Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 196 "A Youthful Journey: Gazing at the Moon over Jiangling" [Seeking monthly votes!]

Lü Huiqing's poems are sharp and incisive, Cui Wenjing's lyrics are elegant and serene, and Wang Shao's poems are passionate and stirring. What does he write about?
To describe the joy of a banquet?
Is it about the sorrow of parting?
Or should I write about my thoughts on mountains and rivers?
These all seem unable to surpass the impact of the previous work, let alone leave an impression of equal weight in Song Qi's mind.

Lu Beigu did not rush to speak, but instead looked up at the autumn moon hanging over the Jingjiang River outside the hall.

The cool moonlight streamed through the carved window lattice and fell on his young face.

In that instant, he thought of Zhang Ruoxu's "Spring River Flower Moon Night" written when he was gazing at the moon, and Li Bai's "Preface to the Banquet at Peach Garden with My Younger Cousins ​​on a Spring Night" written when he was having a banquet.

Heaven and earth are the inn of all things.

Time is but a fleeting moment, a mere passerby through a hundred generations.

The only scenery that I share with Zhang Ruoxu and Li Bai from hundreds of years ago is this river moon that is "similar year after year".
As a time traveler, a loneliness that no one else could understand suddenly welled up in his heart.

Then Lu Beigu slowly spoke, his voice clear and bright, carrying a purity unique to young people, yet seemingly possessing a calmness beyond his years.

"A Youthful Journey: Gazing at the Moon over Jiangling"

The night on the Jingjiang River is still and the water is without a trace; only the distant starlight illuminates the fishing village.

How many times have I dreamt of this place, with only a few lanterns in the wind? Who will share the twilight with me?
The shadows of the painted railings shift as the first rays of dawn appear, and the Big Dipper falls into the deep wine cup.

A traveler adrift on the horizon, a passerby in the flow of time, the moon is the soul of my hometown.

There are no fancy words, no intense emotions, only a simple, descriptive narrative.

Lu Beigu shifted his perspective from the noisy banquet to the unchanging river and moon. The opening landscape description, though simple, reveals true meaning and instantly sketches the tranquil human life outside the banquet.

The eternal solitude and clarity revealed in this poem appear all the more profound after the clamor has subsided.

After the poem was recited, an eerie silence fell over the hall.

Even Song Qi's smile froze. His hand holding the wine glass stopped in mid-air, and the usual lazy and charming look in his eyes disappeared.

He stared intently at the tall, elegant young man standing in the moonlight.

Lu Huiqing's mouth was slightly open, her eyes filled with disbelief.

Although he was not good at poetry, he felt that the poem he had just written was not bad and was enough to leave an impression on Song Qi.

But everything is subject to comparison.

How can his poem be compared to Lu Beigu's?
Lu Beigu's poems lack intense emotions and deliberate wit; they possess only a detached and detached perspective that overlooks the human world.

The sigh of "a traveler on the road of life, a stranger in the passage of time," and the resounding words "the moon is the soul of my hometown," seem not to have come from the mouth of a seventeen-year-old boy, but rather from the whisper of a traveler who has been adrift in the river of time for thousands of years, uttering to the unchanging bright moon.

The level of understanding he reached far surpassed his earlier sarcasm, and was far beyond what his current state of mind could comprehend.

A complex emotion of "Why did Heaven create both Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang?" mixed with heartfelt amazement instantly seized Lü Huiqing's heart.

"I wish I had written this poem."

Wang Shao's originally calm gaze was now stirred.

His heart was filled with the heroic spirit of loving his country and its borders, while what flowed from Lu Beigu's pen was the ultimate loneliness of the universe and human life and the eternal homesickness.

The imagery in the poem seems to encompass the heavens and earth, mountains and rivers, stars and time.

This was a realm that transcended his understanding, almost akin to the "Tao."

His poems are like war drums on earth, while this poem is like the bright moon in the sky.

