The Sorceress' Revolt - Ko Eiji's Story - Part 1 Chapter 3 by Translations by Ainikki / Anime Blog Tracker

The Sorceress' Revolt - Ko Eiji's Story - Part 1 Chapter 3

.post p { margin:0 0 .75em; line-height:1.5em; text-indent:1.5em; } The Sorceress' Revolt - Ko Eiji's Story Author: Toriumi Jinzō Translator: Ainikki the Archivist Part One: Sorceress Chapter 3 The bright light of candlesticks lit up every corner of the shrine. Sei Koko returned to Wenshui immediately after finding Ko Eiji and summoned all of her sorcerers to the teahouse where she lived. After offering a prayer of gratitude to the statue of Empress Wu Zetian, Sei Koko turned to face the sorcerers with her eyes shining blue. The blue light was deliberate this time; she showed off her power as an expression of belief in the rightness and success of her cause. The sorcerers had never seen Sei Koko like this before: solemn, menacing, and literally glowing with magical power. They gazed upon her with more than a little trepidation. “Listen carefully,” Sei Koko said. “Twenty-two years ago, the spirit of Empress Wu Zetian summoned me to the entrance of the underworld and told me: ‘Your ambitions must encompass the entirety of the earth. I will take over the world like I did before, seize the greatest wealth and power, and get revenge for all the humiliation and hardships I’ve suffered up until now. That revenge shall be yours as well. I will become the reincarnation of Ko Biji and protect you. Bet everything on your daughter’s reincarnation.’ “‘The world today is corrupt. There is no order, only chaos, and the people have fallen into evil. The only way to fight this evil is with more evil. This is the perfect opportunity for you to use evil to regain your good fortune. Learn what you can from the Heavenly Book, and wait patiently for your daughter’s reincarnation.’” Sei Koko was Wu Zetian’s mouthpiece; she spoke in a tone of bitter resentment that the sorcerers understood quite well. They were frightened of Sei Koko, but they were also charmed by her: with her on their side, they had nothing to fear from anyone else. They hated the corruption of the Imperial Court and the bureaucrats who were dragging common people and farmers to the depths of despair with their tyrannical polices. Sei Koko’s sorcerers, brainwashed as they were, needed no convincing to follow her, but her words before the statue of Wu Zetian would have converted the most hardened cynic among them to her cause. *** Chinese history can be broadly described as the rise and fall of those who usurped power from the existing regime. These included King Wen of Zhou, First Emperor Qin Shi Huang, Liu Bei of Han, Emperor Wu of Jin, Emperor Wen of Sui, Li Yuan of Tang, and Emperor Taizu of Song. The origins of these men were varied: they were aristocrats, military officials, post office managers, or farmers. They did not begin their lives as conquerors, but as ordinary people. Sei Koko’s Immortal Spiritual Religion was populated by sorcerers who were anything but ordinary. The sorcerers were a fearsome army that had mastered Daoist arts and forbidden magic. “The divine spirit of Empress Wu Zetian has fulfilled her promise.” Sei Koko’s voice was like the clarion call of a trumpet. “Ko Biji is reincarnated. We will follow Empress Wu Zetian’s will and watch over my daughter’s reincarnation. The time is near. Since the world is already tainted by demonic desires, what harm is there in ruling it with evil? Everything we do is for the sake of the common people who are suffering in poverty. Now is the time to seize glory and honor for ourselves!” “Yes, mistress!” the sorcerers called out, their faces shining with determination and emotion. The sorcerers were confident. They had studied the teachings and magic of Sei Koko with great reverence and trusted her implicitly. The sorcerers weren’t afraid of death or suffering. If Sei Koko ordered them to risk their lives, then there must be a good reason. Saint Koko set off on a pilgrimage to Yongxing Mountain to give thanks for discovering her daughter’s reincarnation. *** It was the end of November. A cold wind blew through the city of Bianliang late at night. There were few people out and about in this wind. A streetlamp blew over over and rolled down the road, still burning. The flames danced violently like the flames of hell. All the big stores on Panlou Street had closed early and were quiet. Only the roofs of the balconies were exposed to the wind. Clouds floated in the sky fit to burst, but there was no rain. Homeless vagrants gathered in the gaps between buildings. A few people