Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 5

by Pu Songling

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  Juren: A successful candidate in the provincial level of the imperial civil service examination.

  Keqi: His name means “could have been abandoned.”

  Then she told An, “Keep in mind that four years from now, the Hou family will give birth to a daughter who has a small wart in her left armpit, and she will be our son’s wife. You have to let him marry her without considering her social status.” She then directed that this be recorded in the family records. Afterwards, she proceeded to leave for a visit with her parents, but then she never returned from it.

  An often exhorted his kinfolk and friends to help him try to locate the specified girl. Consequently, he learned that there was a daughter of a certain Hou family who’d been born with the predicted wart. Hou was a despicable individual who conducted himself wickedly, so everyone despised him, yet An finally had a matchmaker arrange the marriage.

  Once Daqi was seventeen, he passed the imperial civil service examination, then married into the Yun family, with the couple expressing filial piety and love for their parents. An doted on them.

  When Keqi was growing up, he didn’t like to read, and he was always pilfering money so he could gamble with it, then regularly stealing things so he could pay off his gambling debts. This made his father so angry that he beat him, which did nothing to change his ways. An warned others about Keqi’s actions, and took precautions against him, refusing to give him any money.

  Then, at night, Keqi began sneaking out and climbing over people’s walls to rob them. When a particular homeowner discovered him doing this, he was tied up and taken to the county magistrate. The magistrate asked him his surname, and upon learning it ordered that he be sent home.

  His father and Daqi physically restrained him, so harshly binding him that he almost couldn’t breathe.

  Daqi felt sorry for him, so he begged An to set him free. Keqi’s deeds made An sick, so he sharply reduced his son’s food portions. Then he divided his family’s possessions—books, buildings, and fertile farmland—in the end putting Daqi in charge of everything.

  Keqi was furious, so that night he went to his brother’s room with a sword in hand, intending to kill Daqi, but mistakenly slashed his sister-in-law. Earlier, Yun had taken a pair of Daqi’s very soft pants to wear as pajamas. When Keqi slashed at them with his sword, causing sparks to fly in all directions from the floor, he was so startled that he rushed out of the room.

  Their father realized what was happening, which made him become so severely ill that after a few months, he died. When Keqi heard about his father’s death, he returned home. Daqi was happy to see him, but Keqi’s behavior became even more wanton.

  A year passed, and when the reports came in on their respective shares of farmland produce, Keqi went to the prefectural headquarters to file a suit against Daqi. The official looking into the matter knew both men, so he dismissed the charges and sent Keqi away. The brothers, who had previously gotten along fine, now severed their relations with each other.

  Another year passed, Keqi turned twenty-three, and Hou’s daughter turned fifteen. Daqi recalled his mother’s words, so he urgently wished to do what he could to complete the marriage agreement. He invited Keqi to come to his home and gave the lovely residence to him; he welcomed Keqi’s wife-to-be as she entered their gate, then signed over the fertile farmland that An had left for Keqi’s wife, and after completing the agreement, Daqi remarked to her, “I’ve invested my hard work into maintaining these several qing of land for you. My brother is a wicked fellow, and anything of value entrusted to him will be lost. Hereafter, his success or failure will depend upon you, his bride: if you just tell him to change his ways, you won’t have to worry about going cold and hungry; otherwise, you’ll lose everything to his bottomless appetite.”

  Though the new bride, Hou, was the daughter of a family with no standing, she was steadfast, intelligent, and beautiful, which is why Keqi seemed to show her the proper respect and love, and didn’t dare to disobey her.

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  Qing: A measure of area equal to 100 mu, or about 16.67 acres.

  Whenever Keqi went out, Hou limited him to a short time away; if he returned later than that time, she’d berate him sharply and then give him nothing to eat or drink. Keqi simply accepted this with little resistance. A year went by and his wife gave birth to a son. She told Keqi, “After this, we won’t need anyone else’s help. We have several qing of fertile land, so with the profit earned from that, what disaster could possibly prevent my son and me from being warmly dressed and well-fed? Even if I no longer have a husband, I’ll still be able to get by.”

