Work Text:
Explosive Powder and Fireworks
Jia Jiu followed the black bun--speared together by a gilded pin formed into butterfly wings and encrusted with priceless jade for success, luck, and longevity--of the girl in front of her into the classroom where they studied the chemistry, alchemy, and the natural properties of the many minerals and stones found throughout Yanjing’s vast, varied terrain.
She stopped when the rest of the line of girls--boys walked and stood in a separate line for order and the balance of yin and yang--did, standing beside the desk she had sat and studied at all term since arriving at this mage school in Yan, the Summer Captial, from her remote village in the distant, humid hinterlands of southeastern Yanjing.
With the rest of the class, she waited, hands folded neatly before her, for the arrival of her instructor, Master Wang Jin. When Master Wang appeared, she dropped into a deep bow along with the entire class and recited the polite greeting.
Master Wang acknowledged their greeting with a dip of his head and waved for them to be seated.
Obediently, Jia Jiu dropped into a kneel before her low desk, unfurled a piece of parchment, dipped a quill in ink, and prepared to record in precise, perfect brushstrokes notes from Master Wang’s lesson.
“Can anyone identify this substance?” Master Wang emptied a pouch of black powder onto his desk and lifted a handful in the air so the class could inspect it more closely.
Jia Jiu could not and felt blushingly ashamed of her ignorance when a boy in the next row raised his hand to indicate that he could. She didn’t like being the country bumpkin, the one who didn’t know things when others did.
She was used to being the smartest student, the most promising pupil, the only bright lantern in her village who had a hope of soaring high in society, but at this school designed to ready its charges for the exacting yinshi examinations that determined which mages were worthy of serving the imperial government everybody was clever. Everybody was talented. Which might have been another way of saying that nobody was special. Nobody was clever. Nobody was talented. They were all just fish trying to swim in the strong current, trying not to drown, and this was only a taste of how powerful the waves threatening to destroy them would be if they passed the exams and tried to carve out a career for themselves in the ruthless realm of imperial government where everyone was seeking to advance themselves and no one was looking for true friends.
“Yes.” Master Wang nodded at the boy whose palm was lifted eagerly, indicating he should answer.
“It’s zayao, Master Wang.” The boy rose to his feet and bowed again as he made this reply.
Zayao. Jia Jiu’s breath caught in her throat as she stared at the black powder clutched between Master Wang’s long fingers. That was the explosive powder that could cut through mountains so that great canals connecting Yanjing’s cities could be built, allowing goods and people to flow along the empire’s three main rivers. The explosive powder that could blow up armies of the emperor’s enemies so that no threats remained to menace Yanjing. The explosive powder that was one of the great inventions of Yanjing.
As if sensing her thoughts, Master Wang went on, “Yes, it’s zayao. Explosive powder. One of the four great inventions of Yanjing. The other three are…”
He trailed off, a clear invitation for a volunteer to demonstrate how well memorized an oft-repeated lesson had been.
Jia Jiu raced to have her hand in the air first and was rewarded when Master Wang nodded at her to show she should answer. She did so smugly and matter-of-factly, “The compass, papermaking, and printing.”
“Very good.” Master Wang favored her with a reed-thin smile. “We in Yanjing made those discoveries and innovations centuries before the rest of the world did, and we must not forget that. We must take pride in our history and our heritage. Our knowledge that the rest of the world lags behind and envies.”
“Yes, Master Wang.” The class chorused the only expected and acceptable words in unison.
“When was zayao first discovered?” Master Wang asked his next question.
That was something else Jia Jiu knew from her endless studying and memorization both here in Yan and in her own village under her old tutor Zhang.
She threw her palm in the air and when called on again recited, excited to demonstrate the depth of her knowledge to her class and her teacher, “During the third dynasty. The third emperor of the third dynasty was consumed with a quest for immortality for himself and his favorite courtesan. He ordered his alchemists to experiment with elixirs that might grant him such immortality. It was in the process of such experiments that zayao was first created or so the historians and chroniclers of dynasties past maintain in their scrolls.”
