by Pu Songling
Afterwards, when Qing imperial troops attacked the Xu rebels, there was among them a military officer named Peng, from Changshan, who was unsurpassed in skill and courage. The rebels sent out two little girls to do battle with him. Each of the girls carried a pair of blades that were as sharp as jagged hoarfrost; they rode large horses, their blades whistling in the air like they were extremely angry.
They fought there, light and swift in their attack, constantly circling, from dawn till dusk, but were unable to wound Peng, though Peng was also unable to defeat them. This went on for three days, till Peng felt his strength abandon him, and with a roaring gasp, he died.
Before Xu Hongru was brought to execution, when his followers were captured and their weapons were confiscated, it was discovered that the girls’ blades had actually been wooden swords, and the horses that they rode had actually been wooden benches. That they were able to kill horses and soldiers, particularly a general like Peng, is truly strange!
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Tathagata Buddha: When Buddhists speak of the Buddha as a “spiritual principle,” they refer to him as the Tathāgata, one manifestation or “dharma-body” within “an endless series of Tathagatas” (Conze 36).
Teng and Ze: Both of these ancient states are part of modern Shandong province.
Changshan: Located in Zhejiang province.
222. The Yan Clan
There was a certain scholar living in Shuntian, who came from a poor family. It happened that during a particularly lean year, he accompanied his father to Luoyang. He was by nature a slow learner, so it wasn’t until he was seventeen years old that he could successfully compose an essay. Yet he possessed a noble appearance and grace, an elegant wit, and was a fine letter writer. When people who didn’t know him saw that he possessed these qualities, they didn’t notice what he lacked.
Before they’d been there long, his father and mother died, one after the other in succession, leaving him all alone, so he began to teach children at a village school where the Luo River met the Yellow River.
In the village at that time there lived an orphan girl surnamed Yan, who was reputed to have come from a line of scholars. When she was young, she’d demonstrated a knack for learning. While her father was alive, he taught her how to read, and she never forgot anything she’d read, even if she’d only seen it once. When she was ten or so, she studied poetry with her father. He told her, “Our family has a female scholar—it’s a pity that she’s not a young man.”
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The Yan Clan: The title is interesting in that it’s not about the entire Yan family, but only their daughter; however, the title suggests that the story glorifies the entire clan in its description of the remarkable talents of one particular female member of it.
Shuntian . . . Luoyang: Both located in Henan province.
Luo River . . . Yellow River: The Luo flows through Shanxi and Henan provinces, and runs into the Yellow River, the second longest in China, in Henan.
Because he doted on her, he’d hoped to find her a wealthy husband. When he died, the girl’s mother pursued his aspirations for their daughter for three years without success, and then she, too, passed away. Someone advised her that she should find herself a talented scholar to marry, and she agreed, but hadn’t yet come across the right man.
Then it happened that the neighbor woman came over for a visit one day, in order to strike up a conversation with her. The woman brought with her a piece of paper that had previously been used to wrap up some embroidery thread, and when the girl opened it up to take a look at it, she noted that a letter had been written on the paper scrap, addressed to the woman’s scholar husband. Reading it over again and again, the girl found herself becoming fond of the writer.
The neighbor woman could see what she was thinking, so she told her in confidence, “This elegant note was written by a handsome young man, an orphan like yourself, and about the same age, too. If you’d like, I could persuade my husband to be the go-between to set up a marriage agreement for you.” Love-struck, the girl was speechless.
The neighbor woman returned home, having taken the silence as assent, and informed her husband. Because he was good friends with the scholar from Shuntian, when he delivered the news to him, the scholar was delighted by the prospect. The young man’s mother had left him a gold ring with the sun’s emblem on it, which he entrusted his friend to deliver to the Yan daughter. The date was set, the two were married, and subsequently they lived very happily, in perfect harmony.
But when she read his literary essays, she laughed and said, “It’s like your writing comes from two different persons—with compositions like this, how could you have written such an elegant letter?” From morning to night, she advised the scholar in his literary studies, as strict with him as a writing tutor would be. When it grew dark each evening, she’d carry in a candle to set on the writing desk, and would first do some reading, as an example for her husband then to follow, and they’d continue till they heard the third watch sounded, then they’d stop.
In this way, a year passed, and the scholar’s essay writing became quite masterful; but he took the civil service examination twice and failed each time, which reduced his status and reputation till he no longer knew where his next meal was coming from, and so he sat by himself to meditate on the matter, accompanied by the sound of his doleful weeping.
His wife scolded him, saying, “You’re not behaving like a man, and you don’t deserve the scholar’s cap you wear! If only I had a chance to swap my woman’s coil of hair for that cap, then you’d truly see me earn a high official’s position!”
The scholar felt so dejected, that when he heard his wife’s words, his eyes flared and he angrily replied, “You’re used to living in the woman’s portion of the house—you’ve never been inside an examination hall— so trying for fame and fortune through the examination just seems to you as simple as going to draw water for the kitchen, to cook some congee; but if the scholar’s cap was set on your head, you wouldn’t do any better than me!”
