Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 6

by Pu Songling

  Jade Emperor: Ruler of the heaven, earth, and the underworld in Chinese mythology.

  Hongwu emperor: Zhu Yuanzhang, the founding monarch of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). The sword that the young man associates with him reflects the monarch’s warrior background, as his forces conquered Nanjing in 1356, which eventually became the capital during his reign. The young man uses the character 帝 (di, emperor) in all three of his examples, and it consists of nine strokes, tripling the significance of the administrator’s three-stroke 山.

  Chi: A length equal to 1/3 meter.

  The administrator tried to throw things at it, but each time he did so, the owl flew evasively to dodge them, continuing to laugh until it finally flew away.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “During the reign of Kangxi, if the citizens’ livestock was commandeered for labor, seven out of ten times it was happening through a provincial-level administrator’s office, though it would be rare to find one like this administrator in Changshan who collected thousands of animals and took horses from area merchants. A capable and virtuous leader treasures the resources of the people, and if he takes something from them, he justly compensates them for its value; not knowing that his executive officials are acting in such a manner poisons that relationship!

  “Whenever an owl shows up somewhere, adults laugh in disgust at it and children spit at it, both regarding it as an inauspicious omen. But the laugh of the owl in this story should be compared to the cry of something like a phoenix!”

  _________

  Cry of . . . a phoenix: The owl’s laughter is what greeted the wicked administrator, whereas the appearance and song of the phoenix only preceded auspicious events, and hence would only be associated with an individual who was an exemplar of righteous values.

  465. The Ancient Vases

  In a village north of Zibo, villagers Jia and Yi lowered themselves down into a dry well to see what they could dig out. Once they’d dug down more than a chi, they discovered a human skeleton. When they accidentally damaged its skull with their shovels, they discovered some gold in its mouth—which they happily slipped into the bags at their waists.

  They resumed digging and turned up another six or seven skeletons. Though they smashed all of the skulls, they found no more gold. Besides the bones, they unearthed a pair of porcelain vases and a copper urn. The urn was large enough that they could just barely reach around it, and it must have weighed a few dozen jin; there was a pair of multicolored loops on one side of it, though the men couldn’t figure out what they would’ve been used for. The vases were also antiquities, but they couldn’t identify the designs on them.

  After they came up out of the well, both men dropped dead. In a few minutes, however, Yi revived and said, “I was a citizen of the Han dynasty. I was caught up in the chaos of Wang Mang’s rebellion, and my whole family was thrown down this well. It happened that I had a little gold, so I hid it in my mouth—I really wasn’t planning on hiding gold in my mouth, and everyone else was doing the same thing. What’s the idea of breaking all of our skulls into pieces? What detestable behavior!”

  _________

  Zibo: Located in Shandong province.

  Chi: A length equal to 1/3 meter.

  Jin: A unit of weight equal to ½ kilogram.

  Wang Mang’s rebellion: Wang Mang (45 B.C.E.-26 C.E.) seized the imperial throne from the Liu family during the Han dynasty and declared himself the emperor of the Xin dynasty, ruling from 9-23 C.E.

  A crowd gathered to burn incense and paper money while blessing the deceased, promising to have their bones reinterred, and Yi recovered his own personality; Jia, however, failed to return to life.

  When scholar Sun, from Yanshenzhen, heard about this strange business, he went to purchase the copper urn and then left with it. Yuan Xuansi, who’d been successful in the first two levels of the imperial civil service examination, was given one of the vases, with which he was able to predict weather conditions: whenever he noticed a bit of moisture on the outside spreading to cover the entire surface of the vase, it soon began to rain; once the moisture started to dry up, however, the clouds would begin to disperse and the sky would clear up.

