by Pu Songling
The old man laughed and replied, “I don’t have the leisure time to curse somebody.” He concluded that he wouldn’t curse the person who stole his duck. This made the thief feel so ashamed that he told his elderly neighbor the truth. The old man then lifted the curse, and the man was completely restored to normal.
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Our county: That is, Pu Songling’s home county, Zichuan, in Shandong province.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “Whatever else happened, the thief’s action had frightening consequences: one theft and he grew duck feathers! Whatever else occurred, the curse had the effect of an act of good will: one curse and the thief’s guilt was diminished! However charitable it may have been for the elderly neighbor to cure him, the curse itself was an act of compassion.”
200. A Son of the Liu Clan
Liu Xichuan, from Jiaozhou, was a steward to academic official Fa Neishi. When Liu was already over forty, a son was born to him, whom he loved so excessively that he spoiled the child. He constantly worried about how to obey every one of the boy’s whims. And so the son grew up being allowed to lead an extravagantly dissolute life, until finally his father’s purse was empty. Soon the son fell ill.
His father happened to have raised a particularly dependable mule. The son told him, “That fat mule could be eaten. Kill it and feed it to me, and I’ll be able to recover from my sickness.” Old Liu conspired to kill a bad mule instead.
When his son heard this, he cursed the old man furiously, and became even more seriously ill. This scared old Liu, who then killed the good mule to proceed with his son’s plan. This made the son happy; however, after tasting a slice of mule meat, he threw it away. The life-threatening illness didn’t improve, and eventually it proved fatal. Old Liu, sighing mournfully, felt like he wanted to die.
Three or four years later, some of the old man’s fellow villagers were climbing up Mt. Tai to make incense offerings in one of the temples there. When they were halfway up the mountain, they saw someone approaching on a galloping mule who looked strangely like the Liu son. When the man arrived, the villagers found it was indeed old Liu’s son.
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Jiaozhou: A prefecture located in Shandong province.
Mt. Tai: A holy mountain in central Shandong province.
He climbed down from the mule, bowing respectfully, as they all exchanged greetings. The villagers were utterly astonished, and didn’t dare ask young Liu about his being dead. Thus they simply inquired, “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t have anything to do,” Liu replied, “I’m just wandering here and there.” When he requested the names of the villagers he’d encountered on the road, they all told hm. Liu then folded his hands in gratitude to them and said, “Now I have something to do, and don’t have time for further chat. Tomorrow I’ll come to visit you.”
Then he climbed up on his mule and prepared to leave. The villagers returned to their houses, figuring he wouldn’t actually come for real. Early the next morning, Liu’s son arrived, tied his mule to a post in a stable, and entered into people’s houses, laughing and chatting. The villagers told him, “Your father’s missed you deeply day and night, so why don’t you give him a visit?”
Surprised, young Liu replied, “Who is it you’re talking about?”
The villagers then told him about Liu Xichuan. The young man’s expression changed completely, and after a long time he said, “Since he misses me and wants to see me, please pass this message along to my father: in four months and seven days, I’ll be waiting for him here.” When he finished speaking, he took his leave.
The villagers returned home and conveyed the message to Liu’s father. The old fellow burst into tears, then made the trip at the appointed time, explaining his reasons for coming to his master. Fa Neishi paused and said, “Previously, whenever I’ve seen your son, his sentiments and expression have seemed rather cold, as though he’s not well-intentioned towards you. According to the divining I’ve performed, you mustn’t meet him.”
Old Liu sobbed, unable to believe what he was hearing. “I’m not stopping you,” master Fa explained, “but spirits and ghosts are impermanent, and I’m afraid you’ll experience some misfortune. If you’re certain you want to see him, please hide inside this wooden chest; when he arrives, you can examine his speech and appearance, and if he’s not ill-intentioned, then you can come out.” Old Liu then did as master Fa said.
He was waiting when his son approached and asked, “Has someone named Liu come here?”
“No,” replied master Fa.
The son exploded with angry curses, crying, “Why doesn’t the old beast come to see me!”
Surprised, master Fa asked, “Why are you cursing your father?”
“What a father he’s been!” replied young Liu. “Originally our relationship was like one between business partners, so I didn’t expect that he was concealing evil intentions, hiding money from me, boldly refusing to give it to me. I was wanting to kill him today—what kind of father is that!” When he finished speaking, he went out the door, saying, “I’m letting him off lightly!”
Inside the chest, Old Liu clearly heard this, sweating all over as he monitored his son’s words, but he didn’t dare come out or breathe. When master Fa called to him, he finally emerged, and then sheepishly headed off for home.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “A man who gets a large amount of money suddenly enjoys no happiness, so what does he do? He compensates the one from whom he got the money wrongly. Another man, who loses his money to someone, can’t forget about it even after he’s in his grave, because his anger transcends even mortality itself!”
201. The Respectful God
In the third lunar month of the twenty-second year of Kangxi’s reign, Gao Jiwen and I were going to Jixia, so we shared a room at an inn. There, he suddenly fell ill. Right around that time, Gao Zhenmei accompanied Gao Heng, also known as Scholar Niandong, to Jixia, and met us at the inn, where they discussed how to obtain medicine to cure Jiwen. There they heard from an official named Yuanlin that south of the city, in the Liang family, there was a fox fairy who was an expert in “the art of healing.” So together they went to pay the fox a visit.
