Censored by Confucius

by Mei Yüan

  As soon as Zhang heard this strange response he realized that he must be dealing with some sort of fox fairy. Thinking quickly, he said, "In that case, you are welcome to use the three rooms on the western side of the house."

  Zhang secretly hoped he might be able to use the fox to expel the ghost. The young scholar was cheered by this news and before taking his leave he thanked Zhang with a bow.

  The next day Zhang could hear laughter coming from the haunted rooms and happily noted that the fox fairy had taken up residence. He made sure there was plenty of food and wine at the fox's disposal.

  After about a fortnight, the sounds of merriment suddenly ceased. Assuming that the fox fairy must have left, Zhang went to the study. He opened the door and peered into the silent rooms.

  There, hanging from a roof beam, was a yellow fox.

  Ghosts Hate Poverty

  In Yangzhou, a man by the name of Luo Liangfeng boasted that he could actually see ghosts, and insisted that every evening at dusk they wandered the streets in huge numbers. He said that ghosts particularly liked to live around wealthy families.

  The ghosts were generally a few feet shorter than an average adult, and instead of having distinct facial features their heads were simply puffs of a black smoky substance. Whether walking around or leaning up against walls, these creatures kept up an incessant chatter.

  The places where these ghosts preferred to gather for their evening strolls were usually crowded with people. The warmth of human activity was a form of comfort and sustenance.

  Yang Ziyun explained their habits in more detail: "Ghosts especially like to reside near the houses of the wealthy and powerful. They can pass straight through walls and windows and even straight through a human body. Nothing can stop them. If they encounter someone who can actually see them, then they concentrate their energies on bewitching this intruder in a ghostly revenge.

  "Poorer families are very rarely troubled by ghosts, because ghosts don't want to live in such cold and miserable surroundings. In fact, there's an apt local saying to the effect that 'I'm so poor that even ghosts wouldn't want to come and live with me.'"

  Xiao Fu

  In the north of Yi County there lived a woman by the surname of Wang. One night, while in a deep sleep, she dreamed that a beautiful woman came to her bedside and told her she was in fact not a woman at all. Indeed, according to this ghostly visitor, Mistress Wang was really a young man and moreover one with whom the young ghost was rather keen on getting into a relationship.

  "My name is Xiao Fu and when I was alive I worked as a maid for the Chen family from Panyu County," the ghost explained.

  "In your previous life, you were also a servant for this Chen family. We two were lovers and had already arranged several secret rendezvous when our romance was discovered. We were forbidden to see each other ever again.

  "Soon after this I died from the grief of being parted from you. Our love never came to fruition and our fate was never resolved, so I have come to you tonight to resume our unfulfilled romance."

  When Mistress Wang awoke the next morning she had become quite crazed. She told her husband that she no longer wished to live with him and promptly moved to separate quarters. She became prone to laughing and talking to herself in the strangest ways. It was as if Mistress Wang had forgotten that she was a woman, because her speech was filled with the ribald obscenities of a man.

  After this strange behavior had been going on for a while, the ghost Xiao Fu revealed herself during the daytime to the rest of the family. Naturally, they tried to evict this ghostly presence from their household, but nothing could persuade Xiao Fu to leave.

  One day a neighbor's house caught fire and Xiao Fu alerted the Wangs, preventing certain disaster. From then on, the Wang family adopted a kinder attitude toward Xiao Fu. To show their gratitude they decided to invite her to join their household on a permanent basis.

  The next year passed peacefully. Then one day, out of the blue, Xiao Fu told Mistress Wang that she would be leaving. Xiao Fu explained that their love had been fulfilled and she was now eligible for reincarnation.

  She embraced Mistress Wang for the last time and sobbed, "My love, we'll never see each other again!"

  After Xiao Fu's departure, Mistress Wang's behavior returned to normal—her insanity was instantly cured.

  A Jeweled Pagoda Formed by Ghosts

  Old Qiu was a native of the city of Hangzhou who made his living selling cloth in and around the district. One day, after squaring accounts with a client, he called at an inn, hoping to rest before making the long journey home. Unfortunately, the inn was full.

  Wang mulled over his options and decided that since the road ahead was rather bleak and desolate he would have a chat with the proprietor and try to work something out.

  On hearing Qiu's predicament the innkeeper said, "How tough are you? Do you have the nerve to stay in a haunted room?

  "There are some rooms over by the back wall that we once used for gambling—throwing dice and the like—but nobody has stayed in them for a long time. I'm afraid they really are haunted. I personally wouldn't recommend that you stay there."

  "I've traveled over twelve thousand miles during my lifetime. I don't see why I should be afraid of ghosts," Old Qiu replied.

  And so, carrying a candle, the innkeeper escorted Old Qiu through to the back of the compound. Along the back wall, a couple of hundred yards from the main building, lay a line of huts. From the outside the huts appeared clean and tidy, and when Qiu went inside to complete his inspection he found to his delight that the rooms were each furnished with a table, chair, bed, and curtains.

  With his customer happy, the innkeeper excused himself and returned to the main building.

