Chapter 138 — The Sound of Strings
The zither cost him four taels of silver from a traveling merchant who dealt mostly in cheaper things — combs, mirrors, bolts of dyed cloth — and seemed faintly surprised anyone in Quiet River Town wanted an instrument at all. Li Fan turned it over in the market stall before buying it, checking the grain of the wood, the tension of the seven strings, the slight warp along one edge that the merchant hadn't mentioned and dropped the price for once Li Fan pointed it out. He carried it home wrapped in cloth against the dust, and set it on the low table in the room off the courtyard he'd begun using for quiet work, away from the noise of the workshop. He thought of the old woman first, before he'd touched a single string — a memory from years earlier, a nameless village, her flute carrying some plain, unhurried melody across an evening his perfect memory still held in exact detail. He hadn't understood, then, that what he was hearing was more than music. He chose the zither rather than trying to copy her instrument directly, wanting to reach the same place from a different road.