In the winter after the plum petals of the first visit had settled upon the ground, deep snow lay before the thatched hall (草廬) of Longzhong (隆中). Liu Bei’s (劉備) second step fell upon that snow.

The morning was cold and the wind sharp. Liu Bei mounted Dilu (的盧) rather than the Red Hare (赤兎馬) and rode with Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) upon the road to Longzhong. The snow reached a horse’s knee. The horses climbed step by step, pushing the snow aside.

Zhang Fei swallowed a low sigh. “Elder brother. Today’s snow reaches a horse’s knee. Let us simply turn back today and come again in a warm spring.” Liu Bei shook his head. “Yide. Today’s snow makes the Three Visits deeper, not thinner.”

Before the door of the hall, a small lad was sweeping snow. Liu Bei bowed his head. “I wish to meet the face of Master Wolong today.” The lad answered quietly. “My master, having returned from the house of his younger brother Zhuge Jun (諸葛均) this morning, stepped into the pavilion (亭子) behind the hall with a friend.”

Liu Bei bowed deeply in thanks to the lad, and his step moved to the back of the hall. Inside the pavilion, a young man was sharing a cup of tea with a friend and holding a low conversation.

Liu Bei reached the front of the pavilion and bowed deeply. “Are you, perhaps, Master Wolong?” The young man gave a low smile. “I am Zhuge Jun, Wolong’s younger brother. My elder brother Wolong stepped out this morning upon a mountain path with his friend Cui Zhouping (崔州平).”

Liu Bei swallowed a long silence. Then he spoke quietly. “Lord Zhuge. Today’s second step has also been laid in vain. Yet today I shall leave behind a writing before I go.”

Liu Bei took up a brush and set down a writing. Upon its first line stood: “Liu Bei has not met the face of Master Wolong twice; yet his resolve does not bend. He shall come again next time.”

Liu Bei handed the writing to Zhuge Jun. Zhuge Jun bowed deeply. “I shall lay Lord Liu’s writing upon my elder brother’s desk.”

The three men descended the snowy road again. The four feet of Dilu left a track upon the snow. That track was the seed of the road of the next visit.

Halfway down the path, the three riders paused at a small stone marker beside the trail. The marker was old; its carving had been worn smooth by a thousand winters. Liu Bei dismounted and laid his palm upon the stone. The stone was cold, and its cold was not the cold of the season but of a thousand winters. He stood quietly for three long breaths. Dilu’s breaths rose and fell behind him. Zhang Fei did not grumble; Guan Yu did not speak. When Liu Bei mounted again, the stone had taken the print of his palm into its memory. In the coming centuries, the stone would be re-marked by some later villager who had heard, through a great-grandfather’s tale, that a governor had rested his palm upon it; the stone’s new carving would read only “a palm rested here.”

In the pavilion at Longzhong, Zhuge Jun laid Liu Bei’s folded writing upon his elder brother’s low desk, beside an inkstone and a small cup of plum seeds. He did not speak of the visit. A younger brother of a sage who has received a governor’s writing rarely speaks of the visit to the sage before the sage has sat down and read the writing himself. He closed the door of the inner study and returned to his own small room. Outside, the snow began to fall again; by the time Zhuge Liang returned with Cui Zhouping at evening, Liu Bei’s track upon the path would be half-filled. The writing upon the desk, however, would not.

The hundredth evening of Book 4 deepened quietly upon the track in the snow of Longzhong. The three characters Jaebang-seol (再訪雪, the second visit in the snow) were planted as a seed: the snow reaching a horse’s knee, the lad’s sweeping, Zhuge Jun’s name, and a writing left behind — all rested together. The plum of Day 99’s Chobang-ryeo (初訪廬) had, this evening, reached upon the snow.

The hundredth evening of a midway peak of 365 drew its quiet curtain tonight upon the snow of Longzhong. From Day 1’s Peach Garden (桃園) oath to today’s track upon the snow of Jaebang-seol, a hundred nights and a hundred character-creations lay together upon the track this evening. Tonight that track would remain half-filled by morning; yet the seed of the next visit was already planted inside the cold grain of the snow.

—

WIA Code 스캐너로 비추면 인터넷 없이 발행 사실과 위·변조 여부를 확인할 수 있습니다.
휴대폰 기본 카메라로 찍으면 스캐너 안내 페이지가 열립니다 — 기사 바로 열기

움직이는 코드(스트림) 한 장에 기사 전문(사진 포함)이 담겨 있습니다 — WIA Code 스캐너로 약 52초 비추면 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다. Stream.mp4 도 여기서 받습니다.