HCAW 107

Chapter 107: Zhuangzi’s Butterfly Dream ¹famous passage in ancient Chinese philosophy. It appears in the book Zhuangzi (Chapter 2: “Qi Wu Lun” or “On the Equality of Things”) “Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily, doing as it pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and there he was—solid and unmistakably Zhuang Zhou. But he did not know whether he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.”

Five years ago, in Milu Village, a legend began to spread.

Overnight, the entire village was bathed in blood. The stench of gore wafted for ten li; rivers of blood ran through the streets. Whole families perished, their limbs and flesh strewn everywhere—like a vision of hell on earth.

Those familiar with the village in Xian Mountain knew that Milu had been a hiding place for the Da Yuan Dao sect. The Da Yuan Dao disciples were known as brutal and savage, long a thorn in the side of the Xian Mountain Guards. And yet, this group of vicious criminals had all been slaughtered with ease, raising suspicions among many.

A rumor, spreading like a plague, whispered of a bloodbath wrought by none other than King Yama himself.

On the bleak, white winter plain, a few fast horses galloped across the snowfields in the distance, kicking up clouds of snow.

The horses halted at the entrance of Milu Village. Several swift officers leapt down, clad in padded coats and armed with iron rulers strapped to their waists. Among them was a young man in black robes, his face cold enough to chip ice, cloaked in a patched, threadbare cape.

The others called to him, “Jingyu, let’s split into three groups and comb through every inch of this place.”

But the handsome young man frowned and asked, “Why split up? Isn’t there a dangerous killer here who’s taken lives? Wouldn’t it be more dangerous to separate?”

The others chuckled. “It’s already been ten days or more. Who knows how many officers have already scoured this place before us? We’re just here to see if anyone missed any clues. That murderer surely fled long ago.”

So the group split up. Milu Village was now a ruin—shattered tiles and broken walls cloaked in snow mist, branches casting messy shadows. Occasionally, the caw of crows pierced the silence. The cold-faced young man drew his sword and trudged through the snow.

His name was Fang Jingyu, eighteen years old, working under the Yu Yin Guard of Penglai Palace—a poorly clothed and underfed officer of Xian Mountain. Few knew he was once the son of a Langgan Guard.

Fang Jingyu advanced cautiously along the village path. Not a sound could be heard, the place as silent as a graveyard. In the cracks of the ground were remnants of bones, glowing faintly with phosphorescence. On a broken wall, old bloodstains still splattered—now blackened with age.

Suddenly, a cold wind rose. In its whistling, he detected faint, ragged breathing. In an instant, he drew his sword with a clear shout:

“Who’s there?”

Before his voice even faded, he moved like lightning. His blade flashed white like a cold moon, slashing a wall of packed earth. Snow and dust flew as a figure tumbled out from a ruined house by the path. It was a man with disheveled hair, dressed in a tattered hemp robe. Faint peach embroidery could still be seen on his clothes—he was a Da Yuan Dao disciple.

He was bloodstained, his eyes twitching erratically, drooling at the mouth—clearly deranged. Upon seeing Fang Jingyu, he cried out in fear:

“Great Immortal… Great Immortal!”

“What?”

“The Great Immortal has descended… displayed divine power…” The man’s eyes rolled wildly, then he suddenly screamed, “Spare me, Great Immortal! Spare me!” He then began slamming his head on the ground, smashing his forehead open as blood sprayed.

Fang Jingyu was chilled by the madness and thrust his sheathed sword forward to stop him. “Enough. Don’t hurt yourself. I’m not some Great Immortal. Who are you?”

The man giggled idiotically. “Yes, you’re not the Immortal…”

Fang Jingyu pressed on. “Then who is this ‘Great Immortal’ you speak of?”

“A girl… looked like a girl. Half her skull was missing—red, yellow, white, green inside… all muddled up! But she couldn’t die! She flitted about like a ghost, and in a blink, she slaughtered several of us…” The man’s eyes widened. “We smashed her head who knows how many times… and still she lived… That was a divine manifestation of the Great Immortal…”

“And this Great Immortal… is she still here?”