“Don’t get angry,” laughed his wife. “When the date for the examination arrives, let me dress like you and take your place. If I do as poorly as you, I’ll never dare look down upon another scholar in the whole world.”
Her husband laughed, too, as he said, “Since you don’t know yet what it’s like to taste bitter defeat, I really should send you to take the examination. However, I’m worried that if word of this gets out, everyone in our village will laugh at us.”
“I’m not kidding around,” she told him. “You’ve always said you used to live in Hebei, so I should dress up like a man and follow you home, where we can pretend that I’m your younger brother. You were still a baby when you left there, so who could deny it?” The scholar accordingly went along with the plan.
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Third watch: The third of the evening’s five two-hour divisions, approximately 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Then she entered their bedroom, put on male clothing, and came back out, asking him, “Do I look like I could pass for a man?” Her husband examined her closely, and found her to be the mirror image of a fashionable young man. He was overjoyed, and proceeded to take his leave of everyone in their village. Since his good friends provided him with some modest farewell gifts, he used them to purchase a scrawny horse for his wife to ride, and they departed for Hebei.
The scholar’s cousin, who was his elder, still lived there, and when the cousin saw these two “brothers” with their masculine good looks, he was beside himself with joy, looking after them attentively, morning and evening. Then when he saw how assiduously they worked at their studies all the time, his love and respect for them grew all the greater. He arranged for a short-haired boy servant to tend to their needs. After sunset, they always sent the boy away.
Whenever there was a funeral or a celebration in the area, the scholar would go to mingle with the people there, while his “you
nger brother” would draw the curtain and stay behind to study. They’d been living there for six months, but few people had seen the younger cousin’s face. When visitors happened to ask to see him, the scholar always claimed that he was indisposed. If they happened to read the younger brother’s essays, they’d gape in surprise and astonishment.
Occasionally when someone would force the door to his room open, he’d bow respectfully to them and then hastily retreat back inside. The visitors who observed his refined appearance admired him greatly. Hence it was that quite a stir was made about him, and influential families started sending competitive marriage offers to him.
When the scholar’s cousin discussed the matter with the younger brother, the brother reacted with a funny grin. His cousin pressed him more insistently, so he replied, “I swear that I will achieve the high position I desire—and if I fail to pass the imperial examination, I will not marry.”
About that time, the civil service examiner was sent to oversee the work of the latest examination candidates, so the two brothers rode together to take the exam. The elder brother failed once again. However, the younger brother scored higher than anyone else in the qualifying examination, and eventually took fourth place in Shuntian; the following year, he qualified as a jinshi; he was given the position of district magistrate in Tongcheng, where he established a reputation as an effective administrator; from there, he moved to Henan, where he was empowered with the authority of the imperial censor, and came to possess the wealth of a prince or marquis.
Claiming ill health as an excuse, he asked to resign and return home to his rural community. Visitors flocked to his gate, but were always denied admittance. Everyone noted that from the time that he was just a scholar until he became a wealthy official, he’d never said anything about getting married, and people invariably thought this strange.
After he returned home, he eventually brought some maidservants into the household. Some people suspected that he was having affairs with them; but when his cousin’s wife looked into the matter, she declared there was no evidence of moral laxness there.
Before long, chaos broke out as the Ming dynasty came to an end. That’s when the “younger brother” informed the cousin’s wife, “It’s time to tell you the truth: I’m your scholar cousin’s wife. He’s incompetent, unable to stand on his own feet, so in a fit of exasperation I simply decided to take care of things myself. I’m terribly afraid that if word of this gets out, we’ll be summoned to account for it, and the whole world will make fun of us.”
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Jinshi: A successful candidate in the highest level of the imperial civil service examination.
Tongcheng: A county located in Anhui province.
The cousin’s wife couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Thus the scholar’s wife took off a boot, and displayed a foot to her, which left her utterly astonished; for she saw that the inside of the boot was stuffed with cotton.
As a result, the wife transferred her rank and titles to her husband, while she merely withdrew behind the closed doors of the household. But the scholar had never been able to get her pregnant, so she took out money to purchase some concubines. “Ordinarily,” she told her husband, “when men obtain a high level of success and influence, they purchase concubines to meet their needs; I’ve held official positions for ten years, yet I still have only one man to serve me. What good fortune have you earned, that you should just sit there while beauties are brought to you?”
“By all means, sir, please, go get yourself thirty male concubines to enjoy,” her husband replied. Their words have been repeated by folks over and over again to great laughter.
