by Pu Songling
She lacked the strength to resist and fell to the floor, gasping for breath. Su quickly pulled her to her feet. “What kind of young brute are you, coming here like this,” she cried, “for now I’m certain you’re not scholar E; if you were, you’d treat me gently, knowing that I’ve been ill, and show your sympathy rather than this violence! If you keep on like this, I’ll scream, and both of our reputations will be greatly damaged!”
Su was afraid of having his presence there revealed, so he dared not try to force himself on her again, instead begging her to meet him later. Yanzhi told him that she’d look forward to seeing him on the day of their wedding. That was too far away, he complained to her, urging her to set another time.
Tired by his pestering her, Yanzhi agreed to meet with him after she’d recovered from her illness. Su then entreated her for a keepsake, but Yanzhi wouldn’t give him anything. He grabbed at her foot, snatched off one of her slippers and ran out.
Yanzhi shouted for him to come back, crying, “I’ve agreed to marry you, so why should you think I’ll be stingy about giving you my all? What I worry about is that if our marriage fails, we’ll be laughed at and disgraced. You have the filthy thing in hand now, there’s no way to avoid the inevitable. But if you change your mind about us, I’ll just die!”
After Su fled with the slipper, he went to spend the night with Wang. As they were lying down together, Su couldn’t stop thinking about the slipper, but when he covertly searched where he’d placed it inside the sleeve of his robe, it wasn’t there. He frantically got up and lit a lamp, shook out his clothing, then began hunting for it in the darkened room.
When Wang asked what he was looking for, Su wouldn’t tell her. He suspected that she’d hidden it from him and she just laughed at him for obviously blaming her for something he wouldn’t talk about. Since he couldn’t hide the truth any longer, he told her all about it. By the time he finished explaining, he’d used the lamp to look through the entire room and even outside its doorway, but still couldn’t find the slipper.
Regretting its misplacement, he returned to bed, consoling himself that no one would spot it in the dark, and that if it had fallen out, it’d still be there where it landed. He got up early the next morning to look around, but once again failed to locate it.
At that time, there happened to be a lazy lout named Mao Da living in the lane. He’d tried a number of times without success to seduce Wang, and since he knew that Su was sleeping with her, he figured he’d catch the two of them in bed together. That same night, he snuck in, pushing open Wang’s unbolted gate. Once he was outside Wang’s window, he stepped on something as soft as silk and when he picked it up to take a look, it turned out to be the cloth wrapping attached to an embroidered slipper. Hiding to listen, once he’d heard Su relate all the details to Wang, he left, elated.
Several days went by and then Mao climbed over the wall to enter Wang’s house, but because he got mixed up about which gate was hers, he mistakenly directed himself to the bedroom of Yanzhi’s father. When Bian happened to peek out his window to see what was making sounds outside, he spotted a man and concluded that he was after Yanzhi.
Furious, he grabbed a sword and charged outside with it. Mao was terrified, so he turned to run away. Bian caught up to him just as he was trying to climb over the wall, and quickly seeing that there was no place to run to, Mao wrenched the sword away from Bian; when Bian’s wife rose meanwhile and shouted for help, Mao, seeing he was cornered, mortally wounded the animal doctor with his own sword.
Yanzhi, who’d recovered somewhat from her illness, got out of bed when she heard all the noise in the courtyard. Together with her mother, she took a light to guide them outside, where they discovered Bian’s skull split open, the old man unable to speak, and in moments he was dead.
At the wall, they discovered the missing slipper and when Yanzhi’s mother saw it, she knew it was her daughter’s. She insisted on an explanation, so Yanzhi tearfully told her what had happened; however, she couldn’t bring herself to implicate Wang, so all she mentioned was that scholar E had come alone to see her.
The next day, Bian’s wife filed a formal complaint with the county magistrate. The magistrate consequently had E Qiusun arrested. The young man proved to be a cautious, circumspect individual. Though he was nineteen years old, if someone came to see him, he seemed as shy and embarrassed as a child. Being taken into custody frightened him half to death.
