Also known as: Fantasy Sex Therapist
An imagined-world tale of strange beings and demon hunters
--
Bodhi is an enchanted creature of Zhangtai, famed for its sensual illusions. She can read a person's heart by feeling their bones, and knows how to command handsome men. People call her the Enchantress.
She was born in the second year of Chenghua. In the present fourth year of Lisheng, she is exactly five hundred years old.
Generations of mortals have come and gone, and millet has ripened a hundred times, yet the men of this enlightened Lisheng dynasty remain so foolish and dull. They demand that their wives and daughters stay dignified and decorous at home, while indulging in debauchery in Zhangtai's pleasure quarters.
At five hundred, Bodhi was entering a lonely stretch of life. So, one deep night, she appeared in the dressing mirror of a lovely young wife left alone in her chambers, a wisp of red gauze veiling her face, and taught her how to tame a man.
Days later, as the young wife dressed before the mirror, Bodhi appeared once more and smiled. "Wouldn't it be even more fun for a woman to take the lead and ride her husband?"
The young wife hid her face in shy embarrassment, yet her bearing and manner had already become so alluring.
Bodhi continued, "I'll teach you another technique."
The young wife hurriedly asked, "What is it?"
Bodhi flew out of the mirror and hovered beside her. Draped in shimmering red gauze, she lifted a hand to caress the young wife's cheek. The gauze fell away, revealing a pale wrist and skin as smooth as jade.
She breathed the words softly: "The pleasure of grinding grain."
Bodhi had meant to do a good deed, and have a little fun herself, but she never expected to be pestered relentlessly by someone who fancied himself a man of the righteous path.
The man stood nine feet tall, dressed in a bamboo-moon-colored Taoist robe, his hair bound in a Ruyi knot. He raised a finger and scolded her: "You mere demon, how dare you take the name of Bodhi!"
Bodhi snapped, "You wretched Taoist! The Tao says, 'All things belong to one house,' yet you rank all living beings!"
A disagreement was all it took to spark another fight.
Many years later, after dynasties had risen and fallen, customs grew more open during the Shouwei era. The rumors about the Enchantress became even more taboo and enticing:
At dusk on the first and fifteenth days of each month, people traveling the roads of Mount Jingfu, a Taoist sanctuary, would sometimes see a nine-foot-tall man with his hair in a Ruyi knot, carrying a young woman on his shoulder as he walked through the mountains. The woman wore shimmering red gauze and held a red paper umbrella hung with dangling glass beads. She was barefoot, with wooden bells jingling among her anklets, her skin as translucent as jade. With each step, the bells and her jade-white feet swayed gently against the man's chest.
Theme: All living beings are equal
