Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 5

by Pu Songling

  In moments, they came to a government office, and when they climbed down from the carriage and entered its imposing gate, Xijiu’s mother was there. The son’s heartache was so great that he wanted to kill himself, but his father stopped him. Xijiu sobbed, resigned to his fate. He saw his wife by his mother’s side, and asked his mother, “Since my wife is here, isn’t she also one of the dead?”

  “No,” replied his mother, “she’s here because your father arranged for her to come and wait for you, so then she could accompany you when you returned home.”

  “But mother, I want to stay and take care of you and father, rather than return home,” he insisted.

  “You’ve endured hardships and an arduous journey to arrive here, looking for your father’s bones,” she told him. “If you don’t go home, what will become of the ambitions you’ve had for your future? The proof that you’re a filial son has already reached the emperor of heaven, who intends to bestow you with a vast sum of money for you and your wife to enjoy in long life together, so why say that you won’t go home?” Xijiu continued to weep as he stood there.

  His father urged him many times to go, but Xijiu just cried himself hoarse. Finally his father became upset with him and exclaimed, “I won’t permit you to stay!” Not wishing to anger his father, Xijiu obeyed him, first asking him where his body was buried. His father drew him close and said, “Since you’re going now, I’ll tell you: walk about a hundred paces from the overgrown graveyard, where you’ll find two white elm trees, one small and one large, and that’s the place.”

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  Taihang: A mountain in Hebei province.

  Then he pulled Xijiu along with such urgency that the son didn’t even have time to say farewell to his mother. Outside the gate, there was a strong-looking servant holding horses for both of them. Once Xijiu was ready to ride, his father advised him, “In the temple where you were staying before, there’ll be a little money for your traveling expenses, so you can hurry home quickly and then go see your in-laws to demand your wife; don’t stop beseeching them until they restore her to you.” Xijiu pledged to do so and left.

  The horses were matchlessly fast, and at cock’s crow they arrived in Xi’an. The servant helped him dismount, and when Xijiu turned around, intending to have the servant convey his loving respect to his parents, the man had already vanished.

  Xijiu went to the site of the rustic temple where he’d stayed earlier, waiting for sunrise so he could start his search, then dozed off while leaning back against a wall. There was a stone the size of a fist under one of his legs; when the first rays of sunlight appeared, he took a look at it and discovered it to be pure silver.

  He bought a coffin and hired a carriage, then looked until he found the pair of elm trees, recovered his father’s body, and returned home. He buried his father in the same grave where he’d interred his mother, with family members and students of his father surrounding it. Fortunately, the people in the village sympathized with him due to his filial loyalty, and offered him meals.

  Just as Xijiu was about to go and demand his wife, he realized that he couldn’t simply seize her by force, so he took his cousin Chen Shijiu with him when he went. As they approached the Zhou family gate, it was shut, barring their entrance. Shijiu, a habitual troublemaker, started shouting obscenities. Zhou sent someone out to persuade Xijiu to go home, vowing to have his daughter delivered to him, so Xijiu went home.

  Originally, when Zhou had gone to take his daughter away with him, cursing Chen Xijiu in front of his mother, the daughter had said nothing, and simply faced the wall in tears. When Xijiu’s mother died, she wasn’t informed. Once Zhou had received the divorce document from Chen Xijiu, he threw it down in front of his daughter and said, “The Chen family has tossed you out!”

  “I’ve never been overbearing or disobedient, so why would he have done this?” she replied. She wanted to return to Xijiu, to discover his reasons, but her father wouldn’t let her leave. After that, Xijiu had gone to Xi’an, so Zhou reported to her that he had died to crush her hopes of being reunited with him.

  This news circulated till a fellow named Du Zhonghan arrived to discuss marriage to Zhou’s daughter, and Zhou indeed betrothed her to him. She didn’t learn of this until the day of her marriage approached, and hence she began crying, wouldn’t eat, covered her face and could barely breathe.

  Just as Zhou was on the point of giving up, he suddenly heard someone say that Xijiu had arrived and was brusquely demanding his wife, so figuring that his daughter was dying anyway, he had her conveyed to Xijiu’s home, intending to wait for her death and then to pour out his anger on Xijiu. When Xijiu returned home, he found that his wife had already arrived, accompanied by her father; but Zhou had been afraid—given how sickly his daughter appeared—that Chen Xijiu wouldn’t take her in, so he set her just inside Xijiu’s gate and then left, abandoning her.

  Xijiu’s neighbors were so worried about her health that they all suggested she should be returned to her father; Xijiu wouldn’t hear of it, but by the time he was able to help her into bed, she’d stopped breathing. He was genuinely terrified.

  Just then, Zhou’s son led several men holding weapons as they forced their way in, destroying doors and windows. They looked everywhere for Xijiu, who’d already hidden himself by then. Other villagers viewed the outrage as entirely unjust; Chen Shijiu quickly gathered a dozen or so people to respond to the crisis, with the result that Zhou’s son and all of his men were wounded and ran away like fleeing rats.

  Zhou became even more furious, presenting a suit against the Chens to the magistrate, to have Xijiu and Shijiu arrested. Just as they were about to run away, Xijiu conveyed his wife’s body to an old neighbor lady, asking her to watch over it.

