The Broken Paintings
來源：
小編： 62By Jin Yu Tian
THE EAGLE hovered above the clouds, its mighty talons clenched and its eyes sweeping across the vast expanse of mountains and rivers below. The soul of the painting by Xu Bei Hong, a late Chinese master artist, came to life on its wings as we unfolded the scroll gently.
“Ah!” -- a gasp escaped all those present in one voice as the paper broke into bits like leaves torn off twigs while the wooden roller crumbled into scraps like ridges in the fields sinking asunder. Yet the bird's eyes shone like torches, casting sad compassion over a land enshrouded in gunpowder smoke.
This was the third scroll that we had opened. The first depicted a horse neighing towards the sky, its head held high; the second showed a group of desperate warriors ready for the last battle. But the fourth painting stopped short of displaying its full charm. When the tips of a pair of wings appeared, our fingers could move no further. Time seemed frozen then and there.
Still more eagles, we feared, might shed their feathers or break their wings because of our ignorant curiosity. After long years of dryness, the paper of those ink-and-wash paintings had become extremely fragile. How could we have the heart to risk damaging more of them?
Another dozen of scrolls were still slumbering in the ebony box -- in dream, oblivious to light for untold years. Their current owners recalled how their late grandmother had jealously guarded that dark brown, gold-laced box, forbidding anybody to touch it. To them, her keen attachment for whatever kept inside was as mysterious as the butterfly-shaped padlock that had been securing Master Xu's priceless works all the time.
