Following the address Wu Aizhen had given over the phone, Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s driver brought them to her residential compound without much trouble.
After the driver left, Yamaguchi Mingchuan took in the surroundings. The compound was quite pleasant, with pools and a variety of trees planted between the buildings, lending it a quiet, secluded feel. Wu Aizhen lived on the fifth floor, and there was no elevator. Yamaguchi Mingchuan had not visited a private residence in a long time. In the stairwell, he felt the clutter and close, intimate feel of family life; it all seemed a little unfamiliar to him. Accustomed to wielding immense power and moving with an entourage in his syndicate, he was bumped into by a brash young man charging down from the third floor. The young man tossed a “sorry” over his shoulder without looking back and strode away — something Yamaguchi Mingchuan was not used to. But a little girl who came down right after the young man tilted her face up and said sweetly, “Hello, Uncle!” He smiled and nodded. Keiko had already scrambled up ahead of him. He walked up slowly, still not knowing what he had come to this woman’s home to seek. There were too many gaps between them — in the atmosphere of their lives, and perhaps in the spaces of the mind as well. What was he hoping to find here? He did not consider himself so great or noble that he could not stoop to climb a flight of stairs to visit a friend; it was simply that he always acted with strong principles and a clear purpose. And this time — what was his purpose? When Keiko had made the request, he had agreed at once, and had even prepared a gift with care. He felt there was little erotic desire in his feelings toward this woman. Perhaps on a night after drinking, a flicker of impulse had stirred, or Wu Aizhen had once touched his heart in some way — but these had faded as quickly as they came. After leaving Tibet, he had been busy with company affairs and had never considered taking his relationship with Wu Aizhen further or closer. Yet when he departed, he had keenly hoped to leave a fine impression in her heart, to earn her regard. This was a state of mind that transcended purpose, even seemed to transcend the allure between man and woman. He did not want anything from her, yet he valued this woman so much — hoped to know her, hoped to understand her a little more. In his life, this seemed to be a first.
By the time Yamaguchi Mingchuan reached the fifth floor, Wu Aizhen was already standing at the door, talking to Keiko inside the apartment while waiting for him. Wu Aizhen was dressed today in a casual emerald-green outfit, loose-fitting and soft, which gave her a vibrant, youthful energy. The first moment Yamaguchi Mingchuan saw her, he found that tender green almost jarring in the dim stairwell — but when, amid all that green, he saw Wu Aizhen’s calm, tranquil face and her eyes still as resting water, his heart gave a sudden lurch.
Once inside, after changing into slippers, Wu Aizhen invited them to sit in the corner to the right of the door. This was clearly a tea corner for entertaining guests, furnished with a tea table made from an old tree root and several cartoon-shaped little stools.
Wu Aizhen was busy rinsing and steeping the tea with practiced ease, while Keiko chattered about what had happened since they parted. Yamaguchi Mingchuan, waiting for his tea, let his gaze wander idly around the living room.
Straight ahead was a window, and the afternoon sunlight was pouring lavishly down from one side, illuminating everything in the room. On the windowsill sat a curiously shaped bonsai. Yamaguchi Mingchuan could not name the tree at a glance — its trunk and branches were formed in such an unusual way, like a crouching divine dragon with ancient, gleaming scales poised to stretch its body into the sunlight and soar upward. The clean rectangular white porcelain pot was carved with raised cloud patterns, set beneath the dragon, and was now flashing brilliant light under the sun.
In front of the windowsill stood an oval dining table with four chairs, simple and rustic, also glowing with a mellow patina in the sunlight.
To the left, a passageway led deeper into the apartment. Across from the tea corner was a sliding glass door, tightly shut, its glass covered with white paper so that one could not see inside — probably the kitchen, Yamaguchi Mingchuan thought.
It seemed this room served as both dining room and living room. “Here, have some tea, Mr. Mingchuan!” Wu Aizhen warmly placed a small cup before him. Yamaguchi Mingchuan picked it up, sniffed the fragrance, then slowly drank it down. The taste was excellent — fine Tieguanyin. Meeting Wu Aizhen’s cool, clear gaze, he nodded in appreciation.
His eyes then settled on the wall diagonally above the tea corner. A painting hung there, framed in black, mounted right at the center of the wall. The image showed an arrangement of cut flowers. A white peony in full bloom held the central position, flanked on either side by a single red rose — one still in bud, the other fully opened. Bordering the peony and roses were several green stems and leaves, along with some small, nameless yellow flowers. The composition was brilliant in color, the flowers artfully spaced, and the technique seemed to blend elements of traditional Chinese painting with Western oil painting, though the overall conception remained rooted in the Chinese tradition. In the upper left corner of the painting, in clerical script, were the words “Wealth, Love, Freedom,” with a signature below. Three red, free-form seals marked the lower left corner.
“A good friend of mine painted this. I admire his work a great deal — the compositions are clean, the meanings deep, and his brushwork and ink are bold and unconstrained, never bound by convention.”
