The Banquet 宴席上的方术

左慈，字元放，庐江人也。少有神通。曹操召见，闭一室中，断谷期年，乃出之，颜色如故。操欲试其术，因会客，曰："今日高会，所少者松江鲈鱼为脍耳。"慈曰："此易得耳。"因取铜盘贮水，以竹竿钓之，须臾引鲈鱼出。操曰："一鱼不周坐席，可更得乎？"慈因更钓之，须臾复出。又操曰："既已得鱼，恨无蜀中生姜耳。"慈曰："亦可得也。"操恐近取之，曰："前使买锦，可报增二十段。"慈曰："诺。"须臾还，得生姜，并报命。后验问增锦，果如其言。

Translation

Zuo Ci, styled Yuanfang, was from Lujiang. He possessed supernatural abilities from youth. Cao Cao once summoned him, locked him in a room for a full year without food, and when he emerged he looked exactly the same — no thinner, no weaker.

Cao Cao decided to test him at a banquet. Before the assembled guests, he said: "What a fine gathering — the only thing missing is perch from Songjiang, served as sashimi." Zuo Ci said: "That is easy." He took a copper plate, filled it with water, and cast a bamboo fishing line into it. Moments later he pulled out a live Songjiang perch.

Cao Cao, not satisfied, said: "One fish is not enough for all our guests. Can you get more?" Zuo Ci cast again and pulled out another. Then Cao Cao said: "Now we have fish, but I regret there is no ginger from Shu." Zuo Ci said: "That can be arranged too." Cao Cao, suspicious, said: "I previously sent a man to buy brocade — you could send word to add twenty bolts." Zuo Ci agreed. He vanished, and returned shortly with the ginger — and a message from the brocade merchant, confirming the extra twenty bolts. Cao Cao checked later, and it was all true.

The Escape 变羊脱身

操知左慈有道术，欲收之。慈走入羊群中。操令人就羊群中求之，羊皆化为慈，不能别。操乃令使尽杀群羊。忽有一老羝屈前两膝，人立而言曰："遽如许。"即往杀之，乃化为慈，亦走入羊群中，遂不可复得。

Cao Cao knew that Zuo Ci possessed the Dao and wanted to capture him. Zuo Ci walked into a flock of sheep. Cao Cao sent soldiers to find him among the animals — but every sheep had transformed into a copy of Zuo Ci. They could not tell which was real.

Cao Cao, furious, ordered the entire flock slaughtered. As the swords fell, one old ram rose on its hind legs, folded its front hooves like human hands, and said: "Is there really such a rush?" The soldiers lunged at it — but the ram had already become Zuo Ci, who walked calmly back into the flock of sheep. Among hundreds of identical animals, he was never found.

🎭 The Daoist and the Warlord This story is set during the Three Kingdoms period (c. 200 CE), one of the most violent eras in Chinese history. Cao Cao was the most powerful warlord in China — brilliant, paranoid, and ruthless. Zuo Ci's refusal to be captured, and his use of Daoist magic to humiliate the most powerful man in the land, makes this a story about the relationship between spiritual power and political power. The immortal cannot be killed; the warlord cannot win. The Dao is stronger than the sword.

Analysis 解读

Zuo Ci is the trickster figure of the Shenxian Zhuan. Unlike the serene Magu or the patient Gourd Master, Zuo Ci is playful, provocative, and enjoys embarrassing the powerful. He does not retreat to a mountain cave or float in celestial clouds. He walks into the lion's den — Cao Cao's own banquet hall — and performs miracles that are also jokes. Conjuring Songjiang perch in inland Lujiang is a miracle; doing it to show off at a warlord's party is comedy.

The transformation into sheep is the story's masterpiece image. It echoes the ancient Chinese concept of wu (物, things/matter) as fluid and transformable. In the Daoist worldview, there is no fixed boundary between a person and a sheep, between one and many. Zuo Ci's final escape — dissolving into the flock — is a physical enactment of the Daoist principle of wu wei: he does not fight, does not resist, simply becomes indistinguishable from his surroundings.

Further Reading