  Keqi then took the opportunity to steal some grain from their supplies, intending to sneak out and gamble with it, but his wife found out and stood at their gate with a bow drawn to prevent him from returning. Terrified, he ran off. When he finally spied Hou go inside, he waited around for a bit, then he also went inside.

  As he came in, his wife stood up, holding a knife. Keqi rushed back outside, Hou slashing at him in pursuit till she managed to slice off a chunk of his buttocks, causing blood to soak his leggings and shoes. Keqi was so extremely angry that he went to tell Daqi what had happened, but his brother refused to show him the least courtesy, so Keqi left, embarrassed, feeling that he’d been wronged.

  He slept elsewhere that night and then came back, moaning for pity while kneeling before Yun, begging her to intercede on his behalf with his wife, but his wife told her that she’d severed relations with him and wouldn’t let him back in. This irritated Keqi so much that he claimed he was on the verge of going to murder Hou, but Daqi refused to reply to this.

  His anger rising, Keqi grabbed a spear and ran out with it. Yun, stunned, tried to stop him. With a meaningful glance, Daqi signaled for her to let him go. He waited for Keqi to leave, then told her, “This fierceness is all a show, for the truth is that he doesn’t dare go home.”

  He sent someone out to observe Keqi and found that he’d already entered his family’s gate. Daqi’s expression changed, and he was about to hurry after him, but his younger brother, huffing and puffing, had already gone inside. At the time that Keqi entered the house, Hou was playing with their son, so when she saw her husband from across the room, she tossed the boy onto a bed and grabbed a kitchen knife; this frightened Keqi, who pulled his spear back and ran away, while his wife chased him outside their gate and back again.

  Daqi had already witnessed his brother’s reaction, and thus he asked him what had happened. Keqi said nothing, but merely turned his face to the corner and started crying, his eyes swollen with tears. Daqi felt pity for him, and personally led him back inside the gates, whence Hou agreed to let him in. After Daqi left, Hou punished Keqi, forcing him to kneel for a long time, and then exacted from him a solemn oath, following which he was allowed to eat some food from a clay basin.

  From that point forward, he was transformed into a good man. His wife ran things with careful planning and a firm grasp; consequently, they always brought in a good harvest, and Keqi looked up to his wife with great admiration. When he reached the age of seventy, with his sons and grandsons surrounding him, his wife still stroked his beard lovingly, which always inspired him to crawl to her on his knees, submissively.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “The suffering associated with a shrewish wife or a jealous woman is like a deep-rooted ulcer that’s located near a bone—both lead to death, and what else are they, ultimately, but poison! Although arsenic and monkshood are known everywhere as effective poisons, if one can learn how to apply them, their effect can be miraculously curative, so that not even ginseng or the lingzhi mushroom can come near them for efficacy. But unless one’s an immortal who can see clearly into an individual’s internal organs, who would dare to prescribe such poison as medicine to one’s children and grandchildren!”

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  Lingzhi mushroom: A dark brown
fungus, Ganoderma lucidum, is often boiled in water, with the resulting broth used for a host of ailments (as an anti-bacterial and anti-viral agent), and it is traditionally credited with miraculous healing powers.

  In Zhangqiu, there was a xiaolian named Li Shanqian, a rather merry fellow, completely carefree and extremely proficient in music and poetry. His two older brothers had both achieved advanced levels of accomplishment in the civil service examinations, while Li simply became more and more frivolous and unambitious.

  He married a woman named Xie, who gradually began to forbid him from doing whatever he wanted to do. Then when he simply went away and didn’t return for three years, she tried every method of locating him, but failed to do so.

