by Pu Songling
Yu Shen went to see an imperial censor about getting to the root of the matter as quickly as possible, and the local officials all responded respectfully to the censor’s stern commands, so Jia realized that he couldn’t conceal the facts of the matter any longer and thus told the whole truth of the matter in a court of law.
Accordingly, a warrant was issued for Han’s arrest, forcing him to face the charges publicly in court. Han, terrified, told his father about the situation. His father, who by that time had already retired from office, became angry at his son’s lawless behavior, and handed him over to the court.
After Han’s servants were questioned by all the local officials, they reported on their encounter with the python, which the officials said was all nonsense and fabrications; the servants were consequently whipped almost to death, and Jia, too, was flogged painfully over and over. Fortunately, his mother was able that day to sell off some land by asking very little for it, and was able more or less to rescue him, so his punishment was lightened enough that he didn’t die, though Han’s servants had already died from their beatings.
Han was to be locked away in prison for a long time, which prompted him to give Jia a thousand taels to use to implore Yu to drop his lawsuit. Yu Shen, however, absolutely refused the bribe. Jia’s mother then pleaded with him to take Jia’s two concubines, begging that the case be allowed to remain open while they waited to see what further searches and inquiries turned up about Suqiu; Yu’s wife then undertook at her uncle’s and her mother’s requests from morning till night to offer excuses for Jia’s actions till finally Yu Shen relented.
Jia’s family became extremely poor, their home and belongings sold for cash, yet even in their haste they hadn’t yet sold off everything, so they had to send the two concubines to plead with Yu to allow them a delay.
Several days later, Yu Shen was sitting in his study one night, when Suqiu, accompanied by an old woman, suddenly entered. Yu, astonished, asked, “Are you really unharmed?”
Suqiu laughed and replied, “The python was a bit of my own magic. That night, I fled to enter a xiucai’s home, where I lived with him and his mother. He told me that he knew of you and he’s waiting outside at your gate. Please invite him to come in.”
Yu hurried out to welcome his guest, holding a candle, but he didn’t see him, then he found scholar Zhou, who was from Wanping, and with whom he felt an immediate affinity that pleased them both. Holding onto Zhou’s arm, Yu entered his study with his guest, greeting his arrival cordially. They spoke earnestly together for a long time, and after that, Yu finally understood the full range of what had occurred.
The night of her disappearance, Suqiu appeared in humble sincerity at the scholar’s door, so his mother accepted her into the house, and upon learning that she’d previously been treated like Yu Shen’s younger sister, Zhou wanted to send her back quickly to Yu’s family. Suqiu stopped him from doing so, and thus she came to live with his mother. Suqiu was wise and understanding, so the mother was quite delighted with her.
Because her son had no wife, she secretly confided her hopes to Suqiu. The girl declined, explaining that this should be approved by her brother, Yu Shen. Zhou also insisted that since he had a good relationship with Yu Shen, he wouldn’t marry his sister without sending a matchmaker first, so he continually kept his ears open for a good opportunity to speak with Yu Shen.
When they learned that Yu had dropped the lawsuit against Han, Suqiu told Zhou’s mother that she wanted to return home. The mother had Zhou escort her together with an old woman, advising the latter to serve as a matchmaker. Yu Shen realized that Suqiu had been living with Zhou in his home for a long time, and in his heart, he wasn’t sure what to say about that; but when the old woman spoke of a marriage, he was overjoyed, and met with Zhou to conclude the arrangements.
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Xiucai: A successful candidate in the county level of the imperial civil service examination.
Wanping: An old county name, now part of southern Beijing.
Suqiu returned home at night, telling Yu Shen he could spread the news of her return once he received the money due to him from the Jia and Han families. Yu, however, disagreed: “I had no way to release my anger, so I demanded money in order to bankrupt them. But now I realize that the sight of you again can’t be bought even by ten thousand taels!”
