Elio’s Notes: The title, 渐觉伤春暮, comes from Die Lian Hua: Spring’s End (《蝶恋花·春暮》). The ci’s authorship is disputed: some textual traditions attribute it to Li Guan, while others transmit it under Li Yu. FD therefore leaves the attribution qualified rather than assigning it definitively.
Cicadas had begun calling at night. Spring was about to pass.
The wooden bracelet upon his wrist gleamed beneath the moonlight filtering through the wooden window, polished smooth by the passage of years. The man in plain robes lay upon the couch with his eyes closed, seemingly asleep, yet his mind was unusually clear. After tomorrow, he would follow Zhao Kuangyin north. Whatever unpredictable things awaited him from then on would no longer have anything to do with Andong Temple. Who am I? Who are you?
Can I become you?
The question lingered endlessly. I always thought you foolish and naive. Now, all of a sudden, I have begun to envy you.
Zhao Kuangyin slept on the outer side of the couch beside him. Even in sleep, his sword remained at his side.
I truly never imagined you would have a big brother like this.
If he were willing to remember properly, it had also been summer in Jinling. A rare flood had killed both his parents, and someone had sent him to Andong Temple. He could no longer remember exactly how old he had been, but he had still been a child with a playful nature. How could he willingly allow himself to be sent into a monastery? At first, he was frequently punished for his unruliness. Shut inside a meditation room without seeing daylight, he was made to strike the wooden fish and recite sutras all day.
Elio’s Notes: A wooden fish is a percussion instrument commonly used in Buddhist chanting. Its steady beat helps maintain the rhythm of sutra recitation.
One prayer bead after another slipped through his fingers while sunlight cast faint shadows across the wall.
Before him hung an enormous ink-brushed character for Chan. For a very long time, he had relied on the movement of sunlight across that character to tell the hour. The wooden fish seemed endless. So did the prayer beads.
What monotonous, dreary days they had been, until another person arrived.
When that child was brought inside, he wore a blue robe slightly too large for him. His extraordinarily innocent and harmless appearance immediately put mischievous ideas into Jiang Zheng’s head.
The master pointed at Jiang Zheng and told the newly arrived child, “He made a mistake and is reflecting upon it. You only need to sit beside him and listen while he recites the sutras. In a few days, I will take you to meet the abbot.”
The child obediently sat upon a meditation cushion and watched him with complete seriousness, his whole face seeming to say, Go on, recite.
That expression made Jiang Zheng grind his teeth. “Were you sent here to become a monk too?”
“I’m not becoming a monk.” The answer came instantly, without the slightest hesitation, in a clear young voice. Jiang Zheng remembered wondering whether, if this child chanted sutras, his voice might sound better than those monks outside.
“Why did you stop reciting?” the child opposite him asked seriously.
“Shh. As long as the wooden fish keeps sounding, Master won’t notice that I’m slacking off. What’s wrong with resting a little?” He kept the wooden fish sounding while lifting himself halfway to his feet and stamping his legs vigorously. “I’ve been sitting for half the day. My legs are numb.”
Relaxing into a more comfortable position, he asked the child opposite him, “If you’re not becoming a monk, what are you doing in this terribly dreary place?”
“Master Jinghui brought me here.”
“Where is your family?”
“They…” Sadness appeared on the child’s face. “I can’t find them anymore.”
“Were they taken by the flood too?” His right hand continued striking the wooden fish while his left propped up his head. Much better. He leaned into the support with satisfaction, half reclining, which sent the child opposite him into a panic as he repeatedly glanced toward the door.
“The flood? No, it wasn’t the flood… Anyway, I just can’t find them…” He lowered his head and murmured, one hand tightly protecting something upon the other.
Jiang Zheng badly wanted to see what he was guarding, but from where he sat he could not make it out. “Have you got something fun there?”
“Huh?” The child looked utterly confused.
Forget it. Jiang Zheng sighed deeply. When would these boring days ever end? It was only just past noon. Then an idea suddenly came to him. Why not…
“Come, come. Help me with something, all right?” He smiled at the quiet little boy opposite him with an expression of perfect goodwill.
“Sure.” The child hopped down from the cushion and walked over sincerely.
“Here, take the wooden fish. All you have to do is keep hitting it without stopping. Sit however you like. I’m going to the latrine and will be right back. Whatever you do, don’t stop.”
He pulled the child in the oversized robe over and pressed him down before the wooden fish. Before the boy could even respond, Jiang Zheng had already coaxed him into striking it. “Yes, exactly like that. You have excellent Buddhist aptitude.” His tone was outrageously solemn.
Then he crept away along the foot of the wall.
