“What kind of poem is this?”
“It’s not even properly structured…”
“The reasoning’s simple enough, though — is it a Buddhist verse?”
“No Buddhist verse reads quite like that, either…”
Expectations too high tend to produce disappointment just as large. The moment Ning Yi finished writing out those eight lines, hushed murmuring rose up irrepressibly from the crowd behind him, and those on the outer edge who hadn’t seen it asked those in front what it said. In truth, both the phrasing and the reasoning were simple — by the standards of the age, there were no obscure allusions, no needless flourishes; anyone could understand it. What made it worse was that it didn’t even rhyme. The crowd’s expressions shifted, and for a moment no one quite knew how to categorize these eight lines.
At first, no one raised any real objection. This was, after all, something Ning Yi had written — it didn’t look absurd the way a doggerel verse would; it genuinely resembled a Buddhist gatha, expressing what seemed like a rather sound piece of wisdom.
But it clearly wasn’t a Buddhist gatha either. After a moment, Liu Qingdi looked at Ning Yi and asked with a frown, “Is this… truly what Brother Ning has written?”
Ning Yi looked down at the eight lines, nodded to himself, then looked up at Liu Qingdi with a smile. “It seems Brother Liu doesn’t think… this counts as poetry?”
“It’s plain and easy to understand, I’ll grant that — but Brother Ning, this doesn’t even rhyme. It can hardly be called a poem. Today’s gathering is meant to…”
“Tsk.” Before Liu Qingdi could finish, Ning Yi shrugged and laughed. “Fine, it’s not a poem then.”
“Then… what is it?”
“Poem or lyric, whatever you want to call it — all that matters is these forty characters are on the paper. I teach at a private school these days, and no matter how my students write, rhyming or not, at least they’ve written something. Brother Liu, just consider this a poorly rhymed bit of doggerel then, ha ha…”
This was rather shameless of Ning Yi, but for the moment no one could find good grounds to criticize him. This wasn’t the imperial examinations, nor any formal contest — there was no ranking to settle. If he’d produced some enduring masterpiece, everyone would have marveled at it; but having casually jotted down these lines and spoken of them so lightly, no one could accuse him of disrespecting scholarship. Even the greatest literary masters didn’t produce fine verse on command every time — cracking a joke among friends and dashing off a couple of doggerel lines was hardly something out of line.
The mood had been relaxed before this, and Liu Qingdi hadn’t really set up a proper trap. Now he frowned, unsure what to say. Cao Guan and the others quietly breathed easier, then something occurred to him: “Brother Ning, how exactly should we interpret this poem of yours?”
Ning Yi laughed. “I wrote it on a whim — everyone’s free to take it however they like.”
Li Shishi stood to the side studying the lines, frowning as she thought it over, her cheeks flushing now and then, though what showed on her face wasn’t shyness. She glanced at Ning Yi once, a faint trace of suspicion in her eyes, then lowered her head, and no one could tell what she was thinking. Beside Zhou Bangyan, Fang Wenyang and Tang Weiyan were murmuring to each other, their expressions strange, alternating between frowns and faint traces of mockery.
Li Shishi and the others, having come from the capital, weren’t particularly familiar with Ning Yi, and were only just now forming their first impression of him — after all, one couldn’t expect to witness a masterpiece being born every time. Their mood remained fairly calm. Cao Guan, Liu Qingdi, and the others knew him a little better, but with their own stakes to consider, they mostly took this as him simply making a joke. Qilan, mixed in with the crowd, was fond of Ning Yi’s poetry and had asked around about him many times before — she felt a faint pang of disappointment now. Puyang Yi had also arrived nearby; he studied the poem for a moment, thought it over, then laughed. Qilan turned to look at him.
“What’s Young Master laughing at?”
“What do you make of that poem?”
“Hmm… effortless, easy to understand — not quite doggerel, but not really a proper poem either, since it doesn’t rhyme. And yet, reading it, it does seem to carry real meaning… Master Ning must simply be in a playful mood. Perhaps it’s only that free, unrestrained temperament of his that could produce something as striking as ‘Green Jade Cup.'”
Puyang Yi looked at her, and once she’d finished, laughed again, lowering his voice. “Ten steps, one calculation — his reputation is well earned. The way he does things, with such an utter lack of worldly ambition — if he were my rival in business, I’d genuinely be a little afraid of him.”
“Hmm? Young Master, why bring up business all of a sudden?”
“…Among the countless kinds of people in this world, don’t go chasing after fleeting clouds; when a person is rare as a rainbow, only upon meeting them does one know they exist… A few days ago I asked him to write a lyric for you, but unfortunately, given his history with Miss Li, that favor wasn’t one I could easily ask of him. Now he can hardly go out of his way to favor Miss Li either, but with everyone speaking up just now, he couldn’t well refuse outright. So he wrote this kind of poem — favoring neither side, and since the lines came so effortlessly, it costs his reputation little. But the real question, Qilan — how exactly would you interpret this poem?”
“How to interpret it… hmm.” Qilan thought for a while. “Everyone was asking him to write a poem for Miss Li just now, so this poem…”
“There’s no fixed interpretation — and yet it can be read almost any way you like,” Puyang Yi finished quietly. “All these people, circling around Miss Li — if you wanted to read it favorably toward her, that’s simple enough. The closing lines are ‘when a person is rare as a rainbow, only upon meeting them does one know they exist’ — one could easily say this means that only upon meeting Miss Shishi did he realize such a person, rare as a rainbow, truly existed among the countless souls of this world. But if you read it from someone else’s perspective — look at Zhou Bangyan and the others, circling around Miss Shishi, having chased her all the way from the capital — well, ‘among the countless kinds of people in this world, don’t go chasing after fleeting clouds’… Someone mentioned earlier that he’s on close terms with Miss Li, and those close to her are unlikely to be pleased about that. This poem manages to be both magnanimous and a gentle rebuke all at once — if any of them harbor real jealousy in their hearts, those two lines strike right at it. They can hardly be without some reaction.”
