by Pu Songling
10,000 in cash: Qian signifies copper coins, or the equivalent of 1/10 tael.
Jinshi: A successful candidate in the highest level of the imperial civil service examination, administered in the capital.
One of his servants remarked, “Did you forget? You’ve completed all three levels.”
Wang was overjoyed, so he got up and shouted to himself, “You’ve been awarded 10,000 in cash!” His servants accordingly went along with him just as they had before.
In a few moments, a man rushed in and informed him, “You’ve been invited to take the examination in the imperial capital, where we’re the servants of Chang Ban.” As he declared this, Wang saw two men bow respectfully before his bed, neatly and cleanly dressed. Wang called for wine and food to be served to them, and his servants pretended to go along with him, crediting it all to his intoxication.
After quite a while, Wang thought to himself that he mustn’t fail to impress his fellow villagers, so he loudly called for Chang Ban; altogether, he shouted dozens of times, without receiving a response.
His servants laughed and assured him, “If you’ll just lie down to wait, we’ll go look for him.”
Then after a long time, Chang Ban himself arrived. Wang pounded his bed with his fists and kicked with his feet, abusively yelling, “You blockhead, you were supposed to have been here!”
“You’re mistaken, you great scoundrel!” Chang Ban angrily replied. “I thought you were just kidding around before, but are you really insulting me?” Furious, Wang jumped up and rushed at him, knocking off his cap. He also proceeded to stumble and fall.
Wang’s wife came in, helped him up and exclaimed, “What has your drunkenness gotten you into!”
“Chang Ban showed no respect for me,” Wang sputtered, “so I punished him—what’s that got to do with drinking?”
His wife laughed, and replied, “In this household, you have an old woman who cooks your meals during the day and warms your feet at night. Where is this Chang Ban, to wait on you, since you’re poor?” Their children all laughed at him.
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All three levels: Before being able to take the national level examination, a candidate would have had to pass examinations at the local, county, and provincial levels.
Wang was still tipsy and a bit disoriented when suddenly it was as though he’d awakened from a dream and he began to realize the ridiculousness of everything that had happened previously. However, he still remembered that Chang Ban’s cap had fallen off; and when his searching brought him to his back door, he discovered a cup-shaped, tasseled cap, which he found altogether suspicious.
He laughed to himself, “In the past, people have been mocked by ghosts, and now I’ve been ridiculed by a fox.”
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “A xiucai entered an examination hall where there were seven others like himself. When he’d first gone in, barefooted, he’d carried in a basket, looking like some kind of beggar. When the roll was called, the examination official scornfully shouted at him, as though the xiucai was some kind of convict. Upon entering the examination hall, he was very, very ingratiating, walking into a room with no door and only a board set up as a table, so his head and legs were exposed to drafts that chilled him like the last days of autumn.
“When he came out of the examination hall, he was wearing a discouraged expression, his countenance strangely affected, looking like a sickly bird that’d been released from its cage. As he watched from a distance, waiting for the announcement of successful candidates, he appeared depressed and nervous, vainly hoping for a miracle.
“As he daydreamed, he imagined succeeding and in seconds he was on top of the world; but then he imagined failing, and in a flash it was like his bones had turned decrepit. From that instant, he couldn’t relax again, either by pacing or sitting, like a skittish monkey.
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Xiucai: A scholar who’s passed the imperial civil service examination at the county level.
“Suddenly a messenger arrived with happy tidings for others (the good news wasn’t for him), so right then his expression abruptly changed, and he felt so depressed that he might as well have been dead—he was like a fly taking poisoned bait, someone was toying with him, but he was unaware of their intentions. Initially, he felt so disheartened that he blamed the judge examiner for being blind and closed-minded, then he picked up his exam from the tabletop and tried his best to burn all the pages; yet he wasn’t satisfied with just burning them, so he tore them to pieces and stomped on them; but stomping them wasn’t enough for him either, so he proceeded to toss them into some muddy water.
“Following this, the xiucai let his hair become disheveled and went into seclusion in the mountains to meditate on the commonly used formulae of the eight-part examination essay, settling in with his spear in hand, ready to protect himself from any attackers. Before long, the sun began to set, his breathing became relaxed, and he gradually began contemplating, developing the desire to have a shot at taking the exam again; like a dove whose egg has broken gathers sticks and twigs in its mouth to rebuild another nest and hatch new eggs, the situation made the xiucai feel too grief-stricken to die, while onlookers merely laughed at him.
“In his mind, Wang Zi’an considered the matter a thousand times, and I think that ghosts and foxes must have been silently having a laugh at his expense, taking advantage of his drunkenness to play tricks on him. When his wife was awakened, how could she help but laugh at him? Consider the feeling one has when experiencing the joys of succeeding in the examination, even if only briefly; the examination judges have certainly reveled in such joys a few times. Wang Zi’an enjoyed them, too, on a particular day, thanks to the effect of the foxes and the imperial examiners.”
