Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4 - 7 2018 | Page 46

“When we first moved to the city, we were too poor to afford food, let alone a home,” he recalled, his eyes
welling up. “That winter was one of the most difficult ones we had ever experienced; at the time we
thought we weren’t going to survive.”
*
*
*
He stared intently as he chipped away at the edges of the piece of jade, carving deep niches and grooves in
their place. Each act of hitting was accompanied by a crisp knell, their haunting words of derision
reverberating in his skull.
“Country boy,” one taunted.
“You’ll never have what it takes,” another added.
When he first started his apprenticeship as a jade craftsman, he was often the laughingstock of his colleagues.
At first his colleagues’ caustic remarks hardly fazed him at all, as he brushed them off with relative ease. He
learnt to steel himself against their constant blows. But he felt weakened with the passing of time; these
words seemed to become more real. He began to worry that they were speaking the truth. He feared that
with enough excoriation, the imperfections engrained within him would be revealed.
Yet the most painful attacks came from the ones that he held closest to his heart. He never thought to guard
himself against them, so their assaults came when he was least expecting it. He felt sharp pangs of pain
coursing through his body as he remembered their scathing comments, each one lacerating his heart until he
was left tender and bloodied, with a throbbing pain in his chest.
“Quit daydreaming,” urged his mother.
“You’re doing it all wrong,” his teacher reprimanded.
He was no longer the perfect piece of jade that his mentor had chosen years ago. Yet he subsisted on his
naivety and unwavering sense of purpose. “I was a strong piece of jade; no matter how much their broke off
me, they could not twist me into quitting,” he recollected, his eyes glassy and distant.
“I learnt that the people closest to you could hurt you the most. I decided that I didn’t want that to happen
to you, so I sent you away to the martial arts academy from a young age. I would allow strangers to attack
you, to lessen the sting,” he said, looking at me. As I stared back at his forlorn eyes, it was like delving into
his soul and uncovering his darkest memories. Some of my anger dissipated into pity, but the bruises on my
body stung in protest.
*
*
*
Hetian, Xinjiang
He was hunched over the desk, piece of jade in hand, as he rubbed furiously with a threadbare piece of
cloth. The opaque piece of rock adopted a translucent quality, revealing the interweaved striations that ran
through the center.
“Here lies the problem,” the doctor said, pointing to a particularly engorged vein on the X-ray. “You have
a weeks to live at most, sir.”
The intensity of his rubbing increased, leaving a glossy sheen on the surface. He felt his heart drop, beads of
sweat forming on his forehead as panic coursed through him.
*
*
*