I was stunned to hear that you had passed away, and tears streamed down my face. This was the only public figure I had ever wept for, and I doubt there will be another. Since last night, my spirits had been wretched; I hadn't wanted to do anything. When I finally began to recover a little, I found I didn't know what to write.
Heaven and earth are the furnace, creation the smith; yin and yang the fuel, and all things the metal.
Then, all at once, a line from Ode to the Bird surfaced in my mind. In fact, it was Huang Yaoshi who had first introduced me to it through Legend of the Condor Heroes. I'm ashamed to say that I've forgotten many of the poems we studied at school, but the words in your great works have stayed with me. They fit my feelings now, too.
I first encountered your great works as an eight-year-old child; now I'm past forty, and they have accompanied me for decades. As you once wrote, "Flowers bloom and fall, then bloom again; young men grow old in the martial world, and at last white hairs appear at the temples of once-beautiful young women." That line still amazes me beyond words. I've read many novels, including works by famous authors, but when it comes to capturing the passage of time, nothing has moved me more. Later, I learned that the line was adapted from the Peking opera Wujia Slope, but in the book it truly felt like "a gazelle's horns caught in a tree, leaving no trace."
If great works influence us imperceptibly, like a spring breeze bringing rain that silently nourishes all things, then "a gazelle's horns caught in a tree, leaving no trace" also describes how your works shaped me. In books, there are beauties like jade; in books, there are golden houses. It was only after reading your great works that I truly understood those lines.
Reading your works was like savoring the famous dish Whose Jade Flute Plays the Falling Plum Blossoms: its flavors were boundless, its variations endless. In your books, you gave me a world of dazzling splendor: sights, delicacies, and fine wines beyond imagining; the misty rains of the south; endless moonlit nights; chivalrous heroes who kept their word at any cost; treacherous villains; loves that endured through life and death; friends who shared each other's joys and sorrows; the patriotism of the greatest heroes, who fought for their country and its people; compassion for the suffering world; old enmities dissolved with a laugh at reunion; bright flowers and swift horses, and swords carried through the martial world. There was the refined pleasure of music, chess, calligraphy, and painting, and there were also the religious and philosophical ideas of Western culture.
For others, your works were memories of childhood. For me, they were wise teachers and good friends who accompanied me throughout my life. The spirited ambition of my youth always bore traces of your works.
I still remember when I had just graduated. My mother urged me to stay and work in my hometown. She spoke earnestly at length, but I replied with only one sentence: "Those things are all very, very good, but I just don't like them."
Back then, I joked with friends, "Even if I spend my life wandering and adrift, I'll still live happily and freely," and "I'm naturally wild and untamed; I could never stand a quiet, settled life like this." But as I grew older, I found myself longing more and more for stability. The dreams of my youth could only be sought, with aching persistence, in your works.
In your youth, you had hoped to enter politics, but in the end you became famous for your martial arts novels. Perhaps that was a regret for you, but it was a great blessing for Chinese culture. In the eyes of the literary establishment, martial arts novels had always been lowbrow works; it was thanks to you that they gained recognition. Some even said that martial arts novels fell into two categories: Jin Yong's novels, and martial arts novels. After the study of Dream of the Red Chamber came the study of Jin Yong, which even found a place in the halls of Peking University—an exceedingly rare thing in the cultural world over these past decades.
Yet you, who left us so many beautiful works, slipped quietly away, just as you once said: life is making a great commotion, then quietly departing. And so the world lost a great literary master, and Chinese literature lost its last giant.
I heard you had transformed into a crane and departed; the whole world shares in the sorrow.
Your writings are scattered across the earth; their fragrance will endure for ten thousand ages.
My pen is too weak to express even a fraction of the sorrow in my heart. I offer this to mourn you, though I fear it falls short of the respect you deserve. All I have is a sincere heart. May you rest well on your journey!