Once upon a time, so very long ago that even the great-grandfathers of our great-grandmothers had not been born, there lived in the city of Kwen-lu a little Chinese boy named Pei-Hang.
His father and mother loved him dearly, and did all they could to shield him from the power of the evil Genii, or spirits, of whom there were a great many in China. Of course, there were some good Genii too, but most of them were very much the opposite, and Pei-Hang’s mother took every precaution against them.
It is well-known that a wicked Genii will not come near a Chinese boy if he has some red silk braided in with his pigtail, or if he wears a silver chain around his neck, and all of them dread an old fishing-net. So Pei-Hang’s mother made him a little shirt out of an old fishing-net, and she took care that his pigtail should be plaited with the brightest of red silk.
Also she was particular in having his head shaved in just the right way, with a tuft sticking straight up in the luckiest place.
And so Pei-Hang got safely over the troubles of his babyhood, and grew from a baby into a big boy, and then to a tall, handsome youth. Then he left off wearing his fish-net shirt, but still wore the silver chain round his neck and had red silk in his pigtail.
“It is time that Pei-Hang saw a little more of the world,” said his father. “He must go to Chang-ngan and study under the wise men there.”
Chang-ngan was the ancient capital of China, a very large city indeed, and Pin-Too, the teacher to whom Pei-Hang was sent, was the wisest man there.
Pei-Hang soon learned what the world was thinking about, and many other things also. As soon as he was eighteen he took the red silk out of his pigtail and the silver chain from his neck, because grown-up people were supposed to be able to protect themselves against the Genii without the aid of charms.
When he was twenty, Pin-Too said he could not teach him any more, and told him to go back to his parents, and comfort them in their old age.
Pei-Hang was his favorite pupil, and Pin-Too looked very sorry when he said this.
“I will start to-morrow, Master, and will leave the city by the Golden Bridge,” replied Pei-Hang obediently.
“No, you must go by the Indigo Bridge,” said Pin-Too, “for there you will meet your future wife.”
“I was not thinking of a wife,” observed Pei-Hang, with some dismay.
Pin-Too just wrinkled up his eyes and laughed.
“So much the better!” said he. “When you have once seen her, you will be able to think of nothing else.”
It was very hot, and Pei-Hang intended to start in the cool of the early morning, but he sat so long over his books the night before his journey that he wakened late, and when he opened his eyes the sun was blazing down upon the streets, making the town like a furnace.
However, he had promised to start that day, so he took up his stick and set off.
“I will rest at the Indigo Bridge,” said he to himself, “and walk on again in the cool of the evening.”
But he had spent many sleepless nights in study, and when he reached the bridge he was so tired that he sat down and fell asleep.
Then, in a dream which came to him, he saw a tall and beautiful maiden, who showed him her right foot, around which was bound a red cord.
“What does this mean?” asked Pei-Hang, who could hardly take his eyes away from her face to look at her foot.
“What does the red cord around your own foot mean?” replied the girl.
Then Pei-Hang looked at his right foot, and saw that it was tied to the girl’s by the same thin red cord. So he knew that he had met his future wife.
“My mother used to say that when a boy is born, the Moon Fairy ties an invisible red cord around his right foot, and the other end of the cord encircles the foot of the girl-baby whom he is to marry,” said he.
“Quite true,” said the maiden, “and to people who are awake this cord is invisible. Now I will tell you my name, that you may remember it. It is Yun-Ying.”
“And I will tell you mine,” began Pei-Hang, but Yun-Ying stopped him, smiling.
“Ah, I know yours, and all about you,” she said.
Pei-Hang was greatly surprised, but he need not have been, for everyone in Chang-ngan knew that he was Pin-Too’s wisest, handsomest, and best-loved pupil. And Yun-Ying lived close to the city, and had often seen him walking through the streets carrying his books.
When Pei-Hang awoke, he looked for the red cord around his foot, but he saw neither this nor the fair maiden.
“I wonder if she is real, or only a dream-maiden, after all,” he said to himself.
