by Pu Songling
The older woman sat on a bed, recognizing the man, and softly asked, “Weren’t you once a servant?” He asked her how she knew that, and she replied, “You worked for my son as his servant, so how could I not remember you!”
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Salt Monopoly Office: Hucker explains this as an agency managing state-controlled production and distribution of salt (579).
Jiang Xiang’s activities: While Chinese rebel leader Li Zicheng was leading forces into Beijing as part of the rebellion that ended the Ming dynasty (1644), Jiang took the opportunity to march into Datong, in Shaanxi province, and to declare himself the garrison commander there (see Zhu 2:810n8).
Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.
The former servant was utterly amazed, and quickly went to tell the official. When the official saw her, he knew she was his mother. Thereupon they wept together, and the official paid many times her cost back to the servant.
The servant accepted many taels from him, but disdained to spend them on an old woman. He spotted one woman who was over thirty, but whose manner seemed quite distinguished, and so he paid to redeem her. As they were walking along, the woman kept turning to look at him every few steps, and finally said, “Didn’t you used to be a servant?”
Surprised, the man asked her how she knew, and she replied, “You were in my husband’s service, so how could I not recognize you?”
The former servant was even more astonished, and took her to see the official, who knew immediately upon seeing her that she was his wife. Again they wept over having been separated from each other. On that day, reunited with his mother and wife, the official couldn’t contain his happiness. Thus he gave the servant a hundred taels so he could find a beautiful woman to marry.
Because the official was such a virtuous man, the spirits responded favorably to his gesture. It’s a pity that the storyteller has forgotten his name, though maybe someone in Shaanxi can recall it.
The collector of these strange tales remarks, “Alas, when catastrophe strikes and the mountains are in flames, the jade contained therein cannot be separated out. It was this way with the official’s family, who, once subsequently reunited, were able to pass on their legacy to future generations. After having had only one grandson, however, Dong Sibai now no longer offers sacrifices to the gods, though this is also part of the responsibilities of the scholars at court. What a pity!”
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Dong Sibai: Dong (1555-1636), whose courtesy name was Xuanzai, was a retired scholar known for his painting and calligraphy. See Zhu (2:811n17).
237. Living with Snakes
In a mountain in Sishui that in olden days had been the site of a temple, where there were no villages in any direction, and one rarely found the footprints of any other people, there was a Daoist monk living. Certain persons claimed that there were many big snakes on the mountain, so travelers tended to keep their distance from it.
A young man came up into the mountain with a net to catch a hawk. By the time he climbed up, it was starting to get dark, but there was nowhere he could settle for the night; in the distance he spotted the monastery, so he hurried over to stay there.
The monk there was surprised and cried, “Why would you come here, sir? It’s fortunate that my children haven’t seen you!” Then he directed the young man to have a seat, and provided him with some congee.
They hadn’t finished eating when there entered a giant snake, more than ten arms’ widths around, that reared its head to face the young man, its angry eyes flashing like lightning. The young man was terribly frightened. The Daoist took the palm of his hand and bopped the snake on the forehead, scolding it, “Go on, now!” The snake then bowed its head and went into a room to the east.
It took a while for the snake to slither its whole body into the room; it lay coiling there until it had almost filled the room. The young man trembled in terror. “I’ve been raising this creature,” the Daoist explained. “As long as I’m here, there’s no harm in it; but it would be a horrible time if you met it by yourself.”
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Sishui: A county located in Shandong province.
The young man just sat there, and then the snake came in again, slightly smaller than it had been before, for unlike previously, it was only five or six arms’ widths around. Then it looked at the young man and hastily stopped, flicking its tongue out like it had earlier. The Daoist scolded it again, and once again it went off into the other room.
There wasn’t any place for it to lay down there, so it looped half of itself around the roof beams, shaking the wall and floor till they sounded like they might collapse. The young man became even more scared, and couldn’t get to sleep all night long. In the morning, he got up and said he wanted to go home, so the Daoist accompanied him.
As they exited through the room’s doorway, he saw that sitting on top of the wall downstairs, there were snakes, some coiled like a large serving vessel and a cup, some of them lying still while others were moving about.
When they noticed the stranger, each of them opened its mouth as though swallowing something. The young man, unsettled by all this, grabbed the Daoist by the elbow and pulled him along with him as he made his way out to the mouth of the mountain valley, then he returned home.
Once there was a visitor from Zhongzhou in my hometown, who happened to be staying at a Buddhist temple where snakes lived. At the temple, a monk provided him with supper, a meat broth that was very good, containing cylindrical segments that resembled chicken necks. Suspicious, he asked the monk, “How many chickens did you have to kill to get all of these necks?”
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Zhongzhou: A district in Henan province.
“These are snake segments,” the monk replied. The visitor was so upset that he ran outside and threw up.
As he was falling asleep later, it felt like there was something wriggling across his chest; when he felt for it, he discovered it was a snake. He sprang up suddenly, crying out in fright. The monk stood up and said, “This happens all the time here, so don’t act so shocked!” Then, when the monk built up the fire till its light reflected off the wall, the visitor could see snakes of every size all over it, as well as on top of and underneath his bed.
