Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 4

by Pu Songling

  Positive . . . negative appears: This is the essence of all Chinese philosophy—balance is harmonious, and imbalance is chaotic. Chang’e is arguing that Diandang’s frivolity with the maids has caused an essential imbalance, with chaotic results: the death of Jia’s daughter.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “It’s a profound saying that the negative emerges when the positive grows too much! But if there was an immortal in my house, I trust that I’d be euphorically happy, that my troubles would disappear, that I’d grow as a scholar, and I wouldn’t die. For with such happiness and longevity, it should be wonderful to be an immortal—so why did Chang’e seem to feel so miserable? Fate may proceed and change course variously, yet its laws remain steadfastly appropriate; but when one’s life grows wearisome and doesn’t go smoothly, isn’t it possible that immortality is equated with misery? In the days of the Song dynasty, when people asked the celestials for something and that something was then denied them, they always said, ‘You may be made an immortal some day, but at that point you wouldn’t be afraid of dying anyway.’ I can no longer laugh about that one.”

  _______________________________

  An influential family for generations: Sang argues that the fact of Pu’s not emphasizing the reality that Chang’e “does not belong to the human world” is evidence that for the author, she has fulfilled her duties as a wife, “and is, therefore, fully accepted and integrated into the human world” (306n45).

  Song dynasty: Spanning 960-1279 C.E.

  316. Ju Leru

  Ju Leru was from Qingzhou. When his wife died, he abandoned his home and went away. After several years, he returned home wearing Daoist clothing, with a rush cushion slung over his back. He could tolerate staying overnight, but then he wanted to leave again, while his relatives forcibly tried to detain him by grabbing at his clothing and walking stick. He made the excuse that he just needed to take a jaunt outside the village—and as he left, all of his clothing and belongings in the room flew out after him.

  _______________________________

  Qingzhou: The former Yidu county, Shandong province.

  317. Scholar Chu

  At the time that Chen Xiaolian, from Shuntian, was sixteen or seventeen years old, he began working with a private tutor in reading at a Buddhist temple, and a great many fellow students were also studying with him. One of them was a scholar named Chu, who said he was from Shandong, and focused on working hard, never taking a break; moreover, he even slept in the study, and no one ever saw him return home. Chen considered him the best of the students, so he asked him about it.

  “My family’s poor,” replied Chu, “and it’s not easy to come up with money, so I can’t afford to waste any of the short time I have here, and thus if I work up until midnight, I can do in two days what it takes other students three days to do.” Chen was moved by his words, and wanted to bring his bed into Chu’s room, so they could be roommates.

  Chu stopped him and exclaimed, “Not now, not now! I feel that our current teacher isn’t really qualified to instruct us. At the Shuntian city gates, there’s a gentleman named Lü, who’s quite aged and could be our teacher, so if you agree, I’ll invite you to come with me. Generally in the city, teachers take tuition fees by the month, so that at the end of every month, students can decide whether to stay or to leave.” Hence the two fellow scholars went to visit Lü.

  _______________________________

  Shuntian: Old name for modern Beijing.

  Lü, a learned elder scholar, was down on his luck and couldn’t afford to go home, so he was compelled to teach any ignorant child who could pay him, which was truly not what he’d aspired to be doing. Thus he was very happy to see the two scholars; Chu was the more intelligent of the two, capable of remembering everything he read, so teacher Lü regarded him more highly. Chen and Chu formed an intimate friendship, sharing the same study table by day, and the same bed by night.

  At the end of the month, Chu suddenly look a leave of absence to return home, and after ten days, he still hadn’t returned. Chen and Lü grew concerned. One day, Chen went to Heavenly Tranquility monastery, and there he found Chu in a hallway, where he was fashioning small torches from hemp plants and sulfur. When he saw Chen, he appeared embarrassed and uneasy. “Why did you give up on our studying together so abruptly?” asked Chen.

