Chapter Eight: Understanding

The young woman began dancing gracefully once more, and Wang Erlang, not daring to slip into a daze this time, forced himself to watch closely as her slender waist swayed, lithe and delicate, like willow branches stirred by the wind. And, quick as a flash, the sash seemed to multiply again, as if by some conjurer's trick — one becoming two, two becoming four, four becoming eight — leaving Wang Erlang unable to take it all in.

Suddenly, the story his master had once told him of "Cook Ding cutting up an ox" flashed through his mind.

His master had said: "An ordinary cook must change his blade every month; a skilled one only once a year. But the cook who once carved an ox for Lord Wenhui used the same blade for nineteen years, and it remained as sharp as if freshly whetted. He relied not on his eyes, but on his spirit's own encounter with the ox. A painter follows the same principle — it isn't enough to see mere form; what matters far more is capturing the spirit and essence." This wisdom had been passed down through generations of their craft, and even his master himself had only ever attained a fraction of it — and yet it remained, without question, the highest ideal every painter among them strove toward.

And so Wang Erlang closed his eyes, drew a deep breath, and let his own spirit reach out to grasp the interplay between the young woman and her sash. With every gesture of her hand, every shift of her step, the sash moved in perfect harmony with her, force and beauty intertwined, so that woman and sash together revealed an ever-shifting, boundless grace.

When he opened his eyes again, there before him remained only a single blue-green sash. It hadn't gained a single thread, nor lost a single inch. It had never truly been the sash that transformed endlessly — it had always been her dance. The sash simply received each of her poses in turn, inseparable from her, and it was this that gave rise to a thousand different graces, together weaving a beauty beyond compare, transcending the mortal world entirely.

Just as, without the bright, clear moon in the sky above, how could the boundless world below ever hope to hold its shimmering reflection?

Wang Erlang understood at last: the young woman had reached that state of "spirit's encounter," and only through it could she command the sash to transform so endlessly, so vividly alive. She and the sash were one, not two. And he — Wang Erlang — longed to reach that same state himself, so that the apsara beneath his own brush might truly leap from the wall, so lifelike that she seemed to soar freely through the cave itself.

The moment the young woman stopped dancing, Wang Erlang bolted down from the scaffold, intending to fetch the large scraper and strip away every apsara he had already painted. As it happened, he ran straight into his master, who had just come into the cave to check on the progress of the work. Seeing Wang Erlang take up the large scraper, his master's face filled with confusion.

"What Master once taught us — that 'the senses come to rest, and the spirit moves as it will' — I only ever half understood before. Now I have suddenly grasped its meaning, and I wish to begin again from the start. I beg Master to explain this to the patrons — it may delay the schedule, but Erlang will give them an apsara that truly satisfies them."

His master was taken aback at first, but as Wang Erlang turned away with such firm resolve, he stroked his beard and let a faint, knowing smile cross his face.

No sooner had he finished speaking than Wang Erlang hurried back up the scaffold at a near-run, the whole structure swaying and creaking beneath him. But this time the young woman voiced no complaint at all, only asking, flatly, "You're certain?"

Wang Erlang came to a stop, breathing a little hard, his face nonetheless glowing with light.

"I'm certain." He nodded, then turned at once, and with a great sweep of his blade, pressed the scraper to the wall. Fine flecks of azurite and malachite green came fluttering down, and layer by layer, the colors he had painted with his own hand through so many countless nights of toil faded back into the bare wall beneath...

Watching his back, so resolute and unwavering, the young woman finally broke into a joyful smile...