by Mei Yüan
He then removed her underclothes and had sex with the corpse. After the rape he filled his pockets with all the jewelry and pearls in the coffin and made off down the road.
Then, from out of the blue came a bolt of lightning and a clap of thunder—Wang San was hit and killed in a flash. At the very instant of his death the young woman came back to life.
The next morning, Zhai received a message from the cemetery's groundsman notifying him of what had happened. He hurried over and welcomed his wife back into the family and they resumed a normal marriage.
When the prefect heard of this strange occurrence he immediately ordered that Wang San's bones be chopped into tiny pieces and burned. The ashes were to be dispersed far and wide.
Memories of Suiyan
An aunt of mine, Madam Wang, was on her deathbed suffering from a terrible illness, when all of a sudden she turned toward the wall and burst into hysterical laughter.
Her daughter asked her what had happened and she said: "I have just been told that my nephew on the Yuan side will win a scholarship to further his studies. That's why I'm so happy!"
At the time of her death I was only a young student, but sure enough, a year after she had passed away I came third in the county examinations and was awarded a scholarship.
Just after the death of my father, one of his close attendants, a Miss Zhu, fell gravely ill. In the midst of her delirium she called out, "I must go now! I must go! The master is calling me to join him on the roof."
Now Miss Zhu had not been told of my father's death, since everyone, although personally grief-stricken at his parting, was concerned that news of her master's death would cause Miss Zhu's own health to decline. Nevertheless, it wasn't long before she too had died. This event supports the ancients' claim that after death the soul rises to the roof. It is, I suppose, a quite plausible explanation.
One day my gatekeeper, Zhu Ming, suddenly died. But then, just as suddenly, he opened his eyes and came back to life. Hands outstretched, he asked for some ghost money: "I'll be needing money to cover my various entertainment expenses. Could you please burn some offerings now so that I can die in peace?"
In autumn 1754, during the Qianlong emperor's reign, I was stricken with a terrible illness. In the midst of my suffering I saw, kneeling at the foot of my bed, a little boy with a white face and a tasseled hat. He held up a piece of paper on which was written, "This family is well managed but it is a little on the small side."
I suspected that this was some sort of black humor that ghosts inflict upon those with serious illnesses, so I decided to have a bit of fun at his expense as well. At lunch I had a small portion of pepper soup and this cleared my chest considerably. So I started to recite the phrase "The poor little ghost is afraid of pepper!"
At this the child smiled at me and disappeared. Later, at the height of my fever, I felt six or seven bodies lying crisscrossing along my bed. If I lay still for too long they would shake the bed, and if I were quiet for too long they would try to get me to moan and groan.
As my fever receded the number of people lying across my bed was reduced, so that once the fever had completely passed I was alone in my bed again. From this incident on, I have always believed in the theory of the "three spirits and the six souls."
But on the other hand there are some dreams that simply can't be accounted for.
My grandfather, Yuan Danfu, loved dabbling in Daoist magic. One night he dreamed he was on a mountaintop, and there before him a banquet was taking place. It was just like the eight immortals' banquet he had seen in various paintings.
When my grandfather approached, none of these immortals would rise to greet him, so he said in jest: "There may be eight immortals but you've only fifteen legs between you."
The crippled immortal, Li, was furious at this and he took up his crutch and struck out at Grandfather. The other immortals pushed Grandfather onto his knees shouting, "Hurry up! Beg forgiveness!" But by this time the crutch had already struck my grandfather's stomach.
Cripple Li then said, "I will give you three more years, but that's all!"
Grandfather woke with a terrible fright. It wasn't long after this that he developed an egg-sized swelling on his waist, which none of the doctors seemed to be able to do anything about. Gradually the lump became putrid. Three years later my grandfather died.
That's why I am always joking, "That lousy cripple has made enemies of my entire family for all eternity, so I'll curse his portrait whenever I see it." I've not suffered any retribution yet.
My brother-in-law Wang Gongnan once dreamed that while visiting the grave of Shaobao to ask instructions from the divine beings there he was chased by an ugly, ferocious monk armed with a stick.
In a panic Gongnan fled, eventually coming across a group of several dozen monks seated in a grassy clearing. Gongnan begged for their assistance and the monks hid him in the grass, linked hands, and formed a circle facing outwards with Gongnan in the center.
His pursuer arrived and when he couldn't get through to Gongnan he said to the monks, "Why do you want to protect this heartless bastard? Move aside and let him have a taste of my stick!"
At that point Gongnan woke from his dream in terror. But nothing seems to have happened to him yet.
I remember as a young boy dreaming that I was floating down a river on a raft made of thousands of writing brushes. To date, nothing seems to have come from this dream either.
One day in early spring I had a dream that the god of war, Guandi, complete with his long, flowing beard and green gown, was hanging in midair before me. He grabbed me with his left hand and hurled a bolt of lightning at my back with his right. The lightning scorched one side of my body; it was agonizingly painful. When I woke from the dream, my stomach was still quite hot.
