Shan Jing Notes

My name is Liu Shan. I don't have a surname. It's a name given to me by an old man who collects rags. On the evening when I was born, two strange things are said to have happened. First, the nest of crows in the old locust tree at the head of the village fell from their nests without warning, fell to the ground and fluttered their wings but could not fly again; then, within a hundred miles, all the livestock - the cattle in the fields, the native dogs on guard, the pigs and sheep in the pen, even the mice and the sparrows under the eaves - their eyes were covered with a layer of white at the same time, as if they had been stabbed by something invisible. The old people later said that it was an ominous sign that "the eyes of the sky are opened and the eyes of the earth are blinded". And I came into this world with a pair of strange eyes amidst the whining sounds of beasts.