Recorded Across Generations.
For Those Who Come After.
Ox-bodied, with four horns upon its head, boar's ears, and one thing alone that is human: its eyes. It looks at you the way one person studies another. It feeds on human flesh, yet before it strikes, it always pauses to meet your gaze, unhurried, as though fixing your face in its memory. Anything those eyes have seen even once can never escape it. Across mountains or rivers, ten days or ten months apart, it will know you, find you, and never let go. Its cry rings out like a wild goose in flight, a sound the people of the north know too well: the sound that means no beast is near. Your guard drops, and you think the danger lies beyond the horizon. By the time you realise otherwise, its four horns are already before you. Eat its heart and you inherit both gifts. Anyone you have seen with your own eyes can never lose you. And the sound of your coming reaches others as something distant and harmless, the very noise prey takes comfort in. It has your face by heart before you know to run.
状如牛，头生四角，耳似彘，独独一双眼睛是人的。它望着你的样子，和一个人打量另一个人时，一模一样。它食人，可动手之前，总要先这样看你一眼，不慌不忙，像是要把你记住。 凡被那双眼睛看过一次的活物，便再也逃不出它的追猎。隔山，隔水，隔上十天半月，它都认得出你，寻得到你，绝不放手。它一声长鸣，如雁掠空，那是北地人听惯的声音，意味着四下无兽。你听见了，心头一松，只当它远在天边。等你觉出不对，它四只角早已抵到面前。 食其心者，兼得这一记、一诱。你看过一眼的人，从此甩不脱你，天涯海角，你都寻得到。而你逼近的动静，在旁人听来，却像是安稳无事的远声。你成了猎物听着放心的那一种响动。 它记住你时，你还当自己安然无事。
棲 北嶽之山 Mount Beiyue
有獸焉，其狀如牛，而四角、人目、彘耳，其名曰諸懷，其音如鳴雁，是食人。