One explanation given for this dream was that Guandi was born in the year of the horse and I had passed the county examinations in another horse year. I suppose it is possible, but I'm not very convinced.
I sat the county examinations in 1732, during the Yongzheng emperor's reign. At the fifth watch of the day before the examinations were due to start, I dreamed that our old doorman, Li Nianxian, stopped me in the middle of the road. Waving his hands frantically, he implored me not to attend.
"Don't go! Don't go! If you sit the examinations this year you will fail. They are only passing a very few talented scholars this year. Wait until they plan to pass a lot of scholars before you sit the examinations."
At the time they had been passing a very wide range of scholars and so I thought that this premonition was nonsense. As it turned out I did in fact fail. Being awarded a scholarship is only the first step on the long road of the examinations.
Even at this early stage, it was clear to me that supernatural forces were at work. All the same, I did succeed in becoming a provincial candidate, went on to become a Hanlin Academician, and was promoted to the position of magistrate without any further supernatural predictions. I often wonder why.
The Cool Old Man
At Mount Wutai in Shanxi Province there lived a Buddhist monk who was known by the title of Cool Old Man. During his life he took it upon himself to spread Buddhist teachings, particularly the Zen school. He was quite famous and even Premier E had studied under him. In 1726, during the Yongzheng emperor's reign, the monk passed away.
At the exact moment of his death, a child was born in Tibet. The child didn't say a word until he was eight years old. Just as his head was being shaved the boy suddenly shouted, "I am the Cool Old Man. Go quickly and tell Premier E that I am here!"
The premier summoned the boy and questioned him to verify his identity. Everything the boy said was just as the Cool Old Man would have said. The boy recognized all the premier's attendants and, addressing them by name, chatted with them as if he had never been away.
Premier E then decided to give him one last test. He presented the boy with a set of rosary beads. The boy took the beads, bowed lowly, and said, "I can't accept these beads.
They are the very beads that I presented to you in my previous incarnation."
The startled premier immediately ordered that the boy be taken to Mount Wutai to resume his position as abbot.
On the way to the monastery, the party passed through Hejian Village. While there the boy sent word of his arrival to a Mr. Yuan, a Hejian local, who had been a great friend of the Cool Old Man during his previous life. When Yuan received the letter he saddled the black horse that the monk had given him, and galloped off to welcome his friend back to the region. Needless to say, Yuan was all the while in a state of considerable surprise.
When the boy saw his friend on the black horse he immediately stepped out of the carriage and embraced him, saying, "We've been apart for eight years now. Do you still remember me?" Then he stroked the horse's mane and asked, "And you, my friend, how have you been?"
The horse neighed repeatedly by way of recognition.
Eventually word of the Cool Old Man's arrival spread and soon thousands of people were lining the streets to worship this reincarnation of the Buddha.
The boy matured into a slender young man whose skin was as smooth and soft as any woman's. One day as he passed through Liuli-chang he caught sight of some erotic pictures hanging in an art dealer's window. The pictures showed men and women having sexual intercourse in a variety of positions. The young abbot was enraptured by this sight and promptly purchased the entire set. He proceeded on his way with his eyes glued to the pictures.
Making his way back to the monastery he passed through Baixiang, where he chanced upon a group of prostitutes. He then indulged himself, putting into practice his new-found skills.
Reaching Mount Wutai, he summoned to the monastery all the local prostitutes and courtesans as well as any good-looking young man from the district who was endowed with a huge member. From then on, day and night without stop, he sat and watched the group perform innumerable licentious acts. It was as if his desire would never be satiated, for he went so far as to use the money donated to the temple by worshipers to hire dancers and performers from Suzhou.
Eventually his behavior caused such a scandal that somebody organized a petition of complaint and sent it as a memorial to the emperor. Before the memorial had reached its destination the young abbot knew of its contents.
"Some people mistakenly believe that the world would be just as beautiful as it is now if the landscape were stripped of trees," he sighed.
The abbot sat down, fell into a deep meditative trance, and died. He was only twenty-four.
An acquaintance of mine, Li Zhuxi, was a friend of the Cool Old Man's previous incarnation. Li said that one day he had paid the old man a visit and found him dressed from the waist up as a woman, but from the waist down he was quite naked except for a flimsy cloth that covered his belly.
A man was instructed to have sex with him from behind while he had sex with a woman from the front. All around this trio people were engaged in similarly licentious acts.
Li cursed the old man, saying, "A living Buddha would never behave in such a way!"
The old man was unconcerned. "The unrestricted and unhindered acts of love between a man and a woman give rise to the essence of life itself. Indeed this is how the world came to exist. It is only those of ignorance and commonplace perceptions who are frightened and shocked by such things."
