New Brands

Su Jin checked in at the Cheng Family's kiln house in Jingdezhen.

She sat on a small wooden stool in front of the kiln, holding a freshly fired peachbloom brush washer in her hands. It was small, only as wide as an adult's palm, and its glaze was red in varying shades: purplish red in some places, pink showing through the red in others. One tiny patch was an extremely pale green, as if the copper had not fully oxidized when the glaze was fired in the kiln, leaving behind a small, accidental mark.

Her fingers brushed lightly over the glaze. It was as smooth as a stone washed by water for a long time, and the coolness seeped into her fingertips before turning warm.

Little Golden Egg squeezed out of the screen and hovered above the kiln opening, a fine layer of kiln ash on her wings. The ash was gray, her light was golden, and gold and gray mingled like the last veil of mist lingering in the dusk.

"Host, it's time to check in."

Su Jin did not look up. She gazed at the brush washer in her hands, at that tiny patch of extremely pale green. Along its edge ran a hairline crack, fine as a blood vessel.

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Ding. Congratulations, host, on completing your two hundred and forty-first daily check-in.

Today's check-in reward: one Bell 429 helicopter. Its airworthiness certificate has been registered, and it is parked at Jingdezhen Luojia Airport. Range: 650 kilometers. Speed: 260 kilometers per hour. It can carry six passengers. The custom interior features dark gray leather seats and a light gray carpet embroidered with the family crest-an eagle and a mountain.

Su Jin set the brush washer on her knee and looked up at Little Golden Egg. "A helicopter."

Her voice was flat, as if she were reading a menu.

Little Golden Egg fluttered her wings twice. "Host, aren't you happy?"

Su Jin lowered her head and looked at the brush washer again. "I am."

Little Golden Egg said nothing.

Su Jin touched the patch of extremely pale green again. "The porcelain is finished."

It was a statement, not a question.

Little Golden Egg spun once in the air. "It is. Elder Cheng said this was the finest kiln firing in his ninety years. He didn't fire it, though. You did. You kneaded the clay, trimmed the forms, mixed the glaze, and watched the fire."

Su Jin turned the brush washer over and looked at the mark on the bottom. It read "Cheng Kiln," with a smaller line underneath: "Made by Su Jin."

Her fingers traced the smaller inscription. The characters were engraved, recessed into the surface, their strokes so fine they looked as if they had been scratched in with a needlepoint.

She traced the character "Jin" once, then again.

She asked where Elder Cheng was. Little Golden Egg said he was in the courtyard.

Su Jin walked out of the kiln house and through the narrow corridor. Gray brick walls lined both sides, with a few small wooden windows set into them. The paint had peeled away, exposing dark brown wood grain that ran in lines like dried-up riverbeds. She walked past the windows, shafts of light from outside falling across her one after another.

She wore a dark green qipao-crab-shell green. It was not the green found in the Cheng Family's kiln, but a green that seemed to have soaked in water for years, its color deepened, though its underlying shade remained.

A line of dark blue piping trimmed the collar, hand-sewn with stitches so fine and close together that they were nearly invisible unless examined carefully. Her hair was coiled into a low bun and secured with a silver hairpin, its ruyi-shaped head engraved with exquisitely fine cloud patterns.

She wore no makeup. She walked into the courtyard. The osmanthus tree was still there, though most of its blossoms had fallen. A few dried yellow flowers remained on the branches, rustling in the breeze.

Elder Cheng stood beneath the tree, hands clasped behind his back, head tilted up as he looked at its leaves.

The leaves had yellowed, their edges curled as if scorched by fire.

Su Jin walked over to stand beside him and looked up at the tree too.

"Grandpa Cheng," she said.

Elder Cheng kept his eyes on the tree. "Mm."

"The first kiln firing was a success."

Su Jin hesitated, then said, "I want to start a brand. To sell porcelain. The pieces you fire and the pieces I fire. To sell the Cheng Family's kiln, the Cheng Family's clay, the Cheng Family's glaze. To sell a fire that hasn't gone out in six hundred years."

Elder Cheng lowered his head and looked at her. His eyes were dark brown, not bright, but deep, like two wells that would never run dry, never freeze, never turn to ice.

"You don't have to sell. You fire the porcelain. I'll sell it."

She paused. "I'll help you sell it. Once it's sold, you keep firing. When you can't do it anymore, I'll fire it."

Elder Cheng looked at her for a long time.

He held out his hand, and she took it. His hand was cool and thin, its palm covered in calluses as thick as a shell.

"All right," he said. "You fire it. When I can't do it anymore, you fire it."

"Then what should the brand be called?"

