The Three Servants of Black Cast:

DA ZHANG - a Legalist and a soldier

LI LIANG - a Confucianist and a public official

ZHEN FENG - a Daoist and a scholar

Setting: Beginning of 1st century C.E.; Han dynasty China

(LI LIANG’s home––A siheyuan, a traditional ancient Chinese courtyard. Looming, luxurious, green bamboo on two adjacent sides. Wooden fence standing in front of the bamboo. One short, medium-sized, three-legged wooden table, large enough to hold a traditional weiqi board and two bowls each holding 180 weiqi stones, one set of black and one set of white. A larger bowl of coins also sits on the table. Three short seats––one with a back and no armrests, one with armrests, and one with no back and no armrests. DA ZHANG sits on the chair with no back and no armrests, which is practically a stool. He wears plain, traditional clothes. LI LIANG sits on the chair with a back and armrests. He wears silk, bright, detailed clothing that hangs slightly loosely on his body. ZHEN FENG sits on the chair with a back yet no armrests. He wears plain yet slightly loose clothes.)

Weiqi: A game in which two players, one with 180 black stones, one with 180 white stones, place their stones on the intersection points of the lines on a gridded board. Each player tries to surround a group of the other player’s pieces on the board. Once one player’s stones are completely surrounded by the other player, the trapped stones are removed from the board. The game ends when both players pass their turn and agree to end the game.

Act 1

Scene 1

DA ZHANG cheers. He has just won a game of weiqi. 

DA ZHANG: I won! I will take my reward, justly and fairly––I apologize to you, Li Liang, and your wife as well. I suppose you won’t be able to buy her that nice jade vase she has been asking for. Though, I know you already have many, many, many––

LI LIANG: How acute of you, Da Zhang! Your presumptions about my life, as always, are infallible. I need not the vase; I need not the money. Take it all. I have more than I can spend on silk, the smoothness of which you can hardly imagine; in fact, I have more than I can hide in all my silk robes, more than I can hide in my thick, luxurious hair, so please, I beg of you, spare me the hassle and take it all! After all, you probably need it, being a soldier and all.

DA ZHANG: (chuckling) Alright Li Liang, no need to go there. (He scoops up his prize from the coin bowl.) Zhen Feng, you up to play? (ZHEN FENG is sitting back in his chair gazing into the bamboo forest). Zhen Feng! You there? Flirting with Li Liang’s baby bamboo shoots again, are you?

ZHEN FENG: (muttering but loud enough for DA ZHANG to hear) Always trampling on me and nature. Hmph, classic Legalist.

DA ZHANG: What was that, Zhen Feng? Surely no disrespect, hmm?

ZHEN FENG: Da Zhang, you really should stop hanging onto every breath of mine and listen to those of the bamboo, the grass, the earth. But sure, I am up for another game.

DA ZHANG: (smiling broadly) Splendid! Trust me, Zhen Feng, now I will truly trample over you, and then your Mistress Nature will hear nothing but the euphonic jingling of your money in my pocket! I’ll take that sound over your bamboo wind chimes any day.

The three clean up the board and prepare for the next game between DA ZHANG and ZHEN FENG.

DA ZHANG: Alright, I have the black stones. I shall start.

Throughout the following scenes, DA ZHANG and ZHEN FENG continue to place pieces on the board, occasionally removing pieces.

DA ZHANG: Ah, whilst I’m sure you were merely teasing me, Li Liang, I do in fact need this money. I deserve a higher wage  for my military service , but the bureaucracy still clasps on to their bulging pockets for dear life. Take Li Liang, for example; you must be getting paid more than I. Do these people not know who keeps them safe, who ensures they don’t get their throats slit in their sleep in some coup, who gives them that “dear life” with which they clutch their coins like filthy bamboo rats? Everyone knows the landlords hog more and more power as they seize more peasant land.

LI LIANG: And yet, all have the—

ZHEN FENG: Da Zhang, whine about your salary all you want, but leave the bamboo rats out of it, will you? Instead, embrace the rats; embrace all of nature.

DA ZHANG: Zhen Feng, just play your next stone.

LI LIANG: Yes, Zhen Feng, silence yourself. Your words crumble like withered leaves before they even enter our ears. Why do you yourself not embrace nature––particularly nature’s current silence? (LI LIANG waves his hand all around him; everybody is still and silent. Then, ZHEN FENG scowls and focuses on the weiqi board, and LI LIANG addresses DA ZHANG). As I was saying, in rebuttal to your complaints, all members of society have the opportunity to attain bureaucratic positions––peasants, landlords, even whiny soldiers like yourself. Our Confucianist system prizes merit, potential, and scholarship. It is your duty to strive to embody these qualities; after all, everybody has something to offer––even nature with its silence. (LI LIANG smiles wryly at ZHEN FENG, who glances up and scowls at him again).

