Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 4

by Pu Songling

  Jiangcheng then returned home, leaving second sister feeling so humiliated and furious that she sent Ge to confront Gao Fan about the attack. Gao hurried out of the house to meet Ge and tried to offer his sympathy. Ge privately told him, “I’ve come here, but not because I’ve got anything against you. My overbearing wife is heartless, so it was fortunate for me to have your wife come and discipline her—we two can’t possibly have any grudge between us.”

  Having heard Ge’s comment, Jiangcheng hurried out, pointed at him and abusively shouted, “You dirty traitor! Your wife is made to suffer, yet you secretly betray her by becoming allies with an outsider! Men like you shouldn’t be so evil!” She quickly called for someone to fetch her a stick. Ge was so terribly embarrassed that he ran for the doorway and made his escape. Henceforth, Gao Fan was denied social contact with him.

  Gao’s schoolmate, Wang Ziya, happened to be passing through, so Gao cordially invited him to stay for drinks. While they were drinking, they teased each other about bedroom matters, some of their jesting proving quite obscene. Jiangcheng happened to be spying on their guest, hearing everything with complete clarity, and secretly tossed some crotons into the soup and proceeded to serve it to Wang. Before long, he began vomiting violently, unable to stop himself, and his life itself seemed in danger.

  Jiangcheng sent a maidservant to Wang to inquire, “Will you dare to show such impertinence again?” At that moment, Wang realized how he’d come to be so ill, and, groaning, expressed how sorry he was for what he’d said. Jiangcheng already had some mung bean soup prepared and waiting for him. After drinking it, he stopped vomiting. Subsequent to this, Gao Fan’s acquaintances all warned each other, so no one dared stop at his home for drinks.

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  Some crotons: That is, some portions of the Croton tiglium plant, which yields a viscous, acrid oil that can be used as a cathartic (to induce vomiting), a vesicant (to induce blistering), or a pustulant (to induce pustules).

  Wang had a wine shop, renowned for its red plums, where he arranged one day for a banquet and invited a group of his companions. Gao Fan gave Jiangcheng the excuse that he had to report for a meeting of the literary society, and left to join them.

  That night, as they were drinking heartily, Wang made the suggestion, “It so happens that there’s a famous prostitute from Nanchang who’s staying in town here, so we could call on her to join us for drinks.” This idea pleased the group very much.

  Only Gao Fan got up from his seat, prepared to leave. The bunch pulled him back down, saying, “Even if your woman has very strong eyes and ears, she can’t hear or see what’s going on here.” They all swore to keep their mouths shut about the matter. Gao then took his seat again.

  In a little while, the prostitute consequently made an appearance. She was eighteen or nineteen, wore a jade pendant that tinkled as she walked, and had her hair combed up high in a bun. When they asked her name, she replied, “My surname is Xie, and my courtesy name is Fanglan.” Her very breaths came out as poetry, and she was so very refined that all the men present were driven mad for her. But Fanglan was especially interested in Gao Fan, repeatedly directing significant glances at him.

  Once the group could tell that this was how she felt, they dragged the two of them over so they were sitting together. Fanglan secretly held Gao’s hand while with her finger she traced the character for “stay overnight” in his palm. At that moment, Gao Fan thought he’d better leave, but couldn’t bear to do so, and wanted to stay but didn’t dare to do so, which left him feeling as mixed up as a jumble of silk threads, unable to respond. But he leaned his head over to whisper in her ear, his drunkenness making him even more crazy about her, despite the tiger in rouge at home, about whom he conveniently forgot.

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  Nanchang: The capital of Jiangxi province.

  Xie . . . Fanglan: An ingratiating name indeed, with her surname meaning “thanks” or “gratitude,” and her courtesy name meaning “fragrant orchid.”

  In a moment, they heard that the latest shift of the night watch was already sounding, and the other customers in the wine shop began dwindling; there was just a handsome young man seated at a distant table, drinking wine by candlelight, with a young servant holding a cloth and waiting on him. In lowered voices, Wang’s party began discussing his elegant manners.

