Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 6

by Pu Songling

  After they left, Yu asked, “Who were all of those women?”

  “They’re like me,” Zhuqing replied. “The last two are wearing the lotus-colored jades, the ‘Hangao belt ornaments.’”

  After he’d been there with her for several months, Zhuqing had Yu take a boat home, though it didn’t use either sails or oars, but simply floated along. By the time they reached land, a man was already waiting with a horse for him by the side of the road, and so he left for home. Thereafter, Yu came and went continually between their two residences.

  As a few years went by, Hanchan became increasingly handsome and Yu treasured him dearly. Yu’s wife, Heshi, was unable to bear children, so she was constantly looking forward to meeting Hanchan. Consequently, Yu told Zhuqing about Heshi’s feelings.

  As a result, she prepared for Hanchan to accompany Yu to his father’s hometown and they made an agreement that Hanchan would come back after three months. Once Hanchan arrived, however, Heshi loved him like he was her own son, and though more than ten months went by, she couldn’t bear the thought of sending him back.

  _________

  Hanchan: 汉产, in this case dually signifying “born a man” and “born [near the] Han [River].”

  ‘Hangao belt ornaments’: According to legend, Zhen Jiaofu “was presented with belt pearls”—here, the lotus-colored jades—“by two fairy maidens” while passing through Hangao, in modern Hubei province (Ward 16).

  One day, the boy was struck down by a violent illness and died, which caused Heshi so much pain that she felt like she wanted to die. Yu then returned to the Han River to pay a visit to Zhuqing. As he walked into her home, he found Hanchan barefoot and lying in bed, which filled him with joy, and he asked Zhuqing how it was possible.

  “You kept him so much longer than you agreed,” she complained. “I kept thinking about my son, so I wanted him here with me.” Yu consequently told her how much Heshi loved the boy. “Wait until I give birth again,” she replied, “and then I’ll send Hanchan back to you.”

  A year elapsed, then Zhuqing gave birth to twins: a boy named Hansheng, and a girl named Yupei. Yu subsequently brought Hanchan back to Hunan with him. Every year, however, they returned to visit Zhuqing three or four times, but it wasn’t very convenient to travel like that, so Yu ended up moving his family to Hanyang.

  When Hanchan turned thirteen, he was admitted to the prefectural academy. Zhuqing didn’t think much of the beauty of mortal girls, so she had Hanchan go with her in order to find him a wife among her own kind, and once he was married, she sent him back to Yu’s home. His wife was named Zhiniang, another river goddess.

  After Heshi died, Hansheng and Yupei both came to grieve with their father. Once the funeral obsequies had been completed, Hansheng remained there in his father’s house; Yu, meanwhile, left with Yupei, and never again returned.

  _________

  Hansheng . . . Yupei: The boy’s name means “born [at the] Han [River],” while the girl’s name signifies the kind of jade pendant worn at one’s waist.

  434. The Duan Family

  Duan Ruihuan was a man of wealth in Daming. Yet at the age of forty, he still lacked a son. His wife, Lian, was an extremely jealous woman, so even though Duan wanted to buy a concubine, he didn’t dare do so. He was secretly carrying on with a particular maidservant, but when Lian found out about it, she beat the maidservant hundreds of times and then sold her to the Luan family in Hejian.

  Since Duan continued to grow older every day, all of his nephews kept coming to borrow money from him, their tone of voice and facial expressions betraying their anger with him when he denied their requests. Duan felt he couldn’t give them what they were asking for, and because he wanted to make a particular nephew his inheritor, the mob of other young relatives worked to thwart his plan—even Lian, a tough woman, couldn’t do anything to them, so she started reconsidering and regretting her former jealousy.

  “Though he’s a sixty-year-old man, what makes you think he can’t still father a son!” Lian furiously shouted at them. She went out and bought Duan two concubines, then allowed her husband to sleep with them without any questions asked.

  _________

  Daming: A county in southern Hebei province.

  Hejian: A prefecture in Pu’s time, now a county in Hebei province.

