Kyoko Yoshida

 I.

Darkness.

A motor is rattling away.

Piano music.

A wildfire is burning in a field. It is difficult to see the flame in the black and white image against the creased background, but if you look closely—or close your eyes and imagine closely, you see the pale blaze licking the dry grass and wisps of smoke rising here and there and drifting off in the wind against the wrinkled screen of the dark chamber of your skull. Your eyes pan across the field and there you see a dark mass in the grass. Your eyes zoom, and it’s you, Li Xinchun—the dark mass, the man lying face down in the grass.

You look dead, but you cannot be dead because you are watching it now.

The wind blows to feed the fire. It approaches you by the moment.

More piano music. Louder.

You almost hear the wind but don’t. The tall grass is rustling in the wind. The grass next to you moves in a different way from the grass in the wind, and there appears a light-shaded small dog. It dithers about, worried about you. It circles about you, not knowing what to do.

Your eyes see your hand is holding a gourd, which implies that you are not dead, thank goodness, that you are just dead drunk.

The fire gets closer. The dog yap-yap-yaps at you in silence and jerks the scruff of your coat in vain. Your eyes zoom on the dog’s panicking face and then switch to a stream of water away in the field. The dog dashes to the stream, avoiding the fire and fighting the smoke, jumps into the water, dashes back to you, the lying man, and shakes itself to sprinkle the water on you.

The dog goes back and forth.

The dog shuttles frantically between the creek and the man, sprinkles water at your side, tugs your arm. You are drenched but you don’t wake up because you are intoxicated, you are deep in this dream of the man lying dead drunk in the field. You silently scream at yourself: wake up, stupid, wake up! And the dog mouth-syncs yap, yap, yap, as if it heard you.

Drained of energy, the dog totters back to snuggle at your side, lying belly down, and closes its eyes….

The piano music diminishes.

Lights on.

II.

During the Taihe Era of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Yang Sheng of Guangling had one puppy, doted on it so much that he took it everywhere he went. Once Sheng got drunk and fell asleep in the meadow. It was a dry winter month, and the field caught fire. The wind was strong. The puppy panicked and yapped and yapped but Sheng was fast asleep. There was a water hole ahead, so the puppy jumped into the water and came back and sprinkled the water on the grass right and left of Sheng. The fire reached close but did not burn Sheng. He finally woke up and saw what had happened.

(from Soushenhouji, Chapter 71: Yang Sheng’s Puppy)

III.

Yang Sheng’s Puppy story continues.

Later, walking in the dark, Sheng fell into a dry well, and the puppy on the ground whimpered all night till dawn. Presently, there came a passer-by, who became suspicious of the puppy barking at the well, and he came close to look and saw Sheng inside.

Sheng said, “If you could help me out, I will repay you handsomely.”

The man said, “If you could give me this puppy, that’ll match the efforts of saving you.”

Sheng said, “This dog alone is beyond my gift. It once saved my life, so I cannot possibly give it away. Ask what else you will and it is yours.”

The man said, “If such be the case, it is not worth saving you.”

At this, the puppy lowered its head and stared into the well. Sheng understood its intension, so he said to the passer-by, “Understood. The puppy is yours.”

The man helped Sheng out and leashed the puppy and left.

Five days later, at night, the puppy came back to Sheng’s home, running.

(from Soushenhouji, Chapter 71: Yang Sheng’s Puppy)

IV.

It is clear to any humane reader’s mind that the puppy, nameless as it is, possesses a higher level of devotion than Master Yang Sheng of Guangling does, not just because it saves its master twice, but because this nameless puppy will stay on the side of this man, no matter how he manages, in one night, not only to fall asleep in the field but also fall into a dry well. You know the type—he would cut his fingers with a table knife and almost poke his eyes with his chopsticks, would forget his nephew’s name, arrive late at family gatherings, trip over his in-law’s house’s threshold, and pour wine all over his lap, ruining his brand-new new year’s frock, etc.—you get the picture. Surely, such a loveable fellow is loveable only from a certain distance, far enough so that the wine wouldn’t splash on you.

And yet, this puppy, nameless as it is, never left this man’s side.

V.

Soushenhouji was not the first book to tell this puppy’s story. There was Soushenji before Soushenhouji.

VI.

During the time of Sun Quan, a man of Jinan called Li Xinchun had a dog named Black Dragon. He loved the dog so much that he took it with him wherever he went, and he gave it a portion of whatever he ate. One day, Li Xinchun got drunk as a skunk outside town and, unable to get home, he laid down in the grass. Governor Zheng Xia happened to be hunting there, and when he saw the overgrown grass, he ordered his men to burn it off. The wind was blowing in Xinchun’s direction. The dog saw the fire coming and pulled at his clothes but could not wake him. Some fifty paces away, there was a stream, so the dog quickly ran to it, jumped into the water to wet itself, ran back to its master, and shook itself to sprinkle water around him. This was done repeatedly, and Xinchun was saved from the disaster. The dog, however, became so exhausted that it died at its master’s side. Xinchun woke up and was surprised to find his dog dead with all its fur wet. Then he saw the traces of the fire, understood what had happened, and cried woefully. When the governor heard of this, he expressed pity for the dog, saying, “The dog knew how to repay kindness better than a man. He who does not repay kindness cannot be compared with the dog.” He had a coffin and some fancy shroud prepared for the dog, and had it buried with a great deal of flourish. Because the man knew to always praise dead soldiers who couldn’t speak for themselves anymore. Today in Jinan, there remains the Faithful Dog’s Mound, over one hundred feet high.