DA ZHANG: (scoffing) Ah yes, how could I be so ignorant! You Confucianists and your precious ren. (in a mocking tone) “Everybody is good! Everybody is kind! Everybody has a heart!” At the end of the day, you politicians can toy with your “precious” ren all you would like, but you leave us workers with none of what is actually precious and what you all practically swim in––money. So, please do not insult my perception.

LI LIANG: None would dare insult the omniscient perception of the supreme Da Zhang! (ignoring DA ZHANG’s scowl) As you so wisely say, everybody has a heart. Now, allow me to build off of your grand wisdom and grant you an epiphany on Confucianism: just as how every man’s heart fights for life by receiving blood from the veins and then pumping this blood through the arteries, every man must accept and then practice his superiors’ teachings to fight for moral perfection.

DA ZHANG: (sitting even straighter on his stool) Your inflamed ego and supercilious tone sour your tongue. So what, you are my superior then? And I must listen to you in order to attain moral perfection? Li Liang, I may be a guest in your home, and you may be my gracious host, but I shall not succumb to your blatant condescension.

LI LIANG: This courtyard in which you sit, this home in which you relax, the man across from whom you sit are all founded upon my wen, my literary ability. Years I have spent devoted to scholarship, to literature and the arts. In fact, I designed this courtyard based on one of my earliest paintings. Had I not sought moral perfection, you would not be sitting here, playing my weiqi.

DA ZHANG: And while you sit there, how many peasants and soldiers like me are––

ZHEN FENG: Li Liang, stop distracting from the game. Da Zhang, it is your turn.

Da Zhang turns back to the board.

DA ZHANG: This can’t be…I’ve lost five stones? Now, how did you––

ZHEN FENG: I was not focusing on your useless skirmishes about our flawed society. And so I took five of your stones. Your turn.

DA ZHANG: Very well, Zhen Feng, very well. Come Li Liang, let us refocus on the game. Argue we can always, but I cannot lose to Zhen Feng now!

LI LIANG: I am a simple spectator, Da Zhang. You are the one who let Zhen Feng take five of your pieces. May you focus and learn not to let this happen again.

DA ZHANG: Very well, Li Liang, very well. A well-deserved punishment for a quarrel between friends. Zhen Feng, let us see how far your foresight spans!

Lights dim on the courtyard.

Scene 2 

Lights brighten on the same courtyard. An hour has passed. DA ZHANG now appears more frustrated at the weiqi game with ZHEN FENG.

DA ZHANG: (mumbling) Nothing I can do here, nothing here, nothing there. He has me trapped…(aloud) Li Liang, have you any ideas for me?

LI LIANG: Now you would like to hear my words?

DA ZHANG: Oh, Li Liang, please, just give me a hand here––Zhen Feng has ensnared almost all my pieces in just a few turns!

ZHEN FENG: If I may, Li Liang, your seat has a back. Why do you sit there with a rigid back, shoulders, and neck when you could appreciate the chair you have behind you?

LI LIANG: (to DA ZHANG) I apologize. As Confucius says so wisely, “The relation between superiors and inferiors is like that between the wind and the grass. The grass must bend when the wind blows across it.” All of China bends to this brilliant statement. Yet, for you, all the cyclonic winds I can muster are but feeble breezes against your dense skull. You wish me not to be your superior, you wish not to learn, so I will not be superior, and I will not teach. (DA ZHANG throws his hands up in exasperation). (to ZHEN FENG) Ever since I could think, my parents disciplined me to sit with my back straight. The chair back acts as a temptation, a distraction. It is an unnecessary tool, for a man must learn to stand by himself. Sitting straight spurns that temptation and its dependence.

ZHEN FENG: But you are not doing anything; you simply sit while we play!

LI LIANG: It is a way of life, Zhen Feng. The quest for moral perfection is ever-present, and the allurement for depravity never dies. You would be virtuous to follow my example––

ZHEN FENG: (addressing LI LIANG with disdain yet gazing out at the bamboo forest) You Confucianists are unflagging in your quest for moral perfection. You abuse every opportunity you have to “discipline” yourself. Even the back of your chair must be a test of abstinence, which, if you pass, will infuse you with even more virtue. But where is all of this virtuous teaching originating from––Confucius, who is but another man? Your virtue is yet another construct. (disappointedly) What lives you Confucianists lead.