The child obediently waited for him to return from the “latrine,” keeping the wooden fish sounding the entire time. When the master passed outside and heard the familiar rhythm, he naturally assumed the troublesome boy remained inside and went away reassured. The wooden fish continued sounding until sunset.
Only when evening prayers approached did Jiang Zheng finally sneak back inside. The child had genuinely been striking it the entire time. “I thought you would go tell Master.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t you realize I tricked you? I went to play on the back mountain.”
“I knew.” The child looked completely unsurprised. “It’s already late, isn’t it? Will Master come check soon?”
“You’re not angry?”
“Huh?” He seemed puzzled that anyone would become angry over something like this. “I used to help my Big Brother with his writing all the time. He could never write properly, so I secretly did it for him while he went out to play. As long as the writing was good, Teacher wouldn’t scold him.”
“Hey. You helped me today, so I’ll be your friend. What’s your name?”
“Zhao Guangyi. What about you?”
“Jiang Zheng.”
After that, Jiang Zheng’s days became considerably more interesting. In the mornings, he swept the courtyard together with the child. The tall broom was almost taller than Zhao Guangyi himself, yet he always held it earnestly and worked without the slightest carelessness.
And around his wrist he always wore a wooden bracelet that looked somewhat heavy. Jiang Zheng had asked about it once, but the child merely said that he had made it together with his Big Brother. He seemed unable to explain anything else, so he shook his head and left it at that.
“Who is your Big Brother? You seem to talk about him all the time.”
“He’s different from me…” His voice gradually lowered.
“That’s true. Ordinary people wouldn’t be as foolish as you. Master wants to formally accept you as a disciple, but you refuse. Becoming a monk may be boring, but it’s still better than spending every day doing menial work here.”
“If my Big Brother learned I became a monk, he would definitely say I had no ambition.”
“Hmph. Ambition. I have plenty of it too. Unfortunately, I can’t get out of Andong Temple, and if I did, I’d probably starve to death. What use is ambition?”
“That doesn’t matter. When my Big Brother finds me and takes me away, you can leave with us.”
At that moment, their broom accidentally sent a great cloud of dust into the air. Through it, Jiang Zheng stared at the child’s thin back, which somehow appeared extraordinarily clear. He froze for a long moment before snorting. “Why are you so good to me?”
“Didn’t you say we were friends? Big Brother says a real man should value loyalty and friendship…”
“All right, all right… Your Big Brother says this, your Big Brother says that. It’s always your Big Brother.”
That year, flooding in the south left many children from poor families orphaned, and the major monasteries temporarily took in large numbers of young children who had nowhere else to go.
But Zhao Guangyi was obviously not from the south. He was quiet and withdrawn, and strangely refused to shave his head and formally enter the monastic order. He often failed to blend in with the others. Some young novices had themselves been told by their masters that they lacked Buddhist affinity and would not be tonsured, leaving them to perform daily chores much like Jiang Zheng. Children were naturally playful, and once several troublesome boys gathered together, they frequently caused trouble. They once knocked over an ever-burning lamp before the Buddha while running and playing, earned a thorough punishment from their masters, then promptly forgot the lesson the next time.
What punishment could truly be imposed upon children like these? Mostly reciting sutras and chanting the Buddha’s name. The task of striking the wooden fish repeatedly fell upon Zhao Guangyi. Whenever Jiang Zheng was caught sneaking to the back mountain to catch birds, Zhao Guangyi would sit in the meditation room striking the wooden fish for him while Jiang Zheng continued escaping punishment.
The setting sun over Andong Temple dimmed the candlelight and incense. The sound of wooden fish and Buddhist sutras drifted away into the vast loneliness, while the pines roared like the sea.
Several children, unable to sleep, whispered together inside their room. “Zhao Guangyi, did you find that bracelet somewhere?” someone suddenly asked. With the candles extinguished, none of them could see anyone else’s expression.
“No. My Big Brother and I made it together.”
“Then your family must have been rich. My father used to be a carpenter, so I can tell good wood from bad. That bracelet of yours is red sandalwood.”
“I only know someone gave that piece of wood to my father. Big Brother stole it out and got beaten for it. Father was very angry afterward.”
“Oh… That’s valuable stuff… If one of us could secretly sneak out and pawn it…”
Jiang Zheng had only just closed his eyes when he heard those words. He did not know why, but sudden disgust surged through him and the words escaped before he could stop them. “Go to sleep. Why are you thinking about someone else’s things?”
The other boy was obviously displeased. “What business is it of yours? What do you mean by that?” A knock sounded at the door. Their voices had grown louder and drawn a master over. Every one of them instantly fell silent, closed their eyes, and pretended to be asleep.
Nothing else happened that night.