  Suddenly he heard the sound of breathing from the bed where she was lying, and upon bending close to examine her, he noticed the slightest bit of movement; in moments, she was already able to turn on her side. Overjoyed, Xijiu went to see the magistrate and explained his side of the matter. The magistrate was outraged at Zhou for having made false accusations against Xijiu. A frightened Zhou then paid out a heavy bribe in response, to escape punishment.

  When Xijiu returned home, he and his wife, reunited in tears and joy, shared their stories of what had happened to each of them. His wife explained that back when she took to her bed, refusing to eat, she swore to herself that she was definitely going to die. Suddenly someone grabbed her arm and said, “I’m from the Chen family, and you must quickly come with me, so you can see your husband; otherwise, it’ll be too late!”

  Without knowing how she came to be there, she found herself already outside the gate of her home, where two men helped her climb into a sedan chair. Instantly, they arrived at a government office, where she saw her in-laws, Chen Ziyan and his wife, and she asked them, “What place is this?”

  “Don’t ask,” her mother-in-law explained, “and then you’ll be allowed to return home.”

  One day, she saw Xijiu coming and was overjoyed. But after this single appearance, he vanished almost immediately, which she found exceedingly strange.

  Although she didn’t know why, Chen Ziyan had been gone for several days without returning. The previous evening, he’d suddenly returned and declared, “I was at Mt. Wuyi, and it took me two days to get home, but I managed to defend our son. Now you can hurry home to be with him.” Then they saw Xijiu’s wife off in a carriage.

  When she suddenly arrived at the Chen family gate, it was as though she’d just awakened from a dream. Thus she told Xijiu everything that had happened, and they were pleasantly surprised by each other’s stories. Following this, the couple lived together, though they weren’t always able to guarantee that they had enough to eat.

  Xijiu set up a little school where he could teach children in the village while simultaneously pursuing his own studies diligently, regularly telling himself, “Father said that heaven would favor me with gold, but our family’s house is empt
y now, so is it through teaching children to read that I can gain fame and fortune?”

  One day, returning home from school, he ran into a pair of men who asked him, “Is your name Chen Xijiu?”

  “It is,” he replied.

  The men then took out iron chains and bound him with them. Xijiu didn’t understand why they were doing this. After a little while, villagers began gathering, asking what was going on, and were told that Xijiu had been apprehended as a member of a gang of robbers. The crowd insisted that the accusation was false and collected money to give the men, to guarantee that no harm would come to Xijiu while they were traveling.

  When they arrived at the prefectural office, Xijiu narrated a comprehensive history of his family. The prefect was astounded, and exclaimed, “He comes from a family of literary scholars, he’s polite, gentle, and refined, so he can’t possibly be a robber!” He ordered the chains removed from Xijiu, then had some robbers in wooden shackles brought out, and they confessed that Zhou had bribed them into accusing Chen Xijiu. Xijiu then described the point of contention between him and his father-in-law, incensing the prefect, who proceeded to order Zhou’s immediate arrest.

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  Mt. Wuyi: Located in Fujian province’s Chongan county.

  He invited Xijiu to come to his private office, where they discussed their families, revealing that the prefect was the son of Han, the former magistrate of Pi prefecture, and when he was a boy, he’d been a student of Chen Ziyan. He made a gift of a hundred taels to Xijiu, to cover the expenses associated with keeping lights burning while he studied; he also gave him a pair of mules to ride instead of having to walk, so he could get back quickly to the prefectural office, and then go assess his students’ progress.

  The prefect then made a point of praising Xijiu’s filial piety to every high official he ran into, describing how he’d mourned his parents even beyond three years, so the other officials all offered him presents, too. Xijiu rode the mules home, where he and his wife took great comfort from each other’s company.

  One day, his wife’s mother arrived in tears, and when she saw her daughter, she abjectly prostrated herself before her, refusing to get up. Her astonished daughter asked her what was wrong, and learned that Zhou had been put in prison. Xijiu’s wife wailed in misery that it was all her fault and that she felt like she wanted to die. Xijiu had no choice but to visit the prefectural office to intercede for his father-in-law.

  The prefect released Zhou and ordered him to pay a fine of a hundred dan of grain to his filial son-in-law, Chen Xijiu. Once Zhou had returned home, he took millet from a storehouse, mixed chaff in with it, and then had it carried to the Chen home. Xijiu told his wife, “Your father holds me in contempt, but considers himself a man of noble character. What makes him think that I’ll even accept it, particularly when he’s so petty as to mix chaff in with the grain?” With a smile, then, he sent it all back.

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  Three years: The period of time specified in the Confucian canon as the mourning period a child owes a parent, since the child was totally dependent on parental care and protection during the first three years of life.

  Dan: A unit of weight equal to fifty kilograms.

  Even though Xijiu’s family members were a bit better off than they’d been before, the walls surrounding their home were in bad shape. One night, a gang of bandits broke in. By the time the servants became aware of their presence and began yelling for help, they’d already stolen the two mules and made their escape.