“Mm.” Yamaguchi Mingchuan smiled. “There’s something to this painting. Wealth, love, and freedom — life’s three great pursuits. Though it seems to lack health.”
“Look at how he’s placed those three things in a vase as solid as a rock. I think that’s meant to represent health.”
Yamaguchi Mingchuan looked more carefully. Indeed, beneath the flowers, a few spare strokes sketched out an irregular vase. The lines were rugged — at a glance it looked like a stone of considerable weight, pressing solidly in the lower right of the painting. On closer inspection, the body and neck of the vase were clearly delineated.
Yamaguchi Mingchuan laughed with genuine delight. “Your friend is remarkable — to paint a vase like a boulder for arranging flowers. That’s a bold imagination. This friend must be a hedonist with a rich taste for the pleasures of life.”
“No. He’s an ascetic monk,” Wu Aizhen said matter-of-factly. Keiko, startled by this, immediately turned back to study the painting with renewed attention. “Sister Aizhen, this painting doesn’t feel contrived at all — it seems to flow naturally from the heart. Could it be that your ascetic monk friend painted this with a heart full of ‘wealth, love, freedom, and health’?”
“Yes. I believe he paints every painting with such a heart. The ascetic monk is only an appearance in the eyes of others. In himself, he already possesses nearly all of those things.”
Keiko fell silent, gazing at the painting with a look of wonder and admiration. The room grew suddenly quiet. In the corner by the tea corner, there was a triangular end table with one rounded side that fit neatly into the corner. On it sat a small, luxuriant pot of asparagus fern. The fern climbed a slender bamboo stake, growing up several feet along the wall before cascading back down. Beneath its dense shade was a small round fishbowl with two goldfish, one red and one black, swimming freely back and forth, blowing bubbles at the surface. The whole corner brimmed with the charm of life. Beside all this, Wu Aizhen had lowered her head to check whether the water in the kettle on the floor had boiled. Yamaguchi Mingchuan took it all in — and looking at Wu Aizhen sitting across from him, he felt that her body and mind were extraordinarily still, as if she were so harmoniously merged with everything in this room — the moving and the still, the refined and the rustic, every ray of light, every color, all blended together so naturally — that it gave him a sense of ease, release, and quiet composure, as if he were immersed in nature. He had not spotted a single expensive item in this room, yet everything in this room was singular and marvelous. He sensed that this room held something no money in the world could buy — something faintly dissolved into every object here, half-hidden, half-revealed, eluding his grasp.
“Sister Aizhen, could I meet this friend of yours?” Keiko’s curiosity was overwhelming.
“You probably won’t be able to this time. He’s off wandering. I haven’t seen him for almost half a year myself.”
“Oh.” Keiko looked disappointed.
Seeing Keiko’s crestfallen face, Wu Aizhen smiled. “I still have another painting of his that I can give you. But don’t treat it lightly just because he isn’t famous. He rarely paints — only when something moves his heart, and then the brush comes straight from the heart, done in one breath. And he only gives his paintings to friends he deems worthy. Otherwise, not even piles of gold can buy one. You must promise to treasure it.”
“I will — I’ll definitely treasure it.” Keiko brightened at once, her eyes sparkling with excitement.
“Still such a child.” Wu Aizhen looked at her with affectionate amusement.
“Sister Aizhen, what kind of tree is this? It’s been grown so beautifully,” Keiko asked in wonder, already heading straight for the bonsai on the windowsill, as though she had discovered a whole new continent.
“It’s rosewood.”
“Did you prune it into that shape yourself?”
“No — it was my ‘Flower Fool’ friend. The one I told you about in Tibet.”
“The ‘Flower Fool’ who’s so brilliant at flower arranging?”
“Yes.”
“Wow — I want to meet him too. I love flower arranging so much.”
“All right, I’ll take you.” Wu Aizhen had put on a fresh pot of tea and was waiting for the water to boil. “Who’s this?” Yamaguchi Mingchuan followed the sound — Keiko was pointing at a small ceramic figure nestled in the rosewood bonsai pot.
“It’s Lu Yu.”
“Lu Yu? The Lu Yu who wrote the Classic of Tea?”
“You know a fair bit about tea yourself.”
“I don’t, but Papa does. In Japan, Papa often spends time with ‘lofty masters’ of tea. I just happened to overhear them mention once that China had a Sage of Tea named Lu Yu.” “Oh.” Wu Aizhen cast an interested glance at Yamaguchi Mingchuan. “I didn’t realize you were a student of tea, Mr. Mingchuan.”
“Hardly. Nothing worth mentioning.” A faint smile spread across Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s face.
“Why is Lu Yu in a flowerpot?” Keiko asked.
“To you, it’s a flowerpot. To me, it’s the dwelling place of the ‘Rosewood Spirit.’ That pot was made in Jingdezhen. I picked it out specially for this rosewood tree at the ceramics market. It wasn’t just about matching colors — what mattered most was that I was making a beautiful home for it with my heart.”
