The Right Shade of Blue

“Legend has it,” she would begin in a whisper, “that the masters of old could bring paintings to life.”

In the dim candlelight, Mother would set the inkstick dancing with a gentle twirl of her wrist, and the block would spin until dark pools formed in the inkstone well and held the moon outside our small room captive.

“During a time when the land beneath was still unformed, the ancient masters soared through the heavens upon great ink brushes, drawing mountains and rivers into existence, coloring the skies with dazzling sunsets, and breathing life into the most marvelous creatures. With four treasures, the inkstick, the inkstone, the brush, and the scroll, they shaped the very lands over which they flew.”

As she spoke, a silk scroll would unfurl itself on the low table, and a round brush tipped with coarse wolf fur would leap from its stand and into her waiting hand. Mother would pause her storytelling to lightly dip the brush into the inkstone well and begin painting.

She would start with strong, broad strokes, and suddenly, the silk scroll would become a mountainous backdrop. With several more light touches, the valley below would be formed and filled with deciduous trees and gurgling creeks. In the foreground, a silvery lake would bloom across the scroll, following the twists and turns of her hand.

She continued on, “The masters shared their knowledge freely with everyone. When drought struck the land, they showed the people how to paint towering trees that provided shade and relief. When fires ravaged villages, they taught the people to paint storm clouds that brought rain and renewal. They established schools of painting, and of these, the Hall of Iridescence had the greatest renown. It was a time of peace and abundance.”

On each mountain top, Mother would draw a village, and in the center of each village, a grand hall. The villages would be dotted with miniature figures – masters painting in the halls, children playing in their yards, livestock slumbering in their pens.

In the flickering candlelight, the painting would briefly come alive. Shadows danced across the scroll, waxing and waning to a phantom beat. For a moment, the mountaintops would be bathed in a warm yellow glow as though the sun were truly setting behind them. The trees in the valley would sway, their branches rustled by an evening breeze.

Alas, it was never more than an illusion.

Mother’s tone would change as she exchanged the round brush for a wide, flat brush with goat-hair bristles.

“But then, a blight spread across the lands that even the masters could not heal. A blight of greed and envy. Instead of painting from their hearts, people painted from their selfish desires. They created weapons, amassed wealth, and fought over the four treasures jealously, hoarding precious minerals and plant dyes. The schools that the masters had so carefully cultivated became rivals, and the knowledge that the masters had so freely shared became the cause of war and suffering.

In sorrow and regret, the masters looked upon the land and the people, and they began to paint with despair in their hearts. They shrouded the world in a perpetual fog and filled the valleys with terrifying beasts so that no one would dare leave their mountain dwellings. The villages became isolated on their mountaintops, far from one another and far from conflict.”

With the wide brush, she would sweep a layer of fog across the scroll, covering all except for the mountaintops, where the villages and grand halls were.

“Their work finished, the masters retreated and were never seen again.”

Mother sighed and set her brush down. The inkstick stopped twirling, dispirited.

“After they left, no paintings ever came to life again. People returned to their old ways, making things by hand, and painting became an art, not a way of life. Even at the Hall of Iridescence, we have not managed to restore painting to what it once was. We no longer paint from greed, we paint neither weapon nor gold. We paint trees and rivers, but not a single twig moves, not a single wave ripples. So long has passed that to many, the masters of old are just fireside stories.”

She blew out the candle so that our room was lit only by the moon and stars that hovered curiously outside, eavesdropping.

“But I believe the stories. I believe that we can rediscover the magic of painting. There are rumors, rumors that the Valley of Fog holds the answers, that the masters hid their secrets there before disappearing. Many have searched, but none have returned.”

Mother’s eyes would shine like pools of ink as she turned to look at me, sitting across from her in the near darkness.

“My daughter, I believe that one day we will soar again upon giant ink brushes and paint the skies with color,” she would whisper, before setting her lifeless painting aside, as she had done to hundreds of scrolls prior.

––

The fog descended upon me like a sheet of white, and I felt as though I were standing within a blank scroll, pure and untouched.

Behind me, the gabled roof and painted tiles of the Hall of Iridescence were no longer visible through the dense fog. Aside from the trail of incense sticks that marked the direction whence I’d come, there was nothing to guide me up or down the mountain that had been my home for the past fifteen years.

Hoisting my satchel higher on my shoulder, I proceeded cautiously downwards, keeping low to the ground with my paper lantern dimly lighting the way.

––

Before Mother left, we would often venture down the mountainside together in search of new colors, or as Mother liked to call them, the right colors. She had very particular visions for the blue of her rivers – bolder than slate but lighter than sapphire; for the green of the needle-like leaves on her cathaya trees – lusher than bamboo yet softer than jade.