Elder Cheng thought for a moment. "Cheng Kiln. Just call it Cheng Kiln."

Su Jin smiled and nodded. "All right. Cheng Kiln it is."

Su Jin set the prices.

She sat at the square table in the Cheng Family's guest room, a sheet of paper spread out before her. On it were the names of twelve porcelain pieces: a brush washer, a water pot, a seal paste box, a brush rest, a paperweight, an incense holder, an inkstone water dropper, an inkstick rest, a tea bowl, a gaiwan, a cup, and a saucer.

A space had been left after each one for her to fill in a number.

She picked up a brush and dipped its tip in ink. The ink was fresh, ground for a long time until it shone black.

She wrote a six-digit number after the brush washer, then another after the water pot, twenty thousand less than the brush washer.

She wrote slowly, every stroke steady, like someone walking through snow, in no hurry but planting each foot firmly.

When she had written all twelve numbers, she put down the brush. The ink had not yet dried, and the writing gleamed under the lamplight. She looked at the numbers and changed none of them.

She got up and walked into the courtyard. Beneath the osmanthus tree, moonlight filtered through gaps in the leaves, drop by drop, like golden rain.

She stood beneath the tree, her head tilted back, looking at those golden raindrops that would never fall.

She made a call, and Zhao Mingyuan answered. "President Su."

"The porcelain brand will be called Cheng Kiln," Su Jin said. "Twelve pieces. One kiln firing a year, twelve pieces per firing. No more will be fired, and no more will be sold."

Zhao Mingyuan fell silent for a moment on the other end. "What about the prices?"

Su Jin gave him twelve numbers.

Zhao Mingyuan fell silent again. "President Su, those prices are five times higher than the average on the contemporary porcelain market."

Su Jin's lips curved upward. "No one in contemporary porcelain has been firing for six hundred years. Cheng Kiln has."

Zhao Mingyuan said nothing.

"Sell them at Poly. A dedicated auction, once a year. Call it 'Rekindling'-'re' as in revive, 'kindling' as in burning."

Su Jin and Elder Cheng settled on the designs together.

Elder Cheng took a sagger from a wooden shelf. Inside was a lump of gray, damp clay wrapped in oilpaper. The paper had yellowed, and its edges had grown brittle enough to crumble at a touch.

He peeled back the oilpaper, revealing the clay, still damp, still soft.

"This clay is from the Ming dynasty. My grandfather's grandfather kneaded it. He spent his whole life kneading it, until it was soft, until it was mature, until it was like human skin, with warmth, breath, and memory. I kept it, waiting for you to come."

Su Jin reached out and pressed her fingers into the clay. It was cool and damp against her palm, like a piece of ice that had soaked in water for a long time but would not melt.

Her fingers sank in, and clay squeezed out between them, gray and soft, like a tangle of thread that had been kneaded for a long time but would not break.

"Use this clay. Make the first kiln firing with it."

Elder Cheng looked at her. "This clay has waited a long time."

Su Jin smiled broadly. "No more waiting. Let's fire it."

Elder Cheng said nothing. He turned and took a booklet from the shelf. It was thread-bound, its xuan paper yellowed and brittle at the edges, so its pages had to be turned very gently, very slowly.

He opened it to the first page. There was a drawing of a brush washer, rendered in meticulous detail. Every line was steady, every stroke precise, as if measured with a ruler.

The rim was round, but not perfectly round. It was oval, the short axis two millimeters shorter than the long one. Those two millimeters had been drawn, not calculated.

"This is a Ming-dynasty design," Elder Cheng said. "My grandfather's grandfather drew it. He spent his whole life drawing brush washers, countless ones, and this was the most beautiful. He couldn't say what made it beautiful. It just wouldn't do with two millimeters more or two millimeters less."

Su Jin looked at the drawing for a long time. "This one," she said. "Not a millimeter off."

After the pieces had been fired, Elder Cheng introduced someone.

She arrived in the afternoon. A black Buick minivan pulled up outside the Cheng Family's kiln house, and a woman stepped out.

She wore an off-white cotton long gown-not a qipao, but a long gown, with a crossed collar, the left lapel over the right, and cuffs so wide they covered her entire hands when they hung down.

The fabric was ramie, handwoven and uneven, dense in some places and loose in others. The dense parts were white; the loose parts revealed stretches of skin, like sunlight falling across a white wall through Venetian blinds.

A dark blue cotton sash was tied around her waist. The ends of the knot hung at her side, neither too long nor too short.

Her hair was black and reached her waist. She wore it loose, its ends straight as a length of black silk that had been ironed flat and would never wrinkle.