The next day, the monk led him into the temple’s main hall. There was a Buddha figure there, and at the base of it was a huge pit, filled with snakes as thick as giant urns, stretching their heads up the sides of the pit, while unable to come out of it. He lit a candle and examined the pit more carefully, discovering what seemed to be millions of snakes of all ages and varieties living there.
He claimed the monk told him, “In the past, the snakes used to get out and cause harm, until we placed a Buddha here to calm them, and as a result, the incidents came to an end.”
238. The Thunder God
In Bozhou, there was a citizen named Wang Congjian, whose mother was sitting in a room while it happened to be drizzling and gloomy outside, when she witnessed the thunder god, bearing a hammer, flapping his wings and then suddenly entering. Greatly astonished, Wang quickly grabbed a chamber pot, splashing the thunder god with its contents.
When the filthy mess hit the thunder god, it was like he was caught between a knife and an axe, so he turned himself around and rapidly fled; he did his utmost to spread his wings and soar away, but he couldn’t leave. He became completely disoriented, making a bellowing sound like an ox. The clouds in the sky gradually began drifting lower and lower, till bit by bit they were even with the eaves of the hall.
From within the clouds came a whinnying like the cry of a horse, and the thunder god responded to it. In moments, rain began pouring down violently in the hall, completely washing the urine from his body, then he produced a clap of thunder and flew away.
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The Thunder God: Willoughy-Meade explains that this figure, “entrusted with the duty of killing very impious
persons, is usually represented with a bird’s beak and claws,” and the sound of thunder “is produced with the drums which he strikes with a hammer” (165).
Bozhou: A prefecture located in Anhui province’s Hao county.
The filthy mess . . . caught: Urine and excrement are sometimes used in Chinese literature/folklore as human “contaminants” to drive away or to entrap demons or other non-humans.
239. Lingjiao
Hu Dacheng was from the Hubei-Hunan region. His mother was a devout Buddhist. Hu studied reading with a tutor in a private school, and on the way to the school there was a Guanyin temple, so his mother urged him that whenever he passed, he must go in and do obeisance.
One day when he arrived at the temple, he noticed a girl who was playing there, her hair trimmed so it covered her neck, exhibiting a manner both distinguished and joyful. At the time, Hu was fourteen, and he immediately fell in love with her. He asked what her name was, and she smiled, saying, “I’m Jiao Huagong’s daughter, Lingjiao. Why do you ask?”
“Has your family betrothed you yet?” he inquired.
Blushing, Lingjiao replied, “Not yet.”
“How about if I become their son-in-law?” Hu asked.
Lingjiao modestly replied, “I can’t make that decision myself.” But to her the matter had clearly been settled, and as she glanced up and down at Hu, she felt glad that he would become a member of her family. Hu then went on his way.
Chasing after him, from a distance Lingjiao called out, “Cui Ercheng, a friend of my father, can be the go-between, and he’ll surely be able to work out an agreement.”
Hu called back, “I’ll take care of it.” Since she seemed to be both bright and affectionate, he found himself adoring Lingjiao even more.
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Guanyin: The Buddhist goddess of mercy, also known as Avalokiteśvara.
He returned home and honestly expressed his heartfelt desire to his mother. Since Hu’s mother had just this one son, she didn’t want to refuse him, so she asked Cui to serve as the go-between in the matter.
Lingjiao’s father asked for a huge amount of money from the young man for his daughter’s marriage gift, so the matter already seemed unlikely to go further. Cui emphatically expressed to him that Hu was talented and came from an upright family, so Jiao finally started to agree to the proposal.
Hu Dacheng had an elderly uncle who was childless, and who had a teaching position in Hubei. When the uncle’s wife died, Hu’s mother sent him quickly to take part in the mourning. After several months, when he planned to return home, his uncle fell ill and also died.
He stayed there for a long time, till it happened that a large occupying force moved into Hunan, which resulted in his being cut off from his home. Hu fled with the common people, feeling agonizingly homesick and lonely.
One day, a woman in the village where he was living, who must have been about forty-eight or forty-nine, began hovering around all day long, without leaving. She announced publicly, “Due to separation and war, I can’t go home, I’m going to sell myself.”
When someone asked about her price, she replied, “I disdain to become any man’s slave, and I’m also unwilling to become any man’s wife, though if there’s anyone who’ll take me as his mother, I’ll leave with him without asking any price.” Everyone who was listening laughed at this.
Hu went to take a closer look, discovering her face similar in a number of ways to his mother’s, which made him realize how much he missed her, and he felt very sad. Then he thought that since he was alone, he had no one to do his sewing for him, so he invited her to go home with him, treating her with the deference of a son. This pleased the woman, and accordingly she cooked his meals and wove clothing for him as devotedly as a mother.
The woman had no intention of leaving; when Hu was a bit under the weather, she gave him better care than many actual parents would have. All of a sudden one day, she declared, “This place is so peaceful, and my good fortune has been unexpected. But you’ve grown up, and even though you’re living away from home, I can’t ignore my duty here. In two or three days, you should be married.”
Hu wept as he told her, “I have a wife, but obstacles and distance keep me from her.”
