《坐花志果》Vol. 2

So-and-so closed the door and left.

Before long, a young man pushed the door open and entered. At first So-and-so assumed he was another fellow visitor, but he found it odd that the young man came in without waiting for the woman to fall asleep, and that his clothes were unusually fine and striking (“chuchu” suggests something bright, neat, and handsome).

When the woman saw the young man enter, she started up in alarm and was about to cry for help. The young man at once seized her, intent on forcing himself on her. She refused firmly and called out to the old woman (ao), but the old woman did not answer.

Seeing that she would not yield, the young man drew a knife from his sock (wa: what one wears on the feet) and showed it to her, saying, “If you don’t obey, you’ll die by my blade!” (“Blood my blade” means his blade would be stained with blood—that is, he would kill her.)

The woman rebuked him sharply: “My family has been upright for generations; I will not be defiled by a ruffian. Kill me if you must—I’d rather die than submit.” The young man pressed the knife to her neck to force her.

So-and-so had watched from concealment for some time, rage mounting (“ni” means to steal a glance; see the note in “Yusheng Pian” in this volume). He suddenly burst out, snatched the knife from behind the young man, and struck back with it (“zhuo” means to chop or strike), cutting his forehead; the young man collapsed.

The woman had not expected this and grew even more terrified; she shook all over and could not speak. So-and-so rushed out, opened the door, and shouted, “Catch the thief!”

Neighbors gathered and asked, “Where is the thief? What sort of person is he?” For a moment righteous anger had made So-and-so forget that he himself had slipped in secretly. Then he came to himself and said with a laugh, “I’m the thief—but there’s someone even more hateful than a thief. Why don’t you all come with me?”

He led the crowd into the woman’s room. By then she had hidden in another chamber; they saw only a man lying in a pool of blood. They lit a lamp to look (“zhu” here is a verb: to illuminate or examine)—it was a certain man from the west neighbor. Fortunately the wound was not grave and he had not died. When they asked where he had come from, he would not answer. They questioned So-and-so, who told the whole story from start to finish; the crowd then bound both men (“zhi” means to tie up or detain).

At daybreak, everyone was brought before the magistrate. The young man turned on them instead, falsely accusing the woman of adultery with Person A and claiming he had gone that night to catch them in the act. A said: “I am a thief—who doesn’t know that? Even if the woman were unchaste, why would she want to consort with a thief?” He then gave a full account of what had happened that night and listed every theft he had committed over the years to prove he really was a thief.

After the magistrate checked the case records and found it credible, he subjected the young man to severe torture. Only then did the youth tell the truth: he had long coveted the woman’s beauty. That night too he had slipped in when he saw an opening. The old maidservant who attended the woman had taken a bribe and colluded with him.

The magistrate then punished the youth and the maidservant according to law, praised the woman’s chastity, and commended A for his righteousness, releasing him.

There was a man named Jia who continued his petty thieving as always. One night, while stealing in a market town, he was spotted by the owner, fled, and was pursued by a large crowd. In panic he blundered into a dead-end alley with no way out. Desperate, he saw a ruined temple, climbed over the wall, and meant to hide beneath the altar table. Running too hard, he accidentally knocked over a clay attendant figure beside the shrine—the sort people call an “earthen idol”—and fell himself. In a dazed half-dream he saw the knocked-over figure spring up from the ground, green-faced with red beard, brandishing a knife and cursing: “How dare you knock me over?” It seized Jia to kill him. Jia fought back with all his strength. Suddenly someone on the hall shouted: “This man once preserved another’s reputation and continued a family’s line of descendants; his hidden merit is great. Heaven has already granted him thick blessings—how dare ghostly minions make trouble?” Then someone dragged the green-faced demon away and flogged him hundreds of times. Another voice called Jia forward: “Beneath the palace terrace (danchi) lies a great hoard of gold granted to you.” Jia kowtowed, rose, and in his trance saw gold and silver heaped like mountains below the terrace. He rushed down the steps, tripped, and woke. Looking up, he saw a few scattered stars and the first gray of dawn. Silently recalling the spirit’s words, he searched step by step along the terrace and found only one large Kangxi-era cash coin. He thought the spirits were mocking him but picked it up anyway. When the sky was light enough to tell colors, he set out on the road. Reaching a village, he saw someone by the roadside selling steamed sweet potatoes and used that coin to buy some to eat.

Before long another old man came to buy food and sat down beside Jia. After he finished eating, the old man left first and dropped a small cloth pouch he wore at his waist. Jia was about to get up when he noticed it and knew the old man had left it behind. He opened it and found two large ingots of gold, more than a hundred foreign silver dollars, several hundred strings of official copper cash, and four account books listing unpaid receivables totaling tens of thousands of taels. Afraid the food seller might see, he quickly covered everything again. He thought to himself: “Could this be a gift from the immortals? But if the old man lost these ledgers, how would he collect what he was owed? Even if it were a divine gift, I could not keep it for myself.” So he sat down again to wait for the old man to return. He sat so long that the vendor grew annoyed and urged him: “Even if you paid a single cash, you cannot sit here forever—do you mean to spend the night?” Jia said, “No—I want to buy more to eat,” took a few coins from the pouch to buy more food, and kept waiting. The old man did indeed come back in a panic, sweat streaming down his face. Seeing Jia still there eating, he asked urgently, “You haven’t left yet? I dropped a cloth pouch just now—did you see it?” Jia smiled and said, “If it weren’t yours, I would have gone long ago.” He held it up and returned it, adding, “Everything is as it was—I only borrowed a few coins to buy sweet potatoes; please don’t take offense.” The old man neither opened it to check nor thanked him; he only said, “My home is not far—why not come with me?” Jia went along. After a few li they reached a large residence with timber stacked like a mountain outside the gate. The old man led him inside to the main hall, went in to change into neat formal dress, came out again, bowed to Jia, and said, “I am from the Chu region and have run a timber business here for many years. Most of the timber shops in various places were branches opened from here; capital runs to several hundred thousand, and most of it is on credit—all recorded in the account book I just lost. Thanks to your returning it, I was spared disaster! I wish to reward you with a thousand taels of silver.” Jia firmly refused.

(Hou Han Shu, Biography of Chen Shi) records: Someone broke into Chen Shi’s home at night and hid on a beam in the rafters. Chen Shi saw him but said nothing; he called his children and grandchildren together and admonished them: “One must never neglect self-cultivation. Those who do wrong are not necessarily bad by nature; often habit hardens into character and brings them to such a pass—the gentleman on the beam is a case in point!” The thief was terrified and jumped down from the beam to confess. (Note) People call a thief a “gentleman on the beam”; the phrase comes from this story.

Jia was pleased and agreed; he stayed on as the old man wished.

Jia had some schooling; the old man had him help keep accounts. For two years he was diligent and careful, never slack. The old man was old and childless; in the end he adopted Jia as his son and took him back to his home village. Having been away so long, the villagers did not know he was an impostor. After the old man died, Jia took over his property. His descendants multiplied; some passed the provincial exams and rose to posts such as circuit intendant or prefect, and the family remained a great house in Chu for generations. (Jushi: a great clan of long-standing wealth and rank.)