Her face was small, her chin pointed, her cheekbones neither high nor low. Her eyes were long and narrow, with single eyelids and outer corners that tilted slightly upward, like a cat just waking from sleep, its eyes not yet open but already watching you.

Her lips were very thin, naturally pale pink without anything on them. When she pressed them together, a fine white line appeared.

She walked into the courtyard. A few osmanthus petals fell onto her shoulders, and she did not brush them off.

Elder Cheng stood beneath the tree. She went over, bowed slightly, and said, "Grandpa Cheng."

Elder Cheng nodded and gestured toward Su Jin. "This is Su Jin."

She turned and looked at Su Jin.

Su Jin stood at the entrance to the kiln house in a dark green qipao.

She looked at Su Jin, and Su Jin looked at her. Their eyes met for two seconds.

She spoke first, her voice so soft it was like someone speaking late at night, afraid of waking the person sleeping next door.

"My name is Gu Xiu."

"Hello."

"Grandpa Cheng said you want to make clothes," Gu Xiu said.

Su Jin shook her head and said,

"I want to make Chinese haute couture. Not qipao, not long gowns, not Tang suits. Chinese clothes."

Gu Xiu looked at her. The light in her eyes was not the polite, sociable, courteous kind, but the light of someone who had heard words she had been waiting a long time to hear.

"I've made qipao for twenty years. Not clothes, but skin."

"Then would you be willing to make Chinese haute couture? Not qipao. Chinese formalwear.

Something people can wear to Cannes, to the Oscars, anywhere."

Gu Xiu looked at her for a long time.

A breeze swept through the courtyard, and the last few osmanthus blossoms fell, landing on her off-white gown and on Su Jin's dark green qipao.

She spoke, her voice still soft, but every word clearly enunciated.

"I'll do it. But I have one condition."

Su Jin nodded. "Go ahead."

Gu Xiu said,

"No rushing. Three months for one garment. Measurements, cutting, three fittings. On the third visit, the client comes, puts it on, and leaves without any alterations. There's no fourth visit."

"All right. Three months, no alterations. The third time is the last."

Gu Xiu held out her hand, and Su Jin took it. Her hand was cool, her fingertips slender, her knuckles distinct, her nails clipped short and unpainted.

"Who made your qipao?" she asked.

Su Jin looked down at the dark, crab-shell-green qipao she was wearing.

"Grandpa Cheng introduced me to the maker. An old master from Suzhou who's been doing it for sixty years. He said he can't do it anymore, and he has no apprentices."

Gu Xiu's eyes grew brighter.

"I'll learn. Once I've learned, I'll make them. When I can't do it anymore, someone else will learn."

Su Jin came up with the brand's name.

She stood in the west wing of the courtyard house, facing a blank wall with nothing hanging on it yet. Shen Nian's cabinet stood against the opposite wall, the mountains on its doors surging in the afternoon sunlight.

The violet-pink lamp sat by the window. The slight curl along the edge of its shade looked in the light like a petal beginning to curl as a flower neared the end of its bloom.

Su Jin stood there with her feet together, her back straight, and her hands at her sides.

"Chinese Embroidery," she said. "Chinese as in China, embroidery as in the craft."

Gu Xiu stood beside her in an off-white ramie gown, her hair hanging loose.

"Gu embroidery is actually a type of embroidery from Shanghai. It's been around since the Ming dynasty.

"The Gu Family's embroiderers stitched landscapes, figures, flowers and birds. What they embroidered looked like paintings.

"Paintings are painted, embroidery is stitched. But with Gu embroidery, you can't tell whether it's a painting or embroidery."

Su Jin looked at her and said, "Your name is the same as that style of embroidery."

"Yes. My mother gave it to me. She hoped I'd be like Gu embroidery-fine, slow, and uncompetitive."

"Uncompetitive, but no one can compete with you."

Gu Xiu said nothing. The corners of her mouth curved slightly-not a smile, but the kind of curve that comes when someone has seen into your heart, and you don't want to admit it, but you can't keep the corners of your mouth from turning up.

Su Jin made a second call to Zhao Mingyuan.

"The clothing brand will be called Chinese Embroidery.

"Chinese haute couture, no ready-to-wear.

"Each garment is made individually. Three months, no alterations. The client comes in for measurements, the garment is cut, and there are three fittings. On the third visit, the client takes it away. There's no fourth visit."

Zhao Mingyuan was silent for a long time on the other end.

"President Su, three months for one garment. What about the price?"

Su Jin gave him a six-digit number.

Zhao Mingyuan fell silent again. "That's more expensive than Chanel haute couture."

Su Jin's voice rose slightly as she said,

"Chanel haute couture is French. Gu Xiu is Chinese. The Chinese one costs more than the French one. Can't it?"