颙

The Classic of Southern Mountains: four hundred li east is Mount Lingqiu. No grass, no trees, much fire. South of it is a valley called Zhonggu, and from it the Tiao wind blows. A bird lives there shaped like an owl, with a human face, four eyes, and ears. Its name is Yong, and its cry is its own name. When it appears, the world suffers drought. Mount Lingqiu: nothing grows, and there is much fire. What fire? First, volcanic. There are volcanoes in Lingnan: Huguangyan on the Leizhou peninsula is a maar lake left by an eruption hundreds of thousands of years ago, and northern Hainan is a basalt plateau. In volcanic country the ground is warm, sulfurous, and hostile to plants. Second, natural gas. Gas seeps up through fissures and, struck by lightning or spontaneously ignited, burns for centuries. The fire wells of Zigong in Sichuan burned from the Han to the Qing. Third, marsh gas. Phosphine ignites over wetlands at night as sheets of blue-green flame that burn nothing. "No plants, much fire" most resembles the first two together: a geothermal field. Then: "south of it is a valley called Zhonggu, and from it the Tiao wind blows." The Tiao wind is the northeast wind. The Huainanzi says: forty-five days from the winter solstice, the Tiao wind arrives. It is the wind around the beginning of spring, also called the thaw wind — the first wind of the year. A valley that blows outward, all year. Meteorology calls it mountain-valley wind, or cave wind. A large karst chamber or fissure inside the mountain holds a stable temperature; outside, the temperature swings; air moves in and out of the mouth. In summer the outside is hot and cool air flows out of the cave; in winter it reverses. With the right orientation, the cave breathes all year. Standing at the mouth and feeling wind rise out of the ground, the ancients wrote: from here the Tiao wind blows. Then the bird. "Shaped like an owl." "Human face." An owl's facial disc is flat and its eyes face forward — a structure unique among birds. It reads as a face. "Four eyes." An owl has two. Where do four come from? Look at a long-eared owl head-on. The facial disc has two dark eye sockets; around each socket a ring of pale feathers, and outside that another dark ring. In poor light, that alternation of light and dark reads as an eye beside an eye. A more direct explanation: the nictitating membrane. When an owl blinks, a translucent membrane slides over the eye and the eye becomes a white disc. Open, black; closed, white — one bird, two sets of eyes. "And ears." An owl's "ears" are ear tufts, two erect feather clusters, not ears. The real ear openings sit at the sides of the facial disc under the feathers, and they are asymmetrical: the left opening is usually higher than the right and differently shaped. The asymmetry is for sound localization — the difference in arrival time and intensity between the two ears lets an owl place a mouse in total darkness to within a degree. Then the last clause: "when it appears, the world suffers drought." What do owls have to do with drought? Owls eat rodents. In a drought year, rodents concentrate around the valleys that still hold water, and the owls concentrate with them. A village that never heard an owl suddenly hears one every night. And another layer: in a drought the sky is clear, the ground radiates heat away after dark, the air column is stable, and sound carries unusually far. The same call that travels one kilometre in a wet year travels three in a dry one. So "when it appears, drought" is not prediction. It is co-occurrence. The owl is not the cause of drought; it is a witness to it — it follows the rats, and the rats follow the water. Yong is not the only drought animal in the book. The drought demon, the Feiyi snake, the Yingyu fish — all carry the same clause. They share one structure: an animal that becomes conspicuous in a dry year gets recorded as a sign of drought. The ancients were not wrong. They read "happens together" as "happens because." What we do now is the reverse: we see the drought, and remember the bird.

เขาหลิงชิว "ไม่มีต้นไม้ มีไฟมาก" ทางใต้มีหุบเขาชื่อจงกู่ ลมเถียวพัดออกมาจากที่นั่น "ไฟมาก" อาจเป็นภูเขาไฟ แก๊สธรรมชาติที่ผุดขึ้นมาและติดไฟ หรือฟอสฟอรัสในบึงที่ลุกเป็นเปลวสีเขียว ลมเถียวคือลมตะวันออกเฉียงเหนือ ลมแรกของฤดูใบไม้ผลิ หุบเขาที่พัดลมออกมาตลอดปีคือ "ลมถ้ำ" — อากาศในโพรงถ้ำอุณหภูมิคงที่ ต่างจากภายนอก จึงไหลเข้าออกที่ปากถ้ำ นก: "คล้ายนกเค้า หน้าเป็นคน สี่ตา มีหู" "หน้าเป็นคน" = จานหน้านกเค้าแบน ตาสองข้างหันไปข้างหน้า เหมือนใบหน้า "สี่ตา" = วงขนสว่างสลับมืดรอบเบ้าตา อ่านเป็นตาเพิ่มอีกคู่ หรือเยื่อตาที่พอกระพริบแล้วตากลายเป็นวงขาว "มีหู" = ขนหูสองกระจุก ไม่ใช่หูจริง รูหูจริงซ่อนใต้ขนและสองข้างไม่สมมาตร เพื่อระบุตำแหน่งเสียงในความมืด "เห็นเมื่อไรโลกแล้ง": ปีแล้ง หนูรวมตัวใกล้แหล่งน้ำ นกเค้าก็ตามมา และท้องฟ้าโปร่งทำให้เสียงดังไปไกล นกเค้าไม่ได้ทำให้แล้ง มันเป็นพยานของความแล้ง