By the next morning, Jiang Zheng had already forgotten what had been said. Everything continued as usual. That afternoon, the wife of some prince happened to visit the temple to pray for blessings, and the masters had all gone toward the front of the temple.
The young novices were rarely left idle in the rear courtyard. Several sat upon the threshold before a Buddha statue, staring blankly into space. Behind them, the enormous gilded Buddha looked down with serene compassion upon all the killing and suffering of the human world. Zhao Guangyi braced both hands behind himself and leaned back to look at the beautifully painted murals overhead. Though they were far above him, he could still make out the stories: King Shibi giving his flesh to save a dove, the prince offering himself to a starving tigress, the Nine-Colored Deer risking itself to save a drowning man. Every image taught Buddhist compassion, self-sacrifice, and righteousness.
Elio’s Notes: These murals draw on well-known Buddhist compassion tales: King Shibi offers his own flesh to save a dove, a prince gives his body to a starving tigress, and the Nine-Colored Deer risks itself to rescue a drowning man.
The courtyard had been completely silent when someone suddenly suggested, “Since the temple is busy today, why don’t we sneak down the mountain from the back?”
“What would we even do after getting out?”
“Have Zhao Guangyi pawn that bracelet. If I’m not mistaken, that is first-rate red sandalwood…” The speaker lowered his voice, but not enough to prevent the person who mattered from hearing.
Zhao Guangyi abruptly sat upright and covered the bracelet with his right hand, moving farther away from them deliberately.
“Why so stingy? It’s useless inside the temple anyway. No one is going to see you wearing it. Hahaha.”
“No. My Big Brother and I made this bracelet together.”
“Give it here. Let us see…”
An argument plainly erupted. One plump young novice rushed over, grabbed Zhao Guangyi’s arm, and tried to pull the bracelet off. Zhao Guangyi’s thin wrist was seized hard, and with only a little force the bracelet slipped free.
Jiang Zheng remembered clearly that it was the first time he had ever seen anger in the child’s eyes. Zhao Guangyi had always been quiet, so silent that he almost seemed not to exist. Whenever Jiang Zheng sneaked outside to play, Zhao Guangyi obediently sat in the meditation room striking the wooden fish and reciting sutras for him. His good nature made him seem almost foolish. Jiang Zheng had always laughed at that innocence. He had never imagined the fool could actually become angry.
Why was that bracelet so important to him?
Jiang Zheng’s own eyes had watched his parents swept away by floodwaters. He had seen death and white bones. Yet at that moment, he suddenly found himself unable to bear the anger in Zhao Guangyi’s eyes. How can you make him angry?
So the result was that he charged forward and began fighting with the other young novices.
What does any of this have to do with you? Yet the voice inside him remained stubborn. He simply did not want to see despair in those eyes. Jiang Zheng knew the despair of losing every last thing one believed in. He too had once hidden in the only surviving tree and watched heaven and earth collapse while powerless to stop it. So he suddenly did not want this harmless child to experience the same sorrow. If that bracelet is his heaven…
The monks heard the distant shouting and hurried over. At the sound of approaching footsteps, the boys who had been eyeing the bracelet immediately fled, leaving only the two of them behind.
Jiang Zheng sat sprawled upon the ground, blood still at the corner of his mouth. Turning, he saw bruises covering the child’s arm where he had been grabbed and shoved. Zhao Guangyi lay bent over the high threshold, apparently having been knocked against it. The skin of his forehead had been scraped away, and fine beads of blood seeped out.
Jiang Zheng imagined he did not look any better. He gave a helpless, bitter laugh as the master rushed over in alarm, yet stubbornly got to his feet without the slightest guilt.
He walked several steps, bent down, and picked the wooden bracelet out of the dust. The red-sandalwood bracelet felt heavy with age in his hand. He carefully wiped it clean against his cloth sleeve and heard the child sniffling behind him.
Ignoring the angry master without even bothering to look up, Jiang Zheng carried the bracelet back. Zhao Guangyi leaned against the doorpost with one hand pressed to his abdomen, bewildered and still tearful.
The older child sighed deeply. “Didn’t your Big Brother ever tell you that a real man shouldn’t cry so easily? Here.”
The child released the hand pressed against his abdomen, bit his lower lip hard, raised his face, and carefully examined Jiang Zheng’s injuries. “Does… does it hurt?”
Jiang Zheng shook his head.
The master demanded to know what had happened. Seeing the wound on Jiang Zheng’s face severe enough that even the corner of his mouth had split, he grew even more anxious. “Who did this to you? What happened?”