  Finally it came out that he was staying in a brothel. When family members went inside to look, they saw him sitting, facing south, with ten or so young prostitutes on either side attending on him, all studying music and treating him deferentially as their teacher. Before leaving, the family collected together his clothing and piled it into a bamboo case given to them by the prostitutes.

  After they returned home, Xie shut herself up in one of their rooms and put away all of the books that were on the desk there. She tied a long cord to the foot of a bed, then led it outside the room to the kitchen, where it was anchored to a large bell. If Li needed something, he could just yank the cord; the cord would make the bell ring, and then someone could respond.

  Xie then opened up a pawnshop there, operating from behind a screen set up on the desk, where she accepted the articles that people would bring in so she could estimate their value; on the left side of the desk she did her calculations, and on the right side she wrote out the estimates; old servants ran errands for her: in this way, she accumulated a considerable fortune. Still, however, it was less than the wealth experienced by the wives of her husband’s elder brothers.

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  Zhangqiu: A county located in Shandong province.

  Xiaolian: A prefectural or provincial level graduate of the imperial civil service recruitment examinations (Hucker 237).

  Forbidden from leaving his room for three years, Li Shanqian finally succeeded in passing the provincial level civil service examination. “Of three brothers, two were successes,” Xie happily told him, “but I took you, the ne’er-do-well—and who’d have thought you’d ever be a success?”

  At that time, jinshi Geng was a great scholar. He was also from Zhangqiu. His wife was so diligent that she constantly kept candles burning for Geng to read by; and since she never rested from keeping the light burning for him, Geng himself didn’t dare to stop reading. Whenever Geng’s old friends came to visit, she always eavesdropped on their conversations: if they were discussing literature, she’d busy herself soaking grains, to cook millet; but if it turned to licentious banter, she’d make a lot of noise and drive the guests away. If Geng’s results from a particular civil service examination were merely average, she wouldn’t even enter his room; but if he exceeded others and was awarded a superior ranking, she’d smile about it.

  Any time that he made some money by teaching others, he gave it all to his wife, not daring to hold any back. Hence when those he tutored presented him with their tuition money, he had to face them and seriously count out all the money, which none of them smiled at—though they didn’t realize what Geng had to face when dealing with his wife about the earnings.

  After this, Geng tutored one of his brothers-in-law. That same year, the brother-in-law succeeded in the civil service examination, and Geng’s father-in-law offered him a gift of ten taels in gratitude. Geng didn’t accept the money, feeling that the family’s appreciation for his efforts was sufficient. When Geng’s wife found out about it, she exclaimed, “Although they’re our relatives, what’s the point of tutoring them if you’re not paid?” Then she chased after her father and asked for the money back.

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  Jinshi: A successful candidate in the highest level of the imperial civil service examinations.

  Geng didn’t dare argue with her, but felt that he should apologize for accepting it, so he began secretly to hide away small amounts of money. Whenever he received his tutor’s fees, he held a bit back. In little more than two years, he managed to accumulate a good sum of money.

  Suddenly one night, Geng dreamed that a man told him, “Tomorrow you must ascend the heights, and then the money you need will be provided.” The next day, he tested these words by climbing to a considerable height, where he obtained a panoramic view, and accordingly was able to spot and recover a quantity of lost taels that tallied exactly with the amount he was lacking to make up the ten taels, thus enabling him to pay back his father-in-law.

  Even after Geng succeeded in becoming a jinshi, his wife still scolded him. “Now that I’ve been made an official, why do you keep pushing me?” inquired Geng.

  His wife replied, “There’s a proverb that says, ‘As long as the water keeps rising, the boat needs to stay upright.’ In that case, should even a prime minister ever be higher than his wife?”

  381. The Language of Birds

  In the region around Zhongzhou, there was a Daoist priest who’d successfully begged for something to eat at a certain village. Once he finished eating, he heard a bird warbling; accordingly, he told his host that he’d better beware of fire. When the man asked him the reason why, the Daoist replied, “The bird told me, ‘A really big fire is terribly tough to put out!’” Everyone who heard this laughed, so they did nothing to prepare for it.

