My name is Lanke — Rotten Axe-Handle. Not the name my parents gave me; the foothill people hung it on me.
There's a Southern-dynasties book called the Shuyi Ji, and in it the story of Wang Zhi: he went up the mountain to cut wood, saw some youths playing chess, and stopped to watch. Before the game ended he looked down — the wooden handle of his axe had rotted away. He went home to find his whole generation dead; decades had passed.
You laugh at Wang Zhi. Don't. I'm exactly the same.
I was nineteen that year, cutting wood up the mountain, when I came to the Chessboard Stone and saw two things playing chess. Not people — one was a peach tree's shadow shaped like a young girl; the other was mist gathered into a face I couldn't make out. The board lay on the rock; the stones were black and white pebbles. I stood and watched. It was beautiful. Wind moved when a stone was placed; flowers fell when a stone was taken.
When I came to myself, the sun was already westering. I looked down — my handle was fine; it was fresh jujube wood we'd just fitted. I went home thinking I'd lost an afternoon.
At home, my mother's hair had gone half white. I'd been missing, she said, for three whole months.
Three months. My father had combed the mountain three times with a search party and built me a grave. After that the village called me Lanke. My father smashed my axe in the street, shouting: chess-watching! I picked the handle out of the wreckage and said: Father, that game was worth it.
You ask if I regret it?
I'm forty-one now. Every year since, I've gone back to the Chessboard Stone, hoping for one more game. Never saw them again. The peach shadow and the mist don't come anymore. And that's when I finally tasted the truth of it: a game like theirs doesn't happen every day. The one I caught opens once in a few hundred years. I paid three months for my seat — and only watched half the match —
Is there a better bargain under heaven?
If your road takes you past the Chessboard Stone, set down a pebble for me. Black or white, either will do. Tell them: Lanke is still waiting for the second half.