by Pu Songling
He observed that there were traders on the street just like in the mortal world. He came to a place where there was a high, thorn-covered wall, apparently the site of a prison. Opposite it was a wine shop, from which a steady succession of customers were coming and going.
Outside the shop, there was a long ditch through which dark waters flowed swiftly, and which seemed to be bottomlessly deep. He had stopped and was staring down into it when he heard someone from inside the wine shop cry, “Master Miao, where’d you come from?”
Miao quickly turned to look, and there was scholar Wen, from the neighboring village, with whom he’d shared a literary friendship ten years earlier. Wen hurried out to shake his hand, as glad to see him as he’d always been. Right away, they went inside the wine shop for small drinks and snacks, each of them expressing what had happened during the years since they’d seen each other.
Since Miao was celebrating the fortunate outcome of his uncle’s negotiations, and he’d come across an old friend, he felt inclined to drain entire goblets of wine with Wen. Drinking freely until he became quite drunk, he suddenly forgot he was dead, and with his old habits returning, he gradually began blathering incoherently to Wen. His old friend said, “I haven’t seen you for several years, so why’re you still acting this way?”
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Gold coins and paper money: As long as Miao venerates Jia when he returns home through the Chinese funereal practice of individuals burning paper money and coins as a way of “sending” them to family, friends, and respected figures in the spirit world, he’ll be able to transfer the money to cover his debts.
Miao always hated being judged on his drinking behavior, and when he heard Wen’s words, he became even more irascible, struck a table, and suddenly started cursing. Wen looked askance at him, shook his sleeves to show his disdain, and then left.
Miao chased out after him, till he came to the edge of the dark waters, where he rudely rubbed his hand over Wen’s cap. Wen angrily cried, “You’re such a self-centered jerk!” Then he pushed Miao so he toppled over into the ditch.
The dark water surprisingly turned out not to be very deep; but there were sharpened blades standing upright in it, like stalks of hemp, that stabbed through his sides and legs, making it difficult for him to move at all, while he was torn by pain throughout his body. The black waters were also half full of human waste, which he couldn’t help but inhale and swallow. On a bank of the ditch, a man watched him, choking with laughter, without offering him any help.
Just as his situation was seeming hopeless, Jia suddenly arrived. Horrified, he saw what had happened, came and helped him out so he could go home, saying, “You just can’t act like this! You haven’t recognized how to behave, even after death, so you’re not fit to be sent back into the world! I’ll beg the Hell King’s messenger to send you to the executioner’s block.”
Miao was so frightened that he wept as he replied, “I understand now what I’ve done wrong.”
Jia then told him, “The Hell King’s messenger has already come, and was waiting to give you the paper for your release, but you were out drinking and didn’t return. I’ve brought you that paper, and I’ve paid him a thousand strings of cash and let him go on his way. The rest of the money has to be paid within ten days. When you get home, you must quickly arrange that night, in a large grass thicket outside of the village, to call out my name while you burn the amount of money you owe me, and this hopefully will settle the matter.” Miao promised to take care of it.
Then Jia hurried him to be on his way. Jia accompanied him to the outskirts of his village, where he urged Miao once again, “You mustn’t go back on your promise to me and cause me trouble.” Then he showed Miao the way and told him to go home.
By that time, Miao had already been lying stiff for several days, his family members saying that he’d drunk himself to death, when he began breathing faintly, like rustling silk. That same day he revived, heavily vomiting out several dou of a black fluid with an odor like nothing they’d ever smelled before. When he was finished vomiting, his underclothes and mattress were soaked with sweat, and his body started cooling off normally.
He told his family members about his strange experiences. Before long, he felt painful swelling in places that through the night turned to tumefactions, yet fortunately they didn’t burst or turn putrescent. In ten days, he was gradually able to walk with the aid of a cane.
His family members pleaded with him to repay his debts to the underworld. Miao calculated the fees and found that they would cost him several golden taels, and acting like a real miser, he declared, “What happened before was probably just part of a drunken nightmare, some dreamland. Even if that wasn’t the case, I was released unofficially, so how could the messenger dare to report me to the Hell King?”
His family members tried to persuade him to reconsider repaying his debt, but Miao wouldn’t listen. However, he was also apprehensive, so he didn’t dare risk drinking uninhibitedly. The people in the village were happy to see that he was making progress in becoming more virtuous, and gradually began to drink with him again.
A year passed, and as he gradually forgot the debt he owed to the underworld, his virtues gave way to vice, and his behavior returned to what it previously had been.
One day, he was drinking at a younger relative’s house, and once again became drunkenly abusive towards his seated host. The host had him thrown out, sending him on his way with the door slammed behind him. Miao carried on raving for some time, until his son found out about it and came to help him back home.
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Dou: A measure of volume equal to one deciliter., or about 1/5 pint.
When he entered the door, he immediately knelt on the floor, facing the wall and kowtowing repeatedly, saying, “I should’ve repaid what I owed you! I should’ve repaid what I owed you!”