Then he sent someone to inform the Jia and Han families that he was withdrawing the suit against them. He thought that Zhou’s family might worry about being not being able to give much to the couple and that Zhou lived quite far from him, which would make it difficult for Zhou to arrange for a sedan chair to transport his bride, so Yu Shen had Zhou and his mother come to live with them, just as Chen had done in the old days; Zhou provided enough money to pay musicians to play for them, and hence the wedding ceremony was a success.
One day, Yu’s wife teased Suqiu, “Now that you’ve got a new husband, do you remember those past days, when you slept with the former one?”
Suqiu smiled, then turned to her maidservant and asked, “Do you remember?” Yu’s wife didn’t understand what she meant, so she asked about the comment and it turned out that for about three years, the maidservant had been taking Suqiu’s place in bed with Jia. Each night, she’d take a brush and paint the maidservant’s eyebrows, then quickly slip out of the room so when Jia arrived with a candle, he’d find her sitting alone and wouldn’t be able to tell that it wasn’t Suqiu. Yu’s wife thought this remarkable and begged for Suqiu to teach her this magical art of face painting, but Suqiu just smiled and didn’t reply.
The next year, the provincial level civil service examination was to be held and Zhou was just about to leave with Yu Shen to take it. Suqiu told him, “You don’t have to do this.” But Yu insistently dragged Zhou along with him and they left.
When the administrators evaluated the results, Yu was given a passing score, but Zhou was failed and returned home privately concluding that he should just retire from public life. Another year went by, and his mother died, so nothing more was said about him continuing to forge ahead with a career.
One day, Suqiu told Yu’s wife, “In the past you asked about my magical arts and I was quite unwilling to say anything, for fear it would scare you. Now, since we’re about to be far from each other, I will teach you the mysteries you’ve inquired about and then you’ll also be able to evade the turmoil of social upheaval.”
Yu’s wife was shocked by this latter comment, so she asked Suqiu what she was talking about. “Three years from now,” she explained, “this place will be depopulated and smoldering. I’m timid and I can’t bear to feel panic-stricken, so I’m about to throw myself into the sea and live in seclusion there. Since your husband is a man of wealth and rank now, I can’t take him with me, which is why I’ll tell you tell you my secrets.” Then she proceeded to instruct Yu’s wife in all the magic she knew.
After several days, she also told Yu Shen her plans. He tried unsuccessfully to detain her and when the time approached for her to leave, he pleaded with her tearfully, “Why must you go?” She just stood with him and said nothing. At the rooster’s crowing, she got up in the morning, taking a white-haired servant, and left on a pair of donkeys with her husband, scholar Zhou.
Yu Shen secretly sent some men to trail behind them, but as they arrived at the Jiaozhou and Laizhou region, a fog of fine dust descended from the sky and by the time it finally cleared away, Suqiu and the others had already vanished.
Three years later, an uprising of people following Li Zicheng fought against the Ming dynasty, leaving cottages in ruins. Yu Shen’s wife used scissors to cut some silk that she placed inside their gate and when the rabble arrived, they saw clouds circling around Wei Tuo, who stood a zhang in height, so they ran away in terror, and thus the Yu home was protected without loss.
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Jiaozhou and Laizhou region: Broadly signifying northeast Shandong province in Pu’s time (as Suq
iu’s group were heading towards the sea), these are now cities in the south central and north central portions of the province, respectively.
Afterwards, a merchant from their village happened to be en route to the sea when he met an old man, his hair entirely white, who seemed suddenly to recognize him. The old man stopped abruptly, and with a smile, asked, “Are our relatives in Master Yu Shen’s family still healthy? Please give them these regards: Suqiu is very peaceful and happy.” The merchant asked him what village he was living in, and the old man replied, “Oh, far away, far away!” Then he hastily departed.
When Yu Shen heard about this, he sent servants back to the area to make inquiries everywhere, but in the end, they could find no traces of the old man.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “A cultured scholar has no need for an official’s fortune, and this has been so since long ago. At first Chen recognized this truth, but later on he discounted it. Couldn’t he see that the literary judgment of the examiners is always unreliable? One failure can cause one to end his life—the sympathetic response of a foolish bookworm! What a pity that Chen’s end as an intelligent scholar isn’t nearly as admirable as Zhou’s subsequent life as a scholar living in seclusion from the world.”