  After they’d been living there for about a year, the two concubines both became pregnant. The whole family was very pleased. As the household atmosphere became more relaxed the younger relatives regularly began to try force their way into the home, only to end up cursing cursed mightily as they were turned away.

  Before long, one of the concubines gave birth to a girl, while the other gave birth to a son who soon died. Duan and Lian were deeply disappointed.

  Then, just after a year had elapsed, Duan became paralyzed and couldn’t get up, so his younger relatives proved even more brazen in their actions, taking cattle, horses, and other assorted property; then after doing all that, they just picked up and left. Lian cursed at them, but they always retorted by finding fault with Lian. There just didn’t seem to be anything she could do, so she cried about it all the time.

  Duan’s condition continued to deteriorate until he finally died. All of the younger relatives gathered before his coffin and began debating how to divide his estate. Lian roundly cursed the lot of them, but was unable to prohibit them from acting. When she tried to hang onto a bit of fertile farmland in order to be able to support herself and the infant girl, the younger relatives wouldn’t agree to it.

  “If you won’t let me keep even a cun of earth,” she cried at them, “then you’re simply condemning an old woman and a baby to weep and then to starve to death!” Since it was impossible to sever relations with them, she just kept sobbing and striking herself in impotent anger.

  Suddenly a visitor entered to mourn for Duan and hurried over to the coffin, where he bowed his head in sincere sorrow. Once he finished his obsequies, he sat mourning on the mattress where the dead infant had laid. When the assembled relatives asked him who he was, the visitor replied, “I hurried here to see my father.” Everyone in the crowd of relatives was quite shocked. The visitor then calmly proceeded to explain his identity to them.

  _________

  Cun: The Chinese inch, approximately 1/3 decimeter.

  Back when the Duan family’s maidservant was first married into the Luan family, after she’d been there five or six months, she gave birth to a son named Huai, and Luan raised Huai like his own son. When he eventually turned eighteen, he entered a school. Following Luan’s death, Huai’s elder brothers divided up their father’s estate, and didn’t even mention him in their discussion.

  Huai went and asked his mother about it, and realizing what was going on, she told him, “Though you have connections to two families, each of which has its own set of heirs, there’s no need for you to inherit another man’s hundred mu of farmland!” Then she directed him to ride and see Duan, but by then, Duan had already died.

  The assembled nephews could tell that his words were true, but still they demanded absolute proof of them. Lian, who’d been made ill by her frustration over their greedy actions, was absolutely thrilled to hear the young man’s words, excitedly declaring to the nephews, “Now I know that I have another son! Everything that you’ve taken, livestock and assorted property, should technically be returned, otherwise there’s likely to be a lawsuit waiting for you!” All of the nephews stared at each other in dismay, then gradually gave way and left.

  Huai then brought his wife there, so they could both mourn Duan. The other family members were indignant and plotted together to expel Huai. He realized this and exclaimed, “The Luans don’t take me for a Luan, and the Duans also don’t take me to be a Duan, so how am I to find a secure home!”

  He was so angry that he wanted to consult an official, but the relatives persuaded him to drop the idea and just to take it easy. Lian, however, wouldn’t give up since the livestock had been taken. Huai advised h
er not to pursue the matter.

  “I’m not going to do anything with the livestock,” explained Lian, “I’m just gathering them together out of frustration, for your father died from growing angry with his younger relatives’ coveting them, and the reason I had to swallow my tears and put up with them was because I didn’t have an heir. Now that I have you as a son, what is there to fear! You knew nothing about these matters before you arrived, so just stay here with me and I’ll personally take the matter to court.”

  _________

  Mu: A measure equal to 1/6 acre.

  Huai tried his best to stop her, but she wouldn’t listen and instead went to the county magistrate to press charges. The magistrate ordered the arrest of the Duans, and upon examining the matter, he grew sympathetic with Lian’s anger when she animatedly described all that she had endured. The magistrate was visibly moved, so he ordered the punishment of all the young Duan relatives and tracked down the things that they’d already taken from Duan’s home.

