What to Do When Facing Difficulties? Gui Youguang's Way of Finding Things Enlightened by the Second Yang Line (92) of the Qian Hexagram

During the Jiajing era in Kunshan, just after the plum rain had let up, Gui Youguang paced back and forth in his study like a top tethered by a string. The first draft of *Records of Xiangji Xuan*, which he had spent three years writing, had been revised half a page by lamplight just the night before. But when he lifted the inkstone case that morning, there wasn't even a corner of the paper left.
His page boy Afu squatted on the threshold picking mud off the sole of his shoe, muttering, "Sir, shouldn't we report this to the authorities?" Gui Youguang waved his hand dismissively—alarming the county yamen over a stack of manuscripts would make people think he'd lost a family heirloom. Besides, the matter was neither too big nor too small. When it came to the problem of how to handle it, he could expound on the *I Ching* eloquently to his students on ordinary days, but when it was his own turn, he lost his composure entirely.
He paced over to the bookshelf, his fingertips brushing the dog-eared volume of the *Zhouyi*, when he suddenly stopped at the page of the Nine Two line of the Qian hexagram. "Seeing the dragon in the field, it is favorable to meet the great man." He stared at these eight characters for a long while, then suddenly slapped his forehead: these days he had only been rummaging through boxes and chests in his study, wasn't he trapped in the dead end of "the hidden dragon should not act"? If he really wanted to figure out how to make the right decision, how could he shut himself up and guess blindly? He had to go out, see the world, and ask others for advice.
He set off at once. Changing into a half-worn dark blue cloth gown, he walked along the ridge behind Xiangji Xuan toward the village. It was just after the Start of Summer; the water in the rice fields reflected the sky, and the croaking of frogs rose one after another. When he reached the old camphor tree, he saw Old Chen, a scholar from the neighboring village, sitting on a stone墩 sunning his books, with a bamboo book chest at his feet.
Old Chen was famous for never keeping lost property. Just last month, he had posted a notice at the village entrance saying he had picked up half a basket of embroidered shoes and asking the owner to claim them. Gui Youguang's heart skipped a beat. He stepped forward, made a bow, and told him about the lost manuscripts.
Old Chen stroked his white beard and smiled. "I was wondering whose manuscripts were blown all over the ridge by the wind early the other morning. I picked them up for ages to gather them all, and they're drying under my inkstone. I was also thinking, the handwriting is crooked, but the tone is quite bold—even saying 'there is a loquat tree in the courtyard'—what, has your loquat tree become a spirit?"
Gui Youguang felt both annoyed and amused, and thanked him repeatedly. Old Chen handed him the manuscripts, then added: "Young man, what do you do when you run into difficulties? Don't just pace around in the house. Look at the dragon: when it's hidden in the abyss, no one sees it; when it swims up to the ridge, only then do people know its ability."
Gui Youguang walked back holding the manuscripts he had lost and found again. The wind ruffled the pages, and the shadow of the loquat tree fell on the characters. He suddenly realized that this "seeing the dragon in the field" was not about a dragon at all—it was clearly saying that when people hit a rough patch, they shouldn't trap themselves in a tiny space. Go out, meet people, and maybe the answer is waiting right under the camphor tree by the ridge.
Back in his study, he rebound the manuscripts and added a line of small characters on the title page: "Lost on a rainy night, recovered by the field ridge." As for the phrase "it is favorable to meet the great man," he didn't write it—after all, Old Chen always said he was just an old man who sunned books, and didn't deserve the title of "great man." But Gui Youguang knew in his heart: someone who hands you a stack of dried manuscripts and says a word of clear sense when you're thrown off balance—what else is such a person, if not a great man?