Kim ManChoong - The Cloud Dream of the Nine

Then follows an account of Moonlight's ruse to let Wildgoose become acquainted with Master Yang without his knowledge: “That night he talked over the past with Moonlight and said how they had indeed been destined for each other. They drank and were happy till the hours grew late. Then they put out the lights and slept. When the east began to lighten he awoke and saw Moonlight dressing her hair before the mirror. He looked at her with tenderest interest and then gave a start and looked again. The delicate eyebrows, the bright eyes, the wavy hair like a cloud over the temples, the rosy-tinted cheeks, the lithe graceful form, the white complexion—all were Moonlight's, and yet it was not she.”

Wildgoose made an eloquent plea for her presence. “How could I ever have ventured to do such a thing,” she said, “were it not that I have had born in me one great indomitable longing that has possessed me all my life—to attach myself to some renowned hero or superior lord. When the King of Yon learned my name and bought me for a heaped-up bag of jewels, he fed me on the daintiest fare and dressed me in rarest silk. Yet I had no delight in it but was in distress. When the King of Yon invited you to a feast I spied on you through the screen chinks and you were the one man that my heart bounded forth to follow. The palace has nine gateways of approach, but when you had been gone ten days I secretly took one of the King's fast horses and sped forth on my way. What I did last night was at the request of Moonlight. If you will permit me to find shelter under your wide-spreading tree, where I may build my little nest, Moonlight and I will live together, and after the Master is married to some noble lady, she and I will come and speak our good wishes and congratulations.”

Yang replied with generous words, and Moonlight also appeared and said: “Now that Wildgoose has waited on my lord as well as I, I thank thee on her behalf.” And they bowed repeatedly.

The most startling of Yang's love stories is his meeting with Swallow. It happened during a military campaign. The General was seated in his tent with a lighted candle before him reading despatches during the third watch of the night. Suddenly a cold wind extinguished the light of the candle, an eerie chill filled the tent, and a maiden stepped in upon him from the upper air holding a glittering double-edged sword in her hand. The General, “guessing her to be an assassin,” did not quail but stood his ground sternly and asked who she was. “I am under the command of the King of Tibet,” she said, “to have thy head.” The General laughed. “The Superior Man,” he replied, “ never fears to die. Take my head, if you please, and go.” At this the maiden disclosed her real intent. She had entered the camp at the bidding of the King of Tibet for the ostensible purpose of carrying back to that monarch the head of the great General, but her real object was to reveal her love for Yang and to save his life and help him to victory. “Her face was bright like rose petals with dew on them. She wore phoenix-tail shoes, and her tones were like the oriole.” The Teacher who had helped her to become a “master of the sword drill” and had taught her how to “ride the winds, follow the lightnings, and in an instant travel 3,000 li ,” had also revealed to Swallow that Yang was her destined master and her true affinity.

Yang was naturally as delighted as he had been surprised, so “they plighted their troth, the glitter of swords and spears serving for candle light” and the “sound of cymbals for the festal harp.” After many days of pleasure Swallow said to Yang, “A military camp is no place for women; I fear that I shall hinder the movements of the troops,so I must go.” In vain Yang tried to persuade her that she was not as other women. The Swallow gave him a parting talisman and some sound advice and then “sprang into the air and was gone.”

As astounding also was General Yang's love affair with White-cap, the daughter of the Dragon King. This lady helped Yang in his military career by means of magic. Her love-making took place in a grotto under a mountain lake, where she was in hiding in the form of a mermaid. “I am Pak Neung-pa,” said White-cap, giving her full name. “When I was born my father was having an audience with God Almighty.”

She then explained how she had been dowered from birth with superhuman abilities and had incurred the hatred of a neighbouring King because she refused to listen to the wooing of his undesirable son. She had sought Yang because her affinity with him had been divinely disclosed. White-cap went on: “I have already made promise to you of this humble body, but there are three reasons why I ought not to be mated to your Excellency. First, I have not told my parents; second, I can accompany you only after changing this mermaid form of mine. I still have scales and fishy odours with fins that would defile my lord's presence. Third, there are spies of my unwelcome royal suitor all around us. Our meeting will arouse their anger and cause disaster.” The General waived all the objections. “Your ladyship was a fairy in a former life,” he said, “and you therefore have a spiritual nature. Between men and disembodied spirits intercourse may be carried on without wrong, then why should I have aversion to scales and fins? Why should we miss this opportunity to seal our happy contract?” So they “swore the oath of marriage and found great delight in each other.” After this encounter Yang's military victories were more glorious than ever and he returned home the greatest man of the age.

On Yang's return to the capital the highest honour had been prepared for him that can fall to the lot of an Imperial subject. A marriage had been arranged between him and the lovely Princess of the Imperial family, Princess Orchid, and he became a Prince in rank. How this marriage was arranged, and Yang's marriage with Justice Cheung's daughter, Jewel, who was raised to Imperial rank by adoption, was consummated, and how the reunion took place with Cloudlet and Chin See, the reader is told with many thrilling and humorous details.

Yang's aged mother was brought with great ceremony to the capital. Honours and gifts were showered upon her. The two Princesses bowed before her as dutiful daughters-in-law, and the six secondary wives also delighted in giving her honour. Yang's princely household was so great that palaces, halls, galleries and pagodas were requisitioned. His life with his eight wives, their children and his aged mother, was a revelation of earthly bliss and wondrous grandeur. The Emperor's reign was also a notable time of peace and prosperity. Even in old age Yang and his ladies had beauty and the power of enjoyment.

But a day came when the Master heard “faint voices calling from another world.” “Slowly his spirit withdraws from earthly delights.”

One day, while sitting in a high tower from which there was a view of Chin River stretching in silvery reaches for a hundred miles, he drew forth his green stone flute and played for his ladies a “plaintive air as though heaped-up sorrows and tears had broken forth upon them.” The two Princesses asked why he should suggest such sorrow in the midst of their exceeding happiness with “golden flowers dropping petals” at his feet, and “our loving hearts around you?” The Master pointed to distant ruins of palaces that had held famous men and their women folk. He spoke of his boyhood as a poor scholar and the wonderful triumphs of his career and their nine rare affinities. “Children who gather wood or feed their cattle on the hillside,” he said, “will sing their songs and tell our mournful story, saying, 'This is where Master Yang made merry with his wives and family. All his honours and delights, all the pretty faces of his ladies are gone for ever.'“ Hearing the Master's words the ladies were moved and knew that he “was about to meet the Enlightened One.”