Humming of a Reed

Humming of a Reed is a zither piece Kang GuangLing composes for his deceased friend Xuan Ku, transforming grief into an extravagant promise of musical remembrance. The composition’s title invokes a reed and the Shaolin founder Damo’s legendary crossing of a river, while Kang’s insistence that his dead friend should hear it makes the song a marker of their intimacy and of Kang’s eccentricity.

Composition and Dedication

Kang tells Xuan Nan that he has put great effort into creating the new song for Xuan Ku, whom he calls his soul-mate. He explains that Humming of a Reed praises Damo’s achievement in crossing the river with a reed, and asks to be taken to Xuan Ku’s tomb so he can play it there. In Kang’s imagining, the performance might relax his friend and even bring him back to life.

The song therefore joins a legendary religious image to a very personal act of mourning. Kang’s proposed performance is not simply a tribute: he treats music as a means of continuing a conversation with someone who can no longer answer.

Ashes and Musical Remembrance

Xuan Nan tells Kang that Xuan Ku’s body was cremated and reduced to ashes. Kang responds with delight rather than resignation, asking for the remains so he can use cowhide glue to attach them to his zither. Then, he reasons, Xuan Ku will hear every song Kang plays.

The proposal makes the scene both comic and unsettling. Kang’s grief does not end when the tomb proves unavailable; it finds a new, literal form, turning the instrument into a vessel for his friend’s remains and every future performance into an imagined act of companionship.

Grief amid Mortal Danger

Later, as the group expects a confrontation with the Old Freak of XingXiu and fears that everyone may die, Kang abruptly reframes his sorrow. If Xuan Ku had still been alive, he says, he would not have had the chance to hear Humming of a Reed; he then wonders aloud whether he is a great idiot or merely a small one. The remark entwines the song with the immediate danger: even on the brink of death, Kang measures his loss through the music he made for his friend.

The composition thus recurs as more than a title or a promised performance. It gives Kang a private language for grief, while his absurdly practical plans and self-mocking speech keep that grief from becoming solemn or conventional.