“To cook this perch one needs purple sprout ginger though,” said the Taoist.
“Can you also produce that?” asked Cao Cao.
“Easily.”
Zuo Ci told them to bring in a silver bowl, which the magician filled with water. Very soon the ginger filled the bowl, and he presented it to the host. Cao Cao put out his hand to pick some, when suddenly a book appeared in the bowl and the title was “Cao Cao's New Treatise on the Art of War”. He took it out and read it over. Not a word of his treatise was missing.
Cao Cao became more mystified. Zuo Ci took up a jade cup that stood on the table, filled it with fine wine, and presented it to Cao Cao.
“Drink this, O Prince, and you will live a thousand years.”
“Drink of it first yourself,” said Cao Cao.
The Taoist took the jade pin from his head-dress and drew it across the cup as if dividing the wine into two portions.
Then he drank one half and handed the cup with the other half to Cao Cao. But Cao Cao angrily refused it. The Taoist then threw the cup into the air, where it was transformed into a white dove which circled round the banquet hall and then flew away.
All faces were turned upward following the flight of the dove, and so no one had noticed the going of the Taoist. But he was gone; and soon the gate warden reported that he had left the palace.
Said Cao Cao, “A magician like this ought to be put to death, or he will do some mischief.”
The redoubtable Xu Chu and a company of three hundred armed men were sent to arrest the Taoist. They saw the Taoist, still wearing his wooden clogs, not far ahead but striding along quickly. Xu Chu rode after Zuo Ci, but in spite of all his horse could do, he could not come up with Zuo Ci. He kept up the chase right to the hills, when he met a shepherd lad with a flock of sheep. And there walked the Taoist among the sheep. The Taoist disappeared. The angry warrior slew the whole flock of sheep, while the shepherd lad looked on weeping.
Suddenly the boy heard a voice from one of the severed heads, telling him to replace the heads on the bodies of his sheep. Instead of doing so, he fled in terror, covering his face.
Then he heard a voice calling to him, “Do not run away; you shall have your sheep again.”
He turned, and lo! the sheep were all alive again, and Zuo Ci was driving them along. The boy began to question him, but the Taoist made no reply. With a flick of his sleeves, he was gone.
The shepherd lad went home and told all these marvels to his master. He could not conceal such a story, and it reached Cao Cao. Then sketches of the Taoist were sent everywhere with orders to arrest him. Within three days were arrested in the city and outside three or four hundred persons all blind of one eye, lame of one leg, and wearing a rattan head-dress, a black loose robe and wooden clogs. They were all alike and all answered to the description of the missing Taoist.
There was a great hubbub in the street. Cao Cao ordered his officer to sprinkle the crowd of Taoists with the blood of pigs and goats in order to exorcise the witchcraft and take them away to the drill ground on the south of the city. Thither he followed them with his guards, who surrounded the crowd of arrested persons and slew every one. But from the neck of each one, after the head was severed, there floated up into the air a wreath of black vapor, and all these wreaths drifted toward a center where they joined up into the image of another Zuo Ci, who presently beckoned to him a white crane out of the sky, mounted it and sat as on a horse.
Clapping his hands, the Taoist cried merrily, “The rats of the earth follow the golden tiger, and one morning the doer of evil shall be no more.”
The soldiers shot arrows at both bird and man. At this a tremendous storm burst over the city. Stones were driven along, sand was whirled about, and all the corpses arose from the ground, each holding his own head in his hands. They rushed toward Cao Cao as if to strike him. The officials covered their eyes, and none dared to look another in the face.
Read the next chapter and you will know the fate of Cao Cao.
The sight of the corpses of his victims rising to their feet in the storm and running toward him was too much for Cao Cao, and he swooned. However, the wind quickly fell and the corpses disappeared. His followers assisted Cao Cao to his palace, but he was very ill.