  Not long after this, the young man concluded his drinking, and walked out the door. His boy servant turned around and came back inside, facing Gao Fan and announcing, “My master is waiting to have a word with you.” The group was at a loss about what was going on, while Gao Fan alone paled at the turn of events, and without taking time to say anything to the others, hurried outside.

  The young man was none other than Jiangcheng in disguise, and the boy was her maidservant. Gao followed them till they returned home, and there he prostrated himself while Jiangcheng lashed him with a whip. Henceforth, Jiangcheng kept him even more strictly imprisoned, preventing him from visiting others to offer either congratulations or condolences. When an official associated with the imperial civil service examination arrived to meet with all the local scholars, he demoted Gao to a lower ranking, due to mistakes he’d made while addressing the subject of an examination.

  One day, Jiangcheng happened to see Gao Fan speaking with a maidservant, and suspecting that they might be carrying on an affair, she put a wine jar over the servant’s head and flogged her. Later on, she tied Gao and the maidservant together, took her embroidery scissors and snipped out pieces of flesh from their stomachs, placing the pieces on the opposite person’s stomach, then loosened their cords so they could each bind up their own wounds. A month passed, and the wounded places eventually closed up.

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  Night watch: The five two-hour divisions of the night, between approximately 7:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.

  Jiangcheng often took pancakes, trampled on them in the dust, then, yelling at Gao Fan, would force him to pick them up and eat them. She did many such wicked things.

  Gao’s mother had been thinking about her son, so she decided to pay him a visit, and when she saw how thin and scrawny he was, she returned home and cried her heart out. That night she dreamt that an old man told her, “You don’t need to worry, this is all due to karma from a previous existence. Jiangcheng was originally a long-lived rat raised by a Buddhist monk named Jingye, and your son, originally a scholar, happened to travel to Jingye’s temple, where he mistakenly killed the rat. To make up for that misfortune now is beyond the means of mere human power. But every morning when you rise, if with sincere reverence you chant an invocation of Guan Yin one hundred times, you’ll certainly achieve the desired effect.”

  When she woke up, she told everything to Gao Zhonghong, who found it strange indeed, but the couple did exactly as they’d been instructed. Though they piously chanted for more than two months, Jianghcheng was just as perverse as ever, proving even more violent and uncontrollable.

  Whenever she heard the gongs and drums of processions outside their gate, she always gripped her hair and rushed out, looking foolish as she stared off into the distance, so that throngs of bystanders pointed and gawked at her, though she’d remain calm, without doing anything strange. Her parents-in-law were ashamed of her actions, but couldn’t stop her from going out.

  Suddenly one day there was an old monk teaching about karma outside their gate, as people stood like a wall to observe him. The monk beat on the hide of a drum to make a sound like a cow mooing. Jiangcheng rushed out and saw people crowded together, with no space left for her to squeeze through, so she ordered a maidservant to move a bed outside, allowing her to climb up on it and watch. The eyes of the crowd all focused on her, but Jiangcheng acted as though she hadn’t noticed.

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  Guan Yin: The Buddhist goddess of mercy.

  Time passed, and as the monk was just about to conclude his lesson, he asked for a basin
of clear water, which he held while facing Jiangcheng and proclaiming, “You mustn’t be angry, you mustn’t be angry! Your former life is not an illusion, and your present life is not real. Tsk! Pull your head back and run away, rat, for if you don’t, the cat will be sent to find you.”

  When he finished speaking, he sucked up some of the water and sprayed it in Jiangcheng’s face, so her makeup began to run, dripping down her front and sleeves. The crowd was shocked, figuring that Jiangcheng would explode in anger, yet she didn’t say a word, but simply wiped her face and went home. The monk then also departed.

  Upon entering her room, Jiangcheng sat there listlessly, as dejected as someone in mourning, and refused eat anything all day long, instead simply sweeping her bed clear and hastily going to sleep. At midnight, she suddenly called out Gao’s name. He figured that she just needed to urinate, so he carried in a chamber pot for her.

