The Stone Lion

At Willow Ferry stood a stone arch bridge named Tongji, spanning the Willow River. The Willow was not wide, but its current ran fast, and after days of rain it swelled turbid and yellow, whirling broken twigs in its eddies. The bridge was built at the close of the Ming, its piers of solid stone, its railings of blue stone; at its eastern head crouched a stone lion, carved from a single block of blue stone, some three feet high, head raised and mouth agape, front paws pressing a little lion. The carving was rough and plain, yet it bore a certain honest, brave air. The townsfolk said the mason who built the bridge had tucked a Kaiyuan copper coin into the lion’s belly, to calm the waters and keep the ferry safe; for several hundred years, through wind, rain, and even the turmoil of war, it had crouched thus, never once moved.

The bridge’s night-watchman was surnamed Wang, fourth in his family, called Wang the Fourth. Past fifty, with a long thin face and high cheekbones, he wore a rain-cape the year round and carried a paper lantern, walking the bridge twice a night and beating the watch-clapper to mark the hours. He had once been a ferryman, but age had weakened his arms past the oar, and the village head set him to watch the bridge, paying him a few pecks of rice a month. Wang was a careful man; every night passing the stone lion he would reach out and touch its head—not in worship, but from familiarity, like patting an old comrade. The lion’s head, stroked by him so often, had grown slick, its stone edges rounded. At each lighting-hour he would draw the flint from his bosom and kindle the paper lantern; the oil was rapeseed, and burning it gave off a faint raw green smell. The river wind shook the lantern’s shadow on the rail, and below the bridge the water chattered, like someone talking down in the dark.

The first autumn, it rained half a month running and the Willow rose; the bridge deck grew slick, and the lantern’s light fell on a misty haze. Wang was on his round when he came to the eastern head and raised his lantern—and suddenly felt the lion’s posture was wrong: ordinarily its head faced southeast, but tonight it seemed tilted slightly west, and its front paws had shifted half an inch, fresh mud on the claw-tips, with a few strands of water-grass caught in it. He rubbed his eyes; the lantern’s flame cracked and popped, and the lion was back as before, the mud gone too. He thought it trick of the eye, or the damp playing tricks, shook his head—yet his clapper fell a beat slow.

A few days later the town had a close call. Qian Gui, the butcher of West Street, was free-handed by nature but fond of the dice; that night he lost at the gambling house and drank a gourd of foul liquor, until he reeled homeward drunk, taking the short way across Tongji. The rain had stopped and the moon hid; the bridge was pitch black, and his foot slipped—his body pitching straight over the railing, toward the swollen Willow below, certain death. At the very brink he struck something hard: it was the lion’s front paw, the claw-tip pressed exactly at his waist, forcibly turning him back onto the deck. Qian Gui sat sprawled a long while, the drink half scared out of him; he crawled home in the dark, thinking only that he’d been lucky, tripping on a stone, and cursed his bad luck before staggering off.

The next day Wang walked the bridge and found the lion’s front paw marked with a dark smear of red—Qian Gui’s blood, crusted to a scab. He squatted to look close: the claw-tip’s mud was still fresh, as on that night, and the water-grass was there yet. He understood seven or eight parts of it, but said nothing, only gently brushed the mud from the lion’s body and, from his bosom, drew a worn cloth to wipe the claw-tip clean.

After that Wang, on every night’s round, would leave a lamp beneath the lion—not lit long, only till it burned out. The oil was his own; the townsfolk thought only that the watchman did his duty, and no one gave the stone lion a thought. That winter, though, a passing merchant from out of town crossed the bridge at midnight in a raging snowstorm and saw a black shape crouched at the eastern head, half man half beast; he went weak with fright and huddled under the bridge-arch till dawn—yet at dawn found only the lion as usual, a small tuft of snow pressed under its paw, as if it had shielded someone from the wind, and the merchant’s whole person was dry.

When Wang grew old he brought his grandson to the bridge and pointed at the lion: “Mind you, this lion looks clumsy, but its heart is awake. I kept it twenty years; it has kept this stretch of folk for hundreds.” The boy understood not, and he did not explain further, only set the boy’s hand on the lion’s head, as he had patted his old comrade in years past.

The Chronicler remarks

Stone, by nature, has no knowing, and crouching stays unmoved through all eternity. Yet having guarded the waters and the ferry for hundreds of years, soaked in wind and frost to the bone, it too nursed a little guarding intent. Many in this world hold a post of guarding; how few can truly leave their place at midnight and throw their body in the breach? The stone lion, unknowing, yet keeps guard; men, knowing, yet lose it—pitiable. Wang’s single lamp left burning was not in reverence of stone, but of that never-slacking heart.