Chapter 11 Part IX Human-turned-Animals

October 29, 2008 at 22:42 Among the mountains in the south of the Yangtze River, those with dense forests are mostly wood-producing.Muke is not one animal, but many. In the area to the east of Luling, the mukes are all in the shape of birds, similar in size to magpies.They like to live in groups, tens of thousands of them gather together, covering the sky and the sun when flying, and hitting the ground when they land, making continuous bang bang sounds, like a rainstorm raid. Although the wooden guests are in groups, their shapes are not exactly the same.There must be one in each large group, the whole body is white with yellow stripes, this is the head of Mukejun.There are three more in each group, with scarlet belts on their chests, these are the three males among the wooden guests.If red appears on the forehead, it is the fifth uncle among the wooden guests.Those with all black coats are meritorious officers, those with different wings are master masters, and those with miscellaneous tails are long ones. The lower the rank, the more impure the coat color.If a woodk gets a promotion, it will shed its old feathers that spring and change to the color corresponding to its new position.

In the area west of Luling, Muke is shaped like an ape, but with bird-like claws.These woodcutters build nests of twigs and hairs in large trees.During the day, they lurk in their nests, motionless.At night, they climb down from the trees, wade into the mountain streams, and catch small crabs for food.Even the locals seldom see the appearance of Muke with their own eyes, but occasionally hear their sharp howling calling for each other at night. Although the wooden guests on Luofu Mountain are also in the shape of birds, they only have five colors, and they don't like to gather together.Kuang Lu said that if you see five colors of wooden guests perched on a tree at the same time, it means that the family members who traveled far away are about to return.

"Wuyue Spring and Autumn" records the origin of Muke. It is mentioned in "The Conspiracy of Goujian" that Fu Chai, the king of Wu, became the overlord of one party in the Central Plains League.After returning to the capital, he began to build a palace to make it commensurate with his status.The kingdoms conquered by Wu were all required to provide building materials to the suzerain, and the task of Yue was to cut down big trees to serve as pillars. The country of Yue, which had just been looted, had no timber reserves, nor the manpower and tools needed to harvest trees.Goujian, the king of Yue, had to issue a strange order, which forcibly pushed forward the time for men in his country to perform the coming-of-age ceremony by three years.With the help of this outrageous regulation, Yue Wangzheng transferred 3,000 workers.He appointed his eldest son as the commander of this under-year-old army, and asked them to go into the jungle and harvest with their bare hands.Before leaving, he warned the children:

Even a blind traveler is enough to see Wu's strength and Yue's weakness.A deaf person who does not respond to any sound is enough to hear the sound of a Wu warrior sharpening his knife.Do not go near Yue cities unless you have a large number of trees.If I don't see you come back for three years, I will cut off my beard and flee into the forest. The tragic farewell ceremony can't change any facts-how can a flesh-and-blood arm cut down a tree?The cries and elegiac songs of the children of Yue Kingdom resounded in every corner of the mountains and forests, gradually becoming sharper and shorter.In order to avoid the wind and rain, their bodies grew feathers, and their arms became wings in order to pass through the trees.The team never returned.They finally established their own order and country in the forest.

Another theory is that the logging army of the Yue Kingdom evolved into Mukes in the area east of Luling, while the Mukes in other areas came from several other vassals of the Wu Kingdom.