Xi Shi teapot, 180cc

When the greyish-blue morning light climbed up the bookcase, Zhou Mingyuan was pounding mud again.

Those hands, covered with age spots, rested on the red clay ball, with the knuckles protruding like old bamboo roots. 

Beside the clay stool are seven Xishi teapots. From their greenness to maturity, the bodies of the teapots have witnessed the passage of fifty years of dawn and dusk.

"Old Zhou, it's time to take the medicine." Lin Wanqiu came in carrying a white porcelain bowl, with a few pieces of Angelica sinensis deposited at the bottom. She always says that the medicine in a purple clay teapot is warm, but she doesn't know that her husband secretly pours the medicine into a pot of asparagus fern in the corner. The asparagus fern became even more verdant, rustling in the through wind as if laughing at its childishness.

Mingyuan suddenly grabbed Wanqiu's wrist, his cloudy eyes reflecting the golden ginkgo outside the window:  "Xi Shi's shoulders should be rounder."  Wanqiu's hand trembled, and the medicinal liquid rippled along the rim of the bowl. Ever since Mingyuan's Alzheimer's disease worsened, her husband has always regarded her as an apprentice at the Dingshu Town Purple Clay Factory in the past.

The purple clay on the clay stool was tinged with a warm ochre red, which was the decayed bottom trough clear that Wanqiu had left overnight. When Mingyuan's fingers drew arcs on the mud pieces, his wrist suddenly trembled severely. The clay strip snapped into two pieces with a "pop", and the splashed clay stars landed on the front of Wanqiu Yuebai's dress, scattering specks of cinnabar.

"I'll come." Wanqiu sat down next to her husband. Two pairs of withered and wrinkled hands were folded on the turntable, like two entwined old vines. The turntable creaked and sang an old tune, and the clay strips stretched out into a full moon in their palms.

When the clay body was about to take shape, Mingyuan suddenly hummed "Jasmine Flower", the tune they always sang when facing the clay body beside the dragon kiln in 1968.

On the day of Cold Dew, Wanqiu fainted while carrying purple clay. The diagnosis certificate was hidden at the very bottom of the chest of drawers, pressing down the photo of them on their golden wedding anniversary. Recently, Mingyuan has been talking to the air, saying that the newly obtained peach blossom clay pairs perfectly with the bluish-gray segments, and that what kind of glaze should be matched with Master Gu Jingzhou's Tibi teapot. Wanqiu was often awakened by the noise of the clay stool in the middle of the night. She saw her husband holding a bone needle and carving characters on the still wet body of the teapot. After carving, he would quietly smooth it out with mud.

On the early morning of the Winter Solstice, Wanqiu never woke up again. Beside her pillow lay a newly made Xi Shi teapot. The knob of the teapot was carved into double lotus flowers, and the two characters "Far Autumn" were hidden at the bottom of the teapot. Mingyuan sat in the rattan chair with the teapot in his arms all day long. Snow particles tapped on the flower window and accumulated a thin layer on his shoulders.

The following spring, when the son was tidying up the workshop, he found an unburned teapot. The body of the teapot is tilted like an old woman on the verge of death, but there is a silver ring embedded in the handle - precisely the dragon and phoenix bracelet that Wanqiu used as her dowry back then. When the kiln fire reached 1280 degrees, the lid of the teapot suddenly emitted a clear and melodious sound.

The body of the teapot that came out of the oven was emitting a strange metallic luster. Facing the light, one could see the fine fingerprints on the inner wall of the teapot, pair upon pair, like palm lines that could never be touched.

At the bottom of the teapot, there is a double lotus flower, and the character "autumn" hidden in the center of the lotus is still stained with purple clay.

The character "yuan" at the stem of the lotus is slanted, with its last vertical stroke stretched out very long, like a ferry crossing where no one can return.