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Good news wasn’t for him: Pu explicitly shifts for a single moment in his commentary here to the first person pronoun wo, “I/we”—suggesting the degree to which he may be identifying with the disappointments of the unnamed xiucai, for he, too, had succeeded as far as the county level of the civil service examination before facing frustrations in subsequent attempts; see volume one (xv-xvi), and volume four (xiii-xvii).
370. A Man Named Diao
There was a man named Diao who didn’t have any practical vocation, so he often traveled around, offering his skills at physiognomy for sale—though in truth, he didn’t know any physiognomy—and after several months he’d return home, his bags filled with money and silks. Everyone thought this very odd.
A number of the local people were meeting together with some visitors, when in the distance they saw a man just inside the tall village gates, dressed in a Daoist’s scarf, chatting loquaciously to a crowd of women surrounding him. They drew closer to take a look and it proved to be Diao. Consequently, they couldn’t help but stare at him, wondering what he was up to.
The crowd watched as someone asked him, “In the group here, there happens to be a high official’s wife among us—can you pick out which one she is?” There was indeed a high official’s wife, dressed to disguise her social standing, in the crowd of women there to test his talent for physiognomy.
The locals were all ready for Diao to embarrass himself.
Diao unhurriedly looked up into the sky, then began wagging a finger as he declared, “This is not difficult at all. To verify which lady is the official’s wife, she’ll be the one with the thin clouds floating all around her.”
Without thinking, everyone began looking all around them for a person with clouds around her. Diao then pointed at one of the women and declared, “This is truly the official’s wife!” The crowd was astonished by this godlike demonstration.
As the villagers returned home, they discussed his clever technique of fishing for information. Then they realized that even if he did have a bit of Daoist knowledge, he was also surpassingly clever; so that’s how he was able to pull the wool over people’s eyes, tricking them for
profit, and hence he didn’t need to work to make money!
371. The Farmer’s Wife
In the western village of Ciyaowu, there was a farmer’s wife, as strong and brave as a man, who always aided her fellow villagers in overcoming problems and resolving disputes. Her husband was from a different county, and lived there. His family was from Gaoyuan, about a hundred li distant; whenever it happened that he did visit her, he’d only stay for two nights and then leave.
The wife made her own trips to Yanshan, where she sold pottery for a living. Whenever she made a profit, she gave some of the money to beggars.
One evening, she was chatting with a neighbor when suddenly she got up and remarked, “I have a little pain in my stomach, perhaps karmic punishment for something done in a past life—there’s something I need to purge from my body.” Then she left.
At daybreak, the neighbor went to see how she was doing and saw the wife carrying two enormous jugs over her shoulders, the kind used for fermenting wine, just entering her gate. The neighbor followed her into her house, where she discovered a newborn baby lying there. Amazed, she asked the wife about it and learned that after giving birth to the child, the wife had just finished carrying the heavy jugs a hundred li.
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Ciyaowu: Located in southwest Zichuan county, in Shandong province.
Gaoyuan: Part of modern Shandong province’s Gaoqing county.
Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
Yanshan: This Shandong mountain, variously known as Yishenshan, Shentoushan, and even Fenghuangshan, is about sixty miles southeast of Yidu county, and about a mile southeast of Boshan county (Zhu 3:1240-1n5).
It happened that there was a convent in the north, and the wife had been such close friends with a Buddhist nun there that they considered themselves like sisters. But after the wife heard that the nun had been involved in some immoral behavior, she angrily grabbed a stick and was going to give her a furious beating till a group of bystanders earnestly pleaded with her to stop.
One day, when she ran into the nun on the road, she abruptly slapped her. “What did I do?” asked the nun. But the wife gave her no reply. With her stone-like fists, she delivered such a beating that the nun didn’t even have the strength left to cry out, then the wife released her and left.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “There was a time when such a woman was called a ‘mannish woman,’ someone who knew she wasn’t a man, but this farmer’s wife forgot that she was even a woman. Her bold and forthright action made her seem no different than one of the mighty warriors of ancient times—so doesn’t it make you wonder what her husband was like?”
372. Yi from Jinling
There was a certain wineseller named Yi, from Jinling, who diluted every batch he made and also added some dangerous herbs to the wine; yet anyone who drank any amount of it, even if no more than a few small cups, would become completely besotted. Hence it was given the name “Zhongshan Wine,” and Yi became wealthy from selling it.
The wineseller got up early one morning and found a fox lying drunk beside a wine trough; he tied up the fox’s legs, then just as he was about to look for a knife, the fox regained consciousness and dolefully declared, “If only you won’t harm me, you can ask me to grant you a wish.” Then as soon as the wineseller released the fox, it turned into a person.
At that time, there was a family living in the wine-seller’s lane named Sun, the wife of whom was a fox, so the wineseller asked the fox about it. “That’s me, alright,” it replied.
Yi had spied Mrs. Sun’s younger sister-in-law, and noted that she was especially beautiful, so he asked the fox to bring her to him. The fox remarked that this would be difficult to accomplish. Yi adamantly reiterated his wish.
The fox then invited the wineseller to its den, to pick up some special clothing to give him, explaining, “My late elder brother bequeathed it to me, and when you put it on, you can go to the Suns’ home.”
