The Rooster Who Would Be Immortal — Chapter 14: The Sickle That Was Too Hard

[ { "type": "reversal", "title": "Signed, Fan", "hook": "Steward Fan blamed Ling. His receipt blamed him.", "script": "Steward Fan blamed Ling. His receipt blamed him. His new sickles kept snapping, and one nearly took Ling's eye. 'Careless,' said Fan. 'She flinched. My juniors are the same. Seven of these broken in a week, and I have docked them a copper for each.' Elder Mo, once a smith's bellows boy, warmed ten of them in gloves and an eye-shield, and in a flour sack the warmed blade bent and sprang back straight. 'Tricks,' said Fan. 'A cook's tricks.' Then the Deacon held out her hand for the paper tied to the bundle: a smith's receipt, with Fan's order at the top. 'As hard as can be made. The coldest well water. Nothing after. Fan.' And on the back: 'Done as ordered. Water will crack some. I would have used oil, and drawn them after.' Drawn: warmed again. Steward Fan blamed Ling. His receipt blamed him.", "loopLine": "Steward Fan blamed Ling. His receipt blamed him.", "images": [ "an old cook leaning on a sickle wrapped in a flour sack and wedged in a chopping block, the blade bending a little under the cloth, a thin stern woman with a ledger, a tall man in green robes and a small rooster all watching closely", "a girl in grey robes reading a paper receipt aloud in a kitchen yard, a tall man in green robes with a silver badge going pale, a thin stern woman with a ledger holding out her hand, a small rooster beside a bundle of sickles" ], "onScreenText": "As hard as can be made. Nothing after.", "cta": "Full episode: The Sickle That Was Too Hard" }, { "type": "trick", "title": "Too Proud to Bend", "hook": "Brass the rooster showed why the sickles snapped.", "script": "Brass the rooster showed why the sickles snapped. Steward Fan's new sickles kept breaking clean, grey and grainy. Brass laid an old bent sickle beside a snapped new one and stood in the gap. 'Not as soft as that one,' said Ling. 'Not as hard as this one. Between.' Heat blade steel red-hot and cool it fast, in water or in oil, and it sets hard. But hard is not tough. Quenched steel is brittle, and it can crack, or shatter. So smiths temper it: they warm it again, gently, and it gives up a little of its hardness and gains toughness. Water cools harsher than oil and cracks more blades, and a crack never mends. It is smiths' work, done by grown people with tongs and gloves. Steel that has stopped glowing still burns, and looks exactly like cold steel. Brass the rooster showed why the sickles snapped.", "loopLine": "Brass the rooster showed why the sickles snapped.", "images": [ "a small golden-red rooster with one folded wing standing on the packed earth of a kitchen yard between a bent old sickle and a snapped new one, a dripping girl in grey robes kneeling to look", "a stout old cook in thick gloves and a horn eye-shield laying a row of sickles on the back of an iron stove with long tongs, a bucket of water beside him, a girl in grey robes and a small rooster watching from the kitchen door", "an old cook leaning on a sickle wrapped in a flour sack and wedged in a chopping block, the blade bending a little under the cloth, a thin stern woman with a ledger, a tall man in green robes and a small rooster all watching closely" ], "onScreenText": "Hard is not tough.", "cta": "Full episode: The Sickle That Was Too Hard" }, { "type": "joke", "title": "Senior Steward of Weeds", "hook": "Fan took credit. Brass the rooster nearly fell.", "script": "Fan took credit. Brass the rooster nearly fell. Herb Steward Fan came up the mountain on a rest day with a new silver badge on his chest, and the first thing he told the kitchen yard was that the vetch had been his idea. Brass, on the woodpile, nearly fell off it. 'I saw the worth of a peasant weed,' said Fan, 'where others saw only weeds. The valley elders listened. Senior Steward, now.' The Deacon stood at the pump with her congee. Senior Brother Hua set down the kitchen's water buckets. Ling Yue opened her mouth. 'Let him talk,' said Elder Mo. 'The beans do not care whose idea they were.' Fan took credit. Brass the rooster nearly fell.", "loopLine": "Fan took credit. Brass the rooster nearly fell.", "images": [ "a tall tidy man in green robes with a shining silver badge standing proudly beside a handcart in a kitchen yard, a bundle of sickles on the cart, a small golden-red rooster with one folded wing glaring at him from a woodpile", "a thin stern woman in grey robes with a bronze badge eating a bowl of congee standing up beside a kitchen pump, a tall young man in blue robes setting down two water buckets, a stout old cook frowning in a doorway" ], "onScreenText": "The beans do not care whose idea they were.", "cta": "Full episode: The Sickle That Was Too Hard" }, { "type": "heart", "title": "The Height of Her Eyes", "hook": "Brass the rooster could not fly. He jumped.", "script": "Brass the rooster could not fly. He jumped. Steward Fan set his new sickle across his knee and leaned on it, and the curve of it pointed straight at Ling's face. Brass did not think. He never did. He jumped off the woodpile and hit the back of her knees with his whole body. The sickle snapped with a sound like a dropped bowl. Ling went down, backwards, into one of Hua's buckets. Something hissed over her head and stuck, quivering, in the coop post. The tip of the blade. Exactly where her face had been. Later she sat beside him on the woodpile, still damp. 'You knocked me into a bucket,' she said. He looked at her. She had been his first student. 'Thank you,' said Ling. Brass the rooster could not fly. He jumped.", "loopLine": "Brass the rooster could not fly. He jumped.", "images": [ "a girl in grey robes sitting in a wooden water bucket in surprise, a small rooster sprawled at her feet with one wing tight against his side, a broken piece of sickle blade stuck in a coop post just above her head", "a small golden-red rooster with one folded wing standing on the packed earth of a kitchen yard between a bent old sickle and a snapped new one, a dripping girl in grey robes kneeling to look" ], "onScreenText": "Exactly where her face had been.", "cta": "Full episode: The Sickle That Was Too Hard" } ]

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