by Grace Lin
Long ago, when mountains wandered regularly and before the six suns appeared in the sky, a tiger terrorized a village. This tiger was no ordinary tiger. Not only was it the largest tiger ever seen by the villagers, it was a peculiar color. It was white, a dirty, pasty white, the color of clothes worn at a funeral. This was appropriate, for the tiger brought death with it. Whatever the tiger did not kill right away died soon after from being cut with its claws. Even the famous five poisons of the snake, scorpion, toad, centipede, and spider combined were not as deadly as the poisonous claws of the White Tiger. It fed on the village’s sheep and cattle at whim, and everyone knew that one of the villagers themselves would soon be the tiger’s victim. “We must destroy the White Tiger!” they said to one another. “But how?”
As they did for many things, they consulted the old sage who lived on a mountaintop nearby. But when they described the fierce White Tiger and asked how they could destroy it, the old sage only stroked his beard and consulted the large book in his lap. Finally, the sage said, “I will have to see the tiger myself. Take me to it.”
The villagers looked at one another, and slowly they led the sage down the mountain, past a tall tree and lake, and to a dark hole, like a cave, in one of the hills around their village. By this time, night had fallen, and the hole looked as black and as evil as the mouth of a dangerous beast.
“The White Tiger lives in there,” the villagers whispered. “We dare not go any farther.”
“Well, I must go in and see it,” the old man said. “Will no one accompany me?”
The villagers looked at one another until finally a young man, the village’s potter, stepped forward. The old sage nodded at him, pleased. Together, they walked into the dark hole, the light of a lantern shaking in the potter’s hand. At the end, the White Tiger lay asleep, looking even larger and more ferocious in the dim light. The old man gazed at the tiger thoughtfully.
“It is as I thought,” he said. “See how the stripes on his forehead make the symbol for the word wang? A symbol of power? It is impossible for you to destroy this tiger.”
“Then we are doomed!” the young potter cried.
The sage held his fingers to his lips to quiet the man and led him out of the cave to their village. The villagers gathered around them, only to wail in despair as the sage repeated his words.
“But the tiger must be killed!” the villagers said. “How can we save our village?”
“I can help you do that,” the sage said. “But I will need a baby.”
“A baby?” the villager said. “For what?”
“For the tiger,” the sage said. “It will not be harmed.”
His words brought the village to an uproar. A baby for the tiger! The sage was crazy! No one would give up a child to the tiger. No matter what the sage said, the baby would just be an easy meal for such a wicked beast. Finally, the potter spoke up.
“We will not sacrifice a baby to the tiger,” the young man said. At home, he had a baby daughter and he would never dream of giving her to the tiger. “We would rather die first.”
The old sage nodded. “I expected as much,” he said. “I will try a substitute. It should be enough to save your village, but it will not completely cure the White Tiger. Bring me a bowl.”
This the young man quickly did, giving the sage one of his handmade bowls. The old sage walked to the lake, a sheet of rippling silk, with the young man and the other villagers following. At the lake’s edge, the sage picked a tall blade of grass with a drop of dew hanging from it like a tiny crystal berry. In the moonlight, the water droplet turned a sparkling silver, and the old man cast it into the lake.
The villagers could not help crowding around the old sage as he bent over the lake water. As the dewdrop fell into the water, it darkened to a black silhouette and began to swim. The dew had turned into a tadpole!
But before the villagers could even gasp in awe, the old man scooped up the tadpole with the bowl. He flipped it over on top of the ground, water spreading from the bowl’s edges like fingers on an opening hand. Then the sage looked up at the moon and knocked his walking stick against the bowl.
The thick, dark bowl cracked into pieces as if it were an eggshell, and under the broken pieces, something wriggled. The old man lifted off the shards of pottery, revealing a baby rabbit as pale as the moon above.
The sage took the baby rabbit in his hands, and a smaller, more helpless creature could not have existed. He smiled at it, and the baby rabbit opened its black eyes, which gleamed like the night water of the lake. The old man and the rabbit stared at each other as if a silent understanding had been shared, and then the sage walked back to the cave of the White Tiger, the villagers watching silently.