“I think you’re turning into a tree fool,” Keiko said, laughing.
“Besides, rosewood ought to be matched with extraordinary recluses. Having Lu Yu seated beneath it feels quite fitting to me.”
Wu Aizhen was teasing Keiko, half serious, half joking.
“Can I take it out and look at it?”
“Go ahead. Lu Yu won’t mind, and still less will the tree spirit.”
Keiko carefully lifted the Lu Yu figure out of the flowerpot and cradled it in her hands. It was only a few inches tall but strikingly lifelike: hair bound up, robed in a long gown, seated on a little stool, with a tea table, teapot, and teacup beside him. At his feet was a stove heating a kettle of water, and Lu Yu was bent over, wholly absorbed in fanning the flame with a fan. All of this was rendered on a single platform, which also served as the base.
Keiko brought the figure over to show Yamaguchi Mingchuan, who was seated at the tea table. “Papa, look — so this is what Lu Yu looked like.” Yamaguchi Mingchuan glanced at it. “Mm, it’s well made.”
“Speaking of Lu Yu, let me tell you a story about how Lu Yu attained enlightenment,” Wu Aizhen said.
“Wonderful — tell it, quickly.” Keiko immediately returned the figure to the flowerpot and sat back down, waiting eagerly. “I love the way you tell mythic stories. You make them sound so real.”
“Do I? Well, in that case, I have no choice but to tell it.” Wu Aizhen cleared her throat.
“Hurry up, hurry up! You always draw out the suspense whenever you tell a story.” Keiko was growing impatient.
“As you know, Lu Yu is revered in China as the Sage of Tea. Legend has it that after Lu Yu died, he remained utterly devoted to the art of tea, so steeped in the Way of Tea that he became an immortal of tea. He built a ‘First-Rate Tea Lodge’ in the mountains, beside a stream and a spring, and often invited the many immortals to come sample his tea.”
One day, Guanyin Bodhisattva, while traveling on a cloud, passed by and saw the First-Rate Tea Lodge wreathed in auspicious mists and radiating rosy light. She halted her steps and paid a visit, hoping to beg a cup of tea.
When Lu Yu saw Guanyin Bodhisattva descend before him, he was overjoyed beyond measure. He brought out the finest tea in the entire lodge and brewed it himself, offering it to the Bodhisattva.
The Bodhisattva watched Lu Yu rinse, brew, and pour the tea, and asked, “Have you seen and tasted every tea in the human world? Which tea do you consider the very best, and what is the finest flavor of tea?”
Lu Yu replied, “Bodhisattva, I have traveled to nearly every famous mountain and great river, drunk from celebrated waters and exquisite springs, and sampled the finest teas of the human realm and the immortal realm alike. There is no tea left to seek in either world, no tea flavor left to taste. Yet the ultimate tea of all — that one I have never seen.”
“What is it?” the Bodhisattva asked gently.
“It is the Dragon’s Nectar. It grows only in the deep sea where dragons dwell, and it takes thirty million years to take form. Each time it forms, it is only the size of a palm. It looks like coral. If a person drinks this tea, a hundred illnesses are cured and youth is restored. If an immortal drinks it, they can avert the calamities of a hundred kalpas and will not easily fall back into the mundane world. What is more, one piece of Dragon’s Nectar tea will serve a lifetime, for it is a spiritual being of the sea — break off a piece, and it quickly grows back to its original form. You can drink from it forever without ever draining it.”
“Oh? There is such a tea? I was just heading to the Dragon Palace of the Eastern Sea. If the palace has any, I could ask for a piece for you along the way.”
“Thank you, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva!” Lu Yu was overjoyed. He watched the Bodhisattva step onto an auspicious cloud and fly toward the Eastern Sea.
Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva brought her cloud to rest and arrived at the Dragon Palace of the Eastern Sea. After their formal business was concluded, the Bodhisattva said directly to the Dragon King, “Could you give me a piece of Dragon’s Nectar tea?”
The Dragon King hesitated at these words and said with surprise, “How is it that the Bodhisattva takes an interest in tea today?”
The Bodhisattva answered with a smile, “Don’t ask the reason. If you have it, just give me a piece. It is often said that the Dragon Palace holds riches beyond the four seas, and your Eastern Sea Dragon Palace, foremost among them, can hardly be so stingy as to begrudge a single piece of tea.”
The Dragon King laughed heartily and said, “The Bodhisattva goes too far. I was merely curious. Dragon’s spittle is a rare treasure of the Dragon Palace, known to very few. In a palace as vast as mine, I have only three pieces, and two of them are no longer in the Eastern Sea. But the Bodhisattva does not ask for things lightly. If you want this tea now, it must serve some purpose — how could I be miserly?” As he spoke, he hurriedly ordered an attendant to fetch the tea.
