With careful discernment, she read out slowly:
“…posthumous writings of the late…,
…iron palm…,
Middle…peak,
Second…joint.”
The remaining words were so damaged that there was absolutely no way they could be identified.
“It’s about The Posthumous Writings of the Late General!” called out Guo Jing.
“Indeed!” said Huang Rong. “There’s no doubt. That bastard Wanyan Honglie assumed the Writings were hidden by the side of the palace’s Cuihan Hall. But although he got the stone box, the Writings were nowhere to be seen. It looks like the location of the Writings hinges critically on these four lines of text.”
After murmuring “…iron palm…middle…joint…” for a while, she added: “That day at The Villa of the Gathering Clouds, at one point I heard Martial Brother Lu and your six teachers discussing that deceitful guy, Qiu Qianren. They said he was the Chief of the Iron Palm Gang or something. Daddy said that the might of the Iron Palm Gang rocked Sichuan and Hunan; its prestige and reputation really were awesome. Could it be that the Writings actually have something to do with Qiu Qianren?”
Guo Jing shook his head. “As long as it’s Qiu Qianren playing up,” he said, “I’m not believing any of it!”
“I wouldn’t believe it either!” said Huang Rong, with a little laugh.
On the fourteenth day of the seventh month, they arrived within the borders of Northern Jinghu province. (*) The next day, before the stroke of noon, they’d already reached Yuezhou. Leading their horses and loosing the eagles, they asked around for directions, and came by path to Yueyang Tower.
After going up into a nearby restaurant and ordering food and drink, they admired the scenery of Dongting Lake: a sweeping vastness of one blue-green hue spread across ten thousand qing. Towering mountains stood out in every direction, a ring of misty, lofty peaks arrayed in an arc of awe-inspiring majesty. Compared to the hazy waters of Tai Lake, this spectacle was something else entirely. While they enjoyed the view, the food arrived. The cuisine of Hunan was very heavily spiced, and Guo Jing and Huang Rong both felt that it wasn’t to their taste; but with such big dishes and such long chopsticks, it nevertheless had a rather generous spirit to it.
The two of them ate some of the food and looked around at the verses inscribed on the four walls. Guo Jing perused Fan Zhongyan’s Remarks on Yueyang Tower in silence, but he couldn’t help reading out loud when he reached the sentence:
“Be first under heaven to worry,
And last under heaven to rejoice.”
“What do you think about this couplet?” asked Huang Rong.
Guo Jing re-read it silently, pondering to himself and giving no immediate response.
“The writer of this essay was Fan, ‘The Just Official’,” said Huang Rong. “At that time, he rocked the Western Xia with his might; a literary talent and an astute tactician, you could say that he had absolutely no equal on earth.”
Guo Jing asked her to describe some of Fan Zhongyan’s achievements, and listened as she talked about his various childhood hardships – the poverty of his family, the early death of his father, the remarriage of his mother – and, after he’d attained wealth and honour, everything he did in consideration for the commonfolk. A grave feeling of reverence rising unstoppably within him, Guo Jing solemnly poured a ricebowlful of wine. “‘Be first under heaven to worry, and last under heaven to rejoice.’” he said. “This is surely what’s in the mind of great heroes and great champions!” With that, he lifted his head and drained the wine in a single shot.
Huang Rong laughed. “Although this sort of person is good for sure,” she said, “there’s so much worry under heaven – and so little joy – that wouldn’t he never get to rejoice in his life? I couldn’t be like that.”
Guo Jing gave a slight smile.
“Jing gege,” continued Huang Rong, her voice getting lower, “I don’t care whether there’s worry or joy under heaven. If you aren’t by my side, I’m never going to be joyful.” Her brows were knitted with despair.
“I won’t be joyful either,” remarked Guo Jing, hanging his head. He knew that she was thinking about how the two of them were going to end up, and he had no way of comforting her.
Huang Rong suddenly raised her head and laughed. “Never mind!” she said. “All this is childishness, anyway. Have you heard anyone sing Fan Zhongyan’s poem Spurn the Silver Lantern?”
“I haven’t heard it, of course!” said Guo Jing. “Could you tell it to me?”
Huang Rong said: “The concluding passage of the poem goes like this:
‘The life of man is but
A hundred years in all;
Infatuated youth
Ends up with aged pall.
Only in between there’s time,
Briefly youthful in one’s prime.
Why grasp on fleeting fame, catch hold
Of first-class rank and thousand gold?
For how to flee white hairs of old?’”
She followed this by explaining the general meaning of the poem.
Guo Jing commented: “He was telling people not to waste their best years by using them up in seeking fame, gaining office, getting rich, and so on. And that’s very well said.”
Huang Rong, in a whisper, recited:
“Wine into the worried stomach
Changes into lovesick tears.”
Guo Jing gazed at her. “Is that a poem of Fan Zhongyan, too?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Huang Rong. “Great heroes and great champions also aren’t the heartless sort, you know.”
The two of them drank a few cups to each other, and Huang Rong had a look at the guests in the restaurant. On the eastern side, she saw three middle-aged beggars sitting around a square table; although they wore many patches, their clothes were clean and fresh. By the look of them, they were important figures within the Beggar Gang who’d come to attend tonight’s big meeting. Besides them, the other guests were all the usual officials and merchants. The incessant chirp of cicadas could be heard coming from a big willow tree outside the restaurant.
“All day long,” said Huang Rong, “these cicadas call out ‘zhi le, zhi le’ endlessly, but whatever they know is unknown. Basically, even among insects there are guys who boast shamelessly. It makes me think of a particular person, and I rather miss him.”
“Who?” demanded Guo Jing.
“That big talker of bull,” said Huang Rong, smiling, “the Iron Palm’s Qiu ‘Floats-Over-Water’ Qianren!”
Guo Jing laughed loudly. “That old trickster…!” he began.
He hadn’t finished speaking when suddenly, from a corner of the restaurant, they heard somebody speaking in a mysterious voice: “Looking down even on ‘Floats-Over-Water’ Elder Qiu of Iron Palm? That’s some big talk!” Guo Jing and Huang Rong glanced at where the voice was coming from and saw a middle-aged beggar, with a swarthy complexion and clad in a tattered jacket, squatting by the corner and looking at them in snickering laughter.
Guo Jing, seeing that he was a Beggar Gang figure, immediately relaxed. Noticing that he had an agreeable expression, Guo Jing clasped his hands in respect and said: “Senior, how about joining us and drinking a cup or three?”