As he finished speaking, he fell to the ground. Once they examined him, they found that his breathing had already ceased.
168. Marquis Yangwu
Xue Lu, whose title was Marquis Yangwu, came from a family of island men in Jiaozhou. Xue’s father had been extremely poor, and served as a cowherd for an elderly official who’d retired with his family to live in the countryside on an island.
The gentleman owned some uncultivated fields, and as Xue’s father grazed the cattle there, often seeing snakes and rabbits fighting at a certain place in the fields, he thought it quite odd; then he asked the gentleman if he might build a hut there, subsequently building one out of straw and taking up residence in it.
After the hut had been there for several years, when it was drawing close to the time for Xue’s mother to give birth to him, it suddenly began to rain; two military officers, who had received orders to inspect the coastal defenses, had been forced to leave the road and seek shelter from the rain at the hut. When they saw a flock of crows gathered on top of it, eventually realizing that the birds were covering the roof to keep the rain from leaking in, they thought it rather strange.
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Marquis Yangwu: Ming dynasty emperor Xuande (1398-1435) sent Xue Lu with troops in 1430 to construct forts at Dushikou and Yunzhoucheng, in northern Chicheng county, Hebei province, as part of the Ming extensions of the Great Wall. Marquis Yangwu was a title bestowed on Xue by imperial decree (see details in the story below).
Jiaozhou: Near the coast in eastern Shandong province.
Later, Xue’s father came outside and the officers asked him, “What’s been happening here?” He announced to them that his wife had just given birth. They asked about the baby, and he replied, “It’s a boy.”
The officers were even more surprised and said, “He’ll surely grow up to be someone extraordinary. Otherwise, why would we two officers have been sent to stand guard here at your door?” With a sigh of admiration, they then departed.
When the marquis was growing up, snot dripping from his dirty face, he didn�
��t seem especially intelligent. Because the people on the island were all surnamed Xue, they shared the responsibility of mustering family members of that name to register for army duty. One particular year, it was the turn of Xue Lu’s family to send a young man to perform army service in Liaoyang. The marquis’s elder brother was deeply worried about this.
By that time, Xue Lu was eighteen, and people had begun to think that he was too foolish ever to get married. One day, he suddenly whispered confidentially to his elder brother, “Big brother, do you need someone to send off to serve in the military?”
“That’s right,” he replied.
Smiling, Xue Lu said, “If you’re willing to marry me to our maidservant, I’ll undertake the military service in your place.” The elder brother was overjoyed, and promptly married him to the servant.
Xue Lu then headed off to the site of the military outpost with his wife. He’d been walking only for several dozen li, when a torrential rainstorm suddenly struck. Off to one side, there was a precipitous cliff, so the couple took shelter underneath it.
In a little while, the rain stopped, and they continued on their way. Just as soon as they’d walked several steps away, a portion of the cliff’s rock face collapsed. The local residents, observing from a distance, saw two tigers leap out and enter the bodies of the couple. Ever after that, Xue Lu exhibited extraordinary bravery and performed miraculously. In recognition of his subsequent military exploits, Xue Lu was rewarded with a nobleman’s hereditary title, the Marquis Yangwu.
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Liaoyang: Once the capital of Manchuria, the city is located in Liaoning province.
Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
When the reign of Tianqi gave way to the reign of Chongzhen, a descendant of the Marquis Yangwu died without an heir, though his wife was pregnant at the time, and hence the title passed temporarily to another branch of the family. It was common practice then that when a woman in a noble family became pregnant, her condition had to be reported to the emperor, and consequently an old woman was dispatched to act as a companion and guardian until the woman gave birth.
A year passed, and the woman gave birth to a daughter. Following that birth, the mother’s stomach continued quaking—and over the next fifteen years, several successive old women had to be dispatched to watch over her—until she finally gave birth again, this time to a son. The imperial response was that the child born of a legal wife would have the father’s title conferred upon him.
The other branch of the family complained that the child couldn’t have been of the blood of the marquis’s descendants. Officials arrested the old women, who were grilled under many kinds of torture, and answered all of their questions about the boy’s origin with the same information. The title was then conferred upon the boy, and the matter was considered settled.
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Tianqi . . . Chongzhen: The illiterate emperor Tianqi (reigned 1621-1627) was succeeded by the final Ming dynasty emperor, Chongzhen (reigned 1628-1644).
169. The Zhaocheng Tiger
There was an old woman in Zhaocheng county who was over seventy years old and had only one son. One day when he went into the mountains, a tiger devoured him. His elderly mother, devastated by her grief, and possessing almost no desire to go on living, went wailing and weeping to file a complaint with the local magistrate. The magistrate just laughed and said, “What can an official and the legal system do about a tiger?”
The old woman began to cry ever more loudly, but no one could stop her. Though the magistrate shouted at her to stop, she wasn’t at all afraid of him. He took pity on her because she was elderly, and since he couldn’t bear to exert his power and authority against her, he promised that he would have the tiger captured. The old woman prostrated herself in gratitude but wouldn’t leave, waiting until an official document ordering the apprehension of the murderer had been issued, and then she would agree to go.
