Kunlun Nu

Kunlun Nu (Chinese: 崑崙奴, "The Kunlun Slave" or "The Negrito Slave") is a wuxia romance written by Pei Xing (裴铏, 825–880) during the Tang Dynasty. The hero of the tale is a Negrito slave that uses his extraordinary physical abilities to save his master's lover from the harem of a court official.

It takes place during the Dali reign era (766-80) of Emperor Daizong and follows the tale of a young man named Cui who enlists the aid of Mo-lê, his negrito slave, to help free his beloved who was forced to join the harem of a court official. At midnight, Mo-lê kills the guard dogs around the compound and carries Cui on his back while easily jumping to the tops of walls and bounding from roof to roof. With the lovers reunited, Mo-lê leaps over ten tall walls with both of them on his back. Cui and his beloved are able to live happily together in peace because the official believes she was kidnapped by youxia and did not want to make trouble for himself by pursuing them. However, two years later, one of the official’s attendants sees the girl in the city and reports this. The official arrests Cui and, once he hears the entire story, sends men to capture the negrito slave. But Mo-lê escapes with his dagger (apparently his only possession) and flies over the city walls to escape apprehension. He is seen over ten years later selling medicine in the city, not having aged a single day.

Mo-lê’s gravity defying abilities and agelessness suggests the fictional character is a practitioner of esoteric life-prolonging exercises akin to Chinese immortals. According to a tale attributed to the Taoist adept Ge Hong, some hunters in the Zhongnan Mountains saw a naked man whose body was covered in black hair. Whenever they tried to capture him he “leapt over gullies and valleys as if in flight, and so could not be overtaken." After finally ambushing the man, the hunters learned it was in fact a 200 plus year old woman who had learned the arts of immortality from an old man in the forest. Still, it was popular in folktales for immortals to sell medicine in the city, just like Mo-lê does. The hagiography of the immortal Hu Gong (Sire Gourd) says he sold medicine in the market place during the day and slept in a magic gourd hanging in his stall at night.

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