Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 4

by Pu Songling

  The guangwen, Master Zhu, son of a prominent family, was upright and uncompromising. To uncover the facts, Zhu furiously declared, “Magistrate, sir, you may consider me to be the world’s most narrow-minded instructor, but who would unconscionably demand money and then sycophantically fawn on upper officials! I just can’t bear those behaviors!” In the end, he gave them no advice. Sun openly returned home.

  Wang didn’t know what to do, so he contacted a mutual friend to serve as a mediator and express to Sun that the Wang family wanted him to apologize to them for his wrongdoing. Sun refused to do so, and in ten subsequent attempts the friend couldn’t get him to change his mind.

  The wife’s wounds gradually healed up, and Sun wanted her to leave, but was afraid that the Wang clan wouldn’t take her back, so he decided just to wait and let her stay where she was.

  Sun grieved for the death of his son and the disappearance of his concubine day and night, so he decided to see the wet nurse, to ask her about the situation. Because she recalled Wubing saying that she “ran away to Yang” with the boy, they approached a village that happened to be named for the Yang family, wondering whether A-Jian might be there; they went to ask around, but no one seemed to know anything about him.

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  Guangwen: An unofficial term for a scholar, or more precisely for an educational official, such as an instructor in a regional or local school (Hucker 288).

  Sycophantically fawn on: Pu’s phrase here literally translates as “sucking somebody’s abscessed hemorrhoids.”

  Someone told them that there was a Yang Valley about fifty li away, so they sent riders out to pay a visit and make inquiries, with the result that they found the boy. A-Jian had gradually made a complete recovery; Sun and the nurse, both overjoyed to see him, picked him up and they all went home together. Seeing his father off in the distance, the boy had begun weeping loudly, and Sun’s own tears had also fallen.

  Upon hearing that the boy was still alive, the wife rushed out in an explosion of anger, and was about to launch into a torrent of reproach and cursing. A-Jian had been crying, and when he opened his eyes to see the Wang woman there, he was so terrified that he clung to his father’s chest, as if begging for Sun to hide him.

  Sun embraced him, and when he looked closely at the boy, he’d already stopped breathing. Sun frantically called out to him, and in moments he began to revive. Raging, Sun cried, “I don’t know how you can be so wickedly cruel, but I’ll guarantee that you can’t do anything more to my son!”

  Then he proceeded to divorce her, and returned her to her parents’ home. Wang consequently refused to accept her, and had her carried back to Sun. Sun wouldn’t allow her to stop there, while he and A-Jian went to live in the courtyard of their home, where the Wang daughter couldn’t get in.

  There, the wet nurse described the magical effects that Wubing had managed, until Sun began to realize that she had done so as a ghost. Moved by her loyalty, he buried all of her clothing and set up a stone tablet that read, “Here lies the grave of the ghost wife, Lü Wubing.”

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  Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.

  Not long afterwards, Wang’s daughter gave birth to a boy, who then strangled him to death. Sun became even more irate, and once again sent her home to her parents; Wang accordingly had her carried back to Sun again.

  Sun then filed formal charges against the woman, directing his accusations to all of the local high officials, but since each of them deferred to Minister Wang, they paid no attention to Sun’s charges. After Wang died, Sun continually reiterated the charges until a verdict finally was imposed, and the wife was returned permanently to her parents’ home. Sun did not remarry after that, instead obtaining another concubine.

  After the Wang daughter returned home, her reputation for being vicious and contentious spread, so during the next three or four years, no one showed any interest in marrying her. She began all of a sudden to regret the way she’d been, but the fact remained that she could no longer attract anyone.

  There was an old woman employed in Sun’s household, and so the Wang daughter quickly invited her to her home. She treated the old woman with great deference, and then her tears began to fall; the old woman guessed what she was feeling, figuring she was thinking about her former husband. When the old woman returned to the Sun household and told him about it, Sun laughed scornfully at the idea.