In court, he didn’t know what to say and merely stood there trembling. The magistrate took this to be additional evidence of E’s guilt, so he called for E to be tortured and placed in shackles. The scholar found the pain unbearable, so he confessed to the murder even though he was innocent.
After he’d been sent under guard to the prefectural court, the charges were leveled at him again, just as they’d been in the county court. E Qiusun wanted a chance to inform Yanzhi that he’d been unjustly accused, ever hopeful that she would believe him when she looked into his face; when they met, however, Yanzhi started berating him and E became so tongue-tied that he couldn’t defend himself, thus he was finally sentenced to death. Though he was further interrogated by various additional officials, none of them offered a dissenting opinion.
After he’d been languishing in prison, E Qiusun’s case was sent for final disposition to Jinan. At the time, Wu Nandai was the prefectural governor, and when he saw scholar E, he doubted that the man could possibly be a murderer so he secretly arranged for some men to get acquainted with him and then privately ask him about the crime, in order to give E a chance at last to speak in his own behalf. The result confirmed his suspicion that scholar E had been wrongly accused.
He deliberated for several days, then began his own investigation of the matter. He started by asking Yanzhi, “When the two of you agreed on a date to meet, did anyone else know about it?”
“No one,” she told him.
“And when you first observed scholar E, was there anyone else present with you?”
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Jinan: The capital of Shandong province.
“No one,” she repeated.
Then Wu called for E Qiusun to be brought out, comforting him with words of encouragement. The scholar testified, “At the time I passed by her gate, I saw Wang Shi, a lady who was my neighbor for a long time, standing outside with a young woman, so I avoided them, and after that, I didn’t speak with either of them.”
Governor Wu rebuked Yanzhi, demanding, “You just said that there was no one with you, so why is he saying that the neighbor woman was with you?” He was ready to have Yanzhi tortured.
Panicking, she answered, “Though Wang Shi was there, she wasn’t really involved.” Wu then ceased his interrogation and ordered that Wang be arrested.
Several days later she was apprehended, though she was forbidden to speak with Yanzhi and when she was immediately brought out for questioning, Wu asked her, “Who killed Yanzhi’s father?”
“I don’t know,” Wang replied.
Governor Wu tried to confuse her then by remarking, “Yanzhi has already confessed that you know who killed doctor Bian, so why are you trying to hide the truth?”
Wang cried out, “I’ve been framed! That little slut couldn’t stop thinking about this man, so even if I did mention that I could help her make a match with him, I was just playing a joke on her. She obviously seduced some man into coming into her courtyard, so how could I have known about it!” Wu meticulously examined her till she finally divulged exactly what she’d told Yanzhi.
He then called for Yanzhi to be brought before him, angrily declaring, “You said she wasn’t involved, so why is she now saying that you wanted her to arrange something between you and scholar E?”
With tears flowing, Yanzhi cried, “I’ve brought this all on my unworthy self, contributing to my father’s miserable death, and now tying up the court for who knows how long, involving other people, I really can’t bear it any longer.”
Governor
Wu asked Wang Shi, “After playing your trick on Yanzhi, who else did you tell about it?”
“No one,” Wang answered.
“A couple lying in bed hold back nothing from each other,” Wu said angrily, “so how can you say you told no one?”
“My husband’s been away from home for a long time,” Wang shot back, “and hasn’t yet returned home.”
“Though practical jokers like you think you can make fools of everyone,” countered Wu, “dazzling yourself with your own cleverness, you can’t really expect me to believe that you told no one just because you say so—who’re you trying to kid?” He ordered that vices be clamped onto her ten fingers for torture.
Wang didn’t wait for this to happen before blurting out the truth: “Alright then, I told Su Jie.” Accordingly, E was released and Su was arrested.
When Su appeared in court, he claimed, “I don’t know anything about it.”
Governor Wu informed him, “Sleeping with a woman like this is certain evidence that you’re not someone who can be trusted!” He then signaled for Su to be tortured.
In response, Su quickly admitted, “That I helped trick Yanzhi is true. But after I lost her slipper, I didn’t dare go back to see her, and I truly don’t know anything about a killer.”
