Nezha

The story

Nezha was not born the way children are born.

His mother carried him for three years and six months. Then, one night, a red light filled the room, and instead of a baby there appeared a ball of flesh. His father, Li Jing, commander of the pass at Chentang, was frightened: he thought it was a monster, and struck the ball with his sword.

The ball split open. Out came a little boy, already standing, with a golden ring around his arm and a sash of red silk at his waist. He was smiling. The room smelled like a garden after rain.

He had been chosen by an immortal, Taiyi Zhenren, who became his master. The ring was a weapon, the sash a magic treasure. The boy learned to talk, to run and to ask a thousand questions. At seven he was as tall as a much older boy, and he had a temper nobody in the house could keep in check.

One summer morning, in a heat that made your head spin, Nezha went down to the river.

The water was cool, the sun high. He took off his red sash and dipped it in the current to wash it. He did not know one thing: that river ran all the way down to the Eastern Sea, where beneath the waves stood the palace of the Dragon King. The silk sash, dipped in the water, dyed it all red: a ruby-coloured cloud spread through the current, flowed down the river, and deep in the sea it made the crystal walls tremble.

The Dragon King sent a guard to find out what was going on. The guard rose to the surface and saw a boy playing with a strip of cloth.

“Who are you, to shake the palace?” he shouted. “How dare you?”

“I'm having a bath,” said Nezha. “The river belongs to everyone.”

The guard raised his voice, Nezha answered back, and the argument turned into a fight. With his ring the boy struck harder than he meant to, and the guard did not get up again.

Then up from the sea came the Dragon King's third son, Ao Bing, riding a sea horse, tall and armed, ready to punish whoever had disturbed his father. The two faced each other on the bank. Ao Bing was bigger, but Nezha had the ring and the sash on his side, and a bottomless stubbornness. When the fight was over, the dragon prince never went back to the palace.

The boy went home with the sash in his hand, still dripping. All he said was: “I got into a fight with someone who was bothering me.”

He did not know what would happen next. The following day a cold wind swept through the pass of Chentang, and the clouds gathered. Ao Guang, the Dragon King himself, came down on the roof of Li Jing's house, his face as black as a thunderstorm.

“Your son has killed mine,” he said. “If you do not hand over the culprit, I will drown your city. I will put the sea in your streets, and no one will be saved.”

Li Jing, shaken, did not know what to answer. Nezha's mother wept. Everyone in the house looked at one another, speechless.

That was when Nezha came out into the courtyard.

“Enough,” he said. “It was me. It isn't right for them to pay for what I did.”

He was seven years old and he spoke like a man. He looked at his father, he looked at his mother. Then he turned to the Dragon King and, without trembling, said: “Take my life, and leave my family in peace.”

His mother held out her arms to him, but he shook his head and dried her eyes with a corner of the red sash. Then he gave back to her the flesh, and to his father the bones, that they had given him, and his spirit, light as air, left the courtyard of Chentang. The Dragon King, who had not expected this, stood silent. Then he went away, and the city was saved. Nobody could say anything more that evening.

Nezha's spirit wandered for a long time, with no body and no home, until it reached his master's mountain. Taiyi Zhenren was waiting for him.

“You have done something great and something terrible,” he said. “But you are not finished.”

In a dream, Nezha had appeared to his mother and asked her to build a temple on the mountain near the city. She built it. For months people brought incense there, prayers were answered, and the temple became famous. When Li Jing heard of it, anger and grief got the better of him: he went up the mountain and destroyed it with his own hands.

So Nezha's spirit was homeless once again. But his master showed him another way. He took lotus flowers, wove their stems together to make bones and their leaves to make clothes, and with his magic gave them life. Nezha breathed. He had a new body that owed nothing to anyone, no flesh or blood from his parents, and he was stronger than before.

His master gave him a spear with a tip of fire, and two wheels that went under his feet and blazed with fire and wind. Nezha rose into the air. For the first time in his life, he flew.

Then he went straight to his father.

Li Jing saw him coming and fled, but it was no use. He took refuge with another immortal, who gave him a golden pagoda to hold in his hand: every time Nezha tried to strike him, the pagoda stopped him. In the end the boy and his father, worn out, stopped fighting. Something in both of them had melted.

Later tales say that from then on Li Jing, with his pagoda, and Nezha, with his wheels of fire, walked side by side, and fought together for heaven.

On summer nights, above the pass of Chentang, some people swear they can still see a red streak across the sky. A boy flying on his wheels of fire, a silk sash streaming in the wind, and far below a man with a pagoda in his hand, lifting his head to watch him go.