The Camphor Spirit
A poor woodcutter named Musheng steals dead branches from an old camphor tree to warm his sick mother. One snowy night the tree's spirit, a camphor-scented old man, says he has watched the boy's filial theft for years, gives him camphor to warm their home, then foretells his doom: lightning will burn the tree on the Awakening of Insects, his mother's death day. He offers his charred wood for her coffin, keeping her uncorrupted. Musheng obeys, and the fragrant coffin becomes a wonder.
In the south of Jiangxi there lay a village called Clear Creek. At its mouth stood an ancient camphor tree, so thick that several men could not span it with their arms. Its crown spread like a canopy, shadowing half an acre. The tree was said to have stood three hundred years, and the villagers, in awe of it, called it Lord Camphor, offering wine and sacrifice to it at every season.
In the village lived a youth named Musheng, poor, who kept house with none but his mother. The mother had long suffered a cough; each deep winter she wheezed and could not lie down to sleep. Musheng, hard pressed for fuel, would steal out on snowy nights to the foot of the camphor and break off its dead branches to feed the hearth. He told himself that fallen twigs did the tree no harm, and the spirit would not punish him. So he did for three years.
Late one year the mother grew worse, and medicines failed. On a night of heavy snow Musheng went again to break a branch, when a soft laugh came from behind the tree: "Little thief, come to rob my firewood once more?" Musheng whirled about in fright and saw an old man standing in the snow, his robe adrift, about him a faint clean scent of camphor wood. Knowing he faced the spirit, Musheng fell to the ground and begged pardon.
The old man raised him up and sighed. "I have watched you three years. In stealing for your mother's warmth you are filial, yes — but how foolish! A dead twig's slight heat cannot stand against deep winter." He reached into his breast and drew forth a lump of camphor, the size of a hen's egg, and gave it to the boy. "Take it home and burn it; one chamber will stay warm three nights."
Musheng carried it back and burned it as told. A strange fragrance filled the room; the mother's cough eased at once and she slept in peace. Touched to tears, Musheng went the next night to thank him, but the old man was gone.
The year turned toward the Awakening of Insects. The old man came to him one night, his face grave. "I have taken the villagers' incense three hundred years," he said, "and might have attained my fruit and departed. But heaven's reckoning is fixed: on the Awakening of Insects, lightning fire shall burn this body of mine. Your mother's allotted span ends upon that same day. I would have my remains enclose her — camphor's fragrance will keep her uncorrupted, better than gold or jade a thousandfold. Mark me: when the thunder comes, keep your distance and do not draw near; only gather my charred limbs. If you strive to shield me, you strive against heaven to no avail, and may bring harm upon yourself."
Musheng wept and knelt, begging to defend the tree. The old man shook his head. "Foolish child. I am but a mountain tree; warmed three years by your filial heart, it was to me as spring. Now with this worn frame I repay you a single hearth's warmth — enough." With that he vanished.
Musheng went home and tended his mother more dutifully than ever. On the day of the Awakening, dark clouds closed overhead and a single great peal split the sky; the ancient camphor was indeed consumed by lightning fire, smoke blotting out the heavens. The villagers fled, but Musheng alone walked into the smoke and gathered dozens of charred logs, untouched by harm. That day his mother sat upright and passed without sickness.
Musheng hewed the charred camphor into a coffin and laid his mother within. After the burial the coffin breathed a clean scent through the years, and all who passed marveled. Whenever Musheng passed the village mouth and saw new shoots rising from the burnt earth, he would halt in silence, as if speaking to someone, as if waiting for someone.
The Recorder of the Strange says: Men sacrifice to the gods mostly to beg blessings for themselves; Musheng stole branches only for his mother's cold. Lord Camphor watched three years and pardoned not the theft but pitied the filial heart, and in the end gave his own body to repay a single meal's warmth. Thus the spirit's power lies not in the richness of sacrifice offered, but in knowing the small truths of the human heart. That fragrant wood, its scent never fading through the seasons — is it only the camphor's gift? The heart of a filial son gives forth such fragrance too.