The Master of Sitting Among Flowers said: “The Way of Heaven has no favorites; it constantly aids the good.” (From Records of the Grand Historian, “Biography of Bo Yi.”) Even in as low a trade as thieving, if the heart holds the integrity of a scholar-official, Heaven rewards generously and does not stint on merit because the man is a thief. Conversely, when families of official rank and hereditary honor sink to become cart-drivers and menials (yutai: men who drive carts and perform base service), the reason, too, is not hard to see.

Ten. The Merit of Yamen Runners

(Again citing the gist of Zuo Zhuan: runner, cart-man, bondsman, clerk, servant, menial—each level subordinate to the next; the menial at the bottom is the most debased station.) How such fates arise is likewise plain.

“Rank and family do not matter; conduct does—a yamen runner’s own son tops the jinshi list”—the gist is: do not look at birth and status, look at character; what follows is the story of a clerk’s son who passed the palace examination (jiabang: first rank of the jinshi, the top tier of metropolitan graduates) and the merit that brought it.

These two lines set the theme: What became of the descendants of Magistrate Deng? Could his house and the rod-bearer’s family still win the same kind of official praise? The story that follows answers by contrast.

Among the ancestors of a great censor in Huzhou, someone had served as a paddler in the prefectural yamen. The post was humble, but the man was honest at heart and bent on helping people and doing good. He often told his colleagues: “Working in the yamen is a fine chance to accumulate merit and cultivate virtue. If we do no good while we hold office in the public gate, it is like entering a treasure mountain and coming out empty-handed.” (This idea comes from the Fahua Jing, the Lotus Sutra.) So when people in the district went to law, he usually stepped in to mediate and urge peace; when the poor had right on their side, he protected them all the more. Every night he soaked the beating rods in a night-stool. Folk belief held that urine could dispel stagnant blood and renew the flesh (yu, meaning congealed blood); soaked long enough, the rods would not rot (mi, meaning decay) even when smeared with flesh and blood in a messy heap (langji, meaning in disorder).

At that time Magistrate Deng was extremely harsh in interrogation: he would not stop beating until no blood showed. This paddler used his position in secret to intervene, and many lives were saved; colleagues under his influence also checked their greed and cruelty (ji, meaning to restrain or hold back).

What became of Magistrate Deng’s descendants—the rest of the tale will show how the Deng line fared and whether this honest paddler’s family could share the same clean fame. That contrast is exactly what this anecdote is meant to deliver.

Plain-Language Reading of Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Karma Among Flowers)

The Old Man’s Son (author unknown)

An old man had a son whose name is no longer recorded. The boy was clever from childhood and loved books. Once, coming home from private school, he accidentally walked into the procession in front of the prefect’s official escort and was seized by the vanguard runners who cleared the way. The prefect saw how young he was, scolded him briefly, and let him go. The boy went home and vowed in anger: “Who knows—one day I might become prefect myself?” The old man laughed and said: “Child, you’re talking nonsense! I’m a yamen runner. Could you ever pass the exams and become prefect?” The son did not talk back; he studied all the harder. When he grew up his literary reputation was strong, and many local gentry respected him. The old man was himself a plain, good-hearted elder (see the note in an earlier piece in this book). He always held scholars in high regard, so licentiates in the county, prefectural, and provincial schools not only did not make trouble for him but urged him to let his son sit for the examinations. The old man finally agreed; on the first try the youth filled a licentiate place (a “disciple-student” quota—government student, as in the Hanshu account of Emperor Wu). Later he placed on the top tier of the palace examination and rose to commandery governor; several generations afterward there was a grand censor, whose younger brother became a provincial governor; to this day official careers and hereditary rank have not broken off, and the family became a leading clan.

The Host “Sitting Among Flowers” says

The honored father held the low status of a yamen runner, yet because he kept one good heart, Heaven was willing to give him worthy sons and grandsons and greatly prosper his line. How do those who grab high office and fat salaries, stripping the people to enrich themselves, compare with that father? And how will Heaven repay them?

Eleven: The Yangxian Scholar

Chapter-style subtitle: Seek fortune and avoid harm through good intent; luckily meet a diviner whose art reaches the divine; bamboo mat and upper bedding turned to crumbs—joy at last for the Yixing man chosen for office.

In Yangxian (in what is now the Yixing area of Jiangsu), there lived a scholar who was well known among his classmates and whose family was reasonably well off. In the summer of the renchen year of the Jiaqing reign (1792), he went with several classmates to Chenjiang (Jiangyin) to sit for the bagu examination for selection as a tribute student. He had already taken first place among his peers in the annual county examination and in the jinggu tests, and he felt that this round of selection was all but assured. He carried a good deal of money with him and spent his days at his lodgings drinking and composing poetry with his classmates, immensely pleased with himself.

At the inn there was a fortune-teller whose readings were uncannily accurate; he worked beneath the door curtain, and what he told people’s faces often proved startlingly right. A scholar on his way to the civil examinations (the text calls him simply “the student”) was staying at the same inn and had grown quite friendly with him.

One day the scholar came in from outside with fish he had bought and joked with the fortune-teller: “You read faces, don’t you? Look—will I get to eat this fish?” The man first looked at the fish, then at the scholar, and said, “You won’t.” The scholar went inside, quickly cooked the fish, laid it on the table, and came out again to ask the fortune-teller to share the meal—planning to laugh at him for being wrong. As the two were about to sit down, the scholar asked once more: “So will I eat it or not?” The fortune-teller said, “Still no.” Before he had finished, a large snake fell from the roof beam and smashed the dish holding the fish; shards scattered on the floor and everyone cried out. The snake slithered away with its tail dragging behind it, and in the end the fish was never eaten. The scholar thought the divination miraculous, but the fortune-teller waved it off: “What supernatural power? You were teasing me, so I teased you back—a bit of fish has nothing to do with reading faces.”

The scholar then asked whether he would pass the exams and win selection for office. The fortune-teller hesitated a long time and said, “I’ve wanted to speak plainly for a while, but I was afraid of giving offense and didn’t dare.” The scholar said, “Go ahead—it’s all right.” Cornered, the fortune-teller finally answered: “Don’t count on passing anymore. The cloud of ill fortune already shows on your face. At the third watch, three nights from now, you will die a violent death. Your home isn’t far from here—you should go back at once, die in your own land, and be buried with your ancestors.” (The phrase zheng shou qiu means to be laid to rest in the family graveyard.) The scholar asked, “Can I avoid it?” “No,” came the reply. Because he spoke with such finality, the scholar was terrified and wanted to pack and leave for home at once. The other candidates traveling with him all said the fortune-teller was talking nonsense and kept him from going. He stayed, but dread never left him.

