The Vengeance of Méijiānchǐ 眉间尺

Once upon a time in the land of Chǔ 楚 there lived an expert sword-maker named GĀN Jiāng 干将 and his wife named MÒ Yé 莫邪.

Learning of his great mastery of his craft, the king of Chǔ ordered him to make two extremely sharp swords. So Gān and Mò worked for three years until they had produced the finest swords in the world.

When the time came for the swords were to be delivered, Mò Yé was pregnant. As he prepared to leave her to deliver the swords, Gān Jiāng told her to keep one of them, for he had a premonition that he might be killed to prevent him making equally fine swords for other kings. By keeping one of the swords, Mò would be able to arm her child so that he could take vengeance for his father’s murder.

As he predicted, Gān never returned. The child was born. It was a boy (of course), but a strange looking one, with an oddly broad head and his eyebrows very widely separated. People called him “Brows-a-Foot-Apart” (Méijiānchǐ 眉间尺).

By the time he had reached his teens, Mò told Brows-a-Foot-Apart about his father’s death, and about his moral mission to extract vengeance. She gave him the sword, and sent him off to the capital.

Arriving at the city, Brows-a-Foot-Apart saw his picture on “wanted” posters pasted up everywhere offering a bounty for his head, for the king had had a dream about his plans. Brows-a-Foot-Apart realized that his odd appearance would make him an easy suspect and could quickly lead to his execution without the opportunity to kill the evil king first. In frustration, he burst into tears.

He was comforted by a Black-Robed Stranger, who guaranteed to take vengeance for Brows-a-Foot-Apart in exchange for the sword and Brows-a-Foot-Apart’s own life.

“That sounds reasonable,” thought Brows-a-Foot-Apart, so he agreed, and knelt down and let the Black-Robed Stranger chop off his head. After the head was removed, the body remained kneeling stiffly. “Relax,” said the stranger. “I will be true to my word.” Only then did the body collapse on the ground.

When he presented the head to the king, the Black-Robed Stranger explained that the head could not simply be discarded, lest it find its way back to its owner, who could become quite dangerous. “The best thing to do is stew it in a pot,” advised the Black-Robed Stranger.

But it was not that simple. After three days and three nights of boiling, the head had not disintegrated, but instead opened its eyes and its mouth and scolded the king.

“Alas, the evil of this man is so great that he is very hard to kill,” the Black-Robed Stranger told the king. “Lean over the pot so that your own virtue can help to cancel out some of the evil.”

“Makes sense to me,” thought the king (who was far less smart than he was evil), and he leaned over the pot.

More quickly by far than it takes to tell it, the Black-Robed Stranger whipped out the sword, decapitated the king, and threw his head into the pot. Then quick as could be he stretched his own head over the pot and chopped that off too, so that it fell into the pot as well.

The king’s lackeys rushed to empty the pot so that the king’s head could have a proper burial, and Brows-a-Foot-Apart’s head could be dealt with using other magic, and the Black-Robed Stranger’s head could be punished for his dreadful crime of killing the king. But all three heads had cooked together, and nobody could decide whose was which.

And thus did Brows-a-Foot-Apart avenge his father’s death at the hands of the king of Chǔ.