Firing Pottery

Preparations went on for days to the urgent beat of drums and gongs. With Gubang and Daya, Wang Yan practically turned over every patch of soil near the tribe and downstream along the creek. They pinched it in their hands and mixed it with water, testing which soil was stickier and could be rolled into thin, long strips without cracking. In the end, he really did find a layer of yellowish soil, fine and smooth to the touch, in an exposed section of a higher riverbank. Once dug out and mixed with water, it was smooth like dough and wonderfully sticky-exactly the clay he remembered needing to make pottery.

"This is the stuff!" Wang Yan held a handful of wet clay, a smile spreading across his face.

Meanwhile, Aunt Baiya, Aunt Niucao, and Aunt Luye led Shouchai and several deft-handed women in clearing a small space at the edge of the tribe. Following Wang Yan's instructions, they used stones and wet mud to build a simple circular earthen pit, open at the top. This was the most primitive "kiln" Wang Yan had envisioned. Crude as it was, it could at least enclose the clay pieces and concentrate the heat.

They had also prepared plenty of charcoal. When the hunting team whose turn it was to rest heard that Yan needed charcoal that "burned hot without smoke," they volunteered to help, cutting hardwood and digging pits to smother-burn it, producing several large baskets of pitch-black charcoal chunks.

Everything was ready; all they lacked was the east wind.

That morning, just as the sun rose, Wang Yan's "pottery workshop" came alive.

All the core members were there: Wang Yan, the three aunties, Gubang, Daya, and Shouchai. Even Chief Jianshi and the strategist Jianya could not resist their curiosity. They stood watching from a distance without coming closer to disturb them, but their attentive gazes never strayed.

Several clay pieces, already shaped the night before, stood in the clearing. They were the result of more than half a day's work by Wang Yan and the three deft-handed aunties.

Several were small bowls with thick walls that looked a little clumsy, their rims not quite rounded. Another was a wide-mouthed jar made in an attempt to copy a stone pot. The largest was a clay pot Wang Yan had painstakingly coil-built into shape, two sizes smaller than the tribe's current large pottery pot. This was his greatest hope.

All the clay pieces had already spent several days drying in the shade. They were no longer soft and floppy but heavy and hard in the hand. Yet everyone knew this was only an illusion: once they touched water, they would dissolve again.

"Yan, will this... really turn into a pot as hard as stone?" Aunt Baiya looked carefully at the clay pieces, still finding it somewhat hard to believe. She came from the White Pig Tribe and had seen pottery, but she had never seen how it was made.

"Yes, won't these lumps of mud crack when we burn them?" Aunt Niucao was full of doubts as well.

Wang Yan was not actually sure himself, but he could not show it. He drew a deep breath and encouraged both himself and the others. "We won't know whether it works until we try. This was how it happened in the dream. With a fierce fire, we fire these thoroughly dried clay pieces all the way through, and they'll become hard and won't fear water!"

He directed everyone as they began the most crucial step-loading the kiln.

First, he had Gubang and Daya spread a thick layer of charcoal across the bottom of the crude kiln. Then he and the three aunties placed the clay pieces inside one by one with extreme care. Small stones separated the pieces to keep them from sticking together during firing.

"Gently, more gently!" Wang Yan kept reminding them, terrified that one of the clay pieces might break at the final moment.

Once the clay pieces were in place, he covered them with more charcoal until they were completely buried. Finally, he used several relatively flat stone slabs to roughly cover the opening at the top of the kiln, leaving only a few gaps.

"Light it!" Wang Yan said in a low voice.

"How long do we have to fire it?" Shouchai asked quietly, his face streaked black and white from the smoke.

"I don't know either," Wang Yan answered honestly. He could only judge from his hazy memories. "A long time, until the charcoal inside is almost burned up and the kiln isn't glowing so red anymore."

It was a long wait.

Wang Yan had the three aunties take turns resting, while he, Gubang, and Daya stayed by the kiln. Every so often, they checked the fire through the gaps and added charcoal as needed to keep the temperature inside consistently high.

Time passed little by little. The sun began to sink westward, the firelight inside the kiln gradually dimmed, and the charcoal they added burned more and more slowly. Wang Yan reckoned it was about time and stopped Gubang from adding any more charcoal.

"Let the fire die out slowly," Wang Yan said, his voice somewhat hoarse from prolonged tension and smoke. "We can't open it right away. We have to wait for it to cool down slowly on its own. If we open it now and cold air blows in, the fired pieces inside might burst apart."

Everyone could understand the reasoning. It was just like how red-hot stones cracked when water was poured over them.

And so everyone began another, even more agonizing wait-waiting for the kiln to cool.

That wait lasted an entire night.

Wang Yan barely slept. He lay down fully clothed not far from the kiln, waking every so often to feel the temperature of its walls. In the latter half of the night, the kiln walls finally stopped being too hot to touch and were merely warm.

When the horizon once again turned fish-belly white and a new day arrived, the kiln had cooled completely.

Hearing movement, the three aunties, Gubang, Daya, Shouchai, and even Jianshi, Qingye, and Jianya gathered early. Everyone's eyes were fixed on the silent earthen pit. The atmosphere was even more tense than when they had lit the fire yesterday.

Success or failure hinged on this moment!

Wang Yan's heart pounded. He took a deep breath, stepped forward, and, together with Gubang and Daya, carefully lifted away the stone slabs covering the kiln.

A breath of hot ash rushed into their faces. The kiln was filled with gray-white ash and leftover charcoal cinders.

Wang Yan picked up a stick and gently brushed aside the top layer of ash. Everyone's heart rose into their throat.

The first thing exposed was the rim of the jar-"Its color changed!" Sharp-eyed Aunt Luye was the first to cry out.

Wang Yan's spirits lifted. Moving even more gently, he slowly brushed away the ash, revealing the entire little jar. It was intact! Its surface bore irregular marks left by the flames and looked rough, but it had truly changed from mud into something hard!

He carefully lifted it out. It felt cool and hard in his hands. He flicked it lightly with a finger, and it gave a faint, clear "ting!"

"It worked!" Wang Yan could not help letting out a low cry as immense joy welled up in his heart.

He immediately began searching again. He found the other small bowls too. Two were intact and had likewise become pottery bowls! Only one had developed a crack during firing and counted as a failed piece.

Finally, everyone's gaze focused on the largest clay pot!

Wang Yan's heart hung in suspense again. Together with Daya, he brushed away the ash and charcoal cinders covering it with the utmost care.

When the largest clay pot was fully revealed, everyone held their breath.

It lay there quietly, seemingly a size smaller than before it had gone in. It was an uneven reddish brown, its surface even somewhat bumpy, and a small patch on the bottom showed slight warping from excessive heat.

But it had not cracked! It was intact as a whole!

With trembling hands, Wang Yan lifted it out. It was heavy, hard, and cool to the touch. He picked up a small stone and gently tapped the pot's wall.

"Clang..."

At that moment, no words were needed.

Gubang and Daya jumped with excitement.

Jianshi and Qingye strode forward. Jianshi reached out a large, rough hand and stroked the pottery pot's hard surface, feeling its texture, so completely different from stone and wood. "It worked... it really worked..." she murmured. "Our Fire Tribe... has pottery of its own!"

As the strategist Jianya watched everything before him, complete, unreserved admiration appeared in his deep eyes for the first time.

Wang Yan looked at the cheering, leaping crowd, then at those few pieces of pottery, ugly yet extraordinarily significant, and let out a breath.