  Jiangcheng pushed it away, but grabbed his arm in the dark and dragged him under her quilt. Gao Fan followed her instructions, his limbs quaking in terror, as though obeying an imperial edict. With deep feeling, Jiangcheng exclaimed, “If I’ve caused you to feel this way, how can I be considered a human being?”

  Then she took her hand and lightly stroked Gao’s body with it, and each time she came to a knife or whip scar, she sobbed tearfully, always digging her fingernails into her own skin, regretting that she couldn’t die immediately. When Gao Fan saw her behaving this way, he couldn’t stand it, so he did his best to comfort her.

  “I think that monk must certainly be the Bodhisattva in human form,” she told him. “It was as if that spray of clear water transformed everything inside me. Now I recall my past life from that other world. Haven’t I been acting like something not at all human? I have a husband and yet I couldn’t make him happy, and I have in-laws but haven’t been able to take care of them, so indeed what kind of heart does that indicate! Tomorrow we can move our household, and still live together with your parents, so we can look after their health.” She continued chatting through the rest of the night, as though it had been ten years since she’d last spoken to her husband.

  At daybreak she got out of bed, began folding clothing and gathering utensils, then she had a maidservant carry a basket of things while she personally took charge of her own clothing, and urged Gao Fan to go knock at his parents’ door. His mother came out, expecting some kind of appalling news, and Gao told her what they were doing.

  His mother was rather hesitant, revealing her reluctance to allow it, but by then Jiangcheng and her maidservant had already arrived. Gao’s mother followed them inside. Jiangcheng prostrated herself, weeping sorrowfully, begging only that she might not have to die. Gao’s mother scrutinized her to determine her sincerity, and then, also weeping, cried, “Child, why are you suddenly acting like this?”

  Gao Fan then related the details of everything that had transpired, and it was at that moment that his mother realized that the prediction in her dream had come true. Overjoyed, she called for servants to clear everything out of their former residence.

  Jiangcheng earned respect by acting obediently and with devotion, surpassing the deeds of even a filial son. When she ran into people, she blushed shyly, like a new bride. If someone happened to tease her about past events, her cheeks would flush red with embarrassment. Furthermore, she was hardworking and thrifty, adept at managing the household and accumulating money; thus in three years, her parents-in-law, who paid no attention to the family finances, nevertheless found themselves extremely wealthy.

  Gao Fan that same year was designated a juren. Every so often, Jiangcheng would say to him, “From that day before, when I first saw Fanglan, until now, I still remember her.” Gao felt so satisfied with no longer having to deal with Jiangcheng’s tormenting him, that he didn’t dare allow any bad thoughts to germinate in his imagination, so he just answered her vaguely.

  He had to travel to the capital to take the next civil service examination, and was gone for several months before he returned. When he entered the house, he discovered Fanglan sitting across from Jiangcheng, playing chess with her. Startled, he asked what was going on, and Jiangcheng explained that she’d paid out several hundred taels to redeem Fanglan. Concerning all this, Wang Ziya, from Zhejiang, has described it all to me in great detail.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “In some way, there is a reckoning for all misdeeds, but for those to whom retribution comes in the form of bedroom activity, it’s sure to be like a deep-rooted ulcer that attacks the bone, its poison particularly cruel. I’ve noticed that the number of women of good moral character in the world is about one in ten, with nine out of ten proving to be shrews, while I can see that men who perform good deeds are also quite rare. Why doesn’t Guan Yin simply spread the water of her merciful basin across the boundless universe?”

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  Juren: A successful candidate in the provincial level of the imperial civil service examination.

  253. Scholar Sun

  Scholar Sun married a daughter of the Xin family. At the time she married into his family, she arrived wearing clothing that specifically made it impossible for her husband to have sex with her, for she bound herself from head to foot, and she rejected Sun in bed. At her bedside, she always kept a long, pointy hairpin to use like a weapon to protect herself. Time and again Sun was stabbed with it, simply for wanting to come to bed to sleep.

  A month went by, and still he didn’t dare try to make love to her. In the daytime, whenever they ran into each other, the woman didn’t even try to smile at him. A certain schoolmate of Sun knew what was going on, and privately asked him, “Does your wife drink much?”