  Another year went by, and the Wang daughter’s mother died, so she had no one to turn to, for all of her sister-in-laws felt completely disgusted by her; thus the daughter had no place to live and spent her days in tears. The brother of a destitute scholar who had lost his wife came to the Wang brothers to discuss the scholar’s marriage with their sister, and the brothers even planned to make a generous contribution to her dowry, but the daughter refused to consider the proposal.

  She was always sending messages privately to Sun, tearfully saying that she regretted her past actions and wanted to apologize to him, but Sun wouldn’t listen. One day, she coerced a maidservant into letting her borrow a donkey, which she climbed up on, and hurried off to see Sun.

  When Sun came out to greet the rider, she knelt on the stairs at his feet, unable to stop herself from crying. Sun wanted to leave, but the Wang daughter quickly grabbed at his clothing, then knelt again. Sun firmly tried to take his leave of her: “If we keep meeting and talking like this, there’ll be rumors; then one morning, your brothers, acting like tigers and wolves, would show up, and if I’d try to propose a divorce, it would prove to be no easy thing!”

  “I secretly hurried and came here,” she answered, “so it’s out of the question for me to return there; if you’d like to keep me, I’ll stay—otherwise I’ll go away to die! When I was twenty-one, I was joined to you, but at twenty-three I was turned away, and even if I’ve committed evil acts, don’t you still have a slight bit of affection for me?” Then she took off the bracelet that was around her wrist, unbound both of her feet, and pulled up her sleeves, declaring, “Don’t you remember a little how we exchanged vows, at a moment like this very one, in our wedding?”

  Sun felt so conflicted that he wanted to cry, and was about to direct some of his servants to help her into the house; but then he was still suspicious that the Wang family might be trying to trick him somehow, and he wanted to the Wang brothers to vouch for her sincerity.

  “I came here secretly on my own,” she told him, “so how could I beg my brothers to vouch for me? If you won’t trust me, I’ve hidden something here so I can kill myself—please, then, accept a severed finger as proof of my sincerity.”

  Then she took out a sharp blade that she’d been carrying at her waist, came over to the edge of a low table, stretched out her left hand, and cut off a finger, causing her blood to gush out. Sun was utterly horrified, and hurriedly bandaged it up.

  Wang’s daughter maintained a peaceful, happy expression despite the pain, and didn’t groan through the whole experience, smiling instead as she declared, “I’m feeling like I’ve just now awakened from the ‘Yellow Millet Dream,’ and if you could be so kind as to lend me a room wherein I might pursue my intention to become a nun, what reason is there to be suspicious of me any longer?” Sun then sent A-Jian and Sun’s concubine to another one of his residences, while he visited between each of the two places.

  The next day he asked a doctor for some good medicine for the wounded finger, and when they checked on it a month later, it had healed. From that time forward, Wang’s daughter no longer ate meat or drank wine, but simply shut her door and did nothing except chant Buddhist sutras.

  After she’d been living there for a long time, she could see that the management of the home had become lax, so she told Sun, “When I arrived here, it was clear that I had no interest in paying attention to business matters: but now I see that you’ve been in the habit of spending freely, and I worry about your children and grandchildren starving. Reluctantly, I’ll have to man
age your resources again.”

  Then she assembled all of the maidservants, giving them their daily weaving assignments. The servants regarded her as a woman who came there by herself, without any invitation, so they were slow in responding to her, and privately made fun of her, though she chose not to pay any attention to their mockery. Subsequently, in the course of their work, any lazy individuals among them were lashed without pardon, until the group began to fear her.

  Next she personally inspected the supervisor of the servants involved with Sun’s financial affairs, and generally was in charge of even his most insignificant concerns. Sun, as a result, was very happy, and hence he took both his son and his concubine to see her.

