[Missing Person Notice: Where Under Heaven Might One Find a Kindred Soul!]
On the Prefectural Yamen's notice board, a single line of poetry was briefly written on a large sheet of coarse straw paper.
It had neither beginning nor end.
Yet it drew quite a crowd.
Among them were many Scholars in long robes, pointing and discussing the missing-person notice.
"Where under heaven might one find a kindred soul... The Artistic Conception is vast and lonely. The person who posted this notice must be a learned man skilled in poetry."
"What a pity it is only half a line. It cannot even be called a fragment; it is merely a fragment of a fragment."
"Brother Gu, you are a student of Guiyun Academy and renowned for your talent. Why not complete the second half? It would make for a fine story once spread abroad."
The young man in a Xiucai's long robe and square cap modestly declined at first.
But amid the crowd's urging, he began to consider it seriously.
A moment later, a smile suddenly appeared on his face. "I have it."
"Let us hear it, Brother Gu."
"Where under heaven might one find a kindred soul? Strings snap, yet no one understands the heart's bitter toil."
"Good, what a fine line!"
"A kindred soul is hard to find. Even if one has a lofty and pure melody, no one can grasp its true meaning. All that painstaking effort ends as an unheard echo in an empty valley!"
"Brother Gu..."
Chen Yi glanced at the lively scene, then closed the curtain and shut his eyes in thought.
According to the arrangement he had made with Lou Yuxue and Cui Qingwu when they parted yesterday, "Where under heaven might one find a kindred soul" meant Du Cang had