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Li Zicheng: In the 1630s, the peasant rebellion led by common soldier Li began out in Shaanxi province and worked its way eastward, culminating in the fall of Beijing in May, 1644, opening the way for the Manchus to move south from Mongolia and to complete the overthrow of the Ming dynasty.
Wei Tuo: A bodhisattva guardian in Buddhist monasteries, entrusted with the protection of the Dharma and related ritual objects.
Zhang: A measure equal to 3.33 meters.
One failure can cause one to end his life: Zhu (3:1350n66) sees this as an allusion to Zhang Liang (d. 189 B.C.E.), who unsuccessfully attempted to assassinate the tyrannical Qin Shihuang, first emperor of a united China.
400. Jia Fengzhi
Jia Fengzhi, who was from Pingliang, had a reputation as one of the most talented fellows of his time, yet he always failed the imperial civil service examinations. One day, he was traveling along the road when he met a xiucai, who identified his surname as Lang, and whose manner was quite cordial, though he was quite straightforward in his speech. Jia invited Lang to come home with him, where he took out some of the essays he’d written in order to solicit the xiucai’s comments on them.
Lang read over them, but didn’t have much to say by way of praise, commenting, “Your essay should easily rank first among those written for the county level, but in the actual civil service examination, you’ll finish at the very bottom of the list of successful candidates.”
“Why?” Jia asked.
“It’s the same for everyone in the world,” replied Lang, “lifting one’s head and making the connections necessary for social advancement is difficult, while simply keeping one’s head bowed is very easy—that’s what I’d say a person of lowly status has to do!” Then he pointed out one or two essays from a couple of specific writers as appropriate standards, though Jia had mostly rejected them as not deserving of his respect.
When he heard that Lang considered them good models, Jia laughed and replied, “A scholar should write with the goal of expressing ideas that are truly immortal, and if they prove to be as valuable as one of the eight methods of cooking food, then it’s not improper for them to be rewarded with high rank and corresponding salary. Yet if a scholar strives solely to gain an official’s rank, even if he becomes the prime minister, he’ll still be an unworthy individual.”
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Pingliang: A county located in Gansu province.
Xiucai: A successful candidate in the county level of the imperial civil service examination.
“You’re mistaken,” replied Lang. “Today, even if your essays are beautifully written, if you’re just a lowly scholar, they’re not going to be circulated. That’s fine if all you want is to remain as you are; otherwise, you’ve got to produce the kind of eight-part essays that all officials write, making each of yours look like the works they wrote to secure their positions, but I’m afraid no one’s going to read what you write and you won’t change an examiner’s feelings about what he’s seeing.” Jia froze in stunned silence. Lang stood up with a laugh and declared, “Such a naïve young man!” Then he left.
That same autumn, Jia once again took the civil service examination and failed it, which left him feeling depressed until he recalled Lang’s words to him, so he picked up the essays that Lang had pointed out to him and forced himself to read them. But before he’d even reached the end of the first page, he started nodding off from boredom, perplexed that he couldn’t find anything he could draw from them to help his own writing.
Three years passed and it was just about time once again to take the civil service examination, when Lang suddenly arrived, looking very happy. He took out seven essay topics, assigning them to Jia as exercises. The next day, upon reviewing the essays, he declared them unacceptable, instructing Jia to rewrite them; when Jia was finished doing so, Lang once again rejected them.
As a joke, Jia decided to put together a terrible essay, gathering together phrases from various essays that were verbose or unclear, that no one could make head or tail of, then randomly linking them together into another essay, waiting for Lang to arrive so he could show him the results. Upon reading the result, an overjoyed Lang exclaimed, “Now you’ve got it!” Accordingly, he directed Jia to memorize the essay, to have it firmly in mind so he couldn’t forget it.
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Eight methods of cooking food: Namely, stir-frying, steaming, stewing, deep-frying, roasting, boiling, red-cooking, and clear-seething.
