Ever since the night of Mid-Autumn, when Xiao Chan let the Shui Diao Ge Tou slip out, Ning Yi had been holed up at home reading and feigning illness; when he got bored he played gomoku with Xiao Chan and the like. Today was the first day he'd gone out: in the morning he taught at the school, in the afternoon he collected the wooden boards he'd had whitewashed, then bought some charcoal sticks, and on his way over here found that Old Qin and Kang Xian were both present.
As for poetry and the like, if it was there to be used, he used it; Ning Yi had no mental block about that. In this era, the poems and ci he knew were a rather fine strategic resource: if one day he tired of idleness and wanted to accomplish something, hauling them out to build up the hype and add a little fame would be of great use. But bringing them out now would only satisfy a bit of vanity — it really had no meaning.
In this era, men of letters and talent quoted the classics in everything they said and did. If you truly wanted to win a name, you could hardly avoid being tested on the spot, and for quick wit of that sort, even memorizing the Complete Tang Poems and the Complete Song Ci would do you no good.
Put the Analects, the Great Learning and a few works of that kind in front of him now and he could explain them in plain vernacular, even with a fair amount of novelty to spare, but in every other branch of learning he certainly had nothing.
Throwing the ci out had been a bit premature, but since it had already happened, his temperament being what it was, he accepted it with indifference.
To him the problem was not so large; whether by a side path or the straight road, the solutions were endless.
The day before, Old Master Su, Su Boyong and the others had called him and Su Tan'er over to question them, and he had made up a few careless lines, saying the ci was not his own — but by some strange twist...
Old Master Su had looked at him for a long while, then merely smiled and said, "Since it has come to this, we must keep it from outsiders." The old man was shrewd; whether he believed it or not was another matter.
Still, if Ning Yi really were some great talent, the Su family's position would in fact be awkward — as things stood, everyone was still guessing back and forth.
Being a talent was nowhere near as comfortable as being a live-in son-in-law: not much work to do, no responsibility, and no one expecting much of you, so there was no pressure at all, and the old master still looked after him. Anyone who wanted to escape this life would be a fool.
He'd finally gotten a few months of leisure; until something big came along, he was absolutely going to cling to this live-in son-in-law identity and not budge. That was what he thought, and it rather amused him; but if he'd said it aloud, probably not even Xiao Chan would believe him.
Within a few days there were bound to be rumors outside, and he could more or less guess their shape. It was when Xiao Chan told him about the Zhishui poetry gathering that he was startled by the name Kang Xian, and in the end he couldn't help laughing at himself. He'd known before that the old man was no simple fellow; he just hadn't expected such a great reputation.
After resting the few days he ought to rest, he put the matter out of his mind for the time being and returned to his normal life. It was this morning, while he was lecturing, that he was sought out at Yushan Academy: the visitors were Yu Zixing — the man Old Kang had dressed down — along with several other men of letters, and they had actually come to apologize.
In a sense, being scolded like that by Kang Xian at the poetry gathering had more or less wrecked Yu Zixing's name as a man of letters; it was truly an undeserved calamity.
But Kang Xian still valued his talent, and had taken him aside for a talk before leaving, instructing him earnestly; now he had found the time to come and apologize, and once word of that got out it would win him a measure of good name as well — after all, bearing the birch and begging forgiveness, knowing one's fault and mending it, those counted as a kind of good name too.
They had come with a purpose, so Ning Yi played along a little, staging a scene of mutual appreciation; as for the invitations to some painted boat or other tonight for a gathering of scholars, he casually declined them, then took his leave of those talented gentlemen and went out to collect his white-painted boards.
"Zixing is a decent sort in his conduct," Kang Xian said with a smile. "His learning isn't top-tier, but it ranks among the very good. It's just that your Shui Diao Ge Tou is simply too good — with that ci out in the world, I'm afraid no one along the Qinhuai will dare write a poem to the moon for the next few Mid-Autumns. Truly, I never would have thought a good-for-nothing brat like you had such poetic talent."
"I've already told you I don't understand poetry." Ning Yi took a sip of tea. "When I was little, a ragged wandering Daoist passed by our front gate and recited this ci, so I memorized it. That's all there is to it..."
That was what he'd told Old Master Su as well. Old Qin burst out laughing. "That story of yours — I doubt even a three-year-old would believe it."
Kang Xian said too, "This fellow is far too lazy; he needs a good prodding... Though the name of a talent does seem to be quite useful. That young woman just now — fine looks, fine bearing — actually walked along with you, chatting away happily. If it comes to a match, ha ha, boy, you'll have to thank this old man properly..."
Given Ning Yi's status as a live-in son-in-law, trying to court a girl was really no simple matter; Kang Xian was only being mischievous and teasing him. Ning Yi explained the rescue from before Mid-Autumn, and only then did the other two understand how it had come about. By now the two men had finished their game. The three sat to one side resting; Old Qin picked up his teacup, nodded, and found himself interested in something else instead: "Writing? So you mean to write on this white board with charcoal sticks, for use in the classroom?"
"Mm. A sand table only holds so many characters at a time, and it's a real bother to use. Writing it down like this is more convenient and direct."
As for teaching, at this time all writing in class was done on sand tables; often, after writing a single character, the table had to be smoothed flat again, and the teacher could do no more than demonstrate the way a character was formed. With most knowledge imparted orally, students were required to be utterly focused while the master spoke, and after he finished they had to work hard to commit the lesson to memory in their own understanding. For anyone not especially clever or especially diligent, keeping pace with the instruction was in fact quite difficult.
