The integrity of life, human or not, is something that the heavens try hard to protect. That is the basis upon which karma is received.

That which is given will be returned; that which is owed will be compensated. To a good deed sown there will be rewards reaped - and to an evil done, the hand of judgement, until the vermin knew to kneel and repent. Compromise was not a language that the natural order was familiar with. After all, to a river, it only had the straight road to walk.

The wholeness of the world is sacred ground into which much effort is poured to preserve. The protocol of returns is the law that ties the ends of the earth into one complete circle. Every river runs from the mountains and ends up in the sea; and from the sea climbs into the air and returns to the mountain, to run down as a river again. Fruit borne with want of seed will fall, when the ripened jewel exhausts its time, so the spring in its cradle may bloom anew in the soil, tilting the sands of the hourglass. The workings of the life is structured so that everything begins and ends at a point; just as night bleeds into day and day gives way for night, just as grass yields to bloom and bloom fades to weed. Whilom they were born, whither they will return. From the womb they were once conceived they will once again visit - for the dead have no place to go, nor do they possess of a place to stay.

There is a story that sleeps st the foot of a yellowed mountain. It is a story about the rubbles of man, derelicts of their residue primal instinct, and the returns they hailed from the harvest of debauchery. A long time ago, on a full moon's night, a Water Spirit came upon a quaint village. She was grievously injured, harmed substantially enough that her corporeal form could not be sustained, but she had the glow of a young woman's vitality; she was with child. She knelt at the village chieftain's doorstep and begged for three nights for the magnanimity of the villagers; that, if they should not let her live, they must at the very least extend mercy to her offspring. The chieftain's wife took pity, and consented - and so the Water Spirit took possession of her body, and from her vessel birthed a beautiful human child.

The child - a boy - was beautiful. His skin was cold, his complexion pale as snow, but once cleaned became soft as dew, with all the glow of the night's stars bundled under his skin. The Water Spirit looked upon him with such affection that before she passed she managed to laugh, the sound twinkling like tiny bells and every bit watery; and in gratitude, she turned into a stream that flowed from the mountaintop, nourishing the grass and enriching the soil. Her beautiful boy was adopted into the chieftain's family, and named "Suho", for his eternal protection and the blessing that the Spirit had brought unto their earth.

Suho was quiet, even from birth. Some say it was in mourning for the passing of his mother. His health was weak, too, most frail under the summer sun, and while his friends grew like beansprouts he remained stumped to the ground. But under the hand of the chieftain's wife he grew up to be well-mannered and courteous and polite - the dream of every mother. At the age of 7, while the ladies of the village sat around a fire singing, he felt suddenly compelled to join them in their merrymaking, little feet carrying the tune to his body. At once, the entire village became deeply enchanted, and his affinity for the dances was thus discovered.

A trader had once said of the bamboo in Zhejiang: they are cursed flutes, the buds that grow from them tearful notes of a swan song. The bamboo in Zhejiang only flower when they sense danger is near, so that, should the entire grove fall below the earth, their flowers will embed their seed, and thereon thus resurrect the grove anew. On the night of the full moon that the river started flowing from the mountain, Suho was born. And on the night that Suho was born, a bamboo grove in Zhejiang flowered in lieu of his cries.

You see, the village has long since fallen into a plight. The mountain, before the Water Spirit came along, had run dry under the drought. Their cows had become too lean with no grass to feed on, too thin to produce milk. The ducks and chickens had stopped laying eggs, too tired to even stand, and the pigs had long since been sold, in a year where the weather has devastated their crop. The sheds of every house grew emptier each day, the soil harder, and the rice drooped sadly into the evening sun, soaking the last drops of water through the cracks in their paddies.

The Water Spirit's river carved them a new route, but time hadn't wanted to wait for them. Before the cows could grow fat again, a notice had come to the door, and at the very next day, the Emperor himself. He had arrived with a squadron of guards and many soldiers behind him, holding spears and torches. They'd waited too long, the Emperor said. The villages will pay their dues -- and then their heads will be cut off, their village razed to the ground.

In an instance the dry ground erupted into dust, stained with protest and hysteria. Women gripped their children close and cried for mercy on their knees. Men fought their way to the toolsheds, coming back with hoes and spades and sickles. But then the village chief stood up and guided Suho, 11 year old Suho, to the front, and gently coaxed him to dance. So Suho did - and the Emperor, ever fickle, ever flighty, immediately fell in love.

The Emperor was desperate to invite Suho into his court. The village chief, holding on to his shoulder, asked for prosperity and protection - two things they had not enjoyed since the reign of the Emperor two generations ago. Without deliberation the Emperor agreed, and so Suho was handed over. The village became wealthy over the course of the night, and in 4 months their cows were healthy, their chickens and ducks lively, the pigs back in their pens and the rice singing happily with the frogs hiding in their paddies.

A little over 3 years, however, strange things began to happen. A wave of disease so horribly potent suddenly took hold of the village, killing all its youth and children within the course of a week. And then the stream dried up, sapping the grass of their colour, and once again the hill turned yellow, their rice falling off into the valleys below. Every bit of wealth they had left the village chief spent on medicine and supplies, but soon even that ran out, and the adults began to fall over each other in a pile of sickness and derangement. Eventually, the chief himself fell, and with him the skeleton of the village - wooden houses, the stone of the community well, their gate, freshly painted, the hinges recently oiled. Until all that was left of the village was a decadent ruin, the yellow mountain towering above, like the statue of Ozymandias watching over his sand dunes.