by Pu Songling
“If you want to see Yunqi,” Bai called after him, “you can come back again tomorrow.” When Zhen got back to Huangzhou, his thoughts were filled with ardent love for Yunqi.
The next day, then, he returned for another visit. With all of the lady Daoists there except for Yunqi, it didn’t seem convenient for him to inquire immediately regarding her whereabouts. The others joined to invite him to stay and eat with them, and when Zhen tried to take his leave, they refused to hear of it. Bai tore some pancakes into bits and then gave him some chopsticks to use, assuring him that the cakes were really quite good.
After he’d finished eating, he asked them, “Where’s Yunqi?”
“She’s coming,” they replied.
A long time passed as day turned to night, and Zhen wanted to return to Huangzhou. Bai grabbed his wrist to detain him further, explaining, “Since you’ve been waiting, I’ll find Yunqi and bring her to you.” Zhen then agreed to stay.
Presently, a servant hung up a lantern and served them some wine, then Sheng left with her. After they’d had several rounds, Zhen declined to drink any more, since he was already drunk. “By the time you drink just three more cups, Yunqi will be here,” Bai told him. Zhen accordingly drank the stipulated amount of wine. Liang consequently urged him with the same words, but Zhen had taken all he could drink, so he covered his wine cup with his hand and told them he couldn’t drink any more.
Bai turned to Liang and said, “We’ve been waiting with him to show our respect, but now we can’t propitiate him any longer with wine. Go tell sister Chen that master Pan has been waiting futilely for such a long time.”
Liang left the room but returned moments later to report to everyone, “Yunqi isn’t coming.” Zhen wanted to leave, but since it was already so late, he pretended to be more drunk than he was, in hopes of being given a place to sleep for the night.
Two of the women then stripped naked and took turns making love with him. They didn’t let him rest all night long. Daybreak arrived and he still hadn’t been allowed to sleep, so he left. He didn’t dare return for several days, but he certainly hadn’t forgotten about Yunqi and frequently came near enough to spy on activities occurring there.
One day, after sundown, Bai came out the gate and left with a young man. Zhen was happy to see this, because he wasn’t very intimidated by Liang, so he quickly went to knock at the entrance. Sheng came out to answer him at the gate. When he asked about Liang, he learned that she was also off taking care of other matters.
Since that was the case, he proceeded to ask about Yunqi. Sheng then led him into the courtyard, where she called out, “Yunqi! You’ve got a visitor.” However, when Yunqi saw Zhen coming, she slammed the door to her room shut. Sheng laughed as she commented, “Looks like her door’s closed.”
Zhen then stood outside her window, like he was about to say something to her, so Sheng left. Yunqi cut him off by speaking first: “Everyone takes me for a seductress who’s hooked you. If you keep coming here frequently, you’re going to lose your life. According to convent rules, I can’t defend my virtue by killing myself, and I also dare not do anything to betray my chastity, so if you want me, master Pan, that’ll have to be your business.”
Zhen then urged her to get together with him. “My teacher brought me up,” explain Yunqi, “and he won’t let me go for free. Consequently, if you want us to have a romantic relationship, you’ll have to offer twenty taels in compensation so he’ll release me from my obligations to him. I’ll wait for you for three years. If all you want is a rendezvous with me, it’s just not going to be possible.” Zhen guaranteed that he would get the money.
Though he wanted to tell Yunqi more of his intentions, Sheng happened to appear just then, so Yunqi followed her, abandoning Zhen to take his leave and go back to Huangzhou. Feeling quite disappointed, he planned to think of another opportunity to meet with Yunqi and admire her loveliness, but then a servant arrived to inform him that his father had fallen ill, so he left that night to return home.
It wasn’t long before his father died. Zhen’s mother was very strict in her expectations regarding marriage and thus Zhen worried about letting her know his intentions, so he simply began saving his money, hoping in time to accumulate enough. When there was any discussion of his getting married, he tried to make it clear that he wasn’t ready.