  Six months later, Xijiu was reading one night when he heard the sound of a knocking at the gate, and when he asked who it was, there was nothing but silence. He called for his servants to get up and take a look, and when they opened the gate, two mules came scrambling inside—the ones that had been stolen earlier. The mules rushed straight to the water trough, panting and sweating heavily.

  Upon bringing candles over to investigate, they discovered that each of the mules had a leather bag over its back; when they opened them up and looked inside, they found them filled with silver coins. It was completely inexplicable, and they had no idea from whence the mules had come.

  Afterwards, they heard that a large gang of bandits had robbed the Zhou estate that night, filling bags that they found there, but when armed guards came running in pursuit, they fled, abandoning the bags which they’d tied to the mules. The mules knew how to find their master, so they hurried along the road till they reached his home. Though Zhou had returned home from his imprisonment, the wounds he’d sustained during torture had continued to afflict him; then after he suffered the bandits’ invasion, he fell ill and died.

  That same night, his daughter dreamed that her father appeared to her as a prisoner, and told her, “Although it’s too late, I regret the way I behaved when I was alive. Since I’m headed for punishment in the underworld, and only your father-in-law can free me, I implore you to beg my son-in-law to write him a letter on my behalf.” Then she awoke, wailing and weeping.

  Xijiu asked her what was wrong, and she described everything from the dream. Since Xijiu had been wanting to visit Taihang for a long time, he left that very day. When he arrived, he prepared some sacrifices, ceremonially poured libations of wine on the ground, and began invoking blessings, spending the night under the stars in hopes of seeing his parents, but nothing unusual appeared that night, so then he returned home.

  After Zhou died, his wife and son became destitute and had to depend on the generosity of their second son-in-law, Wang. Though Xiaolian Wang passed the provincial level civil service examination and was named a county magistrate, he was later dismissed for accepting bribes; since his whole family had moved to Shenyang, they couldn’t afford to go home. Xijiu at that time took pity on them all and helped them out.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “No good deed is greater than that of filial piety, and the spirits all acknowledge the same principle that we understand. We respect people who are virtuous and take things philosophically, and if they end up in poverty, it’s only a matter of time before they rise again, for when we talk about them later, aren’t they bound to be prospering? Maybe a man marries his gentle daughter to an old man, so he can proudly say, ‘That wealthy official is my son-in-law.’ Alas! The daughter is still young and pretty, but the fine, rich son-in-law soon dies; her misery at being a widow would be sad enough—but can you imagine also suffering the punishment of being too poor to return home?”

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  Shenyang: Located in Liaoning province.

  338. Shao from Linzi

  In Linzi, the daughter of a man named Weng was married to Li, a scholar employed at the Imperial Academy. Before they were married, there was a practitioner of occult arts who read her future and determined that she was definitely going to be punished by officials. Weng was angered at first by this, but afterwards laughed and exclaimed, “What utter nonsense! The daughter of an influential family certainly isn’t going to be brought before a court of law, and besides, how could a scholar of the Imperial Academy prove unable to protect her?”

  After the daughter and Li were married, she proved extremely overbearing, often beating and cursing her husband. When Li could no longer bear her cruelty, he indignantly complained to the officials. County Magistrate Shao pondered his words, then sent officers with a warrant for her immediate apprehension.

  Weng, completely shocked by this news, led his sons and brothers to the court hall, where he implored the magistrate to drop the matter. Shao absolutely refused. Li also regretted his initial action, and begged for the prosecution to stop.

  Magistrate Shao angrily replied, “Who are you to file charges in my court and then demand they be forgotten? She’ll definitely be put on trial!” After proceeding, and asking one or two things of her, the magistrate concluded, “She’s truly a shrew!” Then she was given thirty lashes, which flayed the flesh from off her back.

  The coll
ector of these strange tales remarks, “Did Shao have some kind of particular grievance against women? Why else would his anger prove so cruel! If magistrates were all as effective as this one, there’d be no shrews in our villages. Remember this, for it will make up for the biographical records about officials of inferior quality.”

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  Linzi: A county located in Shandong province.

  339. Yu Qu’e

  Tao Shengyu, a well-known scholar, was from Beiping. During Shunzhi’s reign, he’d gone to take the provincial level civil service examination which was offered triennially, and while away from home was living just outside the capital. It happened that as he stepped outside one day, he observed a man carrying a wicker case, looking around anxiously, as though searching unsuccessfully for a place to stay.

  Tao asked him about himself, and as the stranger set his case on the roadside, they engaged in pleasurable open discussion which revealed him to be an extremely talented literary scholar. Tao was extremely impressed and invited him to share a room with him. Pleased, the traveler brought his bags into Tao’s room and settled in there. “I’m from Shuntian,” the traveler told him, “and my name is Yu Qu’e.” Since he was younger than Tao, he deferentially responded to Tao as to an elder brother.

  Yu didn’t care much for sightseeing, so he often sat around by himself in their room, yet there were no books on his table. Unless Tao was speaking with him, he’d just lay there quietly, doing nothing. Tao found this curious, so he searched Yu’s bags and wicker case, finding a writing brush and an inkstone, but no other possessions.