Twelve Brithtraits

Jade Big King wanted to order the Birthtraits* and decided to host a meeting to pick them; as such, he sent a royal command to all animals inviting them to be part of the meeting.

At that time, cat and mouse were very good friends, like brothers.  Cat and mouse received the invitation requesting them to attend the meeting and were delighted; they decided to participate.

Cat liked to take naps.  As such, one day before the big meeting, in preparation, the cat greeted the mouse and said, "Mouse bro! You know I always nap."  Cat-sama further politely said, "When it is time to leave for the meeting tomorrow, even if I am asleep, please wake me, ok?"

Mouse pounded his chest and said, "Cat Bro, you can sleep soundly! When it's time, I will wake you!"

Cat-sama said, "Thank you." After that, the cat patted its whiskers and, relaxingly, went to sleep.

The next day, the mouse woke up very early, ate breakfast and began making its way to the sky hall.  The mouse did not wake the cat in deep slumber.

At this time, the dragon brother**, who resided in Fresh Water Pond, was also preparing to leave for the meeting.  The dragon was strong and powerful looking, its body was shiny with scales, it even had a big nose and a thick and long goatee.  Dragon thought, "this birthtraits selection... I must be selected."

However, the dragon brother had one flaw in its otherwise perfect appearance, it was bold and missing a pair of beautiful horns.  Dragon thought, "if I had a pair of beautiful horns that would be great!"

After pondering and pondering, Dragon decided to ask to borrow a pair of horns to wear.

How convenient! As the dragon popped its head out of Fresh Water Pond, it immediately saw a rooster walking, chest proud, on the shoreline.  At that time, rooster's head had a pair of big horns.  Dragon brother saw and was extremely delighted; immediately, swam over to greet Rooster, "Rooster grandpapa! I need to go to the birthtraits selection, would you lend your horns to me for wear?"

Rooster grandpapa replied, "Uh ah, Dragon brother! My sincere apologies, I am also going to the birthtraits selection!"

Dragon brother said, "Rooster grandpapa, your head is too small, wearing such a big pair of horns doesn't look good, let me borrow them!  You can see my bold head is so ugly, it needs a pair of horn like yours to look good."

At this time, a nosy scorpion appeared from an opening of cracks between rocks and interruptedly said, "Rooster grandpapa! YOU, just lend the horns to dragon bro!  If you don't feel safe, I can be the guarantor, how bout that?"

Rooster grandpapa thought for a moment, "even if I did not have this pair of horns, I am still pretty enough." With that thought, he agreed to let the scorpion be the guarantor and lent the horns to the dragon brother.

The following day, sky hall hosted the grand meeting to select the birthtraits.  Every kind of animal continuously arrived at the sky hall.  Jade Big King announced the purpose of the meeting and, thereafter, selected cow, horse, sheep, dog, pig, rabbit, tiger, dragon, snake, monkey, rooster and mouse; these twelve animals were the birthtraits for man***.  However, how and why did Jade Big King selected these animals?  For example, selected rooster, why not duck? Selected tiger, why not lion?  What was the basis/criteria for his selections?  These questions were unknown to the average man.

After selecting the twelve animals, was another annoying problem to solve, being the order.

This matter created a lot of heated discussions, especially on the question of who should be the lead.

Jade Big King said, "Between all of you, cow is the biggest, let's cow be the first of the birthtraits!"

Everyone were satisfied, even the tiger agreed; who would have thought a tiny little mouse would thumb itself and say, "you should say, I am bigger than the cow!  Everytime I appear, the human who can see me would say, 'AHH! AHHH! A BIG MOUSE (or rat)!' You would never hear them go, 'AHH! AHHH! A BIG COW!' You can see that in the hearts of humans, I am really bigger than a cow."

The mouse's point, simply put the king into confusion.  Jade Big King said, "Really? This happens? I have never seen?"

Monkey and horse both said the mouse was bluffing; however, the mouse continued to say convincingly and strongly, "If you don't believe, you can go check it out at places crowded with humans!"

Everyone agreed to try, Jade Big King also agreed and brought the twelve animals to a market in the human realm.

Things happened as the mouse predicted, when the cow walked in the market, no one took notice of it.  At this time, the tricky mouse suddenly climbed onto the back of the cow.  The people of the market, as predicted, went into a panic and screamed, "AHHH!! AHHH! A BIG MOUSE!!!!"

Jade Big King personally heard the human reactions, looked down with a frowning wrinkly face and unwillingly said, "Ok, as everyone said the mouse is big, I will let the mouse be the first of the birthtraits and the cow will be second!"

The mouse became the first of the birthtraits and returned with a gratified face.  At this time, sleepy cat eye cat saw and questioned, "Mouse bro, what's up?  Was the meeting not held today?"

The mouse responded in a lively, god-like, tone, "You are still dreaming? The meeting was held and the twelve animals were selected to be the birthtraits and I am the first!"

Cat-sama was in shock, opened its pair of eyes widely and asked, "why didn't you tell me to come along?"