When the appointed day arrived, the new moon had just risen, and all the fellow lodgers had gone to sleep. The man was weighed down with doubts—he could neither sit still nor lie down. Restless in spirit, he went out the door (wangwang describes the look of someone dazed and adrift, as if the soul had left the body). He wandered aimlessly into open country and faintly heard weeping. Following the sound, he found it coming from a dilapidated hut. He pushed the door open and saw a woman holding two children, weeping with heart-rending grief. When he asked, he learned that her husband owed fifty taels of silver to a powerful family, had been sued and thrown into jail, and under relentless pressure to pay had been beaten until flesh and blood mingled. She had no choice but to sell herself to clear the debt; the bargain was already settled and the handover would take place at dawn. She could not bear to part from her children, so she was crying there.

He thought silently: the money in his purse was still fairly ample; since the fortune-teller had said he would die soon, keeping it would serve no purpose—better to pay their debt for them and keep this family together. He asked, “Has the marriage contract been drawn up yet?” She answered, “Not yet.” He asked, “If you receive the money, can you still back out?” She said, “Yes.” He asked, “Where is the go-between?” She said, “Not far.” He said, “In that case, go quickly and fetch the go-between to wait here. I’ll go back and get the money for you.” The woman suspected he had some hidden motive and hesitated to move. He smiled and said, “I pity you—a family about to be torn apart—so I’m offering money to help. Go quickly; don’t be suspicious.” Only then did she agree gladly. He hurried back, fetched seventy taels of silver, and returned to find the woman sitting with an old man. Asked who the old man was, she said he was the broker arranging the sale of herself. He handed the silver to the woman and explained his intention to the go-between. The old man started violently and said, “Sir, you are only a traveler, yet you show such righteousness—how much more should I, who am still your husband’s neighbor! Thanks to your great kindness, the matter of selling herself need not proceed; we should go at once to the yamen, pay the money, and release her husband from prison.” When he opened the silver and looked, he wondered why there was so much extra. He said, “What is left over can support a small livelihood for you (hukou means making a living), so you need not borrow from others again.” The old man sighed with emotion (kui is the sound of a drawn breath of lament): “Sir, how thoroughly you have thought of everything! You are truly like a parent who has given us new life!” Then they kowtowed and asked his full name and address, questioning him in great detail.

He returned to his lodgings, unable to put the fortune-teller’s words out of his mind; he tossed and turned and could not sleep. When the night watch had struck three (gengchou were the tallies used to mark the watches; here, the third watch of the night), he thought to himself: “The hour has come!” Just as doubt was tightening around him, someone knocked at the door asking to see him. He got up—it was the woman from before. She had delivered the gold to the magistrate; her husband was released, and husband and wife had come together to thank him. He rose, comforted them, and saw them off. As he was about to go back to bed, a tremendous crash came from the bedroom. He went in: the wall had collapsed, crushing exactly the bed where he had been sleeping; matting and bamboo bedding were ground to fine dust (jifen: as fine as crushed seasoning and powder—utterly destroyed). He moved to sleep in another room.

The next day he saw the fortune-teller and mocked him for talking nonsense. The man did not yet know what had happened in the night; he looked closely at his face and smiled. “Don’t try to fool me—you must have done something last night. Your face is full of yinzi (hidden merit accumulated in secret, visible in one’s complexion); your secret virtue is great. That is why you did not die, and you will be selected for advancement, pass the exams in succession, and become a jinshi. If I were wrong, you would already have been killed under a ‘cliff wall’ last night!” “Cliff wall” comes from Mencius: a wall about to fall—an image for sudden disaster.

He sighed in deep admiration. That year he was indeed chosen as a bagong (a shengyuan selected for the Imperial Academy or for examinations in the capital), and later entered the cihuan (the Hanlin Academy, where advanced jinshi often served).

Master Zuohua said: The physiognomist was truly a man of uncanny skill. As for how so small a matter as a single fish could have anything to do with physiognomy—those two sentences were precisely his tactful way of covering it over. When a gentleman sees a great snake destroy pots and basins, he knows that the blessings of food and drink are foreordained and cannot be forced; when he sees a collapsing wall crush a bed, he knows that life and death have their appointed time and that one cannot escape calamity by mere luck. As soon as the money in one’s purse is brought out, the prisoners in the jail are immediately released; when someone arrives at the gate, an unexpected calamity is instantly dispelled. To preserve others’ reunion of flesh and blood is to preserve one’s own body; at the threshold of life and death, hardship and prominence change in the blink of an eye, and the verification comes faster than a shadow following its form or an echo answering a sound. Calamity and blessing have no fixed gate; they come only like shadow and echo in accordance with human conduct, all brought about by people themselves—how could this not be believed?

Section Twelve: Tang Fengweng (an old man granted a title because his descendants became prominent): Tang Fengweng delighted in doing good, and his son was sincere and generous in character. His success in the provincial examination and his receipt of the jie quota were not obtained through examination connections (seeking favors through backdoor channels); even had he not attended the Ministry of Rites metropolitan examination, he would still have become prominent. From this one can know that talent fit for a chancellor is indeed unlike ordinary talent.

Tang Dunfu was the father of a man who held the rank of xie kui (assistant grand secretary, a post comparable to that of a prime minister). In his youth he traded general goods between north and south. Though skilled in business, he treated money lightly and valued loyalty and righteousness, in the manner of the chivalrous heroes of old.

Once, returning from the capital to his home region, he stayed at an inn in Renping County. He heard a young woman weeping in the next room and asked the innkeeper about it. An old man had been taking his daughter to the capital when he fell ill at this inn. The illness dragged on until their travel funds were exhausted, and they planned to sell the daughter for money to continue the journey. The daughter could not bear to leave her father, and so she wept without stopping. Moved to pity, Tang asked the innkeeper to bring father and daughter in for questioning. When he asked where they were from, they too were from Xiaoshan; they were going to the capital to seek help from a relative who worked in a ministry office. Asked why they wanted to sell the daughter, they wept and said: after a long illness they owed the innkeeper several dozen guan (strings of cash), were at their wit’s end, and had no choice but to take this step.

Tang then opened his purse, took out a hundred liang of silver, and said: “Use this to pay the innkeeper; what remains can be your travel money. You need not sell your daughter.” The old man was overjoyed and quickly called his daughter over, saying: “Benefactor Tang has given us so much silver—you should go with him; you are fellow townspeople, not strangers adrift as you are here.” The daughter came forward and bowed. Tang looked at her—a girl of about sixteen. He said sternly: “I did this only because I could not bear to see you father and daughter part; I do not want your daughter. Take your daughter to the capital and find her a proper match—do not sell her again!” Father and daughter kowtowed in thanks, asked after Tang’s family background, and then departed.

