Blue Remembered Hills: A Miscellany of Wayfarers from Yeyu

The year is 928. More than two decades have passed since the fall of Nanzhao;
power has changed hands again and again, and no new dynasty yet holds.

Near Jizu Mountain, the road splits three ways. Whether they travel for trade or flee for their lives,
those crossing the mountains stop here for the night.

At the fork stands a nameless inn. You are its keeper.

You boil the water, lay out the food, light the lamps, and receive your guests. You do not question them—
there is no need, and no place for it.

You only watch, and listen, in the spaces between pouring tea and
banking the fire.
Everyone who steps through the door carries a past. Some will tell it; most will not.

And yet, on one night or another, you come to see who they truly are.

“How can a man hide what he is?” — The Analects

Those who walk the rivers and lakes seldom show their hand. Even when a name is given,

it is not always one to be trusted.

The cut of a coat, the weight of a pack, the room he chooses, the dish he calls for,

the half-word that slips out over idle talk — none of it escapes your eye.

Some rest a single night and are gone; some stay on for days. And some go and come again,

and this time bring up at last the half-sentence they swallowed before.

“An inn for all things under heaven” — Li Bai

The common room or a room of one’s own, beneath the eaves or in the stable —

every guest sleeps after his own fashion.

The poor man wants only to spare his coin; the rich merchant wants only quiet.

As for the one who carries a blade, he will not close his eyes until his back is to the wall.

The same room may gladden one guest and set another frowning the moment he steps in.

Every dish and every cup is entered, stroke by stroke, into the ledger. When the doors are barred for the night,

you settle the day on the abacus, bead by bead.

And mark this: the hours of a day are few. Do one thing, and another goes undone.

“Should I seek a good buyer and sell it?” — The Analects

A woodcutter’s dry firewood, a tea merchant’s samples, rare herbs and curios carried from distant lands.

Whether the goods are fine or poor, honestly come by or not, rests on the sharpness of your eye.

What the inn holds may also pass to those who lack it. But what a man truly lacks, you must hear for yourself.

Given time, men will come proposing a partnership: you entrust them your capital, they go a long road,

and months later they return — or never return at all.

“The third bowl ransacks my barren mind” — Lu Tong

Over tea and talk, when a guest’s spirits rise, he is bound to quote the classics and put the innkeeper to the test.

Every question has its source. Four answers lie before you; the wrong ones are real enough in this world,

only set in the wrong place.

Some questions no amount of worldly wisdom will answer; you must have a few scrolls in your belly.

All you have seen, heard and read is gathered into one volume: A Miscellany of Wayfarers from Yeyu.

From forms of address and implements to food and prices, to mountains, rivers and place names —

whatever can be verified has its source.

“Comes at midnight, gone by dawn” — Bai Juyi

Bolt the door at closing, and the day is not always done.

Sometimes, deep in the night, there comes a tapping at the gate. Sometimes, when enough guests are gathered,

the dice are cast for a round of Caixuan Ge, the game of official ranks: from the lowliest clerk each player throws his way upward, and each throws out a career of rises and falls.

Now and then a guest takes lodging, and the longer you look, the less right it sits. Turn it over as you will,

something of the hearth’s warmth is missing from him.

You only pour the tea. The Master did not speak of prodigies, feats of strength, disorder, or spirits.

“How many times has the world grieved for things gone by” — Liu Yuxi

News from beyond the mountains reaches the inn days late, and changed along the way.

Idle talk from guests, old matters set down in books — pieced together scrap by scrap, the world on the map lights up, one place after another.

Fair today, rain tomorrow; and so the travelers on the road are many or few, and of every sort.

As for how the histories will be written, that is the historians’ business.

Whether what you do accords with history or defies it — who can say?