Лю Цысинь - Hold Up the Sky

The clone stood stiffly, gazing dully into the infinite distance, as if completely oblivious to the universe he’d just joined. Above him, the sphere’s white light dimmed, before extinguishing altogether. The sphere itself disappeared as if evaporating. But just then, Yi Yi thought he saw something else light up, and realized that it was the clone’s eyes. The dullness had been replaced with the divine gleam of wisdom. In this moment, Yi Yi would learn, the god had transferred all his memories to the clone body.

“Cold… so this is cold?” A breeze had blown past. The clone had wrapped his arms around his slick shoulders, shivering, but his voice was full of delighted surprise. “This is cold! This is pain, immaculate, impeccable pain, the sensation I scoured the stars for, as piercing as the ten-dimensional string through time and space, as crystalline as a diamond of pure energy at the heart of a star, ah…” He spread his emaciated arms and beheld the Milky Way. “ Qian bu jian gu ren, hou bu jian lai zhe, nian yu zhou zhi— ” A spate of shivers left the clone’s teeth chattering. He hurriedly stopped commemorating his birth and ran over to warm himself over the incinerator.

The clone extended his hands over the blue flames inside the aperture, shivering as he said to Yi Yi, “Really, this is something I do all the time. When researching and collecting a civilization’s art, I always lodge my consciousness inside a member organism of that civilization, to ensure my complete understanding of the art.”

The flames inside the incinerator’s aperture suddenly flared. The plane surrounding it roiled with multicolored light as well, so that Yi Yi felt as if the entire plane were a sheet of frosted glass floating on a sea of fire.

“The incinerator has turned into a fabricator,” Bigtooth whispered to Yi Yi. “The god is performing energy-matter exchange.” Seeing Yi Yi’s continued puzzlement, he explained again, “Idiot, he’s making objects out of pure energy, the handicraft of a god!”

Suddenly, a white mass burst from the fabricator, unfurling in midair as it fell—clothing, which the clone caught and put on. Yi Yi saw that it was a loose, flowing Tang Dynasty robe, made of snow-white silk and trimmed with a wide band of black. The clone, who had appeared so pitiable earlier, looked like an ethereal sage with it on. Yi Yi couldn’t imagine how it had been made from the blue flames.

The fabricator completed another object. Something black flew from the aperture and thudded onto the plane like a rock. Yi Yi ran over and picked it up. He might not trust his eyes, but his hand clearly registered a heavy inkstone, icy cold at that. Something else smacked onto the plane; Yi Yi picked up a black rod. No doubt about it—it was an inkstick! Next came several brush pens, a brush holder, a sheet of snow-white mulberry paper (paper, out of the flames!), and several little decorative antiques. The last object out was also the largest: an old-fashioned writing desk! Yi Yi and Bigtooth hurriedly righted the desk and arranged the other objects on top of it.

“The amount of energy he converted into these objects could have pulverized a planet,” Bigtooth whispered to Yi Yi, his voice shaking slightly.

The clone walked over to the desk, nodding in satisfaction when he saw the arrangement on it. One hand stroked his newly dry beard. He said, “I, Li Bai.”

Yi Yi examined the clone. “Do you mean you want to become Li Bai, or do you really think you’re Li Bai?”

“I’m Li Bai, pure and simple. A Li Bai to surpass Li Bai!”

Yi Yi laughed and shook his head.

“What, do you question me even now?”

Yi Yi nodded. “I concede that your technology far exceeds my understanding. It’s indistinguishable from human ideas of magic and acts of God. Even in the fields of art and poetry, you’ve astonished me. Despite such an enormous cultural, spatial, and temporal gap, you’ve managed to sense the hidden nuances of Classical Chinese poetry…. But understanding Li Bai is one matter, and exceeding him is another. I continue to believe that you face an unsurpassable body of art.”

A mysterious amusement appeared on the clone’s—Li Bai’s—face, only to quickly vanish. He pointed at the desk. “Grind ink!” he bellowed to Yi Yi, before striding away. He was nearly at the edge of the plane before he stopped, stroking his whiskers, gazing toward the distant Milky Way, descending into thought.

Yi Yi took the Yixing clay pot on the desk and poured a trickle of clear water into the depression in the inkstone. Then he began to grind the inkstick against the stone. It was the first time he’d done this; he clumsily angled the stick to scrape at its corners. As he watched the liquid thicken and darken, Yi Yi thought of himself, 1.5 astronomical units away from the sun, perched on this infinitely thin plane in the vastness of outer space. (Even while it was making things out of pure energy, a distant viewer would have perceived zero thickness.) It was a stage floating in the void of the universe, on which a dinosaur, a human raised as dinosaur livestock, and a technological god in period dress planning to surpass Li Bai were performing bizarre live theater. With that thought, Yi Yi shook his head and laughed wanly.

Once he thought the ink was ready, Yi Yi stood and waited next to Bigtooth. The breeze on the plane had ceased by this time; the sun and Milky Way shone calmly, as if the whole universe were waiting in anticipation.

Li Bai stood steadily at the edge of the plane. The layer of air above the plane created almost no scattering effect, so that the sunlight cast him in crispest light and shadow. Aside from the movements of his hand when he smoothed his beard now and then, he was practically a statue hewn from stone.

Yi Yi and Bigtooth waited and waited. Time flowed past silently. The brush on the desk, plump with ink, began to dry. The position of the sun changed unnoticed in the sky; they, the desk, and the spaceship cast long shadows, while the white paper that was spread out on the desk appeared as if it had become part of the plane.

Finally, Li Bai turned and slowly stepped over to the desk. Yi Yi hurriedly re-dipped the brush in ink and offered it with both hands, but Li Bai held up a hand in refusal. He only stared at the blank paper on the desk in continued deep thought, something new in his gaze.

Yi Yi, with glee, saw that it was perplexity and unease.

“I need to make some more things. They’re all… fragile goods. Be sure to catch them.” Li Bai pointed at the fabricator; the flames within, which had dimmed, grew bright once more. Just as Yi Yi and Bigtooth ran over, a tongue of blue flame pushed out a round object. Bigtooth caught it agilely. Upon closer inspection, it was a large earthen jar. Next, three large bowls sprang out of the blue flames. Yi Yi caught two of them, but the third fell and shattered. Bigtooth carried the jar to the desk and carefully unsealed it. The powerful fragrance of wine emerged. Bigtooth and Yi Yi exchanged astonished looks.

“There wasn’t much documentation on human winemaking in the Earth-related data I received from the Devouring Empire, so I’m not sure I fabricated this correctly,” said Li Bai, pointing to the jar of wine to indicate that Yi Yi should taste it.

Yi Yi took a bowl, scooped a little from the jar, and took a sip. Fiery heat ran past his throat down into his belly. He nodded. “It’s wine, albeit much too strong compared to the kind we drink to improve our meat quality.”

Li Bai pointed to the other bowl on the desk. “Fill it up.” He waited for Bigtooth to pour a bowlful of the strong wine, then picked it up and glugged the whole thing down. Then he turned and once again walked off into the distance, weaving a stagger here and there along the way. Once he reached the edge of the plane, he stood there and resumed his pondering in the direction of the stars, only this time his body swayed rhythmically left and right, as if to some unheard melody. Li Bai didn’t ponder for long before returning to the desk once more, and on the walk back he staggered every step. He grabbed the brush being proffered by Yi Yi and threw it into the distance.