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  The ‘Yellow Millet Dream’: Cf. Pu’s story #149, “A Sequel to the Yellow Millet Dream.” In “The Tale of Handan,” from the Tang dynasty fiction source The Pillow Tale, Lu Sheng meets an immortal named Lu Weng, and while some yellow millet is being prepared, Lu Sheng falls asleep, initiating an elaborate dream in which all of his personal aspirations are realized.

  A-Jian by this time was already nine years old, and Wang’s daughter paid special attention to treating him with warmth and sympathy, so that after he went to school each day, she often had sweet cakes waiting for him when he got home; over time, the boy grew to love her, too.

  One day, the boy picked up a stone and threw it at a sparrow just as Wang’s daughter was passing by, accidentally hitting her in the skull and knocking her to the ground, and for more than a quarter hour, she didn’t utter a word. Sun was very upset, and whipped the boy.

  When the woman regained consciousness, she earnestly stopped him, telling him with sincere happiness, “I was cruel to the boy in the past, and though I haven’t yet forgiven myself in my heart, fate has now cancelled my criminal misdeeds.”

  Sun’s love for her became even greater, but she frequently would turn him away, and then send the concubine to his room to sleep with him. After Wang’s daughter had been living there a few years, again and again giving birth to children who proceeded to die in infancy, she told Sun, “This is karmic retribution for the past, when I tried to kill our son.”

  Once A-Jian was married, his stepmother entrusted him with the family’s external affairs since he was her son, and the household matters she entrusted to her daughter-in-law.

  One day she announced, “I know I’m going to die on a certain day.” Sun refused to believe her. Wang’s daughter took care of making all the funeral arrangements, and when the day arrived, she changed her clothes, climbed into her coffin, and died. Her face looked like she was still alive, and a rare fragrance filled the room; but once her body was shut up in the coffin, the fragrance gradually began to dissipate.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “A beloved woman should not be judged as either beautiful or ugly. How do we know but that Mao Qiang and Xi Shi won their reputations for being beauties simply because of those who loved them? Lü Wubing didn’t reflect her virtue externally through beauty, and Sun was teased by others for having a special soft spot for ugly women.

  “The Wang daughter had deep roots in Buddhism from previous lives, and hence suddenly came to an enlightened understanding of it; thus in the never-ending cycle of Buddhism, her next life will be a wealthy and noble one, without the suffering of hardships.”

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  Mao Qiang and Xi Shi: Archetypal beauties from ancient China. Zhuangzi used Mao Qiang’s example to comment on the relativity of beauty (noting that while men all found her gorgeous, fish were frightened by her approach); Li Shi, on the other hand, was said to be so lovely that when she walked past fish, they became so mesmerized that they simply forgot to swim and sank.

  324. The Witch’s Money Prophecy

  Xia Shang lived in Hejian. Xia Dongling, his father, who was rich and powerful, also happened to be quite wasteful, so whenever he’d eat dumplings, he’d discard the corners of the outer dough till his rejected scraps covered the ground. Since he was fat and ponderous, people mocked him as “Commander Dough Dumper.”

  By the time Xia Dongling was an old man, his family had become extremely poor, and some days he couldn’t even afford to eat a meal; his upper arms were so thin that the skin sagged loosely from them, and then people began calling him the “Village Beggar Monk”—since his skin hung like the bags that monks used for collecting alms. As he was on his deathbed, he told his son, Xia Shang, “For my entire life, I’ve been a gluttonous wastrel, indifferent to everyone else, obviously angering heaven, and thus I’m being punished by starving to death. If you effectively practice moderation in your enjoyment of good fortune, you’ll prevail where your father failed.”

  The younger Xia carefully obeyed these instructions after his father died, behaving with matchless honesty and scrupulousness, and working hard to achieve self-sufficiency. His fellow villagers all fondly respected him.

  A certain wealthy old man felt sorry that Xia Shang was so poor, and thus he lent Xia money so he could become a merchant, but Xia kept losing the capital he’d invest. Ashamed that he couldn’t repay his benefactor, he begged the old man to make him his servant. The old man refused to do so.

