The Toushon Census

Zhìmìng de yán

Xing-Jiu (sing-je-ew) was a noble young man.  Very elegant in nature. He was decended of the house of Zhow-Xing (chow-sing) in the small, extremely wealthy town of Dow Xong (dow-song). Though born Ying-Won, he later changed his name due to the bad luck the former carried with it.

While an attendee at Wonkyunkwan (a university in Dow-Xong), he was notorious around the dorms and lecture halls for never missing tea time. Xing-Jiu would sip tea in the middle of lectures and although it was a proper habit (and granted he always maintained a showy position with back straight and eyes firmly placed on the teachers), sometimes it made the other students nervous. This act, however, was highly respected by his peers.

The students promptly awarded him the nickname Yán chá, meaning Salt-Tea. Not because he took salt in his tea, mind you, but because he was very superstitious. Often he would be seen throwing salt over his shoulder. This was supposed to keep poltergeists away, but only he believed in such a thing. And yet he believed it so firmly, the students would come to expect a pile of salt behind his chair at cleaning time.

While still in attendance at Wonkyunkwan, Xing-Jiu often wrote poems and other elegant pieces of literature. One day he wrote a poem he appreciated so much, he took it to be published. After successfully doing so, he proudly displayed it on his school desk for others to see. The bad luck came soon enough, when a close classmate noticed it (after reading and very much enjoying) was very similar to another poem of a famous author. It so happened to be written nearly identically. The original's publisher heard wind of this supposed plagiarism, sued Xing-Jiu, and won.
Xing-Jiu hadn't the money to pay this debt, so in his fear he fled. His family lived far from the university but he refused to write them for fear of the utter embarrassment and shame.

Fleeing from town to town, Xing-Jiu didn't even allow himself to run. No, he was too proper to run. His formal habit of elegance did not allow him to, but in normal circumstances his high IQ made up for that loss. Now he wished he had spent more time on the racetrack. Through all this, he still managed to evade his pursuers for three and a half years, until one curious day when his extreme formality finally got the better of him. A young foreign lady had gotten lost in the woods nearby. Xing-Jiu could never leave a lady in distress, so he assisted her out of the woods. But by the time they had come to the edge of the wood, his pursuers were waiting merely yards away. Xing-Jiu's flight was all for naught. And so he did the last thing he ever hoped he'd have to do: he ran. He sprinted into the woods, tossing clumps of salt over his shoulder all the while. In his young mind, these pursuers were poltergeists. They wanted to steal his soul. They wanted to kill him. The more he convinced himself so, the more salt he threw. Until his once full pouch was nearly empty.

Xing-Jiu stumbled forward until he came to the edge of a precipice. The cliff sank before him like the edge of the world. Beneath him clouds floated by on the wind. He took a step back and turned on his heels. An arrow- like a beam of light- pierced a tree inches from his shoulder. 

Xing-Jiu held his shaky breath as his pursuers formed a semicircle around him. His face grew hot with embarrassment and fear. Mostly fear, but the embarrassment came because he knew deep down he should have been intelligent enough to outwit and evade them. Unfortunately, his bravery didn't match his intelligence. Xing-Jiu couldn't let these poltergeists steal his soul. So he did the only thing he could think to do: he threw himself off the cliff, into the dark ocean below.

Xing-Jiu passed away at the age of twenty-four. Cause of death: a fall from a great height.

It was never known who actually wrote the poem Xing-Jiu had been accused of copying. The mystery remains to this day. After Xing-Jiu's death, his classmates gave him one final nickame; Zhìmìng de yán, meaning deadly salt. And all Xing-Jiu left behind the day he died was a teacup, a half written letter, and a trail of salt through the forest which lead to the precipice that sealed his fate.

(The art above is not my art.)

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Editing credit: MeetMeIn221B