Strange Tales from Liaozhai--Volume 5 Read online

  3 They are the Primordial Lord (yuanshitianzun 元始天 尊), the Lord of the Divine Treasure Spirit (lingbaotianzun 灵宝 天尊), and the Lord of the Virtuous Way (daodetianzun 道德天尊), associated with three separate branches of Daoist thought. They are celebrated during the Festival of the Three Daoist Principles (associated with the three “treasures,” moderation, humility, and compassion)—held on the fifteenth day of the seventh lunar month—which scholar Tao is encouraged to celebrate by the immortal title character of Pu’s “Yu Qu’e.”

  The Tales

  331. Xing Ziyi

  In Teng, there was a certain Yang who belonged to the White Lotus Society. As an adherent, he mastered the art of magic. Following the suppression of Xu Hongru’s rebellion, Yang was fortunately overlooked, so he was able to continue practicing magic while roaming the country. His home included fields, gardens, and towers, so one could say that his family was rather wealthy.

  As he came to the Si River, where there was a certain nobleman’s home, he was playfully practicing some magic, and some women came out to watch. Yang glanced obliquely at them and noticed one girl was quite a beauty, so he returned home, planning how to get her away from there.

  His second wife, named Zhu, was charming and always wore colorful apparel, since Yang had her dress up elaborately to pretend to be an immortal; he gave her a wooden bird and taught her how to animate it with her spirit; then he led her upstairs, and gave her a push. Zhu felt her body become as light as a leaf, fluttering upward into the clouds.

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  Teng: A county, part of modern Shandong province.

  White Lotus Society: Originally a Buddhist sect with twelfth-century roots, the group took a messianic turn during the Qing dynasty, and became part of the tax revolt in 1796 among poor people in the Dabashan mountain range, at the eastern border of Sichuan province. Folklore popularly ascribes magical abilities to the sect members.

  Xu Hongru’s rebellion: Affiliated with the White Lotus Society, Xu in 1622 declared the end of Ming dynasty rule and “instigated a large-scale rebellion in southwestern Shandong” (Naquin 340) that was eventually suppressed by imperial armies.

  Si River: A waterway in Shandong province’s Sishui county.

  Before long, she came to a place where there were no more clouds before her, and she realized she’d reached the end of her experience. Night had fallen, the moon was shining brightly, and as she looked down, she could see that she was back on the ground.

  Once she picked up the wooden bird and tossed it into the air, it began flapping its wings and flew away, straight into the room of the girl who intrigued Yang. When the girl saw the wooden bird, she called for her maidservants to catch it, but it had already flown back outside from behind a curtain.

  While the girl was chasing after it, the bird fell to the ground with a sound like the thump of a drum; as she approached to grab it, it swooped in under her skirt; shortly thereafter it carried the girl aloft, straight up into the sky. Her maidservants started screaming.

  Zhu, once again among the clouds, called out to them, “You women of the mortal world have nothing to fear, I’m Chang’e of the Moon Palace. Your lady’s the ninth daughter of the Queen Mother of the West, and she’s just been temporarily demoted to a minor posting in our human world. The Queen Mother thinks of her fondly every day, and for a brief time has invited her to join her assembly, so I’m going to accompany her as she returns.” Settled upon the bird’s back, the girl flew off.

  Just as she reached the border of Sishui, something flew up and exploded, with a glancing blow striking the bird’s wings; the stunned bird began falling, dragging Zhu with it as it fell, dropping down on the home of a xiucai.

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  Chang’e . . . Queen Mother of the West: Chang’e, mistress of the Moon Palace, is identified in folk tradition as having stolen the elixir of immortality from her husband, the divine archer, Yi, before fleeing with it to the moon. See Yang and An (86-90). The Queen Mother of the West is the most revered goddess in Daoist tradition.

