It is the nature of all that exists to acquire consciousness and for this consciousness to deepen  in ever-increasing degrees. Even an old rag gains its own mind after a while.

-    Yu Zhengxie (1775-1840)

Beneath a Green Coat

This is a story about an event that transpired at the country estate of my grandfather - as told to me by my mother.

One summer, something began to dance violently in front of the family compound late at night, bewildering all who lived there.

While it was clear the ‘something’ was dancing, it was not clear what the something was. It danced in the shadows. And whenever anyone ran toward it for a closer look, it ran off.

Finally, one evening when the moonlight was streaming down, the household got a good look at the thing from the windows of the main house. However, that glimpse did little to unravel its mystery. From a headless, turtle-shaped torso that glinted silver beneath a green brocade coat, four spindly limbs emerged. These approximated arms and legs but culminated in lumps rather than fingers and toes.

No one had ever seen such a thing.

Several days later, Ziheng - my mother’s uncle - assigned several of his tallest and stoutest servants, armed with knives, clubs, and ropes, to crouch outside of the front gate in the bushes and await the creature’s arrival.

Soon, the creature made its nightly appearance and started in on its dance.

Immediately, the group of men leapt.

It took off at a surprising speed though, flashed through the compound front gate, and up to the top of an outside staircase where it hid in the shadows.

A lamp was shone on the shadow to confront the creature. But there was no creature there.

Instead, the lamp’s light sone on something leaning against the back wall near the staircase, something wrapped in green silk. The fabric was unwrapped. Beneath it was a tiny silver boat with four wheels.

The boat was identified as a large toy from years before, when the family’s fortunes were greater and they could afford as many expensive toys as the children wanted.  The dancing fiend’s green coat was the silk cloth the boat was wrapped in and its limbs must have bubbled up form the wheels.

There was no part of the boat that could serve as a head. That was why it lacked one.

An old servant woman later said, “That toy disappeared while I was still a young girl. I remember because all the servants my age were beaten for the crime of stealing the toys of our master’s children. I thought it had just been lost, but I guess someone stole it and hid it in this room. And here it stayed, lost and forgotten, until after a long time it became the creature we saw. Perhaps anything that’s forgotten by those that once cherished it can become demonic.”

Shortly after this, the toy was melted into more than thirty taels of silver

...............................

Some people find such transformations hard to accept. But Confucius - as recorded in Gan Bao’s Soushen Ji - taught that animals and such things as grass and trees can change into human-like creatures once they reach a certain age.

Why shouldn’t they?

After all, everything is made of the same five elements and it is quite common for substances to take on new natures with age, such as rice turning into wine.

And once you think of a monster as a collection of changed and aged elements, why be scared? Such creatures are probably no more dangerous than those things from which they sprouted.

(The Shadow Book of Ji Yun - Imperial librarian and Investigator of the Strange -ed. Yi Izzy Yu & John Yu Branscum; pub Empress Wu Books 2021)