But let us set aside Guangrui at his post and Xuanzang at his religious labors.

The storyteller changes the channel. 且不題, 'but not to tell of…', is his standard move for dropping one thread and picking up another, and here he drops two at once. 光蕊 is Chén Guāngruì, Xuanzang's father in the interpolated 陳光蕊 chapter; 玄奘 (Xuánzàng) is the foundling monk 江流兒 grown to manhood. 盡 in 盡職 is read jìn.

Our tale takes up instead the banks of the Jing River outside the city of Chang'an, where there dwelt two worthy men: one a fisherman named Zhang Shao, the other a woodcutter named Li Ding.

卻說, 'but to tell of…', is the other half of that pair, the storyteller taking hold of the new thread. It leads to the 涇河 (Jīng hé), a real tributary of the Wei west of Chang'an, whose dragon-king will shortly set the whole plot moving. 長 in 長安 is cháng, and 稍 in the fisherman's name 張稍 is shāo.

The two were, so to speak, unranked scholars who had never sat the examinations, literate men of the wilds.

The line is a deliberate contradiction in terms. A 進士 (jìn shì, 'presented scholar') held the highest examination degree in the empire, and these two are 不登科, men who never passed an examination in their lives. All the cultivation, none of the credentials. 山人 is a recluse, a man of the hills.

One day, having sold the firewood off their shoulders and the carp from their baskets in Chang'an, they went into a wineshop together, drank until they were half-tipsy, and, each carrying off a bottle, strolled back along the bank of the Jing at an easy pace.

Two men walking home from market with a bottle each: the whole debate grows out of this. 貨, normally 'goods,' works here as a verb, 'to sell off,' and 半酣 is that agreeable stage of being half-drunk and pleased with the world. 長 in 長安 is again cháng.

Said Zhang Shao: 'Brother Li, to my mind those who scramble for fame lose their very persons to it; those who snatch at profit destroy their bodies for it; those who take office sleep as though bedded down with a tiger; those who bask in imperial favor go about with a snake up their sleeve. Reckon it all up, and none of it matches our clear waters and green hills — free and unfettered, content with plain fare, drifting along as fortune allows.'

Zhang Shao opens with a catalogue of the official's occupational hazards. 爭名 and 奪利, scrambling for fame and snatching at profit, are the paired vices of the court. The two images that follow are proverbs for anyone who has taken a job that could destroy him: 抱虎而眠, sleeping with your arms round a tiger, and 袖蛇而走, walking about with a snake up your sleeve. Against them he sets 隨緣, a faintly Buddhist phrase for taking things as they come. 為 in 為利 is wèi, 'for the sake of,' and 那, 'those who…', is the pointing nà.

Li Ding replied: 'Brother Zhang speaks with reason. Only, your clear waters are no match for my green hills.'

Here the needling starts, and it will run for nine more passages. In 說得有理, 'speaks with reason,' the 得 is the small unstressed link that hangs a result onto a verb, read de; 那 in 你那水秀 is the pointing nà.

Zhang Shao said: 'Your green hills are no match for my clear waters. I have a lyric to the tune Butterflies in Love with Flowers to prove it. The lyric runs:'

A 詞牌 is a tune everybody already knows, to which a poet fits new words. The interest lies in hearing what a second writer does with the same melody, and that is exactly the game these two are about to play. 《蝶戀花》 (Diéliànhuā, 'Butterflies Longing for Flowers') is among the most familiar of them, and this is the first of ten matched 詞 in the fisherman-and-woodcutter contest. 為 in 為證, 'as proof,' is wéi.

Ten thousand lǐ of misty waves, and the little skiff rides light; leaning at ease against its lone canopy, I am wrapped in a murmur sweet as Xi Shi's own voice.

煙波 is mist-veiled water and 篷 the arched mat-canopy over a river-boat. To call the lapping sweet as the voice of 西施 (Xī Shī), the great beauty of ancient Yue and the standard by which loveliness was measured, is to give plain river-noise a bewitching softness. 里 is kept as lǐ.

Rinsing away every care and washing the heart clean, fame and gain grow few; idly I pluck at the spikes of smartweed and the blades of the reeds.

滌慮洗心, rinse the thoughts and wash the heart, is scouring worldly attachment out of yourself. The plants are ordinary water-margin growth: 蓼 (liǎo) is smartweed, 蒹葭 (jiān jiā) the unripe reeds, both familiar to any reader since the Book of Songs.

A scattering of sand-gulls is company enough to delight in the Way; on the willow bank, in the reedy cove, my wife and children laugh together with me.

樂道 is taking joy in the Way of the recluse, with 樂 read lè, and 堪 is 'enough to, fit to.' Watch 妻子: in modern Chinese it means simply 'wife,' but here the 子 carries its full weight as zǐ, so the phrase is wife and children together, the whole household laughing on the bank.

One good sleep, and wind and wave alike subside; no glory, no disgrace, and not a single care.

榮辱, honor and disgrace, are the two poles of a career at court, and the fisherman has just announced he wants neither of them. (一 shifts to yì before the rising tone of 覺, jué.) The closing 」 ends Zhang Shao's turn.

Li Ding said: 'Your clear waters are no match for my green hills. I too have a lyric to Butterflies in Love with Flowers to prove it. It runs:'

The rule of the game, stated by doing it: whatever tune you sing, I sing back. Li Ding answers 詞牌 for 詞牌, and will go on doing so all the way to the end of the contest. (為 in 為證 is wéi.)

A stretch of cloud-wrapped woods, brimming with pine-pollen; in silence I listen to the orioles cry, their nimble tongues like the tuning of a reed-pipe.

松花 is the yellow pollen of pines, which fixes the season as late spring, and 一段 is a stretch or expanse of it. The orioles sing as though somebody were tuning a reed-pipe: 調 in 調管, 'to tune a wind-pipe,' is read tiáo.

The reds thin and the greens grow lush as spring warms to its height, then all at once summer arrives and the seasons wheel on.

紅瘦綠肥, red grown thin and green grown fat, is the standard shorthand for blossom falling as the leaves fill out. It is also a borrowing: Lǐ Qīngzhào's best-known line, closing her 《如夢令》, runs 綠肥紅瘦, and the woodcutter has simply turned her phrase around. 倏然 is 'all at once,' and 光陰, literally 'light and shade,' is time itself.

Then comes autumn's turn, changing as lightly as before; the yellow chrysanthemums are fragrant, fit to be savored.

黃花, 'yellow flower,' always means the chrysanthemum, flower of the ninth month. 供玩 is 'to offer for one's enjoyment,' and 值 is to fall on, or land in, a season.

Harsh winter passes as swiftly as a snap of the fingers; through all four seasons I roam free, with no one to answer to.

如指撚, 'like a twist of the fingers,' means in an instant. 逍遙, free and unfettered, comes straight out of the Zhuāngzǐ, whose opening chapter takes the word for its title; and 無人管 is the flat, unliterary punchline, nobody to answer to. The 」 closes Li Ding's turn.