“So you’re saying, Master Ning is…”
“Fitting for the occasion, fitting for the moment — anyone reading it will have their own thoughts, yet it draws no particular attention while still hitting exactly the right note. Even Miss Yuan, standing right beside him, won’t feel a shred of jealousy over this. In the space of a moment, he thought up this kind of response and produced these bland, neither-here-nor-there lines — that alone is worth admiring.”
Qilan thought it over for a good while. “You’ve been in business too long, Young Master Puyang — you read everything through that lens. This one still thinks Master Ning is simply a gentle, cultured scholar who just happens not to sweat the small details.”
Puyang Yi laughed heartily and didn’t seem to mind the remark at all.
This poem was rather like a masterful move in tai chi push-hands — it looked like a jumbled mess, yet somehow no one could quite get a grip on it to strike back. The outing had only just begun, after all, and everyone was still warming up with laughter and chatter — it was hard for anyone to suddenly turn sharp and confrontational this early on. People exchanged a few laughing remarks about the poem, then turned their attention back to everyone else’s work. Whatever further thoughts they had, they kept to themselves for the moment.
The gathering continued with laughter and conversation. Eventually someone proposed composing verses on the theme of Jinling, and Chen Luoyuan brought out a genuine Tang-dynasty painting scroll by Wu Daozi as a prize, and the mood grew even livelier, with several performances following. By the time Qilan and the others thought to look for Ning Yi again, he, along with Nie and Yuan, had already slipped away…
…
“Wow, there really is a hot spring.”
A voice, delighted, rang out in the forest, followed by the sound of splashing water. A stream wound its way up through gaps in the trees, and where it reached a clearing, there was a modest hot spring. The water flowed down from higher up, and by the time it reached here, it had already cooled considerably; further down, where it merged with another stream that ran more slowly, the warmth faded almost entirely. If Kang Xian hadn’t mentioned it, no one would likely have known such a spot existed up here.
Ning Yi, Yun Zhu, and Jin’er washed their hands in the spring water. A mountain breeze drifted down through the treetops; the sun was nearly overhead now, warm and pleasant.
“Rare as a rainbow, only upon meeting them does one know they exist.” Jin’er recited the line, then scooped up water in both hands and splashed it toward Yun Zhu. The distance was too great, though, and Yun Zhu laughed as she dodged. “Stop that — what if you get my clothes wet?” Jin’er stuck out her tongue.
“This place really is lovely.” Ning Yi stood there, sighing appreciatively, then said, “I’m going to look around a bit.”
Jin’er had already settled herself by the spring. “I’ll stay here. I want to rest a while.” What she really wanted was for Yun Zhu to stay and rest with her too, but of the three, Yun Zhu made no such indication, instead smiling as she went off with Ning Yi in the other direction. Jin’er trailed her fingers through the water, and once the two figures had vanished from sight, she pouted and muttered, “Shameless pair! Scoundrels, the both of them!”
She glanced furtively around, and seeing no one about, carefully removed her shoes and stockings, hitched up her trouser legs, and — her bare feet and calves pale and slender in the sunlight — dipped them into the hot spring. A moment later she closed her eyes, a contented expression on her face, like a small puppy.
“Does Liheng really like it here?”
Elsewhere, Ning Yi and Yun Zhu wandered through the woods, sunlight falling in dappled patches through the leaves overhead, the forest quiet, their conversation light and easy.
“It really is nice here, don’t you think — a hot spring, a forest. What do you think?”
“I… think it’s a bit high up. The wind must be fierce in winter.”
“The riverside’s the same, isn’t it?”
“Mm, not to mention winter — I don’t dare go outside to write anything even in autumn. All my papers get blown away. Last time, out on the terrace, it was a whole flustered mess.”
She was talking about something that had happened the previous autumn — Ning Yi had been there too. The wind by the river had been strong, and she’d left some papers outside; they’d scattered everywhere, and she’d been in quite a state. Recalling it now, the two of them couldn’t help laughing. After wandering the area a while longer, they started back the way they’d come, and Yun Zhu, glancing at Ning Yi’s clothes, said, “Liheng, why don’t you sit for a moment up ahead.”
“Hm?”
“Your clothes have come loose at the seam.”
That was where the fabric had caught earlier while sledding down the slope — it had been a small tear at the time, but it had gradually worked itself larger without him noticing. Ning Yi laughed and sat down on a rock beside a tree up ahead — the light was good there, sunlight spilling down in a warm golden patch. Yun Zhu settled onto the grass beside him, knees drawn up, and pulled a small pouch from inside her robe, containing needle and thread. Ning Yi glanced at it. “Carrying needle and thread even while dressed as a man — not very convincing.”
“I wasn’t carrying it before,” Yun Zhu said. “I only asked one of the Chen family’s servants for it just now, after I saw your clothes had torn.”
As she spoke, she wet the thread against the tip of her tongue and threaded the needle. In the forest, with just the two of them there, everything was quiet and peaceful, the warm golden sunlight blending it all into a picture of quiet beauty.
…
Soaking alone in a hot spring grew boring after a while, especially since she couldn’t very well strip down and actually bathe. By the water’s edge, Jin’er glanced around and drew her slender feet back out of the water, a faint pang of loneliness at having been left behind. In the distance, carried on the mountain breeze, came what sounded like Li Shishi’s singing, melodious and lovely. Jin’er pulled her shoes and stockings back on and headed off into the forest…