stood clustered around a bonfire next to a building in front of a closed store. The wall of the building acted as a windbreak. The people around the bonfire chatted amiably and munched on meat that they cooked over the fire. They’d salvaged the meat from a trash can outside some restaurant. If a patrolman were to pass by, he would surely chase all these people off, fearing that the bonfire would light the nearby buildings aflame. But there were no patrolmen nearby now, nor were there likely to be. Many homeless people and immigrants sheltered in the city streets during the bitterly cold winter months. As long as they didn’t cause trouble, the authorities turned a blind eye. There was even a soup kitchen and a shelter in the city that gave out free (though bad) food. Although the city’s homeless and vagrants had access to food and shelter, many of them rejected this aid. Some were afraid of their criminal records being exposed and didn’t want to be under the control of the system. Not every homeless person was a criminal, of course, but the ones gathered around the bonfire at the moment were career criminals. “Hey, what’s that?” An old man named Ryo pointed to the sky. His companions looked at where he was pointing. “A cloud?” It did look like a cloud: pitch black, about ten meters wide, and very dark and thick. Strangely, the cloud didn’t move at all, even in the high wind. The cloud spread rapidly, covering Ko Kō’s three shops on Panlou Street. One corner of a shop was completely covered in the black cloud. No one would have thought this was a natural phenomenon. This black cloud was mysterious and eerie. “It’s a bad omen,” Ryo muttered to himself. A young man ran up to the bonfire, out of breath. “The wind is causing mischief,” he said. “There’s a fire.” He turned on his heel and ran back to where he’d come in a panic. The vagrants stared in mute astonishment at the black cloud, pinned to the spot where they stood by an evil aura. After half an hour, the mass of cloud began to rise. When Ko Kō’s shop reappeared, it was in flames. Ryo and the others regained their senses and shouted for help. Residents of the nearby buildings came rushing out. Bianliang suffered many devastating fires in winter. Coal was widely used at the time, and ordinary households had heating appliances that used it as fuel. The prefectural government was concerned about fires and made it mandatory to report the burning of paper money at nighttime Daoist memorial services.1 There was a fire watchtower inside the city, firemen patrolled the area, and firefighting equipment was also in place. The fire extinguishers used were modified keel wheels, which pumped water in from the city’s canals. These water-pumping devices consisted of long, narrow boxes divided by many boards and connected by a rotating circular chain. Water was pumped by using a foot pedal. The extinguishers were named for their resemblance to a boat’s keel.2 Surprisingly, the keel wheel was invented in the first century BCE. It was invented in Europe in the 16th century, and is said to have been modeled after the Chinese style. The mysterious cloud rose high into the sky and disappeared as people rushed to the scene of the fire. Ko Kō’s family lived on the upper floors of their dry goods shop. That day was Ko Kō’s sixtieth birthday; a feast had been held in the early evening for all the store’s employees. It was the middle of the night now, so nearly everyone was drunk or asleep. The fire at Ko Kō’s store flared up in an instant, and the fire extinguishers didn’t come in time to save the building or the people inside. Even with fire extinguishers, it would have been impossible to put out the fire because of the strong wind. The shop burned down near-instantly, and no one escaped. It was widely believed that Ko Kō, his family and all his servants and live-in employees burned to death. Some bodies were so charred that it was impossible to tell whether they were male or female. Some people who should have been in the shop were unaccounted for. Since Ko Kō regularly did business with the Imperial Court, officials from the city prosecutor’s office rushed to investigate. The homeless Ryo and other vagrants who first discovered the bodies gave their testimony of what happened to the city prosecutor. Even so, there were several mysteries surrounding the fire. First, the black cloud had covered only the three shops. Ryo and the city’s homeless has seen the cloud, but no one else who lived on Panlou Street had seen it. The officials immediately assumed that the cloud was simply smoke. Who would believe that clouds