Chapter 11: Wooden Bird

The two entered the room in succession. Outside, Li Chaosheng glanced at the old temple keeper and asked, “Do we charge in to save them?”

Hearing Li Chaosheng, the old temple keeper looked at him somewhat surprised and said, “We don’t know how dangerous it might be inside. If we rush in rashly, wouldn’t we be running to our deaths? Don’t rush, let’s call for help!”

After saying this, the old temple keeper took from his pocket a small wooden bird made of bamboo, palm-sized, delicate and cute as if it were a living bird. He then took a short bamboo tube from his robe and plugged it into the wooden bird’s beak. With a quick release, the wooden bird beat its wings and flapped away.

“Black technology?”

Li Chaosheng widened his eyes in surprise, but the old temple keeper laughed and said, “What are you saying? This is the Nightwardens’ standard means of communication, the wooden bird. Made by the Ministry of Works, it’s very convenient.”

“Not just convenient, it’s a marvel of craftsmanship.”

Li Chaosheng exclaimed, “The imperial Ministry of Works really does have great talents!”

Hearing this, the old temple keeper sneered disdainfully and said, “Great talents? What talent? Just a bunch living off their ancestors’ laurels. If you talk about real prowess, when the Great Gan dynasty was founded, the master craftsman, Lu Xin, was indeed formidable. He was one of the few in the realm who could appear before the emperor without kneeling, and he once made the Ministry famed far and wide. But after Lu Xin, the Ministry’s successors declined generation after generation. Now they can only live off past glories and have become subordinate to the other departments.”

“I see,” muttered Li Chaosheng.

Then he looked at the old temple keeper and asked, “Was Lu Xin really that great? Was he the one who invented this wooden bird technique?”

The old temple keeper still shook his head. “Actually it was his ancestor who invented it. His ancestor came from the ancient state of Lu, with the compound surname Gongshu. Because his skill was supreme, the people took their state’s name as a surname and called him Lu Ban. His descendants split into two branches. One kept the surname Gongshu and fled overseas, outside Great Gan’s borders. The other branch is the line where Lu Xin hails from.”

“I see,” Li Chaosheng sighed.

He hadn’t expected a Master Lu Ban in this world too. He recalled reading an old book called Youyang Miscellany in which, in the chapter of slanders, it recorded that Lu Ban was from Suzhou, Dunhuang. After his marriage he went to work in Liangzhou, separated from his wife by a thousand miles, so he made a wooden bird that allowed him to fly back to Suzhou each night to be with his wife. Soon his wife became pregnant. Lu Ban’s father suspected infidelity and questioned her, and she told her father everything.

His father, taking a whim, stole Lu Ban’s wooden bird and flew it to the capital of the Wu state. The locals, seeing what was essentially a bird-man fall from the sky, thought it a demon, so they grabbed their weapons and beat the old man to death. After Lu Ban and his wife finished their morning rites and went out to breakfast, his mother said the father was missing and then noticed the wooden bird was gone. Lu Ban made another one and flew to Wu, only to find his father’s corpse hanging from a tree.

Lu Ban was furious. He went back and carved a wooden immortal, whose finger pointed at Wu as if shouting in the street: “Just you wait!”

As a result, Wu suffered a three-year drought. The king of Wu saw that it couldn’t go on without rain, so he consulted an expert diviner. The diviner discerned the cause and told the king, who hurriedly prepared lavish gifts and went to apologize, basically saying, “We’re sorry, we didn’t mean it. It was YOUR old man who was the strange one. The people of Wu had never seen an airplane, so we made a mistake.”

Lu Ban saw their sincerity (certainly not because the gifts were valuable, AHEM) and took up his axe and chopped off the wooden immortal’s gesturing hand. That very day torrential rain fell over Wu. Thus in Wu a tradition spread: in years of great drought, pray to the wooden man for rain, a custom that persisted even when Youyang Miscellany was written.

Of course, there is another version of the wooden bird story: Lu Ban’s wife, in a playful mood, after having ridden donkeys, horses, and men, wondered what it would feel like to ride the big wooden bird. So she secretly mounted it while Lu Ban was away and flew off, flaunting her pride and indulgence. She forgot she was on her period, and in a time without modern comforts, she leaked during the commotion. The great bird was polluted and lost its spirit.

Perhaps out of wounded pride: “I’m so handsome, all solid wood grain, full of vigor, and you woman have to paint me with red lacquer—”

“You ruined my image, insulted me as a bird, I’m done for,” then it crashed headlong from ten thousand meters. The wooden bird shattered.

The woman was…done for too!

As Li Chaosheng’s mind dwelt on Lu Ban’s legend, he felt the old temple keeper pat his shoulder.

“Come on, follow me.”

Saying so, the old temple keeper crouched and, using the grass as cover, came to the window. The window was pasted with the cheapest oil paper, the kind most commonly used by the poor in ancient times: cheap and practical, capable of keeping out rain. In case you were wondering, the TV dramas that show people wetting a finger and poking through window paper are mostly fabricated.

Otherwise, those ancient windows would be full of holes as soon as it rained. In reality, they used oil paper to block the rain. Wealthier homes used silk to paste over windows, some used cotton or mulberry-bark processed paper, and nobles used translucent tiles.

Translucent tiles were made from materials like shell, horn, or mica, or any item with some light-transmitting quality. But those were expensive and unaffordable for ordinary people.

If someone in those days had figured out how to make glass, they’d have been instantly wealthy. But alas, it was just a thought. How to make glass was a mystery. Apparently it’s just a matter of heating sand? But who knows if that’s true.

The two reached the window. The old temple keeper waved them apart, then pulled a dagger from his robe and lightly stabbed at the oil paper on the window. The blade went clean through. That was a good knife. Then again, it didn’t take much to get through this cheap paper.

Li Chaosheng had no short knife. Watching the old temple keeper, he mimed the motion, and the old man tossed him the dagger. Li Chaosheng stabbed the window and made a small hole. The two squinted into the room.

Inside, it did not look like anything like the chicken-feather inn from the other side. There was no nasty platform for a bed, only a row of chairs with people seated: some in patterned silk and satin, others in coarse cloth. The silk-clad sat boldly in the chairs like important men, while those in coarse cloth sat sullenly to the side. Class distinctions had always existed since time immemorial.

At that moment, the pockmarked man walked into the room, glanced around, and with the corner of his mouth upturned said, “Gentlemen, you’ve traveled far, thank you for waiting. Fifth Master and I run this little shop to make a living and to meet all sorts of friends. If our hospitality is lacking, please forgive us.”

“Enough, Pockmark Chen, this isn’t your first time doing this. Cut the pomp and bring out the goods, get on with it.”

No sooner had Pockmark Chen finished his opening remarks than a merchant in mink fur grew impatient. He had come secretly to sell pelts, hoping to establish an outpost here. His wife at home was fierce and strict, so he dared not misbehave in his own territory. Now that he was away, why wait? He’d heard people were being sold here and came to join the fun, not expecting that the purchase would be a peerless beauty.

This time, driven by greed, this old man wanted to take several back. After all, nobody complained about having too many women. As for those worried about health issues, don’t you know the old forests of Liaodong have fierce tigers? Those tigers were the best tonic for virility!

“Very well, Boss Wang can’t wait any longer. Since that’s the case, Fifth Master, please come out!”