Lady Liang was a woman in her forties, who possessed a fox-like appearance and expression. When the Gaos entered her home, they noticed red curtains hanging in the side room. Reaching for the curtains to sneak a peek behind them, they found an image of Guanyin hanging on the wall; there were also two or three paintings of riders on horseback, brandishing lances and escorting noblemen in a procession.
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The twenty-second year of Kangxi’s reign: Qing Emperor Kangxi (also known as Shengzu) ruled from 1662-1723. Gao Jiwen: Gao, whose birth name was Zhibo, was honored as a bagong, or outstanding young scholar, in 1675, and worked subsequently as a teacher, but was never appointed to an official position (Zhu 2:686n2). Zeitlin (224n10) identifies Gao Jiwen as the nephew of Gao Niandong (see below).
Jixia: Ancient name for the prefectural city on the site of modern Jinan, capital of Shandong province.
Gao Zhenmei . . . Scholar Niandong: While nothing is known of Gao Zhenmei, Gao Heng (aka Scholar Niandong or Congpei) once served as guozi jijiu (國子祭酒, the head of the imperial university), and as a high official in administrative departments and other areas. He was born in Zichuan county, Shandong province (Zhu 2:686n3).
At the base of the northern wall there was a table; on the tabletop there was a small pedestal, not a full chi tall, close to a small brocade mattress, and they were told that when the Respectful God arrived, he would rest on it. The Gaos burnt incense offerings, then, clasping their hands, they both bowed to Liang respectfully. The woman struck a stone chime three times, chanting some words inaudibly.
When she’d concluded these blessings, she welcomed her guests, inviting them to have a seat. After standing up, she pushed the curta
in aside, tidied her hair, and then while supporting her chin with one hand, proceeded to tell the Gaos some of the immortal stories of the Respectful God.
After a long time, the sun gradually began to set. The Gaos were afraid that it would be difficult for them to return home in the dark, so they asked her once again to chant the words to invite the god. The woman then struck the stone chimes heavily and began praying. She turned back to them, again standing up as she said, “The Respectful God loves nighttime conversations more than anything, so it’s hard for people to meet him at any other times. Last night there was a xiucai who was waiting for his next examination, and he brought delicacies and wine for the god to enjoy with him; the Respectful God took out some nice wine to treat his guest, while they composed poetry and laughed heartily. By the time their meeting concluded, the night was almost over.”
Before she’d even finished speaking, they heard delicate sounds, like the squeaking of bats in flight. As they listened attentively, suddenly it was as though a large stone had fallen on the table with a crash. The woman turned to them and exclaimed, “He makes all kinds of terrible sounds to frighten people!”
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Guanyin: The goddess of mercy, known in Sanskrit as Avalokiteśvara; an appropriate image to discover in the home of the fox who helps them.
Chi: A measure equal to 1/3 meter.
Xiucai: A successful candidate in the imperial civil service examination at the county level.
Subsequently, they heard something on the table sigh like a healthy old man. The woman took a palm-leaf fan and placed it on the little pedestal. From on top of it, a voice loudly cried, “It was fated to happen! It was fated to happen!” They heard the sounds of the god refusing to sit until the Gaos were seated, and then of him clasping his hands in courteous greeting. Shortly afterwards, he asked Liang’s guests, “What do you want me to tell you?”
Gao Zhenmei, according to Gao Niandong’s suggestion, asked him, “So, have you ever met Guanyin before?”
“The south sea is one of my familiar haunts, so of course I’ve run into her,” replied the god.
Gao Niandong continued, “Will the present Hell King resign and be replaced by another?”
“Just like the emperor in the mortal world,” replied the god.
“What’s the surname of the present Hell King?”
“It’s Cao,” he explained.
Finally, then, the Gaos got around to asking for medicine to cure Jiwen.
“Go home, and tonight offer him a libation of weak tea,” the god replied, “and I will go to the abode of Guanyin, the bodhisattva, and ask for medicine to offer you, since hers will cure any illness.” The Gaos each had their own questions to ask, and the god patiently considered them and then provided his explanations. Then they said their farewells to the god and returned home. By the following night, Gao Jiwen had begun to recover a bit.
Zhenmei and I were the first to pack our luggage to leave, so we haven’t had a chance since then to call on him.
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Have you ever met Guanyin: Apparently, Niandong’s strategy is to chat up the god before presenting their request of medicine for Gao Jiwen.
202. Jingshan the Monkey
Minister of Personnel Gao Niandong comments that “In Chongzhen’s time, there was a monkey immortal who went by the name of Jingshan. When it possessed the body of an old man in Hejian, he would talk about literary works, tell fortunes and forecast deaths, speaking tirelessly, without growing fatigued. If meat dishes and nuts were placed on a table before him, he’d gorge on them messily, though no one would actually be able to see him doing it.”
