ENG
Yin prevails, yang's essence fades,
Adorned in finery, blades parade.
Once malice stirs within the heart,
Words become weapons, tearing apart.
Since the Yellow Wind King had sequestered himself within the valley, his hoarded treasures were left to the care of his trusted minions. One day, when a purple-gold incensory vanished from the half-emptied storeroom, the rumor of theft, once a mere murmur, built into a raucous clamor, until the rat guai who guarded the storeroom was finally accused of pilfering from his own charge.
The tale reached the ears of the Rat Imperial Guards. Clad in crimson, they were the secret imperial enforcers. They went to interrogate the rat guard, hoping for a share of the spoils; but the humiliated guard was found lifeless, his neck wedged in a noose, dangling in his cell.
With his death, the gossipmongers painted the Imperial Guards as vilifiers of the innocent, coercing false confessions. With no means to defend themselves, the Imperial Guards launched a thorough inquiry, desperate to clear their names. Fortune struck when they unearthed the incensory within the nest of the rat guard's apprentice. The crowd's scorn shifted, branding the young apprentice a betrayer and avaricious soul.
Yet, in the face of the Imperial Guards' iron grip, the apprentice unfurled a new thread of the story; the incensory had been pilfered by the Civet Sergeant, as a tribute to the Tiger Vanguard. It was the apprentice who, learning of his master's unjust fate, dared to retrieve it in secret. Verified by the Imperial Guards, the tale swayed public sentiment once more, from jeers to praise. But whispers are like a fickle breeze. Soon, it was murmured that the thieving Chief acted not out of greed, but out of a son's duty; to rescue his mother from the bowels of the Tiger Temple. The crowds murmured anew, their judgment as shifting as the sands.
Alas, what is a grain of truth in a desert of tales? Actions taken in the cloak of shadows are often proclaimed in light as something else entirely. Perhaps it is the angle from which we plead our cause that crafts a different truth. And when a truth finds the light, it is often because some prefer an audience blind to the rest of the story.
The story begins with a powerful lord, called the Yellow Wind King, having withdrawn into a valley and left his treasures under the care of subordinate guards. A valuable object, described as a purple-gold incensory, disappears from a partly emptied storeroom. That small theft turns into a loud rumor that spreads through the place. The opening lines about yin and yang and about finery, blades, and words set the tone: the situation is about appearances, displays of power, and how talk and accusation can be used like weapons to change people’s reputations.
The first person accused is the rat guai who had been guarding the storeroom. The Rat Imperial Guards, a secret imperial force dressed in crimson, come to investigate. Their presence and interrogation turn into a scandal when the rat guard is discovered dead in his cell, his neck in a noose. People begin to say the Imperial Guards forced a false confession and humiliated or killed an innocent man, and public anger turns against the Guards.
Facing those accusations, the Rat Imperial Guards worry about clearing their names and launch a deeper investigation. They search and find the missing incensory hidden in the nest of the rat guard’s apprentice. That discovery shifts anger onto the apprentice, who is branded as a traitor or thief by the crowd. The Guards seem to have disproven the charge that they coerced the rat guard, at least for a time.
The apprentice then tells a different version of events: he says the incensory had actually been stolen by the Civet Sergeant and given as a tribute to the Tiger Vanguard, and that the apprentice, after learning his master had been unjustly punished, secretly recovered the object. The Imperial Guards verify this new claim, which swings public opinion again, from scorn to praise for the apprentice. But the story keeps changing; another rumor spreads that the real thief was a Chief who stole not for greed but to rescue his mother from the Tiger Temple. The facts start to look different depending on who tells them.
The ending is a warning about how truth gets reshaped by rumor, power, and perspective. Actions taken in secret can be labeled in many ways once they reach public ears, and the crowd’s judgment keeps shifting as new angles are offered. The larger implication is that in a place of showy authority and hidden motives, reputation and guilt are fragile and can be rewritten by whoever controls the next story.