| IT is wisely said that in order to ask an intelligent question you must already know nine tenths of the answer, and thanks to Henpecked Ho I was ready to ask an intelligent question. Thanks to Miser Shen I knew who to ask the question to, assuming that the wisest man in the world still lived in a cave at the end of Bears' Path, high in the Omei Mountains. I had not forgotten Miser Shen's story of how he went mad, and I had not forgotten my vow to avenge his death. | 1 |
| It was a long journey. Winter melted into spring as my ox and I plodded across the immensity of China, and spring turned back into winter as we reached the Omei mountains and climbed higher and higher, leaving the warmth and green grass and flowers far behind. Except for the Desert of Salt I had never seen a more depressing landscape in my life, and I swilled wine from a goatskin flask and sadly sang:
"Skinny rocks - verdigris green; | 2 |
| putrid water - bile yellow. | 3 |
| Here there are no hoofprints; | 4 |
| the twisting trail has run out.
"Now the path starts again, | 5 |
| rougher than anything ever dreamed of. | 6 |
| Even with cold scraping my face, | 7 |
| sweat pours from me like sauce." | 8 |
| Higher we climbed, and steeper, and just when I thought my ox could not pull that cartload of treasure one more foot the path leveled out, and we crossed a small clearing covered with weeds toward the gaping black mouth of a large cave. In front stood a wooden post upon which hung an iron hammer and a copper gong, and chiseled in the stone above the cave entrance was a message that I read with interest: | 9 |
| I AM THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN. | 10 |
| RING AND STATE YOUR BUSINESS. | 11 |
| MY SECRETS ARE NOT SOLD CHEAPLY. | 12 |
| IT IS PERILOUS TO WASTE MY TIME. | 13 |
| I took another swig of wine and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. A duke who laughed at swordthrusts and the Elixir of Life... a fairy tale... three anguished ghosts who swore that they had not known what they had done ... Yes, there could only be one question to ask. I picked up the iron hammer and struck the gong. Birds flapped into the sky with startled cries, and the echoes bounced back and forth between mountain peaks and gradually faded away. I took a deep breath and yelled: | 14 |
| "Old Man of the Mountain, come forth! I am Lord Li of Kao, and I have come to you for the Secret of Immortality!" | 15 |
| For many minutes I stood in silence, listening to the chatter of squirrels and the sigh of the wind. At last I heard a scuffle of sandals, and a voice that sounded like sand scraped across a sheet of iron muttered: | 16 |
| "Immortality, immortality, why must everyone ask for Immortality? I have so many secrets to sell. Beautiful secrets, ugly secrets, happy secrets, horrible secrets--" | 17 |
| The creature who shuffled from the blackness and blinked in the bright sunlight looked like the oldest and ugliest monkey in the world. | 18 |
| "--lovely secrets, lunatic secrets, laughing secrets, loathsome secrets. I can teach you how to turn your enemies into cockroaches, or your friends into flowers. I can teach you how to transform yourself into anything you like, or how to control the monsters that lurk in the black bowels of the earth, or how to steal the spirits of the dead. Why must you come to me for the Secret of Immortality, which is so simple that it is scarcely a secret at all?" | 19 |
| "I will give you everything I have for that one secret!" I cried, and I scraped the cover of straw from the cart and revealed the treasure I had looted from the palace of the Ancestress. | 20 |
| The Old Man of the Mountain shuffled up to the cart and plunged a dirty hand into the glittering pile. "Cold," he whispered, and his voice was thick and clotted with pleasure. "Cold...cold…cold…" His robe and beard were stained with spilled food. He had pieces of straw tangled in his matted hair. His face was seamed and pitted and old beyond measurement, but the eyes that turned to me were young, and the light that danced in them was the light of mockery. | 21 |
| "Why not simply fly to Heaven and eat the Peach of Immortality?" he snickered. "Of course if you find it difficult to go to the gods you can always wait for the gods to come to you. At the Festival of the New Year, for example, when they descend to earth to make their tour of inspection." | 22 |
| He wiped his dripping nose with the tip of his beard. | 23 |
| "You know the seamless robes they wear? The jade girdles? The silver scepters and golden crowns? Any of those items will do. Steal one of them, Lord Li of Kao, and so long as you possess it you will never age. I stole a scepter myself, six or seven thousand years ago. Unfortunately I was approaching two hundred at the time, and not even the Old Man of the Mountain has discovered the secret of restoring youth," | 24 |
| He looked at me slyly and said: "Now I think that I have answered your question so far as you understand the question. I would advise you to go away at once and collect more treasure. You will need a great deal more than this when you come to see me again. My secrets are not sold cheaply, and it is perilous to waste my time." | 25 |