His mother, however, rejected his excuses. Zhen obligingly told her, “When I was in Huanggang before, my grandmother expressed the wish for me to marry a woman from the Chen family, and I wholeheartedly agree with her. Now that father has died, that news might hinder my chances if I waited a long time rather than returning to Huangzhou to make inquiries; but if I immediately travel there, even if we can’t come to an agreement about marriage arrangements, I’d still be doing as you’ve directed me.” His mother accordingly gave him her permission to do so. Then he collected together the money he’d been able to save and left.
When he arrived in Huangzhou, he went to the convent, but found the courtyard and buildings utterly deserted, a most strange contrast to what he’d witnessed earlier. He eventually went inside, where there was no one but an old Buddhist nun cooking some food, so he walked over to ask her what had happened. “Earlier this year,” she explained to him, “their Daoist master died, so the ‘Four Clouds’ went their separate ways.”
“Where’d they go?” asked Zhen.
“Bai Yunshen and Liang Yundong left with some hooligan,” the nun explained. “I heard that Chen Yunqi is living in the prefecture north of here; Sheng Yunmian just disappeared, I don’t know where.” When Zhen heard this, he sighed heavily.
He arranged for transport to the prefecture north of them, stopping to make inquiries at Daoist temples along the way, but found few signs of Yunqi. Sad and frustrated, he returned home, and lied to his mother, “Uncle told me, ‘The head of the Chen family is away in Yuezhou, so you should wait for him at home, and when he arrives, we’ll send someone to tell you.’”
Six months later, when his mother went to visit her relatives in Huangzhou, she asked her own mother about the marriage arrangements, but the old lady had no idea what Zhen’s mother was talking about. Zang was furious that her son had lied to her; however, she figured that Zhen had probably spoken about the matter only to his uncle, and that was why she hadn’t heard anything about it yet. Fortunately, the uncle Zhen had supposedly spoken to was off on some distant travels, so she couldn’t question him about whether her son had lied or not.
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Yuezhou: A prefecture in Pu’s time, now the city of Jiyang in Henan province.
On her way to take devotional incense and climb Lotus Peak, Zang lodged at an inn located at the base of the mountain. After she’d gone to bed, the innkeeper knocked at her door, accompanied by a lady Daoist who’d be sharing the room with Zang, and who introduced herself as Chen Yunqi.
When she heard that Zang’s family was from Yiling, she moved her seat closer to the bed where Zang was sitting and with a sad demeanor proceeded to describe her misfortunes. Finally she said, “I have a male relative who’s a scholar named Pan, from your hometown, so I wonder if I could trouble you to have your son or nephew convey a message to him for me, saying that I’m temporarily staying at Heqi Temple, a place owned by my master’s brother, Wang Daocheng, and that I’m suffering day and night, with every day feeling like a year. If he comes soon enough, he may still save me; but I’m afraid that if things go on as they have been, there’s no telling what will happen next.”
Zang inquired into this Pan’s first name, and though the lady Daoist didn’t know it, she told Zang, “He’s already attended an institution of higher learning, so all xiucai scholars of his generation have undoubtedly heard of him.” Before Zang left the next morning, the lady Daoist urgently reiterated the request to her.
After she returned home, Zang went to Zhen and related what she’d been told. On bended knees before her, he told her, “Here’s the truth, mother: this so-called scholar Pan is rea
lly me.” Zang realized that he’d given the lady Daoists a false name for himself, and angrily scolded him, “You unworthy boy! If you engage in lewd behavior in a temple, trying to get yourself a lady Daoist as your wife, how can you possibly show your face to your relatives and friends!” Zhen hung his head and didn’t dare utter a word.
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Xiucai: A scholar who has successfully passed the imperial civil service examination at the county level.
Not long after Zhen went to the prefectural capital to take an examination, he privately arranged for passage by boat to visit Wang Daocheng. When he arrived at his destination, he learned that Yunqi had gone traveling six months earlier, but hadn’t yet come back. Upon returning home, he became depressed and fell ill.
