How to Adjust When You Feel Unlucky? Wang Wei's Wangchuan Residence Offers the Answer

During the Kaiyuan era of the High Tang Dynasty, Wang Wei had just returned to Chang'an from his post of exile in Jizhou. With barely any money to his name, he nonetheless fell head over heels for the mountain hollows of Wangchuan in Lantian. His friends all laughed at him for abandoning his residence in Pingkang Ward of the city to go feed mosquitoes in the mountains. But he paid them no mind, squatting in the valley and staring blankly at the rocky shoal, his mind entirely occupied with how to turn this run-down place into a home.

Strangely enough, ever since he conceived the idea of building a house, troubles came one after another: he got into a dispute over the land deed with someone; the craftsmen said the mountain foundation was too soft to build on; even the white silver pheasant he kept moped around and refused to eat. Wang Wei sat by the mountain stream rubbing his brow, thinking to himself: Am I really so unlucky? Do I deserve to never live in a peaceful house?

One day, he dug out his old copy of the *Book of Changes*. Flipping through it casually, he landed on the second line of the Qian hexagram: "The dragon appears in the fields. It is favorable to see the great man." He stared at these characters for half the night, then suddenly slapped his thigh and laughed.

Early the next morning, he tucked a half-bag of dry rations into his clothes and went to find Old Man Tian in the village. Old Man Tian was a local herb farmer who had lived in Wangchuan for half his life, and had even had a falling-out with Wang Wei over a boundary dispute not long ago. Wang Wei didn't mention the land purchase at all. Instead, he squatted on the ridge of the field and chatted with the old man for a long time about the tricks of growing rehmannia. At the end of the conversation, he said: "I originally wanted to plant some herbs on the slope next to my house, but it's a pity I don't know the trade. If you're willing, old sir, why don't we partner up?"

Old Man Tian glanced at him sideways. "You, an official from the city, know about this stuff?"

Wang Wei took out a scroll of his own painting of a mountain dwelling. "I don't know how to farm, but I know how to read terrain. Look at this spot—it's sheltered from the wind, faces the sun, and has good drainage. It's perfect for growing atractylodes."

Back and forth they talked, and the two ended up becoming friends despite their age difference. Old Man Tian not only voluntarily gave up half an mu of land, but also helped find local stonemasons, saying that mountain houses had to be built with local stone to withstand the mountain winds. Wang Wei didn't hold back either, revising his *Mountain Dwelling Painting* again and again. Originally, he had wanted to build an imposing grand courtyard, but in the end he simply followed the contour of the mountain: he built the main hall on the high ground, dug a pond in the low area, planted bamboo on the slope, and planted pines by the stream. He didn't even move the big boulder that blocked the path; instead, he built a thatched pavilion right next to it, naming it "White Stone Shoal".

On the day the house was completed, friends came to offer congratulations. They were stunned as soon as they stepped through the door: there were no carved beams or painted rafters to be seen—instead, the house looked as if it had grown right out of the mountains. Wang Wei steeped tea and said with a smile: "I used to always think about how to deal with difficulties, determined to fight against fate. Now I understand: when a dragon is in the fields, it has to walk along the ridges. If it insists on flying up to the sky, it's just asking for a fall."

Later, he wrote in his poem *Autumn Evening in a Mountain Dwelling*: "The bright moon shines among the pines, and clear spring water flows over the stones." Everyone praised the poem for its beautiful imagery, but no one knew that back then, he had nearly made himself ill trying to achieve this sense of "going with the flow". When someone asked him how he had figured it out when things were so hard, Wang Wei pointed to the crooked stone in the yard and said: "If people are always obsessing over how to make the right decision, they're more likely to go down the wrong path. Look at this stone—it blocks the way, sure, but sitting on it to watch the moon is far more comfortable than sitting on a chair."

As for how to adjust when you feel like you're out of luck? Wang Wei never said those exact words, but he mentioned one line in a letter to a friend: "When one's home is at peace, one's mind is settled; when one's mind is settled, the dragon appears in the fields, and everything goes favorably." These words were later copied onto the wall of the Wangchuan Villa. Wind and rain wore away the handwriting, but the truth behind them grew ever more vigorous, just like the old pine tree in the yard.