The Feast (7)
When you hear the word Taoist, what comes to mind? A white-haired elder with a face full of deep wrinkles? A gentleman hermit whiling away a leisurely life deep in the mountains, content with poverty and delighted in the Way? Or, failing that, an exorcist who wanders the land driving out every wicked thing there is?
The one thing all three had in common was the ability to wield bizarre phenomena that defied all logical explanation, exactly as they pleased.
You know the classics. Blinking from east to west in an instant to sow confusion, commanding the weather until everything around went dark, suddenly splitting into doubles until no one could tell which one was real.
Laid out like that, it sounds a lot like Hong Gildong, Korea's legendary outlaw.
Then again, judging by the powers he wielded, Hong Gildong himself could easily have passed for a Taoist.
At any rate, every last figure called a Taoist possessed extraordinary abilities that could startle ordinary people out of their wits.
And the old man named Zuo Ci — said to have now turned up just outside the banquet hall — was precisely one of those Taoists.
Zuo Ci. His time on the page was brief, but with those uncanny talents of his he gave Cao Cao endless grief and left a deep impression on readers.
The time was the period after Cao Cao had ascended as King of Wei and brought the imperial house entirely under his thumb.
Having reduced Xun Yu — who had opposed his enthronement — to that infamous Empty Food Box, Cao Cao held a banquet to celebrate his new crown, and that was when something strange happened.
The delicious tangerines, carried in directly from Jiangdong, turned out to be hollow: when he peeled one open, every last segment of fruit was gone, leaving nothing but the rind.
A flustered Cao Cao demanded answers from the laborers who had brought the fruit, and learned from them that an old man called Zuo Ci had offered to carry their loads for them. The eerie part was that when the old man handed those loads back, they had felt unnaturally light. The laborers had found it odd, but the tangerines looked perfectly whole on the outside, so they suspected nothing and simply brought them in.
Just as Cao Cao was about to snap that no such story could possibly be true, Zuo Ci revealed himself outside the banquet hall.
An old man limping on one leg, a crown of woven vines upon his head, and blind in one eye to boot.
From that point on, Zuo Ci knocked the souls clean out of everyone around him while making a fool of Cao Cao.
He cast a line into a pond and in a flash hauled up a giant sea bass said to be caught nowhere but Jiangdong; then, declaring that nothing in this world suited a fish dish like fresh ginger, he made ginger — supposedly found only in the Ba-Shu region — spring up full-grown in the blink of an eye...
Just as Cao Cao began to marvel, Zuo Ci remarked that he had studied the three volumes of the Dunjia Tianshu and become what he was — and now that Cao Cao had risen to the highest station a subject could hold, why not hand the world over to Liu Bei and come away to the mountains with him to study the Daoist arts?
Naturally, a furious Cao Cao had him arrested and beaten savagely with the rod — but Zuo Ci merely snored away, showing not a hint of pain, and even after more than a week locked in a cell with nothing given him, he remained perfectly hale.
Later, when Cao Cao issued an arrest warrant for the escaped Zuo Ci, hundreds of Zuo Cis were apprehended across the land. And then there was the part where they doused the captured Zuo Cis in pig and sheep blood — famed for breaking sorcery — and beheaded every last one, only for smoke to curl up from the severed necks and knit them all back into a single Zuo Ci. That part lodged itself in my memory.
Ah, and this next bit was probably the most important of all.
The Zuo Ci restored to one, the story goes, spat out a single ominous prophecy, laughed heartily, and vanished.
Now, what was it he said...?
When the Earth Rat follows the Golden Tiger,
the Hero of Chaos shall fall!
That was probably it.
At the same moment, the beheaded corpses were said to have sprung upright, clutched their own heads in hand, and lunged at Cao Cao. From that day forward his headaches only worsened, and before long the sweeping curse of Guan Yu — who had lost his life to the Kingdom of Wu — erupted in full, and Cao Cao died.
If the curse laid by Yu Ji's spirit ran deep in Sun Ce's death, then Zuo Ci's ominous prophecy ran every bit as deep in Cao Cao's.