Ready for an adventure? she would say with a small smile as we glided out the back gate of the Hall of Iridescence, quiet as doe. Passing quickly through the village and the small forest that crowned the mountaintop, we would reach an overgrown trail leading down the mountain.

The further we descended, the thicker the fog would become, blurring even the shrubbery a few paces ahead. We were as maidens peering at the world from behind white veils. Every now and then, Mother would pause to light an incense stick and stake it firmly into the ground.

During one such moment, I had wandered off the path, my attention caught by a cluster of small, bell-shaped flowers in a vivid violet-blue color.

“Ma, look!” I shouted excitedly. There was no answer. Mere seconds had passed, but I could no longer see Mother’s bright turquoise robe through the impenetrable fog. “Ma? Ma! Where are you?”

Several incense sticks must have burned out before I finally heard her call back, her bodiless voice thin and ghostly. “Don’t move,” she said. “Keep calling, I’ll find you.”

When she reached me, she embraced me tightly before pointing at the newly lit trail of incense sticks behind her. “Close your eyes, take a deep breath. Do you smell that? Even when you can’t see, the burning incense will help you find your way back.” Catching sight of the blue flowers beside me, she smiled, “And look, you’ve found what we were searching for. When we wander off the timeworn path, we often come across unexpected treasures.” She tapped me lightly on the bridge of my nose. “Just make sure to follow your nose if you ever get lost.”

Even so, I’d clutched Mother’s hand tightly the whole way back.

––

There was no hand to hold now as I headed alone into the Valley of Fog.

As I carefully lit an incense stick and lodged it into the ground as Mother had shown me, I kept a meticulous, almost obsessive, count of the remaining sticks. I had stowed away dozens of them in my satchel, along with my ink brush, inkstone, several inksticks, and a number of silk scrolls.

Unlike the ones Mother and I used to bring on our brief excursions, these incense sticks would never burn out.

I had discovered them by chance. Talk of the old legends was forbidden at the Hall of Iridescence for fear of encouraging dangerous expeditions, but I had challenged an elder who insisted that the legends were untrue. How could they be untrue when my mother had given up everything for them?

For my indiscretion, I was sent to reflect in the Hall’s grand ancestral temple, where I’d discovered that the peculiar incense holders on the altars were without ashtrays. The red embers at the ends of the incense sticks smoldered through the entire night, leaving not a trace of ash. Instead of repentance, rebellion had begun to simmer in my mind.

I glanced in my satchel again, reassuring myself that there were still plenty of stolen sticks left. My guiding stars through the fog, they would allow me to journey into the fabled valley below, farther than Mother and I had ever gone.

––

“I’m going on an adventure,” she had announced during an evening meal three years ago.

My chopsticks hesitated midway on their journey back from the bowl of plum-braised pork belly. “Where are we going this time?”

“Where am I going – you’re staying at the Hall of Iridescence.”

“What?” The pork belly landed in between our bowls, and she picked it up nonchalantly.

“I’m going in search of blue. The right shade of blue,” she added, as though that were enough of an explanation.

Unfortunately, it was. For months, we had been venturing further and further down the mountain, searching for minerals and plants that Mother could use to make yet another blue inkstick. The ever-changing colors of the sky and water were the most elusive to capture, but she was certain she was getting closer. Several times, she’d sworn she had seen the rivers breathe with life, only to become lifeless as the ink dried.

“So you will journey to the Valley of Fog?” I clenched my fingers tightly around my bowl, afraid that I would drop that too.

“Yes, but it’ll just be for a few days. I won’t go far,” she said.

“Then take me with you.”

“No, it’s too dangerous.” Seeing me readying my retort, she quickly added, “Maybe next time. After I return with the right shade of blue, we’ll paint a great wind that drives the fog from our lands. Then, you can come with me. Say, we could even journey to the Hall of Opalescence across the valley.”

Her bright optimism and her unwavering beliefs were so compelling that I allowed her words to spirit me away as her stories so often did.

Mother left the next morning. By the time the rooster crows woke me, I was alone in our room. I ran to the very edge of the village, but she was gone, erased by the dense, early-morning fog.

Before she left, she’d written on a scroll, “Light a few incense sticks for me. I’ll be back before they burn out.”

––

The embers on those incense sticks had long become ash, and Mother never returned, but her stories remained with me.

At the Hall of Iridescence, I followed the elders’ teachings without fail – Elder Wu insisted that lifting a pinky would produce superior strokes, Elder Lan only made inks from hydrangeas on their third day of bloom, and Elder Fa said crafting brushes with five thousand hairs, rather than four, would hold ink better – so I practiced my brush strokes to perfection, mixed my own inks, and bound brushes until I could do everything with my eyes closed.

