All of Flat Lake Town was filled with the sound of firecrackers and bursting bamboo, lively and clamorous as everyone drove away the Year Beast.
Zheng Zhuxi seized the chance to pull Ding Songyan out of the warm chamber and into the first courtyard, where she produced a wooden crate of firecrackers and bamboo crackers from somewhere.
"Go fetch an iron basin," Zheng Zhuxi instructed her junior brother.
Both had exceptional hearing and were untroubled by the chaotic crackle of firecrackers.
Ding Songyan had visited Flat Lake Town that afternoon and seen how the children played, so he had a fair idea of what his senior sister intended. He borrowed an iron basin from an old servant he knew, put some firewood inside, and lit it from the stove.
In the biting wind, Zheng Zhuxi gave Ding Songyan a length of bamboo cracker, and they tossed what they held into the brazier together.
The bamboo caught fire, giving off a continuous series of pops and cracks.
Zheng Zhuxi crouched down, crimson firelight washing over her fair, unadorned face.
Using the brazier, she lit firecrackers one after another and threw them into the courtyard, sometimes singly, sometimes in strings.
Amid the banging explosions, Ding Songyan rolled up his sleeves and joined in.
At first, they dutifully drove away an imaginary Year Beast, but then Ding Songyan deliberately tossed a firecracker beside his senior sister.
Zheng Zhuxi ground her teeth and retaliated. Gradually, they began chasing each other around the brazier, pillars, and trees, sometimes kicking the iron basin to send sparks flying into the air so they could light their firecrackers, sometimes feinting with a shoulder or a false step to deceive the other.
One moved with the lithe grace of a roaming dragon, the other with the fluttering elegance of