Of course, to men like Old Qin and Old Kang, a method of teaching that had carried on for a thousand years was naturally not something they would find amiss. Learning was the property of the upper sort; if you wanted to become one of the upper sort, how could you do it without eating bitterness? This in itself was one of the trials. Old Qin picked up a charcoal stick and made a few strokes on the board, then frowned.
"Sand is soft; writing on it with a twig calls for the same technique as the brush. Charcoal, though, is very hard to write with. This change of yours, I'm afraid, won't do."
Nie Yunzhu had only been paying attention to how the characters looked, but Old Qin saw things from a different angle, and after only two strokes he raised an objection: for a teacher in the classroom not to write by brush technique — that matter could be called big or small.
Then Old Kang came over and tried it too, and said with a frown, "This must be handled with care." If Ning Yi had been his disciple, he might well have given him a good scolding on the spot, pointing out the seriousness of the matter with a sharp, startling rebuke.
Ning Yi could of course understand such worries. He only smiled, crouched down and picked up a charcoal stick himself. "The problem isn't really so large. Writing is for cultivating one's temperament in the first place; besides, these forms share something with brush forms. If it's only for recording things, there's no harm in being a bit more lenient — you could call it... one more angle."
So saying, he reached out and began to write: "Red soft hands, yellow rattan wine, two orioles singing in the green willows" — this line in the manner of regular script, then shifting into clerical script — "Beyond the long pavilion, beside the old road, a line of white egrets climbs the blue sky."
With those two lines done, he changed the script to Song typeface: "Three mountains half sunk beyond the blue sky."
Song typeface did not exist yet in this era, and Old Qin and Old Kang exchanged a look. But to make a point like this, a somewhat more striking approach was best; when Ning Yi had done business and pitched products in the past, he had always favored the kind that hides plenty of impact inside blandness. The next line shifted into the lovelier, more flowing Slender Gold script: "Two waters dividing the Egret Isle."
Next he turned to cursive: "In the northwest there is a fair lady, hanging from the southeast branch."
Then a slanted script: "To see a thousand li as far as the eye can reach, hang yourself from the southeast branch."
The white board was only so big. That done, he put the charcoal away. "Well?" Old Qin and Old Kang had already begun laughing and cursing.
"The characters are passable enough, but the poetry is sheer nonsense..."
"An insult to the literati! Infuriating..."
"Your temperament really is far too lazy and shiftless, heh. What on earth are these poems supposed to be..."
So they said, but neither man's eyes ever left the white board; now and then they read a line aloud and offered a comment or two.
"In the northwest there is a fair lady... truly good for nothing. It is plainly 'In the north there is a fair lady, peerless and standing alone' — that song comes from the Book of Han — and then you tack on hanging from the southeast branch. Heh, do you imagine northwest rhymes with southeast?"
"Old Kang is truly brilliant."
"If you were my disciple, I'd have someone take a stick to you. Even your idle scribbling has to drag the great works of the sages into it — 'to strain your eyes a thousand li,' and then hanging from the southeast branch! Aren't you afraid Wang Zhihuan will turn into a vengeful ghost and come settle accounts with you? Every line hanging from the southeast branch — that Peacock Flies Southeast is unlucky enough as it is. What did that southeast branch ever do to you?"
"Ha ha, it only struck me one day that if you patch poems together like this, they might take on a flavor all their own. Doesn't Old Kang think so? In the northwest there is a fair lady, hanging from the southeast branch.
Raising my head, I gaze at the bright moon, hanging from the southeast branch. In the empty hills no man is seen, hanging from the southeast branch. Since ancient times the sages have all been lonely — only hanging from the southeast branch.
Since ancient times, who has ever escaped death? Better to hang from the southeast branch..."
Old Kang shook his head. "Where the sages are concerned, one must be strict." There was a note of amusement in his words, and a note of warning too. Old Qin, meanwhile, was studying the other lines, and now he said, "When will the bright moon appear..." Old Kang picked it up: "Most likely it too will have to hang from the southeast branch..." and he laughed as he said it.
Then Old Qin took the charcoal and pointed at the first few lines. "These are patched together as well, and I can't place the source; I suppose they must be earlier work of Liheng's. Heh. 'Red soft hands, yellow rattan wine'... what follows doesn't join well. 'Two orioles singing in the green willows' and 'a line of white egrets climbs the blue sky' ought to be a single line... and 'three mountains half fallen beyond the blue sky,' 'two waters dividing the egret isle'... what a fine image. That must be another poem altogether..."
He circled these lines with the charcoal, isolating "Red soft hands, yellow rattan wine" and "Beyond the long pavilion, beside the old road," looked at them a moment, then drew a line between them — he seemed to think these two were not from the same poem either. Kang Xian nodded.
"Two poems, surely."
Then he looked at Ning Yi. Ning Yi felt a measure of admiration: if he had been the one looking at those twelve characters under these circumstances, he would probably have taken them for lines from a single poem — they were neat enough, after all, and a ci was generally long enough to allow for such turns.
Those twelve characters were not easy to split apart, yet the two men before him had separated them on intuition alone.
"That would make four poems and ci in all," Old Qin said, turning to Ning Yi. "I wonder — are these complete works, or fragments you happened upon?"