狰

The Classic of Western Mountains: two hundred and eighty li west is Mount Zhang'e. No grass, no trees, only jade and green stone. "What happens there is very strange." A beast lives there, shaped like a red leopard, five tails, one horn. Its call is the sound of striking stone. Its name is like Zheng. Zhang'e is an odd place: no plants at all, just jade across the whole slope. The text adds a line it rarely adds — "what happens there is very strange." Zheng lives there. Red leopard's body, five tails, a single horn. Its voice is stone on stone. Start with the sound. Those four characters are probably where the whole entry began. On a mountain covered in jade and bare of vegetation, what do you hear? Stone. Wind through fissures, gravel sliding, jade knocking against jade — a jade mountain is an instrument. Someone gave that sound an owner: a red leopard. "Red leopard" is not an arbitrary color either. Zhang'e produces green jade; red is its complement. A red leopard on a green jade mountain is a designed image. Five tails and one horn is pure assembly. Five tails have no counterpart in nature. One horn does — rhino, narwhal. Put both on a leopard and the text is telling you: this is not a real animal. One more detail. Every other entry says "its name is X." Zheng's says "its name is like Zheng" — an extra ru, "like." Commentators have argued about that character for centuries: scribal error, or a phonetic loan. Either way it leaves the name uncertain. It may not be called Zheng at all. Zheng may just mean "something like that." And the character itself later paired with ning to form zhengning — the standard Chinese word for a ferocious, hideous face. A beast whose name is in doubt became the word for savagery. A red leopard, five tails, one horn, standing on a treeless mountain of jade, its cry the sound of stone striking stone.

เขาจางเอ๋อไม่มีต้นไม้ มีแต่หยกทั้งภูเขา มีสัตว์รูปร่างเหมือนเสือดาวแดง ห้าหาง เขาเดียว เสียงร้องเหมือนเสียงเคาะหิน ชื่อเจิง เสียง "เหมือนเคาะหิน" อาจเป็นจุดเริ่มต้นของเรื่องทั้งหมด — ภูเขาหยกที่ไม่มีต้นไม้ ย่อมมีเสียงหินกระทบกัน คนโบราณจึงหาคนรับผิดชอบเสียงนั้น

Gunung Zhang'e tiada pokok, penuh jed. Ada binatang macam harimau bintang merah, lima ekor, satu tanduk. Bunyinya macam batu dipukul. Namanya Zheng. Bunyi batu itu mungkin asal cerita: gunung jed tanpa tumbuhan memang berbunyi. Orang dulu cari "tuan" bagi bunyi itu.

Núi Chương Nga không cây, toàn ngọc. Có thú hình báo đỏ, năm đuôi, một sừng. Tiếng kêu như gõ đá. Tên Tranh. Tiếng đá ấy có lẽ là khởi đầu: núi ngọc không cây vốn có tiếng. Người xưa tìm "chủ nhân" cho âm thanh đó.

Gunung Zhang'e tanpa pohon, penuh batu giok. Ada binatang mirip macan tutul merah, lima ekor, satu tanduk. Suaranya seperti batu dipukul. Namanya Zheng. Suara batu itu mungkin asal ceritanya: gunung giok tanpa tumbuhan memang berbunyi. Orang dulu mencari "pemilik" suara itu.