The tea was placed in a golden box. When the lid was opened, inside lay something like coral, only the size of a palm, its color pale and tender as bamboo shoots, wreathed in a hazy five-colored halo — glistening, vibrant, brimming with the numinous light of heaven, earth, and sea. Truly a rare treasure.
Seeing this, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva’s heart softened with reluctance. She asked the Dragon King, “This is an aquatic numinous thing. If I take it out of the deep sea, will its spiritual essence be diminished?”
The Dragon King immediately said in a ringing voice, “The Bodhisattva need not worry. If you take it from the Dragon Palace, you may steep and nourish it with seawater, river water, or clear mountain spring water. Though it will not match the terrestrial energy of the deep sea, its true spirit will not be harmed. What is more, Dragon’s Nectar is only a numinous object. If the Bodhisattva, out of loving kindness and compassion, can use it to relieve the world or perform a good deed, then it will truly have found its worth. It will rejoice at such a fate.”
The Bodhisattva did not stand on ceremony any further. Carrying the Dragon’s Nectar tea, she departed the Dragon Palace, stepped onto an auspicious cloud, and flew directly to the “First-Rate Tea Lodge.”
Hearing the Bodhisattva’s account and seeing the Dragon’s Nectar tea, Lu Yu wept with joy. Tears streaming down his face, he held the tea box and said, “Bodhisattva, I should use this Dragon’s Nectar to brew tea for you, but now that I have seen it, I love it too dearly. I cannot bear to break off a piece and boil it into tea. It would regrow, true, but it would no longer be in its natural state. I would like to observe and study it carefully first, then record my findings to pass on to later generations. Please forgive me.” The Bodhisattva said with a smile, “No need for courtesy. Keep it and study it at your leisure. I, too, cannot bear to melt it away in my stomach just to satisfy the palate. I take my leave now.”
After Lu Yu had seen the Bodhisattva off on her cloud, he hurried back to the tea room, held the tea box before him, and fixed his unblinking eyes upon it — and so he gazed for three days and three nights.
Some time later, the Bodhisattva happened to pass by the tea estate again and saw that above the estate the sky was cloudless and clear, suffused with a deep, still tranquility. The auspicious clouds and radiant light of former days had all vanished. She nodded and smiled to herself, then once more halted her lotus steps and entered the estate.
Lu Yu greeted the Bodhisattva, bade her take the seat of honor, and after bowing in prostration said, “Bodhisattva, please sit in meditation a moment. I will go to the outer room and brew tea for you.”
After a short while, Lu Yu returned bearing a tray with two small steaming bowls of tea, which he reverently set before the Bodhisattva. The tea was served in bowls that were green on the outside and white within; the tea itself was a greenish hue, crystal clear to the bottom. And above the steam, a faint, billowing blue-green mist seemed to rise, refreshing the eye with pure coolness, as if sea and sky had merged into one.
The Bodhisattva smiled, gently lifted a bowl, and drank the tea in one swallow. Then she said, “Fine tea! I have drunk the very sweetness of the ocean floor.”
“The Bodhisattva surely knows this is Dragon’s Nectar,” Lu Yu said. “But what the Bodhisattva does not know is that in this recent period I have obtained yet another tea, a most extraordinary one, and I would like the Bodhisattva to verify its flavor.”
“Please speak,” the Bodhisattva said, her eyes brimming with a smile.
“This tea exists everywhere — in the human realm, in the heavens, and in the Dragon Palace beneath the sea — yet it is the most extraordinary of all. The human eye cannot see it, nor the heavenly eye, nor the wisdom eye, nor the Dharma eye, nor the Buddha eye. It is without form or mark, and yet throughout the Billion World System, amidst the hundred dharmas and myriad appearances, there is no time or place where its tea-flavor does not manifest. One who attains it neither arises nor ceases. Tasting its flavor, without renouncing the form-body, one instantly enters the state of Nirvana. Since tasting this tea, I have set aside all the famous teas of the world and thoroughly comprehended every tea-flavor under heaven. I beseech the Bodhisattva, in compassion, to verify for me: have I truly obtained this tea, truly known this flavor?!”
“So it is, so it is. You have awakened into the ‘tea samadhi.’ Attaining this samadhi is like drinking this Dragon’s Nectar: with awakening, one swallow drains the flavor of the four seas; without awakening, it is merely water boiled with a numinous object.
“Since you have already tasted this flavor, you must hold this tea constantly in mind, your mental state unified with it. Only when, in movement and in stillness alike, you never lose this tea-flavor can you be said to have truly obtained this tea.”
“Thank you, Guanyin Bodhisattva, for this illumination!” Lu Yu once more fell to his knees and wept.
“May you soon attain the perfect fullness of the tea-flavor.” Guanyin Bodhisattva smiled, stepped onto a cloud, and drifted away…
“Did Guanyin Bodhisattva leave? Where did she go?” Keiko gazed at Wu Aizhen, who had just finished the story, and asked with childlike simplicity.
“Back to Mount Putuo,” Wu Aizhen said, suppressing a smile.