The magistrate had no choice, so he asked all of his subordinates for volunteers to capture the tiger. One servant, named Li Neng, who was quite drunk, approached the magistrate, and said, “I can do it.” As soon as Li took the official decree in hand, the old woman finally left.
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Zhaocheng: Part of modern Shanxi province.
“I can do it”: Li’s first name, neng, means “to be able.” In his drunken state, it’s not entirely clear whether he’s volunteering for the task or just stating his name (“I’m Neng”).
As Li sobered up, he began to regret his decision; so he rationalized that the magistrate had simply been pretending in his office in order to placate the old lady who was causing trouble, and hence he didn’t have to treat it seriously. He took the document and handed it back to the magistrate, who angrily demanded, “You said you could do it, so why are you trying to go back on your word?” Li was very embarrassed, so he asked for an official decree to authorize the recruitment of hunters. The magistrate complied.
Li gathered all the hunters in the area, and they hid in waiting day and night among the mountain ravines, watching for a tiger, so they could take care of the job they’d been forced to do. A month went by without success, and Li was punished by being flogged several hundred times, which seemed unjust to him since he wasn’t allowed to make any explanations for his failure.
Thus he paid a visit to Yue Temple in the eastern part of the village, where he knelt to invoke blessings, while weeping and crying out in pain involuntarily. Before long, a tiger appeared outside the temple. Li was terrified, fearing that the tiger would snap at him and devour him. The tiger then came inside, paying no particular attention to anything, and crouched in the doorway.
“If you are the tiger that killed the old woman’s son,” entreated Li, “please bow your head and let me bind you.” Then he took out a rope and tied it around the tiger’s neck, while the tiger submitted and allowed him to do so.
He led the tiger away till they reached the magistrate’s office, where the magistrate asked the tiger, “Did you devour the old woman’s son?” The tiger nodded. “Killing someone is considered murder, according to our ancient laws,” said the magistrate. “Since the old woman had only one son, and you killed him, now that her declining years are approaching at last, how will she be able to survive? If you’ll take the place of her son, I’ll pardon you.” The tiger nodded once again. Then the magistrate untied the rope so the tiger could leave.
The old woman subsequently criticized the magistrate for not killing the tiger in compensation for her son’s death, but at dawn the next day, when she opened her door, she found a dead deer there; the old woman was able to sell its flesh and hide in exchange for living expenses. From then on this happened quite often, and sometimes the tiger even conveyed money and silk, which it then flung into her courtyard.
The old woman became quite affluent, living a life that was considerably better than the one her son had provided her. She privately appreciated the tiger’s virtuous devotion. Often when the tiger came, it would lay down under the eaves of her house for several days before leaving. The woman and the tiger lived harmoniously, neither one suspicious or frightened of the other.
Several years later, when the old woman died, the tiger came and started roaring in her house’s hall. The old woman had quietly been accumulating her savings over time, so there was plenty to pay for her funeral, and her relatives gathered together to bury her.
Once the building of her tomb was completed, the tiger suddenly rushed off towards it, so all of the funeral guests fled in panic. The tiger stood directly in front of the tomb, howling and crying thunderously, and then left, shortly afterwards. The local people later built the “Righteous Tiger Temple” on the eastern outskirts of the village, where it still stands today.
170. A Mantis Catches the Snake
A man named Zhang happened to be walking through a gully when he heard a very harsh sound from the cliffs above him. He searched for a pa
th to follow so he could climb up and observe what was causing it, and there he saw a giant snake, its body as big around as a bowl, writhing in a grove of willows, its tail striking the trees and breaking off the willows’ branches.
Its thrashing about from side to side, and falling to the ground, made it look like something must have grabbed it to provoke such a reaction. However, when Zhang looked closely for a cause, he didn’t see anything, which made him very puzzled. Gradually he drew closer to the snake, where he discovered there was a mantis attached to its head, its pinchers dug in sufficiently that the snake couldn’t find any way to shake it off.
After a long struggle, the snake finally died. Zhang noticed then that the skin and flesh of its forehead had been torn open.
171. Martial Arts Skills
Li Chao, whose courtesy name was Kuiwu, lived near the border of Zhixi village, in Zichuan county. He was a bold and direct fellow, and loved to help others out. It happened by chance that a monk came along, begging for alms, and Li treated him to a big meal.
The monk was very moved, and said to him, “I’ve come from Shaolin Temple. I have only meager martial arts skills, but please let me teach you what I may.” Li, overjoyed, arranged lodging for him at a guest house, ensuring that he was very generously fed, and soon began studying with the monk day and night.
After several months, his skill became quite proficient, and so he felt quite proud of it. “Have you benefited from your practice?” asked the monk.
“I have,” replied Li. “I’ve already mastered everything that you’ve been able to teach me.” The monk laughed and told Li to demonstrate his skills. Li then loosened his clothes, stretched his arms, and easily performed the Flying Ape and Falling Bird forms, leaping about for a few moments, then arrogantly landing back on the ground.