Reputation Gu

Drunk and unable to remember how he got there, Verdant Great Sun wakes trapped on a lone hill ringed by the bottomless Ordinary Abyss, certain he will starve. Searching a strange forest of leafless, swamp-rooted trees for food, he collapses from hunger. Unconscious, he overhears the trees of Xi Yu forest, which he learns can whisper, mocking that he will die there without ever finding the reputation Gu hidden under a rock at its center. He digs it out, and the flower-shaped Gu thanks him for freeing it and promises to help him cross the abyss. Reputation Gu tells him that reputation makes no sound but spreads wide and sets off tremors, and with the Gu in his mouth his shout raises a bridge too short to reach the far side, weaker each time his tired, hungry breath tries again. Reputation Gu has him move it to a different part of his body to shorten the breath’s path, and the shout that follows, foul rather than proud, throws up a bridge spanning the whole abyss. Verdant Great Sun crosses it and survives, and the legend states its own moral, that a shameful reputation is always easier to gain and keep than a good one. ^{ch. 287}