The Ancient Locust Tree
An ancient locust tree has stood at the village mouth for centuries; the villagers pray for rain and blessing beneath it. A rich man means to fell it for timber; when the axe strikes, blood-like sap bursts out and he falls gravely ill. The villagers tend its roots; the withered tree blooms anew, and when plague comes, that village alone is spared.
In the north there was a village, and at its mouth an ancient locust tree, planted none knew when, said to be centuries old. Its trunk took several men to span, its shade covered half a mu, its branches coiled like dragons. For generations the villagers revered it; for prayers of rain, of sons, of warding off calamity, they burned incense beneath it, holding it a divine tree.
In the village was a rich man named Zhao, building a great house and lacking a beam of timber. Seeing the locust's trunk straight and huge, he was moved to fell it. The clan elders strove to stop him, saying: “This tree has sheltered a whole village for centuries; to fell it is ill-omened.” Zhao, who never believed in such things, rebuked them: “A single rotten tree — how can it shelter men? I will fell it precisely.”
On a chosen day, Zhao led stout servants with axes to fell it. The axe had barely touched the trunk when a dark red sap burst from the cut, rank to the nose, its color as of blood. The servants all scattered in terror. Zhao forced himself calm and swung the axe again; that night, returning home, he fell at once into a violent illness, his whole body as if on fire, crying wildly that a great timber pressed upon him; medicine availed nothing. Lingering some ten days, he came at last to his death. His household, afraid, then abandoned the plan to fell the tree.
The village elders led the people to tend the locust's roots with fresh earth, and poured libations of wine in apology. By then the locust, wounded by the axe, had withered leaf and branch, and all thought it must die. But the next spring the withered locust suddenly put forth new buds, and within a few months its branches and leaves were lush again, more flourishing than before.
That year a great plague spread on every side; in neighboring villages the dead lay heaped, yet in this village not one was stricken. Some said: the shade of the ancient locust can ward off plague-vapors. From then the villagers served it the more carefully, their seasonal sacrifices unbroken, and it survives to this day.
The Chronicler of the Strange says: Are grass and trees without awareness? I say: not necessarily. Drinking wind and dew for centuries, receiving a village's incense, how should it be without spirit? Zhao, presuming on his wealth, took a divine tree for rotten wood, put the axe to it, and met his calamity — the tree did not curse him; he brought it on himself. To revere is not to fear its power to harm, but to honor its power to shelter. The villagers tended its roots and apologized; the withered tree revived, and repaid them by sparing a whole village from plague. Between heaven and earth, the virtuous are not always illustrious, yet the shade they cast over others does not fade in a hundred generations. So too should a man's practice of virtue be.