1477. The Eleventh Member
"Yes, my name is Li Bai!"
Li Bai shook the other boy's hand.
After letting go, the boy continued, "Li Bai, as in 'Beyond the mountains the sun sinks; the Yellow River flows into the sea'?"
He was speaking Chinese, and quite fluently, too—though with a bit of a Wu dialect lilt.
"That was written by the old Wang next door. Mine is 'The sun shines on the incense burner, sending up purple smoke; from afar, the waterfall hangs before the river.'"
Li Bai had no intention of making fun of him.
Wang Zhihuan, the old Wang next door—it was absolutely correct. (Wang Zhihuan of the Tang dynasty was born in Jiangzhou in 688; Li Bai of the Tang dynasty was born in Mianzhou, Jiannan Circuit, in 701.)
Chinese poetry was as plentiful as hairs on an ox, and there were more famous poets than you could count on your fingers and toes. It was perfectly normal for a foreigner to get them mixed up. If the roles were reversed, Li Bai probably wouldn't even know how many sonnets there were, so he'd have even less reason to laugh at someone else.
Put Wang Zhihuan's "Song of Liangzhou" beside Li Bai's "Leaving Baidi City at Dawn," and you'd see... this was no simple matter.
"I see! My name is..."
The white boy nodded and was just about to introduce himself when someone nearby spoke in a mocking tone. "Benny Jackson, aren't you supposed to have an IQ of 220? How could you get a single line of ancient Chinese poetry wrong? You're just a lying idiot, aren't you?"
Clearly, someone else could understand Chinese.
"Amanda, I haven't done anything to you today. Is your rebellious-phase syndrome acting up again?"
The white boy turned, annoyed, and glared