LI LIANG: (Leaning forward in his seat slightly, even farther from the seatback) Bold words, Zhen Feng. Wherever did you learn to speak this way?

ZHEN FENG: (Now glaring at LI LIANG). You forget, Li Liang. I am a scholar. While you learn to “grow morally,” I learn to understand the world. And as I understand it more, I perceive more of your failings.

DA ZHANG: (aside, scoffing) Scholars.

LI LIANG: (sardonically) Heavens, Zhen Feng, you speak as if discipline is unnecessary. Now, what exactly do your Daoist ideals propose?

ZHEN FENG: Not now, Li Liang, not now. I must focus on the game. As you can see, I have lost six white stones while speaking with you.

LI LIANG: Of course, please. At least you know when to focus on the game, Zhen Feng. (snidely) Am I right, Da Zhang?

DA ZHANG: (chuckling) Yes, yes, Li Liang. But on that comment I must make another point. You told me earlier. I needed to focus, and I did, after accepting my punishment of losing five stones. And now, I have taken six stones from Zhen Feng as my reward. The nature of this game and its rules demands acute attention from its players, and by refocusing after my punishment under those rules I gained the advantage. Reward and punishment were all I needed, not education.

LI LIANG: (smirking) What a pit you have dug for yourself! How could you have gained such an advantage without learning from your mistakes and the moves Zhen Feng made? Without adopting that sharp, disciplined focus how could you ever have seized your opportunity to take six of Zhen Feng’s stones?

DA ZHANG: How is it with every question you ask, Li Liang, you seem less and less educated? Honestly, what has all that Confucianist discipline and education done for you? I did not learn from the moves that Zhen Feng I made; the game’s rules directed me. There is no inequality between me and Zhen Feng, naming me the inferior and the one who must learn from the superior. As you said earlier, you bend to the wind, the teachings of mankind. I bend to the rules and the rules only.

LI LIANG: But who made those rules? A human being, no? In the end, are you not learning from the teachings of humans who made these same realizations before you did?

DA ZHANG: Questions, questions, questions, you miss the point! (leaning forward on the table) I am evil. My heart is corrupt. All our hearts are twisted. The rules must be followed, for they are correct, from beginning to end, word for word. None of us have the jurisdiction to change the rules.

LI LIANG: And do you not tire of being the perpetually evil one? Of being one who can supposedly never change, of being one who is by nature stagnant in heart and mind? Explain this to me, Da Zhang: if humans can adapt to your rewards and punishments, then why can they not adapt their hearts and minds to be good?

DA ZHANG: Because we are INSUFFERABLE! Only the law may rule; the ruler is its physical instrument to fashion society to its desired shape.

LI LIANG: It is not the law that rules, but the men who make the law and the men who enforce the law and the men who live under the law. Society is fundamentally man’s construct, man’s world. The law is man’s instrument.

DA ZHANG: You clearly adore questions, so how about answering a few of mine? What right do Confucianists have to judge the nature of man? What keen perception do they have? My lineage is filled with soldiers, men who fought to end the Warring States Era, men who under the strict hand of the law reined in China’s chaos. “Your courtyard, your home, your weiqi, you are from your years of dedication to literature and the arts.” None of these are yours. Had it not been for soldiers like me, you would simply be one irrelevant government official in a politically and physically besieged state.

LI LIANG: You soldiers serve your purpose. Legalism promotes essential workers, but as always, your ideology is short-sighted. What philosophy has sustained peace and prosperity in China for the past two centuries? Confucianism-educated officials. History has proven that literary achievement means more than martial achievement. Wen over wu. Literary ability over physical and military accomplishments. Scholars over soldiers. Me over you.

DA ZHANG: (bitterly) Aha! Now we come to the point. You think you’re better than me. The entire scholar-gentry class considers itself superior to the rest of the country. Yet, as you paint your paintings and write your papers, you feast on the food peasants put on your table. You say peasants should be respected, but any man or woman toiling in the fields will tell you that what was once their land has been appropriated by apathetic landlords and that they work relentlessly with no reward. Peasants slave away all day long, eat what little they can gather, and then sleep only to repeat this humiliating cycle again. Two centuries of peace and prosperity? Yes, for the scholar-gentries who flaunt their privilege upon the foundations built by workers tossed to the side once sucked of all life. And why is the scholar-gentry class so powerful? Confucianism––the never-ending, false journey to “nurture” ren through education.

