When the stone was placed on Qiuping—Qiuping being the ancient Go term for the board—
Go had one black stone and one white stone, just as there were one man and one woman. Entwined together, husband and wife played against each other, exchanging meaningful glances.
Mandarin duck tiles were also a traditional form of roof tile in ancient Huaxia. One tile faced downward and the other upward, resembling mandarin ducks leaning against each other, hence the name.
Drizzle fell without end, pattering against the tiles. The husband and wife held their stones and played Go, creating a scene full of charm.
The imagery was incredibly vivid.
This was something plain language absolutely could not convey. Even if it could, it would take only a few simple words to do so.
At the very least, it would require a long, rambling explanation.
Combined with the lyrics at the beginning, it was not obscure at all—in fact, it was extremely easy to understand. Put into plain language:
My wife and I were walking beneath an umbrella in the bamboo forest on a rainy day when we ran into assassins. I drew my sword and fought them. Afterward, I sheathed my sword and went home, where my wife smiled and brewed me a cup of spring tea. The two of us played Go at home while the rain continued falling outside. After all these years together, our love was still as sweet as malt sugar—and would never melt.
It was clearly nothing more than a plain-language diary, yet Jiang Siming had used his dazzling literary brushwork to force it into becoming a ci poem.
What was more, in fewer than seventy characters, he had summarized imagery that would normally take hundreds of words to describe, depicting a thrilling battle scene with concise, seasoned