After crossing Tanxi (檀溪), Dilu (的盧) turned at once into a southwestern mountain path.

For a long while, Liu Bei (劉備) could only catch his breath on the horse’s back. The cold sweat upon his brow chilled in the autumn wind. The reins slackened in his hand, and Dilu walked at his own pace. The mountain path wound upward, and from beyond a ridge, a strand of zither music came drifting down.

A clear sound. One phrase drew out long, broke off, then resumed. A sound that should not exist on a mountain path at night. Liu Bei tightened his grip on the reins. Dilu lifted his head and turned an ear toward the source.

Halfway up the mountain, Dilu came to rest before a small thatched hall (草堂).

The brushwood gate stood open. In the middle of the yard beyond stood a single great stalk of bamboo. Beneath the bamboo, a man was playing a zither. An old man in white robes with a blue sash. His hair was long and bound. His face was clear. He looked to be about sixty.

Liu Bei dismounted. Stepping forward, he clasped his hands in greeting.

“One who has lost the road asks a night’s lodging.”

The old man plucked the last string of the zither through to its end, then slowly lifted his head. His eyes swept, in turn, across Liu Bei’s face, across the horse’s brow, and across the blade slung at Liu Bei’s waist.

“His Highness the Imperial Uncle Liu (劉皇叔) — this is not a place upon this mountain to which you might come merely by losing the road tonight, surely.”

Liu Bei’s back stiffened. The old man smiled gently. There was no reproof in the smile.

“I am called Sima Hui (司馬徽). People call me Master Water Mirror (水鏡先生).”

Within a small inner room of the hall, the two sat facing each other.

A single oil lamp stood between them. Sima Hui spoke first.

“Upon Your Highness’s brow, a little dust still lingers. That dust is the earth of Tanxi (檀溪). Surely you leapt a stream tonight. A horse with a white strand upon its brow has saved his master.”

Liu Bei bowed his head. Words would not come.

“Your Highness, may I ask one thing of you.”

“Yes.”

“Your Highness is now forty-seven. All these years — Pingyuan (平原), Xuzhou (徐州), Xiaopei (小沛), Runan (汝南), and now Xinye (新野) — you have moved your seat many times. And yet in none of those seats have you been able to sit in your own rhythm. What, do you think, is the reason?”

Liu Bei was silent a long while. Then he said, quietly:

“It is because, at my side, men are still not enough.”

Sima Hui gave a great laugh. The laugh rose to the ceiling and came back down quietly.

“No. At your side, Your Highness, stand Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛). With these two, no general under heaven need stand against you and find you wanting. Yet of one person — just one — you are still bereft.”

“What kind of person is that one?”

“One who will, twice a day, set in order the inside of your own head. One who, in your stead, will listen long to your own rhythm. One who can set a single map before the blades of Guan Yu and Zhang Fei.”

Liu Bei joined his hands upon his knees.

“Master. Is there such a man in the world?”

Sima Hui nodded.

“There is. Not one man, but two. Beneath a strand of Jingzhou there lies a Wolong (臥龍). Beside a strand of Jingzhou there perches a Fengchu (鳳雛). To gain but one of these two is to set a strand of the realm upright.”

Liu Bei raised his face.

“Wolong and Fengchu — what are their true names?”

Sima Hui paused before the question. Then he answered briefly.

“Tonight, only these two epithets will I give Your Highness. Their names you must walk there three times, and ask once, to hear.”

“Walk three times?”

“Your Highness does not yet know this mountain. Once, twice, three times you must walk to the gate of that one man. Only then will the name of that man come to enter Your Highness’s mouth at last.”

The night grew deep. Tonight, Liu Bei had gained from Sima Hui not a single name. He had gained only two epithets. And yet somewhere within him, the two epithets received at this small hall tonight settled with the same weight as the strand he had barely kept at Tanxi, laid upon his own seat.

Sima Hui plucked the zither once more. A short phrase. Liu Bei listened to it long. When the phrase had ended, Sima Hui said quietly:

“That one man is, at this moment, inside his own thatched cottage, making by turns two fans. One fan for summer, one fan for winter. Those fans will each lengthen Your Highness’s breath by a measure or two.”

Liu Bei did not know what to ask. He only drew a deep breath. The autumn air of the mountain did not settle, for long, somewhere inside him.

—

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 34초 비추면 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다. Stream.mp4 도 여기서 받습니다.