  Chu took his hand as though pleading, and sadly replied, “I’m so poor that I don’t have anything to pay master Lü, but surely in another half a month of peddling these, I’ll be able to pay for a month of tutoring.”

  Chen sighed deeply for a long while, then replied, “But if we can just resume our studying, naturally I’ll do everything in my power to make it possible.” He told his servants to take over Chu’s torch-making business, so the two of them could return to their studies. Chu warned Chen not to say anything to their teacher, that he would figure out a way to tell him everything.

  Chen’s father ran a mercantile shop, so he was reasonably wealthy, and hence Chen pilfered some of his father’s money, in order for Chu to give it to teacher Lü. Once his father concluded that Chen must be responsible for the missing money, Chen finally told him the truth.

  Since Chen’s father thought he was behaving foolishly, he cancelled his son’s studies. Chu was quite ashamed, and wanted to leave. Lü knew all about it, and told Chu, “Since you’re poor, why didn’t you tell me earlier?” Thus he took all the money he been given, and returned it to Chen’s father, offered to tutor Chu just as before, then treated him to dinner like he was his own son.

  Even though he wasn’t allowed to study with Lü any longer, Chen kept inviting Chu to his house to drink with him. But Chu firmly wished to avoid any potentially suspicious activities, and hence he didn’t go; yet Chen so fervently wanted him to do so, often weeping about it, that Chu couldn’t bear to sever their connection, and consequently they resumed their close contact.

  Two years passed, and Chen’s father died, so Chen again entreated old Lü to be his teacher. Lü could feel his sincerity, so he accepted the offer; but after discontinuing his schooling for a long time, it was obvious that Chen had become a very different kind of student.

  After Lü had been living with them for half a year, his eldest son arrived from Yue, begging for food and looking for his father. Chen had been saving some money to use to defray his own costs when returning home, but Chu could only weep in sympathy, reluctant for Lü to leave.

  Just before he left them, Lü urged Chen to treat Chu as his teacher. Chen did as he asked, and lodged Chu in his home. Before long, he was able to enter the county school, so he could take the provincial-level civil service examination. Chen thought it over and didn’t believe he could finish all the reading and writing required, so Chu asked to be allowed to take his place.

  When the time for the examination arrived, Chu appeared with another man, identifying him as his older cousin, Liu Tianruo, and urged Chen to come with him briefly. As soon as Chen came out, Chu suddenly started pulling him till he felt like he was going to stumble and fall, so Liu quickly began pulling at him, too, as they left. They looked off in the distance at their destination, and ended up lodging at Liu’s house. There weren’t any women in the household, so Liu accommodated Chen by giving him the innermost room of the house.

  _______________________________

  Yue: Part of modern Zhejiang province.

  Innermost room of the house: Ordinarily reserved for the women in households.

  After they’d been staying there for several days, it was suddenly already mid-autumn. “Today in Li’s Huangqin Garden,” said Liu, “there will be many sightseers, so we should go there to release some of the pressure of worrying about the exam, then I’ll accompany you home.” He sent some servants to brew a pot of tea, and once they’d finished it, he and Chen set out.

  They spotted a wine shop in the Plum Pavilion, and although it was noisy with business, no one was allowed to sit inside. Once they passed the water gate, there was
a boat lying underneath an old willow, and they proceeded to climb into it.

  After they’d shared several rounds of wine, they began to feel rather bored. Liu turned to a boy servant and said, “There’s a new woman at the Plum Blossom inn—do you know if she’s at home?” The boy left, and moments later returned with her. The woman from the brothel turned out to be Li Eryun. Li, a renowned courtesan in the capital, was skilled at poetry, and a good singer, so Chen had once taken some friends to drink at her establishment, which is why he knew who she was.

  When she met them, her greeting seemed rather lukewarm. Li appeared anxious, and wore a worried look. When Liu told her to sing them a song, she performed “An Elegy.” Chen was displeased, and commented, “Since neither the host nor the guest fits your theme, why treat a living audience to a song about death?”

