by Pu Songling
One day, several people were arrested for failure to pay their taxes. Among them was a man named Zhou Cheng, who, afraid of facing punishment, immediately offered to pay his taxes, explaining that he’d been able to set enough aside to do so, and drew from his waist some silver wrapped in cloth. When Magistrate Fei examined it, he asked, “Where do you live?”
“In a village near here,” replied Zhou.
“About how far is it from Xiya?” inquired the magistrate.
“Five or six li,” he answered.
“What dealings have you had with a man named Jia, who was killed last year?”
“I didn’t know the man,” said Zhou.
Magistrate Fei suddenly exploded, “You murdered him, yet you claim you don’t know him!” Zhou insisted that he wasn’t involved, but the magistrate refused to hear him; Fei sternly ordered him to be tortured, and as a consequence, Zhou confessed to the crime.
Back at the time of the murder, Jia’s wife, whose surname was Wang, was about to pay a visit to her parents and her in-laws, but felt embarrassed that she had no jewelry, so she made an uproar about it with her husband, pleading with him to borrow some from their neighbor. Jia, however, wouldn’t do it; hence Wang had to go herself to see about borrowing something and consequently was loaned some very valuable jewels.
As she was returning home, she wrapped the jewelry up in a piece of cloth and stowed it inside her sleeve; once she arrived, however, she discovered that the jewelry was gone. She didn’t dare tell her husband, and with no means of repaying the neighbors for them, she felt so upset that she wanted to die.
That same day, Zhou had happened to pick up the bundle containing the jewelry, and when he discovered that Wang had lost them, he went to spy whether Jia was out, then at midnight climbed over the wall surrounding their house, intending to use the jewels to coerce Wang into having sex with him. Because the weather was sweltering at the time, Wang had been sleeping out in the courtyard, so Zhou stealthily moved closer, then attempted to force himself on her. Wang felt him and screamed.
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Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
Zhou quickly stopped her yelling by revealing the bundle containing the jewelry. Forced to give in to him, Wang afterwards advised him, “Don’t return after this, for my husband has an ugly temper and if he finds out, it’ll be the death of both of us!”
Zhou angrily replied, “I could visit a brothel for several nights with the money these would bring, so do you think one time is enough to repay me?”
Wang consoled him by declaring, “It’s not that I mean I don’t want us to be together, but he often falls ill, so it’d be better not to push it and just wait for him to die.”
At that point, Zhou left, proceeded to murder Jia, and then returned that night, pointing his finger at Wang: “Now that I’ve already taken care of killing your husband, I’ll expect you to do as you said.” When Wang heard this, she began crying loudly, so Zhou lost his nerve and ran away; then at daybreak, Wang hanged herself.
Once Magistrate Fei had unearthed all these facts of the case, he sentenced Zhou to death. Everyone admired the magistrate’s insights as godlike, but they didn’t understand how he could have concluded his investigation as he did. “Such cases aren’t difficult to work out,” replied the magistrate, “for the important thing is to take careful notice of everything. Originally, when I examined the corpse just after the murder, I saw the cloth wrapped around Jia’s taels and noticed that it had an inscription embroidered on it that matched one on the cloth Zhou had wrapped around money he was carrying. When I inquired whether he knew Jia, he replied that he’d never met him, and since his words and reactions seemed duplicitous, I knew for sure that he truly was the culprit behind the murder.”
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “In our modern age, a judge mustn’t be careless with criminal cases, or simply torture prisoners. There are magistrates who quickly rationalize—while listening to the vicious sound of beatings falling on flesh—‘I’m just worried about resolving the people’s business.’ When the end of the day’s court session is signaled, such magistrates leave hastily, angrily cursing the difficult cases without giving them further thought; then they wait for the court to open again the next day so they can depend once more on beating innocent people to solve their cases. Alas! What can be done to help these people! I always say, ‘A sage may not always be compassionate, but a compassionate person is always wise; an individual who thinks carefully will uncover the clues in the case.’ ‘Following through with due care’ are words that teach us all how the officials everywhere should serve the interests of the people.”
In our town, there were two men, Hu Cheng and Feng An, who lived in the same neighborhood, but their relationship had always been a tenuous one. Hu’s father was a man of influential power, so Feng was compelled to maintain cordial relations with him, though Hu didn’t suspect that his response wasn’t sincere.
As they were drinking together one day, they got a bit drunk and in no time at all, they became quite uninhibited. In a loud voice, Hu said, “Don’t fret about being poor—a hundred taels is no problem to get.” Feng knew that Hu’s family wasn’t rich, so he just laughed dismissively at the comment.
Then Hu’s face turned serious as he confided, “I’ll tell you something, just between us: yesterday on the road, I met a wealthy merchant who was transporting valuable merchandise, so I threw him into an empty well in the mountains south of here.” Feng merely laughed at his claim.
At that time, Hu had a brother-in-law named Zheng Lun, who’d spoken to Hu about purchasing some real estate for him, so he’d entrusted several hundred taels to Hu for that purpose, and it was Zheng’s money that Hu took out to show off to Feng. Feng then began to believe Hu’s story.
