With its ape's head and civet's body, its tiger's feet and snake's tail, and its pheasant-like body, what you see may be only part of the Nue's image. It's like a blind man feeling an elephant. When you see an ape's head, you say the Nue is an ape, and when you see a tiger's feet, you think the Nue is a tiger, but you don't realize that's only part of what it wants you to see.
As with the story here, what you see is only what you want to see.
This is my attempt at a collection of largely bizarre stories. Some of the stories in this collection are purely cerebral, some are reality adaptations, some are cerebral + reality adaptations, and the style, presumably, is a serious nonsense telling of weird stories OR dark fairy tales (adult fairy tales)?
If you have any fun brainstorms or personal stories, let me know and I'll write a weird story for you.
Incidentally, there's a Nue in every story, so you can guess who the Nue plays in the story :)
Friendly reminder: if you don't like Black Fairy Tales, you can stop here :)
The girl was born on the coldest day of the year, and the hot, bubbling water, once it leaves the fireplace, freezes into ice before it even gets out of the spout and into the cup. The girl was born on the coldest day of the year. The banished witch handed her to her dying mother, wrapped in a frozen blanket, who only had time to finger the girl's chest with her purple fingers before her eyes froze over.
The girl was named Icy, and under the witch's care, she grew up healthy, looking no different from any other child.
Except for a palm-sized, snowflake-shaped bruise on her heart.
The banished witch hides in the dark forest on the mountain, where the townspeople never set foot, and this is where Icy grows up. The witch warned Icy that she could never leave the forest, or she would never find her way home.
But Icy's growing curiosity is like wiggling catnip, driving her to find ways to escape from the forest and explore beyond. After much scratching and self-compassion, Icy sneaks out of the house on Christmas Eve when she's 18 years old and sneaks into town.
On Christmas Eve, the town is filled with warm yellow lights, ribbons tied to the Christmas tree, jingling bells, and snow crunching underfoot, and Icy meets the boy.
His eyes were bright as stars, his new clothes were clean and neat, his blonde sideburns were slightly curled, and the tip of his nose was stained with a bit of snowflake that had fallen from the eaves, and was as white as his teeth.
He asked Icy if I could ask you to dance.
Cluelessly Icy nodded, so the boy pulled up her sleeve and ran into a large auditorium where countless young men and women embraced each other and twirled their bodies to the melody. The boy let go of her sleeve and took her hand like everyone else and twirled her around the dance floor to the music.
Icy spun her head around to the light and joyful song, and everything around her blurred into horizontal stripes of color, gold, silver, and big red, mixed with the faces of people smiling happily. The warmth of the boy's palm was as warm as freshly baked bread in winter, and the sweet scent climbed up her arm to her heart, and Icy heard her heartbeat thumping under the assault of wave after wave of bread scent, so loud that she could barely hear the blissfully sweet Christmas song that symbolized it.
As the clock struck twelve, the fireworks burst into bloom and the boy pulled her out of the auditorium, smiling at her amidst the cheers of the people and the sky of color.
Merry Christmas.
Oh no, it's 12 o'clock, I've got to get back before Mummy finds out I've been sneaking out, Icy realized as she realized she'd been out too long.
Don't worry, I'll take you home.
I'll take you back. Where is your home?
In the mountains, in the black forest.
You live in the mountains? The boy's eyes widened in surprise. The boy's eyes widened in surprise, then smiled. It's okay, I don't know my way around, but at least I can keep you company.
Thank you very much, Icy smiled gratefully, pulled the boy along, and began to run towards the mountains. After searching for a few laps, Icy suddenly realized that the only footprints in the snow of the Black Forest were the ones she and the boy had just left behind, and the ones she had left when she walked out of the Black Forest had disappeared, and even though she searched for the location of the witch's residence based on her memories and her sense of direction, she came up empty-handed.
The witch's warning was right, she could never find her way home again.
After a long time, Icy listens to the boy's offer and follows him to the town. The boy, an orphan, works at the biggest hotel in town, and Icy follows him. The boy is patient, teaches her a lot of things, and takes her to get her feet wet in a world she has never set foot in before. Every smile the boy unfolded at her, every hand he held out to her, every word he spoke to her was like the buttery bread the witch baked for her as a child, smothering her heart with warmth.
Icy came to the town the second winter, the town came a magnificent carriage team, gold thread embroidery of heavy brocade will be all over the gilt carriage surrounded by tight. As a well-dressed butler negotiates with the innkeeper, a white marble hand lifts the curtains to reveal the pale, gentle face of the Duchess.
That night the inn was very busy, and both Icy and the boy worked late into the night, with the boy having a particularly heavy load and returning late into the night. When he returned, he brought with him a bottle filled with an amber-colored, crystal-clear liquid.
This one is a reward from the Duke, the wine they usually drink in high society. The boy's smile was tired and satisfied. I've had a little bit of it and I think it's delicious, would you like to try it?
Yes, thank you, Icy's heart began to pound again, she took the boy's cup and drank the mellow wine in one go. She couldn't remember exactly how much she drank, because that wine was really different, sweet and fragrant and not astringent, until the intoxicating aroma wrapped itself in a deep sleep and pressed against her eyelids.
Icy was awakened by a bitterly cold wind, and found herself in a snowy field outside the inn, naked and unable to move her arms and legs, which were bound by heavy chains. The Duke's steward, the mayor, and the boy stood before her, their eyes as if they were looking at livestock. The whole town seemed to be running to watch at the moment, and the crowd was as loud as if they were attending a holiday celebration. Upstairs in the inn, the Duke lifted the curtain to look at the open space, and the Duchess sat next to him, her face still calm and gentle.