  Xiucai Xing Ziyi’s family was utterly destitute but honest. In the past, there had been a neighbor woman who’d tried at night to seduce him, but he refused, rejecting her. The woman left, feeling angry and resentful, and began slandering him to her husband, falsely accusing him of trying to seduce her. Her husband consequently took Xing for a scoundrel, morning and evening waiting at Xing’s gate in shame and disgrace.

  Xing accordingly sold his property and rented a house in another village. He happened to run across a certain fellow named Gu, who possessed the ability to determine the extent of a person’s fortune and longevity, so Xing followed the man home and knocked at his gate.

  Gu spotted him from a distance and laughed, “You’re a rich man worth thousands, so why’re you dressed in rags? Do you think I’m blind to the truth?” Xing scoffed at the absurdity of the comment. Gu examined him carefully, and declared, “It’s true. Even if you were originally in bad shape, there’s gold buried not far from here.” Xing again considered Gu’s words ridiculous.

  “Not only will you suddenly become rich,” added Gu, “but you’re also going to marry a beautiful woman.” In the end, Xing just couldn’t believe anything Gu had told him. As he turned to leave, Gu insisted, “Go on, go on, then after you’ve tested my predictions you can thank me.”

  That night, as Xing was sitting alone in the moonlight, two girls suddenly appeared from nowhere, and as he stared at them, he could see they were both quite lovely. Surprised, and thinking them supernatural beings, Xing asked them what they were doing there, but they seemed unwilling to respond.

  Xing was just about to yell for his fellow villagers, which scared Zhu enough that she proceeded to tell him the truth, asking him to protect their secret, and he agreed to do as she wished. Xing mused that the girl seemed like a mortal, unlike the lady with her, so he sent someone to inform the girl’s family of her whereabouts.

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  Xiucai: A scholar who has passed the imperial civil service examination at the county level.

  Her parents had witnessed the girl’s flight, shedding tears of fright and puzzlement; suddenly they received word of her from Xing, amazed beyond their fondest hopes, then immediately obtained a horse and carriage and rode off. They paid Xing a hundred taels, and returned home with their daughter.

  Xing embraced Zhu as his wife, and although he was concerned about the condition of the house before, after receiving the gold, he was comforted considerably. Then he went and thanked Gu for his prediction. Taking another good look at him, Gu exclaimed, “Not yet, not yet. It may have already brought you good fortune, but a hundred taels isn’t nearly what I was talking about!” Consequently, he wouldn’t yet accept Xing’s thanks.

  Earlier, once the nobleman had returned home with his daughter, he reported her abduction to certain high officials, in order to have Yang arrested. Yang had already made his escape, and no one knew where to find him, so they went to the Yang family’s hometown, and issued a document stating that Zhu was also wanted by the authorities. Zhu was so worried that she grabbed Xing’s hand, weeping silently.

  Xing was embarrassed by his feelings of helplessness, so he began bribing the document carriers, then hired a carriage to take Zhu to see the nobleman, imploring him to save her from any public awkwardness. The nobleman was moved by Xing’s apparent sense of honor in doing so, and decided thus to help him out; he invited the couple to stay at his villa, as content with them as if they were his own relatives.

  When his daughter was younger, the nobleman had accepted a betrothal for her from a man named Liu; when Liu, an illustrious and powerful man, heard that the girl had been staying at Xing’s home for more than a night, he took it as a personal disgrace, nullified the marriage contract, thereby canceling the intended marriage to her. The nobleman had been on the verge of discussing a marriage for her with another family; the girl then sw
ore to her parents that she would follow no one but Xing. Xing was overjoyed to hear this; Zhu was equally happy, and agreed to let the girl be the primary wife.

  The nobleman was concerned that Xing didn’t have a home, but officials at the time had just put the Yang estate up for auction, so the nobleman bought it on Xing’s behalf. The couple then went home, took out the taels from before, and paid for a basic staff and servants, but in ten days they’d already spent the entire amount. In anticipation of Zhu’s arrival, they’d hoped that she might be able to bring some money along with her.