“Yes—yes! She’s everywhere… hehehe… she’s right behind you…”

The man spewed these words in rapid fire like a string of firecrackers. Then, as if drained of all strength, he collapsed to the ground, muttering:

“The Great Immortal… the Great Immortal is coming to take my life… to send me to the Peach Source…”

Suddenly, he threw back his head and laughed wildly, then slammed his skull onto the ground with all his might. A sickening crack followed—like a frozen melon splitting open. In moments, a corpse lay in the snow.

Fang Jingyu’s heart nearly stopped. He turned around in a panic—but behind him was nothing but endless white snow.

He knew this was no place to linger. Still, duty was duty—he could not turn back. He pressed on, stepping over the disciple’s corpse. After wandering for who knew how long, he came upon a broken wall and noticed a hole, crudely blocked with stones and grass.

He cleared the stones and crawled in. On the other side was an underground chamber, scattered with torn pages. A divine altar stood on the far side, where the stench of blood was thick as fermented mash. Piled chaotically around it were corpses.

Fang Jingyu stared toward the altar. A peach-emblazoned banner hung there—Da Yuan Dao’s insignia. This was their stronghold.

The floor was littered with corpses, but no trace of the killer remained. Fang Jingyu searched for a while and then returned to the chamber. It hadn’t been scoured before—he stayed cautious and alert.

Suddenly, he heard a faint sound.

He approached and found, among the heap of bodies, a girl—barely school-aged—covered in a threadbare red quilt. Her body was bruised all over, unconscious. Her nostrils flared slightly, making faint kitten-like sounds.

Turning his head, Fang Jingyu saw scattered fruit pits and flour crumbs atop the altar. The girl had clearly survived on offerings. He knelt down, took off his cloak, and wrapped her up.

By the time he returned to the village entrance, the other officers had trickled back as well, some carrying emaciated survivors.

One of the Xian Mountain officers said, “All the disciples wearing peach-emblazoned robes are dead. We found some people locked up in underground cells who hadn’t been discovered earlier—we managed to rescue them.”

Another man joked, “These folks aren’t remnants of Da Yuan Dao, are they? If we rescue them, aren’t we just inviting wolves into the house?”

“They’re mostly women and children, living off scraps of food and water. All of them bear wounds from abuse—they likely aren’t disciples.” Fang Jingyu spoke calmly. “All the disciples are dead anyway. No one knows who did it—could it really have been King Yama?”

The group exchanged glances. At the thought of the still-unseen killer, a nameless dread crept into their hearts.

As the sun dipped behind the mountains, they rode away from Milu Village and, after a few more li, stopped at a nearby inn. The Xian Mountain officers ordered food and hot broth to be prepared, busy feeding the emaciated women and children.

Fang Jingyu worked for half an hour, then turned back to his room—only to find the girl wrapped in the red quilt missing. He searched around and finally found her behind the inn.

In the snowy cold, the girl crouched on the ground, biting into a string of chili peppers that had been hung under someone’s eaves. With each bite, she spat and stuck out her tongue, then gnawed on the snow to soothe the burn, like a little beast.

As Fang Jingyu approached, she turned warily and bared her teeth. He saw a gash on her head, as if she’d been struck by something blunt, and her hair was matted with blood.

“You’re hurt—come here, I’ll bandage you,” Fang Jingyu said with a frown, beckoning her.

But the girl wasn’t moved. When he got close, she suddenly lunged and bit his hand hard with jagged teeth like a saw. He hissed in pain and yanked his hand back, leaving behind a crescent of bloody tooth marks. That such a wounded child had so much fight left in her made him suddenly recall the ravings of that Da Yuan Dao disciple: “The Great Immortal… looked like a little girl!”

Fang Jingyu clutched his bleeding hand and looked at the girl. Her large, black eyes gleamed like a wary kitten’s.

