Zhang Wanshi

Zhang Wanshi never cared for wine. When teaching Halcyon and Crane, he kept few rules, but abstaining from wine was one of them. Wine dulled the mind and the senses, and a single lapse could ruin a piece of fine work, wasting precious materials, which is no different from committing a sin. But after returning from beyond the peaks, Zhang Wanshi became a broken drunkard. Whenever he closed his eyes, his ears filled with the sound of wailing. Before him rose a sea of faces, hollow, mud-caked, and drained of all color. "I couldn't save you. I couldn't save any of you." He had given everything he had. He knew well enough that drowning himself in jar after jar of wine was nothing more than clutching at the last fraying straw. That straw had long since snapped, and yet he could not stop asking himself: if he had truly drained every last drop that day, would they have given him the authority to harness the river and shore up the dikes? Would any of it have been different? But the dead do not come back, and the floodwaters would rage again without mercy. So there truly are things beyond the reach of human hands. "Genius" was a title he had bestowed upon himself. In the end, it amounted to nothing at all. His hands trembled violently as he reached for the wine jar once more. To remember is madness. To forget, madness still. Good for nothing. Then let this be my end. Let me drown here in oblivion, and perish with not even a grave to bear my name.