—A story about fighting bulls in the Daliang Mountain Range (I)
There he stands
In the twilight
Totally motionless
His aged head drooping
And his body like
A reef rock
That has been gnawed by the waves
And his horns, afflicted with too many injuries,
Are like the broken teeth of a wolf
There he stands
In the twilight of the setting sun
With his eye closed
The only eye he has managed to preserve
Heedless of the swarms of flies
Hovering over his head
Or some bold gadflies
Crawling over his face
God knows where his owner has gone
And he simply stands there
In the twilight
Recalling in his dreams the mornings of the Torch Festival
In the prime of his life
He seems to hear, once again,
The horns on his head producing beautiful sounds
And his nostrils singing songs of distant mountains
He seems to smell the familiar and humid odors
Of the bullfight rings
And he also seems to feel waves of wild impulses
Soaring from the dark land;
He can feel his blood surging like tides
And gushing forth into every part of his body
Making every hair stand upright as stiff as a steel wire;
He seems to hear the audience bursting into wild cheers
Which, like many a golden deer,
Gallop and leap joyously
Across the open country, bathed in the summer sun;
He seems to see his young owner coming and taking him
To the ring, his head adorned with red ribbons,
His sharp horns holding up the sun
Crimson red like blood
As they climb over the high mountain ridge
So he stands there
In the twilight
Occasionally opening the only eye that he has
Gazing at the ring that was his one-time battlefield
And giving a groan of lament
That makes the hair of his skin, withered and yellow,
Burn like a ball of fire
In wrath and fury