It’s nonsense, he thought, remembering the madman’s ramblings. How could such a young girl be a killer?

“I won’t hurt you. Come here.” Fang Jingyu spoke gently. Judging by her age, she should have already begun to speak. “What’s your name? Do you have any family?”

The girl didn’t answer. She just gnawed cautiously on the chili string. Fang Jingyu thought, Even an orphanage might not take in a child this wild.

He turned away and headed back toward the house. Since she wouldn’t follow, he would bring medicine and water to her instead. But before he’d gone far, he heard a soft, choking sob.

“Jiao… Jiao.”

Fang Jingyu turned around. Against the snowy white backdrop, the girl clutched a half-bitten chili, her cheeks streaked with tears. She kept murmuring, “Jiao…”

The young officer in black turned back and squatted in front of her, his voice softening:

“Is that your name?”

The girl shook her head, then nodded, eyes full of confusion and fear—as if she couldn’t remember clearly herself. For some reason, she clung to the word “Jiao” with a strange fixation. Every time she said it, a tear fell from her eye.

Clouds stretched far, and snow drifted endlessly. Fang Jingyu gave a rare smile and reached out his hand. This time, the girl didn’t shrink away. She felt his calloused, sword-worn fingers stroke the top of her head—warm and gentle, like the light of dawn.

“All right,” he said. “From now on, I’ll call you Xiao Jiao.”

_____

Memories, chaotic and fragmented, slowly pieced themselves together. Great Immortal Yonghe began to remember everything—first the days spent with the girl in the underground chamber in Milu Village, then the fury that erupted in his chest when she was killed by the disciples.

He saw his own self from five years ago slipping into the girl’s corpse and holding her up. Staggering and alone, he made his way across the snowy plain to Milu Village. At first, the cultists didn’t notice her—but in a flash, the girl’s tentacles and teeth turned sharp as blades, her body ghostlike. In the blink of an eye, she tore out the throats of several disciples.

Hatred burned like wildfire, consuming his reason. When the last disciple fell, Yonghe’s divine consciousness had already shattered, and he sank into darkness. For the next ten-odd years, he slept within the girl’s body, forgetting he had ever been Great Immortal Yonghe—until now.

Xiao Jiao suddenly jolted awake from a dream.

All around was pitch-black. She stared in a daze for a long time, then remembered: she’d been captured by the Gu Bi Guard and sealed inside a large ceramic urn. Outside, the chanting of the priests had stopped. It was silent as death.

Likely due to the effect of the Five-Ward Spirit Incantation, her old memories had now returned. She was Great Immortal Yonghe, merely borrowing the body of a girl long since dead. Only now, years later, had she awakened, and her divine power had begun to recover.

Just then, the lid of the urn was lifted, and she was dumped out.

She hit the ground. By the dim candlelight, she looked down at her muddy, misshapen limbs—but she felt neither fear nor panic. This was her true form. The human body she had worn for years was nothing more than Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream.

Gu Bi Guard stood smiling before her. “Well, have you remembered everything from your past?”

Xiao Jiao watched him warily. At this moment, she had completely returned to the form of a small nine-tentacled octopus and instinctively shrank back. Gu Bi Guard continued, “After all the trouble I went through, to finally meet the Great Immortal Yonghe—it is truly a blessing of three lifetimes.”

“You knew all along?” Xiao Jiao demanded.

Gu Bi Guard nodded with a smile. She narrowed her eyes and asked again, “Was the matter of my being falsely accused also your carefully laid scheme?”

“No,” Gu Bi Guard replied. “Great Immortal, you did in fact kill many of my subordinates, and you truly did take the life of the Bi Bao Guard. There was no false accusation—it was all real. Please search your heart and ask yourself: has your hand never been stained with the blood of others?”

At that, Xiao Jiao’s muddled mind began to clear, like clouds parting to reveal the sun. The dark figure in her dreams had not been someone else—it was her, back when she was still the ‘Great Immortal’. And for reasons unknown, ever since she arrived at Daiyu, her heart had been filled with restlessness and an uncontrollable urge to kill—thus the string of tragedies.

