按《明外史·本傳》：補鍋匠，不知何許人也，往來夔州、重慶間。為人補鍋。與之直，一無所較；與之食，即不復取錢。遇風雨寒暑，輒不出所至州邑，多寄宿蕭寺中，留不過三日。人有從學補鍋者，不取酬，令負擔從後。有學者至，即遣先學者去。如是數年，川中人皆識之，呼為老鍋匠。一日，於夔州市遇一人，相顧愕然。已，相持哭，哭已，共入山巖中，坐語竟日，復相持哭，永訣不可復相見。即所謂馮翁者也。馮翁在夔州以章句為童子師給衣食，能為對句及古詩，詩後題馬二子，或馬公，或塞馬先生，亦不知其為何許人。嘗作詩，大書壁間云：
夜夢何奇特，
龍飛天漢津。
朝橫滄海曲，
夕過滇池濱。
光雯皆五色，
蜿蜒無損鱗。
淵田變化間，
張主藉高旻。
比見補鍋匠，歸即剷去。未幾，辭主人去，二人皆不知所終。
The “Basic Memoirs” of the Unofficial History of the Ming Dynasty tells the following story:
There was a wok mender of unknown origin. He mended woks around Kuizhou and Chongqing. When paid by cash, he never argued about the price; when given food, he took no money [as payment]. When it was windy, rainy, [too] cold, or [too] hot, he would not leave the county or town where he arrived. He often stayed in temples, but never for more than three days. When someone became his apprentice, he never took any fee but simply had the apprentice carry his luggage behind him. When he took a new apprentice, he dismissed the previous one. After a few years like this, everyone in the [Si]chuan region knew him, calling him “the old wok mender”.
One day, he came across a man in the market of Kuizhou. They looked at each other in astonishment and then wept, holding each other. Afterwards, they went into the mountains, sat down and talked for the whole day. Then they wept together again, bidding final farewell [as they] would never be able to see each other again.
[The man whom the wok mender met] was known as Old Feng. He made a living in Kuizhou as a children’s instructor teaching the classics and was good at composing parallel lines and ancient[-style] poems. At the end of his poem, he signed himself as “Master Horse-Two” [1], “Lord Horse”, or “Mr. Frontier-Horse”. He was also of unknown origin.
He had once written a poem and inscribed it in large characters on a wall:
How extraordinary was that dream of the night!
A dragon flew over the ford of the Celestial River,
Across the bent of the Grey Sea at dawn,
Passing the shore of the Dian Lake at dusk, [2]
Its sheen and air around it all in five colours,
[Its body] swirling, each scale flawless.
As valleys and fields continue to transform,
Decision is left in the hands of High Heaven.
Having met the wok mender, he scraped [the poem] off as soon as he returned [from the mountains]. Before long, he bid his patron farewell and left.
Nothing is known about the two men’s end.
* From the section "Shenxian" 神仙 (immortals) in Chen Menglei 陳夢雷 (1650-1741) ed., Gujin tushu jicheng 古今圖書集成 (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1934 [reprint]), scroll 257; see here.
[1] "Horse-Two" represents the two components of his surname Feng 馮: 冫(meaning "ice" etymologically but graphically similar to the number two, 二) and 馬 (meaning "horse") .
[2] Canghai 滄海 often refers to the East China Sea in traditional literature, which is very likely to be the case here: the couplet gives an idea about how far the dragon travels within a day, with the East China Sea representing the northernmost point and the Dian Lake (in Yunnan) the southernmost.
A wok mender in Canton, ca. 1790; watercolour and ink on paper
Image credit: Victoria and Albert Museum
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