“That is indeed the story behind the creation of zayao.” Reverently, Master Wang returned the handful of black powder to the pile on his desk. “Drinking zayao will not impart immortality, of course, and may even hasten one’s demise in a most combustible fashion. Thus, drinking zayao is not recommended by mages and scholars of our present glorious Long dynasty. However, the mages and scholars of our present shining era have observed numerous beneficial applications of zayao on the battlefields and in construction projects that define and expand the greatness of our empire…”
After that, Master Wang lectured them at length on the composition of black powder and its uses in war, in constructing canals and roads through mountains, and in mining valuable gems and stones. Jia Jiu’s head span at the power of this explosive black powder, this zayao, as she made careful notes of every use Master Wang described for the powder, certain that one day she would have cause to use it in service of Yanjing once she passed her yinshi exams. The prospect of failing didn’t even enter her mind, because failure wasn’t an option. Failure meant returning to her village with her head lowered in shame. It meant disappointing her family. It meant wasting the money her parents had poured into her education. The determination not to fail was what kept her forever focused on her studies, always raptly and rigidly attuned to anything that left her masters’ lips.
When the lesson, their last of the morning, ended, Jia Jiu joined her classmates in the procession from Master Wang’s classroom to the school’s dining hall.
As they stood on line waiting for bowls of wide, hand-pulled noodles flavored with soybean paste and sprinkled with chopped pork and vegetables, Jia Jiu’s best friend Fei Fei murmured in her ear, “I can’t believe Master Wang talked so long without mentioning that zayao has beautiful purposes as well as destructive ones.”
“Beautiful purposes?” Jia Jiu frowned at her friend, wondering why the fact that zayao could be used in building grand canals and expansive roads couldn’t be considered beautiful enough.
“Zayao can be used to make fireworks that light up the sky and make cities of people scream with joy.” Fei Fei’s eyes sparkled. She was a child of the north who had been fireworks unlike Jia Jiu, a child of the south who hadn’t seen them and couldn’t fathom what would be so special about fireworks that could possibly make them worthy of mentioning alongside the military, mining, and construction applications of zayao. “In fact, zayao was used to make fireworks for celebrations long before it was ever used in war.”
“I don’t see what’s so special about fireworks that they would bother teaching us about them at school.” Jia Jiu shrugged as the line moved, and she could grab herself a bowl of noodles.
“That’s because you haven’t ever seen them,” retorted Fei Fei, snatching up her own bowl of noodles. “Wait until the new year when they set off fireworks above the imperial palace. Then you’ll understand how beautiful they can be. How they can take your breath away.”
Months later during the festival of the new year, Jia Jiu sat beside Fei Fei on a temple step in a thronging square. The night was cold enough that their breath frosted as they munched on dumplings filled with rice and sweet red bean paste, the red bean paste sweet as their futures would be in the new year. Such dumplings were a new year’s celebratory snack of choice in northern Yanjing unlike in the south where a round cake of sweet glutinous rice would be served instead.
They were waiting, getting their mouths and fingertips sticky and stained with sweet red bean paste, for the sky to finish darkening against the yellow stars and red lanterns strung from rooftop to rooftop across the square.
Finally the first sound like a rock breaking cut through the air, and Jia Jiu, who had never heard exploding zayao before, gasped, wondering and worrying if the sky was breaking.
Her gasp turned to laughter as she saw the rainbow of colors lighting up the sky over the imperial palace that was a separate, walled city of its own within the gates of Yan. An imperial palace that was mostly empty in winter when the imperial court moved to the Winter Capital of Dohan in the southwestern province of Alion.
She joined the rest of the admiring crowd in applause until her palms hurt, and she didn’t care that Fei Fei elbowed her teasingly in the ribs, remarking with glee, “The fireworks did take your breath away, didn’t they? I heard you gasp, so don’t deny it.”
For once, Jia Jiu found no shame in admitting she was wrong and acknowledging that she had been ignorant because her being wrong and ignorant meant that she could feel true wonder as she gaped and gazed at the bright fireworks exploding over the abandoned imperial palace in Yan.