The Bird Spirit

Zhou Yanzhi was a man of Green Shoal, in the Wu region. Orphaned young and poor, he loved his books; whatever he read he could repeat by heart. Thrice he sat the autumn examinations and thrice he failed, returning home with an empty purse. The villagers laughed, but Yanzhi minded it not. He built a thatched hut by the shoal, taught the neighbor children their letters, and in his leisure angled for his keep, content in his solitude.

Before the hut stood an old willow, hollow with age. Each dawn, when the light was faint, a small bird came to perch among its branches — its feathers green as moss, its beak tipped with red, its song clear and strange, almost like human speech. Yanzhi pitied it and fed it grains; the bird did not fear him, and after eating would flutter up and circle thrice before departing. So it went for three years.

It happened that when Yanzhi was sixteen, walking by the shoal, he saw a sparrow-hawk strike a finch; the finch fell among the grass, its wing broken, crying piteously. Yanzhi wrapped it in his coat, tended it in his hut, and after ten days, when it had healed, set it free. Someone said the bird was a spirit; Yanzhi only laughed. A creature clings to life — what spirit is there in that? He thought no more of it.

In the year Gengzi came a great drought. From spring to summer it did not rain for a hundred and twenty days. The shoal dried to cracked earth; the fields withered; the villagers feared famine. The children Yanzhi taught left off their lessons for want of food, and the hut fell silent. Heaven wills it so, he sighed; what is there to be said?

One day the red-beaked bird lit upon his shoulder and pecked at his sleeve, as if to show him something. Yanzhi followed where it led, the bird flitting and pausing until it brought him to the southwest corner of the shoal, deep in the reeds. Parting the reeds, he found that though the mud was dry, a damp breath rose from beneath; digging a foot down he came upon several pecks of arrowhead tubers, white as jade, with wild water-chestnuts and water-cress besides. The bird settled on a reed-tip and chirped as if in joy.

Yanzhi understood. This bird repays the life I gave the finch long ago. He gathered all he could, carried it home, cooked it, and shared it with the widowed and weak of the village. When they asked whence it came, he said only, The spirit of the shoal gave it. And they believed him.

Though the year was bitter, none in the village starved. In autumn a few rains fell and the late grain recovered somewhat, and the people lived. The red-beaked bird no longer came each day, yet at dusk its song still rose from the reeds, clear as ever.

The next spring, cleaning before his hut, Yanzhi found in the hollow of the willow a tiny nest woven of soft grass, with a single thread of red wound within, the color of the bird's beak. He kept it precious and hung it from the beam. He taught as before; the village children grew, and one passed the exams and came to thank his master. Yanzhi pointed to the nest upon the beam and said, Your success is the work of the shoal-spirit and the red-beaked bird. They understood him not, and laughed at his fancies.

Year followed year; the willow hollowed further, but the nest still hung. Now and then a passing traveler by the shoal would hear the bird among the reeds and ask its name; the fisherfolk said, We know not its name — only a green bird with a red beak, coming and going each year, as if it waited for someone. When the traveler left, the song fell silent. Yanzhi grew old, angling as ever; whenever he heard that song he would lay down his rod and listen, his face gentle, as before an old friend.

The Chronicler of the Strange would say: Plants and beasts, born of earth's pure breath, know gratitude often better than men. Yanzhi spared a finch in a single merciful thought; the finch repaid him with grain in a bitter year, a small thing that yet kept a whole village's helpless alive. Let those who read their books and covet office, who take a drop of kindness and forget its source, look upon this red-beaked bird and feel shame. The spirits of shoal and wild are no marvel — they are but the echo of a humane heart, clothed in feathers. Whoever passes Green Shoal and hears that clear song among the reeds, startle it not; for an old friend is there.