Her voice turned cold. “Don’t try to sweet-talk me. This is all your trap. Didn’t you just say how much effort it took to meet me? So you’re admitting to all your scheming—and now you’re trying to deny it? I have a feeling…”

The handsome young man simply smiled behind his back, but Xiao Jiao said:

“Could it be… you’re one of my kind?”

At that moment, the candle flames danced wildly, shadows on the walls writhing like demons. Gu Bi Guard said nothing, but to her, his expression resembled a mask stretched across his face. She continued, “Every time I get close to you, I feel agitated—and I bet you do too. That’s how you saw through me from the start, and deliberately led me, while my mind was unclear, to kill the Bi Bao Guard.”

As soon as the words left her lips, it was as if a vast invisible shadow spread out through the underground chamber. A heavy pressure radiated from Gu Bi Guard’s body. He smiled, all civility still on his face.

“You are quite right, Great Immortal. Everything is just as you imagined. Yes, I orchestrated this entire plan.”

“The people I harmed were those who harvested my blood sacs, mutilated my body, and devoured my flesh as Immortal Elixirs. Gu Bi Guard, everyone in this Daiyu is guilty.”

Suddenly, Gu Bi Guard burst into laughter.

He had seemed so polite before that no one would have expected such gurgling, grotesque sounds to come from him now. In the flickering firelight, a thick black shadow began to rise behind him—also with seven eyes and nine tentacles, but vast and mountainous in its presence. Even the former “Great Immortal Yonghe” could not help but tremble.

“Great Immortal, your dynasty has long since vanished. Now, among the Three Xian Mountains, I alone reign supreme!” The youth seemed to tear off his own face, revealing a twisted, malicious grin. “Emperor Bai has left the mountains, and the people bow to him—but that chubby little Ji boy is nothing more than my puppet. Now, you are the only threat to me.”

Xiao Jiao shivered all over as she saw Taoists and attendants swarm into the underground chamber, their eyes glowing dimly. In a flash of clarity, she realized—these people were all extensions of Gu Bi Guard. No, perhaps they had long since become part of him—flesh of his flesh!

So that was why she always felt like something was watching her in this place. She had heard rumors that Gu Bi Guard had eyes and ears throughout Xian Mountain. He was like an ancient tree with deep roots—his consciousness already woven into the very soil of Daiyu. A thought suddenly struck her: perhaps Gu Bi Guard was the entire Daiyu Xian Mountain.

She asked, “These people—they’re all yours. Then that imposter Bi Bao Guard was too?”

The Daoists stood motionless, like lifeless puppets, their eerie eyes fixed on her. Gu Bi Guard smiled gently. “Indeed. She is me, and I am her.”

“So you called my blood andflesh ‘Immortal Elixirs’ and distributed them to the people of Daiyu—not out of goodwill, but to let them unknowingly become a part of you?”

“You are sharp as ever, Great Immortal. But one correction: I’m not turning them into my extensions—they already are. Without the Immortal Elixir, their forms would collapse quickly.”

Another chill ran down her spine. The tens of thousands in Daiyu were now Gu Bi Guard’s accomplices! If he wished, he could bend their wills at a thought. She asked, “When did you become like this?”

He laughed. “Decades ago, when Emperor Bai abandoned Xian Mountain, I alone was left to bear the burden. Great Immortal, can you not see how prosperous Daiyu is now? Even more so than under Emperor Bai. Of course, managing Xian Mountain requires greater effort. I only used a bit more Immortal Elixir, and slowly, I became this.”

Little Jiao said nothing, all seven of her eyes glaring. A bit more? This fiend had clearly devoured a massive amount! She realized now that Gu Bi Guard was stronger than her—perhaps even more like “Great Immortal Yonghe” than she was.