At the mouth of the cave, the sage gently laid down the baby rabbit and walked away.
When he reached the waiting villagers, they began to press the sage with questions and worries. “Why did you leave the rabbit there?” they asked. “The White Tiger will just kill it!”
The sage said nothing. He slowly gestured. Dawn was breaking, and a grumble echoed from the dark hole. The villagers went silent. The White Tiger had awakened!
The White Tiger came out of its hole and immediately saw the baby rabbit, a helpless mound of soft fur trembling in the morning light. The tiger snarled, its dangerous, evil claws extended, and the villagers gasped in horror. But suddenly, the tiger’s paw froze in midair, and the rabbit and the tiger stared at each other. The baby rabbit made no sound, but the tiger put its paw on the ground. Gently, the tiger sniffed it and, like a cat, licked the rabbit’s face. Then the tiger scooped up the rabbit with its paw and carried it back into the cave.
The villagers stared in disbelief. The old man turned toward his mountain and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” the villagers asked. “What about the tiger?”
“Leave a gourd of milk in front of the cave every day for six weeks,” the old man said without turning around, “and your village will be saved.”
“But you didn’t kill the White Tiger!” they said.
“I never said I was going to kill it,” the old man said, and continued walking.
The villagers did as the old man said. Every morning, they left a gourd of milk by the cave, and strangely, the tiger did stop bothering them. On the last day of the six weeks, out of curiosity, the young potter climbed the tall tree after leaving the milk. In a few moments, the tiger ambled out of the cave. Was it the same tiger? It was still white, but now, instead of the grayish-white of a choking smoke, the tiger was a clean, pure white like the light of the moon. The baby rabbit was the same color and looked healthy and fat as it hopped out. It eagerly drank the milk as the tiger tipped the gourd with its… hands? The man thought he saw fingers instead of claws on the tiger’s paws. He blinked his eyes. Impossible!
The rabbit and the tiger disappeared back into the cave, and when the man returned to the village to tell of what he had seen, no one believed him. “Leave the White Tiger alone,” they told him. “With any luck, it will just disappear.”
And it seemed that the villagers’ wish was answered. The potter was the last to ever see the tiger and the baby rabbit. Villagers began to forget about the White Tiger, only mentioning it as a whispered story.
But about nine years later, a group of village children, including the potter’s daughter, ran to their parents shouting with excitement.
“We were playing in the tall grass by the lake,” the oldest boy told his mother, “when a huge snake slithered from the grass, hissing!”
“It was going to attack me,” the potter’s daughter said to her father, her eyes round. “Everyone screamed and screamed.”
“And, then, out of nowhere, something rushed out, grabbed the snake, and threw it away!” the boy continued, his words becoming shouts. “The thing that threw the snake… I think it was a monster!”
“Yes,” another girl said, almost sobbing. “It had human legs and arms, but its head and chest loo
ked like… like… a tiger!”
“It even had a tiger tail!” another boy said.
The parents did their best to calm the children, but they looked at one another with worry and bewilderment. A monster? Half-man, half-tiger? What kind of strange beast had come? They would have to hunt it down and destroy it.
But the potter, now a bearded, middle-aged man, wondered. “Before we try to kill it,” he said to the villagers, “let us ask the old sage who lives on the mountain.”
The villagers agreed, and they again traveled to see the old sage. When they asked him if they should kill the beast, the old sage looked quite annoyed.
“You want to kill the White Tiger again?” he said, disgusted. “I told you this was the only way to save your village.”
“But if this beast is the White Tiger,” the bearded man said, “how can we save our village from it?”
“Fools! All of you!” the sage said. “You do not need to save your village from the White Tiger! The White Tiger will save your village.”