After they parted, Feng secretly wrote out a complaint and reported the matter to the authorities. Magistrate Fei had Hu arrested while verifying his claims involving his brother-in-law and discovered that Hu had told him the truth when he asked the owners of the land in question, for they all testified that there was no mistake about the intended purchase.
Taking Hu with him, then, the magistrate went to investigate all of the empty wells in the area. When a servant was lowered on a rope into one of them, he found a headless corpse there. Hu was astonished, unable to offer any defense, and claimed that he’d been framed. Furious, Magistrate Fei repeatedly punched him in the mouth, crying, “The evidence has revealed the truth, yet you still protest your innocence!” Hu was then punished with a sentence of imprisonment for life.
They decided to keep the corpse from being brought out of the well until daybreak, when they would show it to all of the local villagers, inviting them to present a claim if they recognized the corpse. The next day, there was a woman who brought a claim, asserting that she was the wife of the deceased, explaining, “My husband, He Jia, took several hundred taels with him to make a business transaction, so this Hu must’ve killed him.”
“There is a dead man in the well,” the magistrate replied, “but I’m afraid there’s no guarantee that he’s your husband.” The woman argued quite insistently that she was sure of it. Magistrate Fei ordered them to bring the corpse up out of the well for her to examine it, since they couldn’t be certain otherwise. The woman, however, couldn’t bring herself to approach the body, and just stood back, wailing. “The offender has already been taken into custody,” the magistrate informed her, “but the body isn’t all here. You should go home for now, to wait until we’ve located the dead man’s head, then the man responsible will be summoned before the court to make account of his actions.”
Next he called for Hu to be released from his imprisonment and warned him, “If you don’t bring me the head by tomorrow, I’m going to have your legs broken!” He left with an escort, then returned after a day, and when he was asked about the head, he did nothing but howl and sob. Thus the magistrate had the instruments of torture made ready, but stoppe
d short of actually having Hu tortured, commenting, “Perhaps while you were so extremely occupied with carrying the body, the head fell off somewhere unbeknownst to you, so why can’t you locate it if you search carefully?”
Hu dolefully implored the magistrate to allow him more time to look for it. Magistrate Fei then asked the victim’s wife, “How many children do you have?”
“None,” she replied.
“What relatives did He Jia have?” he inquired.
“Only one of his father’s male cousins.”
“To be deprived of your husband while still so young,” the magistrate said with deep feeling, “left all alone like this, how’re you going to live!” The woman then began weeping, kowtowing and begging for compensation. The magistrate declared, “That a man has been killed has already been established, and when we have the entire body, this case can be closed; after it’s been settled, you should remarry as quickly as possible. And since you’re a young woman, you should avoid being seen in public places with men.” The woman, moved to tears, kowtowed and departed.
Magistrate Fei had an announcement circulated among the villagers that called upon them to search for the head. The following day, a man from He Jia’s village, named Wang Wu, reported that he’d located the head. Asking to examine it, the magistrate was convinced that it was indeed He’s head, so he rewarded Wang with a thousand strings of cash.
He called for He Jia’s uncle, and told him, “This case is nearing closure; however, since a life is at stake, it may take quite some time before it can be successfully resolved. Your nephew had no children, so his young widow will find it difficult to survive, hence you should let her remarry early. From this point, there’s nothing more for you to do but let those in power continue investigating and discussing while you wait until you’re summoned to hear their findings.”
He Jia’s uncle wasn’t willing to agree to the young woman’s remarriage, so the magistrate had him beaten a few times; when he refused again to agree to it, he received more beatings. He’s uncle was afraid of more punishment, so he finally agreed and was allowed to leave. When the wife heard, she expressed her gratitude for the favor the magistrate had shown her. Magistrate Fei then comforted and advised her.” If anyone wishes to purchase this woman,” he subsequently announced, “let him now issue a document of formal intent.”
Following his announcement, a marriage request was delivered from the man who’d found He Jia’s head, Wang Wu. The magistrate then called for the woman, and asked her, “Do you know who murdered your husband?”
“Hu Cheng,” she replied.
“No, not him,” the magistrate declared. “You and Wang Wu are the real murderers.” The two were mightily shocked by this, adamantly insisting they’d been wrongly accused. “I’ve known the truth for a long time now,” explained Magistrate Fei, “but delayed exposing the truth, fearing that someone might be wrongfully implicated. The body hadn’t yet been brought out of the well, so why were you so firmly convinced that it was your husband’s? You’d first have to know that he was dead. In addition, the deceased He Jia was dressed in cheap clothing, so how could he have been carrying several hundred taels with him?”
Then he told Wang Wu, “And how could you know exactly where the head was located? The reason is that you were anxious to begin an affair with He’s wife as soon as possible.” The wife and Wang were so scared that they turned sickly pale and had no rebuttal for the magistrate’s accusations. He had them tortured, with the result that they spilled the truth.