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

  Xia felt so upset that he couldn’t relax, so he finally sold his family’s house and land, and went to repay the old man. After asking him about why he’d done this, the old man felt an even greater sympathy for Xia Shang, accordingly buying back the family estate and returning it to Xia; then he increased his loan with an even larger sum of money to support Xia’s becoming a merchant.

  “If I can’t repay the ten or so taels that I’ve already borrowed,” replied Xia, “how can I avoid burdening my descendants with even heavier debts?”

  The old man proceeded to summon some other merchants to accompany Xia Shang, and when they returned after several months, Xia had just barely broken even; the old man refused to accept any money from him and sent him back out again. In just over a year, his durable goods and the proceeds from his sales were enough to fill a cart, but when he was crossing a river with it to return home, there was a storm and the boat nearly capsized, causing him to lose half of everything he had.

  When he arrived home and calculated his assets, he found he was able to repay everyone from whom he’d borrowed, so he told the merchants, “If heaven has decided that I should be poor, who can possibly rescue me? I’m the one causing you all this trouble!” Settling his accounts and paying the merchants what he owed them, he then prostrated himself respectfully before them, and bid them farewell.

  The old man tried to coerce him into going out again, but without success, so Xia returned to plowing the field like before. He would sigh to himself and lament, “If everyone else in the world gets several years of happiness and enjoyment, why should I be down and out like this?”

  It happened that there was a foreign witch in the area who accepted money in order to foretell the future, and claimed to know everything about a person’s fate. Xia respectfully paid her a visit. The witch was an old woman. The place where she lived was perfectly clean and neat, and inside she’d set up a shrine, where there was the fragrance of incense burning.

  Xia entered and paid his respects at the shrine, then the witch asked for money. Xia gave her a hundred copper coins, which she placed inside a wooden cask that she held as she knelt before the shrine, and shook the cask, making prayerful sounds. Soon she stood up, tipped the money into her hand, then stood behind a table as she laid the coins out on it, one after the other.

  Her fortune-telling method construed that if a coin face with characters on it came up, it signified bad fortune; if the plain side came up, it signified good fortune; the first fifty-eight coins all had the character side up, while the rest all had the plain side up. “How old are you?” asked the witch.

  “Twenty-eight,” repl
ied Xia.

  The witch shook her head and exclaimed, “So early! So early yet! You’re still bearing the burden of previous generations’ misdeeds, not your own. When you turn fifty-eight, you’ll begin living your own fate, and beginning then, you’ll be free of these entanglements.”

  “What do you mean when you mention the misdeeds of previous generations?” he inquired.

  “When the preceding generations continually perform good deeds,” she explained, “their descendants enjoy good fortune; but when the preceding generations continually perform wicked deeds, their descendants experience misfortune.”

  Xia counted on his fingers and replied, “Thirty years from now, I’ll already be a doddering elder, ready for my coffin.”

  The witch told him, “During those first fifty-eight years, you’ll have five years’ respite of good luck, at which time you can try to seek your fortune; however, that’s only so you can avoid being hungry and cold. When you turn fifty-eight, you’ll have a huge fortune come your way that has nothing to do with your own efforts. The previous generations’ lives will no longer have any influence over yours, and the generation after yours will enjoy uninterrupted good fortune.”

  Xia left the witch and returned home, dubious that he could trust half of what she’d said. Yet he was happy to live simply and accept his situation, not daring to expect anything more from life. After he turned fifty-three, he began to look out for any indications that a change might be coming.

  It was time for the spring cultivation, but Xia was sick with malaria and unable to do the plowing. Once he’d recovered, there was a great drought, causing all the grain previously planted to dry up and die. When autumn approached and the rains came, his family didn’t have any other seeds, and so he planted several mu of farmland entirely in millet. After this, there was another drought, so that half of all the buckwheat and beans that were planted died, and only millet was left unaffected; following this, the rains returned, and Xia reaped an abundant harvest of his crop.