Wu Jin Zang. Pang Bei

one is powerless, one should seek peace.” I did not know whether he was talking about chess or about me, as he was only addressing the weiqi manuscripts.

      “Chief Minister, what is your opinion about this Banquet Painting?…Father was struck by such an unexpected disaster. How come that you are speechless about it?”

      “Hard to say, very hard to say. The wonder is indeed wonderful, but is very like a riddle

…A riddle! Wonderful! This vernacular work can be added to the dictionary! ‘

.”

      “Chief Minister, thank you for your instructions. This scroll of painting is also a riddle, and I come here for resolving it.”

      Minister Xu did not pay attention to me, but instead was gazing at the manuscript on his desk. On this desk, there was a rockery ink slab, a dragon tail ink slab and half a piece of precious Tinggui ink stick. Minister Xu picked up a writing brush from the dragon tail ink slab and slowly wrote the character “

” on a piece of bamboo paper.

      He held down the paper with a paper weight. No doubt, he would add this character into the dictionary.

      Despair had gradually occurred to me. At this moment, I was overcome by rage, and could no longer stay modest and courteous. I advanced in big strides. I wanted to force him to speak. “Now that your father is imprisoned, the king can kill him at his own will. You come here to seek my help, but alas, my fate is also at other people’s mercy.” Minister Xu took up a court report and shook it, on which were the latest imperial orders compiled by the Chancery. “Do all that one can and leave all else to Heaven. Have you heard of this saying? Then I give you another old saying: let neither men nor words go to waste. Act as you should act, and stop when you should stop.”

      “I’m helpless, and have no one to talk with. As your excellency is a wise man, I beg you to give me some instructions.”

      “Hard to say, harder to say well. My speech cannot enlighten the king, nor can I remedy the current malpractices even if I sacrifice myself. When serving the king with Tao, one may well stop if it is of no avail. I only try to prove myself to follow my own conscience and not to go against what I have learned. No more than that! You look”

      His excellency Xu suddenly bent over to sneeze and then angrily waved to me, as if ascribing his gaffe to me. I could imagine the phrase interrupted by his sneeze, a regular polite formula given by an elderly person to a young man, which was actually an order for a guest to leave: look out for yourself!

      “Look out for yourself!” His excellency Xu uttered this sentence after standing up straight.

      Look out for yourself. At this very moment, this mere polite formula was delivered by Minister Xu this way, but beyond my understanding. I came to seek his help in such a dire emergency, he should not have looked on indifferently considering human feelings and reason. After all, the caller was General Lin’s son. You waited for your capping ceremony after bathing and fasting, you became a fugitive on the day of the capping ceremony, and you came to seek help from the most learned man of the time when driven to desperation, but he only gave you such a mere formula.

      I felt all blood in my body coagulate, as if suddenly freezing in a cold current, drying up all at once.

      At last, I took a look at the Bamboo Bird Painting on the wall. The scroll was inscribed with “By Zhongyin”. The king called himself “Hermit of Zhongfeng”, and “By Zhongyin” was an inscription he often used in his calligraphic and painting works. The king was good at both calligraphy and painting. The Bamboo Bird Painting, which integrated calligraphy and painting, was of a unique and innovative style. That was a “trembling stroke” created by the king. The bamboos, birds and calligraphy in the painting all took a shape of trembling and pulling. Judging from their artistic conception and forceful strokes, they seemed to be subject to the control of a certain external force, and a certain pulling mechanism seemed to be hidden among the strokes.

      “I don’t believe in Buddhism!” Minister Xu deplored with sighs suddenly, “In this Buddha mountain, instead of Buddha’s light, some sinister air has appeared!”

      The mountain wind raged suddenly, while pilgrims on horses became scarce. Minister Xu “was willing to help but unable to do so”. He seemed to keep me guessing. I could hardly decide whether he knew the answer to the riddle. This was a cold shoulder beyond my expectation. I had no one else to seek help from and nowhere to go for protection.

      I returned to the temple again, and passed the bell and drum tower and the free life pond again. The Night Banquet Painting was hidden in the vertical shaft of the Painting on Infinite Dwelling Rosy Clouds (Qixia Wujin Tu), while the painter of this landscape painting had been dead for several years. So I could only come to the Qixia Mountain. Dong Beiyuan mostly painted real landscape in Jiangnan. As the vertical shaft was titled the Painting on Infinite Dwelling Rosy Clouds (Qixia), I wished that the riddle might be figured out on this mountain.

      As the most eminent landscape painter of this dynasty, Dong Beiyuan was good at painting peaks, clouds, islets and woods. It was said that his ink paintings were carelessly done, which almost did not resemble things at a close look, while displaying scenes only observed afar. In the Painting on Infinite Dwelling Rosy Clouds, landscape was still in his plain and artless style, with peaks surrounded by clouds and mists, and the temple in the mountain was highlighted. The main part of the painting was not the Birobong Hall of the Karma Temple, but the exquisitely engraved stone pagoda, the seven-storied stupa in front of me. At this moment, several pilgrims were walking around the stupa, and I could only watch far away from it. (The editor’s note: Buddha’s relics were unusually important for the early spread of Buddhism in China. A pagoda was built only when there were Buddha’s relics. The way of worshiping Buddha was to walk around a stupa, which was the center of a temple, widely differently from the today’s temple in which the hall precedes the stupa.)

      A white deer ran over from the Thousand Buddha Ridge, and scampered towards the stupa. I followed the spry and light figure towards the white stupa, and saw the white deer leap over the rails of the stupa foundation.

      When I reached the reliefs of the stupa foundation, the white deer quickly disappeared.

      The Buddha statue was grand and solemn, and the stupa shone with brilliant light. This was the tallest stupa in the world. Emperor Wen of the Sui dynasty, Yang Jian, once came across a nun called Zhi Xian, who presented him with several hundred Buddha’s relics. Yang Jian, after ascending to the throne, was deeply convinced that he was blessed by the Buddha, and ordered the eighty-three prefectures across the country to build stupas to display Zhi Xian’s portrait and keep Buddha’s relics. He separated the relics and presented them to the stupas of the eighty-three prefectures. The one that got the relics first was the Qixia Mountain.

      It was a stupa reconstructed under the sponsorship of Father and Court Admonisher Gao Yue. The wooden stupa in the past was destroyed in the Buddhist extermination movement during the Huichang period of the Tang dynasty. The stone stupa reconstructed was more solid. At this moment tomorrow, perhaps Father would no longer be living, but this stone pagoda would stand erect for one thousand years. This stupa was Father’s beloved construct. At this moment next year, Father would perhaps be transformed into a pile of skeleton. No one would build such a pagoda for him. I also did not know where he would be buried. I wish the king would grant him imperial wine, let him commit suicide and preserve his whole body. The Buddha is benevolent! In the past when he saw a skeleton by the roadside, he prostrated to salute it. The