The Sorceress' Revolt
Author: Toriumi Jinzō
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Ko Biji's Story
Part Three: Ko Biji
Darkness, for a long time. Then a single
light, dim, in the far distance, flickering in and out of existence. The
light grew larger, which had to mean it was coming closer. Tanshi saw
the world in grayscale, illuminated by a single candle. He caught
glimpses of his environment, or perhaps his memories: En Kō laughing at
him, the river he'd crossed over haloed in white light reflecting from
the water. He saw Mt. Xishan, near where he'd met Chō Kin and his wife,
and where he'd encountered the silver fox in the woods. Tanshi saw the
fox running ahead of him, and then Chō Kin's face again as he coughed in
pain from his long illness. He saw Chō Kin's wife weeping on the floor,
her granddaughter's body lying in the grass on the mountainside...
The body was naked. Tanshi didn't
remember that. But he remembered the girl's lovely face. Her eyes
fluttered open, and she sat up. Alive, not dead. The girl looked at him
and smiled.
Tanshi came out of his dazed confusion
slowly. The rest of the images in his mind faded away, but the dead girl
he had prayed for remained constant, sitting at his side and giving him
reassuring smiles. Her eyes were so beautiful: deep and dark and clear.
Tanshi tried to speak to her, but his throat felt tight and no sound came
out.
"You..." It was all Tanshi could
manage.
"Don't move," the girl said. Her voice
was low and stern; she sounded like a mother scolding a disobedient
child.
Tanshi tried to calm his thoughts and
figure out what was happening, but the effort was too much. He lost
consciousness again.
***
A lot of time passed: two or three days
at least. Tanshi heard the river flowing in the middle distance.
Light from the fire near him left him
dazzled. He was awake—awake and conscious, and clearer-headed than before. After losing to En
Kō in Hakūn-do Cave, he'd run off, only to be ambushed again. He
remembered being blown down to the valley in a whirlwind—and the squelch of impact when he'd landed.
Tanshi was aware that he'd been
unconscious for some time, but he didn't know the duration. The face of
Chō Kin's granddaughter drew close to his; she was checking on him.
"Is this... is it the afterlife?" Tanshi
asked hoarsely. "You... are dead..."
"Well, by all rights I should be
dead," the girl said.
Tanshi frowned at that. He hadn't asked
her if she was Chō Kin's granddaughter, but her circumstances must have
been similar enough for her to answer as she had. He tried to say more,
but his mouth felt numb and wouldn't move, and a feeling of fatigue surged
through his entire body.
"Don't speak more now," the girl said.
"You'll tire yourself out."
She didn't speak like Chō Kin and his
wife did. Her dialect was different: more formal, more educated. Tanshi
realized that the girl looked like her, but probably wasn't the same
person. She was the same age as Tanshi, or maybe even a little younger.
Her voice had brought him back to consciousness. It was because of her
that he was still alive.
So Chō Kin's poor granddaughter was dead
after all.
Tanshi looked around, trying to figure
out where he was. The girl wore dark green clothing suited for mountain
life, and they were inside a hut of some sort. Tanshi heard the night wind
whistle through a window. The fire popped, making Tanshi
twitch.
A fire was bad, wasn't it? Couldn't En Kō
use it to track Tanshi down and finish what he'd started?
"It's safe," the girl said. "We're away
from Yunmeng Mountain, some distance from the foot of it. No one will
attack you here." She offered him a kind smile.
Her soothing voice helped calm Tanshi's
fear. He shifted, and found himself on a bed of bamboo shoots that was
soft to touch and comfortable. The hut had bamboo walls and thicker tree
branches on the roof to keep the rain out. There was a bamboo door at the
entrance to the hut that was firmly closed. The fire was in the center of
the hut, far from the walls. Tanshi thought the hut quite spacious; it
could probably accommodate ten people without too much trouble. Several
grain bags were piled up in the corner, along with pots, pails, and a bag
that looked like a traveling pack. This was storage for living in the
mountains. She must have lived here for quite awhile.