  It was a sultry night, so Qiu decided to sit outside to work on his accounts.

  The moon cast a faint light upon the courtyard, and in the semidarkness Qiu gazed as if in a trance upon what seemed to be a human figure flitting by just a few yards away. He suspected it was a thief intent on illicit gain, but then, as he concentrated his gaze, another shadow flashed past.

  Within a short time he had seen twelve such figures flitting back and forth like butterflies circling flowers. The movement was a constant, fluid dance of light and shadow.

  Focusing carefully, Old Qiu discovered to his surprise that each shadowy figure was a beautiful woman.

  "Men are usually frightened by the hideous appearances of ghosts, but seeing such visions of loveliness, I can only wonder at your beauty!" he said out loud.

  His curiosity aroused, Qiu settled back to pay full attention to the dancing figures. Before long, two ghosts knelt at his feet and another clambered up onto his shoulders. Eventually, a total of nine ghosts climbed up one after another and formed a pyramid. To complete the formation, another of the ghosts floated up and stood at the top. The final effect was like that of the jeweled pagodas seen in theaters around town.

  But then in an instant the ghosts were transformed. Each one placed a noosed rope around its neck. Their hair grew matted and their bodies gradually elongated, finally reaching over a foot in length.

  When he saw this transformation Qiu laughed and said, "When you were beautiful, you were far too beautiful, and now that you're ugly, you are far too ugly. Your transformations are just as inevitable as the potential for change in life itself. Now I would like to see how you folks bring this show to a close."

  At this the ghosts cackled with laughter, assumed their original forms, and quickly dispersed.

  The Land Without Doors

  Lü Heng was a native of Changzhou and made his living selling imported merchandise. His work often took him on long sea voyages to foreign lands and it was on one of these trips, in the year 1775, that the boat in which he was traveling encountered a ferocious storm.

  The boat sank and everyone except Lü perished. Lü survived by clinging to a piece of timber from the wreck, and in this perilous state he was swilled around the oceans and buffeted mercilessly b
y the waves, until eventually he was washed up on the shores of a very strange land.

  As he later discovered, everyone in this land lived in buildings that were either three or five stories high. Each level was designated for a separate generation of the family. In the three-story buildings, the grandparents would occupy the third floor, the father's generation the second, and the son's generation the first. In the five-story buildings the top floor was occupied by the great-great-grandparents, and so on.

  The buildings had no doors at all, just door frames, and although the people were extremely wealthy, burglary and robbery were unknown. When Lü Heng first arrived he was naturally unable to communicate with the locals. Consequently, he became adept at getting his meaning across with gestures in a rudimentary sign language. After a while he picked up a smattering of the local language and when he explained to his hosts that he was a citizen of China, they treated him with great courtesy and generosity.

  It was customary in this nation to divide one day into two days. That is, the people would wake at dawn, go to work, and carry out any necessary business until noon. After this time, they would return home to sleep.

  Later in the afternoon the second day would begin. Work would continue until about nine o'clock in the evening, when the people returned home to sleep again.

  One of the consequences of this custom of doubling the days was that the people were twice the age they would be in China. These who said they were ten years old would be five years old in China and similarly those who said they were twenty would be only ten.

  The village where Lü Heng had been washed ashore was about a thousand miles from the capital and so he didn't have a chance to visit it. There were, of course, local officials but these were very few.

  Prominent among these local leaders were those officially titled Baluo, who were responsible for law and order. Lü was never able to ascertain the exact nature of the Baluos' status within the government hierarchy.

  Marriages were arranged by mutual consent of the man and woman —if they liked each other, then they would marry. However, the choice of a partner was restricted by category. Everyone was placed in a certain group—beautiful, ugly, old, young—and when it came time to marry, people would select a partner from within their own group. This system reduced the likelihood of marital problems. Most significantly, tragedies resulting from unhappy romances were unknown.

  Their judicial system was equally interesting. If, for example, you were responsible for breaking someone's foot, then your punishment was to have your own foot broken. If you injured someone's face, then the same would be done to you—criminal injuries and punishments matched identically, without exception. Similarly, if you raped a young girl, then her father would have the right to rape your daughter. If you had no daughters, then a wooden model of a man, complete with erect penis, would be constructed and you would be buggered by this wooden figure.

  Lü lived in this strange land for a good thirteen months. Eventually a chance southerly wind blew up and he was able to catch a boat and make his way back to China. Old seafarers call this island the Land Without Doors, but it appears to have no sustained contact with China.

  Scholar Song

  In Suzhou there was an inspector by the name of Song Zongyuan. A distant cousin of Song's who had been orphaned since early childhood was sent to live with an uncle. The uncle was extremely strict with Song's cousin and at the age of seven the boy was sent to study with the village teacher.

  One day when he should have been studying the young cousin sneaked out to watch a dramatic performance in town. Someone saw him dodging class and told his uncle.

  Too scared to return to his uncle's home, the boy ran off to Mudu Village and survived for a while as a beggar.