Xie Kui had already been enrolled as a licentiate and was due to sit the autumn provincial examination. Before the examination cycle of the jiayin year, he went to Hangzhou to take the test. Suddenly his teacher privately handed him a guanjie—a sealed “connection” note. (In Tang Muzong’s time, the literary examination was meant to select genuine talent; later, frivolous scholars formed cliques and curried favor with the chief examiner through such channels—this was called guanjie, “making a joint.”) The teacher said, “This is an order from the chief examiner, passed on by the superintendent who oversees the exams.” Xie Kui did not even glance at it and said, “This must be a mistake. Your student and the chief examiner have never shared so much as a single day’s acquaintance—how could there be such a thing? Besides, I am unwilling to pass the provincial exam by guanjie.” The teacher tried to press it on him; he firmly refused. After the examination he returned home. When the results were posted, he had in fact placed first in the province—the jieyuan, top juren. When the messenger with the good news arrived, the county magistrate came too, bearing what was said to be the chief examiner’s order, urging him to attend a banquet. With no choice, he went to the provincial capital to pay his respects to his zuoshi, the chief examiner for that session of the exam (“ye” here means to request an audience). The examiner at the time was Wu Zongbo of Nanhui. As soon as they met, Wu said, “Chief Minister Zihe has left instructions: go quickly to the capital, and the Three Firsts can be yours.” Xie Kui flushed with anger—boran, as explained in this book’s “Ten Golds for a Life” essay—and said, “Your student is a humble man from the countryside; how would a chief minister know of me? And to advance by yinyuan—by bribes, pull, and climbing connections—(yin is pronounced yin; in local speech it means scheming one’s way up through gifts and patronage)—that I dare not do on grounds of right.” Zongbo fell silent. After Xie Kui left, the superintendent called him back and asked, “Did your father once save a father and daughter at their wits’ end on the road in Renping?” He replied, “I do not know.” The governor said, “Go home and ask your father; you will understand at once.”

After the woman arrived in the capital, her father sold her again into the household of Chancellor He (the xiangdi, the official residence in the capital of a chancellor or powerful minister). In that mansion she was greatly favored and nearly held his affection alone (zhuan fang, enjoying the master’s exclusive regard).

Out of gratitude for the great kindness shown to his father, she told the chancellor (the prime minister) about it and mentioned that her son was about to sit the qiushi (the autumn provincial examination). The chancellor then spoke to the chief examiner (the official in charge of the examination). On the examination grounds they deliberately looked for the young man’s examination paper but could not find it. When the pass list was being filled in, they even broke the sealed covers of the failed candidates’ papers one by one—still nothing; only when they searched through the papers in the middle rank did they learn that he had placed bangshou (first on the list). Heaven’s decree was at work in that, yet toward this young man the chancellor had indeed kept a quanquan (earnest, unforgetting) concern.

The chancellor urged the young man to go to the capital as soon as possible and not turn aside his good intentions. Xie Kui took leave with courteous, indirect words and went home; when he asked Feng Weng (the respectful form for an elder of the Feng clan), he learned the full story, but in the end he still did not sit the libu shi (the metropolitan examination held in the capital). Not until the jiwei year, the year after Chancellor He’s fall from power, did he go to the capital; that year he passed the jinshi examination and entered the ciguan (the Hanlin Academy, called the “Hall of Literary Composition” in Ming and Qing usage).

The Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: For a man of loyalty and moral weight like Old Master Feng, it was only natural that his descendants should flourish. When Heshen held real power, his influence blazed like the Tang saying “too hot to touch”—a picture of arrogance at its height. How many scholars, greedy for rank and dazzled by favor, did not treat clinging to the mighty as a “Zhongnan shortcut”? (Zhongnan was where hermits lived; Lu Zangyong used a feigned retreat there to win office, and Sima Chengzhen mocked it as a back door into government.) Assistant Minister Feng was nothing but a plain scholar, yet he alone refused to bow to that fashion—and there lay his greatness. For decades in court his bearing was grave and upright; in fair weather or foul he kept one standard, and the realm looked up to him. “Only the truly great stand apart from the crowd”—“great” is what we call the gentleman, and “standing apart” means not drifting with the vulgar. That phrase fits Assistant Minister Feng well. Even that woman knew to repay a great debt in haste; set her beside those in cap and sash who forget kindness—who is the better person, is it not obvious?

XIII. Liu the Provincial Graduate

Diligence in office deserves reward; a life owed must be paid back. When reward and punishment are clear, one should fear Heaven.

One slip can indeed bury great virtue—how then could a water ghost be made city god?

Liu the Provincial Graduate, named Youqing, once served as magistrate of Yushan County in Jiangxi. He was clean-handed, sharp-eyed, and tireless in government; cases did not pile up. If someone in a lawsuit had no fault that truly called for punishment, he would not lightly hold them for trial.

At that time a tailor served as a witness in a certain case. When the hearing was about to be held, Liu Gong had gone up to the prefectural city on urgent official business. He was upright, clear-minded, and diligent; he did not let cases pile up, and he did not casually detain people for trial unless there was good reason to treat them as liable to punishment.

There was also this episode: again the tailor in question, testimony in a case, and a session about to be convened. Liu Gong went to the prefecture on important business, and the runners detained plaintiff, defendant, and witnesses at a rest stop where they could eat and wait for his return. When the tailor’s wife heard her husband had been held, she was terrified—she thought Liu Gong never detained people without cause, and that once someone was held it must mean a grave offense—so she hurried into town with her young child to see him. They happened to meet a sudden flood; mother and child drowned. By the time Liu Gong returned and closed the case, the tailor came home to find wife and children gone, and he hanged himself. None of this Liu Gong knew.

A month later Liu Gong went up to the province again. As soon as he boarded the boat, he suddenly asked his household: “Where did the woman in the cabin come from?” They looked and saw no one. He went down into the cabin and said again: “Who are you, daring to bring a young woman and child and enter my cabin without permission?” The servants looked again and still saw nothing. People suspected a ghost on the boat and urged him to change vessels; he refused. Once the boat was under way, Liu Gong sat with his back to the window reading. The window suddenly gave way; he pitched backward into the water as if someone were pulling him down (the sense of ye, “to drag”—compare the tale “Yangxian Sheng”). They rushed to recover him, and only at a spot three li away did they pull up the body—exactly where the tailor’s wife and child had drowned. More than a year after Liu Gong’s death, a Daoist priest at the Yushan City God temple dreamed by night that the new City God was taking up his post—and it was Liu Gong.

Master Zuohua said: Alas! Diligence in office is a virtue, yet Liu Gong, through excessive scrupulousness, detained a witness when he should not have, and indirectly brought about a household tragedy. After death he appeared in a dream as City God, as if still administering affairs. The way of Heaven is subtle and deep—should one not tread carefully?

Master Sitting Among Flowers says: “Alas! Diligence is itself a virtue. Yet Elder Liu, because he was too diligent, mistakenly cost three lives and brought retribution on himself. Do the old books not say that resentment is not only out in the open—you must guard against it even where it cannot be seen? For one in authority, to guard against resentment even when it is unseen is hard indeed. Even so, those three were truly wronged; Elder Liu was by nature clever and upright, yet through a moment’s lapse he failed to hold the line and met this cruel retribution—is that not all the more unjust? After death he became a spirit; Heaven sees clearly, and retribution does not err by a hair.”

14. Shen Hongfei

He nursed a grudge, spread slander, and ruined human relations—yet after death he still boasted that he had spoken the truth. When sister-in-law and younger brother came together and could not move him, what sort of affair was that—and he still thanked the mediator?

Shen Hongfei of Wuxing was one of three brothers; he was the second, with a crooked, scheming temperament. His elder brother traded away from home, leaving his sister-in-law alone; the youngest brother was still young and there was nothing suspicious about him. Whenever the sister-in-law wrote to her husband, she had the younger brother come into her room to write for her, and sometimes rewarded him with wine and food.