Jiang Zheng had intended to tell the truth. After all, both sides were responsible, so neither side deserved to escape punishment. But Zhao Guangyi suddenly pushed ahead of him and seriously told the master that everything was his own fault. Jiang Zheng had wanted to look at his bracelet, he had deliberately refused and cursed at him, Jiang Zheng became angry, and the two of them fought until they ended up like this.
Watching Zhao Guangyi kneel outside the Buddha hall in punishment for an entire night, Jiang Zheng thought he truly was an idiot.
The summer night was hot and oppressive, and the cicadas sounded extraordinarily clear. Jiang Zheng lay in bed listening carefully to the sounds outside. Only after confirming that no one was patrolling did he quietly slip out, following the shadows beneath the corridor all the way to the Buddha hall.
A tiny figure knelt there. His face looked almost devout and holy beneath the wavering light of the ever-burning lamps. Jiang Zheng began to agree with the master. Perhaps Zhao Guangyi’s heart truly was suited to the Buddhist path, because he seemed capable of calming himself at any moment.
The rest of them could never become still.
Jiang Zheng walked over. “You’ve listened to the story of King Shibi sacrificing himself to save a dove too many times.”
The child knelt upon the ground with his palms joined, seriously reflecting upon his punishment, and ignored him. Jiang Zheng could only sit beside him.
“Go back. If a master comes to check during the night, you’ll be punished again,” the child quietly advised.
“Then I’ll be punished. I’m used to it.”
Zhao Guangyi opened his eyes and looked at the wound at the corner of his mouth. “Go back. Otherwise, everything I did will have been for nothing.”
There was nothing Jiang Zheng could say. He finally stood. “Why wouldn’t you let me tell them? If there was going to be punishment, we could have been punished together.”
“So what? Would being punished together make you happy?”
“No.”
“Then there would be no point.” Zhao Guangyi’s voice was remarkably calm, suddenly sounding nothing like that of a child. Jiang Zheng had no answer. He gave up and returned to the sleeping quarters.
Naturally, he could not sleep. In the latter half of the night, Jiang Zheng hesitated repeatedly and finally climbed out of bed. But then he thought that even if he went to find Zhao Guangyi, with that child’s temperament he would never dare sneak away from his punishment. What would be the point?
While he was still turning the matter over in his mind, a soft pattering suddenly sounded outside. It had begun to rain.
Jinling rain came whenever it pleased in summer. Jiang Zheng stopped thinking, pushed open the door, and slipped out once again. The raindrops striking his body felt thoroughly unpleasant.
The child was still kneeling before the Buddha hall, completely exposed to the rain, silently murmuring something to himself.
“It’s raining. Go back. No one will come check anymore.”
Zhao Guangyi did not answer.
“Come on. With your health, if you spend the whole night in the rain, you really will become ill.” Jiang Zheng pulled at his arm and tried to force him up. All the pressure concentrated around Zhao Guangyi’s wrist, and the wooden bracelet became caught there. Zhao Guangyi instinctively jerked his hand away, plainly terrified that the bracelet might leave him once again.
Jiang Zheng released him. Seeing that he still refused to move, he eventually knelt beside him.
Zhao Guangyi ignored him.
“Since there’s nothing else to do, tell me your story. Is that bracelet really so important?”
The child kept his eyes closed for a very long time before finally nodding. Jiang Zheng thought he would say nothing else and turned to face the Buddha statue inside the hall. Then the child beside him suddenly spoke. “As long as this bracelet is here, Big Brother will definitely come find me.”
Jiang Zheng badly wanted to tell him that if his brother truly returned, he would not care about a single bracelet. Yet suddenly he understood. Perhaps this was simply faith. At least amid this endless world of incense smoke, Zhao Guangyi still possessed one final thing he could hold onto.
And that too was a kind of happiness.
Sometimes life was far too extravagant. In truth, spreading one’s fingers was enough to hold a sun. Wherever sunlight existed, shadow followed. One could only hope not to stand there alone.
Reliance and expectation could sometimes seem ridiculous, and sometimes they were salvation.
Jiang Zheng knelt on his left and closed his eyes to pray alongside him. Two children knelt together in the rain.
How wonderful it is to have something to hope for. Yet I can never have that again.
Night looked almost demonic. Both children had their eyes closed, but the Buddha could see everything. The child in the slightly oversized monk’s robe, his features still young and his head stubbornly untonsured, had something steadily streaming down the right side of his robes.
Gradually, it soaked into the dusty mud beneath him, a dark patch of blood spreading through the rain.
Fortunately, the rain was heavy enough that the metallic sweetness in the air disappeared beneath the wetness without leaving a trace.
So Big Brother was right. Bleeding isn’t as frightening as I imagined. You said a real man isn’t allowed to cry over a little injury.
I won’t cry.