THE STORY & ITS AFTERLIVES
Mount Xian carries gold and jade but no vegetation; the Xian River leaves it and runs north into the Yi. Its waters hold many Mingshe, 'singing snakes': serpents with four wings whose call rings like a struck stone chime. The consequence is fixed — wherever one is seen, that town will suffer a great drought.
Three hundred li to the west, the waters of Mount Yang hold the Huashe, a human-faced flood omen. Within the same Yi River basin the two serpents mark opposite disasters, drought and deluge, a matched pair of hydrological warnings in the second central sequence. Beyond the four wings and the chime-like voice the classic offers nothing more; the creature's whole image hangs on a dozen characters, and the chime — an instrument of temple ritual — sounds here from the mouth of a drought omen.