A Tiger Steals the God of Literature's Head
It was June and the height of the summer heat in Shanxi Province's Xing'an City. A wedding was in process and the bride, dressed in full wedding regalia, including a heavy red veil, suffered greatly as the sedan chair made its long journey to her bridegroom's house. Indeed, so great was the heat inside the chair that by the time the wedding party reached its destination the bride had died from heat exhaustion.
The bride's distraught parents paid for a coffin even though they were unable to take the body back home with them. As a married woman their daughter was, strictly speaking, a member of her husband's family. Her coffin was placed at the rear of an old temple just beyond the city walls.
Now this coffin was not particularly sturdy and it wasn't long before rainwater from the summer downpours had seeped through the walls. The water had a cooling and nourishing effect and it soon revived the body inside.
As the bride regained consciousness she began to moan and mumble, and these noises were detected by the monk and his disciple who were responsible for maintaining the temple. They quickly lifted the coffin lid and there before them lay a beautiful woman.
They helped her out of the coffin and gave her some nourishing broth and medicinal tonic. When she was sufficiently recovered, the monks helped her back to the temple.
The disciple became fixated with the idea of making this woman his own, so he contrived to rid himself of his master. He bought some wine and got his unsuspecting master completely drunk. Once the monk was in this helpless state the disciple took up an axe and killed him. He then dragged the monk's body to the back of the temple and placed it in the bride's coffin.
Picking up the woman, the disciple carried her to a neighboring village, where he took up residence in a deserted temple built in honor of the god of literature. The disciple then grew his hair and assumed the life of a married Daoist priest.
One day after this, a tiger sprang into the temple, snapped off the head of the statue of the literature god, and carried it off into the distance. In its place the tiger left three tiny cubs. This strange event caused a huge commotion in the village, and people came from near and far to see the cubs.
Quite by chance, among the crowds that filled the temple were the woman's parents, and when they saw their daughter standing before them their first thoughts were that she must be a ghost. When they discovered that she was quite alive, there was a tearful reunion.
Deciding that it was pointless to hide the truth, the woman told her parents of what had taken place, including the murder of the monk and her own abduction. The parents immediately filed an official complaint with the local magistrate, and after the investigation, complete with the exhumation of the monk's corpse, had confirmed their allegations, the disciple was punished according to due process of law. The woman was placed back in the care of her father and permitted to return home.
I was told this tale by a reader at the Hanlin Academy, Yan Dong-you, who had just returned from travels in Shanxi.
Revenge on the Warrior of the Flowers
A man named Yang who lives in the capital is renowned for his skill in the "battle of the flower pickers." This "battle" is actually a magical sexual art whereby Yang takes a lead rod, puts it deep into a woman's vagina, then moves it in and out in time with his breathing.
He calls this technique "testing the sword." He can also control the width of the rod with his breath, making it thicker so that it rubs noisily against the walls of the vagina. Moreover, he can maintain these breathing techniques while drinking half a quart of liquor.
This sadistic form of sex generated considerable horror among the prostitutes around town.
One day Yang came to the conclusion that these special skills, impressive as they were, would not grant him eternal life. So he set about the arduous task of searching for a teacher who could impart knowledge of immortality pills.
Yang had heard that each year on the nineteenth of January, the famous Daoist monastery of Baiyun, situated outside Fucheng's city gates, was visited by an immortal. This particular monastery had been built in the Yuan dynasty in honor of Qiuzhen, a priest of amazing spirituality. People came from miles around to make offerings and burn incense, and the monastery was especially crowded on the appointed day in January.
Yang figured that this would be a likely place to start his quest, so he made the journey to the monastery to see the immortal.
When he arrived he saw a beautiful nun in the crowd of people lined up to offer incense. Yang's sharp eyes noticed that her clothes didn't move with the breeze, as did those of the others around her, so he concluded that she must be an imm
ortal. Yang walked over and knelt at her feet, respectfully asking for her assistance.
"Are you the Mr. Yang who has mastered Daoist sexual techniques?" the nun queried.
"Yes, I am that man," Yang replied.
Hearing this she declared, "I only teach my Dao to an extremely select group. I am not interested in passing on my knowledge to ordinary people."
Even more intrigued, Yang continued to worship respectfully at her feet, begging her to take him as a disciple.
Finally the nun agreed. She led him to a secluded part of the monastery grounds and gave him two pills, saying, "We'll meet on the full moon next month. I'll give you these two pills. The first you can take now, but the second you should take just before our next meeting. Then I will teach you the secret of my Dao." After specifying the time and location of the meeting she left.
Yang dutifully swallowed the pill and instantly felt as if his whole body was burning. What's more, his desire for sex increased to an almost unbearable level. He visited brothel after brothel, and gradually gossip of his excessive sexual appetite got around until all the prostitutes in town avoided him.
When the appointed time arrived, Yang took the second pill and made his way to meet the nun.
She was waiting quietly for him and as soon as he was inside, she removed her clothing saying cryptically, "There is no secrecy between bandits. Even if you had wings you still couldn't fly. Have you heard these ancient sayings? If you want my knowledge you must first have sex with me."