  Li got up and apologized, forced herself to smile, then sang a romantic song. This made Chen happy, so he caught her by the wrist and said, “In the past, you’ve recited ‘Washing Clothes in the Creek’ on several occasions, but you’ve neglected it so far.”

  Li then recited,

  _______________________________

  Li’s Huangqin Garden: Zhu observes that an actual establishment like the one attributed here to courtesan Li was located near the southern wall of Beijing (see 2:1084n21).

  “An Elegy”: This well-known Chinese classical piece is often used to accompany funeral processions.

  Tearful eyes brimming over

  onto the dressing table,

  Opening the curtain and suddenly seeing little sister-in-law arrive,

  Lowering my head, turning it to see the slippers on her tiny feet.

  I flutter my eyebrows and smile,

  Frequently rubbing my cheek with my red sleeve

  Carefully, worried someone will suspect what I feel.

  Chen repeated it a few more times.

  Soon afterwards, they moored their boat and passed a long veranda where they saw a great many poetic narratives recorded on its walls, and called for a brush so they could record these words on it. The daylight had already begun to grow dim, so Liu told them, “The people who have taken the examination are about to leave the examination site.” Then he accompanied Chen home.

  As soon as Chen entered his gate, Liu left. Chen could see that his house was dark and empty, so he delayed for a bit, till by that time Chu had already entered his gate; but as he scrutinized him, he stepped back, because it wasn’t scholar Chu.

  He was suspicious, then, as the visitor hastily drew near him and fell to the ground. Chen’s servants cried, “The master’s exhausted!” Then they all helped him to his feet. As his position was shifting, Chen realized that he was, indeed, the man who had fallen.

  After he’d gotten up, he saw that scholar Chu was at his side, and began to doubt that perhaps it was all a dream. He dismissed the others so he could figure out what was going on. “I’ll tell you so you won’t be scared: I’m really a ghost,” explained Chu. “I was reincarnated a long while ago, but I’m procrastinating like this because I couldn’t forget our great friendship, and in order to repay you, I took your body to write your examination; I’ve finished three tests for you, which is what you’d hoped for.”

  Chen then begged him to accompany him to the national-level examination. Chu replied, “Your ancestors’ fortunes were weak, and they were miserly to the bone, so because of that, you can’t achieve any greater prominence.”

  “Where will you go?” asked Chen.

  “Master Lü is fated to be my father,” said Chu, “but this ordinarily wouldn’t have happened. My cousin works for the Hell King, so his begging on Lü’s behalf can probably bring about some kind of result.” Then they joined up with the other departing examinees.

  Chen thought this all very strange. The next morning, he went to make inquiries about courtesan Li, and just as he was going to ask about the boating incident, he discovered that she’d died several days earlier. When he arrived at Huangqin Garden, he noticed that the verse they’d copied was still on the wall there, but the ink had faded, almost as if it had been rubbed away. He began to comprehend that his spirit had conceived of the title, and Li’s ghost had provided the content.

  At nightfall, a jubilant Chu arrived and said, “Fortunately, it looks like the plan will succeed, so I’ll be saying farewell to you and the others.” Then he extended both palms, and directed Chen to write the name “Chu” on each of them.

  Chen was just about to set out some wine and entertain Chu with a dinner, when the latter shook his head and said, “I mustn’t. Don’t forget your old friend—after the list of successful examination candidates is posted, I hope you won’t bother traveling far just to see me.” Chen wiped away his tears and Chu walked along with him.

  _______________________________

  Three tests: The imperial civil service examinations held at the local, county, and provincial levels.

  They saw a man standing outside the examination hall door, waiting to take care of Chu; Chu was reluctant to leave, so the man took his hand and pressed it to Chu’s neck, causing him immediately to change into a silk banner, which the man grasped in both hands, inserted into a bag that he then slung over his shoulder, and left.

  Several days passed, and Chen was named a successful examination candidate. As a result, he made preparations for a long journey to Yue.