could descend all the way to the ground? Second, the fire burned down the shops from all four sides. Fire didn’t behave that way; it swept in from a single direction. The prosecutor’s office assumed that the fire had probably started in a heating device and spread too quickly for anyone to do anything about it. Third, only Ko Kō’s shops on Panlou Street burned down. The two shops to either side of the burned buildings were nearly untouched. Some of the outer walls suffered minor smoke damage, but that was all. This was judged to be a consequence of the wind blowing in a certain direction, which had spared the other buildings. Ko Kō’s great wealth vanished with his own demise. Some goods in the shops avoided major damage, but all of the gold, silver and cash boxes in the storehouse had completely disappeared. This was revealed by the testimony of a fellow merchant who was close to Ko Kō and had helped him conduct an inventory not too long ago. The official cause of the deaths of Ko Kō’s family and the store staff was death by smoke inhalation and burns. In the end, it was concluded that the crime was planned by Ryo and the other vagrants, who had started the bonfire. Ryo and the others had no recourse to appeal. At the time, the position of the prefectural governor of Bianliang was vacant. The Privy Council and the Imperial Court’s prosecutors were in charge of maintaining order in separate areas. Since the city was so large, there were also lawless areas. If Ryo and the other vagrants moved to the lowlands of the Huimin River and the slums around the sewers, no one would be able to pass judgment on them no matter what they did. No prosecutors had jurisdiction in those areas. Bianliang’s lowlands and slums were a perfect hiding place for violent criminals. Salt smugglers often went into hiding there. People who chose to live there had no love for the Imperial Court or the government in general. They’d sooner slit an official’s throat than talk to them. *** Jin Sen awaited Sei Koko’s return from her pilgrimage to Yongxing Mountain. After she returned, she summoned him. Chō Ki was already with her when Jin Sen announced his presence. “Jin Sen, where is Ryou Hei?” Sei Koko asked. “About that… there is something we must tell you, mistress.” “What is it? Did something happen?” “Shortly after you left, Ryou Hei and seven of the sorcerers escaped.” Sei Koko’s face became stern. “How? Weren’t they guarded? Who slacked in their duty and allowed them to run?” “I apologize, mistress. I take full responsibility for what’s happened.” Jin Sen bowed his head. “Chō Ki, find Ryou Hei and the others and eliminate them,” Sei Koko said. “I have Boku Kichi investigating their current whereabouts,” Jin Sen said. “Ask him for a report before you chase after them.” Chō Ki grunted in acknowledgment. “Mistress, there is something else we must inform you of,” Jin Sen said. “What is it?” “All three of Ko Kō’s shops burned to the ground.” Sei Koko’s lips pursed as if she were sucking on a lemon. “The whole family and the servants burned to death,” Chō Ki added. “What about Ko Eiji?” “It is likely that she is dead. There are many charred corpses that are unidentified,” Jin Sen said. “Oh.” Sei Koko’s expression brightened. Jin Sen frowned slightly. “I don’t understand. If Ko Eiji has died, then what will happen to our objective?” “Ko Eiji is not dead,” Sei Koko said. “Calm yourself. Ko Eiji is my daughter’s reincarnation. She cannot die.” “Not even in a fire that consumed three buildings at once?” Chō Ki asked, highly skeptical. Sei Koko’s tone became harsh. “She is my daughter’s reincarnation. The spirit of Empress Wu Zetian will protect her from all danger.” Jin Sen and Chō Ki exchanged glances. Sei Koko believed that it was impossible for Ko Eiji to have burned to death. They were conditioned not to question Sei Koko’s will, but both of them doubted that Ko Eiji still lived. Jin Sen reconciled himself to Sei Koko’s philosophy because he had no choice. He hoped that Sei Koko was right even if he didn’t quite believe that she was. Sei Koko was the heart and soul of the Immortal Spiritual Religion. Contradicting her directly would be impossible for Jin Sen or Chō Ki. *** As it turned out, Sei Koko was right about Ko Eiji. She was alive. The people who knew her consoled her by saying that her survival was a blessing and a miracle, but she didn’t feel that way. She was confused by recent events and deeply saddened by the sudden loss of her parents and her home. Even after she recovered somewhat from the ordeal of surviving the fire, she couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened