Daomu Biji: The Mystic Nine

When my grandpa told me about his past, he always kept it lighthearted and avoided the serious stories. Actually, it was just like what any other ordinary family would do. The version of the stories your elders told you in person was different from the version that people around them told.

It was only when the two versions were combined that the truth might come out.

I still remember that when we were carrying out the funeral rituals for my grandpa, Grandma was sometimes calm and sometimes extremely sad. As we were holding vigils (1), she intermittently told the younger descendants many stories which were very different from the stories that Grandpa had written in his notes.

Well, it wasn’t that the stories were completely different. Maybe I should say that the things Grandma told us made those in the Mystic Nine feel more like human beings instead of characters in a novel.

Grandpa often told the more glorious tales of the Mystic Nine. They were stories about how they rebelled when they were young, how Zhang Qishan’s first meeting with Er Yuehong marked the beginning of the most prosperous era in Changsha, how Black Back the sixth went to Hunan, how Chen Pi Ah Si became Er Ye’s apprentice, how Jiuye and Old Dog Wu worked together, etc.

Deep down, Grandpa hoped that the Mystic Nine he remembered was a legendary group of people in Changsha instead of the extremely exhausted group of people who were forced to do what they didn’t want to during those turbulent times.

The above reasons were how I started to know more about the Mystic Nine. At first, they were all snippets I had gathered one after another instead of complete stories. These snippets were relatively independent, and there was no way for us to know what had happened in between them. But I started to gradually piece those small and incomplete snippets together.

After a long time, the Mystic Nine’s style of doing things surfaced from these snippets, and I couldn’t help but feel attracted to it. There was no doubt that it was an era full of romanticism, but it was also an era when people had deep desires and were forced to do what they didn't want to do.

No matter what era, if people could face their fates with a sense of romanticism, then it should be a fortunate thing no matter what the outcome may be.

I hope that you can also feel what I feel.

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TN Notes:

(1) At Chinese funerals, it's customary for relatives to hold vigils over the deceased. It's a way for loved ones to show filial piety and loyalty to the deceased. Family members thus take shifts to watch over the deceased in their coffin.