Tian had a suspicion. The rock the toad clung to was mottled with blue and green. Some of that was algae from the river, but he would be beaten to death before he believed an obviously magical toad was sitting on any old rock while a predator like the adder was in the area.
“I’ve eaten toads before. Some of you are really good eating. Some of you are poisonous, which is even better for me.” Tian kept his voice conversational. The toad didn’t react much. Maybe it got a little lower on the stone, and clung a little harder.
Bulging red eyes met his. There was something communicated there. A desperate desire to live. And to not leave this rock. But also to live. But the rock thing was non-negotiable.
“Do you know how long I have been hunting my own food? It’s no use looking at me that way. Look at the crane- she’s ripping up the snake I was going to have for dinner. Now what am I supposed to do?”
The red eyes stared into his, reaching across the boundaries of species. The big dipper on the toad’s back throbbed with a shared sense of, not humanity, but the commonality of all living things. Beings who bear the pains of connection and experience. Two beings, blinded by the five colors, deafened by the eight tones, lost to the sensual illusions of the world, yet don’t we all strive? Don’t we cry for meaning, from the depths of our so-different hearts? And also for big rocks in the middle of streams?
“Not going to lie, I also want the rock.”
The toad lowered its eyes, sprawling bonelessly on the river stone. “So be it, then,” he seemed to say. “In this life, I have known joy and suffering. I have hunted and been the hunter. Even without a leg, I kept my dignity, and also my big rock. If this is how this life should end, I will accept it. But know that in my next life, I shall rise again!”
Tian had never been sentimental over his food. He always killed cleanly, quickly, and without the faintest shred of regret. The rope dart was coiled in his sleeve, ready to leap into action. And yet.
“Damn you. Look. I can let you live, but I need the rock. Meet me half way here, and give it to me.”
The toad looked up, clenching its muscles. Its eyes blazed. Tian could hear the toad’s brassy croak in his heart- “You can kill me, but never humiliate me! Come then, try to take my big rock if you dare. In three years, I’ll be a good toad once more!”
“Old Toad, you think I don’t dare? You think I’m easy to bully just because I’m not eating you? I said I’m taking that rock so I am taking that rock, and if I’m taking your corpse too, then it’s a double profit!” Tian sat cross legged and slapped his knee.
The toad shoved itself up on its good front legs, resting its rear leg below it. A brassy croak rang out, then two more.
“Old Toad, why do you even want that rock? There are other rocks. Hell, I can give you a rock!”
The toad glared back at him, as though it was asking him the same question.
“My dao companion… eh, mate? Wants shiny rocks. You have the shiny rock. You see my problem here?”
The toad didn’t budge an inch. There were any number of shiny rocks in the world, but this rock, this rock right here, was his. His, and his alone. Upon this rock the faith of a toad was built. Upon this rock, an eight layer pagoda of amphibian righteousness had been raised. Yet this interloper, this strange being with white hair and a lion’s mouth and the guts of a leopard wished to topple all that righteousness for mere… what? Covetousness? A love of glittering light upon base matter?
The toad slapped its front foot on the stone with a definitive thwap.
Such a thing was nothing less than Hell. It was the manifestation of a being trapped in illusion and suffering.
The toad puffed itself up and croaked slowly.
“So be it. If Hell was empty, there would be no need for toads. If a toad will not descend to Hell, then who will?”
Tian started sweating. This toad was too much. He couldn’t tell at the beginning, but he was feeling it now. There was an aura about it. Great fortune gathered on this toad. This was a toad with a foundation.
If he couldn’t bring himself to use violence, then he must win with reason. Yet the toad was impervious to reason. No, worse than that, Tian felt that with its wordless means, the amphibian had seized the moral high ground. Be it in martial arts or literature, he was losing to the toad. A toad that remained still, and spoke without speaking.
Tian shook. Enlightenment filled him like the ringing of a temple bell. If he could not move the toad, the toad must move itself.
“Old Toad, I feel like we have begun on the wrong foo… we haven’t been straightforward with each other. I want that stone, you want that stone, we are both people with a bottom line. But have you considered there may be other things that please you beyond that stone?”
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The toad looked away, unwilling to entertain the ravings of a madman.
“I have rings and rings of things. Whole wagonloads of good stuff. Like… cabbage? Do you like cabbage?”
The toad didn’t even glance in his direction.
“String? I have red string, blue string, white string, cotton string, silk string, honestly it’s amazing what people just throw away. And you never know when you might need a bit of string.”
The lack of a glance intensified. Tian thought he even felt a spur of contempt.
He offered roast chicken, bits of fish, a warm hat, a small trowel, a big shovel, three buckets, a rice bucket, a rice scoop, two spoons that didn’t match, nine square feet of heavy canvas, one hundred sheets of cheap paper, eight interesting sticks, and an excellent medicine for curing toothache.
None of it caught the toad’s interest. At all.