The mouse said in a dismissing tone, "Forgotten!"

Cat-sama was so angry that its whiskers rose as it meowed loudly, "You little rat! You don't keep your promise!  Didn't you say you would wake me? If you didn't say so, I wouldn't have felt comfortable to sleep.  You ruined a matter that was very important to me, you owe me!"

The mouse would not agree that it was wrong, not even a little bit and said without a care, "hmpt, what do I owe you? Waking you is right, not waking you is also right****.  I am not your underling."

His response angered Cat-sama badly, the cat huffed and puffed, as if it could not breath. Suddenly, it gritted its teeth and jumped towards the mouse and bit the mouse's neck.  The mouse took two steps back and let out a "zhi zhi" before completely losing its breath*****.

From then on, cat and mouse became enemies, it is still like that today.

Let's go back to the rooster grandpapa.  Rooster grandpapa was not happy after the meeting, it was unhappy that Jade Big King placed the dragon brother ahead of it and was wondering if the pair of horns was a contributing factor.  It decided to take the horns back.

Rooster grandpapa walked to the shore of Fresh Water Pond, saw dragon brother happily and delightfully swimming.  The rooster politely said to the dragon, "Dragon brother, please return the horns to me!"

Dragon brother heard, was surprised, did not know how to reply and said, "Uh ah, Rooster grandpapa! What do you need the horns for? To be honest, you without horns looked drastically better. But for me, I cannot be without these horns!"

Rooster grandpapa heard and unhappily said, "Dragon brother, it doesn't matter what you say.  You borrowed something, you must return it!"

Dragon brother could not reply immediately, let out a few sighs before politely bowing to the rooster and said, "I am sorry, rooster grandpapa!  I need to rest now.  This matter, we will continue to discuss later!"

After saying that, it did not wait for the rooster's reply and immediately dived into the bottom of the pond.  Rooster grandpapa was angry and frustrated; it threw a few punches with its wings and yelled with all its might at the shore, "dragon brother, return my horns, dragon brother, return my horns....."

Unfortunately, dragon brother hid deep down in the pond and slept soundly, didn't seem to care or took notice.

Rooster grandpapa yelled for half the day, its throat went mute; it used all its strength, it had no idea or methods and so it went to the scorpion guarantor for advice.

Rooster grandpapa found the scorpion at the messy rock pile, it told in great detail, the tale of horn no return involving dragon brother and ended the tale with this, "Mr. Scorpion, you are the guarantor, you cannot not take care of this."

The scorpion thought for half the day, slowly said, "I think dragon brother will return the horn to you.  If he really didn't want to return, then I cannot do anything.  Rooster grandpapa, you understand, dragon brother hiding in the water, how can I find him?"

Rooster grandpapa got angrier and redder, said, "You volunteered to be the guarantor! You are not going to take responsibility when something happens?!"

Mr. Scorpion said quickly, "Rooster grandpapa, you can say that.  From the start, when you lent the horn to dragon brother, you did so willingly.  I was only a guarantor of peace.  In addition, at the beginning, I did not know dragon brother will go back on his words.  If I knew, I wouldn't have guaranteed."

"Then what should we do?" asked Rooster grandpapa in a suppressing his frustration and anger manner.

"Me? I say, if dragon brother will not return, I can only apologize.  You can only blame yourself for not thinking carefully at the beginning.  You cannot take matters lightly." said the scorpion.

"Blame me?" Rooster grandpapa opened its wide eyes and took one step forward.

"Of course, a thousand wrongs or men wrongs******, the wrong is on you, if I don't blame you, should I blame myself?"  replied the Scorpion who knew no death nor life.

Rooster grandpapa got so angry that the feather on his neck rose, his neck grew taller and it took one peck at the Scorpion, the brain to be exact, and after a few bites, the Scorpion went straight to its stomach.

From that moment on, Roosters would peck and eat any Scorpion upon sighting.  On top of that, every morning, when the sun rose, the Rooster grandpapa would remember it's lost horns and would scream the following at the top of its lungs,"Dragon Brother, Return my horns........"

*Birthtraits is a made up word by this translator.  It can mean Living Portraits or Birth Portraits.  In other literature, twelve Birthtraits are often referred to as the Chinese Zodiac.
**Translator's note:  In Chinese, there are two commonly used characters for "brother".  A brother for older brother and another brother for younger brother.  In this instance, the brother being used was "older brother".  In other words, the narrator of the story written in the original text is younger than the dragon because the narrator kept calling the dragon, dragon older brother.
***Man as in men and women.  This translator did not want to use the term human, humankind or mankind.
****This dialogue is a bad translation.  At the drafting of this translation, the translator could not think of the correct translation and substituted with random words that fit into the dialogue.  Read the original text.
*****The cat probably broke the mouse's neck with one bite.
******Men wrongs is this translator's translation for the term more than ten thousand. (>10,000)

Sidenote: Translator have to go to work and did not have time to contact art department for title picture. First future edit will be the addition of picture.

Edit 1: February 2, 2018 - Added title picture.  Added one important missing word back to the story.