by Pu Songling
Suddenly in the midst of the darkness he saw a lamp approaching in the distance, as the crowd of ghosts happily cried, “Grand Secretary Longfei has come with food for us!” They invited Dai to go with them to greet him. Dai, however, was stopped by his thoughts of the water all around them until the group grabbed his hands and yanked him up, floating with him above the water as though he weighed nothing at all.
They took a winding route for about half a li, till they arrived at a place where they let him loose so he could walk on his own; he began ascending stairs that became increasingly steep, rising several ren. At the top of the steps, he could see houses and verandahs, and a hall with a tall, brightly burning candle in it that was as big as a man’s arm. Dai hadn’t seen a bright light in such a long time that he happily rushed towards it.
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Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
Ren: A distance equal to 2.33-2.67 meters.
There was an old man sitting near the candle, dressed in the clothing of a Confucian scholar. Dai stopped a short distance away, not daring to stand right in front of him. The old man looked closely at him, then asked in surprise, “What’s a living person doing here?”
Dai came forward, prostrated himself on the ground, then explained who he was. “I’m your great-grandfather,” declared the old man. He stood up and directed Dai to a seat. “I, too, am surnamed Dai, and my first name is Longfei,” he explained. “In the past, my grandson, Dai Tang, joined with other men to dig for coal near my tomb, completely disrupting my peace, which is why I flooded the pit. How are his descendants now?”
It happened that there had been five brothers in the Dai family at the time, of whom Dai Tang was the eldest. The trouble started when a powerful family in their town bribed Tang to begin digging for coal beside his ancestors’ tombs. He and his brothers were too intimidated by the family’s power, so they didn’t dare refuse. Before long, the raging waters came and the coal miners were all drowned in the pit. The dead men’s families all joined together to file a major lawsuit, with the result that Dai Tang and the powerful family that had bribed him were both reduced to poverty; Dai Tang’s sons and grandsons consequently had no land to call their own.
Scholar Dai, then, was one of Dai Tang’s descendents. When he heard that his ancestors were involved in digging the pit that became the well, he brought the old man up to date on his family. “It could hardly be otherwise—how could the family be prosperous after all that!” lamented the old man. “But now that you’re here like this, I hope you won’t abandon your studies.”
He proceeded to entertain Dai with some wine and food, then set out some essays on the table, all from successful civil service examinations, written in the required format, which the old man compelled him to read. Then he directed Dai to practice writing on specific topics, as though he was the teacher and Dai his pupil. The candle in the hall kept burning throughout the night, its wick unclipped and unextinguished. Whenever he grew sufficiently tired, Dai fell asleep, unable to distinguish night from day. Sometimes the old man stepped out, leaving a boy servant to assist Dai.
The scholar remained there for what felt like several years, a fortunate thing, since he experienced no pain there. However, there were no other books in that place, just the hundred essays he’d been given, so he must have read each of them four thousand times.
One day, the old man told him, “You’ve atoned for your misdeeds, so you’re free to return to the mortal world. My tomb is close to the old coal pit and the cold winds blowing through it chill my remains, so it would be a great service to me if you could move my bones to the graveyard east of here.” Dai respectfully promised to do so.
The old man then called together the crowd of ghosts and had them accompany Dai to his original spot in the well. After doing so, they all surrounded Dai, bowing submissively, and begged him to dig up their bones, too. At this point, however, Dai didn’t even know how he was going to get out of the well.
Back in the beginning, when Dai’s family realized that he was missing, they searched and made inquiries everywhere while his mother informed the local official, and quite a few suspects were taken into custody, but no new information was uncovered. Three or four years later, the local official’s government appointment came to an end—as did the investigation into Dai’s disappearance.
Dai’s wife was uneasy about living by herself, so she left and remarried. When some of the men in town began digging the well out again, they entered the hole in the ground and found Dai there, alive. Astonished, they took him to his family. A day after they’d carried him home, he was finally able to begin talking about the details of what had happened to him.
After pushing Dai into the well, his neighbor then proceeded to beat his wife to death, so his father-in-law started a court action against him and for more than a year he was subjected to repeated interrogations until there was nothing left of him but skin and bones, and he was allowed to return home.
When the neighbor heard that Dai had returned to life, he fled, terrified of retribution. Dai’s relatives felt that a full investigation should be pursued, but Dai wouldn’t allow it; he told them that he was punished in the underworld for misfortunes which he’d brought upon himself and that they had nothing to do with his neighbor. When the neighbor found out that Dai wasn’t after him, he delayed briefly, but then went home.
After the water at the bottom of the well dried up, Dai hired some men to enter the pit and dig up the bones buried there, reassembled them into individual skeletons, purchased coffins and some burial ground, and then had them all interred together in a single tomb. Next, he looked up some ancestral records and learned that his great-grandfather’s birth name was Dai Qian and that Longfei was his courtesy name, so he took some objects to offer as sacrifes at the old man’s tomb.
