Chapter 17: The Heavenly River [Requesting Monthly Tickets!]

Did Ji Yun just concede defeat? Could this scholar’s talent truly surpass Ji Yun’s?

“Ji Xiaolang hasn’t even finished reading it yet—how hasty to reach a conclusion!”

Ji Yun carefully unfolded the rice paper and said nothing in defense, only began reading aloud before them all.

“Listen, all of you—since Jianyan, barbarian dust has darkened the sky; the Central Plains lie in chaos; I carried my family south across the river.”

The flower pavilion gradually fell silent.

Ji Yun’s clear voice echoed beneath the carved beams and painted rafters; when he reached “In the winter of Shaoxing ninth, snow fell over Qiantang,” an elderly man in brocade robes in the inner circle suddenly exclaimed, “Huh?”

“Strange!” the old man stroked his beard. “Jianyan and Shaoxing are reign titles—but I’ve never heard of them. Could this be fabricated?”

Ji Yun simply explained: “This is fiction—borrowing the style of a future pen.”

Yes, merely using the voice of someone from the future to write of a catastrophe yet to come.

“Now, read the main text.”

Ji Yun turned past the preface, revealing the dense, tiny regular script beneath.

He cleared his throat and continued reading.

“The Floating Life of Jiangzuo, Part One: The Heavenly River”

My first meeting with A-Si occurred in the early spring of Zhenghe fifth year.

That year, I accompanied my father into the capital region; our official barge moored late by the Water Gate Bridge, where floating ice gnawed at the hull like shattered jade tapping green porcelain.

Suddenly, the bow dipped low, and a barefoot youth leapt aboard, wrapped in a ragged coat, carrying a coarse clay jar; though frost clung to his breath, beads of sweat glistened on his brow.

“Taste this new brew, O Star of Literature!”

“A bootlegger?” I found this strangely novel.

Our state enforced the monopoly on alcohol—banning civilians from making koji—but official brews were bland, and only licensed vendors could sell; thus, private homebrews thrived in the markets.

My father, a lifelong wine lover, nodded in approval, yet warned: “Ensure the wine soaks your fingernail without dripping—don’t deceive me with muddy liquor.”

The youth smashed the seal; the aroma startled sleeping reed geese from the reeds. Moonlight slipped through the jar’s mouth and wove a silver river across the wine’s surface.

My father dipped his nail, tasted it, and clapped in awe: “What is the name of this brew?”

“It’s called Heavenly River,” the youth said, his ears flushed crimson. “It must be distilled from clear dew of the Mingqin hour, then buried in lotus leaves for three years.”

At the time, I was still a child; my father drained his cup, and I too was allowed to play with children my age.

I still remember curling with A-Si in the stern cabin, him teaching me to blow “Fisherman’s Pride” on a reed pipe; the bronze wine dipper at his waist swayed with the current, its melody melting the river ice.

At parting, he gave me half a sesame cake and pressed a lump of koji into my palm: “Bury it beneath the peach root; after ten years, dig it up—it will intoxicate the immortals.”

After Ji Yun finished reading the first page of the main text.

Before anyone could speak, the brocade-robed elder could no longer contain himself—he clapped in admiration.

“The opening four words—‘floating ice gnawing the hull’—bear the spirit of the Shishuo; the scene of the barefoot youth leaping onto the boat is rendered with pure brushwork, brimming with natural charm. A fine piece! Truly a fine piece!”

“Indeed,” Ji’s father, a major publisher with some literary taste, added, “The most exquisite touch is the wine’s aroma startling the geese—it captures the Zen stillness of Wei Zhuang’s ‘Empty mountains, pine nuts fall.’ The prose is refined, the rhythm exquisite—a masterpiece!”

“The ritual of dipping the nail to test the wine evokes Ji Kang forging iron; and the line ‘silver river woven on the wine’s surface’—isn’t this a reversal of Li Bai’s ‘Could it be the Milky Way tumbling from the ninth heaven’? Yet it adds threefold the warmth of mortal life.”

Squire Zhou pondered a moment, then offered his own comment, though his analogy was slightly off.

In truth, all present were discerning scholars—even if they couldn’t write literary masterpieces themselves, their basic literary appreciation remained sharp.

—The opening tale of “The Heavenly River” from The Floating Life of Jiangzuo, judged by prose, description, and structure, was undeniably outstanding.

Simply by these opening details alone, as long as the rest of the story didn’t descend into absurdity, no one could possibly dispute its victory in this literary banquet.

Then Ji Yun turned the page and continued reading.

But the very first sentence of the second page made everyone pause in shock.