“But how did Lu Yu awaken? You haven’t told us that yet.”
Keiko was still not satisfied, still half lost in the story, half awake and half muddled.
“Oh, after the Bodhisattva left that day, didn’t he hold the Dragon’s Nectar tea and gaze at it for three days and three nights? Because he threw himself into it completely — his body, speech, and mind all concentrated with single-minded focus — he suddenly forgot both self and object and entered the great samadhi of the Dharma Realm. And in that moment, he awakened in a flash.”
“Oh! So that’s how it was. But he also had the Bodhisattva to guide him — his karmic conditions for awakening had ripened. Even if I sat for three days and three nights, I doubt I’d have any great awakening.”
“True. It was also because Lu Yu had long since forgotten his body and mind in devotion to tea that he was able to move the Bodhisattva to seek out the true Dragon’s Nectar treasure for him. And it was because, after receiving the tea, his love and longing were so extreme that he contemplated it with his entire being — only then could he enter the tea samadhi and awaken in a flash. Most ordinary people are perpetually distracted, their minds flitting from one thing to another. How could they ever bring their fullest attention to bear on a single object? Lu Yu, by contrast — even were he to die and become an immortal, he would not change his original devotion. Even if the Bodhisattva in her compassion gave ordinary people a piece of Dragon’s Nectar, they would either boil it at once and drink it, seeking to regain youth, or hide it away in a cabinet and secretly take it out to admire when no one was looking, satisfying the desire to possess. Or perhaps they would summon the whole world to come and see, feeding their vanity. Some might even auction it off for a high price to pursue pleasure and exhaust every worldly delight. To love something already obtained so deeply that self and object are forgotten — that is rare even among immortals. That’s why I’m still quite fond of Lu Yu, and I acquired a porcelain statue of him. I placed it beneath the red sandalwood tree. Whenever I see it, I’m often ashamed of my own mind’s indulgence and distraction.”
“Wow! Stop, please. Any more and I’ll be so ashamed I’ll want to end it all. And here I am, thinking all day about how close I am to awakening!” Keiko closed her eyes and tilted her head back, her face full of helplessness, innocence, and sorrow. Yamaguchi Mingchuan pressed his lips together in a faint smile. While Wu Aizhen had been telling the story, he had sat upright with his arms folded, watching her in silence, his expression as if half listening, half not. Beyond the story itself, he was also observing this elusive Chinese woman, trying to figure out just what kind of person she was.
“All right, the story’s told, and we’ve had enough tea. Where shall we have dinner?”
Wu Aizhen widened her eyes, glanced at Keiko, then turned her bright, clear gaze to Yamaguchi Mingchuan. “Why not eat here at home? I make pretty good noodles. My stir-fries are only so-so, but if you don’t mind, I’ll show you what I can do.”
“Yes! Yes! I’m all for it! I want to eat your cooking. It doesn’t matter how it turns out, as long as it’s cooked through.” Yamaguchi Mingchuan nodded and smiled in agreement.
“Good! Then Keiko, you can help me in the kitchen. Mr. Mingchuan, why don’t you wait in my study? I have some calligraphy and paintings from friends, and books you can browse to pass the time.” As she spoke, Wu Aizhen rose and made a gesture of invitation. Yamaguchi Mingchuan and Keiko followed her into the hallway. The hallway had three doors: on the left, a bathroom; on the right, a bedroom. Keiko said she wanted to see Wu Aizhen’s boudoir. Wu Aizhen opened the door. Yamaguchi Mingchuan stood at the doorway; though he did not enter, he could see everything at a glance — the room contained only a round bed, a wardrobe, and some electronics. What caught his eye was a pink, dome-shaped mosquito net that hung softly and quietly from the ceiling, draping over the bed, its hem like the skirt of a beautiful woman. Through the netting, thin as silkworm gauze, the soft white bedding and pillows were faintly visible. Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s heart stirred again. He wondered at himself — never before had the mere sight of a bed moved him so.
At the end of the hallway stood the study, slightly smaller than the living room. The first thing that met Yamaguchi Mingchuan’s eyes upon entering was a Water-Bamboo Guanyin statue surrounded by a grove of emerald bamboo. She was enshrined on a semicircular altar table, beneath which lay a meditation cushion. On the wall above the Guanyin statue, framed in black, hung the two characters “Chan Spirit.”
“Is this the Guanyin statue you mentioned back in Tibet?” Keiko leaned over the altar table, staring at the figure.
“Yes.”
“Wow! She really does have a Mona Lisa smile, just as you said!” At these words, Yamaguchi Mingchuan could not help shifting his gaze to the Bodhisattva statue as well.