| The Old Man of the Mountain stamped his foot and a huge crack appeared in the earth! My poor ox bellowed with terror as it plunged down into blackness, dragging the cartload of treasure behind! I heard a sickening crash far below the surface of the earth, and then the Old Man of the Mountain waved his hand and the crack closed as though it had never been! | 26 |
| "What an interesting reaction!" he exclaimed when he turned around. "Those who do not faint are usually ten miles away by now, yet here stands Lord Li of Kao in a fighter's crouch, with a dagger in his hand! Let us see what sort of hero has come to the Old Man of the Mountain." | 27 |
| He beckoned. My feet moved against my will. I found myself walking meekly up to him, and I could not stop until we were face to face. His eyes gazed into mine, and far deeper. Twice the Duke of Ch'in had looked into my mind, but it had been nothing like this! | 28 |
| "What!" cried the Old Man of the Mountain, who seemed to be quite insulted. "A dog? A dog has come to see the wisest man in the world? You are not even a good dog!" he snarled. "One eye has been gouged out, your ears are chewed, your tail has been bitten off, and your body bears the scars of a thousand bloody battles in back alleys!" | 29 |
| He was so angry that for a moment I feared that he would turn me into a cockroach, but suddenly he stopped short. He looked again into my eyes and whispered: | 30 |
| "A ball ... a bell ... a flute...three murdered maidens and a billion wings rising toward the stars..." | 31 |
| Then he began to laugh. The Old Man of the Mountain laughed until he cried, and then he wiped his eyes with his heard and gasped: | 32 |
| Chang Heng! Trust Chang Heng to find the one dog in the world capable of continuing his quest! I must admit that this is really very clever of Chang Heng - doomed to failure, of course, but clever - and I should have guessed that he would never give up. Stubbornest man I ever met. Chang Heng came to see me five hundred years ago, and I was quite impressed with him. One longs for a little intelligent conversation after several thousand years of solitude, and I even offered to make Chang Heng immortal free of charge, and to fix him up in a cave next to mine. He laughed at me. Me, the wisest man in the world!" | 33 |
| Again I feared for my life, but again the rage of the Old Man of the Mountain turned into laughter. This time he laughed until he choked, and then he wheezed: | 34 |
| "Chang Heng said that he wanted to go to Heaven, and that the only way to wet there was to die, and do you know what happened when he did die?" giggled the Old Man of the Mountain. "He refused to go to Heaven! Why, they practically built a golden staircase for the great man! The Yama Kings were running around like frightened flunkies stamping his passport, or whatever they use for Heavenly travelers, but Chang Heng just glared at them and said 'Kindly inform the Emperor of Heaven that Chang Heng may have lost his life, but he is still on the trail, and he will never give up!' Then he tied his soul to the Pool of Past Existences and refused to budge. So for five hundred years a damn fool skull has been lying at the bottom of a damn fool pool, and now he has sent a damn fool dog to continue his damn fool quest!" | 35 |
| When the Old Man of the Mountain finally stopped laughing I saw something in his eyes which I recognized: greed. An all-consuming greed, and I dared to hope that I might learn something useful after all. Filthy fingers clutched my tunic, and the wizard whispered: | 36 |
| "Little dog, Chang Heng will never let you go. He will send you out to find a raindrop in a thunderstorm, or a petal in a field of flowers, or one special grain of sand concealed among a billion on a beach. What chance do you think you will have? I am the only one who can save you," whispered the Old Man of the Mountain. "Go back and steal something belonging to a god. Then return to me with treasure. At least ten cartloads of treasure, because you will need to buy another secret, and my secrets are not sold cheaply." | 37 |
| "But if I stole something belonging to a god I would never age," I said. "Why would I need to buy another secret?" | 38 |
| "You would never age, but what good is that when you could still be killed? You could be finished off in an instant by the bite of a mosquito or a slip upon the stairs," snickered the Old Man of the Mountain. His eyes sparkled. His hands twitched with excitement. A trickle of saliva drooled from his lips and he wiped it off with his beard. "Little dog, listen to me! You realize that anything with a heart can be killed? That is the secret, you see, that is the real secret. That is why the rulers of the world have come to the Old Man of the Mountain for five thousand years, and that is why they will come to me five thousand years from now. I alone have discovered how it can be done! Look, little dog, look!" | 39 |
| O Buddha, I cannot describe my horror when the Old Man of the Mountain opened his robe! I saw the hole where his heart had been! I looked right through him, and saw the copper gong behind, sparkling in the sunlight! | 40 |