“Ten springs and autumns passed, all surrendered to the classics.”

I had just entered the koji yard when spring snow shattered the courtyard peach; the koji I’d buried years ago had long since rotted with rain, leaving only the imperial wine on the corridor’s shelves, glowing with a corpse-wax chill.

Just then, a commotion erupted as guards dragged a wine thief into the hall; beneath his ragged coat, his back curved like a shrimp.

“What have you to say?”

The prisoner raised his head; his left eye was blind, his right pupil still alive—but he did not look at me. Instead, his gaze fixed on the wine jars lining the corridor, and he sneered.

After laughing, he muttered: “You drink wine, sir—do you deny even dirt to me?”

A lowly man’s words—who would care to hear them?

At the time, I was barely twenty, proud and haughty; I hastily passed judgment and ordered him sent to the prefecture for exile and conscription.

Later, I saw a guard smash the coarse clay jar on the road; its cracks mirrored the shape of Hongqiao Bridge from years past—and only then did I suddenly realize.

The sound of the shattered pottery in the pavilion seemed to solidify into reality; everyone held their breath.

The ten-year promise vanished in an instant.

Like the koji buried as a childhood keepsake, now rotted by time’s rain, leaving only a husk.

And their roles had shifted from childhood playmates to judge and condemned.

For the protagonist of “The Heavenly River,” this judgment was but a petty whim of power—yet it shattered A-Si’s fate forever.

By the time the protagonist realized what he had done, it was already too late.

Just as when Ji Yun read the words “Hongqiao’s shadow,” everyone instantly recalled the innocent childhood scene from page one—the two boys laughing, carefree.

But to avoid the pain of this cruel contrast was already impossible.

The rupture between cruelty and beauty was so violent that Ji Yun’s voice trembled slightly.

Lu Beigu’s prose was simply too piercing!

So much so that as readers, we felt the sudden turn of the pen like a cold blade slicing through air, raising every hair on our skin.

“This—”

Zhou Mingyuan was stunned. He’d seen novels written before—but never one composed on the spot, reaching such heights.

In merely dozens of lines, he sketched two scenes: childhood and adulthood.

And he etched into the reader’s heart the intertwined fates of two men born utterly apart.

And Ji Yun was now reading the third page.

“The years that followed passed like drunkenness; the koji yard’s fragrance turned foul, intoxicating men into dazed, hollow days.”

Then one day, war drums shook the earth.

The Jin army surrounded the city; over a hundred thousand tiger-like soldiers lined the walls, their helmets obscuring rank and status.

All silk, jade, and treasure in the city were seized by the Jin camp—including the koji yard’s finest wines.

After looting wealth and women, the raiders withdrew briefly—but the koji yard lay in ruins.

Soon, autumn chill returned; iron hooves pounded again; the city fell.

I fled desperately toward my home; the streets swarmed with people like headless flies—when suddenly, I saw a troop of cavalry riding against the tide toward the broken walls.

A northern accent sang “Fisherman’s Pride”: “From every side, the sounds of war rise with horns; in a thousand peaks, long smoke rises as the setting sun closes a lone city—a cup of turbid wine, home ten thousand miles away—”

Among them, the one-eyed soldier pierced a wine jar with his blade and drank deeply, mumbling: “Ten years of Heavenly River—only blood can make it taste right.”

At this, the serving girl beside him could not help but sniffle.

Suddenly, her hand went limp—the wine pot she held slipped and shattered on the floor with a sharp “crash.”

The sound of broken porcelain echoed long in the pavilion; the girl hurriedly knelt to gather the shards, but no one scolded her.

Before Ji Yun reached the final page of the main text, every guest had fallen into a dream, stepping into that shattered world of broken mountains and rivers.

They seemed to see the lone, one-eyed soldier’s silhouette against the blood-red sunset on the city wall, his blade piercing a wine jar.

“That one-eyed soldier—is clearly—”

“A-Si.”

——————

① Zhi: a double-distilled, refined wine.

② Quegu Fa: the state monopoly on alcohol production and sales.

③ Zhanjia: a Tang-to-Song drinking ritual; originally, dipping a finger into the cup and flicking wine to show respect, later evolving to mean dipping the fingernail into a full cup to signify hearty drinking.

④ Chan Guang: moonlight, derived from the ancient Chinese association of the toad with the moon.

⑤ Tong Ti: a bronze wine dipper, a common ancient vessel for serving wine.

⑥ Qu Yuan: here, specifically the Song dynasty institution managing koji and wine production—not a brothel.

⑦ Gu: blind.

⑧ Ding Yan: to pass judgment, to convict.

(End of chapter)