  Eventually a man by the name of Li took pity on him and invited him home. From then on he worked in Mr. Li's coin shop and lived with the Li family. He was a very hardworking lad and won the affection of Mr. Li for his industry. Li decided to reward the boy and eventually gave him one of the maids, a girl by the name of Zheng, for a wife.

  After nine years in Mudu Village, Song's cousin had become quite wealthy. He decided to go into the city and burn some incense as an offering of thanks to the gods.

  On his way to the temple he happened to run into his uncle. Realizing he would not be able to hide the truth, he explained everything. Once the uncle found out his nephew had become quite wealthy, he immediately ordered the young man home with the intention of marrying him to someone more suitable than the maid.

  At first the young man refused. "I can't leave my wife—she has just given birth to a daughter."

  His uncle became furious and shouted, "We are part of a great clan! How dare you take this maid for your wife?" He forced his nephew to agree to divorce his wife.

  When the Li family heard what had happened, they hoped that if they adopted the maid as their own daughter and put up a dowry as part of a formal wedding, the couple would be able to avoid divorce. The uncle refused and immediately wrote up the divorce documents and sent them to Mistress Zheng. His nephew was then forced to marry a young lady from the Jin family.

  When Mistress Zheng received the divorce papers she was absolutely devastated. Carrying her baby daughter to the river, she jumped in and both were drowned.

  Three years later Mistress Jin gave birth to a daughter. Not long after, the uncle went out in his sedan chair to visit a local bureaucrat. All of a sudden a tremendous wind gusted into his sedan chair, tearing aside the door curtain. When his family next saw him he was dead. It appeared he had been choked, because his neck was bruised with the telltale fingermarks of strangulation.

  That night Mistress Jin had a dream that a woman with unkempt hair and blood dripping from her nostrils spoke to her: "I am the young maid Zheng. Your husband acted heartlessly when he obeyed his evil uncle's instructions to divorce me. I vowed to remain chaste after the divorce and jumped to my death in the river.

  "Today I took revenge on that evil uncle, and later I will come and get your husband.

  "None of this was your fault, so you have no reason to be afraid. But I cannot let your daughter live. A daughter for a daughter, that's justice."

  As soon as Mistress Jin woke, she told her husband of the dream. He was terrified and quickly went out to ask his friends for advice.

  One friend said: "The Daoist monk at Xuanmiao Monastery is supposed to be able to write charms that exorcise ghosts. Why don't you ask him to perform some magic on your behalf and have her locked up in Fengdu? I'm sure you'll be all right then."

  So the young man sought out the monk and paid a large sum of money to ensure this ghost would be imprisoned. On a piece of yellow paper the monk wrote the woman's date of birth and all other particulars of her life history. He then invoked some magic charms and she was henceforth imprisoned in Fengdu.

  There were no more strange events in the house until one day three years later. The young man was sitting at the window reading when he looked up to see Zheng approaching him and cursing. "I got my revenge on your uncle first because I knew that the injustice had been spawned by him.

  "I was planning on getting you later because it wasn't your idea to divorce me, and besides, I still had some affection for you. But then you took the matter into your own hands and had me imprisoned in Fengdu. Where's your conscience?

  "My period of imprisonment has just ended. I made a formal complaint to the city god and he has praised me for my virtue. What's more, he has granted permission for me to take my revenge. How do you plan to get out of this one, huh?"

  The young man went instantly mad and eventually lost consciousness. All around the room, household items were being smashed for no apparent reason. Doorknobs, sticks, brooms—everything was flying through the air.

  Everyone in the house was absolutely terrified. The family quickly sent for some monks, but they proved unable to expel the ghost from the house. Within ten days Song's cousin had died, and ten days after his death his daug
hter passed away.

  His wife, however, was perfectly all right.

  Scholar Zhuang

  Ye Xiangliu, a provincial scholar famous for his filial piety, once told me a strange tale regarding the household of a friend of his, a Mr. Chen. Chen had hired a scholar by the name of Zhuang to be the family's private tutor.

  At dusk one August evening Zhuang's two charges, the young Chen brothers, were sitting in their study engaged in a game of chess, their studies being over for the day. For a while scholar Zhuang observed the game, but gradually he tired of this and decided to make his way home.

  His home was about a mile from the Chen residence and separated from it by a bridge. While crossing the bridge Zhuang tripped and fell. He brushed himself off and hurried on his way.

  When he finally did reach home, however, he couldn't get in. Nobody responded to his repeated knocking, so in frustration he decided to go back to the Chen residence.

  The young Chen boys were still intent on their game of chess, so Zhuang strolled out into the courtyard. At the far end of the garden he noticed a small doorway, which to his great surprise led to another courtyard, this one filled with banana palms.

  "Mr. Chen has such a beautiful house and yet he hardly has time to appreciate it," he sighed.

  He walked up some steps towards a pavilion and there he saw a beautiful young woman giving birth. Zhuang found this vision of beauty and fecundity immensely desirable but he restrained himself, thinking, "I shouldn't be in the inner quarters of my master's house. It would be quite scandalous if I stayed to watch such a private event!"