Duan Yu—Wang YuYan

Duan Yu—Wang YuYan describes Duan Yu’s one-sided love for Wang YuYan as an attachment that governs his attention and choices even when she does not reciprocate or notice his devotion. After the two are separated, he keeps traveling in the same direction as her party, then spends a month looking for her; landscape, conversation, and even Buddhist reflections become occasions for thoughts of Wang YuYan.

The Separation

After Duan Yu helps rescue members of the Beggar Society at Wuxi, A’Zhu, Bao BuTong, and Feng BoE join him and travel north in search of Murong Fu. Duan Yu wants to accompany them, and Feng BoE welcomes him, grateful that Duan Yu had drawn scorpion poison from him. Bao BuTong, however, objects to Duan Yu’s earlier disguise as Murong Fu, which he believes has damaged his master’s reputation, and threatens to beat him unless he leaves. Wang YuYan is absorbed in finding her cousin and talking with Feng BoE; she does not attend to Duan Yu’s predicament.

Duan Yu has little choice but to part from Wang YuYan. He nevertheless continues north, reasoning that Henan is not the private territory of the Murong family and that he has as much right to travel there as Murong Fu and Bao BuTong. He also entertains the possibility that meeting Wang YuYan again would be fate, a hope that turns an unwanted separation into a reason to keep following her route.

Searching for Wang YuYan

The hoped-for encounter does not come quickly. For a whole month Duan Yu wanders around Henan, describing the journey to himself as sightseeing while actually scanning in every direction for some glimpse of Wang YuYan. The contrast makes clear how completely his attention has narrowed: the region’s mountains and scenery pass unnoticed, while the possibility of seeing her remains the object of his travels.

At White Horse Temple in Luoyang, Duan Yu discusses Buddhist teaching with the abbot, including the Seven Treasures of the Chakravartin and the impermanence of what people prize. His interest in the Jade Maiden treasure turns the discussion toward an idealized description of feminine beauty. Yet Buddhist reflection does not loosen his attachment. When Zhu Danchen later suggests that chess with the Deaf-Mute Old Man might distract him, Duan Yu agrees that a game could ease his worries but immediately observes that Wang YuYan, though knowledgeable about martial arts and weapons, cannot play chess and would not attend the gathering.

Thought and Idealization

On the journey north-west, Duan Yu’s mind returns to Wang YuYan even while he speaks in Buddhist terms. He recalls the teaching that beauty is only blood and flesh and will eventually become bones and dust, but his imagination converts the warning into another expression of devotion: even as a skeleton, he thinks, she would remain beautiful. The thought shows the persistence of his idealization, which absorbs a lesson about impermanence rather than allowing it to challenge his longing.

The relationship is therefore marked by a pronounced imbalance. Wang YuYan is focused on finding Murong Fu and does not notice Duan Yu’s distress when he is forced to leave; he, by contrast, measures his route and experiences against the chance of encountering her. His pursuit remains a private hope, not a mutual promise, and the supplied episodes leave him still traveling and thinking of her without resolving that distance.