Upon hearing about the strange things Dai had experienced, the educational commissioner discovered that he admired Dai’s skill at writing and Dai submitted such first-rate essays when he took the imperial civil service examination that he received the highest ranking in the county. When he returned from his triumph, he looked for an auspicious spot in the burial ground east of the well site, then moved Dai Longfei’s body and buried it there; he returned to visit the tomb each spring and fall, never failing to make the trip.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “In the countryside near here, where coal was being dug, the pit filled with water and some ten men were drowned in it. People had to wait two months for the water to dry up enough that they could recover the corpses, but then they discovered that the men weren’t dead. It seems that when the water came gushing in, they all swam together to some higher ground and hence they didn’t drown.
“When people let down a rope so they could climb out, they passed out upon emerging into the open air, though in a day and a night they gradually revived. People began to realize that when the men were buried underground, they were like snakes and birds that aren’t dead and eventually wake up from hibernation. However, there’s never been anyone who could last that way for years. If he hadn’t been such a good man, there’s no way scholar Dai could have survived living in hell for three years!”
407. Shanhu
Scholar An Dacheng was from Chongqing. His father, who had successfully passed the imperial civil service examination at the provincial level, died prematurely. His younger brother, An Ercheng, was still very young at the time.
Dacheng married a girl from the Chen family named Shanhu, who was refined and virtuous. Yet An Dacheng’s mother, Shen, was unreasonably overbearing and heartless towards her, though Shanhu never responded with resentment to her cruelties. Early every morning, she put on make-up and dressed herself nicely to go and pay her respects to her mother-in-law.
When Dacheng happened to fall ill, Shen said it was Shanhu’s fault for tiring him out by dressing provocatively to seduce her son. Shanhu left the room, removed all her make-up and then came back. This really inf
uriated her mother-in-law, who started slapping her own forehead. Dacheng was a filial son, so he felt obliged to whip Shanhu for provoking his mother, and once he’d done so, Shen finally stopped slapping herself.
Henceforth, her animosity became even greater towards Shanhu. No matter how sincerely Dacheng’s wife interacted with her mother-in-law, Shen refused to say a word to her. Dacheng realized his mother was angry, so he moved into another room to show her that he wasn’t siding against her with Shanhu.
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Chongqing: Now a large municipality in Sichuan province.
Even after this had been going on for a long time, however, Shen was still disgruntled, knocking things over and cursing, always blaming everything on Shanhu. “I got married to have someone care for my mother,” remarked Dacheng. “Now, with the situation like this, what’s the point of even having a wife!” Thus he called for Shanhu and sent an old female servant to accompany her back to her parents’ home.
While walking out through the village gates, Shanhu sobbed, “When a daughter is no longer a wife, how can she face returning home to see her parents? She’d be better off dead!” She drew out a pair of scissors from her sleeve and promptly stabbed herself in the throat.
As the old woman rushed to her aid, cascading blood was already soaking Shanhu’s robe. The old servant helped her to the home of scholar An’s aunt, one of his father’s sisters. The aunt, named Wang, lived alone without a spouse, so the old woman servant left Shanhu with her.
When the old woman got back, An Dacheng directed her to keep quiet about the matter, anxious and afraid of what might happen if his mother found out. Several days passed, and upon finding out through inquiries that Shanhu’s wound had gradually healed, Dacheng went to Wang’s home, intending to have her no longer shelter Shanhu.
Wang invited An to come in; instead, he stayed outside and haughtily told her to send Shanhu away. Moments later, Wang led Shanhu out to see him, demanding, “What crime has Shanhu committed?” Dacheng responded that she wasn’t able to take care of his mother. Shanhu stood submissively and didn’t say a word, but merely bowed her head and wept, while her tears, red as blood, stained her robe as they fell. An Dacheng felt anguished, but didn’t know what to say, so he left.
Shen heard about this several days later and in a huff she went to see Wang, directing abusive comments and condemnation at her. Wang defied her and refused to back down, having often opposed wickedness in the past, so she replied, “If Shanhu’s already been forced out of your home, then who cares if she’s settled into mine? I’ve invited this daughter of the Chen family to stay with me, and if she’s no longer wanted as a wife for the An family, then what are you doing messing around in someone else’s business!”
Shen was infuriated that there was nothing else to say, and seeing she’d receive no satisfaction for her outspoken demands, she felt shamed and miserable, burst out crying loudly and returned home. Shanhu felt uneasy about involving Wang this way, so she decided to find somewhere else to live.
It happened that An Dacheng had an elderly aunt, his mother’s older sister, surnamed Yu. She was over sixty, and since her son was dead, she had a grandson and her widowed daughter-in-law living with her; this aunt had always been glad to see Shanhu. Thus she said goodbye to Wang and went to live with Dacheng’s aunt.
When aunt Yu asked about Shanhu’s reasons for coming to her and learned about the shamefully cruel treatment the young woman had received from her sister, she offered to accompany Shanhu back to the An household. Shanhu fervently stated that she couldn’t go back, and also begged Yu not to reveal her location to the An family. Hence she stayed with the old woman.
Shanhu had two brothers who sympathized with her when they heard of her plight, wanting to take her home with them so they could marry her to someone else. But Shanhu persisted in rejecting this option, instead joining her elderly aunt in spinning and weaving to pass the time.
