Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

chance to satisfy his masculine vanity. Because of you, my dearest, I’ve become an honorable donkey and the happiest animal on the face of the earth. We nibbled away each other’s itches, we rubbed each other’s hides, we were a perfect couple, our shared emotions deepening with words of tenderness, to the point where I nearly forgot the wolves on the riverbank.
    They were hungry wolves, salivating at the thought of our tasty flesh. There was no quit in that pair, and much as I longed to consummate our relationship, I knew that would only put us both in our graves. They were just waiting for something like that to occur. At first, they stood on rocks and lapped up water like dogs. Then they sat on their haunches, raised their heads to the sky, and howled at the forbiddingly cold half moon.
    Several times I lost sight of reason and reared up on my hind legs to mount my beloved. The wolves moved toward us before my front legs touched her body. My abrupt stop sent them scurrying back to the bank. They clearly had an abundance of patience, and I knew I needed to go into attack mode, but only with my donkey love’s co-operation. Together we rushed the wolves’ position on the riverbank. They leaped to safety and then made their way slowly up the sandy ridge. We weren’t going to fall into that trap. Instead we crossed the river and galloped off in the direction of Ximen Village. The wolves charged into the water, which came up to their bellies and slowed them down. Let’s go after them, my beloved, I said, let’s put these savages out of their misery. Having already mapped out a strategy, we virtually flew back to the river, where we jumped and splashed water into their eyes to confuse them before attacking with our hooves. The wolves struggled to get away, but their coats were weighted down by the water. I reared up and aimed my hooves at one of them, but it darted out of the way, so I spun around and landed on the back of the second wolf, driving it under the water, where I held it as bubbles rose to the surface. Meanwhile, the first wolf leaped onto the neck of my beloved. Seeing the danger she was in, I abandoned the drowning wolf and kicked out with my rear hooves, hitting the attacker square in the head. I felt the crack of bone and watched as it crumpled and lay flat in the water; movements in its tail showed it was still alive. Meanwhile its half-drowned partner had crawled up onto the bank, its fur sticking to its body, now revealed as gaunt, bony, and very ugly. My beloved rushed up onto the bank, cut off its escape route, and began pounding it with her hooves. Spinning and twisting to avoid the deluge of falling hooves, it slid and rolled back into the water, where I reared up again and came down hard on its head. The green lights in their eyes slowly dimmed. To make sure they were both dead, we took turns smashing our hooves into their bodies until they were pinned among the rocks in the riverbed; mud and wolf blood dirtied the water all around.
    Together we walked upriver, not stopping until the water was clear again and we could no longer smell wolf blood. She turned to look at me and nibbled my hide affectionately with a twittering sound. Then she spun around and offered me the ideal position. I want you, my dear, mount up. Me, a pure and innocent donkey with a beautiful body and superior genes, in order to continue a superior lineage, I will give them to you, along with my virginity, my lovely Huahua donkey, only to you. I then rose up like a mountain, held her body with my front legs, and thrust forward. Feelings of great joy erupted, surging over me, and over her. My god!

7

Fearing Trouble Huahua Makes a Solemn Vow
Naonao Shows His Prowess by Biting a Hunter
    We coupled six times that night, seemingly a physiological impossibility for donkeys. But I swear to the Jade Emperor in Heaven that I am not lying, I take a vow before the moon’s reflection in the river that I am telling the truth. I was no ordinary donkey, nor was she. In a former life she’d been a woman who died for love; when she released passion that had been pent up for decades, she could not stop. Exhaustion finally set in when the red morning sun first appeared on the horizon. It was an empty, transparent exhaustion. Our spirits seemed raised to a state of sublimation by our profoundly soulful love, made beautiful beyond imagining. We combed one another’s manes, thrown into disarray, and cleaned each other’s mud-streaked