“But… how…” the villagers began. However, the sage had turned away, muttering to himself, “I believe I will have to start limiting these questions. I think next century I will start answering only once a decade, or maybe once every ninety-nine years…”
The villagers returned home, and for the next nine years, sightings of the strange beast continued. One time, it saved a raft full of children from drowning in the lake. Then it cleared boulders that had fallen in a landslide. And it carried a lost calf back to the herd. Each time the beast was seen, the description of it changed. It didn’t have a tiger’s tail. Its chest was human hair, not fur. Only its head was like a tiger.
And one day, the potter, his beard now gray, returned from a journey with a new kind of clay he was very excited about. He was not sure, but he suspected it would be able to make pots and bowls that could be pure white and painted as never before. He was in such a rush to return that he almost did not see his daughter as he hurried into the wilderness that lay before the entrance of the village. She seemed to be alone, except for a rabbit in her arms.
“What are you doing here?” he asked her.
“Waiting for you,” she said, but her pale moon-colored face flushed. She set down the rabbit and walked her father back to the village. The potter looked at her. She had always been different from the other village children—always quiet, as if she were constantly listening to whispers in the wind. His head filled with questions, but he said nothing.
However, he did not have to wonder long. One day, while he was working on a new bowl design, his daughter walked into the village with one hand holding the jade-white rabbit and the other holding the arm of a strange young man.
The young man was, by far, the strongest and handsomest man the villagers had ever seen. There was something striking about him. He had a powerful, magnetic air, and all stared and gathered around him. He would like to make his home in the village, the young man said, promising to be a hard worker, a help to all who needed it. Also, while he had nothing more to give but his pet rabbit, the man said as he bowed humbly before the gray-bearded man, he would be honored to marry the potter’s daughter.
At that, all the village maidens looked at the potter’s daughter with jealousy while the rest of the villagers burst into cheers of welcome. All rejoiced at having such a noble, valiant young man in their community, except for the gray-bearded potter. He had noticed what the other villagers had not.
“That is an interesting scar you have,” the potter said, motioning to the faint mark on the young man’s forehead. “It looks like the symbol of power.”
“Yes,” the man said. “I’ve always had it.”
The graybeard said nothing for a long moment, and his daughter’s hopeful eyes dimmed. But then he began to paint a rabbit on the bowl he was working on, and her smile shined with joy. He looked at her and nodded, welcoming the man into his family and the village.
“The mark of power! He was WangYi!” Peiyi whispered. “He saved the village by shooting down the suns… That’s why he was so powerful…”
“It was a very interesting story,” Duke Zhe said over Peiyi’s murmurs. “But I don’t see why you thought it was something my magistrate friend should hear.”
“I thought that was obvious,” Madame Chang said. “If kindness and compassion can turn a tiger into a man, then the opposite must be true.”
“In the blood,” Mr. Shan said, and Rendi was surprised to see that Mr. Shan was nodding at him. “The blood that pumps in you can be of man or tiger. The heart decides.”
“I guess this son of the magistrate should watch out, then,” one of the traders called out boisterously. “His dad could turn into a tiger!”
The room filled with titters and laughter, but Rendi felt as if he couldn’t breathe. He caught the trader looking at him slyly and was glad to escape to the horses.
CHAPTER
23
Since the duke’s horses took up all the room in the stable, Rendi was forced to leave the traders’ animals tethered to a picket outside. The traders also had horses, which was unusual, as most merchants had donkeys with carts or heavy-laden camels. But Rendi did not have much time to think about it. Collecting enough water for all the horses and the new guests kept Rendi so busy that he didn’t even have time to get his own dinner. But he didn’t mind. He wasn’t hungry. And he preferred not to return to the dining room.
Still, the tightness inside him did not loosen much. Duke Zhe’s appearance had been a shock. Now, instead of wishing to stow away in one of the carriages, Rendi hoped the duke would just leave quickly, without him. He closed his eyes and sighed, and he left the stable, feeling confused.
He was not the only one confused. As he shut the stable door behind him, Rendi saw an outline of a shuffling figure against the setting sun, the croaking sound of a toad making accompanying music. Mr. Shan was beginning to walk across the bare stone plain.