But Yun-Ying was quite real; only her mother, who knew something of magic, had given her the power of stepping in and out of people’s dreams.
Pei-Hang got up and went on his way, thinking of Yun-Ying all the time.
It was still very hot, and he grew so thirsty that he went to a little hut by the roadside, and asked an old woman who was sitting in the doorway to give him a drink.
She called to her daughter to fill their best goblet with fresh spring water, and bring it out to the stranger. Then appeared none other than Yun-Ying herself.
“Oh!” cried Pei-Hang, “I thought that I might never see you again, and I have found you already.”
“And who am I?” asked the girl, smiling.
“Yun-Ying,” replied Pei-Hang; and the name seemed so musical to him that he said it over and over again.
Yun-Ying was dressed in white underneath, but her overdress was bright blue, embroidered with beautiful flowers which she had worked herself; and she stood in the door of the hut, with a peach tree in full bloom over her head, making such a picture of youth and loveliness that Pei-Hang’s heart seemed to jump into his throat, and beat there fast enough to choke him.
“Who are you? And how do you come to know Yun-Ying?” asked the old woman, peering and blinking at him, with her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun.
Then Pei-Hang told her about the dream, and the red cord, and when he said that he wanted to marry her daughter, the old woman did not look at all pleased. “If I had two daughters, you would be welcome to one of them,” she said.
Pei-Hang was not a bad match, for his parents were well-off, and he was their only child; but Yun-Ying was a very pretty girl and a mandarin of Chang-ngan was anxious to marry her.
“He is four times her age, it is true,” said her mother, explaining this to Pei-Hang, “but he is very rich.”
“He is old and wrinkled, like a little brown monkey,” said Yun-Ying, “and I don’t want to marry him. Besides, the Moon Fairy didn’t tie my foot to his.”
“No, that’s true,” sighed her mother.
She would have liked to send Pei-Hang away, but she knew it would not be safe to do that if the red cord had really been tied to his foot and Yun-Ying’s, so she asked him to come inside, and they would talk it over.
“Now,” said she, “on this stool I pound magic drugs given to me by the Genii, but my pestle and mortar is broken, and I want a new one.”
“That I can easily buy in Chang-ngan,” replied Pei-Hang.
“No, you cannot,” said the old woman, “because it is a pestle and mortar of jade, and you can only get another one from the home of the Genii, which is on a mountain above the Lake of Gems. If you will do that, and bring it back to me, you shall marry Yun-Ying.”
“I will do that, but I must see my parents first,” said Pei-Yang.
He had no idea where the home of the Genii was, but Yun-Ying took him out into the garden, and showed him, in the far distance, a range of snow-capped mountains, with one peak towering above all the others.
“That is Mount Sumi,” she said, “and it is there the Genii live, sitting on the snow-peaks, and looking down at the Lake of Gems.”
“In order to reach it you must cross the Blue River, the White River, the Red River, and the Black River, all of which are full of monstrous fishes. That is why my mother is sending you,” sighed Yun-Ying. “She thinks you will not return alive.”
“I am a good swimmer, and not afraid of fish,” said Pei-Hang.
“But you must not try to swim,” said Yun-Ying earnestly, “for you would be instantly devoured. Take this box with you. In it you will find six red seeds, one of which you must throw into each river as you come to it. The river will then shrink to the size of a small brook, over which you can jump.”
Pei-Hang opened the box, and saw inside six round, red seeds, each of them the size of a pea, and these he promised to use as she had directed. Then he kissed her, and set out on his journey.
On his way to Mount Sumi he passed through the town in which his parents lived, and when he saw them, he told them everything that had happened to him since he left Chang-ngan.
His mother, who was a very wise woman, as most mothers are, told him the Genii would be angry if he turned their great rivers into brooks, and would probably refuse to give him the pestle and mortar made of jade. But she gave him a box containing six white seeds, one of which he was to cast into each brook as he passed it on his return journey, and it would then expand into a river again.