Hongfei already bore ill will toward his brother and sister-in-law, and falsely claimed they had an adulterous affair with the younger brother, spreading it wherever he went until the foul name was everywhere. Frivolous people even composed Zhuzhici (Bamboo Branch lyrics—a Ba-Shu folk-song form that spread widely after Liu Yuxi wrote new zhuzhi pieces in the Zhenyuan and Yuanhe reigns) to mock them. The sister-in-law could not clear herself and hanged herself. Hongfei was greatly pleased, thinking she had died of shame when the affair was exposed—just what his story needed—and cared nothing for how the younger brother would bear it. The younger brother likewise could not vindicate himself; before long grief turned into illness, and he too died.

Not long afterward, a man named Hongfei came in from outside. He had barely reached the central hall when he suddenly shouted, “A ghost! A ghost!” By the time others rushed over, he had already bolted out the main gate and was standing in the middle of the street, slapping his own face and saying, “You black-hearted scoundrel! You slandered me for having an affair with my uncle-in-law. I hanged myself—and there is a ghost! There is a ghost!” (“Slander” here means what people commonly call ruining someone’s reputation or pinning false charges on them.) He went on: “Even after I died you still smeared my name and drove my uncle-in-law to die in bitter resentment. Now the two of us have brought a case in the underworld court and come to claim your life.” Then he beat his own chest and said, “You were at odds with your elder brother, yet you also accused me of having an affair with your sister-in-law—where is your conscience?”

The onlookers packed the street like a fair; everyone understood that the spirits of the sister-in-law and the younger brother-in-law had possessed him. Someone tried to reason with them: “Things have come to this—what good would taking his life do? Why not ask him to invite eminent monks to perform deliverance rites for both of you, so you can be reborn sooner—would that be acceptable?” Hongfei first spoke in the younger brother-in-law’s voice: “In life I did no evil—why would I need monks to deliver me? If my sister-in-law is willing to let it go, I will leave.” Then he switched to the sister-in-law’s tone: “What kind of affair is this? Can it really be talked into peace?” With that he bit his own tongue, tearing off pieces one after another; he picked up gravel and struck his own teeth until every tooth was gone, his whole body covered in blood. At last he dashed his head violently against a roadside stone pillar; his brains burst out and he died on the spot.

(Note: “A certain legal specialist” in the title usually refers to someone who made a living from criminal statutes and litigation and often moved in official circles. Hongfei is likely such a figure: he had falsely accused relatives, driving two people to hang themselves, and therefore suffered spirit possession and a demand for his life in retribution.)

“Kouye” (Verbal Karma)

In Zhejiang there was a scholar who, relying on the Legalist arts of “names and penalties” associated with Shen Buhai and Han Fei, went to Jiangxi to make a living and was often retained by a prefect as a staff adviser. Host and guest got on very well. The prefect had risen from the ranks of capable clerks; whenever a county had a lawsuit, he would have it brought up to the prefecture and hear it himself.

At that time a widow, surnamed so-and-so, was harassed by a bandit who tried to flirt with her. She refused again and again, but he would not leave her alone. Unable to bear the humiliation, she complained to the county magistrate. The bandit in turn accused her of adultery with him. The county could not settle the case, so it was appealed to the prefecture. The prefect saw that the widow was wronged, punished the bandit severely, and the matter was closed.

While the case was being heard in court, the scholar stood behind a screen, stole a look at the widow’s face, and conceived a wicked desire to take her as a concubine. She firmly refused, but he forcibly sent betrothal gifts (in the ancient rite, geese were presented as the engagement offering). The widow saw that a man in the prefect’s staff had great power and that she could not resist; fearing rape, she hanged herself.

Three days after the widow’s death, one morning the scholar’s door would not open. When they broke it in, they found him still holding a knife; his neck was severed, blood covered the floor, and he lay dead on the ground.

(Note: The title “Kouye” broadly refers to retribution for harmful speech, clever argument, slander, or other evil deeds; in this story the scholar helped in official business yet harbored evil intent and drove someone to death—also a form of karmic retribution.)

Harsh words that cut and wound people leave the heart already chilled; when such things are also put down in writing, they become even harder to undo.

It is a pity that talent was spent in the wrong direction—the wrongdoing was invited by oneself, and making amends is difficult.

Yao Kangming was a clansman of the author’s maternal grandfather’s generation. He was learned and gifted in writing. In his life he had no other serious misdeeds, but he loved to speak in a frivolous, cutting way, and he also liked to use his essays to mock people. Whenever something touched on another family’s women or the inner quarters—even if it was only guesswork—he would force a connection and turn it into poetry, lyrics, or prose. The language was fresh and elegant, so his pieces spread widely.

He took the examinations many times and never passed. Because his speech was so frivolous, no one dared to hire him to teach their sons. In the end he died in poverty and hunger. At death he did not even have clothes or bedding; he lay in tattered cotton quilts, lice in handfuls. His maternal grandfather’s family arranged his burial. He left a son with nowhere to go, and the grandfather raised him. The boy was very honest and cautious; one could have hoped he would marry and establish a household. Just as they were about to find him a wife, he died suddenly. After that, this branch of the family was cut off. Is this not the retribution for frivolous speech?

Seventeen: Elder Hu the Sealed [Honored One]

The chief offender’s crime is heavy; those coerced to follow may be treated more lightly. Yet a good man may be mistaken by slippery clerks for someone who “knows how to work the system.”

What moved the censor was only seven characters; in conducting public business, one must rely all the more on cultivating virtue and accumulating merit.

Prefect Hu Xiangshan’s father had once served in the criminal justice office in the Jinshan region. He was by nature honest and good-hearted; all his life he despised—and never engaged in—the sort of favoritism and underhand dealing in cases that people call “playing one hand up and one hand down.”

The phrase “playing one hand up and one hand down” (shangxia qishou) comes from an anecdote in the Zuozhuan, “Duke Xiang” chapter: Chuan Fengxu had captured Huang E, and Prince Wei of Chu wanted to claim the credit. Bo Zhouli said they should ask the prisoner. He had the captive stand between them; Bo Zhouli pointed upward and said, “This is Prince Wei, our ruler’s honored younger brother by the same mother.” Then he pointed downward at Chuan Fengxu and said, “This is Chuan Fengxu, magistrate of a county beyond Fangcheng. Who actually captured him?” The prisoner said that when Huang E met Prince Wei he was already at a disadvantage—meaning the credit belonged with the prince. Later generations used this image for secretly siding with someone or rigging outcomes in handling cases or affairs; the expression shangxia qishou comes from that story. Old Feng was upright by nature, so he never touched such practices.

Plain-language interpretation

A robbery occurred in the Jinshan area; the victim was injured and later died. More than thirty people were arrested as ringleaders and accomplices. The law at the time was very strict: for robbery with injury, ringleaders and followers alike were to be executed without distinction.