It was white porcelain. The Bodhisattva wore a white robe, a white gauze veil over her head, and sat with casual ease on a rock. Her left leg was drawn up, her left hand resting on her knee; her right leg stretched down past the rock, as if she were teasing the water below with her toes. Her right hand pressed steadily against the rock for support, her torso tilted slightly back and to the right, her eyelids lowered, and her face wore a mysterious smile. Behind her stood a ring of emerald bamboo — both the bamboo and the rock were real miniature landscapes, set in a white porcelain basin filled with water. The basin was round, with pink lotus-petal designs on its sides. Yamaguchi Mingchuan had never before seen a Guanyin statue carved with such ease. The White-Robed Guanyin figures he had seen in temples all stood or sat in solemn compassion, but this Bodhisattva looked entirely like a young woman sitting on a rock at the water’s edge, playing with the waves, lost in lovely thoughts.
“Mm! I believe what you said, too — the Mona Lisa smile is the smile of satisfied love, and in the moment of that smile, the heart is utterly empty and still. For a painter to capture that kind of love is truly brilliant.”
“Speaking of smiles, there’s another kind. The Tang-dynasty poet Bai Juyi once described an imperial consort’s smile, saying that ‘one glance back, one smile, gave birth to a hundred charms, and all the painted faces of the six palaces paled to nothing.’ Just think: the Chinese emperor’s rear palace was a gathering of beauties — three palaces, six courts, seventy-two consorts, practically every top beauty in the land assembled there. And this imperial consort, with just a slight turn of her head and a smile, could eclipse them all. Imagine the power of that one smile.”
“Wow! ‘A face that shames the moon and puts flowers to shame, beauty that makes fish sink and birds fall from the sky.'” Keiko’s Chinese was getting better by the day.
“I’m impressed you know those two phrases. Three days without seeing you, and I have to look at you with fresh eyes,” Wu Aizhen said admiringly to Keiko.
“But do you know where their beauty really lies?”
“I can’t imagine!”
“In the spirit behind the form!”
“Think about it: that smile of hers was certainly not the soul-snatching allure of a fox-spirit. Fox-like charm is just one kind of charm, and even with ten thousand seductions, it still lands in the realm of worldly desire — a little vulgar. But a woman whose single smile gives birth to a hundred charms can pour into that one smile, in an instant, ten thousand graces, ten thousand tendernesses, ten thousand softnesses, all the purity of an orchid-like heart and the clarity of wisdom. It is unselfconscious, like a flower blooming in a flash — not blooming for anyone in particular — and a hidden fragrance drifts on the breeze, penetrating the heart and lifting the spirit…”
Yamaguchi Mingchuan saw that as Wu Aizhen said this, her eyes shone with an unusual radiance and her face was filled with rapt yearning. He couldn’t help smiling to himself.
“Keiko, do you know what this is? It is the Chan ‘smile samadhi.’ A person who attains this samadhi must have a heart that is pure and undefiled. It is an expression of spiritual nature, revealed in every gesture, every movement, every frown and every smile.”
“I know the consort you mean. She was the beloved consort of Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. That line comes from the poem ‘Song of Everlasting Regret.’ I still remember two more lines: ‘In heaven, we would be birds flying wing to wing; on earth, two trees with branches intertwined.’ Their love story is very moving. Still, a beautiful face bears a bitter fate. Now we’ll never see a woman with that kind of grace again.”
“Actually, that kind of grace exists within every woman. If it’s paired with natural beauty, then one smile really might overthrow a city — or a kingdom.”
“Sister Aizhen, keep up your practice. Who knows, one day you may enter the smile samadhi, and when your face opens into a smile, it might just overthrow cities and kingdoms.”
Wu Aizhen smiled, looked at Keiko, and promptly shut her mouth, saying nothing more. Yamaguchi Mingchuan, listening to their banter, shifted his gaze to the calligraphy on the wall. Keiko, meanwhile, lay back in the rocking chair and closed her eyes comfortably.
“My Master wrote this,” Wu Aizhen said to Yamaguchi Mingchuan. Keiko, hearing this, immediately scrambled up to look at the two characters hanging on the wall.
At first glance the two characters, their ink full and rounded, stirred no particular sensation. But when Yamaguchi Mingchuan shifted his angle, he saw that behind that rounded surface the brush strokes had driven through to the back of the paper, appearing like carving beneath a pane of glass—the tip bold and strong, the turns fluid and effortless, carrying within them an ancient tranquility and grace. He shifted his angle again. Now he noticed that in the character “Chan” there was a great deal of flying white, and as the angle changed and the light shifted, if he steadied his gaze and focused it, the Chan character seemed to vanish along those white streaks, leaving only a character for “spirit” flickering in and out of sight. Silently marveling, Yamaguchi understood that no ordinary mortal could have written such a character, for the work no longer rested on form—it had captured mood and verve. At that moment he remembered what Wu Aizhen had said a moment ago, that “all the beauty of a woman’s smile lies in spirit,” and he thought of the smile samadhi she had mentioned. Grateful, he looked toward Wu Aizhen. He felt that he had suddenly grasped something that lay hidden beneath the surface of things. He thought of the many waves and moments of confusion inside him, of certain knots he could neither name nor describe clearly, and he felt that he was about to touch the knot in his own heart. Just like the calligraphy, shift the angle and a different insight would appear. Inside him, a thin, hazy mist seemed about to drift out, then shrank back again. He could find no guiding thread, but its true face was close to revealing itself, and he waited, watching.
