Rules & Regulations

Aged and abandoned by strength Gu and wisdom Gu, Ren Zu feels death approaching. Hope Gu warns him that his death would cost it its only home in his heart, then tells him hope remains. Catching a Longevity Gu would lengthen his life, and a mountain cave to the northwest holds a paired Gu that lets whoever subdues them catch any Gu in the world, Longevity Gu included. ^{ch. 38}

Ren Zu crosses every danger to reach the cave and gropes through darkness inside it, bumping into things and wounding himself, and after a long time he has neither walked out of the dark nor subdued the pair. Two voices from the dark tell him to turn back, one saying that even strength Gu could not do it and the other that even wisdom Gu might not find them. Ren Zu answers that both have already left him, but hope has not. Recognizing that he has given his heart to Hope Gu, the voices offer a chance: name them correctly and they will obey him. Neither Ren Zu nor Hope Gu knows their names, so he guesses at random and gets no answer while his strength fails. ^{ch. 38}

As death nears, one voice tells him to leave while he still can, and warns that Hope Gu must stay behind as a penalty for having offended them. Ren Zu refuses to give up hope even so. Hope Gu answers with a light too weak to fill the cave but strong enough to renew his energy, and he keeps guessing, muddled, repeating names he has already tried. With his final day upon him he says Regulation, and that voice pledges obedience while warning that it alone cannot catch every Gu and urging him to spend his last hours outside. He shakes his head and keeps guessing, and with an hour left he says Rule, and the darkness dissipates. ^{ch. 38}

Two Gu appear before him, a cubic one called Regulations and a spherical one called Rules, together Rules and Regulations. They explain that whoever learns their names can command them, so he must keep those names from others, and ask what he orders. Ren Zu orders a Longevity Gu, and together they capture an eighty-year one. After the hundred-year-old Ren Zu consumes it, his wrinkles vanish and he stands again in the body of a twenty-year-old. ^{ch. 38}