The Moon over the Mountain

Li Zheng of Longxi was a very talented and learned young man who, in the last yeat of the Tianbao era (755), passed the qualifying examination to become a government official.

He was put in charge of constabulary and military affairs in the area south of the lower reaches of the Yangzi River. But, strong-willed and self-confident, Li Zheng could not rest content with his status as a low-ranking official. He soon resigned his office, retiring to his native Guolue, where he cut off all contact with anyone outside the family and devoted his life to writing poetry.

He preferred to leave a name as a poet that might last a hundred years after his death to serving as a minor official who had continually to bend the knee before vulgar superiors. But literary fame, he found, was not so easy to gain, and day by day his personal situation became more precarious.

Gradually, he grew irritable. His face took on a harsh cruelty, and his body grew emaciated. His eyes had a strange glitter. There was no trace of the handsome, rosy-cheeked youth who had passed the rigorous official examination.

After a few years, unable to bear his poverty, Li Zheng bent his principles in order to provide food and clothing for his wife and children, and set off again for the east, where he accepted employment as a local official. He did this in part, too, because he had all but despaired of succeeding as a poet.

By this time, his former classmates had long since climbed to high positions, and Li Zheng’s self-esteem was severely wounded by having to take orders from men he had deemed dull when he himself had been so promising. A melancholy overtook him, and he grew increasingly unable to suppress a half-mad egotism.

After a year under these circumstances, Li Zheng set out on official business and, having taken lodging on che banks of a river, he at last went mad.

Late one night he rose from his bed with an uncanny look on his face and rushed out of the inn, shouting unintelligible gibberish as he plunged into the darkness. He never returned, nor did searches of the nearby mountains and moors offer any clue to his whereabouts. No one knew what had become of Li Zheng.

The following year the imperial inspector Yuan Can of Chenjun
received an imperial command to travel to Lingnan.

Along the way, he stopped at Shangyu. Before dawn the next day, as he was preparing to set out, che man in charge of the official lodgings warned him about a man-eating tiger on the toad ahead.

One could proceed with safety
only in broad daylight. Since it was still so early, it would be preferable
to wait until the break of day, he said. Yuan Can, however, trusting in
the size of his retinue, ignored this advice and set out.

By what little remained of the moonlight, they made their way
through a grassy area of a forest, when suddenly out from a thicket leapt a tiger. The tiger appeared ready to attack Yuan Can when it abrupdy
turned around and retreated.

A human voice could now be heard from the thicket, muttering over and over, “That was a very near thing.’
It was a voice that Yuan Can had heard before. In the midst of
his shock and fear, he remembered whose voice it was.

“Why, it’s my old friend, Master Li Zheng!” he cried out.

Yuan Can had passed the official examinations in the same year as Li Zheng, and had been one of his very few close friends, perhaps because Yuan Can’s warm and amiable personality had never clashed with Li Zheng’s more extreme nature, At first chere was no response from the thicket—just occasional faint sounds, as of someone weeping.

After a time, a low voice replied,
“Indeed, I am Li Zheng of Longxi.’
Yuan Can forgot all fear and, dismounting from his horse, approached the thicket, wishing to greet his old friend whom he had not
met for so many years. But why would Li Zheng not emerge and show
himself? he asked, Li Zheng’s voice answered that he was no longer in
human form.