Looking at the white dog curled up asleep, Yunqi was about to shake his head. He had come out to gain experience and would not stay in this stockade long. Having another little creature along would be inconvenient.
"Daoist Yun, do you still intend to wander these great mountains?"
Yunqi nodded at the question. He had only just arrived.
"Then you should take him, Daoist. White Dragon has sharp ears. He can hear every movement in the mountains."
Yunqi thought it over. That day, White Dragon had detected him while he was still standing far outside the courtyard. The dog's hearing was remarkable indeed. He still needed to train among these mountains. Nothing else worried him much, but he feared someone spying on him or creeping close while he was deep in meditation. Although he had the Eight Trigrams Mother-and-Child Bells to protect him, they were, after all, lifeless objects.
He nodded and accepted the white dog.
The stockade chief added, "You needn't look after the dog during the day, Daoist Yun. Let the grown dogs in the stockade teach him his skills. Just have him sleep outside your door at night. You needn't worry about food, either. A grown dog will nurse him for now, and in another ten days or so, he'll be able to find food himself. If you have any scraps left over, just toss them to him. He'll eat anything."
From the old chief's account, raising White Dragon sounded simple enough.
Yunqi nodded, so Donghuonai took the white dog back, saying he would bring him over that evening. This visit had been expressly to let Yunqi have a look at him.
Happy to be spared the trouble, Yunqi saw off Donghuo's profusely grateful family, but asked the chief to stay.
"Munaigong, you only told me half the story when I asked about the Red-Crest Lord last time."
Yunqi spoke with a smile.
The old chief scratched his head. "Oh, that's right!"
The two sat down again on the curved-back bench, one speaking and the other listening.
"After our ancestors had White Dragon and the roosters, life grew better day by day. How should I put it? At last, people weren't dying faster than they were being born."
The old chief spoke with feeling.
Yunqi had no words in reply.
"One day, a Daoist suddenly came to the stockade. They say he was very young. At first, our ancestors thought he was some family's lost child! But then he displayed immortal arts, and they realized they had met a great master."
The old chief looked at Yunqi. Last night, he too had witnessed immortal arts-the whole stockade had. He had not slept a wink all night, thinking that their ancestors must surely be watching over him, watching over the stockade.
"The master was delighted to see that the stockade raised chickens, so he taught our ancestors a special way of raising them. Once raised that way, they were called 'Red-Crest Double-Pupiled Chickens,' or 'Red-Crest Gentlemen.' Only then did they truly count as birds of yang.
"But the method is very difficult." The old chief did not explain what it involved. "Our stockade generally only manages to raise one Red-Crest Gentleman every two or three generations. A Red-Crest Gentleman lives longer than a person. The one we have now was raised by the previous generation, so we call him the Red-Crest Lord."
"The Red-Crest Lord has twin crests and double pupils. He can distinguish humans from ghosts. No sinister creature or evil thing can escape his eyes."
Yunqi offered a word of praise, then finally asked, "Why haven't I seen the Red-Crest Lord since coming to the stockade?"
At this, the old chief said proudly, "The Red-Crest Lord has wisdom. He's cleverer than people, and he cultivates too, so naturally you don't see him on ordinary days. But when we need him, he comes out on his own. Every morning before sunrise, though, he crows from the great tree in front of the stockade. Once he's finished, he disappears. Only after the Red-Crest Lord has crowed do the other roosters dare to call."
Yunqi asked another question. "And these pictures pasted on the doors?"
The old chief glanced at the worn, faded rooster picture on Yunqi's door and sighed before explaining, "That master left these too. They're called 'Rooster King House-Guarding Pictures.' Our ancestors said that for the first few decades after the master's Rooster King House-Guarding Pictures were pasted up, no venomous insect or ghost ever entered the stockade. Those who grew up during those decades had resilient souls and abundant yang qi. Even when they traveled outside, they rarely came to harm.
"But hundreds of years have passed. The pictures grew old and torn, and the power protecting us dispersed. Still, we had grown used to putting them up, so we painted our own and pasted those up instead, for a touch of good cheer."
Yunqi nodded, finally understanding.
They chatted a little longer, then the old chief left, while Yunqi settled his mind and began considering his cultivation.
Yunqi had read the passages about the Heart Mansion in the Celestial Circuit Hundred-Aperture Inner Landscape Scripture countless times. Visualizing the Hairy Head Sun Star Officer and the Bright Palace in his mind had not only solidified his mental power, but also made him thoroughly familiar with the visualization method.
It was time to use visualization to form the Heart Mansion's Inner Landscape Deity.
Previously, the Hairy Head Sun Star Officer and Bright Palace he visualized had been a divine statue and a Dao Palace. To put it bluntly, they were lifeless objects. But an Inner Landscape Deity was the master of a mansion-aperture, charged with circulating qi and blood and carrying out the mandate of longevity and health. How could it be a lifeless object?
The master of the Heart Mansion was the commander of blood, governing the body's essence and blood together with the master of the kidneys. It was the most active of all the celestial circuit's hundred apertures. If he visualized a lifeless thing with form but no spirit, not only would it fail to transport essence and blood, consume qi on its own, circulate the celestial circuit, accumulate magical power, or even form talismans and spells, it would actually impair the Heart Mansion's proper functions, weakening his qi and blood and leaving his heart qi deficient.