The next morning Pei-Hang kissed his parents, and continued on his way to Mount Sumi. On the seventh day he came to the Blue River, which was a quarter of a mile wide, and as blue as the sky of summer, and fishes were popping their heads out of the water in every direction. The head of every fish was twice as large as a football, and had two rows of teeth. But he threw a red seed into the river, and in a moment it had become a little brook, across which he could hop on one foot, and the huge fishes were changed into tadpoles.
Very soon he reached the White River, which was half a mile wide, and so rapid that it was covered with foam, and full of immense sea-serpents.
This river was so wide that Pei-Hang was really surprised when, on throwing another of the red seeds into it, there lay before him a tiny brook, in the bottom of which some eels were wriggling.
Stepping across this, Pei-Hang walked on for some time until he came in sight of the Red River, which was three-quarters of a mile wide, and bright scarlet. Stretched right across it, like a bridge, was a row of huge alligators, each of which had its mouth wide open.
Into the river Pei-Hang threw one of the little red seeds, and one of the nearest alligators made a snap at it, but missed it. The seed sank into the water, and there before him was a small stream less than two feet across, and at the bottom of it a row of tiny lizards.
Pei-Hang crossed the stream, and was met by one of the Genii, who had come down from the snow-peak to see who had been playing tricks with the three mighty rivers.
Then Pei-Hang showed him the white seeds in the other box, and said: “With these I can make them as large as they were before, on my way back, so it is all right. But first I must find the home of the Genii, and get a pestle and mortar of jade for my future mother-in-law to pound magic drugs in.”
“First you must cross the Black River,” replied the Geni, with a rather scornful laugh. “It is a mile wide, and the fish in it are six yards long, and covered with spikes like porcupines.”
“How did you get across?” inquired Pei-Hang.
“I? O, I can fly,” said the Geni.
“And I can jump,” retorted Pei-Hang, sturdily.
The Geni walked with him as far as the Black River, and when our hero saw the great waste of water as black as ink, stretching away in front of him, it must be confessed his heart sank a little.
But he took out his fourth seed, and watched it disappear beneath a coal-black wave.
To the Geni’s astonishment the river immediately dried up, and a shallow stream running through the grass lay at their feet.
The Geni was much impressed by the wonderful things Pei-Hang seemed able to do. He was not bad-hearted, so he showed him the nearest way to the home of the Genii on the top of Mount Sumi.
It was a long and wearisome climb, but at last they got up there, and found eight of the Genii sitting on eight snow-peaks, and looking down on the Lake of Gems, as Yun-Ying had said.
The Lake of Gems lay on the other side of Mount Sumi, and was a beautiful sheet of water, flashing all the colors of the rainbow.
Pei-Hang could not take his eyes away from it. He forgot all about the pestle and mortar as he watched the waves rippling along the shore, and leaving behind them diamonds, rubies, sapphires and pearls in thousands.
Each pebble on the margin of the lake was a precious stone, and Pei-Hang wanted to go down and fill his pockets with them.
“We must let him have the pestle and mortar,” said the Geni who had been his guide, and who had told the others about the wonderful red and white seeds while Pei-Hang was standing spell-bound by the beauty of the Lake. “If we don’t he won’t give us back our rivers.”
The eight Genii nodded their eight heads, and spoke all at once, and the noise they made was like the rumble of thunder among the mountains. “Let him take it, if he can carry it,” they said.
And they laughed until the snow-peaks shook beneath them; for the mortar made of jade was six feet high and four feet wide, and the pestle was so heavy no mortal could lift it.
Pei-Hang, when he had finished staring at the Lake of Gems, walked round it, and wondered how he was to carry it down the mountain and across the plains to Chang-ngan.
Then he sat down on the ground to think the matter over, and the Genii, even his own good-natured Geni, laughed at him again.
“Come!” they said. “If you like to fill the mortar with precious stones, you may do so. Any man who can carry it empty can carry it full.”
“Because no one can carry it at all,” concluded the good-natured Geni softly to himself.