It happened that this “Weng” (elder official) was in charge of the case. He felt that all thirty-odd were unemployed poor people and could not bear to see them all beheaded together (“bian shou” means lined up for execution and put to death as one batch). So he drafted sentences of decapitation for only the two who planned the robbery and struck and caused the death, and drafted exile or military banishment for the rest, and fixed the case papers. The county magistrate thought the sentences were too light. Weng insisted: though the crime was robbery on the road, the confessions showed they were not habitual bandits or long-term robbers; the victim’s injury also came from a hurried push and fall in the dark, with no use of blades or weapons—by reason the case could be handled with a lighter comparison.

The magistrate still feared the higher authorities would severely reject it for “shi chu” (“shi chu” means the judgment was too lenient, easing what should have been strict punishment; in a Tang story Empress Wu asked a minister why there were so many “shi chu”; the minister said leniency in judgment is a small fault, but sparing life is great virtue). Weng said: if questioned from above for that, send me to the provincial capital and I will bear the crime of “shi chu.” Only then did the magistrate soberly change his tone: You are still willing to plead for the people—do I have no shred of humane feeling? He then fixed the case as Weng advised and reported upward (“yan shang”—presenting the concluded trial result to superiors).

The memorial was rejected again, so they had no choice but to prepare another one. The old man then wrote a detailed counter-memorial (a point-by-point rebuttal), and the exchange went back and forth three times—three rejections and three renewed submissions. The provincial governor was furious. He issued a stern reprimand and decided to hear the case in person. He also ordered the official seal brought to Suzhou, plainly intending to impeach the local officials. (Impeach, pronounced hé, means to accuse an official before the throne.)

The county magistrate was terrified and blamed the old man. The old man said he was willing to go with him to the provincial capital and told him: “When you see the governor, please leave the whole matter in my hands. If we can come through unharmed, that will be your good fortune; if we cannot escape trouble, I alone will bear the consequences.” The magistrate then took the old man with him to the provincial capital.

A district magistrate came to see the provincial governor, while Clerk Hu waited outside the yamen gate. The governor ordered lenient handling of the case, but his words and expression were stern. The magistrate kowtowed in apology; the governor asked again, “When you first took office, who taught you to act this way?” The magistrate said it was Clerk Hu in the criminal registry section. The governor asked, “Did he come with you?” The answer was, “He is waiting outside the gate.” The governor smiled and said, “I had long suspected a slippery clerk who took bribes and perverted the law by twisting documents—and so it proves. I will question him myself.” He immediately ordered the constables to bring Clerk Hu in.

The governor faced him and shouted, “As a criminal-registry clerk, do you not know that in robbery with injury causing the victim’s death, principal and accomplices alike are beheaded without exception?” Clerk Hu kowtowed and replied, “Of course I know. But though the statute reads so, the severity should still be weighed and adjusted.” The governor angrily said, “Robbery with injury to the victim—what difference in severity is there?” Clerk Hu answered, “The statute targets hardened bandits of long standing—cases of open robbery with weapons that kill the victim. If everyone in this case were unemployed poor driven by hunger and cold to break the law, and the victim died from being pushed or knocked down, it would seem fair to apply the code somewhat more leniently.” The governor shouted, “How much stolen goods did you take in bribes, that you dare craft such excuses to exonerate them? If you do not speak the truth, you will be pressed with the leg-crushing sticks.”

The old man kowtowed again and said: “If you mean I meant to shield robbers, I dare not deny that I am at fault. As for taking bribes or twisting the law, I have never stooped to that—not only in a case this serious, but even in petty brawls I would not go against my conscience.”

The vice censor forced a smile and asked: “If you took no benefit from the robbers, why did you still try so hard to lighten their sentences?” The old man said: “I dare not say.” When the vice censor pressed him again and again, he answered: “There is no other reason—it is simply that ‘within the gates of officialdom, one may cultivate virtue well.’ Has Your Excellency never heard what Ouyang Xiu (zi Yongshu, of Luling, who served through Emperor Renzong’s reign to Junior Preceptor and was posthumously titled Wenzong) said: ‘Try every means to let him live; even if you fail, the dead will have no grievance against you’?”

The vice censor found this strange and had the dossiers of recent cases brought for careful reading. He saw at a glance that the man’s face bore an air of kindness and that he was clearly a venerable elder of deep virtue (on the meaning of “venerable elder,” see the note at the opening piece of this book). The vice censor then asked gently: “How many sons do you have?” He answered: “Four.” “What do they do?” “The eldest, Lingyi, passed the provincial examination as a juren by good fortune; the three below are all county students; the fourth was this year chosen by the prefect as top of the list.”

The vice censor said gravely: “This is the reward for ‘cultivating virtue within the gates of officialdom’! In this case I will follow your intent and spare many lives—it is also an omen that your son will pass the metropolitan examination next year and attend the Qilin Garden banquet!” (The Qilin Garden banquet: from the eighth year of Taiping Xingguo in the Tang, new jinshi of the three ranks were feasted in the Qilin Garden; hence “omen of Qilin” means soon to become a jinshi.)

He then dismissed him and judged according to what had been agreed: two were executed, the rest preserved. That county magistrate also returned to his post. The next year, Prefect Xiangshan (apparently a prefect linked to the old man’s story) did indeed pass the metropolitan examination and become a jinshi.

The verdict was carried out as decided: two were put to death, and the rest were spared. The county magistrate returned to his post as before. The prefect of Xiangshan—the chief official at prefecture level—passed the metropolitan examination at the Ministry of Rites the next year and became a jinshi; the three others afterward entered the Imperial Academy (Guozijian) as tribute students, formally entering official service and the rolls of officialdom. The household produced four stipendiary licentiates in succession (students at the Imperial Academy who received government rations); the scholarly line has continued down to the present without interruption.

The author of Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Their Fruits), who styles himself the “Master of Sitting Among Flowers,” says: I have long felt that if people want to do good, it is not enough to have a passing good thought in the mind—they also need dingjian (a settled view) and dingxin (a steady heart): to see clearly and stand firm, so they are neither crushed by power nor swayed by other opinions.

In the world there are often people whose intentions start out well and who are not ignorant that one should take helping people and benefiting things as the root; yet when they face formidable authority and their own immediate interests are at stake, the thought at the beginning and the thought at the end are no longer the same. From ancient times to the present, how many worthy scholar-officials have ruined a lifetime’s reputation on exactly this point—is that not so?

Old Hu was only a county clerk (a low-ranking yamen scribe who handled paperwork), yet he showed that once he had a fixed view, nothing could bend him (“nao” here means to yield or waver). Though the other party held the exalted rank of a provincial governor (fubu), and though he used harsh punishment to intimidate and overwhelming arrogance to pressure him, Old Hu still argued his case kan kan—frankly, at ease, and on principle—without crooked compliance or flattery. In the end his position was upheld; the governor’s anger subsided and he was willing to listen on. From this one may infer: even Zhang Shizhi, famed in Han for fairness, or Xu Yougong, who in Tang often held the middle way amid rampant harsh officials and saved many lives—what could they have done to surpass Old Hu here? Was it not by dingshi (settled understanding) and dingli (firm resolve) that they truly propped up that good heart?