LI LIANG: Under your strict hand, all would suffer. If humans are naturally evil, then I can only think the need for punishment would overpower the need for rewards. Especially after the Warring States Era.

DA ZHANG: And under your hand inequality would become legitimized to the point where you may live perfect lives, but the peasants and soldiers who built your lives are stuffed away in some corner of the land so that none of you ever have to lay another eye on their shriveled forms.

LI LIANG: (standing up, stiffly) If there is such inequality between you and me, then why do you even sit here, berating me in my own home?

DA ZHANG: (jumping up) Honestly, I do not know––

ZHEN FENG: Sit down. There will be no slaughter here today.

DA ZHANG: (angrily) Why?

ZHEN FENG: Because I am on the brink of defeating you Da Zhang, and quite miserably so. And because I wish for us to sit here and discuss for longer in Li Liang’s home. Would that be possible, Da Zhang? Li Liang? If we could discuss longer?

LI LIANG: One so close-minded as he cannot be reasoned with.

ZHEN FENG: But I can. And I have not had my say yet. Allow me to join in while Da Zhang hopelessly flails about to save his black stones from imminent annihilation. Yes?

Silence. LI LIANG sits down, back straight. ZHEN FENG plays a piece and sits back. DA ZHANG regroups his pieces and reevaluates the board.

DA ZHANG: (mumbling) “Flailing about.” “Imminent destruction.” Hmph.

Lights dim.

Scene 3

Lights brighten, the spotlight on the Daoist.

DAOIST: From your arguments, we have seen that humans seem not to be enough. They are lacking in some way or form––corruption, single-mindedness, the list goes on. Education and the law cannot cure these faults, for they themselves are corrupted by men. And as I can clearly see from my position, differences in the ways men believe society should be ruled only lead to more chaos, even among close friends. So, how to cure our current chaos? Well, from where do humans originate? Nature. Society is meaningless if we do not return to our roots. We have lived chaos under both Legalism and Confucianism, two philosophies heavily focused on how to rule society. Therefore, we must look away from society and instead consider the other resources we possess. And what is that but the natural world that preceded us and will ultimately succeed us? Dao, the path of nature, is eternal and the root of all that is natural. Yet it is spontaneous, therefore giving man the leeway to adapt, as it always has. No need to pay attention to artificial constructions of government and education. Nature is always present and all-encompassing; it does not practice Confucianist exclusion nor does it claim Legalist tyrannical power over its followers.

CONFUCIANIST: I must stop you there. You propose to replace chaos with more spontaneity?

LEGALIST: A fair point the Confucianist has brought up there, Daoist.

DAOIST: That was foolish positioning, Legalist. Please refocus.

ZHEN FENG leans forward and plucks a black stone off the board, placing it in the amassing pile beside his own stone bowl.

DAOIST: (to CONFUCIANIST) China’s chaos only originated in the first place because the country became obsessed with each state’s purview and hegemony over others. We lived under the wrong sort of chaos.

CONFUCIANIST: Now you are the one being foolish. The wrong chaos? There should be no chaos at all––only peace and order. That is what discipline and culture beget; as you say, nature is ever-changing, which is why it is hostile to mankind.

DAOIST: Confucianist, look around you! We sit in your courtyard, surrounded by one of nature’s most staunch and elegant plants (for if bamboo was not elegant, then why would you have covered your land in them), and yet you still talk of its hostility. You obviously use it to comfort and relax you, no? Is this not an indulgence that your discipline should ignore?

CONFUCIANIST: So, it seems you too have a problem with my home. Well, as I told the Legalist, if you dislike the way I run my home, why do you still sit here comfortably in your chair?

LEGALIST: (guffawing) Because he is enjoying himself too much! This man is full of contradictions! He is meant to practice withdrawal into nature, yet he sits here and actively tries to persuade us to do the same. Surely social activism does not classify as withdrawal. Next, let us direct our attention to his profession––a scholar. Not only is his work fundamentally useless to our society, but his profession centers around Confucianism’s promotion of education. Dangerous hypocrites all around us, I say, hypocrites who dare to believe they know the right path and even stretch to convince others of their folly!