  After Lian and Huai returned home, she summoned other sons from her husbands’ brothers, and those who hadn’t been involved with the punished relatives were given the possessions that had been restored to the household.

  When Lian was dying at the age of seventy, she called on her daughter and her granddaughters-in-law so she could advise them, “As you grow up, keep this in mind: if, by the time you reach thirty, you haven’t given birth, pawn some handy piece of jewelry and go buy your husband a concubine. If you end up with no sons, what you’ll have to face will be truly intolerable!”

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “Although Lian was initially jealous, eventually she changed her attitude and she ended up with a son for support. You can see how fervently she made her case in the court! And how heroic she was, too!”

  Jiang Jia, from Jinan, had a wife named Mao who hadn’t given birth to any children and was also quite jealous. Her sister-in-law often tried to advise Mao not to be that way, but she paid no attention, asserting, “I’d rather be without an heir for our family than have to deal with some infuriating concubine!”

  As he drew near his fortieth birthday, Jiang began thinking considerably more about his lack of progeny. He wanted to make his elder brother’s son his inheritor, an idea which his brother and his sister-in-law completely supported, except that they didn’t actually carry through with it officially. Whenever the nephew came to his uncle’s home, Jiang and Mao would entice him with some crispy sweets, and then ask him, “Would you like to come and live in our home?” Finally the boy agreed to consider it.

  Jiang’s elder brother secretly advised his son, “If they ask you that same question again, reply that you don’t want to live with them. If they ask you why not, tell them, ‘If I wait until after you die, then I’ll inherit your real estate.’”

  One day, Jiang was out traveling with a merchant when the boy returned for another visit. Mao asked him why he’d declined to come and stay with them, so the boy told her what his father had coached him to say. Mao angrily responded, “Your mother must be calculating every day how to get ahold of our real estate! Well, those calculations are going nowhere!”

  She chased the boy away, then called for a marriage broker and together they went out to buy her husband a concubine. At the time, there was a fellow selling his maidservant for a rather high price, but Mao didn’t have enough money at hand, so it seemed that she couldn’t possibly afford the maidservant.

  Jiang’s elder brother was afraid that any delay would cause his plans to go awry so he furtively handed some money over to the old marriage broker, encouraging her to accept a loan so Mao could achieve her objective. Mao was very pleased to hear from old woman, so they bought the maidservant and brought her home.

  Mao told her husband about his brother’s son and the words Jiang’s brother had taught him to say, so Jiang severed relations with him. A year later, the concubine gave birth to a son. Jiang and Mao were overjoyed. “The old marriage broker didn’t know the person who offered her the loan,” observed Mao, “and now after a year, that person still hasn’t asked for the money back. This kindness mustn’t be forgotten. Now that our son has been born, we must repay the cost of his mother!”

  Jiang then took a bag of money and went to visit the old woman. She laughed as she told him, “Your generous thanks are enough, good sir. I’m penniless, so no one would ever venture to loan any money to me.” Then she told him everything about the money’s source.

  Jiang finally comprehended what had happened, so he went home and told Mao, where the two of them were moved to tears by his brother’s act of generosity. When they invited Jiang’s elder brother and his wife to come and visit them, Jiang and Mao both crawled on their knees in submission as they took out money to repay the brother, but he refused to accept it, and they rejoiced together before the other couple returned home.

  Afterwards, Jiang’s family had three sons.

  435. The Fox Girl

  Yi Gun was from Jiujiang. One night, a girl appeared to him, and they went to bed together. Yi knew, of course, that she was a fox, but he was lovestruck by her beauty, so he kept their affair a secret, without telling anyone, and not even his parents knew about it.

  After this had been going on for some time, his body started to fall apart. Yi’s parents pressed him with questions till he finally told them the truth. They were so very worried that they sent someone to accompany him while he slept, but they couldn’t stop the fox.