Keiko had made nothing of the calligraphy and had gone with Wu Aizhen to look at the balcony flowers instead. The study opened onto a balcony through a floor-to-ceiling glass door. The curtains were yellow, printed with white leaves drifting and falling, gathered softly in the middle by a ribbon. Returning from the balcony, Keiko gave the curtain a gentle tug and said, “Sister Aizhen, nothing in your home is expensive, but everything is beautiful. Most of all, every single object gives off a feeling of joy—look, even the leaves on the curtain are dancing. Because you love them.”
“Your awareness is growing so subtle, Keiko. Soon you’ll be compassionate and perceptive, with a heart like an orchid and a mind full of wisdom. One day you’ll be the kind of beauty whose one smile holds a hundred charms. No need to keep dieting just to find a Chinese boyfriend. Think about it—then you’ll overturn kingdoms with one smile, topple cities with a second. What does a little plumpness matter? In her day, Yang Guifei was prized for her fullness.”
Hearing Wu Aizhen’s praise, Keiko beamed. Against the left wall of the study stood a rattan bookcase, a rattan desk, and a rattan chair. From the bottom shelf of the bookcase Wu Aizhen took out a number of scroll paintings and said to Yamaguchi, “If you’re interested, take a look.” Then she dragged Keiko off to the kitchen to cook…
“Dinner’s ready!” By the time Yamaguchi came out of the study, the table was already covered with dishes.
“Papa, let me introduce them. These four dishes are the four uniques: zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting.” Yamaguchi looked at the four dishes laid out in a row in front of him. “This one is bird’s nest stir-fried with bean sprouts—that’s the Zither, meant to be appreciated by both the refined and the common. Bird’s nest is a little expensive, and bean sprouts are cheap, but a dish pairing isn’t about price. Apart from color and aroma, the key is harmony of flavor. And it has to—what, Sister Aizhen?” Keiko looked at Wu Aizhen. “The five tastes correspond to the five influences.” “That’s right. The five tastes—sour, bitter, sweet, pungent, and salty—must match the five influences of wind, heat, dampness, dryness, and cold, so that the yin and yang of the five zang and six fu organs are balanced and the body can absorb nourishment properly. Sister Aizhen made this one.
“This steamed Japanese tofu is Chess—named for its resemblance to the game. That’s my handiwork. This Calligraphy Roll is something Sister Aizhen and I wrote together: tofu skin wrapped around shaggy mane mushrooms and vermicelli, then deep-fried. And this steamed egg custard is also mine; the lotus flower on top was drawn by Sister Aizhen with a small knife and then some vinegar was poured over it to bring out the flower’s shape.”
“Papa, look over here.” Keiko pointed to a black wooden tray next to the four dishes, where little square porcelain plates held various snacks: beef, dried bean curd, pickles, soybeans tossed with cilantro, five-spice peanuts, jellyfish skin with cucumber, and shredded radish. The knife work was neat and beautiful, the colors fresh and vivid, but Yamaguchi’s eye went straight to the small flask of wine set in the center of the tray. “Oh! There’s wine?” He reached out, picked it up, and examined it. “Papa, this is the tray of fine wine and good food—of course there’s wine.”
“This is Fenjiu from Shanxi, in China. There’s a poem known to every man, woman, and child in this country: ‘Drizzling rain soaks the season of Clear and Bright / travelers on the road are close to broken hearts. / May I ask where an inn can be found? / A herd boy points far to Apricot Blossom Village.’ This is exactly the Fenjiu from that Apricot Blossom Village. See how the bottle is decorated with a herd boy riding an ox, holding a flute, and a traveler asking directions—the allusion comes from that poem. My mother was from Shanxi, and this wine was a gift to my parents from a friend. He said it had been stored in a cellar for over a hundred years, an aged Fenjiu you can’t buy anywhere outside. I don’t drink, so I brought two bottles back from my mother’s, using them only to flavor dishes—the taste is wonderful. Now only this small bottle is left.”
Yamaguchi uncorked the bottle, and a rich fragrance rose to his nostrils. He brought the opening close and smelled it, his face full of satisfaction, then impatiently took a sip straight from the bottle. “Good wine!” he said.
“Papa, there’s a cup.” Keiko placed a wine glass in front of Yamaguchi. “Hey, a little bottle like this is meant for drinking straight from the bottle—why pour it into a cup?”
“Sister Aizhen, I forgot to tell you: Papa’s capacity for liquor is enormous. He really loves his liquor.”
“Then today you can only sip a little, not drink to your heart’s content, because this is all the wine I have.”