It so happened that Mr. Gao’s grandfather had been confined to bed by illness. Someone sent him a letter that read, “Inquire about an old man called Jingshan, who’s over a hundred years old, and someone you can’t afford not to meet.” Then they sent a servant on horseback to go and deliver an invitation to the old man.
The old man arrived, and a day passed, but the immortal hadn’t yet possessed him. Hence they burned some incense offerings to him in the family temple. Suddenly they heard a loud voice from the roof of the house exclaim in admiration, “This is the home of a good man!” The family members were startled and looked all around. Presently, additional words began coming from the eaves of the house.
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Minister of Personnel: The position of shaozai was a government post from the Tang through the Qing dynasties (Hucker 416).
Gao Niandong: This is the same Gao Niandong, born Gao Heng, who was a retired scholar living in Zichuan county, Shandong province, and appears as one of the characters in “The Respectful God.”
Chongzhen: The last emperor of the Ming dynasty (reigned 1628-1644).
Hejian: A county in Hebei province.
The old man stood up and declared, “The great immortal has arrived.” The group followed the old man and went outside to welcome the arrival. Then they heard the sound of someone saluting respectfully with cupped hands and offering greetings. Afterwards they all entered the house, and following a loud laugh, they started talking freely.
At that time, Gao Niandong’s brothers were still zhusheng, and were just coming back from having taken the provincial level civil service examination. The immortal told them, “Two of you gentlemen produced fine essays for your examinations; however, you still need to master the five classics, so you must study them diligently, and then the path to success will not be a long one for you.”
The young men respectfully asked about their grandfather’s illness, and the immortal replied, “Life and death are serious matters, and it’s hard to reason them out clearly.” They recognized that this was not an auspicious response. Not long afterwards, their grandfather passed away.
A long time earlier, a monkey trainer brought his monkey to a village. The monkey broke the lock on his cage and escaped, and when the man couldn’t catch him, he ran off into the mountains. Ten years or so later, someone spotted the monkey. He kept shifting his presence, leaping away whenever he caught sight of the human. Later the monkey gradually began slipping into a village where he stole food and candy, but nobody else had seen him.
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Gao Niandong’s brothers: Zhu identifies the two as Gao Niandong’s elder brother, Gao Wei, and his younger brother, Gao Ping (Zhu 2:688n10). A zhusheng has only passed the lowest level of the imperial civil service examination.
The five classics: The Confucian canon that includes the Book of Changes, Book of History, Book of Rites, Book of Songs, and the Spring and Autumn Annals.
One day, some villagers caught sight of the monkey, and chased it all over the countryside before shooting and killing it. But the monkey’s ghost unexpectedly didn’t realize that it was dead, though it felt that its body was as light as a leaf, and it could travel a hundred li in the space of a breath. Then the monkey went to the old man in Hejian, and told him, “If you’ll respect me as an immortal, I’ll make you rich.” And they say that from that time forward, he went by the name of Jingshan.
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Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
The name of Jingshan: Which literally means “tranquil mountain.”
203. The Flow of Money
Liu Zongyu, from Yishui, says that there was a servant who had just stopped to enjoy a quiet moment in the garden, when by chance he saw copper coins begin falling from the sky like water, collecting all over to a depth of two or three chi. Stunned by this pleasant surprise, he filled his hands full of the money, then lay down on his back. Later, when he got up and looked around, he found that the coins had already disappeared; only the ones that he’d grasped in his hands still remained.
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Yishui: A county in Shandong province.
Chi: A measure equal to 1/3 meter.
204. Scholar Guo
Scholar Guo was f
rom Dongshan, in Zichuan county. As a young man, he was utterly devoted to his studies, but since in his mountain village there was no place for him to learn the correct style, by the time he was about twenty, his calligraphy and brushwork were full of errors. For some time previously, his family had been facing a fox-related scourge, as clothing and cooking utensils were often stolen by the fox, causing them grave suffering.
One night as he was studying, he put his paper down upon a table, and the fox started scribbling carelessly on it; the beast’s writing made it impossible to distinguish the columns or style of its writing. Choosing just the neater portions to read, Guo could only make out some sixty or seventy poems from it all. He was really furious about the fox’s interference, but he didn’t know what to do about it.
Then he accumulated a series of more than twenty poems of his own, intending to solicit comments on them from some distinguished authority. In the morning when Guo got up, he saw the pages spread out over the table, and almost all of his thick, black ink had been used up. He hated the fox for what it had done.
A scholar named Wang came to Dongshan, and got along quite well with Guo, so he decided to pay a call on Guo at his home. When Wang saw the terrible condition of the dwelling, he asked about what had happened. Guo told him everything he’d suffered, and then he took out the fragments of the fox’s written work and showed them to Wang.
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Dongshan: Literally, “East Mountain.”
Thick, black ink: That is, the more substantial, viscous kind of ink prepared especially for calligraphic work.
Wang examined them carefully, puzzling over them thoughtfully, checking the way the ink had been applied as though he was critiquing the style; then he looked again at the painted pages, seemingly too preoccupied to let them go. In amazement, he declared, “The fox’s application of ink was performed this way intentionally. Not only is it not simply inept—it’s actually the work of a master.”