcelain or work the fields, they rarely used the eastern gate. The reason was simple: the road beyond the eastern gate didn't lead to any dragon kilns or farmlands.
Now Chen Ping'an and those outsiders stood on opposite sides of the wooden fence, staring at each other.
At that moment, the boy in his self-woven straw sandals could only envy the thick clothes those people wore—they must have been very warm, able to withstand the cold.
The people outside were clearly in several groups, not a single party, but all looked at the thin boy inside the gate. Most had indifferent expressions; one or two had already let their gaze drift past the boy, looking further into the town.
Chen Ping'an found it odd. Did these people not know that the imperial court had shut down all the dragon kilns? Or, knowing the truth, did they think there was an opportunity?
There was a young man wearing a strange, tall hat, tall and slender, with a green jade pendant at his waist. He seemed to have grown impatient. Stepping away from the crowd, he moved to push open the unlocked fence gate. But just as his fingers were about to touch the wooden gate, he suddenly stopped, slowly withdrew his hand, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked at the straw-sandaled boy inside the gate with a grin, saying nothing—just smiling.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chen Ping'an noticed that among the people behind the young man, some looked disappointed, some amused, some frowned, some sneered—their emotions subtle and varied.
Just then, a middle-aged man with disheveled hair yanked the gate open, cursing at Chen Ping'an: "You little bastard, are you all about money? Coming here at this ungodly hour to rush me to the afterlife? Are you in such a hurry to reincarnate and meet your dead parents?!"
Chen Ping'an rolled his eyes. He didn't take these harsh words to heart. First, living in this rustic place where there were hardly any books, if he got angry every time someone cursed at him, he might as well jump into a well and be done with it—spare himself the trouble. Second, this bachelor gatekeeper himself was often the butt of jokes by the townsfolk, especially the bold, sharp-tongued women who not only cursed him but sometimes even hit him. Moreover, the man loved to spin tall tales to diaper-wearing kids, like "Back in the day, I had a fierce fight at the city gate, knocked out five or six burly men, left teeth all over the ground, blood everywhere—the whole two-zhang-wide road was just like a muddy path after rain!"
He said grumpily to Chen Ping'an, "We'll talk about your piddly business later."
No one in town took this guy seriously.
But whether outsiders could enter the town was a life-and-death power the man held.
As he walked toward the wooden gate, he scratched his crotch.
This man, with his back to Chen Ping'an, opened the gate and occasionally took small embroidered pouches from people, slipping them into his sleeve, before letting them through one by one.
Chen Ping'an had long since moved aside. The eight people entered in roughly five batches. Besides the young man with the tall hat and green jade pendant, there were also two seven- or eight-year-old children—a boy in a festive red robe and a girl as delicate and pretty as fine porcelain.
The boy was half a head shorter than Chen Ping'an. As he brushed past the boy, he opened his mouth without making a sound, but his lips clearly formed two words, full of provocation.
The middle-aged woman holding the boy's hand coughed softly, and the child restrained himself slightly.
Behind the woman and boy, the little girl, led by a towering old man with snow-white hair, turned to Chen Ping'an and babbled a long string of words, pointing at the boy of her age as she did.
Chen Ping'an couldn't understand a word the girl said, but he guessed she was tattling.
The towering old man glanced sidelong at the straw-sandaled boy.
Having been looked at—whether intentionally or not—Chen Ping'an instinctively stepped back.
Like a mouse before a cat.
Seeing this, the little girl, who had been chattering like a yellow oriole, lost all interest in stirring up trouble. She turned away without sparing Chen Ping'an another glance, as if looking at him any longer would dirty her eyes.
The young Chen Ping'an might not have seen much of the world, but that didn't mean he couldn't read people's expressions.
After that group had gone, the gatekeeper chuckled and asked, "Want to know what they said?"
Chen Ping'an nodded. "Yeah."
The bachelor grinned mischievously. "They said you're good-looking—all compliments."
Chen Ping'an twitched his lip. You think I'm stupid?
The man saw through the boy's thoughts and laughed even more heartily. "If you weren't stupid, do you think I'd let you deliver the mail?"
Chen Ping'an dared not argue, afraid of pissing off this guy and losing his hard-earned copper coins.
The man turned his head to look at those people, rubbing his stubbled chin, and muttered admiringly, "That woman just now—those legs could squeeze a man to death."
Chen Ping'an hesitated, then asked curiously, "Was that lady trained in martial arts?"
The man was taken aback, looked down at the boy, and said seriously, "Kid, you really are dumb."
The boy was baffled.
The man told him to wait, then strode back toward the house. When he returned, he had a stack of envelopes in his hand—not too thick, not too thin, about a dozen. After handing them to Chen Ping'an, he asked, "A fool has fool's luck; a good man gets good rewards. Do you believe that?"
Chen Ping'an took the letters in one hand, spread the other palm, and blinked. "You said one letter, one coin."
The man, annoyed at being caught out, slapped five copper coins he had prepared earlier into the boy's palm, then waved his hand grandly. "The other five coins? I'll owe you!"