“No matter, no matter. Mmm! I’ll enjoy this fine wine and good food, so you two had better help yourselves to the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting,” Yamaguchi teased.
“Oh dear, Sister Aizhen, is our ‘Warmth and Joy’ ready? I’ll go ladle it.”
“I’ll get it.” Wu Aizhen stood and soon came back with a tray bearing three bowls of noodles and a bowl of dark black noodle sauce. Keiko placed a bowl of noodles in front of each person and, pointing to the sauce, said to Yamaguchi, “Papa, try a little of this sauce—I guarantee you’ll be amazed!”
Yamaguchi lifted a little with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth. “Mmm! Good, really good. What’s it made of? The fragrance is so distinctive, it could rival the old Fenjiu!”
“The ingredients are nothing special. This black paste is simply a kind of aged Shanxi soybean paste, with fried dried black-bean tofu and diced beef added, but there is one special seasoning. When I was small, I lived for a while with my parents in a little village set among green hills and clear waters. On the low hills there, facing the sun, grew a nameless little flower that looked something like a chive blossom. After it bloomed, when a breeze blew, a bold, heady, intoxicating fragrance overflowed the hillsides. The villagers would gather them, crush them, and press them into small cakes like pu’er tea, then dry them in the sun and store them. When eating noodles, they would use just a little, sautéing it with scallions, ginger, and aromatics to make a noodle sauce, the flavor intense yet fresh. I named that flower ‘Village Girl Flower,’ so this sauce is called ‘Village Girl Sauce.’ The name of this bowl of noodles with sauce was given by Keiko: ‘Warmth and Joy.'”
After Wu Aizhen finished speaking, Yamaguchi immediately spooned a large dollop of black sauce into his noodle bowl, and Wu Aizhen showed him how to use chopsticks to mix the noodles with the sauce.
“Excellent! Really excellent! Delicious.” Yamaguchi gave Wu Aizhen a thumbs-up.
“Sister Aizhen, I see your kitchen is so well stocked—do you usually eat at home alone?”
“Oh, I used to have a boyfriend. Many of those utensils were even bought by him, but he’s gone now. I like eating at home. Some people say that living is an art, and three meals a day are a very important part of life. If I have the time and the energy, I will cook carefully for myself.”
“Why did he leave?” Keiko asked.
“Probably because he didn’t like my cooking,” Wu Aizhen said with a smile.
“Well, he wasn’t blessed!”
Yamaguchi drank his wine by himself, nibbling at the snacks and noodles, as though lost in his own solitary world of savoring, but in truth he was listening carefully to the exchange between Wu Aizhen and Keiko.
“Fine wine and good food, all in warmth and joy.” When everyone had eaten their fill, Keiko still polished off many more Calligraphy Rolls, saying she wanted to become a woman of learning, while Wu Aizhen practically devoured the entire plate of Zither all on her own. Under Keiko’s constant urging and praise, Yamaguchi grudgingly tasted a few bites of the zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, but they did not seem to suit his palate very well…
There was a knock at the door. Suspicious, Wu Aizhen opened it. A broad, burly, powerful-looking man stood at the entrance. He gave Wu Aizhen a slight bow, but his eyes were on Yamaguchi, who was seated at the dining table.
“Oh! My driver,” Yamaguchi said. “Come in.”
The driver smiled amiably at Wu Aizhen, came inside, handed an envelope and a car key to Yamaguchi, and quickly said something in Japanese. Yamaguchi seemed to ponder for a moment and then spoke in Japanese, giving a few instructions. The driver politely withdrew.
“It’s a letter from my school,” Keiko said, hurriedly opening it.
“Wow! The school wants me back by the twenty-fifth at the latest. They say there’s an important event I must attend. Today is already the twenty-third!” Keiko glared at Yamaguchi.
“The letter was sent to our home in Japan several days ago. It only arrived in Macau this afternoon along with some important company documents. I’m afraid some time has been lost. Let’s ask the school for another leave of absence.”
“No need. I’m already more than a month late getting back to school. The rules are very strict. Because I was going to see my mother, they already made a special exception for me. If I ask for more leave now, it will create a bad impression at school. I wonder if there’s still a flight today.”
Yamaguchi made a call on his mobile phone. After a moment, the phone rang back, and Yamaguchi said to Keiko, “There’s a ticket for ten o’clock tonight; I’ve already booked it for you.” Keiko immediately turned and looked at Wu Aizhen.
“I still have so many things I didn’t get a chance to tell you!”
“Save them. You’ll graduate in just a few more months, right? You can come back then!”
“Mm, I’ll call you.”
“Okay!” Both Keiko and Wu Aizhen were reluctant to part.
“Papa, do we have guests at home?”
“A few friends have come, but I had the driver, Koizumi, go back with the person who delivered the letter to entertain them. Tomorrow he’ll bring them to City A. Tonight I’ll see you off at the airport…”
← Previous: (XII) Visiting the Master | Contents | Next: (XIV) Emotional Ties in the Nightscape →