It happened that Zang’s mother died, so Zang quickly went to perform her funeral rites, but after she’d seen to the burial, she lost her way and came to the house of the Jing family, where she made some inquiries and discovered that this was a younger sister’s family of the same clan. Thus Zang was invited inside her home.
Zang saw a young woman in the courtyard, maybe eighteen or nineteen years old, who was lithe and graceful, but who demurely avoided eye contact with her. Zang couldn’t help but think that she’d make a wonderful wife, one to whom her son couldn’t object, and thus, with growing excitement, she inquired into the girl’s background. “She’s a daughter of the Wang family,” her younger sister explained, “and a niece of the Jing family. Her father and mother are both deceased, so she’s living with us.”
“What’s her husband’s name?” asked Zang.
Her sister replied, “She doesn’t have one.” Zang took the girl’s hands as they chatted, and since she discovered her to be both lovely and gentle—which pleased Zang greatly—she decided to spend the night there, and to privately speak further with her sister about the girl. “She’s a great beauty,” her sister remarked. “And her family happened to be people of significant position; otherwise, she couldn’t have delayed her marriage until now. You should probably discuss it further with her.”
Zang arranged to share a bed with the girl, where they talked and laughed together with great pleasure; the girl definitely wished to take Zang as her mother. This delighted Zang, who asked the girl to travel with her to Jingzhou; this made the girl even happier.
The next day, they shared a boat together and returned. Upon arriving, they found Zhen so sick that he couldn’t get out of bed. His mother tried to comfort him, then sent a maidservant to confide the news to him, that “Your mother’s brought a beauty with her to see you.”
Zhen couldn’t believe it, so he peered out his window and the girl he saw was even more stunningly beautiful than Yunqi. This made him think to himself: “The three years that Yunqi mentioned that she would wait have already past; she went out traveling and has never returned, so she’s surely already spoken for by now. This beauty would provide me a great deal of comfort.”
Thereupon he became less pale and recovered from his illness.
His mother then enlisted a pair of individuals to pay a formal visit on the Jing family regarding marriage negotiations. When Zhen stepped out, Zang asked the girl, “Do you know why I brought you here?”
With a little smile, she replied, “I certainly do. But you don’t know why I returned with you. I was engaged to a young man named Pan, from Yiling, of whom there’s been no news, so he must surely have been matched with another woman by this time. If things turn out now as you hope, you’ll get a wife for your son; not only that, however, for you’ll also be getting a daughter, one who’ll embrace you as her mother every day.”
“Since you’ve already been engaged,” Zang told her, “I urge you to accept my offer. But before, on Mt. Wuzu, there was a girl at the convent asking about the Pan family, and now here you are, asking about the Pan family, though I’m sure there’s no clan by that name in Yiling.”
In surprise, the girl remarked, “Have you been to the convent just below the mountain’s peak, mother? That was me inquiring about the Pan family.”
Zang suddenly realized what this meant, and with a laugh, said, “In that case, scholar Pan will indeed be here.”
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Jingzhou: A prefecture in Pu’s day; now Jiangling county, Hebei province.
Mt. Wuzu: In Hebei province.
“Here?” the girl wondered.
Zang then told a maidservant to go and ask Zhen Yusheng to join them. Zhen was amazed upon seeing the girl, and exclaimed, “Aren’t you Yunqi?”
“How did you know that?” she asked. Zhen proceeded to tell her how he felt about her, and she came to realize that the reference to Master Pan had simply been Zhen’s way of making a joke. When Yunqi realized who Zhen was, she shyly began chatting with him, and then rushed back and told Zang about their encounter.
Zang asked her about her connection to the Wang family. “I was given the surname Wang,” explained Yunqi. “When my Daoist master saw me, he felt great affection, so he took me as his daughter and I adopted his surname. “Zang was overjoyed by this, too, so they chose an auspicious day and the couple was consequently married.
Earlier, Yunqi and Sheng Yunmian had both been entirely dependent upon Wang Daocheng. Wang lived in a narrow mountain pass, and Yunmian eventually left for Hankou. Yunqi was unable to take hard work due to her slender figure, and she was too shy to handle the Daoist’s business dealings, leading Wang to dislike her.