  “A little,” Sun replied.

  The schoolmate playfully told him, “I have a method for settling the matter amicably, that’s effective and practical.”

  “What method?” demanded Sun.

  “You take some knockout drops and put them in her wine,” he explained, “give it to her and have her drink it, and then you can do whatever you want.” Sun laughed gleefully, convinced that this plan was a good one.

  He made inquiries of a doctor, then took some Monkshood rhizome and simmered it in wine, after-wards placing in on their table. When night fell, Sun kept refilling his own wine goblet until he went to bed. This went on for three nights, but all the while, his wife didn’t drink at all.

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  Monkshood rhizome: Usually employed only externally for nerve-related pain (since all parts of Monkshood are poisonous), the treated rhizome is used in Traditional Chinese Medicine as a sedative as “part of prescriptions for shock, some heart disease, and uterine cancer” (Bremness 137).

  One night, when Sun went to lie down tentatively, he noticed that his wife remained sitting there quietly, so he pretended to start snoring; his wife then lay down on the bed, taking with her some wine that had been simmering on the fire. Sun’s happiness was limitless. Subsequently, she filled an additional cup with wine; then when that was gone, she finished off about another half a cup, having taken it as before from the special pot, then she brushed off her side of the bed and went to sleep.

  After a long time, hearing no additional sound from her, Sun brought over a brightly shining lamp and held it towards her, to see if she wouldn’t try to put it out. Suspecting that she might still be conscious, he yelled in a loud voice, “The tin candle-holder’s melting!” His wife didn’t react, so again he yelled, and still she didn’t react. As he crept closer to observe her body, he could see that she was drunkenly asleep, as soft and yielding as mud.

  He lifted the quilt and slipped under it stealthily, then began untying the layers of her cloth bindings. His wife felt him doing so, but could neither move nor speak, so he rashly had his way with her. As soon as she woke up, she was filled with loathing, so she flung up a noose and hanged herself.

  Sun was in the middle of a dream when he heard a howling sound, and though he quickly got up
to take a look, her tongue was already sticking out about two cun. Horrified, he cut the rope and laid her on the bed,and after some time, she finally began to revive. Sun henceforth hated himself for what he’d done, so the couple stayed out of each other’s way, and if they did happen to run into each other, they simply bowed their heads in mutual acknowledgment.

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  About two cun: A length equal to 2/3 decimeter, or pretty close to eight inches.

  Four or five years went by, but they didn’t exchange a single word. Whenever the wife was in her room, she’d laugh and play with other people; but if she happened to see her husband appear, her expression would suddenly change, becoming as cold as frost and snow. Sun always arranged to sleep in his study, and years passed but he didn’t go back to the bedroom; if he tried to force his way back in, she’d retreat to her bed temporarily and lay silently on her pillow—and that was that. Sun’s parents became very worried about the situation.

  One day, an old Buddhist nun arrived at their house, and when she saw Sun’s wife, she began earnestly praising her. Sun’s mother didn’t say anything, but just sighed deeply. The elderly nun asked her why she sighed, so the mother explained to her why she felt that way. The nun replied, “This is an easy matter to resolve.”

  “If you can turn around my daughter-in-law’s behavior,” the mother declared happily, “you can name your own reward.”

  The old nun peeked into the room, and no one was there, so she told Sun’s mother, “Go purchase a salacious painting, and after three days, act as though you’ve become disgusted with it.” When the nun left, Sun’s mother went to make the purchase, then took the painting home to wait.

  Three days later, the old nun arrived, and advised her, “This is a great secret, so you mustn’t let the husband or wife know about it.” She took scissors to cut the people out of the painting, pricked them with a needle three times, took a pinch of mugwort, wrapped it all up in a piece of paper and tied it securely, on the outside drawing several pictures in the shape of earthworms, then sent the mother to trick her daughter-in-law into going outdoors while the nun stole her pillow, opened up the stitching in it and tossed the bundle inside; afterwards, she stitched it up like it was before, and returned it to its place. The Buddhist nun then left.