Cao Cao in tempeljski duh

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Cao Cao in tempeljski duh

When Yuan Shao, courtesy name Benchu, was in Ji Province, a spirit appeared in Hedong, calling himself Lord Dushuo, and the people together built him a temple. The temple had a registrar named Dafu. Cai Yong of Chenliu, who was serving as governor of Qinghe, stopped to pay his respects there. He had a son named Dao who had been dead for thirty years. Lord Dushuo set out wine for Cai Yong and said, “Your honored son came here some time ago and wishes to see you.” Before long, his son appeared. Lord Dushuo said of himself, “My father and grandfather once governed Yan Province.” There was a scholar surnamed Su whose mother was ill, and he went to the temple to pray. The registrar told him, “The lord has gone to meet a celestial being. Stay and wait.” He heard drums sounding in the northwest, and then the lord arrived. Soon a guest came, wearing an unlined black robe, with multicolored feathers several inches long growing from his head. After he left, another man appeared, dressed in an unlined white cloth robe and a tall cap shaped like a fish’s head. He said to the lord, “When we visited Mount Lu long ago, we ate white plums together. It seems only a little while ago, yet three thousand years have passed. How swiftly the days and months slip away—it fills one with melancholy.” After he left, the lord told the scholar, “The first visitor was the Lord of the Southern Sea.” Su was a student of the classics, but the lord had a thorough knowledge of the Five Classics and was especially versed in the Book of Rites. They discussed ritual, and Su proved no match for him. Su begged him to cure his mother’s illness. The lord said, “East of your home there is an old bridge that people have damaged. Your mother has offended the spirit that travels by that bridge. If you can restore it, she will recover.” When Lord Cao campaigned against Yuan Tan, he sent men to the temple to obtain a thousand bolts of silk in exchange, but the lord refused to give them up. Lord Cao then sent Zhang He to destroy the temple. While Zhang He was still a hundred li away, the lord dispatched tens of thousands of soldiers, who came filling the road. Before Zhang He could get within two li, clouds and mist encircled his army, and he could no longer tell where the temple stood. The lord told his registrar, “Lord Cao’s power is at its height. We had best avoid him.” Later, a spirit descended into a neighboring household of Su Jing’s. Su recognized the lord’s voice, which said, “I moved into a lake, and for three years we were wholly cut off from one another.” The lord then sent someone to communicate with Lord Cao: he wished to restore his old temple, but the fortunes of the site had declined and it was no longer fit to inhabit, so he hoped to lodge elsewhere. Lord Cao said, “Very well,” and had a tower north of the city made ready for him to live in. A few days later, while hunting, Lord Cao caught a creature the size of a fawn, with large feet, a coat as white as snow, and fur so soft and sleek that it was delightful to touch. He rubbed it against his face, but no one could say what it was. That night, crying was heard from the tower: “My little boy went out and has not returned!” Lord Cao clapped his hands and said, “This fellow truly is in decline, just as he said!” In the morning he brought several hundred dogs and surrounded the foot of the tower. The dogs caught the scent and charged in and out. Then a creature as large as a donkey was seen hurling itself down from the tower. The dogs killed it, and the temple spirit was heard of no more.