West Lake, near the Southern Song capital of Lin'an, shimmered like flawed jade under the autumn sky. Its surface, dotted with lotus leaves beginning to brown at the edges, reflected the graceful curves of arched bridges and the weeping willows lining its banks. Pleasure barges, ornate vessels draped in silks and echoing with music and laughter, glided across the water – symbols of the wealth and cultivated leisure that defined the city's elite. Among the most magnificent of these was the 'Floating Dream Pavilion', belonging to the renowned painter, Master Hua Cheng.
Hua Cheng, now entering his seventh decade, had built a formidable reputation on his exquisite landscapes and, more famously, his portraits of beautiful women. His brush captured not just likeness, but an idealized, almost ethereal grace that patrons clamored for. Recently, after a period of quiet withdrawal, Hua Cheng had burst back onto the social scene with renewed vigour, hosting lavish gatherings aboard his pleasure barge. He attributed his resurgence to his young new wife, the Lady An, a woman of startling beauty and quiet demeanor, decades his junior. But those who sailed aboard the Floating Dream Pavilion whispered of other changes – a feverish intensity in the old master's eyes, an unnatural flush to his cheeks, and a subtle, pervasive chill that seemed to emanate from the barge's luxurious master cabin, even on the warmest days.
It was Captain Feng, the barge's stoic, loyal master who had served Hua Cheng for twenty years, who felt the wrongness most keenly. His vessel, once a place of refined enjoyment, now felt subtly tainted. Crew members complained of persistent fatigue, a draining malaise that left them weak and irritable. Food seemed to spoil quickly in the galley, and hushed, sibilant whispers sometimes seemed to echo from the silk hangings when no one was speaking. More disturbingly, several young serving boys assigned to the master cabin had fallen ill with a wasting sickness the physicians couldn't diagnose, their vitality seeming to drain away day by day. And then there was the painting.
Dominating the master cabin, where Hua Cheng often entertained his closest confidants or spent hours alone with Lady An, was a new masterpiece. It depicted a woman of almost supernatural beauty, reclining amidst stylized clouds, her eyes holding an unnerving depth. Entwined around her, its scales rendered with breathtaking, iridescent detail, was a large, emerald-green serpent, its head resting possessively near her shoulder, its gaze seeming to follow observers around the room. Hua Cheng declared it his finest work, painted during his recent seclusion, inspired by a dream and his love for Lady An, whose features the painted woman subtly resembled. Yet, Captain Feng felt a profound revulsion whenever he looked at it. The woman's smile seemed too knowing, the serpent too alive, its coils promising both allure and suffocation. He noticed Lady An herself rarely glanced at the painting, her quiet composure sometimes fracturing into a fleeting expression of fear or distaste when her husband praised it.
The final straw came when a trusted old deckhand, after being ordered to clean the master cabin, was found collapsed outside the door, pale and trembling, muttering about the serpent in the painting moving, its eyes blinking. Captain Feng, his loyalty warring with a growing dread, knew this was beyond ordinary troubles. He sought help, not from magistrates or physicians, but from whispers heard in the waterside taverns – whispers of a wandering Taoist priest, Xuanzhen, skilled in addressing disturbances that defied the mundane. He found Xuanzhen meditating near Lingyin Temple and, with quiet desperation, recounted the strange events aboard the Floating Dream Pavilion.
Xuanzhen listened, his calm demeanor absorbing the captain's fear. A pleasure barge, a painting, an aging artist with a young wife, draining illnesses, a sense of unease – the elements formed a familiar, yet unique pattern. Art, beauty, desire, and vitality seemed dangerously intertwined. He sensed a parasitic influence, likely anchored to the painting and feeding on the life force or emotions present on the barge.
Agreeing to investigate, Xuanzhen adopted the persona of a wealthy scholar from the north, eager to commission a painting from the celebrated Master Hua Cheng. Captain Feng arranged the introduction. Hua Cheng, flattered by the request and eager to display his floating gallery, welcomed Xuanzhen aboard the Floating Dream Pavilion for an afternoon excursion on the lake.
The barge was as luxurious as described, silks rustling, fragrant incense burning. Yet, Xuanzhen immediately felt the underlying dissonance. The qi on deck was relatively clear, stirred by the breeze off the lake, but as he was led towards the master cabin, the energy grew heavier, colder, tinged with a draining quality and the sharp edge of obsessive desire. Hua Cheng himself radiated an unnatural, almost frantic vitality, his conversation effusive, his gestures expansive, yet Xuanzhen detected the faint tremor in his hands, the hollowness beneath the forced bonhomie. Lady An, gliding silently beside her husband, was exquisitely beautiful, yet her presence felt muted, her own life force seemingly suppressed, overshadowed.
He was ushered into the master cabin. The painting dominated the far wall, even more arresting and unsettling in person. The artistry was undeniable, the colours vibrant, the details meticulous. But Xuanzhen felt the wrongness instantly. The painting pulsed with a subtle, parasitic qi, drawing energy towards itself. The painted woman's eyes seemed to hold a flicker of sentience, a cold intelligence. The serpent coiled around her felt less like painted silk and more like dormant power, ancient and predatory. It was a masterpiece not just of art, but of unintended invocation. Hua Cheng, in pouring his obsessive desire for idealized beauty and perhaps his possessiveness towards his young wife onto the silk, had created more than just an image; he had created a vessel, attracting or giving form to an entity that fed on the very energies he had imbued it with.
"My 'Serpent Maiden'," Hua Cheng announced proudly, gesturing towards the painting. "Inspired by a dream, perfected by love. Does she not capture the very essence of beauty, Master Xuanzhen?"
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"It is... captivating," Xuanzhen replied truthfully, his gaze steady on the painting, sensing the entity within stir at the attention. "The skill is undeniable. Yet, such potent beauty often carries a profound energy."
