Skrivnostni sel gorskega boga

Besedilo

Skrivnostni sel gorskega boga

After Guo Pu crossed the Yangtze, Yin You, the governor of Xuancheng, appointed him to his staff as a military adviser. At that time, a creature appeared outside the city walls. It was as large as a water buffalo, gray in color, with short legs and feet like an elephant’s. Its chest and the top of its tail were white. Though immensely strong, it was slow and lumbering, and everyone marveled at it. Yin You sent men to lie in wait and capture it, and ordered Guo Pu to consult the Changes. He obtained the hexagram Retreat changing to Decay, and identified the creature as a “donkey rat.” The divination had only just ended when one of the men lying in wait thrust a halberd more than a foot into it. The commandery’s chief clerk went to the shrine to ask permission to kill it. The spirit medium said, “The temple god is displeased. This is a messenger of the Lord of Mount Lü at Gongting. On his way to Mount Jing, he stopped briefly to visit me. You must not harm him.” The creature then departed and was never seen again.