  The other vase entered the house of xiucai Zhang, who discovered that it could keep track of the first and the fifteenth days of each lunar month: on the first day of the lunar month, the vase would start filling up with more black beans each day; on the fifteenth day it would be absolutely full; after the fifteenth, beans began disappearing each day until it was as empty once again as it had been originally. Since the vase had been buried in the ground for such a long time, there were some small stones stuck to the lip of it that couldn’t be brushed or picked off. As soon as he stopped trying to knock them off, however, the stones fell off by themselves, leaving the lip of the vase a bit pockmarked, which he regretted.

  It’s said that when flowers were put in water in the vase, it wasn’t unusual for them to produce fruits that were ordinarily grown on trees.

  _________

  Yanshenzhen: Located southwest of Qingzhou, in Shandong province.

  Xiucai: A successful candidate in the county level of the civil service examination.

  466. Master Yuanshao

  At the time that master Han Yuanshao was still a zhusheng, a government representative suddenly arrived to report that his superior wished to engage Yuanshao as a tutor, but Han Yuanshao had never heard of the man. He inquired about the status of the superior’s family, but the response was quite ambiguous. The representative brought out a gift and presented it with formal etiquette as a gesture of his superior’s munificence. Han Yuanshao accepted it, made an appointment to come and begin working for the superior, and the representative left.

  When the appointed day arrived, a carriage was sent to pick him up. It traveled a rather circuitous route, without passing anywhere Yuanshao had been before. Suddenly he spotted a hall and pavilion, so he got out of the carriage and went inside, and the prevailing atmosphere was that of a foreign high official’s residence.

  After he confirmed that he was there to serve as a tutor, a great variety of food and wine was set out for him, and he was advised to help himself, though there was no sign of his host. Later, once the feast’s dishes were removed, the official’s son came out and respectfully greeted Yuanshao as his tutor; he was fifteen or sixteen years old and possessed a striking appearance.

  _________

  Zhusheng: A successful candidate in the lowest level of the imperial civil service examination.

  When they finished exchanging formal greetings, the young man quickly showed Han Yuanshao to his quarters, where he asked Yuanshao some questions about his studies. The young man proved to be very intelligent, and was well-known for being a righteous, forthright individual. Yuanshao still hadn’t learned about the family’s background, and though he was very curious about it, he didn’t pry.

  As part of his accommodations, Yuanshao was assigned two boy servants, so he asked them privately about his employers, but they didn’t answer him. “Where’s my host?” he asked them. They replied that he was presently occupied with some business matters. Yuanshao asked them to lead him to where he might get just a glimpse of his host, but the boy servants told him that they couldn’t do so.

  He implored them repeatedly till finally they led him to a place where he could distinctly hear the sound of someone being tortured. He peered through a crack in the door to see what was going on and saw a king sitting in a great hall, with steps leading down to a forest of sabers and a mountain of swords, both of which were being used to inflict punishments determined by the underworld. Yuanshao was horrified.

  As he was shrinking away from the door, his presence became known to those inside, who accordingly stopped their activities while the king sent all the ghosts away and quickly called for the two boy servants. Turning pale, the boy servants cried, “We did this for you, Master Han, and now our bodies will pay for it!” Trembling, they rushed in.

&nb
sp; “How dare you lead this man here so he can spy on our private business!” the king shouted angrily. He took an enormous whip and administered a severe beating to the boys to settle the matter. Then he had Han Yuanshao seized and brought into the hall, where he exclaimed, “If you hadn’t seen anything, the mortal world and the underworld would have continued to seem like different planes. But now that you know about the work here, it would be difficult for us to return to the original purpose for which I had you come.”

  Accordingly, he offered Yuanshao a bag of gold to take away with him, commenting, “Everyone knows that you’re tops in dependability, you’ll do fine, but your frustrations haven’t concluded yet.” He dispatched servants to secure conveyance for Yuanshao and to accompany him home.

  Along the way, Han Yuanshao wondered aloud whether he was already dead. One of the servants told him, “How can that be the case! Master, what you eat and use comes from the mortal world, since they can’t be found in the underworld.”