  Lü’s wife, who ten years earlier had given up the idea of ever having a child again, at the age of fifty suddenly gave birth to a son, whose two hands were clenched so tightly shut that his parents couldn’t open them. Once Chen arrived, he asked if he might see the child, and told them that on each palm the child would have the name “Chu” written. Lü didn’t believe it.

  When the boy saw Chen, his ten fingers opened out, and they could all see the name written there. Shocked, Lü and his wife asked how this could be, and Chen told them everything. All of them marveled happily at the rare event. Chen lavished gifts generously on them, and then returned home.

  Some time later, Lü gathered the requisite fees so he could take the imperial examination, and entered the capital, where he stayed with Chen; and his son, at the age of thirteen, was admitted to a government school.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “Old Lü taught his students, but didn’t teach his own son. Ah! Doing good deeds for another person, and evoking the blessings of heaven for oneself, happen simultaneously! Though Scholar Chu didn’t have a mortal body to use to repay his teacher, he employed his spirit to help his friend, with a will so powerful that it crossed from one world to another—and how can we not acknowledge that he was able to accomplish this noble deed precisely because he was a ghost!”

  318. The Outlaws’ Lair

  On a peak in the region around Teng, during the reign of Shunzhi, seventy percent of the people living there were outlaws whom officials didn’t even dare to try to capture. After they’d accepted an offer of amnesty, the county magistrate gave their stronghold an official designation: the “Outlaw’s Lair.”

  When the outlaws occasionally committed some violation against law-abiding citizens, the local officials would try to cover for them out of fear that they might rebel again.

  Consequently, defendants coming before the magistrate would always pretend that they were from the “Outlaw’s Lair” so the officials would pardon them, while the plaintiffs would try to prove that they weren’t; both sides would press their arguments, making it difficult for the magistrate to distinguish right from wrong and truth from falsehood.

  It happened that there were quite a few foxes occupying the officials’ public office, and the county magistrate had a daughter who was being plagued by them, so he invited a Daoist to come, and using a talisman with magical figures on it to force the foxes into a bottle, the Daoist was right on the verge of setting it on fire.

  From inside the bottle, the foxes loudly cried, “But we’re from the ‘Outlaws Lair’!” When the others heard this, they couldn’t h
ide their laughter.

  _______________________________

  Teng: Modern Shandong province’s Teng county.

  Shunzhi: This Qing dynsty emperor was ruled from 1644-61.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “These days, if someone commits a robbery, the officials will regard him as an illicit lover; while someone who climbs over others’ walls in order to pursue an affair will be adjudged a thief: that’s how the world has changed. Today, if a fox in an official’s public office cries out, ‘I’m an outlaw,’ this wouldn’t seem at all strange.”

  In Zhangqiu, the common people had to pay certain laborers who delivered their grain for taxes but who dipped into the crops for their compensation, and consequently these men made much more off the process than more powerful officials and elite scholars. For that reason, the lowly citizens begged to be allowed to put their lands under the names of these powerful men, who avoided paying both the labor and the tax. This phenomenon didn’t cut into the government taxes, but instead came out of the percentage that would have gone into the pockets of local officials.

  County magistrate Ling filed a document requesting reform of this bad policy, and received approval for it. At first, he ordered the powerful individuals who’d been avoiding taxation to come to the court voluntarily; later, malcontent citizens threatened to sue some of the powerful men, claiming that everything they’d purchased for over a decade had been illegally obtained. Magistrate Ling showed such a bias in favor of the wicked tax dodgers that certain obedient, law-abiding scholars had to forfeit their possessions.

  There was a scholar named Li, as well as a certain Jia, involved in a lawsuit, and both had to go and submit themselves to questioning. Jia called Li a xiucai; in a stern voice, Li disputed this, saying that Jia couldn’t just assert that he was a xiucai. Their noisy arguments went on and on. The magistrate interrogated them back and forth, while each man pointed at the other as the real xiucai. “Why are you arguing like this?” demanded the magistrate.