The front side read 爆. His gut twisted. He was too afraid to look at the back. ‘Bào,’ said Professor Lovell. ‘The radical for fire. And beside it, the radical for violence, cruelty, and turbulence; the same radical which on its own can mean untamed, savage brutality; the same radical used in the words for thunder and cruelty.* And he translated it against burst, the tamest English translation possible, so tame that it hardly translates as such at all – so that all of that force, that destruction, was trapped in the silver.