“Mr. Shan!” Rendi said, running to him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to remember,” Mr. Shan said. He pressed his fingers against his bearded chin. “Without the moon, I’ve forgotten everything. I even forgot that I forgot.”
“Mr. Shan?” Rendi said, concerned. What was he saying? Was he crazy?
“I had forgotten I had lost it until she reminded me,” Mr. Shan said, staring into the distance with eyes that did not see Rendi. “I have to find it.”
Rendi followed Mr. Shan’s gaze into the miles of the stone field, an empty stretch of shadows. The toad, its eyes bulging above Mr. Shan’s pocket, stared. The sky made a mournful noise, the first lonely echo of the night.
“You shouldn’t go out there now,” Rendi said, taking Mr. Shan’s arm. “Let me take you home.”
“Home,” Mr. Shan said absently. “I have not had a home for a long time.”
Yet he allowed Rendi to turn him around and lead him back to the winding street. Mr. Shan offered no more strange words, and except for the toad’s occasional song and the hollow thumping of Mr. Shan’s walking stick, all was quiet. But Rendi was filled with questions. He couldn’t believe that Mr. Shan—who knew the answer to the problem of the snails, whom Madame Chang held in high regard—was crazy. But his words didn’t make any sense either. Wasn’t the house Mr. Shan lived in his home? Was it Madame Chang who reminded him what he had forgotten? What was it he was looking for? And what did it have to do with the moon?
Mr. Shan’s small house near the Inn of Clear Sky seemed no different from any of the other villagers’, which was perhaps why Rendi had only glanced at it before. The rows of scalloped tiles that made up the roof looked more like tree ear mushrooms than stone. Grass and weeds, yellowed from lack of water, grew between the rough-hewed rocks of the walls. The shadows that fell from the dimming light seemed to make the house disappear into the sky, but there was nothing unusual about it.
“Mr. Shan,” Rendi finally said, as they reached the front of the house, “what did you mean a
bout the moon?”
“The moon?” Mr. Shan said in his vague way. “The moon means peace. It is the image of harmony and peace.”
Rendi tried again. “You said without the moon, you forgot everything. And you said that you didn’t have a home.”
“Yes,” Mr. Shan said. “You cannot have a home without peace.”
The night groaned, and Rendi gave up. Mr. Shan lit a small lantern outside his door. As Mr. Shan stepped over the raised doorway, he looked at Rendi, the flame in his lantern looking like a small, blooming flower.
“You want to go home, Rendi,” Mr. Shan said. “You should go.”
Rendi turned and walked back to the inn, full of more questions and confused thoughts. When Mr. Shan had bidden him off, Rendi had looked beyond him into his house, visible by the lit lantern. The house had been completely empty. There was not a table or stool or bed. The only thing Rendi had seen in that bare room was a blue cloth bag that lay forlorn in the corner. Perhaps that was where Mr. Shan kept his money? He eats every day at the inn, Rendi thought, and he always pays. Is that all he has?
Rendi sighed as he reached the front of the inn. Thinking of Mr. Shan had taken his mind off the new guests. The bright windows and the lit lanterns of the inn looked like a necklace of jewels, and Rendi felt the tightness in his throat returning. He looked behind him at the last sliver of light on the horizon, and the sky gave a painful wail that echoed in his ears.
Then a rough arm grabbed him! Rendi jolted backward, and his feet were thrown in the air. Before he could think to yell, a large hand clamped over his mouth.
A voice snarled in his ear, “Got you!”
CHAPTER
24
“I tell you, Fang, he’s the missing boy!” the man said.
“He doesn’t look like any rich man’s son,” the other man, obviously Fang, said, scowling.
Rendi stared at them. In the dim light, they seemed more like figures in a nightmare. Nothing seemed real. But he was truly there, inside one of the rooms of the inn with his hands and feet tied. After the trader had dropped him on the floor like a sack of rice, Rendi had propped himself against the wall, drooling into the coarse cloth knotted over his mouth. The gag was unnecessary, for Rendi was so shocked, he could not make a sound.