For the first time, Wang Shao's gaze towards Lu Beigu was filled with reverence. Cui Wenjing, standing beside Lu Beigu, was completely lost in thought. He had been immersed in his own unspoken thoughts of retiring into seclusion, but now he was struck by the pervasive sense of loneliness in Lu Beigu's poems.

"How many times have I dreamt of being a traveler, how many lanterns have I seen in the wind, who will share the twilight with me?" Isn't this a reflection of his life of wandering?

The line "The moon is the soul of my hometown" struck him like a lightning bolt, piercing the softest, most nostalgic corner of his heart and bringing tears to his eyes instantly.

He stared blankly at Lu Beigu, as if he were meeting this fellow townsman for the first time. Behind that calm and composed demeanor lay such a deep sense of desolation.

Compared to this, his previous words suddenly seemed narrow in scope.

The local gentry, who had been enjoying Lü Huiqing's satire of Wang Kui or Wang Shao's patriotic fervor, were now all speechless.

They may not be able to fully appreciate the essence of the poem, but the overwhelming sense of solitude and the soul-stirring lines like "The moon is the soul of my hometown" are enough to make them feel a sense of awe and reverence.

They looked at each other, both of them shocked.

—How could attending a banquet possibly lead to witnessing the creation of such a wonderful poem?
Even the musicians playing music below seemed to sense the mood, and their music had already stopped without them realizing it.

The only sounds in the back hall of the government office were the faint crackling of the burning candles and the occasional distant sound of the water clock outside the window.

A vacuum-like silence enveloped everyone, as if even breathing became cautious, lest they disturb the cold, clear moon in the poem, or awaken the homesickness that transcends millennia.

Song Qi finally slowly put down the wine glass in his hand, his movements as gentle as if he were afraid of shattering a dream.

"The line 'A traveler on the road, a stranger in the passage of time' alone captures the essence of Li Bai's 'Preface to the Banquet with My Younger Cousins ​​in the Peach Blossom Garden on a Spring Night.' The entire poem is descriptive in its simplicity, yet each word carries immense weight. There is no deliberate sentimentality, no artificial embellishment; it is like a lotus in clear water, naturally beautiful without adornment. Yet, the vastness and desolation of its imagery, and the depth and solitude of its sentiments, are truly rare."

With a profound and indescribable sense of awe, Song Qi exclaimed, "As for 'The moon is the soul of my hometown'! Such words, such imagery!"

He paused, as if each word needed to be painstakingly dug out from the depths of his soul in order to barely bear that heavy weight.

His eyes, which had read countless articles from around the world, were slightly unfocused at this moment, as if still captivated by that cold, clear "soul of his hometown," shaking him to his core.

Before the bright moon, all the poems and lyrics composed at today's banquet have become like fireflies!

Those gentry who were originally just captivated by the words and imagery and were still in a daze finally understood the weight of Song Qi's extremely high praise.

This is beyond ordinary talent; it touches upon a kind of eternal resonance that transcends time and space and reaches the deepest recesses of the human soul.

The silence was finally broken, not by a commotion, but by a low, barely suppressed murmur.

"Scholar Song actually gave such an evaluation!"

"Fireflies. The bright moon."

"This poem, this poem, will probably spread throughout Jiangling by tomorrow."

"A seventeen-year-old boy? That's simply unbelievable!"

Even the few gentry who had intended to step forward and offer some flattery were now silent, feeling that any words of praise seemed pale and powerless in the face of Song Qi's "firefly" judgment.

Lu Beigu stood quietly in the moonlight, his handsome face expressionless, as if Song Qi's earth-shattering evaluation and the complex and shocked gazes of the crowd had nothing to do with him.

He simply raised his head slightly, his gaze seemingly piercing through the carved beams and painted rafters of the roof, once again landing on the autumn moon that carried countless "souls of the hometown".

"Bright moon, do you also shine on my hometown a thousand years later, which I can never return to?"

The sound of the water clock outside the hall could be heard clearly.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, like the ceaseless flow of the river of time.

(End of this chapter)