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Jinling: Ancient name for Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu province.
Zhongshan: A mountain, located east of Nanjing, also known as the Purple Mountain.
Afterwards, Yi donned the clothing and returned home, where his family members were unable to see him; but if he took it off, he became visible again. Greatly pleased, the wineseller went with the fox to pay a visit to the Sun family’s house.
They saw a large talisman pasted up on the Suns’ wall, with characters written on it in undulating strokes that looked like wriggling dragons, and the fox cried in terror, “That was written by some fearsome Buddhist monk, so I can’t go in there!” Then it left.
While Yi was keeping his distance rather than approaching, a real dragon coiled itself upon the wall, stretching its head aloft like it wanted to fly off. The wineseller found himself quite frightened and hastened away. It happened that Sun had located a foreign monk, a powerful exorcist, who’d given him the talisman and sent Sun home ahead of him, though the monk still hadn’t yet arrived.
The next day, the monk arrived and set up a jug, ready to begin practicing his magic. When the neighbors began gathering to watch, Yi was also mixed in among them. Suddenly he turned pale and began running away, like someone who was afraid of being arrested; once he was outside the Sun family gates, he fell to the ground and turned into the fox, though still dressed in human clothing.
The monk was right on the verge of killing the creature. Sun’s wife kowtowed and begged for him to be merciful. The monk then instructed them to have the fox taken away and given food and drink each day, until a few months later, the fox died.
373. Guo An
Sun Wuli had a boy servant who slept alone in his own room and who was afraid that someone might try to come and take his life. As the boy came upon a palace by chance one day, he noticed that the Hell King was there, and upon spotting the boy, the Hell King remarked, “There must be some mistake—you’re not supposed to be here.” Accordingly, he sent the boy back home to Sun’s house.
After the boy servant returned home, he was very scared, so he decided to shift location and sleep somewhere else; another servant, named Guo An, found the boy’s bed vacant, so he decided to sleep there. Later, a servant named Li Lu, who had an old grudge against the boy and had been waiting a long time for a chance to harm him, grabbed a knife, entered during the night, then mistook Guo An for the boy and stabbed him, killing Guo An.
Guo An’s father yelled for the authorities. At that time, Chen Qishan was the county magistrate and he didn’t order Li Lu to be beaten very severely. Guo An’s father wailed, “For half a lifetime, I’ve provided for my son, but now who’s going to provide for me!” Chen ruled that Guo’s father should adopt Li Lu as his son. The elder Guo cried out his grievance once again, then left.
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Sun Wuli: Sun Pei, who changed his name to Sun Poling, took the courtesy name of Wuli. His elder brother, Sun Yanling, was from Pu Songling’s home county, Zichuan, in Shandong province. Sun Wuli passed the highest level of the imperial civil service examination in 1650 (Zhu 3:1244n1).
Chen Qishan: From the area east of the Liao River, Chen had received special recommendations to the imperial court while still a young scholar, and in 1651, was appointed country magistrate for Zichuan (Zhu 3:1244n5).
It wasn’t all that strange for the boy servant to have seen a spirit from the underworld—what was really strange was Chen’s verdict in the matter.
In Jinan prefecture, in a certain western county, a man was murdered, hence his wife filed a legal complaint. The deed infuriated the district magistrate, so when the man responsible for the murder was arrested and brought before him, the magistrate angrily struck the table in front of him and cried, “This couple was perfectly happy, then you make a widow of the wife! Now you’re going to become her husband and make your own wife a widow.” He announced his verdict accordingly.
Both of these “wise” decisions we
re made by individuals who’d passed the third level of the imperial civil service examinations—so they couldn’t possibly be in error. And though Chen was only a so-so official, he certainly had no shortage of talent!
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Jinan prefecture: Now part of Jinan, the capital of Shandong province.
No shortage of talent: Pu’s sarcasm here alludes to the official recognitions of Chen’s talent, noted above.
374. Solving the Cases
In our local Xiya village, there was a certain fellow named Jia who was murdered while he was out on the road; the next night, his wife also died, by hanging herself. Jia’s younger brother made a formal complaint to the authorities. At the time, Master Fei Yizhi, from Zhejiang, was serving as county magistrate in Zichuan, so he traveled to the scene of the murder to investigate the matter.
He found more than five silver taels wrapped in cloth still there, such as Jia would have carried at his waist, so Master Fei knew that he hadn’t been killed for his money. He rounded up a couple of Jia’s village neighbors and subjected them to questioning, turning up very little by way of clues, and rather than having them beaten, he told them he was sending them back to their farming work; however, he ordered the local head man to have them carefully watched and to report back to him every ten days.
Six months passed, and over time, less and less was done about the case. Jia’s brother blamed Fei for having gone soft on his vigilance, so he repeatedly went to his office and raised a ruckus. The magistrate angrily replied, “Since you can’t name his assailant, you want me to torture innocent people instead!” He called for the man to be expelled from his office.
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Zichuan: Pu Songling’s home county, in Shandong province.
Jia’s brother had no other recourse, so he resentfully proceeded with the burial of his brother and sister-in-law.