The story of the luckless man, Ch’ien-hsi

Ch’ien-hsi is an asthmatic. This particular night, seated by the window of his room—which faces, though some worlds away, the Ox Mountain of P’ai-k’ung’s dream—he cannot sleep. So he whispers to the many ears of P’ai-k’ung which, at the beginning of time, were scattered and dissolved into the air, his many troubles.

The year is 1967. The last emperor has been dead for more than a century. The fabled blue dragon has not been seen for thrice that span. In Hsiang-kang, in his own time, Ch’ien-hsi (a name he has given himself, a name he has copied from an ancient scroll) dreams of the long-dead emperors—his gods, his ancestors. The window that faces the Ox Mountain fills the room with smoke, making breathing more difficult. But Ch’ien-hsi smiles, despite all this, for in his heart he still believes they will one day return, to free the kuo from those who are not jen: barbarians, white devils, the Communists. Ch’ien-hsi forgets that, to Ch’in Shih-huang, Hsiang-kang is a sewer made tolerable only by the fact it lies near the sea.

Postscript. Pai-k’ung is a title given to Fei-li by the Ming scholar T’ung Li. The name means “white wind.” This can be traced to an earlier story by Pao Hsü-hsieh, called Ch’ien-erh Shen, the God of a Thousand Ears. Here is a version of the story:

Once upon a time, the greatest gods gathered in heaven to decide the fate of the universe. Fei-li, general of the winds, was not among those invited to this council. The god did not take this kindly, and so decided to eavesdrop. Ch’ang-o, however, discovered him. But she took pity on him, and instead of throwing him down from heaven—as they had been told to do to anyone uninvited—she brought his case before T’ien-kung, trusting his wisdom. The Emperor was at first furious to see Fei-li, but Ch’ang-o urged him to be merciful, reminding him that they must not be influenced by a moment’s anger, and that they must mete out justice, not punishment for its own sake. As punishment, they cut off Fei-li’s ears; but as they did so the wind blew, and the ears multiplied until they covered all the earth. Though Fei-li could hear everything, he could not speak at all.

The moniker Pai-k’ung comes from an explanation by T’ung Li: wherever Fei-li’s ears gather in significant quantities, the wind makes itself visible.