[Day 157] A Reunion of the Scattered

The night at Changban (長坂) had grown fully deep. The moon had already risen to the middle of the eastern sky. At a corner of the western hill of Liu Bei’s (劉備) main body, Kongming (孔明) sat alone.

Upon his knees lay a single sheet of paper, spread open. On it, in small letters, the names of twenty-four thousand were written in a single column. Before each name stood an empty box. Kongming was waiting for a check to enter each of those boxes this evening.

The first to return was a man in middle age. Behind him, his wife’s place was empty. He bowed his head. Kongming raised his brush and placed a check in the box before the man’s name. The box before his wife’s name, for this evening, remained empty.

The second to return was an old man of seventy. Behind him was his whole family, together. The old man quietly drew from his breast a small wooden ancestral tablet of his wife. Kongming bowed his head deeply. The box before the old man’s name was checked. The box before his wife’s name had already been marked before that. It was the name of a wife returned as a tablet. Beside that check, Kongming wrote one small character, 木.

The third to return was a small child, returned alone. The boxes before the child’s parents’ names, for this evening, still stood empty. Kongming placed a check before the child’s name and looked quietly upon the empty boxes beside it. Linked to the parents’ names was the name of this child. Upon that linking, Kongming’s gaze rested for a while.

So twenty, forty, eighty names came back, one by one. The number of checked boxes grew by one bundle, then two. The number of unchecked boxes, too, remained on the paper, a bundle here, a bundle there.

Kongming’s brush stopped before a single name. It was the name of Lady Gan (甘夫人). He set the brush down beside the paper. Then he looked long upon the empty box before that name. It was the name of one who had laid down her breath in the thickets of a hill at Changban that afternoon. The box before that name, this night and for nights beyond, was a box to be left empty.

Kongming gave a small sigh. Then he took up the brush again and wrote beside Lady Gan’s name one small character, 月. It meant: a name returned to the moon. On this night when the moon of Changban still rested in the eastern sky, it was a record that one name had crossed over to the seat of the moon.

Liu Bei came up behind Kongming. He looked down at the paper. The bundles of checks and the bundles of those not checked were divided upon it like two kinds of forest.

“Wolong. How many have returned, and how many have not?”

Kongming lifted the brush again and counted the checked bundles.

“Your Lordship. Until this evening, twenty thousand three hundred seventy-two have returned. The names that have not returned number one hundred twenty-eight. Among those one hundred twenty-eight, Lady Gan is included as one name.”

Liu Bei bowed his head.

“Let Lady Gan’s name be moved to the seat of the moon.”

Kongming pointed again at the 月 he had already written. Liu Bei looked quietly upon that single character.

A wind flowing from north to south lifted one corner of Kongming’s paper. One side of it fluttered. Within that fluttering, the checked names and the unchecked names trembled together.

Liu Bei sat down beside Kongming. The two men looked toward the northern horizon. The dust of Cao Cao’s (曹操) two thousand cavalry had now fully settled. The direction of Jiangxia (江夏) to the south was the direction of tomorrow’s single step for twenty thousand three hundred seventy-two.

Kongming spoke.

“Your Lordship. From tomorrow’s dawn, it is three days to Jiangxia. I shall keep this paper beside me three days longer. If even one more person returns within those three days, I shall place one more check upon one more box before one more name.”

Liu Bei nodded. The fourth evening of Changban had already deepened. The moon, from the middle of the eastern sky, was beginning to tilt toward the west. The twenty thousand three hundred seventy-two checks upon a single sheet of paper shone quietly in the moonlight.

Among the names of the twenty-four thousand, the names returned upon this night’s single sheet of paper were twenty thousand three hundred seventy-two. The names not returned were one hundred twenty-eight. The sum of the two figures was the whole of this evening’s single sheet of paper, on this fourth night of Changban.

The fourth evening of Book 6 was closing quietly upon that single sheet of paper.

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