The Taoist Priest and the Dog

My senior brother didn’t care much about feng shui or auspicious dates, yet he deliberately chose an ill-fated day and hour, when dark clouds blotted out the sun, to bury me in a place where spiritual energy could not flow, on the shadowed side of a dried-up river.

My senior brother didn’t care for lavish ceremonies, yet seven days after my burial, he lit up Tianmen Mountain, burned the Lovesick Candles down to the last wick, and got married in a grand procession of red carriages and horses that stretched for ten miles.

On the seventh day after my burial, a big white dog came to my grave.

It wagged its tail as it dug, and finally unearthed me before I’d even had time to breathe my last.

Under the bright blue sky and shining stars, I returned to the land of the living after taking a turn at the gates of hell.

“Brother Dog,” I gasped, with strength enough for just one sentence. “Don’t eat my offerings.”

The big white dog said nothing. It simply carried off the heart my senior brother had cut out of me and then discarded.

It was a bloody pig’s heart. It belonged in a pig.

Theme: Good is rewarded, and evil is punished.