  One night, Zhu told Xing, “My evil ex-husband, Yang, once took a thousand taels and buried them under a tall building, and only I know where it is. Just now, I checked that location and found everything there the same as it was, so maybe it’s still safe.” They went together to search for it, and consequently they found the gold.

  Hence Xing finally believed in Gu’s godlike predictions and repaid him generously. Afterwards, the nobleman’s daughter joined them, accompanied by a dowry that was quite abundant, and in just a few years, Xing’s family became the wealthiest in the entire prefecture.

  The collector of these strange tales remarks, “The White Lotus Society was wiped out, with Yang alone surviving, and then he collected a large fortune, leaving us wondering how the gods could let this happen without doing anything about it. But it turned out that this was being done for the sake of Xing. Otherwise, how could Xing construct a grand house and accumulate an enormous fortune? He was not a lustful man, yet the gods rewarded him with two beauties.

  “Alas! Although heaven remains silent, its intentions are evident.”

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  Primary wife: On the household protocols associated with wives and concubines, see the volume four essay, “Purchasing Posterity: Wives and Concubines as Commodities in Pu’s Tales” (xxi-xxvii).

  332. Scholar Li

  Scholar Li, from Shanghe, was devoted to Buddhism. There was a monastery a little more than a li outside his village; it featured three rooms set aside as meditation spaces for scholars of all sorts. The monastery also accommodated itinerant Buddhist monks and Daoist priests who lodged there, always enjoying earnest conversation while tirelessly offering sacrifices.

  One day, during a heavy snow accompanied by severe cold, an elderly monk appeared, carrying his belongings in bags suspended from a pole, and with wise words asked for a place to stay. After lodging there two nights, he was just about to go when some of the others insistently took him aside and encouraged him to stay a few more days.

  It happened that Li was returning home for the purpose of seeing the elderly monk, and the other monks advised him to arrive earlier if Li wanted to say goodbye to him. The cock was crowing as Li approached the building where the elderly monk was staying, but its doors had been locked, so he was unable to enter. As he climbed over the wall outside the building, he saw the glimmering of a lamp light, and wondered whether the monk was writing something, so he covertly peeked inside.

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  Shanghe: A county in modern Shandong province. Li: A distance equal to 1/3 mile.

  The elderly monk was taking off his clothing, and Li could see something that looked like a thin donkey, which was tied to the fixture holding his lamp. As Li watched more closely, he could tell it wasn’t like a living beast, but more like something that had been buried alive with the dead; yet it periodically moved its ears and tail, and panted breathily.

  Presently, once the monk had finished removing his clothes, he opened his door and pulled the beast outside. Li remained hidden. There was a large pond outside the door, where the monk tied the donkey to a tree, then, naked, he entered the water until it covered his body, and proceeded to wash himself; when he was done, he put on his clothes, and pulling the donkey into the pond, proceeded to wash it.

  Afterwards, he mounted the donkey, which began to fly away. Li started calling to him. The elderly monk waved his folded hands in acknowledgment, extending his greetings, but before Li could hear his words, he was already disappearing into the distance.

  Wang Meiwu told me that Li was a friend of his. Once Wang visited his home, since Li was a very respectable scholar, and there he saw a scroll hanging in his hall that identified it as the “Awaiting Death Hall.”

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  Buried alive with the dead: As Chinese archeologists have discovered, powerful ancient leaders sometimes had themselves buried with horses (either still alive, or killed specifically at the site of the burial) and chariots to signify the degree of their wealth and influence. Visiting the Chariot Museum at Linzi, in Shandong province, for example, I observed ten chariots and thirty-two horses uncovered in a single burial site dating from the Spring and Autumn Period (642-490 B.C.E.).

  333. Lu Yaguan

  Master Zhao, who was from Wuling, had been serving as Supervisor of the Household of the Heir Apparent until he retired from his post to return home. There was a young man waiting outside his gate who entreated him to be allowed to manage the official’s communications.

