Now, Master Lü, holding the elixir up in his hand, called out to Xiangzi, “Immortal brother, now that Han Yu has resumed his old post as Curtain-Raising General and Lady Dou and Luying have left the mortal world, your merit and good works are nearly complete. But one thing is still missing.” “Master,” said Xiangzi, “what is your disciple still missing?” “On the shore at Cangwu you still have a companion,” said Master Lü, “down at the bottom of a deep pool, whom you have never gone to save. That will always leave something lacking.” “Luying is your companion, Master,” said Lady Dou, “and she’s here already. How can you have another companion, down at the bottom of some deep pool?” “This goes back to a cause in my former life,” said Xiangzi, “and it must be settled in this one.” “Master, won’t you tell us about it?” said Lady Dou. “We your disciples will listen with folded hands.” “A drum won’t sound unless you beat it,” said Xiangzi, “and a bell won’t ring unless you strike it. Let me tell you the causes of my former life — no need to wash out your ears for it.” And then and there Xiangzi began: “In my former life I was a white crane on Mount Zhiheng. By drawing in the essence of the sun and the brilliance of the moon, I had lived more than a hundred years. On that mountain there was also a musk deer that had cultivated itself into a creature of power, and it often roamed and played with me, free and easy, on the banks of the Xiang in Cangwu Commandery. Who knows how many springs and autumns went by, how many winters and summers? Then one day, as luck would have it, while the two of us were out roaming there, we ran into the two masters, Zhongli and Lü, just as they brought their cloud down at the river mouth. At once the musk deer and I worked our transformations, turned into two wandering Daoists and went forward to greet them. We thought our magic powers so great and our transformations so many that we had fooled the two masters — but who would have thought it? With their eyes of wisdom they had seen our true forms from the first. I bowed my head and did obeisance at once, and begged them for a grain of the golden elixir, so that I could shed my body of down and my shell of feathers. But the musk deer, not knowing what was good for it, went on arguing stubbornly before the two masters and covering up its faults, hoping to hide its true form. Master Zhongli put up with it, but Master Lü, seething with rage, drew his precious sword. ‘You wicked beast,’ he said, ‘who do you think you’re fooling? Do you take my sword for a blunt one?’ That one shout frightened me so badly that my heart and gall all but burst, and I crawled on the ground and begged for mercy. Master Zhongli said, ‘This crane might make something of itself after all. This deer is no use to me — be off with you, quick!’ When the musk deer heard Master Zhongli say this, it gave a great laugh. ‘If you won’t take me to the Way, Master, never mind,’ it said. ‘This Xiang River scenery of mine beats those Langyuan Gardens and that Jasper Pool of yours. I can be perfectly free and easy here. I’ve no wish to go up to the Great Canopy Heaven and be kept on a tight rein by the Jade Emperor.’ When Master Lü heard this, he grew angrier still. He muttered a spell and shouted, ‘Quick!’ He called down Marshal Zhao Xuantan of the Black Tiger, and the musk deer was banished straight to the depths of a pool in the river, tied tight and locked fast, never to be let loose. And he gave the marshal orders: it was to wait until I had become an immortal, and then I would go and save it and make it a great god guarding a mountain. Then Master Zhongli took a grain of the golden elixir from his gourd and gave it to me to eat, and at once I turned into a boy dressed in blue. I was called the Crane Boy, and I followed the two masters to pay court to the Jade Emperor. I thought it the luck of three lifetimes, a chance that won’t come again in ten thousand ages, to have met the two masters and shed my old body that day. But who would have known it? My father and mother had no son. All day long they prayed to Heaven and called on the gods, begging for a son to keep the incense burning for the ancestors. The City God and the Altar Wardens of Changli County reported it to the Jade Emperor, and he sent down a decree charging the two masters first to send me to be conceived and reborn in the Han family, and afterwards to bring me to the Way and make me an immortal. Again and again I refused to go, but the two masters said, ‘Once the Jade Emperor’s decree has gone out, who dares disobey it? Go and be born for now, and we will come and bring you to the Way ourselves.’ So I had no choice but to do as the two masters said and go to be born a man. Unhappily, my father and mother both died, and it was thanks to my uncle and aunt that I grew up. They engaged masters to teach me, and my masters didn’t teach me to read books. In secret they passed on to me the whole great Way of the golden elixir and all its hidden mysteries, and only so did I attain the fruit and rise above the mortal world, free and happy. All this while I’ve been so busy bringing Uncle, Aunt and Miss Luying to the Way that I quite forgot the business of the musk deer. Now that Master Lü has reminded me, I may as well see the whole thing through from start to finish.” “And Zhang Qian and Li Wan,” said Master Lü. “All shall come together to pay court.” Then and there Xiangzi muttered a spell toward the southeast, and a heavenly general stood before him. And how was this heavenly general arrayed?