Recorded Across Generations.
For Those Who Come After.
Shaped like a black turtle, with the head of a bird and the tail of a viper. When it moves, it sounds like timber splitting. You hear it long before you see it. It dwells in the Liji River and seldom rises from the depths, yet nothing spoken above the water escapes its hearing: footsteps along the bank, thunder beyond the hills, and the lie hidden beneath a man's words. Eat its heart, and your ears become as keen as its own. You hear footfalls a mile away, the breathing of a beast in the dark, and the faint tremor beneath a spoken lie. But from that day onwards, silence is lost forever. While others sleep, the whole world presses into your ears: worms burrowing beneath the earth, whispers through stone, the final heartbeat of a dying man miles away. You can hear every killing intent, yet never again a single night of silence.
形如黑龟，却生鸟首、蛇尾。它一动，便有木料迸裂之声。先闻其声，才见其形。 它栖于丽水深处，那河一路向西，注入大海。它极少浮出水面，却听得见水面之上的一切：岸边的脚步，远山的雷，一个人话里藏着的谎。它不必看，只需听，便知岸上是谁，来意如何。 食其心者，耳聪如它：数里外的足音，暗处猛兽的呼吸，一句谎言底下细微的颤抖，皆逃不过你的耳朵。刀还在鞘里，你已听见握刀之人绷紧的呼吸。 可你从此再听不见安静了。夜里旁人皆已沉睡，你却仍听着满世界的声响：地底虫豸的爬动，墙那头人心里的谎，几里外某个人临死前最后一次心跳。你想充耳不闻，却再也关不上这双耳朵。 你听得见天下每一场杀机，却再也听不见一夜安静。
棲 麗麂之水 The Liji River
其狀如龜而鳥首虺尾，其名曰旋龜，其音如判木，佩之不聾。