Four months had passed since the frost of the first visit melted. An autumn wind had come and gone, and the three characters above the brushwood gate of Wolonggang (臥龍崗) hung where they had hung before.

On an early morning in the late autumn of Jian’an 13 (208 CE), Liu Bei (劉備) turned his steps south for the second time. No snow fell now. On the slope of Wolonggang, a single persimmon tree had nearly shed its leaves. A few red persimmons still clung to the branch-ends.

When the three horses reached the stream before the village, the water ran one cun (寸) lower than yesterday. The reeds along the bank had yellowed. Liu Bei reined his horse at the very place he had paused on the first visit. On the far bank, a small village child stood between two adults, a short wooden staff in his hand. The child’s eyes lingered for a moment on the white mark along Dilu’s (的盧) brow, then slid away.

Liu Bei crossed the stream first. Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) followed. An adult on the far bank bowed his head. He was not the farmer from the early-summer visit. He was another man. Yet the clarity of his face was much the same.

“Your Lordship (皇叔). Have you come to see Master Kongming again today?”

Liu Bei smiled faintly. A small sadness trailed behind the smile.

“Yes. The second visit.”

“Today Master Kongming is not at home. Only his younger brother, Zhuge Jun (諸葛均), is at the cottage.”

“His younger brother, I see.”

“Yesterday afternoon Master Kongming went out to meet a friend who lives south of Jingzhou. When he will return, Master Jun himself does not know.”

Liu Bei’s back stiffened, then loosened again. He bowed his head.

The brushwood gate of the cottage on the Wolonggang hill stood open. A shut gate on the first visit, an open gate today: one difference. Liu Bei paused before it. The yard within was narrow. At its center rose a single great stalk of bamboo. Upon a stone beneath the bamboo sat a young man. His beard was not yet long, but his face was firm. Zhuge Jun, Kongming’s younger brother.

Jun rose. He clasped his hands before Liu Bei and bowed.

“Your Lordship. My elder brother is not at his seat today. Might I at least offer you a cup of tea?”

“Younger Master. I accept. Though Master Kongming has not returned, I believe I have earned the right to drink a cup of tea in this house.”

Jun gave a short laugh. The two men entered the cottage. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei remained before the brushwood gate. The bamboo at the center of the yard swayed lightly.

The room inside was simple. One desk, one brush, one inkstone, and two fans laid side by side upon a corner of the desk. One was a summer fan, the color of a bamboo leaf. The other was a winter fan, of rough white paper. Liu Bei rested his gaze upon those two fans, then drew it back. The “summer fan and winter fan” of which Master Water Mirror had spoken last autumn lay here before him.

Jun offered a cup of tea. The tea was clear. Liu Bei took a slow sip.

“Younger Master. What does Master Kongming do these days?”

“My elder brother spends long hours seated before a single map. It is a map on which the borders of Jingzhou, Jiangdong, Xiliang, and Xudu meet upon one sheet. He gazes at it for a long while, writes a single line, and then gazes at it again.”

Liu Bei nodded. He asked nothing more. Jun’s answer had already traced the seat of today’s Kongming clearly enough.

When the cup of tea was finished, Liu Bei rose. Jun rose with him. Liu Bei asked one thing.

“Younger Master. Tomorrow morning I shall return to Xinye (新野). Before then, may I leave a letter here for Master Kongming?”

“That letter, I shall place in my elder brother’s own hand, without fail.”

Liu Bei took up a brush. Upon a single sheet he wrote six lines. The first four were a brief account of the past twenty years of his own road. The last two ran as follows.

I have come twice and twice walked the road for nothing; yet I do not count it as walking for nothing. In Wolong’s room I have already seen a cup of tea and two fans take their own seats. On the third visit, I shall come again, on some morning of the new spring, to see you.

He folded the sheet, and slipped it between the two fans at the corner of the desk. He set down the brush. Jun bowed his head with hands clasped.

On the way back, at the stream, Zhang Fei let out a large breath.

“Brother. Twice the road for nothing.”

Liu Bei shook his head. His smile was short but warm.

“Yide. A man who has walked the road twice for nothing receives, at the third, something unfailingly. That I saw today the two fans in Kongming’s room was, for me, a greater meeting than not meeting the master of that room himself.”

Zhang Fei fell silent for a long while. Then he gave a small nod. Guan Yu bowed his head beside him. Three horses of three men again left a set of hoofprints northward, away from Wolonggang. They were prints upon yellowed grass rather than upon frost. The color differed from the frost-prints of the first visit, but the direction was the same.

—

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 56초 비추면 폰에 저장되어 인터넷 없이도 읽을 수 있습니다. Stream.mp4 도 여기서 받습니다.