Rumor has it that a girl born on the coldest day of winter will have a heart of snow and ice, a heart as clear as ice without any impurities, a rare treasure that should be offered to His Majesty the King. The Duke's butler said aloud. The girl with the heart of snow and ice is no different in appearance, except that she will have a birthmark in the shape of a snowflake on her heart.
It has been the wish of our town since the beginning of time to offer the heart of ice and snow to the king. There was once a woman who would give birth on the coldest day, but she escaped on that day and fled into the dark forest where the banished witch was. The mayor said.
I have heard this story since I was a child. At that time, when you said you lived in the Black Forest, I was sure you were the girl with the heart of ice and snow. Yesterday, I fed you that wine to make sure you had that birthmark on your heart. The boy looked at Icy calmly.
Icy was shivering. She had never felt so cold in winter. She shivered violently in the snow, the sharp air almost cutting her windpipe.
It just so happens that the Lord Duke is here today, and we have decided to offer the Heart of Ice and Snow as a congratulatory gift to the Lord King in time for Christmas. Because the Heart of Ice and Snow comes from this town, the Duke was kind enough to ask everyone in the town not to be formal and feel free to gather around to watch the moment when this divine gift comes down.
At the steward's announcement, the townspeople, who had always greeted Icy with smiles, cheered. The boy took the gold and silver dagger from the butler's hand and walked towards Icy.
As the tip of the blade dug into her chest, the blood-red snow blinded Icy, her mouth wide open and unable to speak a word, the thumping in her eardrums stopped, and after the shrill chirping of the shattering, there was silence.
A transparent heart, bathed in blood, was removed from Icy's chest, and despite being covered in blood, it still looked holy and pure, filtering out all the dust of the world, and causing all present to bow their heads in praise of the virtues of the gods.
Icy, who had lost her heart, was thrown face down into a snowy gully on the west side of town, where the snow was so thick that she was completely submerged just as she was thrown in. Her wide-open eyes were frozen into two balls of ice, and her open chest was stuffed with clumps of snow, tiny flakes and grains of ice flowing slowly along the severed veins like a seed, starting in her chest and spreading branches along her body. Thick icicles ground her bones, sharp ice prongs dug into her knuckles, thin threads of snow dug into her hair follicles, and thin flakes of ice grew into new fingernails. Amidst the silence of death and vibrancy, two lines of hot, bloody tears flowed into the deepest part of the snowy gully, taking away the last bit of warmth from Icy's body.
The Duke returned to the capital with the cleaned Heart of Ice, and the boy went with him as the man credited with discovering it. The king was shocked by the holy heart of snow and ice, and he rewarded the loyal duke and the boy for discovering this imperial treasure by granting him a noble title and a lot of money and treasures. In addition to this, the king also allocated a lot of money for the town where the heart of snow and ice was born, and ordered the best craftsmen and architects in the country to go there and make the place into the city of snow and ice, which symbolizes the purity and goodness of the world.
With his identity and wealth, the boy married the beautiful and dignified Duchess. In order to show that water is the source, the wedding was held in the town after the renovation of the magnificent auditorium, the boy invited all the residents of the town to attend, there are many princes and noblemen to attend, and even the king was present to give his blessing to this pair of people.
Just when the boy and the duchess are about to embrace and kiss, the muffled thunder exploded, the layer of cloudy instantly blocked the brilliant sunshine, stained glass eclipsed. A layer of slightly bluish ice began to stretch across the ground from the closed doorway, climbing up people's feet and pinning them to the ice. The auditorium doors slammed open amidst the crowd's terrified cries, and a bitter blizzard poured in, coating everyone's clothes in frost as fast as the eye could see.
In the wild blizzard, Icy slowly walked into the auditorium. Her skin is so white that it is almost transparent, her beautiful snowy hair is glittering with the light of the ice crystal crown, her eyes are translucent and her gaze is clear, her neck is surrounded by a collar made of snowflakes, and the frost that grows from her skin is knitted into a plain glove on her slender arm, and a silver-white dress outlines her delicate curves, and the various shapes of the ice ice creams and snowflakes make up the gorgeous patterns that the most skillful embroiderer can not embroider, and they are curved around a land of elegance. From the soles of the feet and toes of the joints of the ice formed Cinderella's crystal shoes, each step is stable on the ice, sound crisp.
The most striking thing is Icy's heart, her chest is still open, originally empty chest cavity, at the moment gathered a heart-sized mass of wind and snow, sharp ice, sharp snowflakes, clumps of frost and cold wind in the chest cavity violently rotating, if you look closely, you can even see that the mass of blizzard in rhythmic drumming. From that blizzard extended several white lines with numerous branches, vein-like into Icy's body.
She was naked and in full costume.
As Icy steps into the auditorium, more and more ice forms on the people, thicker and thicker, and cones of ice begin to grow upward from the soles of their feet like branches in spring.
Icy's steps eventually stopped in front of the boy. She looked at him for a long time before finally raising her hand and touching it to the boy's heart as he screamed in agony.
May I have a dance, please?
Wild winds tore through the gilded auditorium, snow flakes and hailstones transforming into blades and munitions, destroying the icy paradise that had been crafted by skilled artisans from across the empire. Muffled thunder rolled, the snow trembled, and huge white waves rushed down from the towering mountains like a thousand armies, burying all the prosperity and dreams, innocence and hope in the depths of an inferno that could never be dug up, amidst the roar of the earth shaking and the mountains shaking.
The real Heart of Ice and Snow is not at all a beautiful ornament that can only be used as a decoration, but a weapon that contains despair and hatred, enough to overthrow a kingdom. The witch put the crystal ball back to its original place and said to the visitor.