  The next day, a fire happened to break out and proceeded to burn down several homes, so the people began to fear that the Daoist was some kind of god. Some of them sought him out, chasing after him and calling him an immortal. “I’m nothing of the sort,” said the Daoist, “I just happen to know the language of birds!”

  Just then, there were some sparrows in nearby trees, so the people asked the Daoist what they were saying. He told them, “‘Born on the sixth day, born on the sixth day; dead too young by the fourteenth or sixteenth.’ I imagine some family’s just given birth to twins. Today’s the tenth day of the lunar month, so they may still have five or six days before they die.” They made inquiries, and indeed a pair of boys had just been born; shortly afterward, they died on one of the days that the Daoist had predicted.

  The county magistrate heard about the Daoist’s strange talent, so he summoned him to be his guest. A flock of ducks were flying by at the time, so the magistrate asked him about them. “The women in your house have surely started a fight with each other,” the Daoist replied. “The ducks are saying, ‘Don’t, don’t! You prefer her, you prefer her!” Thus the magistrate became utterly convinced of the Daoist’s talent, for his wife and concubines had just been arguing with each other, and the magistrate had come outside in order to escape their clamor. Because of this, he asked the Daoist to stay at his official residence, treating him with great courtesy.

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  Zhongzhou: Located in Henan province.

  Whenever the Daoist interpreted birds sounds, their comments proved strangely accurate. But the Daoist also happened to be a simple, plain-talking fellow who never hesitated to speak his mind. The county magistrate, on the other hand, was an underhanded, greedy fellow who took advantage of his official position to embezzle items from his office’s inventory and then to sell them for profit.

  One day, they happened to be sitting together when the flock of ducks returned, and the magistrate again inquired about what they were saying. “Today their quacking isn’t the same as it was before,” replied the Daoist, “since they’re making some calculations for you, sir.”

  “What are they calculating?” asked the magistrate.

  The Daoist explained, “They’re saying: ‘Candles should bring in one hundred and eight taels, and the official red dye should bring in a thousand and eight.’” The magistrate felt embarrassed by this and began to suspect that the Daoist was try
ing to ridicule him. The Daoist asked to take his leave, but the magistrate wouldn’t allow it.

  Several days passed, and the magistrate was entertaining guests at a banquet, when suddenly they heard the sound of cuckoos. The guests asked the Daoist what they were saying and he replied, “The birds are saying, ‘The official’s being demoted and kicked out.’” The group turned pale, startled by this news. The furious magistrate stood and had the Daoist driven away.

  Soon afterwards, the magistrate was indeed stripped of his position. Alas! This Daoist immortal was warning the official—what a pity that the magistrate’s mind was too beclouded by greed to heed that caution and change his ways!

  Shandong custom used to call cicadas “shaoqian,” a punning reference to their warm season proliferation signaling that it’s “time for a promotion,” and the color green, “douliao,” a similar warm weather reference to the color appearing “all over.”

  A county magistrate and his son, who were dressed in the green robes of their scholarly society, were just about to head off to that year’s civil service examination, when suddenly cicadas landed on the lapels of their robes.

  The magistrate gleefully remarked, “Time for a promotion—it’s a good omen.”

  Observing them, a boy servant commented, “What ‘shaoqian’; those things are just ‘douliao’.” The father and son were not pleased to hear this. Not surprisingly, before long, they were both dismissed from their positions.

  382. The Heavenly Palace

  Scholar Guo was from the capital. By the time he was twenty, he was tall and handsome in appearance. At dusk one day, an old woman handed him an antique wine vessel. It was odd, since there seemed to be no reason for her to do it. The old woman said with a smile, “You mustn’t ask why. But if you drink from it, you’ll be transported to a beautiful place.” Then she took a pathway and left.