(from Soushenji; based on the translation by Ding Wangdao)

VII.

Now the dog has a name, but it is difficult to revert my initial mental image of Yang Sheng’s puppy, which is soft and cream colored. Changing the name from “Black Dragon” to “Cream Dragon” wouldn’t do because it sounds like a pastry rather than a dog. Besides, “Black Dragon” must be majestically beautiful, which explains why the passer-by wanted to own it so much that he wouldn’t take any other reward.

But again, the passer-by appears only in the second version in which the dog is nameless and a puppy. And its owner Yang Sheng is a perpetual puppy himself, getting bogged into an irrigation ditch while going home tipsy, putting the right shoe on the left foot every other morning, rumbling down the river bank of the Yangtze, mesmerized by summer meteors, etc.—you get the picture—and all the while, the cream colored puppy dithers about unable to help his bumbling master. The stately Black Dragon would have no place in this slapstick. In my mind, it’s got to be this cream-colored puppy, not a baby dog romping about in the house, but a half grownup animal in half resignation to its master’s clumsiness and its own incapacity to save him from troubles. They are the most helpless pair in Yangzhou (or in Jinan?).

VIII.

Presently you come to, and you see your dog dead, with its fur wet all over. This baffles you. You don’t understand what happened. Then you look around, see the black grass all around you, hear some rattling sound, perhaps hollow pieces of wood knocking against each other in the wind. Slowly, you realize what happened.

You wail. The loss is irreparable.

Piano music.

IX.

Li Xinchun was not the same man anymore. Without Cream Dragon, life became hollow. He did not wail anymore like he had in the scorched field, cuddling his dead dog. After all, he was a grown man. But his family could tell. Like before, he would fall from his bed, knot his belt all wrong, put his cap on front side back—you get the picture—but his family could tell they were not Xinchun’s same old blunders anymore. Li Xinchun was bleeding—he would look up anytime and the field was ablaze. Whenever he saw this, Xinchun would drink himself senseless, wishing the flame would incinerate him this time around and he would die in agony. And yet, at the same time, he was dreaming of Cream Dragon rushing to his side to save him again. Again, and again. Or was he wishing his dog would take him along with it?

One evening, Li Xinchun drank outside town, and on his way home alone, walking in the dark, he fell into a dry well.

Or did he jump into the well, having seen the mind’s fire once again, thinking the well would be full of water?

Or did he throw himself into the pit in despair because the liquor hadn’t made him numb enough?

When he came to, he saw he wasn’t dead. He had merely twisted his ankle. He looked up and saw flurries of moonlit cloud moving across the circle of the sky from the bottom of the well.

Suddenly, Li Xinchun wanted to cry. He wailed in the bottom of the pit. There, he could cry his eyes out because he was miserable: he was a grown man, the patriarch of a respectable household of twenty-one (including the domestics); he was drunk and trapped in the pit; plus, his ankle hurt. He cried and cried till dawn, calling his dog’s name, until he tired himself out.

Then there came a voice from above: Hullo?

Li Xinchun opened his eyes.

—Hullo? Somebody there?

Xinchun saw a dark shadow of a man’s face high above against a nimbus of the sky.

—I came by because it looked strange here. And sure enough, there you are in the well. Do you need help?

Xinchun was speechless for a moment. He couldn’t tell what he wanted at the moment.

—Well, hullo? Do you want out or not?

—Yes, please! I will repay you handsomely if you help me out, sir.

The passer-by said: If you could give me this puppy, that’ll match the efforts of saving you.

Of course, Xinchun understood immediately which puppy this passer-by was referring to, but he still couldn’t believe this natural conclusion.

Timidly, Xinchun asked: What dog are you talking about?

—This cream-colored puppy that patiently sits by the well. Must be yours.

Xinchun gulped his tears and implored: Please, sir, this dog once saved my life from a fire. This dog is beyond my gift. Please understand.

The man said: If such be the case, it’s not worth saving you.

At this, Li Xinchun saw the face of the puppy. It lowered its head and stared into the well. Although the man’s face was a dark shadow, the puppy’s perfect face was radiating light, clear as a full moon.

Xinchun understood its intension.

—Understood. The puppy is yours.

The passer-by said to Xinchun: I will leash the puppy and bring it home first because I don’t want you to change your mind once I help you out.

And thus, the man leashed Xinchun’s puppy and left.

The man kept his promise. He came back and saved Xinchun out of the well.

X.

Five days later, the puppy dissappeared from the man’s house.

Li Xinchun lived the rest of his life in peace. Without a dog.