Tales of the Spirit Beings: The Ancient Era

What if the objects around us all had spirits? What kind of stories would unfold between them and humans?

The book says:

Something came into being, born before Heaven and Earth. Silent, intangible, standing alone and unchanging, moving everywhere without tiring. This is the Dao.

Heaven and Earth are divided into three realms, all following the will of the Dao. Life begets life without end, and there are gods, immortals, spirits, demons, and ghosts. Gods and immortals rule the Heavenly Realm; demons and ghosts govern the Earthly Realm; spirits dwell in the Human Realm.

Among the spirits of the Human Realm, the greatest are the spirits of humans, animals, plants, and trees: living beings. Living beings give birth to spirits, and create lifeless objects. The feelings of living beings can bring lifeless objects to life, giving rise to object spirits.

An object spirit is originally a ball of spiritual energy, which grows by absorbing the feelings of living beings. Once grown, it takes on a human form, with its own likes, dislikes, and personality. It is connected to its original object by a spirit-lock, yet can leave that object and roam. It has no demonic arts or divine powers, follows nature, understands the will of the Dao, and coexists with living beings.

However, after humans had ruled the Human Realm for so long, they were influenced by the other two realms, and spiritual energy dwindled. Since the Qin Dynasty, people could no longer see object spirits, save for a handful of chosen ones. As time passed, belief in object spirits gradually became superstition. During the Wei and Jin dynasties they were worshipped as ghosts and gods; after the Tang dynasty, they became legend, and after the Ming dynasty, they were nearly forgotten.

By modern times, people had completely forgotten the tales of object spirits.

Today, in a little-known tower hidden deep in the mountains, lies a collection of bamboo slips passed down through the generations, kept by the foremost spirit-seer of each era. Every line records the many extraordinary tales of object spirits from the past thousand years.

Between object spirits and living beings, is it love or hate? Who is right, and who is wrong?

Here, our story begins.

Shamelessly starting a new story. This is part of an object-humanization series, based on the idea that objects can have spirits. This is the ancient setting. Each story is about 20,000 to 30,000 characters long. I've only finished one so far, but I plan to keep writing whenever I find a suitable subject. Each story can be read on its own.

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