“You climbed over their wall,” the furious governor exclaimed, “so there’s little you wouldn’t do!” Then he had Su tortured. Su couldn’t take the suffering and hence he confessed to the crime. Once he’d done so, people began referring to Wu Nandai’s judgment as godlike. The case was considered as solid as a mountain, and the only thing still pending was for Su’s execution to be carried out sometime in the autumn.
Although Su often behaved improperly, without sufficient moral scruples, he was nevertheless recognized in Shandong as a talented scholar. When he heard that commissioner of education Shi Yushan was said to be a most skilled and virtuous man, who was also sympathetic with scholars whose talents had been previously unacknowledged, he sent him a letter, poignantly asserting that he’d been victimized by a miscarriage of justice.
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Shi Yushan: Yushan was the courtesy name of Shi Ruanzhang (1619-83), a well-known Shandong historian, poet, educator, and member of the Hanlin Academy, who was appointed commissioner of education in 1656, “and granted Pu Songling his degree in 1658” (Zeitlin 269n56).
Commissioner Shi read through the description of Su’s confession, then returned to the letter, lost in thought, before slapping the materials down on his desk, and crying, “This scholar has been wronged!” Then he solicited permission from a government minister and a provincial judge to reopen the case and investigate the matter further.
He asked Su, “Where did you lose the slipper?”
“I have no idea,” Su replied. “But when I knocked at Yanzhi’s front gate, I still had it in my sleeve.”
The commissioner turned to Wang Shi and demanded, “Besides Su Jie, how many other men have you been sleeping with?”
“None,” she said.
Shi retorted, “Who’s going to believe that a promiscuous woman like you would settle for one lover?”
“Since we were children, Su Jie and I have engaged in sex regularly, so I can’t very well refuse him,” she explained, “but even though I do sleep with him, I truly can’t see myself doing it with anyone else.” Since she’d already divulged the truth about Su, Wang continued, “My neighbor, Mao Da, has repeatedly tried to seduce me, but I always refuse him.”
“What’s brought about this sudden chastity?” asked the commissioner. He ordered her to be whipped. When a bleeding Wang subsequently kowtowed and firmly reiterated that there were no other lovers in her life, Shi had her punishment ceased. He proceeded to question her further: “While your husband was away, were there any men who came to see you, under any excuse at all?”
“There were,” she answered. “A certain Jia, and a certain Yi, came to borrow money and to offer me gifts a couple times, so I allowed them into my home.” Jia and Yi happened to live in the same lane as Wang, a pair of lazy louts who’d been interested in her but hadn’t succeeded in seducing her. Commissioner Shi recorded their names, then had them arrested.
After all of the suspects had been rounded up, Shi accompanied them to the temple of the city god, where he directed them to prostrate themselves before the altar. Then he proceeded to tell them, “Some days ago, I had a dream in which one of the celestials told me that the killer would be found among you four or five people. Now, in the city god’s presence, there can be no lying. If the guilty person surrenders, he’ll be treated leniently; but if he persists in falsely maintaining his innocence, there’ll be no mercy for him!” In unison, the suspects claimed that they weren’t responsible for the murder.
Commissioner Shi had fetters, shackles, and pillories set up in front of them, preparing to order their torture; accordingly, their hair was tied back with hemp, and their clothes were stripped from them, while they all cried out that they were being wronged. Shi then instructed them, “Since no one’s ready to confess, we’ll just have to ask the spirits to point out the guilty party.”
He directed servants to put heavy blankets over the windows, completely shutting out all light; the suspects’ shoulders were laid bare, and they were pushed in the dark towards a basin of water, where they were commanded one by one to wash their hands in it; then they were lined up against the wall, where the commissioner advised them, “Face the wall without moving, and the killer will be identified when the city god writes on his back.”
In moments, he called for them to reemerge from the darkness so he could examine them, then pointed to Mao Da and exclaimed, “This is the murderer!”