Since An Dacheng had gotten rid of Shanhu, his mother began busying herself with making plans for him to remarry, but word had spread far and near about her vicious behavior, so no one was interested in becoming Dacheng’s wife. Three or four years later, An Ercheng, now an adult, proceeded to arrange for his own marriage.
He married a woman named Zanggu, who proved arrogant and imperious, much more offensive even than her mother-in-law. If Shen even happened to look angrily at her daughter-in-law, Zanggu would furiously insult her. The faint-hearted Ercheng didn’t dare side with either woman.
As a result, his mother’s dominance was suddenly diminished and since she wasn’t willing to challenge Zanggu’s ferocity, she was forced to put on a smile and to try to make her feel welcome, though she still was unable to make Zanggu happy. Zanggu began treating Shen like she was one of the maidservants; Dacheng didn’t dare challenge her, so he simply helped his mother with the household chores, washing plates, wetting down and sweeping the floor, and all other such work.
The mother and son commiserated with each other, weeping silently together. When Shen’s depression soon turned to illness, she was quickly confined to bed, with Dacheng attending to her needs as she tossed fitfully; day and night he went without sleep till his eyes were swollen and red. If he called for Ercheng to give him a hand, just as his brother was about to enter the room, Zanggu would always yell for him to leave them alone.
Dacheng consequently hurried off to his aunt Yu’s home to describe the situation, hoping that she might come to visit them. As he entered her gates, he began tearfully telling her what had transpired. Just as he finished relating the details, Shanhu pulled aside a curtain and entered the room. Feeling utterly ashamed in her presence, Dacheng kept silent and wanted to leave. Shanhu crossed her hands over the doorway to block his exit. Dacheng awkwardly slipped under her arms and rushed out, not saying anything to his mother about it when he returned home.
Before long, his aunt Yu arrived, her appearance greatly cheering up Shen, who asked her to stay. Following this, someone was dispatched from Yu’s household every day without fail to bring a variety of delicious foods for her to eat. The aunt sent word back to her widowed daughter-in-law: “I’m not going hungry here, so you don’t need to send me any more food.” Yet the food continued to come without interruption. Yu didn’t take even a little taste, giving everything to her ailing sister.
Shen began gradually to recover from her infirmity. Yu’s grandson then came to visit his recuperating great-aunt, bringing some pastry cakes to console her. Shen sighed and declared, “What a kind daughter-in-law you have! What a comfort she must be to you!”
“What do you think now about the daughter-in-law you drove away?” her sister asked.
“Oh dear!” Shen exclaimed. “She’s certainly better than the one who’s come since then! But she’s not nearly as virtuous as your daughter-in-law.”
Yu commented, “When she was here with you, you didn’t have to work; when you grew angry with her, she never responded with resentment: do you really think she’s any less devoted than my own daughter-in-law?”
Shen began to weep as she asked her sister in a tone full of regret, “Hasn’t Shanhu remarried someone?”
“I’m not sure,” said the aunt, “but I could visit her and find out.”
A few days later, when Shen was feeling much better, her sister wanted to take her leave. In tears, Shen said, “I’m afraid that if you leave, I’ll die!” Yu then talked things over with Dacheng, proposing that he and his brother split into two separate households.
Ercheng proceeded to tell Zanggu about the plan. She wasn’t happy about the idea, calling her brother-in-law a meddler and saying much worse about his aunt Yu. It wasn’t until Dacheng expressed his intention of turning all of the family’s fertile land over to Ercheng that Zanggu was satisfied with the plan. Once everything was divided up, aunt Yu finally left to go home.
The next day, she sent a cart to bring Shen to her home for a visit. When Shen arrived there, she begged to
meet her sister’s daughter-in-law, repeatedly commenting on her virtuous actions. “What young woman with a hundred positive qualities to recommend her doesn’t also possess some flaw?” asked Yu. “But I find that I can tolerate it. You have a daughter-in-law just as admirable as mine, but I’m afraid that you just can’t appreciate her.”
“That’s not true at all!” objected Shen. “You might as well just say I’m ignorant. I have my senses, so how can I not know the difference between good and bad, and know what offends me?”
Yu replied, “You drove Shanhu from your house, so I wonder what she’ll have to say to you now?”
“She’ll curse at me, I imagine,” Shen said.
“If you really hadn’t done anything mean to her to deserve such a response,” suggested her sister, “then what reason could she possibly have for cursing at you?”
“Anyone can make mistakes now and then,” said Shen, “but since I can’t be perfect, I’m sure she’s going to curse at me.”
Yu replied, “When someone isn’t resentful who should feel resentful, it’s proof of her virtue; when someone who should remarry doesn’t remarry, you can tell just how much she loves you. It turns out that it was indeed a daughter-in-law who was paying her respects by sending you gifts of fine food; but she wasn’t my daughter-in-law, she was yours.”
Shen was dumbfounded: “What do you mean?”
“Shanhu’s been sending things like this for a long time,” Yu explained. “It happens that the food you ate was purchased with money that she earned by working at her weaving each night.”