that night. Ko Eiji had gone to sleep during her father’s birthday celebration. She hadn’t been able to finish her bowl of rice wine because of an upset stomach and retired to bed early. She’d awakened in the middle of the night to a strange popping sound. The fire had already scorched the walls of Ko Eiji’s room by the time she awoke. She raised half her body from the floor, but then became so stiff that she couldn’t move. It was as if she’d been paralyzed. And then, a faint illusion appeared within the flames surrounding her. Ko Eiji tried to scream, but no sound came out. The illusion called out to her in a sinister woman’s voice. “There is no need to worry. The god of the North Star, Xuanwu, will save you. If you are in any misfortune, call on the god three times, and you will be saved.” Ko Eiji had no memory of what happened after that. When she came to, she lay prone at the base of a large tree that grew along one of the city’s main thoroughfares. A humble housewife discovered her and offered to help. The fire that had consumed Ko Kō’s stores had long been extinguished. The housewife and others who helped Ko Eiji assumed that she’d fled the fire and collapsed at the base of the tree, even though Ko Eiji had no memory of doing any of that. The mystery of Ko Eiji’s salvation lingered in the back of her mind. Ko Biji’s bedroom was on the upper floor of her father’s store. She should have died, along with the others. As she lay awake at night, she wondered why she alone had been spared in the terrible fire that had destroyed everything she knew and loved. Her escape was miraculous: too miraculous to be just a coincidence. She remembered the woman she’d seen in the flames and considered the idea that she might be under the protection of Empress Wu Zetian as well as the god of the North Star. Cleaning up and disposing of the ruins of her parents’ fortune would have been impossible for Ko Eiji, who spent most of her days after the fire in a grief-addled haze. Some of her father’s colleagues sympathized with her and helped her settle her parents’ affairs. Sadly, the land that the fires had broken out on was not sellable. Land lost to fire was considered unlucky by all merchants and couldn’t be sold for at least ten years after the fire that had destroyed it. *** After the fire, Ko Eiji went to stay with a cousin in Henan Province for a short while. Life there wasn’t comfortable for her. Her cousin was a poor farmer with many children; he looked down on her for being uppity and spoiled. It was hard to believe that they were close relatives. Ko Kō and his brother’s family were estranged from each other. This was because Ko Kō’s brother had always grasped for a share of Ko Kō’s profits, despite doing nothing to earn it. Most of Ko Kō’s extended family hated him, calling him a miser. There was no way they would be happy with Ko Eiji, who had no inheritance. Ko Eiji went from riches to rags in a matter of days. All her clothes were burned, and she was left with only shabby work clothes. All of her expensive jewelry and ornaments were sold to pay for travel expenses, her work clothes, room and board. The food she ate was the crudest and the meanest fare available. When Chinese New Year came, Ko Eiji gave away almost all the money she had.3 This made her cousin and his wife look upon her a bit more favorably. Every New Year before this, Ko Eiji would graciously receive her own New Years’ money, dress in her finest clothes and make a pilgrimage to the Great Shangqing Palace with her parents for the first shrine visit of the new year. This year, she received no money, had no nice clothes and her parents were dead. It was the grimmest day she could remember. After that, the money that Ko Eiji had offered to her relatives vanished under strange circumstances. People whispered that she’d stolen it back, and even though she had little money left, she could not prove otherwise. She wept in a corner of her cousin’s barn all alone in frustration. Two months after New Years’ Day, she ran away from her cousin’s home. Ko Eiji’s bad luck didn’t end there. She was taken in by her uncle’s relatives in Hebei Province, though they weren’t happy to host her. Her uncle lived in a small teahouse. Ko Eiji looked after the young children and helped out with household chores. One day, while she wasn’t looking, a child fell into a stream and drowned. Her uncle’s wife screamed at her, blaming the child’s death on Ko Eiji’s negligence. Ko Eiji believed that the god of the North Star had abandoned her. All of her good luck had been used up when she’d