Witch Figurine - Samerakshita's Great Tang Ghost Banquet (Volume II)

Author: (Japanese) Monogatari Ume and Xu Xiue
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-03-01
Features: The poem sung by the ghosts of Liu Yunqiao's residence is precisely Li Bai's "Qingpingtiao Ci." Tracing its origins, it should be a poem and melody written six decades ago by Li Bai to praise the beauty of Yang Guifei. The incident was exposed by an official named "Bai Juyi." As a result of this, Li Bai gained favor with Emperor Xuanzong but was envied by the eunuch Gao Lishi, who spread slander against him to the emperor. Li Bai was thus banished from Chang'an. Kukai, who understood the full story, traveled far to Ma Wai Slope, where Yang Guifei's tomb was located. Kukai realized that the ghosts in Liu's family and the cotton fields were all rooted in the tragic death of Yang Guifei during the An Lushan Rebellion. Determined to excavate the empress's tomb and uncover the truth, he did so. In front of the tomb garden, Kukai and Bai Juyi—later the great poet Bai Juyi—first met. Bai Juyi confessed to Kukai that he was deeply troubled by his poetry, tyrannical at home, and had taken away his wife. He also predicted that Emperor Dezong would soon pass away; and that strange whispers appeared in the cotton fields at the northern foot of Li Mountain, foretelling that the emperor's eldest son, Crown Prince Li Zong, would soon fall ill. Both predictions came true. The magnificent and splendid Chang'an City was shrouded in an eerie and supernatural atmosphere. Meanwhile, Kukai, a scholar sent by Japan, and the Confucian scholar Tachibana Itsuki, after surviving a shipwreck, overcame all difficulties and traveled along the Grand Canal toward Chang'an. After meeting a mysterious Taoist priest named Dan Wang in Luoyang, they finally arrived in Chang'an. The hidden Kukai and the talented Tachibana Itsuki were gradually drawn into the storm of Chang'an's supernatural ghost banquet. By then, Liu Yunqiao had already been possessed and had lost his sanity. After Kukai and the monk Fengming of Qinglong Temple worked together to expel the evil from Liu Yunqiao's body, he revealed the whole story.