And now, he had found a way to bring the Hairy Head Lodge to life.
The fifth day after his arrival at the stockade.
The twelfth day of the ninth month.
Yunqi woke very early and stood outside his house, looking at the enormous thorn tree beside the stockade gate. Its leaves and trunk were covered in sharp spines. The people of the stockade called it Cat Thorn.
In the gray light of dawn, Yunqi saw a bird fly out of the mountains behind the stockade.
The bird was enormous, its beak like a spear and its claws like steel hooks. It had golden spurs and red crests, a tail to rival a colorful phoenix's, emerald plumes and brocade feathers, and a proud, imposing bearing.
The great bird landed straight on the tree, its steel claws utterly untroubled by the sharp thorns. Once it stood still, he could see it clearly. It was no great bird at all, but that huge Red-Crest Double-Pupiled Chicken-the Red-Crest Gentleman.
The sky was still dim. Facing east, the Red-Crest Gentleman raised his head high, the red crests atop it quivering.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo-"
The Red-Crest Gentleman crowed long and loud.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo-cock-a-doodle-doo-"
All the roosters in the stockade began to crow.
Then radiance flooded the east, and the red sun slowly rose.
Once the sun appeared, the Red-Crest Gentleman spread his wings again and flew away into the mountain forest, vanishing from sight.
As he had on the previous two days, Yunqi carefully recalled the Red-Crest Gentleman's movements, his piercing crow, and the meaning embodied in the light of sunrise washing away the darkness.
Then he took a stack of papers and went to find the old chief.
"Munaigong, take a look. What do you think of this picture?"
Yunqi handed the entire stack to the old chief.
The old chief accepted the papers and lowered his gaze, looking first at the top sheet-what a majestic full-length portrait!
The portrait depicted a burly Daoist wearing a tall red crown, hard-soled golden boots, and a great vermilion robe. The Daoist had golden eyes with double pupils, small ears, a hooked nose, and a full red beard. On the chest of his vermilion robe was painted a great rooster raising its head to crow on a tree branch. In his right hand he held a lamp whose light drove back the darkness, bathing the whole sheet in a golden glow.
A short line was inscribed in the upper-left corner:
"One crow of the rooster turns the whole world bright."
There was a seal in the lower-left corner:
Humble Caution Studio.
Yunqi looked at the picture too. The figure in it was already quite different from the Hairy Head Sun Star Lord in the White Tiger Seven Lodges Scroll. Their features still resembled one another, but one was refined and the other rugged. The body, too, had become far sturdier and more muscular. The constellation pattern on the robe had become a great rooster, and the weapon had changed from a needle to a lamp.
A noble star lord of dignified appearance and magnificent bearing had become a rough, uninhibited wandering Daoist who hated evil as his mortal foe.
This was precisely the effect Yunqi wanted.
After examining the first sheet, the old chief looked at the one beneath it:
In this portrait, the burly Daoist held a peachwood sword in his right hand, plunging it into an evil ghost's chest. In his left hand he carried an evil ghost's severed head. Written in the upper left was:
"The image of gathered yang, the essence of fiery yang; paste the rooster upon the door, set peachwood charms beside it, and a hundred ghosts shall fear it."
On the next sheet, the Daoist stood on a centipede and chewed a scorpion. Written in the upper left was:
"Grain Rain comes in the third month, when scorpions flaunt their might. One peck from the divine rooster turns venomous vermin into water."
On the next sheet, the Daoist's eyes were wide with fury, his mouth open in a roar. Written in the upper left was:
"One crow of the rooster, and ghosts shrink by a foot, vermin retreat ten miles, and lamplight brightens threefold."
There was sheet after sheet like these.
The old chief looked at Yunqi, unsure what he meant.
"I'd like to ask you to tell the villagers about these, Munaigong, and see whether they would paste them on their doors and windows. They may not be as powerful as that senior master's Rooster King House-Guarding Pictures, but they do contain the divine intent of yang fire. They should be somewhat more useful than the ones everyone draws by hand."
The old chief froze at his words, then was overjoyed. He repeatedly said there was no need to ask-everyone would gladly do it.
Yunqi nodded with a smile and added, "As long as you don't mind, Chief, I'll leave a few extra copies for every household. Please ask everyone to put up new pictures on the first day of each new year. Every few years after that, I'll either come myself or ask someone to come and replace them for everyone. As long as I'm still here, I will not break that promise."
The old chief could scarcely believe what he heard. He stood dazed for a moment, then tried to kneel and kowtow to Yunqi again.
Yunqi held the old man up.
"Then what are these pictures called?"
The old chief asked with a beaming smile.
Yunqi had clearly considered this question. He said:
"Call them 'Pictures of the Hairy Head Lodge's Incarnation, the New Year's Day Daoist, Walking the World and Manifesting Divine Power.'"
Seeing the old chief's blank expression, Yunqi thought for a moment, then smiled again and said:
"Call them 'Rooster God Manifestation Pictures.'"
This time, the old chief understood and responded happily,
"A fine name!"
Here is the first chapter. Please vote and recommend it, and feel free to leave comments and messages!
Before you continue