Pei-Hang folded his arms and sat still, and thought, and thought, and took no notice of their gibes and jeers. He had not studied for three years under the wisest man in Chang-ngan for nothing, and, besides, he was determined to marry Yun-Ying, and when young men are very much in love, they sometimes accomplish things which seem to be impossible.
At last he jumped up and asked the friendly Geni if he would make a little heap of stones at one side of the mortar.
“I want to be able to look inside it, and I am not tall enough,” said he.
“And why don’t you do it yourself?” asked the Geni.
“Because I must go down to the Lake of Gems and collect precious stones,” replied Pei-Hang.
Then he ran down to the shore of the lake and gathered diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls, and sapphires, as many as he could carry.
This he did again and again, emptying them into the mortar each time, until it was quite full and held gems enough to make Pei-Hang the richest man in China.
And this was just what he wanted to be, for the yellow-faced mandarin was only the richest man in Chang-ngan, and he knew that the richest man in China would have much the greater chance of winning Yun-Ying.
“Well, what next?” cried the eight Genii, when he had finished. “Will you take it on your shoulder or on your head?”
“I will just carry it under my arm,” replied Pei-Hang.
He took out his little box, threw one of the red seeds on top of the gems, and in a moment the tremendous pestle and mortar shrank into one of ordinary size.
Pei-Hang put the pestle in his pocket, and took up the mortar carefully, because he did not wish to lose any of the precious stones. Then he bowed low to the Genii, thanked them, and said good-by.
This time they did not laugh, but each of them roared with rage. They dared not stop him, knowing that he had the power to turn the four brooks into rivers again.
Pei-Hang hastened away, and on his journey did exactly as he had promised.
After crossing the first brook, he threw a white seed into it, and turned it into an inky black waste of water a mile wide, full of fishes six yards long, and every fish covered with spikes.
When the Genii saw this they stopped roaring, so glad were they to see the Black River guarding them once more from the outer world.
On reaching the Red River, the White River, and the Blue River, Pei-Hang did the same thing, and since that time no one has been able to find the home of the Genii, because no one else could cross the Blue River, much less the other three.
Having traveled for seven days Pei-Hang came to his father’s and mother’s house. He told them all that he had experienced, and for each white seed his mother had given him he gave her a jewel as large as an egg. Then he went on to Chang-ngan, where he found that Yun-Ying’s mother had spread a report that he was dead, and had invited all her friends to attend a wedding feast in honor of her daughter’s marriage with the yellow-faced old mandarin.
The wedding had not taken place when Pei-Hang arrived, but Yun-Ying was already arrayed in her wedding dress, and was standing beneath a peach tree which stood in front of the house. As soon as she saw him she threw herself into his arms, and shed tears of joy at his safe return.
He put down the pestle and mortar and kissed Yun-Ying’s tears away. Then her mother came, and said:
“You are too late to marry my daughter, but I’ll buy the pestle and mortar from you with some of the money the mandarin gave me.”
“Oh, no, you will not,” replied Pei-Hang. He then dropped one of his white seeds into the mortar, and it at once became so large that it covered the whole grass plot under the peach tree, and it was filled to the brim with glittering precious stones. He then climbed into a branch overhanging it, and from there he threw down to the wedding guests handfuls of jewels, and the yellow-faced mandarin was as busy as any one picking them up, much to the disgust of many who thought he was rich enough already.
Pei-Hang offered him three diamonds, each as large as a sparrow’s egg, if he would go away and forget that he ever knew Yun-Ying. These the mandarin took and away he went. He was sure that Yun-Ying’s mother would have no more to do with him now that she could marry her daughter to one who scattered jewels as Pei-Hang did.
The wedding feast took place, only the bridegrooms were changed. Pei-Hang married Yun-Ying, and took her to where his father and mother lived, and they were as happy as could be.
The pestle and mortar of jade stood beneath the peach tree, for it was too large and too heavy to be moved, and it was certainly of no use to Yun-Ying’s mother, because it was too big for her to pound her magic drugs in, even if she could get inside it, which she couldn’t. This made her very angry, but it served her right because of the unfair manner in which she had treated Pei-Hang.