犀渠

The Classic of Central Mountains: one hundred and twenty li west is Mount Li. Jade on its sunny side; on its shady side, madder — the plant that yields red dye. A mountain with jade on one face and pigment on the other. Xiqu lives there. Shaped like an ox, with a cang hide. That word matters. Cang is not black and not green: it is the blue-grey of oxidized bronze, of sky before rain, of rhinoceros skin. Look at an Indian or Javan rhino today and the hide is exactly that — deep grey with a green cast, black in the folds, faintly cold where the light rakes across it. "Cang body" is not a poetic flourish. It is accurate field notation. Then: its cry is like a baby's. Rhinos vocalize, and not quietly. The snort of courtship, the low bellow of threat, the short sharp squeal of a calf looking for its mother — that last one, heard across a valley, genuinely sounds like a child crying. The ancients had no recorder. They reached for the most familiar comparison available, and an infant's cry is the comparison least likely to be wrong. "And it eats people." Rhinos do not eat people. Rhinos hit people. An adult Indian rhino weighs two tonnes, charges at forty kilometres an hour, carries a horn, and wears hide with almost no fat under it. Its eyesight is terrible; it navigates by smell and hearing; when startled it runs in a straight line and does not turn around. To a witness, "eaten" and "trampled into the mud" are not different outcomes. A person was there; then there was a mess and no person. When the Shanhaijing writes "eats people," it is usually not describing feeding behaviour. It is recording a death. And there is another layer: the Central Plain really did have rhinos. Rhinoceros bones have come out of the Yinxu excavations. Shang bronzes include a rhino zun — a ritual wine vessel — modelled closely enough to identify the species as the Sumatran rhino. Oracle bones carry divinations about capturing rhinos. Three thousand years ago Henan was warmer and wetter than now, thick with marsh, and rhinos were local animals. By the time the Shanhaijing was compiled, they had been pushed to the margins. The climate cooled, the marshes were drained, the population grew, and the habitat went away in pieces. The rhino stopped being a common large animal and became a monster occasionally met in the hills. Xiqu is the silhouette of that retreat. A mountain yielding jade and red dye, inhabited by a blue-grey beast that cries like an infant and can kill a man by running at him. It was not invented. It was real, and it was leaving.

เขาหลีมีสัตว์ชื่อซีฉวี รูปร่างเหมือนวัว ตัวสีเขียวอมเทา ("ชาง" คือสีเดียวกับหนังแรด) เสียงร้องเหมือนทารก กินคน จริง ๆ แล้วแรดไม่กินคน แต่มันพุ่งชน คนที่ถูกชนก็ตายเหมือนกัน สำคัญคือ กลางจีนเคยมีแรดจริง ขุดพบกระดูกแรดที่อินซวี มี bronzes รูปแรดยุคราชวงศ์ซาง ต่อมาอากาศเย็นลง บึงถูกถม แรดก็ถอยหายไป เหลือแค่ความจำ

Gunung Li ada binatang bernama Xiqu. Bentuk macam lembu, badan kelabu kehijauan — warna kulit badak. Bunyinya macam bayi. Makan orang. Sebenarnya badak tidak makan orang, tapi ia langgar. Orang kena langgar pun mati juga. Yang penting: dataran tengah China memang pernah ada badak. Tulang badak dijumpai di Yinxu, ada bekas gangsa bentuk badak zaman Shang. Kemudian iklim sejuk, paya dikeringkan, badak berundur. Tinggal cerita.

Núi Ly có thú tên Tê Cừ. Hình bò, mình xanh xám — đúng màu da tê giác. Kêu như trẻ con. Ăn thịt người. Thật ra tê giác không ăn thịt người, nhưng nó húc. Bị húc cũng chết. Điều đáng nói: Trung Nguyên xưa có tê giác thật. Xương tê giác khai quật ở Ân Khư, có tượng tê giác bằng đồng đời Thương. Về sau khí hậu lạnh đi, đầm lầy bị lấp, tê giác rút lui. Chỉ còn truyền thuyết.

Gunung Li ada binatang bernama Xiqu. Bentuk lembu, tubuh kelabu kehijauan — warna kulit badak. Bunyinya seperti bayi. Makan orang. Sebenarnya badak tidak makan orang, tapi menyeruduk. Kena seruduk juga mati. Yang penting: dataran tengah Tiongkok memang pernah punya badak. Tulang badak ditemukan di Yinxu, ada perunggu bentuk badak zaman Shang. Lalu iklim mendingin, rawa dikeringkan, badak mundur. Tinggal cerita.