“In a time of great turmoil,” the older woman replied, “when human affairs are so unstable, can anyone afford to wait for matters to improve?”
Still sobbing, Hu cried, “Besides the fact that I can’t betray my promise to my first wife, what father would give his beloved daughter to a man who has no permanent address?” The older woman said nothing, but wiped down the window curtains, and then made quilts and pillows very carefully, so Hu couldn’t recognize where she’d gotten them.
One day, at nightfall, she advised Hu, “Sit with a candle and don’t fall asleep, while I go to see whether your bride has arrived or not.” Then she left and went outside. Near the end of the third watch, she still hadn’t returned, and Hu began to feel rather uneasy.
Suddenly he heard a clamor outside, and went outside to take a look, where he found a young woman sitting in the courtyard, her hair disheveled, sobbing. “Who are you?” asked the startled Hu. She said nothing in response.
After a good long while, she finally replied, “I’m the one you’ve just married, which is ill-fated for you, since you’re ending up with a dying bride!” Hu was quite startled by this, and didn’t understand why she was so despondent. “When I was young,” she explained, “I agreed to marry Hu Dacheng; unexpectedly, he had to flee to the north, so I’ve received no news of him. My parents are forcing me to marry into your family. You can have my body here, but you can’t make me surrender my commitment to him!”
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Third watch: The third of the two-hour divisions of the night, approximately 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m.
Hearing this, Hu burst into tears and cried, “I am that Hu Dacheng. Are you Lingjiao?” The young woman shared his tears and astonishment, unable to believe what was happening. Just as they were about to go inside, Lingjiao held up his candle and turned to look closely at him, asking, “Is it truly not just a dream?” Thereupon their sorrow was turned to joy, and they left their suffering behind them.
Originally, in the midst of all the chaos around Hunan for a hundred square li, soldiers were killing everyone they encountered. Jiao was helping his family flee to Changsha to the east, where Lingjiao was to be married to a scholar named Zhou. Amid all the confusion, they couldn’t conduct the marriage ceremony, so at the prearranged date, Jiao took advantage of the cover of sunset to send his daughter over to the scholar’s home.
Lingjiao wept and wouldn’t wash or comb her hair, and her father had to force her into the carriage. When they arrived at their lodgings, Lingjiao collapsed in the carriage. Then four men brought a sedan chair to carry her, saying that the entire Zhou family was welcome along with her, and they helped Lingjiao into the sedan chair, then carried it as swiftly as if they were flying, without stopping until they arrived at their destination.
An older woman came out to drag Lingjiao inside, saying, “This is your husband’s home, so just come in, without weeping any more. Your mother-in-law will arrive soon.” By the time she left, Hu had thought through everything, and began to realize that the older woman was an immortal. Lingjiao and Hu burnt incense and made supplication together, praying that Hu and his mother might be reunited.
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Changsha: The capital of Hunan province.
A hundred square li: A distance equal to about 33.3 square miles.
Hu’s mother found herself in the middle of the wartime conflict, among fellow refugees hurrying to hide in ravines and valleys. One night, there was the clamor and chatter of the enemy soldiers arriving, and in alarm everyone simultaneously scattered to conceal themselves.
There happened to be a boy on horseback who offered Hu’s mother a ride. She hurried over, too preoccupied to ask any questions, and he
helped her up, then they nimbly sprang away, as light as air. In a flash, they arrived at the edge of a lake. Their horse galloped over the water, its hooves never sinking into the waves.
Before long, the boy helped her down, then pointed to a house and said, “This is where you can stay.” Hu’s mother planned to express her gratitude to him, but when she turned back, the horse had been transformed into a golden beast more than a zhang tall. The boy then rode away on it.
Hu’s mother knocked at the door, and suddenly it opened. A man came out to ask who was there, and strangely enough, she heard a familiar voice, and saw that it was her son, Dacheng. Mother and son embraced in tearful joy.
Lingjiao was also startled and gratified by what she found at the door. They suspected that the older woman had actually been the goddess Guanyin in human form. From this point forward, their devotion to Guanyin, including the chanting of scriptures, became even more pious. Afterwards they settled in Hubei, and established a farmhouse there.
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A golden beast: Like the golden lion (jinmaoshizi; see Soothill and Hodous 283) ridden by Manjusri/Wenshu, a bodhisattva in many ways Guanyin’s “equal in popularity” (Conze 147), this golden beast is specifically associated with Guanyin.
Zhang: A measurement equal to 3.33 meters.
240. Hungry Ghost
Ma Yong, who lived in Qi, was a corrupt individual, a scoundrel, and when his family finally ran entirely out of money, his fellow villagers mocked him and called him “Hungry Ghost.” He was over thirty and grew poorer every day, his clothing ragged, both hands poised at shoulder height to grab food as he walked through the marketplace. People shunned him, but he didn’t take any notice of it.
There was an old man named Zhu there, who, when he was young, had moved his wife to a bustling metropolis, and operated some kind of shady business. When he retired, he returned to his home village, where the scholars utterly denounced him; but Zhu behaved responsibly, and went around doing good, so people began to treat him gradually with more courtesy.