Toshishun

Based on the Ryūnosuke Akutagawa retelling of the old Chinese tale of Toshishun. The song seems to pull from and mash together 2 parts of Toshishun's story. In one part Toshishun is poor and homeless and freezing. He meets an old man who asks him what is wrong and Toshishun tells him. The man tells Toshishun to go to a certain place and dig and he will find a fortune. Toshishun does so and becomes very rich. Toshishun then throws extravagant parties and has many friends but squanders his fortune in just a couple of years and ends up broke, friendless and homeless again. Toshishun then meets the old man again who again tells him of a place to go dig and amass a fortune and he does so with the same outcome. He becomes rich and has many friends and then loses everything within a couple of years. The scenario repeats for a 3rd time but when the old man offers up a location to go dig for a treasure Toshishun decides he is tired of how people are and how the people love him when he is rich and then use him and abandon him when he is broke. He no longer desires wealth and fortune or to be admired by his fair-weather friends. Toshishun then realizes the old man is a wizard and asks to become his apprentice which is the second part of his story. From here the wizard tells Toshishun they will get a stick from a tree and ride it into the sky to Mt. Emei and they do so. Once they are there the wizard drops Toshishun off and say he has to fly around the world and while he does so Toshishun must wait on the mountain. He informs Toshishun that evil spirits and scary things may try to talk to him and that no matter what he must never speak a word or he will not become a wizard. The wizard leaves and before long a giant tiger and a White snake appear and try to question Toshishun about why he is on this mountain that no men go to. Toshishun refuses to answer but the creatures threaten to kill him if he does not answer them. Still Toshishun remains quiet. The Tiger and snake surround him and pounce but then disappear. Toshishun continues to wait and the wind begins to howl and it rains fiercely and the mountain shakes as if it might collapse. Toshishun stays put. Lightning strikes and then a Fire demon appears and it too attempts to get Toshishun to speak by threatening to kill him with his spear. Toshishun does not speak and so the Demon kills him.

Toshishun then awakens in a strange place where he is captured by demons and taken to one of the Judges of Hell. He is questioned but refuses to speak even after threat of being taken to Hell. The demons then carry Toshishun to Hell showing him the rivers of blood and mountains of needles and the suffering people and still he does not speak. The demons return him to the Judge who is surprised that Toshishun has not spoken yet. The Judge gets an idea though and tells the demons to bring Toshishun's dead mother and father before him. Toshishun then sees 2 frail, starving horses that he recognizes are his dead parents. The judge demands Toshishun speak and tell him why he was on the mountain or else he will whip the 2 horses with iron chains. Toshishun still refused to speak and so the demons whipped the 2 horses until they were bleeding and tears ran down their cheeks and were close to death. Still Toshishun did not speak. Then Toshishun heard a voice in his head, the voice of his mother telling him "We will be fine. If you are happy, then that is when we are most happy. Even if you say anything, or do not say anything to the judge of the afterlife”. Toshishun had heard this voice and was overwhelmed that his mother remembered him and he remembered that when he was rich and then poor how his friends had treated him yet his mother loved him no matter what and he ran to the horse and cried out "Mother!"

Toshishun then awoke, he was back in his village as if nothing had happened and the wizard appears and speaks to him. Toshishun tells the wizard he could not remain silent seeing his mother whipped by demons. The wizard understands and acknowleges that Toshishun probably doesn't want to be a wizard now. Toshishun agrees and the wizard asks him what he does want to be. Toshishun tells him he just wants to be a human. The wizard tells Toshishun to forget they ever spoke or met but that there is a house on a mountain that he owns and that it now will belong to Toshishun to live in.