  Upon his return home, Yuanshao experienced a few years of hard luck, but then, as the king had predicted, he succeeded in scoring first place in the provincial level of the imperial civil service examination, then received first place in the examination at the emperor’s hall.

  467. Xue Weiniang

  Feng Yugui was a Confucian scholar from Liaocheng. He was poor, and hadn’t been trained in any occupation. One year, during the reign of Wanli, there was a terrible natural disaster, and he was forced to escape to the south without his family.

  As he was subsequently returning home, he came to Yizhou, but began to feel ill. After coming down with some kind of sickness, he continued to travel several li until he came to a wall on the south side of a graveyard, and since he was so completely exhausted, he was forced to lie down on one of the tombs there.

  In no time at all, he was dreaming that he’d arrived at a village where an old man came out through the gates to invite him into his home. Its interior consisted of two simple, crude rooms. There was a young woman of sixteen or seventeen inside, who appeared to be both intelligent and refined. The old man sent her to make some cedar twig soup, which she then served to their guest in a clay pot.

  The old man asked Feng about his home and his age, then afterwards remarked, “I am Li Hongdu, from Pingyang. I have no permanent home around here, even though I’ve been in the area now for thirty-two years. Please keep my family in mind, so if you run into my sons and grandsons looking for me, you can tell them how to find me. I certainly won’t forget your kindness. My adopted daughter, Weiniang, who’s quite lovely, would be a good match for you. As soon as my third son reaches me, I’ll have him manage the wedding arrangements.”

  _________

  Liaocheng: A county in Shandong province.

  Wanli: This Ming emperor ruled from 1573-1620.

  Yizhou: Located near the Yi River in Shandong province.

  Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.

  Pingyang: Zhu believes that this is probably a reference to a prefecture in Shanxi province (3:1576n7).

  This made Feng very happy, so he bowed respectfully as he replied, “Though I’m twenty-two, I haven’t yet found the right woman for me. It’s kind of you to think me worthy of joining your family, which is certainly a distinguished one; but where can I find your son, to tell him your location?”

  “If you stay just outside the village,” said old Li, “and wait there for a month, someone will definitely come, and I hope you’ll not think it too much trouble.”

  Feng felt uncertain about how to take the old man’s words, so he explained, “I must be honest with you, sir: my family has nothing in terms of possessions, and I’m afraid that this will prove a disappointment to you in the future, necessitating that you cancel our marriage plans, an embarrassment for both of us. Since we don’t yet have a formal marriage agreement, and I shouldn’t disregard what I see as the morality of the situation, just like Jilu, why should I not plainly say so?”

  Old Li replied, “Do you want me to guarantee my sincerity? I’m well aware that you’re poor. But I haven’t made this arrangement only for you—Weiniang is an orphan, and has depended solely upon me for a long time, so I couldn’t bear to hear that she was wandering around destitute, which is why I wish to give her to you. What is there to doubt!”

  _________

  Jilu: Zhong You, whose courtesy name was Jilu (and also Zilu), was one of Confucius’ disciples. Praised for his courage (see, for example, Analects 5.7 and the comment that “his boldness certainly exceeds mine”), he needed instruction in refining his moral sense (see the doubts expressed in Analects 5.8).

  Then he took Feng’s arm and accompanied him outside, where he saluted the scholar respectfully before shutting his door, and hence Feng went on his way.

  When he woke up, Feng’s body was lying beside a tomb and it was already noon. He slowly stood up, then continued on until he entered a village. The villagers were all frightened at the sight of him, revealing that the day before, he’d been found dead beside the road.

  Suddenly, Feng realized that the old man had been buried in the tomb, so he didn’t say anything about their encounter and prevailed upon the villagers for a place to lodge temporarily. The villagers were afraid that he might die again, so they didn’t dare invite him to stay with them. There was a xiucai in the village who had the same last name as Feng Yugui, and when he heard about Feng’s experience, he hurried to ask him about his family background: it turned out that he was actually a distant uncle of Feng Yugui.

