#make Shen Jiu into a cranky bog witch

[fifilefttheloom]

A few months back I wrote this fragment of fic in rhyme. The idea that started it all was imagining a Shen Jiu who was kept at Cang Qiong as a prisoner for his association with Wu Yangzi. He's taught proper cultivation to calm down his qi deviations, and let out when he shows he's no longer a demonic cultivator. But he's not allowed to leave Cang Qiong. So, he builds a little hut in the woods on QingJing peak, so he doesn't have to face Qi-ge, but can still be close-ish. He spends his time listening in on lectures and getting really, really, REALLY good at everything. He's this mysterious shadow of Qing Jing peak, a myth passed around after lights out.

Eventually young, struggling students find that if they brave the scary woods they can get some tutoring (or a beating if he's in a bad mood) by the eternally bored mysterious hermit amongst the bamboo.

A Merlin type character, basically. And thinking of that made me want to put it into verse.

I'll never finish it, but it's a lot of fun anyways.

Intro:

Many worlds away a fool lay wandering

his mind whirling with visions pondering

the lives and habits of men and beasts

of faces fierce and fair, of fights and feasts.

A prophet and a fool, bound to capitalism

brought these wild dreams into commercialism.

As is often said, when coin enters a tail,

the truth and heart of it are slain.

Backstory:

When the wisest witnessed the rotten killer

mumbling into the earth the shameless murderer

he was hostage, homeless, hapless prisoner

have mercy, don't main me, no further torture,

death will suffice for my wretched, worthless life.

Were the wise moved while wielding the executioner's knife?

Or had lost too many to the Demonic Path's strife?

Or was their sadism not slaked by the boy's death,

so they left him and his pain to grow with every breath?

Mercy or sadism, the result is the same.

Under the wisest watchful eyes the prisoner came

to dwell in a ramshackle hermitage hidden amongst bamboo.

He's live out his days in quiet contemplation of broken taboos

and his numerous sins.

Luo Binghe enters stage left

Luo Binghe hears whispers of a hermit

of whom the hallmasters do not permit

a single outspoken word of deference.

Their eyes sharpened and their shoulders wince

whenever a student's skill suddenly rises.

The children bear any harsh prices

for their impudence, disobedience,

independence, putrid adolescence.

No punishment can compare to a breakthrough.

If one fails to learn, a desolate life off the mountain,

threatens more to a poor youth than any cruel due.

Our main character is hopeless.

His calligraphy chicken scratch and tea ceremony a mess.

The hallmasters look down their noses and spit.

The raggedy riff-raff that crawl from fetid pits,

should stay where gentile folk need not smell them.

The penniless waifs are wastrels all,

how could they have heard the noble mountains' call?

Roughly taken is the thought that,

the highest cultivator once was a street rat.

So our youth, with fists clenched,

follows Ning Yingying into the dark bamboo forest drenched

with mystery and lost history and bitter dew.

The sun cannot reach the forest floor in leu

of the verdant canopy. Only for her practiced pace

do our trembling couple find the hermit's place.

Her eyes brighten but the hermit turns sharply to frighten

the interlopers who dare to interrupt his attempt to heighten

his reach with his broken step-ladder. Indeed,

his person, basket, bundle of thatching reed,

all tumble into an inglorious muddle.

He curses and snarls in indignation,

fighting back his humiliation.

Why are Ying-er and this snot nosed brat,

here unexpectedly to witness that?

They beg and weave their woeful tale,

The hallmasters are determined to fail

this undeserving peasant boy.