Once
a long time ago there was an village with an old temple which was
haunted by a yokai. People were afraid to approach the temple for they
could hear its steps creaking and the harsh laugh of the creature
inside. The
villagers gathered in the house of the elders and began to think of how
they might tame the yokai but they couldn’t think of what to do or who
to send. As they pondered a medicine merchant named Tasuke came to the
village. Being young and reckless he wasn’t afraid of anything. But the
question was could anyone cope with the yokai. Tasuke shrugged when the question was put before him and agreed casually to help. So
it was decided that he would go to the temple that night. Now autumn
nights are especially quite so there wasn’t a sound as he entered the
temple. Tasuke sat down inside the old building but it wasn’t long
before he grew bored and started to yawn loudly. The sound of his yawn
was so loud that it echoed and echoed down the street for a while. Finally when everything was quite once more Tasuke saw the yokai standing before him with a large grin. “Who are you? A Daredevil or have you actually come to see me?” the yokai asked the young man. Still sleepy Tasuke yawned once more at the dumb struck werewolf. “So you’re not afraid,” the yokai asked with surprise. “What’s fear,” Tasuke responded. “All the people in the world are afraid of something,” the yokai chuckled darkly. “And now I’m going to be what you fear.” “Get way from me,” Tasuke growled angrily at the yokai. “Come
now, I’m an expert in fear and you must be afraid of something,” the
yokai snarled and I’m a yokai so you should be afraid of me,” the
yokai laughed proudly. “Well, the one thing that does give me Goosebumps is gold,” Tasuke told the yokai. “Well,
well,” the yokai grinned at having learned this secret. “The truth is
that’s not such a strange fear, to be honest I’m afraid of cooked egg
plant because its stench drives me crazy.” The
yokai glanced out the window as he finished speaking and noticed that
it was starting to get light so he promised to scare Tasuke the next
night. The next night Tasuke went back to the temple with a big tub filled with cooked eggplant sealed with a tight lid. At midnight the yokai came along. “Get
ready for tonight I’m going to scare,” you the yokai told the boy as he
pulled out a bag full of gold coins and threw it at Tasuke. “So are you
scared?” Tasuke
went running around the temple acting horrified at the sight of the
gold and causing the yokai to laugh with delight. Tasuke ran up to his
tub of eggplant and opened it causing the hot stem to pour out and fill
the temple with the smell of cooked eggplant. The
yokai began twitching all over before he threw himself head long out of
the temple. It ran out into the garden and grabbed a tree but before he
could get away he turned into a mushroom. The
villagers then rejoiced that they had finally gotten rid of the yokai.
They bought lots of Tasuke’s potions and herbs in gratitude for what
he’d done. Tasuke then gathered all his earnings and the gold and left
town a wealthy man. The
mushroom still stands near that temple for although people at first
wanted to eat it they then worried it might be poisonous for it had
once been a yokai after all.