Yet, my art was still dull and lifeless. In the caverns of my mind, Mother’s paintings whispered that there was still one thing missing, and her stories told me where I might find it.

For years after her departure, I was held back by fear, fear of that unknown from which no one had returned. But my discovery of the everlasting incense sticks grew the kindling already in my heart until the red-embered tips sparked an outright fire.

That fire was now dimming as I reached the valley floor, and only the ground beneath me changed, from weathered rock to soft, untrodden grass. The fog stretched on endlessly in all directions. In my loneliness, I half hoped that the terrifying beasts said to fill the valley would appear. But nothing did. Perhaps the incense smelled too much like ash and death.

In the midst of these thoughts, I saw a faint shadow. A pale blue figure phased in and out of sight, coming closer each time it appeared. Then a shimmering blue stag, as though passing through silk curtains, emerged from the fog. Its head was crowned with the most regal and puzzling antlers I had ever seen. Not even the deer Mother drew with her intricate strokes had antlers so intriguing and reminiscent of characters from our written language. And the color of its fur – such a startling blue, almost glowing! I was mesmerized.

The stag watched me intently with orb-like eyes. I cautiously approached, wanting a closer look at its radiant fur. Perhaps this was the right shade of blue.

I must have startled him because the deer turned suddenly and leapt away.

“No, wait!” I called out. My lantern swinging wildly before me, I hurried after him, but the glowing figure faded until I was alone once again.

I realized with horror that in my haste, I had not marked my way with incense. Before I could truly despair, the arc of my lantern revealed a small tuft of blue fur caught on a tall blade of grass. I swung my light outwards in the direction the stag had gone, and I picked up a trail of luminous fur.

Intent as I was on following the trail, I did not notice the fog around me thinning. Suddenly, pockets of green opened up around me. I had come to a small clearing, and beyond the open space, framed by gently swaying trees was a perfectly still lake beneath a perfectly blue sky.

The blue of the lake mirrored that of the sky, as though the sky had been painted upon the still waters. If only I could capture some of that perfect blue, I thought as I walked forward in a trance.

But as I neared the lake, its color seemed to fade. By the time I reached the shoreline, the water before me had become a dark grey. I stooped over and picked up a pebble that had washed up on shore. It was a pretty speckled blue, much like a duck egg, but it was nothing compared to the blue of the water when I’d first beheld it from the clearing.

Disappointed, I dropped the pebble back into the water, and its blueness faded to black as it sank. A soft lapping sound echoed from across the water, and I looked up to see the blue stag drinking from the other end of the lake.

Heart pounding, I crept cautiously towards it, careful to not step on any loose pebbles. I had almost rounded the other end when the stag looked up and turned to run into the forest. I gave chase only to find myself back in the fog. The lake barely visible now, I staked a couple of incense sticks into the ground, thinking that I could at least return there if needed.

As I continued along, the land became more hilly and the ground more uneven, and I wondered if I had reached a different mountain. The fog still surrounded me, but now, a blanket of darkness was also descending as night approached.

Out of the shadows, almost like a mirage, a hillside emerged, illuminated by blinking blue lights. Curious, I ran forward.

“Oh!” It was a shout of surprise and delight, followed by fast disappointment as hundreds of fireflies, their bodies glowing with a fiery white-blue, scattered into the night. Though the hillside no longer danced with light, it was dotted with pale blue flowers that radiated a subtle sweet scent. I hardly noticed them, my attention still fixed on the disappearing fireflies.

“Don’t go, don’t leave me alone again,” I whispered.

––

As the night grew darker and colder, I looked for shelter amongst the rocky outcrops of the nearest mountain and prayed that my earlier wishes for terrifying beasts to emerge would be forgiven and forgotten.

Arriving at a small cave mouth, I ducked into what I expected to be a humble den.

What I found inside was instead an endless cavern, the walls of which were embedded with brilliant blue stones. Gems that twinkled and shimmered from within as though alive with energy. I had never seen so many shades of blue in one place.

I flitted excitedly from one wall to the other. This stone seemed to have captured the pure essence of the sky, while that one seemed to have the same roiling energy as the ocean. This is it, I thought, this is where I find the right shade of blue. It must be here!

But as soon as I found a blue I liked, another gemstone would beckon and wink from further down the hollow chamber, and I would feel so certain that its color was better, brighter, bluer. And with each blue gemstone I rejected, the need to find the perfect shade only intensified and drew me deeper into the mountain.

There was no fog in the cavern, but a fog seemed to have invaded my mind. I lost track of time, of how many times I had promised myself that the next stone would be the last.