People whose character was already shaky and who scraped by through bullying and sharp practice could still, in principle, be “saved” and their worn-down bodies turned around: once wicked thoughts were cleared away, a good heart could begin to grow. Some sat out in heavy snow on purpose, holding silver they had picked up and waiting for the rightful owner; past wrongdoing was forgiven, and they were even granted an official name and rank.

Zhang Guancha was a man of Jingkou. While he was still only a xiucai (licentiate), his household was very poor and he paid little heed to proper conduct (wuxing: he did not value moral bearing and his behavior was loose). People in his home district feared him as they would a tiger. Yet his temperament was quite open-handed: money he squeezed out of others by bluff or force he handed out almost as fast as he got it. Most of the town’s poor in fact lai zhu (depended on his help), so his own home often had not even enough grain set aside to pound for the next day’s meal (wu su chong: so destitute there was no stored rice for the usual overnight husking before cooking).

Plain-Language Reading of Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Reaping Fruit

One New Year’s Eve, the household could not observe the usual holiday customs or cook as normal (the book explains elsewhere the taboo against “raising fire” at such times). He thought of old grudges among relatives and friends, and of petty, mean-spirited people around him—there was no one he could turn to; and he refused to grovel or fawn (Han Yu once said: to bow the head, pin back the ears, and wag the tail for pity—that was not his way).

As dusk came he still had no solution. He took his wife’s worn cloth skirt to the pawnshop and managed to get a thousand cash, bought a peck of rice, wine, meat, incense, and paper money for offerings, and carried them home in a basket. He lived in a poor lane; it was raining and the road was slippery. Near his door he tripped and everything in the basket spilled. Furious, he went home for a lamp and searched the ground—and picked up a bag, heavy in his hand. At home he opened it: inside were two ingots, several tens of taels of broken silver, more than a hundred foreign silver dollars, several hundred in small change, plus a ledger and several folded account books—clearly property from a silk shop. He was overjoyed; with this, life could be easier. Just as he was about to take it inside, it struck him: this must be money a shop clerk lost while collecting accounts. If he kept it, the clerk could not make good the loss and might even lose his life. Better to wait until the owner came looking, then return it. So he hid the bag, used only the small change from it to buy rice again, had his wife cook, and sat outside in the wind and snow by lamplight keeping watch.

When the night was half over, someone came along, head bowed, searching the ground step by step, weeping and sighing. He asked what was wrong. The man said he was a clerk at a silk shop; he had been out collecting accounts and lost a bag on the road. If he could not find it, he would have to make up the full amount—and he had no way to do that. He begged the narrator to help him look. They searched together but found nothing. The clerk knelt and wept, saying he would surely die. The narrator helped him up, took him inside, warmed him with hot tea, and asked him to describe the bag and its contents. When the details matched, he returned the bag intact. The clerk was overwhelmed with gratitude and wanted to give him half the silver as thanks. He refused absolutely, saying he had only done what was right and would not take a reward for returning what was not his. The clerk kowtowed again and left.

From then on, whenever the shop had business, they treated him with special kindness; in hard times they often helped him without being asked. He often said: “That night I nearly kept the money. One greedy thought and I would have been a thief; one honest thought and heaven and people both helped me. The Way of gain and loss is not far from this.”

This story belongs to the “records of cause and effect” in Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Reaping Fruit: it shows that integrity in a single moment can turn misfortune into blessing, and that the clerk’s later kindness was the fruit of the narrator’s refusal to keep what was not his.

Before long, an old man and two young men came along the road, carrying silk-shop lanterns and searching anxiously with the light. Onlookers could tell they had lost something. When they drew near, he stopped them and asked, “What are you looking for?” The old man actually knew Zhang and knew he was a ruffian, so he did not dare speak plainly; he hemmed and hawed and tried to slip away. Zhang’s face darkened. “You’re shining lanterns all over the place—not hunting your own lost goods, but peering at people’s doors and gates like night thieves! If you don’t tell me straight, I won’t let you go!” The old man had no choice and finally told the truth: “We were passing here to collect accounts and rested by the roadside. It rained and we hurried off, and lost a cloth bag—so we came back to look. We can’t find it now; surely some passerby picked it up.” Asked what was in the bag, the old man listed money and account books one by one, matching exactly what was missing.

Zhang smiled. “Why not come to my place and sit awhile first? I already know who picked it up.” The old man bowed to Zhang. “If you know, sir, please tell me now—I wouldn’t dare impose by visiting uninvited.” Zhang smiled again. “This isn’t the sort of thing to discuss standing in the street. My humble home is right here—why refuse to step inside?” The old man hesitated and did not dare go; Zhang pulled him in anyway. Once they were seated, the old man said again, “If you know, sir, please tell me at once—I’d be deeply grateful.” Zhang only answered with vague, perfunctory yes-yes assents.

(Note: the original repeats some lines in the middle; here the story is given once, clearly.)

After tea was served and he came out, someone asked the old man what trade he plied at the shop. The old man answered, “Collecting debts.” They asked again, “Your account book is lost now—what will you do?” Tears streamed down the old man’s face. He said, “Even if I sold every stick of our property I could not make good the loss; only death is left to me.” He added, “If you, sir, know where it is, I beg you to tell me at once—I would be grateful beyond words and would never forget it.” Zhang murmured another vague assent. The old man suspected he was being mocked and rose to go. Zhang smiled and said, “Old man, sit a while and don’t be upset. I don’t know who picked up your things. I have a little savings on hand and can make it up to you.” He then produced a money pouch and asked, “Is this enough to cover what you lost?” The old man was stunned; he looked at Zhang with fear and doubt and could only stammer, unable to speak plainly. Zhang reassured him: “Old man, don’t mistrust me! If I had coveted what was in that pouch, I would long ago have taken the sacrificial meat and wine offered to the gods, shut the door, and drunk my fill—why would I sit alone in the wind and snow, waiting for you to come and speak with me?” He poured every silver dollar onto the table and said, “The silver dollars are still here; the copper cash has already been changed for rice.” The old man was beside himself with joy and kowtowed again and again. When he got up he urged Zhang to take half. Zhang refused with a grave face. The old man said, “If you, sir, will not accept, I dare not leave.” Zhang said with a smile, “If I must accept something to show good will, then lend me two silver dollars—enough for a few full meals in the first month of the year will do.” Seeing that his intent was sincere, the old man did not press further; he gave him two silver dollars, kowtowed in thanks, and went his way.

Note: “Silver dollars” (yinyang) denotes the silver yuan in circulation in recent times; “the first month of the year” (xinzheng) is the first month of the lunar calendar. This passage records Zhang using his own money to replace another person’s lost account book; the old man wished to give half as thanks, but Zhang took only two dollars to see himself through the New Year—a story of the kind that urges people toward good conduct, from Zuohua Zhiguo.