Wang Wu and the woman had already been intimate for quite some time and were already planning to kill He Jia when they happened to hear Hu Cheng playing his drunken trick on Feng An. Hu was subsequently released from prison. Feng was soundly beaten and imprisoned for three years for having made a false accusation. Thus the case was closed, without anyone having been indiscriminately tortured for information.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “Our magistrate had a reputation for behaving humanely, so in these cases, one can see what a righteous person he was, to act with such diligence and care. When he was the magistrate in Zichuan and I was just a young man entering adulthood, he regarded and praised me highly, yet I’ve proven dull, incapable of living up to the great expectations that he projected for me. While some people might consider that a failing on the part of our magistrate, in fact the failing was merely my own. Alas!”
375. The Faithful Dog
In Zhoucun, there was a certain merchant who did his trading in Wuhu, where he made a great deal of money. He rented a boat and was about to return home when he saw a butcher on the bank tying up a dog, so the merchant offered him several times what he’d paid for the dog and took the animal aboard the boat.
The boatman had long been a bandit, so when he spied the merchant’s money and goods, he rowed the boat into the marsh grass, where he brandished a sword, intending to kill his passenger. The merchant dolefully pleaded with the boatman to keep his corpse in one piece when he was finished killing him, so the bandit subsequently wrapped the merchant’s body up in a blanket and dropped it into the river.
When the dog saw this, it howled mournfully and leapt into the water, grabbing the blanket’s edge in its mouth, the animal and its burden alternately sinking and surfacing. They floated together for what might have been a couple li, until they reached shallow waters and the dog was able to stop.
The dog, yapping and barking in distress, bounded out of the water to where there were some men. They thought this rather strange, so they followed the dog to where the bundled carpet lay in the shallow water, then pulled it out and cut the cord that was binding it. The merchant, who wasn’t actually dead, started to explain what had happened. Then he pleaded with a boatman to transport him back to Wuhu, where he would wait for the thieving boatman to return. As he embarked, he noticed that the dog was missing, which saddened him greatly.
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Zhoucun . . . Wuhu: Modern Zhoucun is a district in Zibo City, Shandong province. Wuhu is now a city in Anhui province.
A butcher . . .tying up a dog: Dog continues to be a popular meat in many parts of China.
Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
By the time he’d aleady been waiting three or four days, he still couldn’t find the bandit and his vessel among the virtual forest of merchants’ boats there. It happened that the merchant was about to return with a fellow villager to Zhoucun, when suddenly the dog that had saved him ran up, barking for the merchant to follow it. The merchant jumped down from the boat he was on, in quick pursuit.
The dog ran onto a boat, where it sank its teeth into a man’s leg, and though he beat at the animal, it wouldn’t let loose. As the merchant approached, panting, he could see that the man being bitten was the bandit. He had exchanged his clothes for those of a boatman, which is why the merchant hadn’t been able to recognize him before. The bandit was tied up and his boat searched, where the merchant found his money still wrapped up.
Alas! Though it was just a dog, yet it could repay a debt of gratitude in this way. Everyone in the world who’s not driven with equal integrity should feel shamed by the actions of this dog!
376. Yang Dahong
Even when Master Yang Dahong, also known as Yang Lian, was still poor and of lowly status, he was quite well known as a traditional scholar and he treated himself like he was someone special. When the province’s educational commissioner arrived to announce which of the candidates in their prefecture’s local examinations had qualified to take the provincial-level civil service examinations, Yang happened to be eating at the time, and with his mouth full, he asked, “Is there anybody named Yang on your list?”
“Afraid not,” replied the commissioner.
Unconsciously, the fact that he was unable to take the exam so rattled Yang that just as he swallowed, he began to experience terrible indigestion, choking from the extreme pain of it. Those around Yang advised him to take the supplemental examinations w
hich were offered for those who’d failed to qualify; but Yang worried that he didn’t have the financial resources to make that possible, thus the others collected ten taels for him and forced him to go.
That night, he dreamt that a man told him, “You’re going to encounter someone who can cure you of your illness, so you should plead with him for help.” As the man was about to leave, he presented Yang with a poem, which read, “Beneath a willow beside a river, where three songs are played on bamboo flute, / What’s offered is cast into the heart of the river, without a sigh.”
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Master Yang Dahong . . . Yang Lian: Also known as Yang Daru, Yang Dahong lived in Yingshan, Hubei province, and passed the highest level of the imperial civil service examination in 1608/9 (Zhu 3:1254n1).
The next day, as he was walking along the road, he happened to see a Daoist priest sitting beneath a willow and hence he humbly requested his help. With a smile, the Daoist said, “You must be mistaken, for how could I possibly cure some illness? Please let me play three songs for you instead.” Accordingly, he took out a bamboo flute and began to play it.
Master Yang was struck by the similarity to the details of his dream, so he respectfully made his plea even more ardently, finally offering the priest a wrapped bundle containing the ten taels that had been collected. The Daoist accepted the money, then flung the entire bundle into the river waters.
It wasn’t easy for Yang to witness this, and he sighed at the shock of losing the money. “Can’t you let it all go?” asked the Daoist. “The money’s sitting beside the river there, so you can go pick it up.” Yang went to look, and it was exactly where the Daoist had said it would be.
Thinking this even more strange, he cried out that the Daoist was an immortal. The Daoist casually pointed with his finger, replying, “I’m not an immortal, but there’s one who dwells among the immortals coming this way.”