Gunung Lingqiu "tiada tumbuhan, banyak api". Di selatannya ada lembah Zhonggu, dan dari situ angin Tiao bertiup. "Banyak api" mungkin gunung berapi, gas asli yang meresap dan terbakar, atau fosfin paya yang menyala hijau biru. Angin Tiao ialah angin timur laut, angin pertama musim bunga. Lembah yang menghembus keluar sepanjang tahun ialah "angin gua": suhu dalam gua stabil, luar berubah, jadi udara masuk keluar di mulut gua. Burung: "seperti burung hantu, muka manusia, empat mata, bertelinga." "Muka manusia": cakera muka burung hantu rata, dua mata menghadap ke depan — seperti wajah. "Empat mata": cincin bulu cerah-gelap di sekeliling mata terbaca sebagai sepasang mata tambahan; atau selaput mata yang menjadikan mata bulatan putih. "Bertelinga": jumbai bulu tegak, bukan telinga. Lubang telinga sebenar di bawah bulu dan tidak simetri, untuk mengesan bunyi dalam gelap. "Muncul, dunia kemarau": pada tahun kering tikus berkumpul berhampiran air, burung hantu mengikut, dan langit cerah membuat bunyi kedengaran jauh. Burung hantu bukan penyebab kemarau; ia saksi kemarau.

Núi Linh Khâu "không cây, nhiều lửa". Phía nam có thung lũng Trung Cốc, gió Điều thổi ra từ đó. "Nhiều lửa" có thể là núi lửa, khí tự nhiên rò rỉ rồi bốc cháy, hoặc phosphine ở đầm lầy cháy xanh. Gió Điều là gió đông bắc, ngọn gió đầu xuân. Thung lũng thổi gió quanh năm là "gió hang": nhiệt độ trong hang ổn định, ngoài hang thay đổi, không khí ra vào ở cửa hang. Chim: "như cú, mặt người, bốn mắt, có tai." "Mặt người": đĩa mặt cú phẳng, hai mắt hướng ra trước — giống một khuôn mặt. "Bốn mắt": vòng lông sáng tối quanh hốc mắt đọc thành thêm một cặp mắt; hoặc màng mí khi chớp làm mắt thành vòng trắng. "Có tai": hai túm lông dựng, không phải tai thật. Lỗ tai thật nằm dưới lông và hai bên không đối xứng, để định vị âm thanh trong bóng tối. "Xuất hiện thì đại hạn": năm hạn, chuột tập trung quanh nước, cú theo chuột, và trời quang khiến tiếng kêu vang xa. Cú không gây hạn; nó là nhân chứng của hạn.

Gunung Lingqiu "tanpa tumbuhan, banyak api". Di selatannya ada lembah Zhonggu, dan dari situ angin Tiao bertiup. "Banyak api" mungkin gunung berapi, gas alam yang merembes lalu terbakar, atau fosfin rawa yang menyala hijau biru. Angin Tiao adalah angin timur laut, angin pertama musim semi. Lembah yang bertiup keluar sepanjang tahun adalah "angin gua": suhu di dalam gua stabil, luar berubah, jadi udara masuk keluar di mulut gua. Burung: "seperti burung hantu, wajah manusia, empat mata, bertelinga." "Wajah manusia": cakram wajah burung hantu rata, dua mata menghadap ke depan — seperti wajah. "Empat mata": cincin bulu terang-gelap di sekitar mata terbaca sebagai sepasang mata tambahan; atau selaput mata yang membuat mata menjadi bulatan putih. "Bertelinga": jumbai bulu tegak, bukan telinga. Lubang telinga sebenarnya di bawah bulu dan tidak simetris, untuk mendeteksi bunyi dalam gelap. "Muncul, dunia kemarau": pada tahun kering tikus berkumpul dekat air, burung hantu mengikuti, dan langit cerah membuat bunyi terdengar jauh. Burung hantu bukan penyebab kemarau; ia saksi kemarau.