Commissioner Shi’s plan had been to have servants smear the wall with ashes, and then put coal dust in the wash basin water: the killer would have been afraid of the god writing on his back, so he would have tried to cover it by backing up against the wall, where the ashes would rub off on him; while coming out into the light, he would’ve tried with his hands to wipe away anything that might have appeared, further marking his back with the coal dust. Shi had strongly suspected Mao’s guilt, so his scheme simply confirmed it.
He proceeded to have Mao subjected to horrific torture and in the end the murderer admitted the truth. Commissioner Shi then delivered this series of judgments: “Su Jie—like Pencheng Kuo, whose actions led to his death, he has succeeded in earning the reputation of a playboy. He began his relationship with Wang Shi when they were both young and innocent, but he persisted in it over time; then when he heard about Yanzhi, he was overcome by insatiable desire. Like Qiang Zhongzi, he clambered over the Bian family’s wall and swooped into their courtyard as a hungry bird might; then like a Liu Chen, he came to her door and tricked her into opening it. Just for the touch of her soft flesh, how could he have been such a wicked rat? But in climbing the tree to pluck this flower, he caused one of its branches to be broken off—and a scholar without scruples doesn’t deserve to be called a scholar!
“Fortunately, he relented when he heard the ailing beauty’s feeble cry, for he still valued her as a rare treasure; taking pity on the wan, thin Yanzhi, he overcame his unbridled lust. In releasing her, he was merely doing what one would expect of an educated man; but then how could he be so offensive as to betray her trust and steal her slipper! His conversation was overheard by Mao Da, who also picked up the slipper he dropped. Then just as Su Jie had pretended to be E Qiusun, Mao Da retrieved it and pretended to be Su Jie—who could possibly believe that E was falsely accused because of Su, who was falsely accused because of Mao?
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Pencheng Kuo: In section 14.29 of his commentary, Mencius predicts Pencheng Kuo’s pending death; when his prediction comes true, he informs his pupils that Pencheng (possessed of a relatively rare double surname) “was a man of some talent, but had never heard of the gentleman’s lofty way. That was just enough to bring about his death” (329, 3
31).
Qiang Zhongzi: In the Book of Songs, from the Confucian canon, a lyric by this title opens “I beg you, Zhongzi, / Don’t climb into our yard, / Don’t break our willows!” (130). In each of the lyric’s three stanzas, the female narrator explains that despite her love for Qiang Zhongzi, she’s afraid of what her parents, her brothers, and others will say of his impetuous actions.
Liu Chen: A character in one of Liu Yiqing’s eighth-century stories; see the note in story #400, “Jia Fengzhi.”
“Heaven calls down disaster on such people, though Su Jie has already suffered sufficient torture for his wrongdoing; for becoming involved in a variety of evils, he came very close to dying from his punishment. He climbed over a wall to pursue an illicit desire and in doing so he tarnished the reputation of his fellow scholars; but he became the scapegoat for Mao Da’s crime, and it would be an injustice for him to continue suffering for another’s actions. It’s appropriate to show a bit of lenience since he’s already experienced the misery of being beaten and tortured; hence I’m reducing him to the position of a common citizen, so he can open up a new path for himself.
“Regarding Mao Da—this shiftless, unscrupulous rogue is a local troublemaker. When his neighbor Wang resisted his attempts at seducing her, he wouldn’t let go of his lustful desires; he waited for Su to enter Wang’s house in order to blackmail Wang into submitting to his hunger for her. After Wang opened her door to receive the scholar, Mao was subsequently overjoyed to discover the slipper he heard the scholar mention; thus he received more than he’d asked for and rashly thought he could simply use it to take what he desired. His mind was occupied by demons, clouding his judgment with unconscionable lusts.
“He foolishly hoped to ride a wooden raft to the Moon Palace; but while heading there, he mistakenly went in the wrong direction. The flames of love so completely consumed his thoughts that he didn’t realize he’d entered the wrong home. Old doctor Bian thrust his sword straight at him and the villain had nowhere to turn; he was desperate to escape, and even a rabbit will instinctively bite if cornered. He went over the wall to enter the family’s home, expecting to use another man’s name to commit his crime; he seized the sword and lost the shoe, leading others to be arrested falsely.