DAOIST: Me, a hypocrite? I am forced into my profession and my activism because there is no possible way for me to withdraw while the rest of Confucianist China distorts the natural world! How I wish I could stroll in our nation and not see bridges debasing the rivers, trees mutilated for aesthetics or real estate, man-made paths staining all of China’s expanse! If I could simply sit and watch the abundance of fauna and flora grow around me, then I would be free of corruption! I would very much be what you Legalists search for but better! Reduced to my base form, I would not pursue the follies that have led mankind to its disgraced state now, but I would be as pure as the nature around me! Humans would never strive for anything better, for they would only make natural decisions, spontaneous and unique in nature to each man. They would be enveloped in the loving embrace of nature. To further my point, look at what we are doing right now! We are––were––enjoying ourselves amidst nature and its beauties. It is undeniable that Daosim is essential to humans’ lives.

LEGALIST: But we still need the law. Something that humans’ blind eyes could respect and honor and look up to.

DAOIST: Look up, look to the side, look down––and nature would be there as your guide. Your law is meant to give humans structure in every aspect of their lives. Nature would give structure by allowing humans to act as they feel.

LEGALIST: But the nature presented by Daoism is not meant to be lord over men?

DAOIST: It does not have to be a lord. It composes all that we stand on.

Silence.

DA ZHANG: It seems our ideologies were closer together than we thought. Yet, I still think reward and punishment are necessary. And the construction of a just society must be our ultimate goal.

ZHEN FENG: Naturally, rewards are given to those who do right things and punishments given to those who do wrong. As for a society…

DA ZHANG: No man can be kept in nature forever. But a society can be built upon nature’s laws. Dao need not be forgotten among the law and rewards and punishments. In that way, all would be judged equally with nature as the law and the king. No corruption in sight. Hmph, not a bad idea.

ZHEN FENG: I agree, Da Zhang. A few steps back and forward.

DA ZHANG: For years the labor of my family, friends, comrades, and I have been abused, and then we were disposed of. Perhaps in seeking equal judgment and structure in Legalism, I was only searching for the life that I wanted as an appreciated soldier.

ZHEN FENG: And perhaps, as I learned more and more about our society and its philosophies, I yearned for a peaceful life without so much complexity. Perhaps, these philosophies should adapt to what we, as individuals, want in the context of our own lives. Not us to the abstract ideas of men who have lived long before us and in hypothetical worlds severed from our own.

DA ZHANG: After all, we live on Earth. Not in the clouds.

DA ZHANG and ZHEN FENG examine each other. Then they both nod at the other and turn to the board. They take some time to analyze the game.

My turn. I believe our game has come to an end. I pass.

ZHEN FENG: I pass as well. Let us count the stones.

CONFUCIANIST: Fools, absolute fools. We are not done!

Lights dim.

Scene 4

Lights brighten, spotlight on CONFUCIANIST.

CONFUCIANIST: You are all fools! Blind fools! Can you not see that you all envision an idealistic future, one that is unfit for humanity now. We cannot simply tear down the society we have built and skip off into the countryside, leaving our futures to fate, chance, and nature’s whims! Humanity cannot use any outside body to spur us along on our path to growth! We must depend on our society only, and therefore we must do all we can to foster the collective growth of all people.

DA ZHANG: Do you know what, Confucianist? We ARE inane and foolish, untrustworthy and irresponsible at best! At least with the law and nature, we can be guided in life.

CONFUCIANIST: You still treat mankind as sheep to be governed by some outside force. With a small hint of corruption––whether it be confusion among the sheep or manipulation of the outside force––humanity would descend into chaos. This is why each man must take his education into his own hands, with the guidance of his superior men to teach him.

DA ZHANG & ZHEN FENG: (sarcastically) “Corruption!”

DA ZHANG: You are the corrupted one, Li Liang. If the superior man does not know all facets of his teachings or abuses his superiority over another man, then both men add to the chaos.

ZHEN FENG: (sneering) Our sheep graze in the fields as equals, a shepherd always watching over them. Some of yours are made plump with useless societal knowledge while others live only to be sheared and skinned!

CONFUCIANIST: (leaping to his feet) If I am corrupt, then you all must tarnish your feet on my earth! (CONFUCIANIST slaps the table hard). Do you see this table? I have a dozen more in my house, collecting dust, not because I am corrupt but because I have earned my spot! I have proven through years of testing and studying that I have the intellectual merit and moral character to have what I have! I was born into aristocracy, yes that much is very true. But I deserve to be where I am today; I deserve to have the power that I have; I deserve to relax in my own courtyard without having to endure accusations of depravity with every thought I share!

CONFUCIANIST flips the table and violently kicks it, breaking off a leg. The table falls over, spilling black and white stones and coins across the floor.

Silence. A long pause.