He spent the afternoon observing, subtly probing the barge's energy fields. The draining effect was strongest near the painting, weakest near the galley and crew quarters, confirming the artwork as the focal point. He noted how Hua Cheng repeatedly glanced towards the painting, drawing visible energy from it, while Lady An seemed to subtly avoid its gaze, her own vitality flickering like a candle in a draft whenever her husband drew her close near the artwork. He felt the fear radiating from the crew members who occasionally entered the cabin.
As evening approached and lanterns were lit, casting flickering shadows, Xuanzhen felt the entity within the painting grow stronger, bolder. The air in the cabin grew colder. He thought he saw the serpent's painted eye gleam in the lantern light. He knew direct confrontation was necessary, but it needed to be handled carefully to avoid harming Hua Cheng, whose life force was now dangerously entangled with the parasitic artwork.
He requested that Master Hua allow him to meditate before the painting, claiming the need to absorb its artistic essence before discussing the commission further. Hua Cheng, flattered, readily agreed, ordering refreshments and instructing Lady An to remain and play her pipa softly to aid the 'scholar's' contemplation. Captain Feng, sensing a purpose in the Taoist's request, quietly instructed the crew to keep their distance but remain alert.
As the barge drifted on the darkening lake under a rising moon, Xuanzhen sat before the Serpent Maiden. Lady An played a hesitant, melancholic tune on her pipa, her eyes downcast. Hua Cheng watched Xuanzhen, a proprietary gleam in his eyes.
Xuanzhen closed his eyes, but his inner senses were fully open. He extended his qi, not attacking, but carefully tracing the connection between the painting, the entity within it, Hua Cheng, and even Lady An. He felt the entity drawing vitality from Hua Cheng, fueled by the old painter's obsessive admiration and desire. He also felt a weaker, more complex connection to Lady An – was the entity influencing her, feeding on her suppressed emotions, or perhaps even subtly attempting to use her as a secondary anchor or future vessel?
He began a soft, resonant chant, weaving Taoist principles of clarity, severance, and balance into the sound. He wasn't trying to destroy the entity, but to expose its nature, disentangle it from its host, and contain its influence. The air in the cabin grew heavy, charged. The painting seemed to shimmer. The serpent's coils appeared to tighten around the maiden's form. Lady An's music faltered, a discordant note hanging in the air.
Hua Cheng shifted uneasily. "Is something amiss, Master Xuanzhen?"
"Stillness reveals truth, Master Hua," Xuanzhen replied calmly, his eyes still closed. "Look closely at your creation. See beyond the surface beauty."
As Xuanzhen's chant intensified, focusing on severing the parasitic link, the entity reacted. A low hiss, seemingly emanating from the painting itself, echoed through the cabin. The image flickered violently. The beautiful maiden's face contorted for a split second into a mask of predatory hunger, while the serpent's head seemed to lift from the silk, its eyes glowing with emerald malice. A spectral, semi-translucent form, a horrifying fusion of the beautiful woman and the coiling serpent, began to detach itself from the painting, reaching ethereal tendrils towards Hua Cheng.
Lady An cried out, dropping her pipa. Hua Cheng gasped, clutching his chest, his face paling dramatically as his vitality was drawn out more forcefully. Captain Feng burst in, alerted by the cry, sword half-drawn.
"Stay back!" Xuanzhen commanded, opening his eyes, which seemed to hold the calm light of the moon. He produced a small, octagonal bronze mirror, polished to a perfect sheen. Holding it up, he angled it so it reflected the painting and the emerging spectral form. "Mirror reflects essence! Illusion shatters before truth! Reveal your true nature!"
The spectral serpent-woman shrieked as its reflection appeared in the mirror – not as captivating beauty, but as a swirling vortex of hungry shadows and decaying colours, the underlying essence of parasitic desire and artistic obsession gone sour. The glamour flickered. The painting itself seemed to momentarily fade, revealing hints of rot beneath the vibrant pigments.
The entity recoiled from the mirror's truth, its form flickering. Xuanzhen seized the moment, slapping a prepared talisman, drawn with potent characters of sealing and containment, directly onto the surface of the painting.
With a final, echoing hiss that seemed to vibrate the very timbers of the barge, the spectral form collapsed back into the painting. The oppressive cold vanished. The painting stilled, the colours seeming subtly duller, the eyes losing their disturbing spark, the serpent once again merely paint on silk. The parasitic qi signature was gone, sealed within the artwork by the talisman.
Hua Cheng collapsed onto a couch, gasping for breath, suddenly looking every bit his advanced age, the artificial vitality completely drained. Lady An stared at the now-inert painting, her expression unreadable – relief, fear, or something else entirely?
Xuanzhen explained to the shaken painter and the relieved captain that the painting, born of intense obsession, had become a vessel for a parasitic energy that fed on life force. The sealing talisman would contain it, but the painting should be removed, perhaps stored away or even respectfully burned after further purification rites, lest the seal weaken over time.
Hua Cheng, humbled and weakened, readily agreed. The near-death experience seemed to have broken the spell of his obsession. He looked at the painting now with revulsion rather than adoration. He looked at Lady An, truly seeing her fragility, perhaps for the first time.
Xuanzhen departed the Floating Dream Pavilion the next morning, leaving behind a subdued household. The fate of the painting, and the future relationship between the aged painter and his young wife, remained uncertain. But the immediate danger, the parasitic entity born from art and desire, had been neutralized. It was a potent lesson: art could capture beauty, but also trap dangerous energies. Obsession, even for the sublime, could create monsters hiding within the most exquisite frames, waiting to consume the unwary admirer. The calm waters of West Lake hid deeper currents, and sometimes, the most beautiful surfaces concealed the most insidious dangers.