It was at this time that the scholar’s parents were honored by having posthumous titles bestowed on them by the imperial court. Noblepersons came to pay their respects to the scholar, showing him the same respect as if he’d been the one serving as imperial censor. The scholar was shamed by having his wife’s title thrust upon him like this, feeling at ease only when he was called a scholar, and he finally chose never again to ride in a carriage with the official insignia on it.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “The fact that the parents-in-law received titles posthumously thanks to their daughter-in-law has to be considered extraordinary. Have we ever had any lack of imperial censors who subsequently acted like women? But precious few women have ever become imperial censors. It’s enough to make every man in the world who wears a scholar’s cap feel like dying of embarrassment!”
223. Old Man Du
Old man Du lived in Yishui. It happened that after he’d stepped outside his village one day, he sat down next to a wall to rest a bit, and wait for someone to join him. He was feeling rather tired, when suddenly he seemed to be dreaming, for he saw a man bearing an official document arrive to arrest him and take him away.
They came to a governmental office, but they couldn’t go inside. A man wearing an official’s hat came out of the office, a certain Zhang from Qingzhou, who happened to be an old friend of Du. He was surprised to see his friend and exclaimed, “Brother Du, what’re you doing here?”
“I don’t know what this is all about,” replied Du, “but there was a document issued for my arrest.”
Zhang suspected that it was all some kind of mistake, and decided to have the matter examined. Thus he reassured Du, “Stay here, and don’t go anywhere. I’m afraid that you might get lost, and then it’d be hard for me get you out of this trouble.” Then he went back inside, and a long time elapsed, but he didn’t come back out.
Finally the man bearing the official document arrived, recognized that a mistake had indeed been made, and cleared things up so he could go home. Du then left and went on his way. Along the way, he ran into six or seven young women with happy, peaceful faces, who were enchantingly lovely, and he was so delighted by them that he tagged along after them.
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Yishui: A county located in Shandong province.
Qingzhou: A prefecture, now part of Yidu county, Shandong province.
He hurried along the path, having walked several dozen steps, when he heard Zhang from behind him loudly cry out, “Brother Du, where have you gone?” Du was completely smitten with the young women, so he didn’t stop.
Just then he saw all the women enter a modest residence, and he recalled that it was the home of a wine-seller named Wang. Without thinking, when he leaned forward through the gate to sneak a brief peek at them, he saw that they’d entered a livestock pen, and that they’d all become piglets lying there.
Du was immediately aware that he, too, had turned into a piglet, though he could still hear the sound of Zhang’s voice. Quite startled by this, he anxiously butted his head against the wall. Then he heard someone say, “That little pig has just gone mad and killed itself.”
He looked around and found that he’d turned back into a man again. He hurried out through gate, and Zhang the official was already there. He scolded Du, “I clearly told you not to go anywhere, so why didn’t you listen to me? You almost ruined everything!” Then he took Du’s hand, accompanying him through the village gates, and subsequently left.
Du suddenly woke up, to discover himself still leaning against the wall. He claims that he paid a visit to Wang the wine-seller, to ask him about it, and was told that it was true, a piglet had died after banging its head into a wall.
224. Xiaoxie
In Weinan, the residence of Master Jiang, an official with the Ministry of State Affairs, was infested with ghosts and goblins, who were always haunting people. Because of them, he decided to move his residence elsewhere. He asked a particular servant to stay behind to serve as gatekeeper, but then that servant died. Several more were sent to take his place, but each of them also died. Then the residence was simply abandoned.
There was a scholar in the area named Tao Wangsan, who’d long been known as a carefree, unrestrained kind of fellow who visited brothels, but after drinking in them
until the liquor was all gone, would then always leave. That’s why his friends sent a prostitute over to his home, and, grinning as she came in, he certainly didn’t turn her away; but it’s also true that he didn’t lay a hand on her all night long.
He had often stayed overnight at Master Jiang’s house, where there was a certain maidservant who would come to him at night, but Tao flatly refused her attempts to initiate sex with him, and Jiang consequently developed a respect for him.
Tao was extremely poor, his wife had passed away recently, and his thatched cottage had become unbearable in the sweltering summer heat, so he asked Jiang if he might be able to make use of the official’s abandoned residence. Jiang refused, due to the frightening things that had been taking place there. This inspired Tao to write a composition entitled “Additional Proof That There Are No Ghosts,” which he presented to Master Jiang, remarking, “What can ghosts possibly do to me!” Jiang finally gave in to his continued requests, and agreed to let him live there.
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Weinan: A county in Shanxi province.
Tao went out to move some of his possessions into the residence’s office. With the daylight dwindling, he set up his books inside; then when he returned from picking up his other things, he found the books had already disappeared. That was pretty strange. He stretched out on his bed, breathing calmly while waiting to see what would transpire.
In moments, he heard the sound of someone’s footsteps, and when he looked in that direction, he saw two young women enter the room and return the books that had been taken from the table. One was about twenty years old, the other maybe seventeen or eighteen, and both were quite pretty. They hesitated, then came and stood over his bed, staring at him together and smirking. Tao lay still, not moving a muscle.