| "No!" I cried. "A man without a heart is not a man, but a monster!" | 41 |
| "Indeed? And what do you call a man without a soul?" snickered the Old Man of the Mountain. "Little dog, the only way to perfect the soul is to complete the cycle around the Great Wheel of Transmigrations, but you will not complete it. Oh no. You are going to steal something belonging to a god, and then you are going to return to me with ten cartloads of treasure because I can see that you are a very intelligent little dog. I will remove your heart, and then you will be safe from Chang Heng! Not even his lunatic quest can kill you, so long as your heart is safe!" | 42 |
| His tongue licked his lips and his fingers pinched my arm and he winked, as though we were sharing some private joke. | 43 |
| "A man without a heart likes things cold, and there is nothing colder than treasure," he whispered. "Bring me treasure. I can see in your eyes that you are a bright little dog, and when I remove your heart you will hide it well. Some of my pupils have been incredibly stupid. One dolt - may Buddha strike me if I lie! - actually hid his heart inside the body of a lizard, which was inside a cage, which was on top of the head of a serpent, which was on top of a tree, which was guarded by lions, tigers, and scorpions! Another moron actually thought that he was being clever when he concealed his heart inside of an egg, which was inside a duck, which was inside a basket, which was inside a chest, which was buried beneath a tree, which was on an island, which was in the middle of an uncharted ocean! Both of those clods were easily destroyed by the first half-witted heroes who came along, but you will not be so stupid. You will live so long as your heart lives, and you know that nothing is worse than death. Nothing!" hissed the Old Man of the Mountain. | 44 |
| I tried to keep the revulsion from my voice, but I failed. | 45 |
| "Some things are far worse than death," I said. | 46 |
| The Old Man of the Mountain gazed at me with eyes like adders. His words were icicles. "It is perilous to waste my time," he said. Then he pressed to fingers to the corners of his lips and blew. | 47 |
| I was scooped up by a howling gale, and I whirled head over heels down the mountainside. The wind shrieked and dust flew and branches broke and I thumped down slope after slope. It seemed forever before I finally came to a halt by crashing into a tree. Then I passed out cold, | 48 |
| When I came to it was late afternoon. I felt for broken bones and found nothing but bruises. I also found my goatskin flask and set to work getting drunk. After the tenth gulp of strong wine I felt strong enough to examine my surroundings, and I saw that the tree I had crashed into had saved my life, because I was perched on the edge of a high cliff. Far below I could see a small village half-hidden by trees, and a shallow river shining in the sunset, and a boy standing motionless on the riverbank. A chilly wind sighed down from snowcapped peaks, and birds swooped high and low, and somewhere a woodcutter sang a slow sad song as he split logs. | 49 |
| A deep melancholy settled upon my soul. I took another swig of wine and sang:
"One blast of cold wind, | 50 |
| and the clouds part above the mountains. | 51 |
| It is evening: | 52 |
| the woodcutter's song becomes even sadder. | 53 |
| The boy calls to his friends on the other bank; | 54 |
| they come to him, riding a water buffalo across the stream."
What was I going to do? The Duke of Ch'in had no heart, so how could I avenge the death of Miser Shen? I swilled more wine and lapsed into self-pity. Only a few months ago I had been nineteen years old and free as the wind, happily setting forth to seek my fortune, and now I was nineteen going on one hundred and six, surrounded by dukes without hearts and monsters and labyrinths and skulls in pools that sent me all over creation to look for balls and bells and flutes and grains of sand. All I wanted to do was elope with the woman I loved and live happily ever after! "Lotus Cloud, Lotus Cloud!" I cried in my heart. "Will I ever see you again?" | 55 |
| Probably not. But was I going to give up? | 56 |
| I saw the face of Miser Shen in my mind, earnestly telling me that I was related to the greatest of all fighting dogs and that never in history had such a dog been known to give up. I saw Henpecked Ho, hurling himself against the spears of the soldiers in order to get to the Ancestress. I imagined Chang Heng telling the Yama Kings that he had no intention of giving up, alive or dead. | 57 |
| "What a world, what a world," I sighed. Then I swallowed the rest of the wine at a gulp and lurched to my feet. As the sun sank behind the mountains I memorized the landmarks. Tonight I would sleep where I was, but at the crack of dawn I would have to set forth once more into the great land of China. | 58 |
| "Duke, you don't know what you're up against!" I yelled, and the echo that drifted back was as thin and pathetic as the whimper of a frightened puppy. A puppy trying to kill a tiger. | 59 |
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