In my trance, I almost walked straight into a slim figure. A figure in a familiar turquoise robe.

The surprise of seeing another person quickly became the shock of seeing the one person I hadn’t dared hope for.

“Ma?” My voice came out a mere quiver.

The figure turned, and it really was her.

“Ma… I can’t believe you’re here…”

Mother stared at me, her eyes wide.

“Y-You found it! All the shades of blue! They’re–,” I blathered, too stunned to greet her properly.

Mother did not respond. Her expression did not change as she walked past me.

“Ma?” I reached for her, and my hand passed right through her shoulder. My scream reverberated in the cavern, and I heard my own distorted voice calling back again and again.

The fog in my mind lifted and I saw ghostly figures all around. The line of hunched wraiths stretched as endlessly as the cavern itself. Under their breaths, they all murmured the same words, the right shade of blue, the perfect shade of blue.

I took a step back. Then another, until I was tripping and falling back towards the entrance of the cave.

––

Outside, the fog swirled around me like lost spirits, and I lashed out blindly with my arms. I ran, not knowing or caring where I was going, until I finally collapsed onto a soft bed of grass. A subtle sweetness filled the air.

I was back on the hill where I had seen the blue fireflies. Mother once said to follow my nose when I was lost, and unconsciously, I had still kept her words. I lay there, tears flowing silently down my cheeks to water the flowers.

But Mother, you were so lost. And because of you, now I am too.

My whole life was torn apart, ripped up like the lifeless paintings Mother had thrown away in frustration.

It was just a story. The right shade of blue doesn’t exist. Paintings don’t come to life. It was just a story…

Mother had given up everything to prove nothing. And so had I.

On my way out of the cavern, I had lost my satchel and my lantern. I had no incense sticks, no ink brush or scrolls, no food or water. It would only be a matter of time before I was found by a beast, or worse, left to die a slow death alone, erased by the fog.

A soft glow emanated from the hillside, but I was too exhausted to care. Gentle hooves left faint imprints in the grass as the stag approached me. The blue halo around its antlers grew in brightness and reach, vanquishing the fog and creating a safe haven of clarity around us.

“Don’t worry, I’ll leave you alone this time,” I whispered. “I’m done chasing blue.”

The stag nudged me gently. I turned away, not wanting to see the glowing blue fur that was so reminiscent of the gemstones in the cavern. He brushed against me, harder this time. From the corner of my eyes, I saw a tuft of fur, resembling the head of an ink brush, resting on my shoulder. I sat up slowly and examined the fine blue threads, their texture superior to even the most exquisite brushes used by the elders.

“This would make a great brush…”

Lost in thought, I hadn’t noticed that the stag had walked a pebble’s throw away, its antlers lodged into a rocky crevice in the hillside. With a gentle pull, he shed his magnificent crown and turned to look at me. From afar, the glow of the antlers had faded to a dim pulse, and I approached to look more closely – two gently winding branches each tapering into a point, and between them an intricate pattern that I suddenly recognized to be the character wan, meaning complete.

I reached to pick up the antlers, and a fragment broke off from the larger pattern. As I traced my finger along its curved, velvety surface, I noticed it was remarkably light, and its curvature made for an excellent grip.

“I wonder…” Muscle memory took over, and under the dim glow of the stag, I began to fashion fur and antler into an ink brush.

“It’s beautiful… but what’s the point?” I held the finished brush up for the stag to see, but he had already disappeared into the fog, leaving me with a momentary glimpse of blue dissolving into white.

“Wait! Is this what you wanted? What am I supposed to do with this?”

No response.

With the stag gone, the dome of clarity vanished, and the fog closed in, surrounding me like a blank scroll.

“Like a blank scroll…” Blood rushed to my head as the dots began to connect in my mind. “No. It can’t be. The stories aren’t true. The masters of old never existed.”

I tossed the brush onto the ground where the rest of the stag’s headpiece lay, the character wan still alive with a faint blue. But where did the stag come from? And who adorned its crown?

A small ember of hope flickered, but fear descended upon it like heavy fog. Was I brave enough to try?

I lifted the brush and brought it through the air in a wide, sweeping arc. Using the fog as a canvas, I painted with nothing I knew, without the right colors, without any colors, and that freed me to paint anything I imagined. I painted much as the masters of old had done when the world beneath was yet unformed.

And as I worked, a gust of wind picked up and began to blow across the lands.

Mother once said, “When we wander off the timeworn path, we often come across unexpected treasures.” She had been on the right path after all, but her stubborn insistence on perfection had prevented her from seeing beauty elsewhere. She had not known the cost of her obsession, but I now did.

Then the fog began to clear.