Eagle teapot

Chen Shouzhuo’s temper, honed over decades of kneading Yixing clay at the foot of Shushan Mountain, was harder than the raw earth itself. He despised flaws, abhorred imperfection, loathed any deviation from the orthodox. His kiln fired only pots of absolute symmetry, clay of unadulterated purity. The slightest aberration – an uneven kiss of kiln flame, a spout curved a hair’s breadth off true – met the swift, merciless judgment of his calloused hand, smashed to shards on the bluestone slab outside the kiln. Flying fragments mirrored his shattered obsession with perfection.

One biting late autumn, mountain winds sliced like knives. Chen climbed the treacherous slopes of Eagle’s Sorrow Ravine, searching for rare veins of local green clay. Below, jagged rocks tore at the thundering rapids. Suddenly, a sharp, truncated cry pierced the water’s roar from the cliffs above. He looked up, heart lurching.

A fledgling goshawk, barely feathered, tumbled from the edge of its high eyrie! It flapped awkwardly, utterly helpless against gravity, a kite with its string cut, cartwheeling down. Just before it would have shattered on the icy rocks below, Chen acted on pure instinct. He flung down his basket and lunged, arms wide. The impact staggered him, but the warm, feathered bundle of terror was cradled against his chest.

The eaglet trembled, shock radiating from its small body. Chen’s brow furrowed as he saw its right leg – limp, unnaturally twisted. Broken. In these merciless mountains, it was a death sentence. The mother eagle circled high above, shrieking her distress, but never stooped to reclaim the useless chick. Survival’s law was cold, efficient.

Chen looked at the trembling, doomed life in his arms, at the useless, deformed claw. The hard wall named ‘Perfection’ within him seemed to crack. He sighed, carefully wrapping the eaglet in his jacket alongside the precious green clay, and carried both home. He named it "Broken Cloud" – a drifting fragment, destined to be incomplete.

Broken Cloud lived, but never soared high or swift. Its gait was a lopsided hop; hunting, a futile dream. It ate what Chen ate, becoming a strange, silent shadow in the small clay house. Often, it perched on a corner of Chen’s workbench, head tilted, amber eyes fixed, unblinking, as he rolled, slapped, and shaped the clay. The coils writhed under his fingers like silent spells. Broken Cloud would sometimes extend its good left claw, tentatively touch the damp earth, then swiftly retract it, as if fearing to disrupt the unseen.

Years passed to the creak of the potter’s wheel and the dust of drying clay. Broken Cloud grew into a large, oddly postured bird. Unable to rule the skies, it perched sentinel on Chen’s roof or the highest pine branch in the yard, surveying the small compound and the distant peaks. Its eyes, no longer fearful, held a rock-like stillness, beneath which smoldered the trapped fire of the wild.

One day, Chen emerged from the kiln, his expression grave. He held a newly fired pot. Its body was exquisite deep channel silt clay, dark as obsidian, the culmination of years of work. Yet, near the handle’s base, a fine, glaring ice crackle glaze snaked across the surface – an undeniable "flaw." The agony of his perfectionism seized him. Face like stone, hand trembling with rage, he gripped the pot and strode towards the bluestone slab of judgment in the yard. Sunlight glared. Broken Cloud shrieked sharply from the roof.

He raised the pot high, muscles taut, ready to dash it down!

In that suspended moment, a piercing shriek tore the air! A huge, wind-rushing shadow plummeted like a thunderbolt! Broken Cloud!

A tremendous force slammed into Chen’s wrist. Pain shot through him; his fingers sprang open. The precious pot flew free, tracing an arc of despair towards the yard wall! Chen’s mind blanked, a raw scream ripping from his throat: "No—!"

Broken Cloud, momentum carrying it, managed with only its good left claw to snatch the handle an instant before the pot would have struck the hard ground! The heavy clay dragged it down. Wings beating furiously, emitting strained flapping sounds, Broken Cloud lurched and swayed wildly, plummeting, its strength failing. Its broken right leg clawed uselessly at the air – a tragic fermata.

With the pot less than a hand’s breadth from destruction, Broken Cloud summoned a final surge. Wings heaved! The pot lifted slightly… then it let go. The pot thudded heavily, sinking deep into the soft, fertile vegetable patch outside the wall, like a carefully planted seed.

Broken Cloud tumbled away, landing in a heap of feathers and dust a few paces off. It struggled upright, chest heaving, eyes fixed fearfully on the pot in the earth.