been saved from the fire. She didn’t think she’d been saved at all. She was cursed, forced to linger in life without anything that gave life meaning. In despair, Ko Eiji remembered her old tutor, Chin Zen. She learned that he had retired from teaching and now now living in seclusion in Shanxi Province. Ko Eiji had suffered the same fate as the many of the powerful women in history that she’d learned about. No, even worse. She lost her parents and her home. She was a pitiful orphan with no one to rely on. She wasn’t even sure if Chin Zen would help her. She’d learned that most people were unkind to those who were poor and alone. Ko Eiji curled around herself on the floor of the cheapest lodging house in the village she was traveling through and wept. She remembered the old adage that those who went from rags to riches could accept themselves as they were even if they fell back into poverty again, but those who fell from riches to rags lost the courage to accept themselves or their situation and fell into despair. *** Spring was near, but a thin layer of freezing rain fell in the valley on the road that passed alongside the Fen River.4 Raindrops streamed down Ko Eiji’s face in streaks along with her tears. Her hair was disheveled and her clothes were stained with dirt. She had run out of money during her journey and was barely eating. Her face was pale and lifeless. No trace of the pampered and glamorous Ko Eiji of Bianliang remained in her features. She was a poor beggar girl now and nothing more. Ko Eiji stepped onto the edge of a cliff. The rain-soaked valley floor was as silent as the pit of hell. “I don’t want to live in shame any longer,” Ko Eiji whispered. As she prepared herself for death, the woman’s voice from the night of the fire came back to her. “There is no need to worry. The god of the North Star, Xuanwu, will save you. If you are in any misfortune, call on the god three times, and you will be saved.” Had that been a dream, or was it real? It didn’t matter now. Ko Eiji thought she’d forgotten everything about that night. Her world had completely changed since then. “Xuanwu, god of the North Star. Xuanwu, god of the North Star. Xuanwu, god of the North Star!” Ko Eiji shouted into the valley. Her voice’s echo faded into the freezing rainstorm. Ko Eiji screamed as loud as she could and collapsed. The rain continued for the rest of the evening without stopping. Ko Eiji lay still and unmoving on the valley’s edge as the Fen River flowed below her. Translator's Notes 1 The burning of paper money is a traditional Chinese ritual that is derived from a mix of Daoism, Buddhism, and regional folklore. The ritual is performed to help the deceased's spirit access funds in the afterlife and to ensure a favorable outcome when their soul is judged. Reporting these memorial services and what kind of things would be burned was actually a fire prevention method during the Song Dynasty (and after). ↩ 2 竜骨車 Keel wheels could be linked up to chains (similar to modern bicycle chains) and used to make pumping water easier and more efficient. This design led to the world's first fire extinguishers. Interestingly enough, the frequent fires in Bianliang would prompt Emperor Renzong (the current ruling emperor) to create an official state-funded fire brigade, the first in China's history. ↩ 3 It is traditional on Chinese New Year to gift relatives and acquaintances red envelopes full of money. This tradition dates to the Han Dynasty. The custom originates from another Chinese New Year legend about a demon named Sui. The mythical monster would come and pat children's heads while they were sleeping, resulting in the children being scared and developing a high fever. This led to parents trying to keep their children awake all night on New Year’s Eve to protect them from Sui. Legend has it that on one particular year, a child was given eight coins to play with to keep him awake throughout the night. He eventually fell asleep with the coins resting on his pillow. When Sui appeared and tried to pat the child’s head, the coins produced a powerful light that frightened the monster away. ↩ 4 汾水 The Fen River drains the center of Shanxi Province, China. It originates in the Guancen Mountains of Ningwu County in northeast Shanxi, flows southeast into the basin of Taiyuan, and then south through the central valley of Shanxi before turning west to join the Yellow River west of Hejin. The Fen and the Wei Rivers are the two largest tributaries of the Yellow River, and it is the longest river in Shanxi Province. ↩

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