  If Yi’s father personally slept under the same quilt with him, however, the fox girl didn’t come; but if someone else took his place, she’d show up. When Yi asked the fox why this was, she replied, “The common people can’t do anything with their magic charms to control me. But I still practice moral propriety, so how can I possibly make love in front of your father!” When Yi’s father heard this, he determined to become his son’s constant companion and the fox consequently stayed away.

  After it happened that bandits began arrogantly marauding through the area, all the villagers fled and Yi’s family was separated. Yi hurried to Mt. Kunlun, but everywhere he looked around was bleak and desolate. As daylight turned to dusk, he began feeling frightened.

  _________

  Jiujiang: A city in Jiangxi province.

  Mt. Kunlun: Located on the border of Xinjiang province.

  Suddenly he saw a young woman appear, and as he drew closer to look at her, he realized that it was the fox girl. Since he was lost and separated from his family, Yi was greatly comforted to see her. “The sun’s already set in the west,” she said, “so you decided to stop here. Now that we’re together in this beautiful place, we should put up some kind of temporary shelter as protection from the bandits.” Then she walked several paces to the north and squatted down in the tall grass, though Yi had no idea what she was up to.

  After a while she returned, then pulled Yi along with her as she started walking southward; when they’d gone a few dozen steps, she yanked him back around. Suddenly he could see the enormous trunks of a thousand trees surrounding a tall pavilion with brass walls and iron pillars, the roof of which was covered in gold leaf; as he approached to get a closer look, the walls came up to shoulder height, and all around there were no doors, but at the top of the walls, there were rows of indented holes close to each other. The fox girl stuck her feet in them and climbed over, so Yi followed suit.

  After they’d entered the pavilion, Yi began to realize that the metallic building couldn’t have been the work of mortals, so he asked the fox what the place had been built from. With a laugh, she replied, “It’s your home as of tomorrow—I’m giving it to you as a present. There are some ten million individual bits of gold and iron in it, and you can live here for the rest of your life without ever running out of things to eat or wear.”

  Afterwards, she bid him farewell. Yi entreated her to stay, but finally had to give up. She told him, “Your people rejected me, and because of that previous spurning, we have to remain permanentl
y separated; I can’t restore that union now.” Then it was as though he suddenly awakened, and he realized that the fox girl had left at some point without him being aware of it.

  The next day, Yi climbed back over the wall and went outside. When he returned to look over the place where he’d been sleeping, there was no pavilion there—only four needles inserted into a thimble, covered by some resin at their tops; as for the enormous trunks, they were just some old thorn bush brambles clumped together.

  436. The Zhang Family Woman

  It was once commonplace for the Manchu troops to come to a place and inflict the kind of harm that one would otherwise associate with bandits: yet they were worse than thieves, because the thieves would arouse great hatred among the people, while no one dared to oppose the soldiers. They behaved little differently than bandits, particularly in the sense that they were not easily killed.

  In 1674, when troops of Gen Zhongming, Shang Kexi, and Wu Sangui were rebelling again, they began marching into Shandong from the south, resting their horses in Yan, where they emptied farmhouses of their chickens and dogs, and sexually assaulted all the women.

  _________

  Gen Zhongming, Shang Kexi, and Wu Sangui: Given titles as “princes” in 1655 for their role in overthrowing the Ming dynasty and establishing the Qing, these figures (the deceased Geng replaced by Pu’s time with his grandson, Geng Jingzhong) later revolted against the authority of emperor Kangxi. An archetypal traitor from Pu’s perspective, Wu (1612-78) helped to ensure the fall of the Ming dynasty by treacherously allowing Manchu soldiers to enter China from the north; despite the reward of a title and being granted the governorship of Yunnan and Guizou provinces, he rose up in 1674 against the Qing, and by 1678 was proclaiming himself emperor of a new dynasty until he died of an illness. At the time, torrential rains had covered the fields with large pools of water like lakes, so the people had no place to hide from the soldiers but by crowding together on small rafts in the sorghum fields.