Tanshi's pewter staff was within reach of
the bed, unharmed by its adventures in the cave. Transporting Tanshi and
the staff here must have been difficult for one woman alone.
"It's time for me to change your
bandages," the girl said. She bared his chest with sure hands and removed
a large leaf that protected a poultice. She removed the poultice, wrung
out moisture from it, then checked the wound on his chest. She didn't seem
to feel any hesitation in touching his body. Tanshi had never been touched
by a woman before, skin to skin. He'd never known his mother, but he found
himself wondering about her as the girl tended to his injury. Was this
what it was like, being cared for?
After the girl finished the treatment and
covered his chest wound with a new poultice and leaf, she picked up a bowl
of liquid medicine that was resting on an upside-down bucket. "Time to
take this," she said.
Tanshi tried to sit up, but she stopped
him. "Stay where you are," she said. "You're not ready to get up yet." She
took a sip of the medicine, then leaned down to Tanshi. He opened his
mouth and felt the medicine trickle from her lips to his.
Her lips were warm and soft, but the
medicine was cold and bitter when he swallowed it down.
Had she been feeding him this way while
he was out cold? Tanshi distrusted traditional medicines as a rule, but he
didn't push the girl away because her concoction seemed to be effective.
He was still alive, and he probably shouldn't be.
She pulled away and looked him over.
"Looks like the herbs are working," she said with a slight smile. "This
medicine relieves pain and promotes a faster recovery."
Tanshi felt a sudden sting of
self-conscious embarrassment.
Herbs and medicine were nearly
interchangeable in those times. Both could be used to treat
illnesses—or to make immortality elixirs. There were three kinds of medicine:
elixirs extended life and allowed for immortality and hidden powers,
traditional medicine strengthened the physical body, and laxatives treated
diseases. She explained all this to him while he recovered.
Famous medicines included minerals such
as cinnabar, gold, silver, and mica, as well as the bark of pine trees and
cypresses. Flowers and grasses like Solomon's Seal and Chinese asparagus
were also effective. Mineral medicines were dissolved in saltpeter
(potassium nitrate). The best medicine of all was Jindan.1
"You've been asleep for the past three
days, but you still need more rest," the girl said. She grabbed a bucket
and went outside, presumably to fetch water. But wasn't it dangerous for a
young woman to walk alone in the mountains? There might not be any bandits
around thanks to the foreboding presence of Yunmeng Mountain, but darkness
by itself was a hazard, and there were bound to be any number of wild
beasts. What if she tripped and fell, or was attacked?
The girl was strange. Tanshi wished that
he could speak to her freely, but his throat was still too hoarse for
lengthy speech.
Tanshi fell asleep while thinking about
his various frustrations. The herbal medicine she'd given him shortly
before was quite effective.
***
For about ten days after that, the girl
made porridge with herbal medicine mixed in for Tanshi and fed it to him.
It didn't taste like medicine, perhaps because of the seasoning. He
remembered the porridge that Chō Kin's wife had made for him with a fond
smile. It seemed so long ago now.
As time went on, Tanshi recovered enough
to speak a bit. "I... am Tanshi."
"Tanshi? An egg?"2
"I was born from an egg."
"Oh? How interesting. I'm Ko Biji."
"Ko Biji?"
"I was born from a fox."
"Fox" and "Ko" had the same sound.
Tanshi was reminded of the gentle fox
from the woods near Chō Kin's home. "Ko Biji... where are you from?"
"Far away."
"How far?"
"It would take three weeks of travel to
reach my birthplace," she said.
"Don't you worry about your
family?"
"Yes, sometimes."
"How long have you been here?"
"Ever since you went to Hakūn-do
Cave."
Ko Biji had witnessed Tanshi being blown
off the rock bridge. Fortunately, he'd fallen into the river, which had
saved him from being crushed to death. It was a miracle.