Somehow, telling this whole story has led me straight to the conclusion that curses are the ultimate weapon.
...And the moment that thought landed, an uneasy premonition crept over me.
Surely I wasn't about to have some ominous prophecy pronounced over me and spend my days tormented by headaches. Because I would truly, genuinely hate that.
If it ever came to that, I would beg Hua Tuo to split my skull open with an axe if she had to — but that headache would be cured, one way or another.
I trust the Divine Physician's skill.
Honestly, he didn't strike me as the type to withdraw politely even if I turned him away at the door, so the faster this was over, the better.
Time passed, and the old man presumed to be Zuo Ci entered the banquet hall under the watchful eyes of the soldiers.
Zuo Ci looked exactly as I remembered him. I couldn't say what plant his crown was woven from, but it was white; he wore shabby blue robes and battered old wooden clogs.
That alone would have drawn the eye, but with one eye missing and one leg dragging, he was an old man whose individuality was beyond dispute.
Naturally, every gaze in the packed hall converged on him, and Zuo Ci — who seemed not the least bit averse to the attention — laughed heartily and paid his respects to the Emperor.
"This humble old wretch (a term of self-abasement a step below even 'this lowly one') greets Your Majesty!"
So he boomed, bowing deep to the Emperor.
What a voice on him. Did he boil down a train whistle and eat it or something?
"...Yes. At least your manners are in order."
At the voice ringing through the hall, the Emperor gave her reply with a faint look of surprise.
The Emperor asked, "What business brings you here?"
"This humble old wretch possesses a few modest talents, and he has come hoping to liven up Your Majesty's feast with them!"
Having said his piece, Zuo Ci went right on chuckling away.
Perhaps because the Emperor was right there in front of him, he was far more courteous than I'd expected.
Well, in Romance of the Three Kingdoms he was the man who lectured Cao Cao about ministers and the imperial house while urging him to abdicate, so showing deference to a sovereign wasn't exactly out of character.
"I believe you'll find him quite entertaining."
It was Zhang Jue at my side who spoke, her tone calm and measured over her cup of tea.
I turned my head to look at her.
"Entertaining how?"
"Just as he says — he truly is a man of many talents."
Her tone made it sound as though she knew Zuo Ci personally, and I let my curiosity show.
Did the Taoists have some kind of networking circle among themselves?
Then again, considering how Taoists are commonly portrayed across all manner of media, distance was hardly a constraint for them — nothing strange about it at all.
If they felt like visiting someone, they could fold a thousand li into a single step with their earth-shrinking sorcery, or simply go soaring off on a cloud — meet whoever they wanted, whenever they pleased.
Even to a modern man who had once gotten around by car and plane, it was a genuinely enviable ability.
At this rate, odds were good he was also acquainted with Yu Ji — the one who laid the curse on Sun Ce.
While I was still following that line of thought, Zuo Ci, having swept his gaze around the banquet hall once, cried out:
"Haha! A flawless spread of mountain and sea delicacies, every dish without a single fault — but what a pity there's no sea bass from Songjiang!"
"Then you mean to say you have a way?"
"Indeed!"
Zuo Ci answered the Emperor's question with perfect confidence.
And yet here he is, asking after sea bass too. He really must be fond of them.
The officials nearby began to murmur among themselves.
"Songjiang? Isn't that place at least a thousand li from Luoyang?"
"They say the Songjiang sea bass has four gills. I'd love to see that for myself."
The officials plainly didn't believe Zuo Ci's claim to have a way, but the mood settled into a collective wait-and-see.
Then Zuo Ci spoke.
"Now then — would someone be so kind as to fill a good-sized basin with a bucket of water?"
"Hmm... Very well."
No sooner had the Emperor consented than the palace maids, brisk as could be, had a basin filled with water.
Sharp as you'd expect from maids of the imperial household.
Everyone gathered in the hall was plainly burning to know what Zuo Ci intended, and sensing it, he moved straight into action.
"Yes, this one will do nicely."
Muttering as he peered into the basin, Zuo Ci drew a fishing rod from the breast of his robes and began to fish — in the water-filled basin.
