Protected by a fence
around it, guarded by a pair of dragon stone
sculptures at the both sides, the name of the
well made an entry into ancient documents.
What makes the humble
well so special that it deserves dragon-esque decos and
deliberate mentions in the official
chronicles?
That is because it
has, apparently, a magic power: whenever the
cover of the well is lifted, the heaven will
"well with tears", and there will
be rain. And the rain would not stop until
the cover is returned to its place.
When a major Chinese
media learned this story, it sent some guys
over to take a look. The guys picked a sunny
day to mount the hill and wanted to see how
the drama would be played out under such a
condition.
They arrived at the
site, removed the cover, and stood watching
the sky. The sun projected gold reflections
onto the mountain terrain while the pale
clouds ranked the summits - for good twenty
minutes there was not the slightest sign of
approaching rain. Just at the time they were
about to conclude that it was another local
myth and one more piece of ancient
superstition, the heaven opened up and fine
rain fell upon their faces.
In the group there was
an editor of local chronicles. When being
slapped on the face by the heaven’s wet
fingers, he recalled the passages he read in
the chronicles and began to tell tales about
the well.
According to the
ancient documents, said the editor, there was
a dragon locked inside the well. And dragons, though in a higher
level of existence, in a way are very much
just like our humans; some are quite noble,
others pretty naughty. The dragon in question
was initially assigned a petty job to take
charge of the local weather bureau. It might
because that Officer Dragon was a fanatic
member of a raining cult, or simply it had
been corrupted by some elements in wet
products industry, either way, it abused its
power and kept thundering and showering the
region until eventually the people were truly
fed up. A referendum was held by the local
human government, and a decision to impeach
the dragon was passed unanimously. The people
quickly built the well to serve as the narrow
entrance to a celestial prison underground,
and tricked the poor dragon into the solitary
confinement. A warning was recorded
thereafter by the historians in the
chronicles that the prisoner should never be
let out for a fresh air, as giving it half a
chance, it would just commit the same offence
again.
When a local scientist
heard the local historian’s dragon tell, he
snubbed. He’d prefer to talk about
something he could see and touch, for
example, butterflies. So his version of the
magic well began with butterfly in Amazon –
thousands miles away from Sichuan though, it
is in this world nevertheless, not in some
other space formed by eleven or twelve
dimensions. If the flap of a butterfly's wings
in the Amazon rainforest can trigger a
tornado in Texas as Ed Lorenz suggested,
imagine what the sound and vibration caused
by the action of removing the well cover can
do to the local thunderstorm.
This butterfly tall
theory flavoured with generous dose of
scientific terminology sounded quite
appealing, and the media guys decided to give
it a try. Around the well, they shouted,
yelled, screamed, howled, barked, roared and
blared while loudly beating a couple of metal
pans.
They
shouted at the sky: "Hi heaven, can you
hear me?"
- Nothing
happened, to the great dismay of the
Amazon butterfly. Evidently, the
heaven went deaf and refused to be
moved to tears.
So, the dragon stays,
for now.