Jia laughed and replied, “I have to be truthful: these sentences aren’t my own words and once I turn my eyes from them, even if you were to torture me, I couldn’t possibly remember them again.”
Lang sat at Jia’s study table, forcing him to read the essay aloud; Lang then had him open his robe to expose his shoulder as he took a brush, wrote a protective charm on it and then left, explaining, “Just this much of the essay is already sufficient, so now you can bundle up and put away all your other books.” Jia checked the writing on his shoulder and tried to wash it away, but it wouldn’t come off, for it had soaked quite deeply into his skin.
When he arrived to take the examination, he discovered that it was addressing the same seven topics Lang had given him. He turned his thoughts to the essays he’d written, but was unable to remember any portion of them and could only call to mind the piece he’d written as a joke, which he remembered as clearly as if he’d memorized it.
With his writing brush in hand, he felt truly embarrassed; he wanted to alter the wording a bit, but his thoughts were so jumbled up that he finally couldn’t change a single character. The sun had already begun to set, so he turned in what he’d written and went outside.
Lang, who’d been waiting for him for a very long time, asked, “What took you so long?” Jia told him the truth, then begged him to wipe away the charm from his shoulder; but as he twisted around to look at it, he found that it had already faded away.
When he recalled what he’d submitted in the examination hall, it was as though he’d been writing from another world. It seemed very strange, so he asked Lang, “Why don’t you take your own advice?”
With a smile, Lang explained, “Since I don’t care about achieving this kind of success, I don’t have to read or write these kinds of essays.” Then he wanted to arrange for Jia to come to his home the next day. Jia agreed to do so.
After Lang left, Jia picked up the manuscript of the essay he’d written and read over it, recognizing that he’d truly had no idea what he was doing when he wrote it, and feeling genuinely disappointed and unsatisfied with it, unable to consider facing Lang again, he went home, depressed.
Before long, the list of successful examinat
ion candidates was posted, and it turned out that Jia had been awarded the top score. He read over his essay manuscript once again, sweating nervously as he did so, and once he was finished, his clothing soaked with perspiration, he cried aloud, “This essay is crap—how can I face all the other scholars!”
Just as he was feeling ashamed, Lang suddenly appeared, and asked him, “If you’ve achieved what you were after, why are you so down?”
“I was just thinking,” Jia replied, “that whether it’s in a gold basin or a jade bowl, it’s still just dog shit, so I can’t possibly hold up my head when I go out to see my fellow examinees. I’m on the verge of heading off to the mountains to become a holy hermit, to cut off contact with the world.”
Lang answered him, “This is a very high aspiration, but I doubt that you can really do it. However, if you think you can, I’ll take you to see someone who can help you become an immortal, who no longer cares about reputation, love, or wealth and rank!”
Jia was delighted to hear this and invited Lang to lodge with him that night, promising, “I’ll think it over.” The next morning, he told Lang, “I’ve made up my mind to do it!” He didn’t tell his wife and son, but simply headed off with Lang.
Gradually they found themselves deep in the mountains, where they came to the abode of a mountain recluse. Its insides were like nothing Jia had ever seen. There was an old man sitting there, to whom Lang paid his respects, calling him his master.
“Aren’t you early?” asked the old man.
Lang explained, “This man is already firmly committed to following the Dao, so I hope you’ll accept him as your student.”
“Since you’ve come here,” the old man told Jia, “you must discipline yourself to surpass your expectations, for only then will you begin to follow the Dao.” Jia eagerly agreed to obey the old man’s instructions.
Lang accompanied him to a courtyard, found him a place to sleep, saw to it that he had something to eat and then left. Jia’s room had been meticulously cleaned; but there was no door in its entranceway, there were no paper lattices over the windows, and the only furniture was a desk and a bed. As Jia took off his straw sandals and sat down on the bed, the moon began to shine brightly through his windows; he felt a bit hungry, so he picked up and ate what had been left for him, finding it pleasant and quite satisfying.