On a morning in the new spring of Jian'an 14 (209 CE), three horses stood again before the brushwood gate of Wolonggang (臥龍崗) in Nanyang (南陽).

Liu Bei (劉備) was not yet at the threshold of fifty-nine, but in the spring of his forty-eighth year. Guan Yu (關羽) and Zhang Fei (張飛) were each a year older. The new spring air was soft. The three characters above the brushwood gate hung in their same place. 臥龍崗.

But one thing was different this morning. The gate stood open.

Before dismounting, Liu Bei looked long into the yard within the gate. This morning the yard was not empty. Beneath the bamboo at its center, a man sat upon a wooden chair. His beard was not yet long. The beardless face shone quietly in the new spring light. A fan was in his hand — a summer fan.

Liu Bei dismounted. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei dismounted behind him. Liu Bei stood a pace before the brushwood gate; Guan Yu and Zhang Fei stood five paces behind him. Liu Bei clasped his hands and offered a bow toward the inside of the gate.

"This morning, for the third time, I stand before this gate. Are you Master Kongming?"

The man within the yard slowly raised his head. The tip of the fan tilted gently. His voice was low and clear.

"Your Lordship the Imperial Uncle (皇叔). The two strides you turned back upon, up to this morning, were farther strides for me than the three strides together. Please come in."

Liu Bei passed through the brushwood gate into the yard. Guan Yu and Zhang Fei stayed outside. Liu Bei's footprints struck the earth of the yard three times. The third stopped just before the chair beneath the bamboo.

Zhuge Liang (諸葛亮) rose from the chair. He stood about a cun taller than most men. His shoulders were slender, but straight. His face was clear. He was in the twenty-eighth-year spring, just past twenty-seven. The two men exchanged bows with clasped hands. The one whose bow ended first was Kongming. He stepped a pace back and left the chair open toward Liu Bei.

"This morning, the master of this house is Your Lordship. The chair is your seat."

Liu Bei shook his head briefly.

"Master. The chair is the master's seat. I could kneel upon the ground here, and it would be no less on this morning."

The two men finally sat together upon a stone in the yard, without a chair. Kongming opened his fan lightly and sent a little of its breeze toward Liu Bei's face. For one turn of the fan, the spring wind grew softer.

"Your Lordship. After the three strides, I wish to ask one thing."

"Yes. Please."

"The reason Your Lordship walked the road three times was not to gain a name, but a heart. A name can be gained by one letter. A heart comes through a single gate only when there are three strides. Did Your Lordship already know that difference?"

Liu Bei was long silent. Then quietly he said a single line.

"Master. I walked the three strides without knowing. This morning, on the third, I am only now beginning to learn that difference from inside the gate of this house."

Kongming smiled. The smile was not light.

"Your Lordship. That you walked the three strides without knowing was itself the condition for the gate to open this morning. Had you known, the gate would still stand closed."

The corners of Liu Bei's eyes reddened. A seat on which a forty-eight-year-old man reddens before the single line of a twenty-eight-year-old is not a seat often found in the world. But upon the yard of Wolonggang this morning, it was a natural seat.

Kongming closed the fan. Then he quietly went on.

"Your Lordship. My name is Zhuge Liang; style-name Kongming. Within the twenty-eighth year of the twenty-eighth spring, Your Lordship's three strides have opened my one gate. This morning, upon the stone of this yard, I receive Your Lordship's third footprint as the first footprint of the rest of my own life."

Liu Bei did not answer. Instead, he laid his two hands upon the ground. Kongming laid his two hands over Liu Bei's. The four hands of the two men came to rest upon the earth of the yard.

Outside the brushwood gate, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei saw this. They said nothing. Guan Yu only bowed his head, and Zhang Fei placed his right fist lightly upon his own chest. His fist dropped from the chest and rose again. The breath between those two motions matched the rhythm of the spring breeze flowing out from inside the third gate.

The gate had opened. It had opened only this morning, yet that single opening was the opening that would open the twenty years after the next twenty years. The three characters above the brushwood gate of Wolonggang still hung in their same place, but from this morning onward their meaning had become a measure deeper. A sign need not change its characters to change its weight; it needs only a single morning in which what the characters refer to is finally present.

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