Tian gave up on trying to sell the toad on things, and started upending rings on the side of the stream. Baskets of packed foods, the dinners he and Liren made together, were put next to casually heaped sacks of dirt and a boat repair kit of seasoned wood and tar. A long, narrow hook hung from a tall pile of histories, biographies and treatises on moral living. There were fishing lines and fishing spears and fish hooks and fish scales and fishy smelling meat that had aged maybe a little too long but would probably be fine with a bit of roasting, or at worst, would make decent bait.
He pulled out herbs gathered around West Town Temple, never used to this day. He pulled out head wrappings and desert tents. On the ground he lay precious manuals of medicine, records of prescriptions, diagrams of meridians and his jade rosary.
None of it moved the Toad’s heart. Not even the few remaining solar oranges, or yin water, or heavenly realm tea. Not the beautiful clay tea pot, or the shining copper kettle. Not his rope dart, or the fancy ring he took from Suneater, nor cultivation manuals. None of his treasures stirred the toad’s heart at all.
“I worked hard to gather all these things, you know. It’s proof of my life. You can see the paths I traveled, looking at these things. You might even be able to guess the sorts of places I have been.”
He touched his heart. “I don’t care about the things themselves, but those memories are precious. The experiences and people. Tomorrow is a dream, the past is a memory, all intangible, but this was my path you see? I can’t remember all the roads I didn’t travel, but I can remember the one I did. It brought me to the Temple, to the desert, to the Kingdom, then here, to this mountain. It brought me from loneliness to Liren. Old Toad, is there really nothing I found on my path that you desire? Do you really see nothing admirable here? Nothing worth coveting?”
The toad remained unmoved. Tian had been wrong. It wasn’t contempt, but a crueler barb- indifference. Tian’s path was seen, and judged to be of no interest. The life he had lived as truly and richly as he could, a life lived with his full effort, amounted to… nothing. Less than a stone beneath a three legged toad.
He could feel the tendons in his neck start to throb. His heart’s fire changed from joy to fury. How dare this toad look down on his life! He had worked hard. He had suffered. He had achievements, connections, learned things, saved people! Maybe a better daoist would be indifferent to the toad’s indifference, but he wasn’t that enlightened yet!
“Old Toad I look down on you.” Tian shot to his feet and glared. “I look down on you! You act like you are indifferent to material possessions, but don’t you cling to base matter more than anyone? Don’t you value material goods more than your own life?”
Tian pointed his finger at the Toad’s nose. “Well, I have something you will like, then! Liren forced me to hang on to this, and the only reason I didn’t slip it back to her was because it reminds me of that old devil Starsieve. Here, Old Miser Toad, what do you think of this, eh? Disks of metal so worthless, they punched holes through ‘em and hung ‘em up on a string like storage rings!”
Tian waved the string of brass cash around, jangling it in front of the toad. The toad fixed its eyes on it at once.
Tian moved the string left. The toad turned to follow it. He moved it right. Up. Down. In a big circle. Every time the string of cash moved, so did the toad.
“Say, Old Toad, could it be you really want this stuff?”
There was no need for words. Tian could read the naked desire on the toad’s face. Tian crouched down and shook the string, making the cash clatter and dance. The toad leaned forward, practically salivating. The seven dots on its back gleaming with avarice.
“Who says I am a petty, grudge holding man?” Tian smiled ‘kindly,’ and gently threw the string of coins thirty feet away, up on the river bank. He even made sure it landed far away from the crane.
The toad hopped over in a single explosive burst. By no coincidence, Tian reached the big rock in the middle of the stream in a single step as well. The toad chomped down on a coin, as Tian’s hand slapped down on the rock. The rock vanished. So did the coin. The toad had managed to chew a single coin off the string without damaging the string. It looked quite magical.
Tian confidently strode across the stream, getting ready for a good gloat, when the seven stars on the toad’s back blazed into brilliance, then dimmed into candleflame brightness as the whole toad turned from old bronze to new bronze. Its ruby eyes closed, its three legs were pulled under it, and it appeared to be asleep.
“I may be a little too casual in describing things as looking magical. THAT looked magical.”
He scooped up his string of coins and put it back in the storage ring. It took a little while to tidy up everything else, but it wasn’t that bad a chore. When everything was put away, he was left with a glowing toad, a gloating crane, a snake skeleton, and a question.
“Ah, Old Toad, it’s not that I want to eat you, but did I say you could have my coins? Tsk, tsk. You even ate one. And now here you are, all asleep and just the right size for my wok.”
The toad continued to sleep. The crane glanced at a stand of trees next to the stream, then jolted back with a delighted cry. Tian spun around, whipping out his rope dart. He didn’t see anything but-
“CLANG!”
There was a sudden noise behind him, and avian shrieks of outrage. Tian looked back. The crane had tried to peck the toad to death, and seemed to have bounced right off of it. Tian coughed.
“Ahem. I mean, you are just the right size to work with. I even have a pond at home, you will love it.”