Chen burst through the gate, heart pounding. He rushed to the patch, hands shaking as he carefully lifted the pot from the soft soil. Mud smeared the warm clay; he wiped it frantically. Sunlight caught the fatal ice crackle line – still there, stark, undeniable.

But at the very origin of the crack, three incredibly small, yet perfectly distinct indentations were pressed into the clay! Unnoticed marks left *before* firing, when Broken Cloud’s desperate, clutching claw had dug deep into the wet clay in that life-saving grab! Three tiny points, like miniature stars, held the spreading crackle in a precarious, breathtaking tension – a beauty born of brokenness, a flaw arrested at the precipice.

Chen’s fingers dug into the bluestone edge, knuckles white. He looked at Broken Cloud’s permanently ruined leg, then down at the crackle held by the claw-marks. An unfamiliar, overwhelming surge of bitter sorrow rose in his throat, stinging his eyes. He turned abruptly, back to Broken Cloud, shoulders shaking violently, a choked, rasping sob escaping like air from a broken bellows. Decades of hard perfection shattered by a broken eagle’s defense of the "flawed."

Time flowed on. Chen grew old, his back bowing like a slackened string. Broken Cloud aged too, feathers dulled, spending more time on a straw mat by the old man’s feet, amber eyes clouding.

Chen died peacefully. Broken Cloud kept vigil at his bedside that final night. Soon after the burial, on a warm, sunlit afternoon, Broken Cloud used its good claw one last time to gently preen the clay-stained cloth Chen had used. Then, it closed its eyes and did not wake again. It was buried near Chen’s grave, under an old pine.

Chen’s descendants cleared the old house, gathering items for the city auction house, including the long-forgotten, dust-covered ice-crackled pot.

The auction house appraiser, Mr. Zhou, possessed eyes sharp as a hawk’s. When Chen’s descendants nervously presented the cloth-wrapped pot, he paid little heed. Habitually, he picked it up, aiming a powerful flashlight beam inside to inspect the clay body and firing marks.

The intense light pierced the warm deep channel silt clay, projecting clear shadows onto the inner wall. Mr. Zhou froze! On the inner surface, directly opposite the famous ice crackle and the three claw marks outside, was a distinct, incredibly tiny, yet perfectly formed shadow pattern! A miniature, lifelike impression of an eagle’s claw gripping the clay! As if the eagle’s very soul, through the dense earth, had seared its existence into the pot’s heart during the fire’s baptism! The outer marks were the shield; the inner projection, the timeless testament to that shield.

Mr. Zhou’s hand trembled uncontrollably, his breath catching. He scoured local records and ceramic lore, finally finding a brief mention in a yellowed notebook of Shushan kiln legends – the tale of the "Lame Eagle Saving the Pot."

Auction day. When this unassuming, clearly "flawed" pot was displayed, murmurs rippled through the room. Mr. Zhou took a deep breath. In a voice steady yet charged with strange power, he recounted the fall in Eagle’s Sorrow Ravine, the silent communion in the clay house, the desperate dive, the claw marks in the vegetable patch. Finally, he revealed the projection photo – the stunning, miniature eagle claw shadow revealed by the light within the pot’s body.

"...This pot," Mr. Zhou’s voice held a tremor, "its value lies not in absolute perfection. It lies in these marks, inside and out – the imprint of a creature the world cast out, using its brokenness and the full force of its life to mount a solitary, courageous defense of another 'imperfection.' It captures a dive, a fall arrested, an act of brokenness redeeming brokenness. This claw mark, piercing the vessel, is proof of life lived, a medal of struggle."

Silence. Absolute. Then, bidding paddles erupted like a forest in a gale! The price soared, finally hammering down at a figure that left the room gasping – a record for contemporary Yixing art.

News reached Shushan. Chen’s descendants were stunned. With the proceeds, they restored Chen’s weed-choked grave and erected a small stone beside it for Broken Cloud.

On the day of the new graves, the sun shone brightly. Chen’s descendants reverently poured a pot of freshly brewed Yangxian Snow Bud tea over the stones. The clear liquid seeped into the earth, releasing a warm, fragrant aroma. For a fleeting moment, a clear, high-pitched eagle cry seemed to pierce the clouds, echoing through the empty valley. In it was no struggle, only pure, boundless freedom.

The priceless ice-crackled pot now rests in a climate-controlled museum case. Under the lights, the crackle glaze and the three tiny claw marks are clearly visible. The final line of its placard reads: "Perfection was never the signature of life; the scars that pierce through are."

Niu Gai Jin Lan, 220cc, Cyan Jiangpo clay material