???
"What in the world is that absurd display supposed to be?"
Naturally, the officials around him all had question marks floating above their heads.
There was nothing in that basin but water — what exactly was he fishing for?
But the question didn't linger long.
SPLASH!
"Hahaha! My, what a greedy fellow!"
"Wh-what in the—?"
The instant Zuo Ci whipped his rod upward, a sea bass larger than a man's torso came bursting out of the basin.
It was a sight that would have made Confucius himself — the sage who preached banishing all talk of the strange and supernatural — clutch the back of his neck and collapse on the spot.
In the novel he at least fished his bass out of a pond. Here he's pulling them straight out of a basin.
Come to think of it, in the original he'd fished the perch from a basin rather than a pond, hadn't he?
At the sight of the enormous bass — easily a full meter long — thrashing and flapping, several officials forgot their dignity entirely, mouths hanging wide open.
About the same reaction as mine, the first time I ever saw a stage magician.
But it truly was astonishing. The basin wasn't even all that large, and he'd just plucked a fish the size of a small child clean out of it.
Zuo Ci's antics did not end there.
"Why, one fish will never fill the bellies of everyone gathered here!"
"What is that supposed to..."
"Then allow this humble old wretch to put his back into it!"
Before the official could even finish, Zuo Ci was crying out and hauling bass up out of the basin without pause.
"Ah — four gills! It really has four gills!"
"It's a genuine Songjiang sea bass!"
A few of those who leaned in to inspect the catch exclaimed in astonishment.
At this point, no one could call it a mere parlor trick anymore.
Zuo Ci, who had by now landed a good ten bass, flashed a blazing grin.
"Hahaha! What do you think! Surely that's enough for everyone to eat their fill!"
"...Truly a wondrous talent."
Even Her Majesty the Emperor's eyes had gone round, her astonishment impossible to hide.
Long after that, Zuo Ci kept working one spell after another — plucking ginger out of bare soil, spewing mouthfuls of water to bring flowers into bloom, and more besides.
How much time passed like that?
"The day has grown late! This humble old wretch shall take his leave!"
"You have my leave."
No sooner had the Emperor consented than Zuo Ci vanished from the spot, like a ghost.
"Hah... how can such a thing be..."
"Truly an uncanny man."
Right up to the very end, Zuo Ci's marvels had every soul in the hall trading remarks of awe.
...He really did just come, perform party tricks, and leave.
Why did he even come?
Night had fallen; the sun was down and the moon had risen.
A one-eyed figure went limping through the streets of Luoyang, muttering under his breath.
"Whew... that was a genuinely close call."
Whenever Zuo Ci made a public appearance, he customarily sent out a double of himself.
To put it more precisely: his true body hid somewhere close by while he pulled the double's strings.
In a sense it was little different from an illusion, and unless one happened to be a fellow Taoist, no one alive could see through it.
Yes. Until yesterday, that is.
"To think there was actually someone who could see straight through my Taoist arts."
The General-in-Chief's personal guard, was it?
She paid not the slightest attention to the double busily performing its tricks — instead, she stared dead straight at his hidden true body. At the sight, Zuo Ci felt a flash of fear.
Against a warrior like that, no Taoist art of his would ever work.
Now he understood why that witch of a sorceress had warned him never to go near the General-in-Chief.
"...And yet, a question remains."
A person carrying such a thick aura of slaughter ordinarily spills blood across every corner of the realm, until they can no longer bear the weight of their own karma and crumble.
No matter how tremendous their martial might, none ever escaped that fate; more often than not, they ended as a stepping stone for someone else.
And yet the General-in-Chief had piled up no such karma. Did that mean someone capable of suppressing the baleful energy of his star was near him?
Zuo Ci turned something over in his mind, then murmured:
"...Qian."
The hexagram that witch — his superior in the art of astrology — had drawn from her divination sticks.
"...Heaven."
The moment the thought landed, Zuo Ci abruptly burst out laughing.
Even as passersby gave him strange looks, the laughter would not stop.
What that single word had conjured in his mind — only he would ever know.