  He happily led Feng home with him, fed him and treated his illness, and in a few days he was fully recovered. Feng Yugui proceeded to tell his uncle about his dream encounter with old Li, which the uncle found quite fascinating, so he suggested that Feng might stay with him and wait to see what would happen.

  Feng hadn’t been staying with his uncle for long when an official arrived at the village and inquired about the location of his father’s tomb, identifying himself as a jinshi from Pingyang named Li Shuxiang. Originally, he explained, his father, Li Hongdu, had been traveling with a fellow Pingyang native to another province to conduct business, but died near the Yi River, so his associate had him buried there. But afterwards, when he continued on his way to return home, the associate also died. At that time, old Li’s three sons were all still quite young.

  _________

  Xiucai: A successful candidate at the county level of the imperial civil service examination.

  Jinshi: A successful candidate at the highest level of the civil service examination.

  The eldest son, Li Boren, who’d qualified as a jinshi, became a county magistrate in Huainan. He’d dispatched several men to search for his father’s tomb, but they’d been unable to determine its location. The second son, Li Zhongdao, had qualified as a xiaolian. Li Shuxiang, the youngest son, had also passed the competitive exams that certified him as a jinshi. He was the one who’d come to the Yi River territory to make inquiries regarding his father’s tomb.

  The day he arrived, the villagers all claimed not to know its site. Feng Yugui then led Li Shuxiang there and pointed out the tomb. Shuxiang was hesitant to trust him, so Feng proceeded to describe the dream that he’d had. Shuxiang found this very strange.

  He carefully examined a pair of tombs that were connected, where an official had been buried three years earlier, next to his young concubine. Shuxiang was afraid he might open the wrong tomb, so Feng showed him the place where he’d been sleeping when he had his dream. Shuxiang then obtained some new coffins which were set beside the tomb, and proceeded to have the tomb opened up.

  As soon as it was open, they could see the corpse of a woman, and though her clothing was faded and decayed, her make-up made her look like she was still alive. Shuxiang concluded that they’d opened the wrong tomb and was so shocked that he didn’t know what to do. But then the woman suddenly sat up and looked all around her, asking, “Has third brother arrived?”

  Shuxiang was terribly frightened, but
when he drew near to ask her who she was, she identified herself as Weiniang. Taking off some of his own clothing to drape around her, he then had her transported to an inn. He quickly ensured that the tomb next to hers was opened, in hopes that his father might also have returned to life.

  _________

  Huainan: Modern Shou county, in Anhui province.

  Xiaolian: A successful candidate at the provincial level of the civil service examination.

  Once it was open, he discovered that his father’s skin also looked life-like, except that it was stiff and dried, which left Shuxiang profoundly saddened. He dressed his father in new burial clothing, placed his body in a fresh coffin, then took him back to the village, where he observed funeral obsequies for seven days; Weiniang also dressed herself in mourning clothes, as if she was indeed the daughter of old Li.

  Suddenly she informed Shuxiang, “It used to be that father had two gold ingots, but then he gave me one of them for my dowry. I didn’t want to lose it, so rather than hiding it someplace, I placed it in a silk bag at my waist, but I haven’t had it since we left, so have you found it anywhere?” Shuxiang hadn’t seen it, so he asked Feng to go back and search the gravesite, where he did find a purse of precisely the description that Weiniang had given them. Shuxiang took the purse containing the gold ingot and returned it to Weiniang. Then, when they were at leisure later, Shuxiang asked her about her family background.

  It all began with her father, Xue Yinhou, who had no sons—just Weiniang, on whom he doted. One day, she was returning from her uncle’s home in Jinling when she went with an old woman to ask about obtaining ferry passage. It turned out that the boat pilot was a matchmaker from Jinling. There happened to be a particular official whose term of office had expired and who was returning to the capital, so he sent the matchmaker out to find him a beautiful concubine, but even after going through several households, the matchmaker hadn’t found anyone suitable, so he was taking this small boat so he could visit Guangling.