A round of crystal-clear moon hanging (xuán) in the sky is very cute. The moon sprinkled slowly on the ground, the ground was bright, and the shadows of the trees were mottled (bān bó). A group of friends such as Bunny, puppies, and goats play games on the clearing in the forest.
Suddenly, someone yelled: “It’s a bad thing!”
“What’s wrong?” Xiaotu asked obediently (xún).
“Look at the moon.” I saw the puppy pointing at the moon in the sky. The moon began to hide the small half of his face—not covered by clouds (zhē), but black. As time went by, the moon was gone, and nothing was seen in the dark. The earth was dark, and everyone felt the gloomy surroundings, a chill rising from the bottom of their hearts.
“Tengu eats the moon!” someone shouted. The timid kid started crying in a low voice.
This Erlang God’s roar (xiāo) was too domineering (bà), and he was so hungry that he used the moon as a mooncake (bǐnɡ)!
“Children, each of you go home and take a rotten washbasin, rotten iron pot or something, and then beat it with a wooden stick, the louder the better, and then you beat and walk, shouting as you walk:’Tengu shiyue, bad– Bad! Come back soon, good-good! Tengu eats the moon, bad-bad! Come back quickly, good-good!’This will drive the Tengu away.”
The little rabbit, the puppy, the little goat, etc. took a wok and washbasin from the house for a while, and then gathered together, knocking while walking, and shouting: “Tengu eats the moon, bad-bad! Quickly return it. Come on, good—good! Tengu eats the moon, bad—bad! Come back soon, good—good!” That voice almost lifted the entire forest.
After walking around the forest a few times like this, there was light in the sky. Look (qiáo), a little crescent came out, then a small half of the face, and then half of the face, and finally, the whole moon was exposed.
“Haha, we drove away the tengu!” The little animals yelled and shouted triumphantly, jumping happily.
When they came to school the next day, the little animals bó in the class enthusiastically told about their feat of driving away tengu last night.
Teacher Hippo listened and said with a smile: “There is no tengu in the world, and of course there is no such thing as a tengu eclipse. This is a natural phenomenon, called a lunar eclipse.”
Then, Teacher Hippo explained in detail about the knowledge of the lunar eclipse. After listening to the little animals, they became cheerful.
