A foot length of bamboo was covered with rawhide which, after being soaked to make it flexible, had been tightly wrapped about the central portion of the shaft, one end of which was fitted with a bamboo drill. This was spun back and forth by belts drawn tightly over the hide-covered portion of the shaft. At floor level was a foot treadle which moved the belts.
Beneath the end of the drill was a small dish of kitchen grease mixed with ruby dust or emery powder. There were also polishing discs and blades of bamboo, as well as saw frames with blades of soft iron or copper wire. These implements got their cutting, grinding, and polishing surfaces from the same mixture which gave the drills their bite. Jade was not, properly speaking, carved; it was abraded.
By the light of an oil lamp, Ju-hai looked at the flat piece he had sawed from a chunk of jade. He reached for the bow with which he would spin the drill to pierce holes which would give the abrasive-loaded wire a starting point in sawing the floral scroll design which he had sketched. Perplexed, he backed away. He blinked, shook his head, and picked up the thin plaque of jade. He turned it over, cocked his head, and squinted at the blemish near the edge—a flaw he had noticed the previous work session.
This was the same piece of jade. The color striations, deep green, the paler tint, the nearly colorless shadings—it was the very piece he had cut from the chunk. But the design he had inked was gone; in its place was a new one drawn by a hand more skillful than his own. He went back to the study room, where he examined the ink slab and the brushes in the holder. Whoever had changed his design had carefully cleaned the writing gear.
Reciting a mantra undoubtedly would drive away the devils who had played this silly trick, but that would not give him the meaning of what had happened. Extinguishing the light, he sat by the ash-veiled coals of the brazier. Because of the towering Ta-pa Range, sunset and darkness came earlier to the eastern slope which cuddled the Kwan lands. He stepped into the little courtyard to watch the moon rise from where the distant Wei River joined the Huang-Ho. Ju-hai had problems enough without devils meddling in his avocation, the work he loved.
Something had kept him from wiping the new design from the plaque. That he had not done so puzzled him. And then he admitted ungrudgingly that the beauty of the endless knot and the phoenix had checked him. He couldn’t obliterate it. But he could saw another plaque, draw his original design, and perhaps improve it.
And then, though he heard no sound, something urged Ju-hai to quit moon-watching and go back to the study room, grind some ink, and make a new sketch.
Someone was prowling in the shadows! She was about of Hsi-feng’s build and making herself very much at home. The faint glow of the coals made her seem translucent as jade, a fascinating illusion. She beckoned as if inviting him into her own home. As he stepped toward the threshold, she retreated, beckoning again.
Although moving from brilliant moonlight into shadow thinned only by the ash-filtered glow, Ju-hai saw that she was not a village girl. From gilt-embroidered shoes to velvet hood and silver-twinkling foliate figures which gave her headgear the appearance of a coronet, she was stately; stately, although a head shorter than Ju-hai.
Her graciously welcoming him as if to her own home took him aback. Even without the benefit of a tunic worthy of an imperial concubine, the stranger would have had presence. Long pendants reached from her earlobes almost to her shoulders. She had ears small and close to her head and a fine nose a shade longer and narrower than most women of her race, with nostrils not quite as flaring; nor were her lips quite as full.
“Ju-hai, you’re right. I’m not of pure blood. One of my ancestors was a barbarian from the City of Jade.”
“Ah…Ho’tien?”
“Is there any other City of Jade? Though many ignore the Son of Heaven and still call it Khotan.”
She gestured toward the shop. As if reading his thought, she forestalled his unspoken objection. “Never mind the lamp, we won’t be long.”
To say the least, this person not only knew what she was doing, she likewise knew what Ju-hai proposed doing, and before he himself did. He pulled up abruptly. He had just realized that neither he nor his visitor had been articulating. As the moon path shifted, he could see the whiteness of teeth and the carmine of skillfully made-up lips, lips which moved to smile but not to speak.
“You’ve not been mouth-making words either, Ju-hai. Don’t look so amazed—when you talk to people in dreams, you don’t mouth-shape your words, except when you actually talk in your sleep, and that wakes you up.”
“You mean, I am dreaming now?”
“Ju-hai, children have to ask questions, but a grown man keeps his mouth shut, and simply observes facts instead of wanting other peoples’ answers. My time is short—and don’t ask me why! Either listen to me, or I’ll leave right this instant!”
Her bewitching smile took the sting from her direct communication. “Mouth-talking makes stupid mistakes.”
Things did not shape up in elegant Chinese, but the exchange was undeniably clear.
From one of the main corridors came the slip-slop-shuffle of felt boots, and a murmur of two voices.
“Your brother and Lan-yin would have to come in if they heard us or saw lights.”
The footfalls and voices faded.
“I forgot to tell you I’m Mei-yu. Yes, I rubbed out your inked sketch. It’s lovely but I had a better idea.”
Mei-yu—this meant true, precious, superlative jade. It also implied not-other-precious gems, such as were included in mere yu, jewels of all sorts, all of which were inferior to jade. If she had called herself Tai-yu, it would have been about the same as Mei-yu, but a bit on the grandiloquent side.
“Aiieeyah! You do know jade talk.” She was delighted and she gestured magnificently, all the more so because of sleeves which trailed to her knees when she spread her arms. He’d never seen a garment with such Imperial sleeves.
Mei-yu continued, “You had the darlingest design, and it was clever the way you got two earring blanks out of one small cutting of jade. The color veins contrast and at the same time harmonize, so the pendants will be mates but not duplicates—if you’d made ear pendants for your father to give his Number One Lady, you’d have embarrassed him and yourself—before you could shape a second pair, she and his other concubine would be enemies. And the Old Man has enough problems already.”
The Old Man’s one and only wife, Ju-hai’s mother, had died a good many years ago.
Mei-yu turned, and as if she had been blocking the moonlight, he clearly saw the lines sketched on the jade plaque.
“This is a single piece—it would make a beautiful pectoral, but the situation would be no different from a pair of ear pendants. You started a wine cup for your father—finish it, and when the plaque I designed is done, save it for a girl who doesn’t have a sister concubine to hate for being Number One.”
Mei-yu came nearer and for the first time he was aware of her perfume. Though the sweetness left him as if dizzy-drunk, he couldn’t help but wonder how he got the scent of this fascinating girl when he could not hear her voice.
“Old Master, that’s spirit-bouquet, and nose smelling has nothing to do with it. With all the problems you have for thinking about, why have wonderings about friend or lover? Do you have to understand me all at once—”
This was a declaration; it was as if she had parted curtains which concealed a realm of wonder.
Moonlight shifted from the workbench, leaving Ju-hai and Mei-yu in cozy darkness. Her warmth and the tantalizing touch of her body were a promise rather than a fact, an almost touching, from knee to breast and mouth to mouth, a moonbeam’s breadth short of completeness.
She gasped. “Don’t squeeze me—” Her dismay checked him. “I’m all moon-misty—kiss me a not-quite touch—” Her tongue traced the width of his mouth, and then, swaying half the distance that separated them,