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Shên Kung-pao said: "You will not go back on your word?" Tzu-ya said: "When your elder brother has spoken his word is as unchangeable as Mount T'ai, How can there be any going back on my word?" The Soaring Head Shên Kung-pao then doffed his Taoist cap, seized his sword, with his left hand firmly grasped the blue thread binding his hair, and with his right cut off his head.
He said: "Brother, I did not know it was you who were calling me, and I did not heed you as Shih-tsun told me on no account to reply." Shên Kung-pao said: "What is that you hold in your hand?" He told him it was the List of Promotions to Immortals. Shên Kung-pao then tried to entice Tzu-ya from his allegiance to Chou.
Shên Kung-pao, ashamed, could not reply; mounting his tiger, he made off; but as he left he hurled back a threat that the Chou would yet have their white bones piled mountains high at Hsi Ch'i. Subsequently Tzu-ya, carefully preserving the precious List, after many adventures succeeded in building the Fêng Shên T'ai, and posted the List up on it.
From the Jade Palace of Abstraction I saw you speaking together, and knew you had promised to burn the List of Promotions to Immortals. So I ordered White Crane Youth to bring me the head. After an hour and three-quarters Shên Kung-pao will be recompensed." Tzu-ya said: "My elder brother, since you know all you can pardon him. In the Taoist heart there is no place where mercy cannot be exercised.
Shên Kung-pao is a man of unholy practices. These few small tricks of his you take as realities. But if the head does not return to the neck within an hour and three-quarters the blood will coagulate and he will die. Shih-tsun ordered you not to reply to anyone; why did you not hearken to his words?
Remember the many years during which he has faithfully followed the Path." Eventually the Ancient Immortal was persuaded, but in the meantime Shên Kung-pao, finding that his head did not return, became very much troubled in mind. In an hour and three-quarters the blood would stop flowing and he would die.
The Court, however, did not allow his efforts to go unrewarded. They telegraphed another high if queer-sounding honour from Si-an. Thenceforth he was to be addressed as Kung-pao, or Guardian of the Heir-Apparent, who, by the way, does not exist; not that in China this trifling fact makes his guardians any less important or honourable.
Then the voice was heard to say: "Now that you are Prime Minister, how devoid of feeling and forgetful of bygone benefits you must be not to remember one who studied with you in the Jade Palace of Abstraction!" Tzu-ya could not but turn his head and look. He then saw that it was Shên Kung-pao.
However, Tzu-ya having succeeded in his intercession with the Ancient Immortal, the latter signed to White Crane Youth, who was flying in space with the head in his beak, to let it drop. He did so, but when it reached the neck it was facing backward. Shên Kung-pao quickly put up his hand, took hold of an ear, and turned his head the right way round.
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