He had not only consumed endless Immortal Elixir but had ordered the capture and slaughter of her kin, expanding his influence throughout Xian Mountain. She shuddered again but kept her eyes fixed in fury.

“You act with such lawlessness—does the Son of Heaven know?”

“Emperor Bai left long ago. Why would I need his approval?”

Gu Bi Guard replied with scorn. Suddenly, the Taoists surged forward, surrounding her. Xiao Jiao sensed danger—she was caught in a net from all directions.

“Enough talk. Great Immortal, you are all I have sought for years. With your divine power, Xian Mountain will truly fall into my hands.”

Gu Bi Guard smiled as he reached out. The hand hidden in his sleeve was no longer fair and jade-like, but a pitch-black tentacle like mud. Behind him, the black shadow opened a blood-red maw, as if to devour her whole. He chuckled darkly, his words like a hissing serpent:

“Come now, Great Immortal. Let us fuse as one.”

The Taoists closed in from all sides, yellow talismans in hand. Xiao Jiao stood at the center of an array, as if walled in by something unseen—unable to escape.

The monks of Yuanqiao, dark as black mud, were her kin. Now that her memories had returned, her senses seemed to stretch a thousand li. She could feel their terror, doubt, and fury. Gu Bi Guard, for his selfish ends, had hunted them for years, draining her divine power. Now, she truly was no match for him.

She broke into a cold sweat, cornered and helpless. But then—there was a thunderous boom. The iron door of the chamber was cleaved in two, and daylight poured in.

Startled, Gu Bi Guard took a step back. Through the dust and shadows stepped a man in black, not wearing the blue robes of the royal guard, but a patched, tattered cloak. He stood tall like a bamboo stalk, a glowing sword in his hand gleaming like stars and sunlight. It was Fang Jingyu.

The Taoists recoiled in alarm, the attendants all drawing their swords in unison, blades pointed at Fang Jingyu. Gu Bi Guard’s face twisted, then he said:

“And what brings you here, young man? I was in the middle of questioning the Divine Maiden.”

Unfazed, Fang Jingyu raised his sword. “Not calling me ‘Your Majesty’ anymore? I rather liked that title.”

Xiao Jiao looked up at him, dazed for a moment. It felt like she had returned to years ago—when that young man in black had wrapped her in his cloak and carried her through wind and snow. He had taken in the wild, untamed her. The two of them, penniless, had slept on hay in the stables. Fang Jingyu had fed her, clothed her, taught her to read and speak. Two lonely souls who had become each other’s only refuge. In that instant, tears poured from her eyes.

“I’ve come to take Xiao Jiao back,” the young man in black said. “She’s one of us. I will not abandon her.”

Gu Bi Guard stepped aside, revealing the small nine-tentacled octopus, limp as mud on the floor. He sneered.

“The ‘Xiao Jiao’ you speak of is just a man-eating demon. You still want to save such a monster?”

Xiao Jiao’s heart seized. Would he recognize her in this hideous form? His eyes settled on her—and sure enough, there was a flicker of hesitation. He saw the shriveled girl’s corpse beneath the execution rack, and the tiny creature with seven eyes and nine tentacles, cowering in fear, trying to hide in the shadows.

After a long silence, Fang Jingyu suddenly said, “Then all the more reason I must take her.”

He raised his sword in front of him. The blade, pure white like frost, reflected his face—sharp and resolute.

“Lord Gu Bi Guard,” he said, “I, Fang Jingyu of Xian Mountain, will now do my duty—arrest the criminal Qin Jiao and bring her back to Penglai Palace for bounty and reward!”

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  famous passage in ancient Chinese philosophy. It appears in the book Zhuangzi (Chapter 2: “Qi Wu Lun” or “On the Equality of Things”) “Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting about happily, doing as it pleased. He didn’t know he was Zhuang Zhou. Suddenly he awoke, and there he was—solid and unmistakably Zhuang Zhou. But he did not know whether he was Zhuang Zhou who had dreamed he was a butterfly, or a butterfly now dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou.”