  Zhao summoned him, noticing that he was both handsome and refined; he asked the young man his name, and was told it was Lu Yaguan. Lu said he didn’t want any payment in order to serve Zhao. Hence Zhao asked him to stay, finding him far more intelligent than the average servant.

  Lu dealt with Zhao’s business correspondence, delivering messages and answering letters for the former official, performing all of his tasks with distinction. Whenever Zhao played host and offered his guests a game of chess, Lu would look on, signaling with his finger where his benefactor should move, and as a result Zhao always won. Zhao rewarded him with ever greater generosity.

  When all of Zhao’s other servants saw how Lu was valued by the master, they teased him that he should give a banquet for them. “How many of you should I invite?” Lu asked, agreeing to do it.

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  Wuling: A city in modern Hunan province.

  Supervisor . . . Heir Apparent: Head of household administration for the imperial heir, a position sometimes appointed by the empress (Hucker 107).

  They counted all of the servants in the master’s household, which came to over thirty people, and told him they thought he’d have trouble providing for so many of them. “It’ll be really easy to handle,” Lu told them. “But there are so many guests, it’s too sudden for it to be held here, so we’ll have to go into town to hold it.”

  Then they invited all of their fellow servants, walking to nearby roads and shops to find them. All of them showed up. Just as wine was about to make the rounds, someone picked up the wine jar and said, “No one’s pouring the wine, so may I ask who’s acting as host today? It’s only proper that first he should take out some money to give us, and then we can start cutting loose, drinking and eating; otherwise, if we pour one cup, we’ll soon pour a thousand, till everyone staggers away with great noise and commotion, and afterwards who’ll pay for everything?”

  The entire crowd looked to Lu Yaguan. With a laugh, he exclaimed, “Are you finished saying that there’s no money? I’ll offer the proper money.” Then he stood up, turned toward a pot in which he twisted some dough with his fingers and pinched off pieces of it, dropping them on the table; as he let them fall, they changed into mice that ran around until the table was full of them.

  Lu snatched up one of them by the head, popped it, then held the body tight till the stomach burst open, revealing a small piece of gold; he grabbed another, with the same result. In moments, there were no more mice left, and pieces of gold covered the table before them, till someone in the crowd said, “Is that enough to pay for our drinks?” The group thought it amazing, then began eating and drinking together without restraint.

  Once they’d imbibed their fill, the cost was totaled as three taels. The crowd weighed up the gold, and it happened to tally exactly with their bill. The other servants searched for additional gold pieces,
wanting to report the matter to their master. But by the time Zhao later told them to bring back some of the gold, it had already disappeared.

  When they returned to the site of their banquet, they called for the owner of the wine shop to take out the money so they could look at it. The owner discovered that the gold had already changed back into bits of dough. The servants reported this, too, to Zhao, who then asked Yaguan about it. Lu replied, “These friends pressured me to provide them food and drink, but there was no money in my empty purse. As a young man, I studied how to perform some modest magic tricks, and I tried out one of them.”

  The servants again required Lu to pay the bill. “There’s some wheat in my village,” said Lu, “that’s just been winnowed, and you can grind two dan of it, which should yield enough to pay the bill.” Accordingly, he asked someone to go there with him.

  The village treasurer, who was just about to head home, went together with him to see the grain. When they arrived, they collected several hu of clean wheat and stacked it up in the middle of the threshing ground. The other servants came to regard Lu as a magician indeed.

  One day, at a friend’s banquet that Zhao was attending, there was a pot of most excellent orchids that he enjoyed very much. After returning home, he was still exclaiming in admiration about them. Lu Yaguan declared, “Since you really love those orchids, it’d be no problem to have some delivered.” Zhao simply didn’t believe it.

  Before dawn, as he walked into his study, he suddenly sensed a rare fragrance pervading the room, and discovered orchids in a pot there, with their arrow-shaped leaves just like the ones he’d seen. Since he began to suspect that Yaguan had simply stolen them, he questioned him about it. “The minister’s household had stored up a great many of them,” Lu replied, “so why would I have to steal them?” Zhao didn’t believe him.