Zhao of Jingjiang, named Cengyi, had fine talent and was thought well of in literary circles. But when he looked in the mirror he was ashamed of what he saw, and he wrote a poem on the wall:
I would send a note and ask the King of the Dead: this face — is the real Lushan anywhere in it? If you say Zuo Si was ugly as they claim, then who was it the roadside crowd threw fruit at?
He finished, lay down in a rage, and found himself somewhere like a king’s palace, with a hall of three bays beside it and a gold-lettered plaque over the door: The Wheel of Faces.
While he was still staring, a scholar in a high cap and Daoist robe came slowly out with two books under his arm. It was an old friend of his, Kang Xihou.
Kang had been a famous man of Zhejiang who made his living as a painter in the households of the great. He and Zhao had been close.
They asked after each other. Kang said: “You have not heard? I have been tired of the world a long while. Because I was rather good with a brush in life, I have been requisitioned as a secretary by the Wheel-Turning King. For every living thing, I draw the eyes, ears, mouth and nose first — and then it is sent down to be born.”
He held out the two books. “Look at these and you will know how much thought the work costs me.”
Zhao opened the first. It was labelled the faces of the eminent. Every one of them was ugly or clumsy; the next best were pockmarked, bearded, dark and fat.
He opened the second. It was labelled the faces of the base. These were beautiful as women and girls, and though the brows and eyes lacked refinement, each had a certain self-regarding look.
Zhao said angrily: “You hold the power of creation. Why have you swapped the shapes of high and low and stood beauty and ugliness on their heads like this?”
Kang smiled: “How low you aim. The gentlemen in the great offices of our day must surely have something worth seeing within. Must they borrow outward appearance to achieve rank? It is the poor and base who cannot stand up on their own — give them a good face and above they can bask in the favour of the great, below they can slip into the powder-and-paint quarter and steal a little of that love. This is my grandmotherly concern for the world, and my skilful method of making shapes. Besides — reading your face, your eminence is beyond words. If you only did your looks and made yourself pleasant to the eye, I fear you would be poor and base for a long time. How would you ever plant your banner in the arena of letters and pick up a degree?”
Zhao said: “You go too far. Pan Yue in his flowering county, Wei Jie in his goat-cart, the Marquis of Liu whose face was like a beautiful woman — were they all poor and base to the end?”
Kang said: “Pan Yue poured wine for Lord Shan, and the stink of it has lasted a thousand years. Wei Jie was looked to death by the people at the roadside. And if the Marquis of Liu had not gone wandering after the Master of the Red Pine, I fear he would have ended in the Bell Room like the rest of them. In short: whoever asks to be complete is certain to attract the jealousy of the Creator. Better to leave a defect or two — it makes a place for a lifetime of good fortune to sit.”
Zhao said nothing.
Kang said: “If you are willing to have your allotment of good fortune reduced, I can still retouch you.”
Zhao was delighted and asked him to do it. Kang took up the brush from the table and made a few strokes about Zhao’s face.
“That will do.”
Zhao asked for more.
Kang said: “We have been friends ten years. I could not bear to leave you looking like a man who has starved to death.”
Then there came the shout of a retinue approaching. Zhao fled in confusion — and woke.
After that his face gradually improved and his literary faculty gradually declined. He stumbled about the examination halls for more than thirty years, and ended his days as nothing but a licentiate.
The Duo comment: “Of the faces of all you great gentlemen, I have now heard. But I do not know what face belongs to the rich. Answer: the books of physiognomy have it — the man shaped like a horse or a donkey is the one who is rich.”