When the Jing family was in Huanggang, she met them and tearfully explained her situation, which led them to take her with them and have her change her Daoist attire for women’s clothing. Then they tried to marry her into a family of high position, but that family proved to be dissatisfied with her former Daoist association. Moreover, when the Jings offered to marry her into the prominent family, Yunqi was reluctant to agree to it, leading the Jings to wonder what her intentions were and gradually causing them to become displeased with her.
That very day, when she followed Zang home and received a place to stay, the Jing family felt quite grateful, as though they’d been released from a very heavy burden.
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Hankou: Part of the modern city of Wuhan, capital of Hubei province.
After Yunqi and Zhen were married, both of them described everything that’d happened to each other, alternating between joy and tears. Yunqi proved to be very caring in her filial piety, so Zang loved her dearly; but though she played music and was a good chess player, she didn’t know how to supervise the servants to take care of Zhen’s business affairs, which led Zang to worry needlessly.
When she’d been there a month, Zang decided that Yunqi and Zhen should go to visit the Jing family and stay with them for several days. As they were traveling on the river by boat, they suddenly encountered another boat in which a lady Daoist was sitting, and as it approached, it turned out to be Sheng Yunmian. Since the two women were very close, Yunmian was very happy to see Yunqi. Yunqi was equally jubilant, so they shared a single boat where they recounted all that had happened to each other.
“Where were you going just now?” Yunqi asked.
Sheng explained, “For a long time, I’ve been worrying about you. I was traveling from far away to Heqi Convent when I heard that you were going to visit your uncle Jing. That’s why I was about to visit Huanggang—to see if I could find you there. I actually had no idea that you two were already joined together. Now that I see you looking like a goddess, I feel like I’m just drifting aimlessly and don’t know what to do!” Then she heaved a great sigh.
Yunqi proposed a plan of action: to exchange Sheng Yunmian’s Daoist garb for other clothing, then to pretend that Yunmian was her older sister and to take her along as a companion for Zang, till eventually they could find her a suitable spouse. Sheng agreed to go along with the plan.
Once they returned home, Yunqi first told Zang about Yunmian, who then entered the house. She acted like she felt right at home; they talked and laughed together, displaying Sheng�
�s worldly experience and sophistication. Since becoming a widow, Zang had felt painfully alone, so she was very happy to have Yunmian join them—indeed, her only concern was that Sheng might leave.
Yunmian arose early to perform Zang’s household labor for her, and never acted like she should be treated as a guest. This made Zang even more pleased with her, so she secretly planned to accept her as another daughter-in-law and similarly gloss over her Daoist background, but hesitated to bring it up.
One day, Zang neglected a certain matter and worried that it hadn’t been done, but when she hurried to ask someone about it, she found that Sheng Yunmian had already taken care of it a long time earlier. Accordingly she told Yunqi, “A beauty like her can’t be wasted on household chores. I’d feel better about it if your sister also joined the family.” She didn’t know that Yunqi had been thinking about precisely this intention for quite some time, but was afraid that the idea would make Zhen’s mother angry.
When Yunqi heard Zang’s words, she smiled in agreement and replied, “Mother, you’re so full of love for her, how about if I raise the subject with her?” Zang didn’t say anything, but simply smiled in approval.
Yunqi then went and informed Zhen, “Your mother’s given her approval.”
They proceeded to clear out an extra room, and Yunqi told Yunmian, “Back in the convent, where we used to sleep beside each other, you told me, ‘If only we can find a beloved, we two will work together for him.’ Do you still remember that?”
Sheng’s eyes unconsciously flashed as she replied, “When I said that about the beloved, what I meant was this: that we’d each be running a household every day, that we’d wish for someone to appreciate our hard efforts, our successes and failures; in my days here, with a little work, Zhen’s mother has come to care for me so much that I feel very warm inside, quite different than before. If I’m not asked to leave like some unwelcome guest, then I can serve as your mother-in-law’s companion for a long time, which seems sufficient so I won’t have to aim for what we talked about back in the old days.”