She plucked five long whiskers from a rabbit and bound them with a
piece of string. She stole an ink stick from Old Kim's special stock, and
rubbed it against a smooth river rock wet with her own tears. Then she
dipped the tip of her brush in the small pool of black.
The first image was blurry. She forgot to hold the sleeve of her shirt
with her left hand, and it smeared the image. A small, dark grey deer tried
to jump from the page, but its two deformed legs couldn't bear its weight. It
struggled as if trying to pull itself from a marsh, but failed. The page sucked
it back in.
The next three pictures were also failures. Peisun tossed the sheets into
the creek: a moon cake, a bowl of plums, a pheasant. Her hunger drove her
desire, but her skill was not enough. She needed to dig deeper inside her
heart, to find her true desire.
She sketched a mountain near the town where she grew up. It crumbled
into dust when she tried to climb it. Her mother's comb broke in two. The
cricket rubbed its legs, but no music came out.
Peisun's sheaf of pages thinned as she dropped her failed images into
the water. The ink needed more moisture, and her tears fell readily onto the
stone. When they struck, ink splashed onto the remaining piece of rice
paper and formed a circle.
"Of course!" Peisun said, and she lifted the moon off the page and into
the sky, where she stared at it until her heart was just as full.
Rồng
Vào năm Thìn, Kwong nhặt được một chiếc vảy sáng lấp lánh cạnh cái
giếng và đem nó về cho vợ, vì nó làm ông nhớ đến biển cả. Bất kể ông cầm
nó theo cách nào, hoặc ánh đèn có mờ đến đâu, chiếc vảy vẫn lung linh và
toả sáng tựa như ánh mặt trời đang khiêu vũ trên đại dương: màu xanh, sắc
lục và mặn mùi muối biển.
Vợ của Kwong, Lian, rất thích chiếc vảy, nàng treo nó trong bếp để có
thể ngắm nó suốt ngày khi nàng đang làm bếp. Lian bắt đầu dành càng lúc
