Chapter 46: 122 Chapters, the Girl's Hidden Fragrance

122 pieces, the girl's hidden fragrance

122 pieces,

the girl's hidden fragrance

Liu Guozong

This is a clump of vines, green vines.

However, now it is night, and its verdant green can no longer be seen.

Under the moonlight, it is a clump of dark green. Seeing this clump of dark green, I thought of 'hidden fragrance filling the sleeves'.

If you say there really is fragrance, however this fragrance is not the chrysanthemum fragrance from the brush of a Song dynasty female poet; this fragrance seems to drift from between the flowers and leaves of this clump of vines; it also seems to drift from the fruits of other plants around the vine's flowers and leaves. In short, it carries the scent of autumn's flowers, leaves, and fruits, different from the 'hidden fragrance' in Li Qingzhao's brush. The female poet's brush's 'hidden fragrance' is the scent of chrysanthemums just beginning to bloom beside a bamboo fence; it is the fragrance of a girl's maturity, the fragrance of a girl's springlonging. And the fragrance I smell tonight is, under the moonlight, that among the green there still bloom some small flowers of mixed blue, white, and yellow--that the verdant green turning dark green's fragrance, autumn's fragrance.

Moonlight like water, like smoke, like mist, sprinkled on the plants beside me, letting me see their colors clearly, yet I cannot discern their appearance.

But they envelop me with fragrance.

It immerses me in the enveloping autumn flower, leaf, and fruit fragrance beneath the moonlit mist; amidst the fragrance of leaves, flowers, and fruits, it makes me recall spring, recall childhood in spring.

Moreover, the song from this dark green clump before my eyes adds to my heart's longing for spring, yearning for childhood.

This song is sung by an insect called 'Chirping Official'. Scholars of the Chirping Official insect gave it a pleasant name, 'Weaving Maiden'.

I only know it is a small insect that sings in autumn, growing among legume plants and eating their flowers and leaves.

I grew up in the countryside; in childhood, whenever autumn arrived, this 'Chirping Official' would crouch in the legume plant thicket, singing incessantly. At that time, we farm children would, in sunlight or moonlight, gently bring these singers home, and we also carefully wove beautiful 'housing' for them.

Those singers invited home would never disappoint the host's kindness; they would sing day and night for us. Our childhood was made joyful by their singing.

Time flies like an arrow; in the blink of an eye, my childhood has been shot away without trace; my youth has been 'flicked' away completely. I haven't heard its song for many years. Over these years, where did it go? And why, on the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, did it suddenly start calling from this dark green vine clump?

Listen, it calls so energetically, one sound after another. Indeed it has the semblance of 'loud strings clamoring like sudden rain, fine strings whispering like private rain.'

It is like a bugle urging people onto the battlefield to slay enemies, making one involuntarily follow its song to chase after the long-gone childhood, chase after the vanished youth.

Hearing its call also inevitably reminds me of Lao Can in the story *Lao Can's Travels*, residing at Minghu Lake in Jinan, hearing Bai Niu speak of drum-singing, that feeling in his heart:

"Five viscera and six bowels, as if ironed by an iron, with no spot not adhering; thirty thousand pores, as if having eaten a ginseng fruit, with no pore not feeling refreshed."

I don't know whether Lao Can at that time was stunned by listening, or stunned by looking at Bai Niu.

Lao Can said Bai Niu is very beautiful——

About ten ** years old, melon-seed face, fair and clean skin. Especially: "Those eyes, like autumn water, like cold stars, like a pearl, like two balls of black mercury suspended in silver, when glanced left and right, even the person sitting far in the wall corner feels as if Wang Xiaoyu has arrived; let alone those sitting near. With just that glance, the whole garden falls silent, quieter than when the emperor appears; even a needle dropped on the ground can be heard more clearly."

It is evident that at that time, not only Lao Can was stunned by the storyteller Bai Niu; with such a beautiful woman singing and speaking, it is no wonder Lao Can felt his five viscera and six bowels as if ironed by an iron, with no spot not adhering, and his thirty-six thousand pores as if having eaten a ginseng fruit, with no pore not feeling refreshed.

Yet on this bright moonlit night, I did not see that beautiful woman 'Bai Niu', nor did I hear her singing 'like, like flowers in a spring dawn, birds singing in disorder'; but why do my five viscera and six bowels also feel as if ironed by an iron? Why do my thirty-six thousand pores also feel as if having eaten a ginseng fruit, all refreshed? This is all because that 'Calling Pipe' in the dark green clump before my eyes has brought me back to childhood. I:

Finally making you, who is forever separated,

Returning to my original solitude.

What I did not expect is

the purity before our meeting

nowhere to be found

But at this moment

in my heart

you have become an ancient song

In an autumn night bright as silver, cool as water

singing that eternal childhood

that yesterday's experience

also seems like a dream

Gazing far at the heavens

that clear, bright moon

and that faint cloud

recalling all the legendary tales

are all human-made dramas

Is life also like a play?