Unconscious, Tanshi's body had floated
from the the edge of the valley down to Ko Biji's raft, held up by a piece
of driftwood. His pewter staff had come to rest on the river shore atop
some smooth stones. It, too, was miraculously unharmed.
Falling in the water had spared Tanshi
from death, but the road to recovery was still long. Falling from a height
was quite a shock, even with deep water to cushion his landing. His
unusually strong body and the place where he'd landed made all the
difference. If Ko Biji hadn't witnessed his descent, he might have died
before anyone found him.
"Why did you go to Yunmeng Mountain?"
Tanshi asked.
She didn't answer.
"It isn't a place for a young woman to go
alone," Tanshi said. "Were you with someone?"
No answer. Ko Biji looked at him with
apprehension in her eyes, but didn't speak.
"Someone else was thrown off the rock
bridge by En Kō," Tanshi said. "Was he your friend?"
"No, I didn't know them." She said no
more and turned her face away.
Tanshi stopped asking questions. When he
was hale and well again, he could seek his own answers.
***
One day, after his health had improved
considerably, Tanshi woke up in the middle of the night. The embers of the
fire in the center of the room glowed a dull red.
"Ah!" Tanshi gasped.
Chō Kin's granddaughter was asleep beside
him. "But... she should be dead..."
It took time for him to remember that
this was Ko Biji, not Chō Kin's granddaughter. Days had passed since their
first formal introduction, but the shock of his initial waking lingered.
In the low light of the fire, Ko Biji was beautiful, and looked just like
Chō Kin's granddaughter.
But Ko Biji was different—not least because she was obviously alive.
Tanshi stared at her like he couldn't get
enough of the sight. A tender feeling moved in him, stirred in with
sweetness and sadness. He'd lived his whole life as a monk, so up until
now he'd never spoken informally with a young woman—and he'd certainly never slept in the same room as one. He had no
experience with sexual attraction, but that was what moved in him now. He
recognized the feeling coursing through him as being similar to the one
he'd felt when he'd looked at Chō Kin's granddaughter for the first
time.
Lying, theft, and murder are obviously wrong, Tanshi thought to
himself,
and alcohol limits inhibitions, making someone more likely to commit
such atrocities... but is this a crime? Why? It felt strange to label sexual desire
as a sin when this was what it felt like. Sexual desire was part of human
nature, and monks were human beings just like everyone else. So why bother
to suppress something so fundamental? Something that didn't feel
harmful?
What makes this a sin? Tanshi
asked himself, torn between his newly awakened sensuality and the precepts
by which he'd lived his life.
Then...
I'm not a monk anymore, Tanshi
thought as he reached out and touched Ko Biji's cheek. It was warm and
soft and inviting. He wanted to pull her closer, into his arms, but then
his usual self-consciousness returned.
Tanshi pulled away from Ko Biji as if
she'd struck him. After all, it was hard to discard the teachings of a
lifetime overnight. He stared intently at her sleeping face, emptying his
mind of all thoughts and all desires. This was the path to enlightenment,
encouraging and familiar. Compassion and selflessness were part and parcel
of the way of the Buddha. The mere sight of her face in repose was a
sublime gift. Tanshi wasn't bold enough to want anything more.
From then on, Tanshi felt swathed in
feelings of warmth and happiness whenever he looked at Ko Biji.
Translator's Notes
1 Jindan (金丹 "golden elixir") combines theories derived from
external alchemy, internal alchemy, correlative cosmology, and medical theory
with techniques of Daoist meditation, gymnastics, and sexual hygiene. The
human body becomes a cauldron in which the Three Treasures of Jing
("Essence"), Qi ("Breath") and Shen ("Spirit") are cultivated for the
purpose of improving physical, emotional and mental health, and ultimately
returning to the primordial unity of the Dao, i.e., attaining Daoist immortality. In China, it is an important form of practice for most schools
of Daoism. ↩
2 蛋子 Tanshi's name means,
literally, 蛋 "egg" + 子 "child."
↩
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