Codex of the Eight Wildernesses · The Withered Infant
In the eastern wood of No-Return lives the Withered Infant, an eyeless infant-shaped beast whose laughing cry feeds on the road itself and befools travelers. The woodcutter Li San followed its cry and circled one tree till dawn.
[Haunt] The Codex says: in the eastern wilderness stands a wood called No-Return. Ancient trees shut out the sky; those who enter lose their way, and in time one beast was born there.
[Form] It is shaped like an infant, its whole body covered in yellow down, without pupils, its mouth split to the ears. When it moves it climbs the branches; when it rests it hangs upside down. Its cry is like a child's laughter, heard for miles.
[Nature] It does not devour men, yet it loves to bewitch travelers — when a man hears the infant's cry and goes in to seek it, he wanders deeper and deeper until lost, circling one tree he cannot leave. The hunters say: this beast feeds on the road, not on men.
[Omen] When the crying in the wood grows sudden and thick, it portends a guest's coming; when the cry ceases, the wood closes and bars its path. The folk dare not go near by night.
[Account] The woodcutter Li San, drunk, entered No-Return and heard an infant's cry; pitying it, he followed the sound and from dusk to dawn never left a single tree. His wife came seeking and found him clutching a dead trunk, calling "child"; he woke and understood. Ever after, those who passed the wood tied a rope about their waist, one end to a tree without, and called it the "thread that leads home."