ZHEN FENG: I believe we have made a grave mistake. We have viewed each other as embodiments for each of our respective philosophies. In discussing the faulty past, ineffective present of humanity, and burgeoning future for humanity––

DA ZHANG: We have siphoned humanity out of our perspectives. As we criticize the philosophies, we refer to them as each other: Confucianism, Legalism, and Daosim as you, you, and you. But are we them, and are they us?

The men face the audience.

ZHEN FENG: I am not Daoism. I am a Daoist. I can see that I fight for a utopic, idealistic, unrealistic, likely unachievable harmony with nature. Too many millennia since the birth of society have passed for what I seek to truly be obtained. Yet, I am a man who wants humanity to embrace itself for what it is and yet still be able to constantly change. I am a scholar who has studied the complex ideas of men and now wants a simpler, more generally understandable way of life to appear. I am a man who simply wants peace and order. I am Zhen Feng.

DA ZHANG: I am not Legalism. I am a Legalist. I know I fight for a hypocritical, blind system that enforces a law upon supposedly inherently evil people even though that law was realistically created by the same people. Under this philosophy humanity could never live for long, as Qin Shi Huangdi’s reign has shown. Yet, I am a man who wants to live in a fair and just country where all people are judged equally by the ruling power. I am a soldier in a line of soldiers who has seen and felt the apathy of those who sit behind their desks and send us like dogs to support their greedy ambitions. I am a citizen who will always fight for the right to live free, to be me. I am a man who simply wants peace and order. I am Da Zhang.

LI LIANG: I…I am not Confucianism. I am a Confucianist. I know some of my colleagues abuse their aristocratic origins and easier access to education and governmental power to step on the withered bodies of the lower classes. I know that our system is not merit-based. The bureaucracy, once the epitome of Confucianism, has now manipulated Confucius’s wisdom to limit deserved social climbing. Intellectual capacity and moral character must not be present in only those born wealthy. Rags-to-riches should become a colloquial term, not one treated with disbelief and falling into obsolescence. I can clearly see Confucianism’s somewhat ignorant justification of inequalities between the classes and even between various professions. I am a man who wants each person to have the chance to learn based on their own individual intellectual and moral merit, for humanity to learn collectively. I am a man who has power, yet…yet I do not use it. I am an official who has seen the long-term control Confucianism creates but also one who knows of the distrust created by the inequalities this philosophy legitimizes. I am a man who simply wants peace and order. I am Li Liang.

Silence. A long pause.

DA ZHANG: Friends, must we really be separate?

DA ZHANG lifts up the broken table and sets it up. Then, he lets go. With one leg missing, the table falls over. The three men watch it fall.

ZHEN FENG: No, friends. We need not.

LI LIANG: Not at all.

Lights dim.

Scene 5

Lights brighten. Black and white stones and coins are spread out on the ground, all around the men’s feet. They look around them, as if noticing them for the first time.

ALL: (to themselves, unheard by each other) Yin and yang. The harmony of opposites. All among us.

ZHEN FENG: There lies harmony with nature.

DA ZHANG: There lies harmony among equals.

LI LIANG: There lies harmony between mind and equality and natural change.

LI LIANG: (pause) Can you two help me get a new table out here and carry this one away?

ZHEN FENG & DA ZHANG: Of course.

Exit the three men carrying the broken table. A few seconds later, enter the three men holding a new one with new bowls of stones on top but with no new bowl of coins. They place it down where the old one used to be.

LI LIANG: Please, leave the stones and coins on the ground. Let them be a reminder.

ZHEN FENG: I was thinking of asking you as much. 

DA ZHANG: So. Since we don’t represent our philosophies, and we don’t represent the world, then should we not simply represent ourselves? Forever open to change, forever dedicated to learning, forever approaching the world with a just eye?

LI LIANG: I agree.

ZHEN FENG: Of course.

DA ZHANG: Alright then! Li Liang, you’re up! I’ll be black. 

LI LIANG: But you were black last time.

DA ZHANG: So I was!

ZHEN FENG: And we never counted our stones, so we do not know who won.

DA ZHANG: And so we did not, and so we do not! You have a back and armrests, Zhen Feng. How about you sit back, relax, and watch me win, hmm?

LI LIANG: (flashing ZHEN FENG a sly smile) Yes, Zhen Feng, sit back, relax, and watch him win.

ZHEN FENG: Well, alright then.

DA ZHANG: Alright, friends, let’s begin!

ZHEN FENG sits back smiling as the game between DA ZHANG and LI LIANG begins.

The End.