Zhang used the silver he had gotten from selling that brush to buy wine and dried meat and bring them home, then offered sacrifice to the gods and worshipped Heaven. He and his wife drank together; drunk, they fell asleep. In a dream he was bound and led away and saw a king who looked like Wenchang Dijun, the Taoist patron of literature and examinations. The king rebuked him: “In ordinary days you have done much that is wrong—as warned in classical histories. Unless you reform at once, take care lest you fall into the hungry-ghost path.” While he was still pleading, someone entered with a petition; the king’s face eased and he said: “This act is greatly good; it is enough to outweigh your old faults. Your name shall be restored to the roll of official fortune, and you shall be placed on this year’s autumn examination list.” To Zhang he added: “When you go back you must humble yourself further and change your conduct for the good—zhejie originally meant to bend one’s will; here it is to restrain pride and turn to a better way, as classical strategists say of a lord who lowers himself before his ministers. What lies ahead for you cannot be measured.”

When Zhang woke he knew the gods had favored him because he had returned the silver. At the brightening of dawn (zhiming), he wrote a statement, burned it before Wenchang Dijun, and swore to keep a gongguo ge—the Daoist discipline of recording merit and demerit—to make up for past wrongs. Soon the same old man came in proper dress to thank him: “Last night, but for you, sir, every life in our family would have been lost. I have told my master; you will surely be rewarded.” Zhang refused firmly. From then on he tried harder to do good, yet grew poorer, often going several days without lighting the stove to cook.

In the middle of the seventh month (mengqiu), at mid-month (zhonghuan—in Tang usage officials bathed and combed every ten days, thrice a month; zhonghuan is the bath-day of the middle ten-day period), … (the original text continues here.)

It was mid-autumn in the lunar calendar—the “hair-washing” period in the middle of the seventh month, when in Tang times officials were supposed to wash their hair every ten days (three times a month), and common folk often used “mid-month washing” for that stretch of days. Students were all hurrying to Jinling to sit the provincial examination. Only Zhang had not a single coin; he could barely feed himself and had long given up hope of entering the examination hall.

Suddenly he met the same old man again. The old man asked, “Why haven’t you gone to take the exam?” Zhang explained how poor his family was. The old man said, “You are a good man—how can you skip the provincial exam? Go home and wait for me.” Zhang agreed. When he reached home, the old man came too, took out twenty taels of silver, and said, “This is repair money I have saved for doing good deeds. You can take a boat and hurry on your way.” Zhang accepted with gratitude. After the old man left, Zhang thought privately: stake this money on one round of exams and the outcome is uncertain; better keep it for rice and firewood and stretch half a year without hunger or cold. He was not very willing to go, yet feared he would fail the old man. While he hesitated, someone knocked at the door. He opened it—the old man had returned with a young man and said to Zhang, “This is my employer. He has long wanted to repay your noble conduct. Hearing you were going to the exam, he worried your family at home would have no rice or cash, so he has prepared twenty taels of silver and four shi of white rice as a gift, so you need not worry about what is behind you.” Zhang was overjoyed and took a convenient boat to the examination. When the list was posted, he had indeed passed. The old man came again from the east with his employer and gave him travel expenses for the capital examination (jixie—the costs of going to the capital for the metropolitan exam, as explained in the notes to the Wan Yanzhai piece in Zuohua Zhiguo). Zhang later passed in succession, became a jinshi, and rose to the rank of regional intendant (guanchashi—a common Qing name for officials of daoyuan rank).

Commentary by the Master of Zuohua: (This piece shows Zhang meeting with kindness, receiving help, and finally achieving official success—illustrating that accumulating virtue and doing good bring their own reward.)

The Host of Sitting Among Flowers on the Matter

The host of Sitting Among Flowers said: A single flash of good intent is enough to outweigh many faults. To escape the path of hungry ghosts and be entered on the “register of stipends and blessings” (the roster in the underworld where merit is recorded and good recompense is granted)—how swiftly that can happen! Does this not show that the Way of Heaven does not favor anyone by fixed partiality, but turns entirely on what each person chooses for themselves? Even so, Zhang could accomplish this because he had always been bold and generous, ready to relieve the destitute, and still had a root of good in his heart. How could he be lumped together with the sordid pettifoggers of the world?—among whom are those who always side with the strong against the weak and haggle over the smallest gain (a zhu or hao, the tiniest measure). Morally they are not in the same league at all.

Nineteen: One Foreigner’s Wealth Brings Prosperity

The verse says: Though poor, one who still helps in emergencies often lays the foundation for later wealth; sincerity and solid character are what especially win a foreigner’s trust. If one’s virtue does not measure up to Old Liu’s, then even if found money were multiplied many times over, what real good would it do oneself?

Old Liu was from Shanghang. From childhood he was honest and loyal and would not lie. Though his household was poor, he loved to lend a hand when others were in distress. He had just come of age (at ruoguan, when a man turns twenty and receives the capping rite—here meaning he was still young) when he lost both parents (shi hu shi: losing one’s father is called hu, one’s mother shi), and he had no connections by which to rise. A relative served as magistrate in eastern Guangdong, and he planned to go and seek shelter with him. He sold his house and scraped together several dozen taels of silver before setting out (huo wu, i.e., selling the house).

When he reached Jiangxi, he met a fellow townsman. The man was destitute and could not afford to return home; he was about to sell his son into service as a servant. The old man took pity on him and gave him half of the money he was carrying.

By the time the old man arrived in Guangdong, his relatives had already died. His wife and children had already taken the coffin back to their home region. He had no choice but to lodge at an inn, unable to go forward or retreat, caught in a bind—until he fell ill. The innkeeper saw that he was young and alone far from home, felt sorry for him, and found a doctor to treat him. Though he recovered, there was not a single coin left in his purse; he could neither plan his journey home nor pay what he owed for his stay. He thought that he had wandered the world alone with nothing left to hold him to life, and that he might as well end his days by seeking death. He left Guangzhou—the “City of Five Rams,” so named because legend says five immortals rode five rams there—and came to a secluded spot on the bank of the Pearl River. He looked down at the surging water and was about to throw himself in.

Suddenly he noticed a glint of light on the riverbank. When he went closer, it was a foreign silver dollar. He thought to himself: “Who would drop money on a riverbank? Could it be that Heaven still does not mean for me to die?” He also remembered the gambling halls in Guangdong, where one stake could win thirty. He had seen a notice at the inn saying that three halls were open that day; he might as well try his luck. If he won, he could carry out his plan to go home; if he lost, he would follow Lord of the Three Gorges (Qu Yuan) and drown himself in the river. The plan did not seem bad, so he hurried back toward Foreign Firms Street. He met a man from the inn where he was staying, who invited him along—and they actually won. The inn man said, “Not far from here there is another round.” They went again together and won again. Then he entered the city. When he was still about half a li from the inn, he passed a large building and saw people streaming in in groups. He hurried over to ask and learned that it was another gambling hall. He went again with the inn man, staked all the money on him, and won once more. Three tries, three wins—more than twenty thousand in gold in all. He was delighted beyond anything he had expected.

Back at his lodging he said to the inn man: “I am alone, poor, and a stranger far from home; I was close to starving to death (piao: a corpse of one who starved; Mencius speaks of ‘starving bodies’ along the road). It was only because you took me along that I got this sum. I now intend not to go back east but to settle here. If we can make good profit, I will share it with you. What line of business would be best?” The inn man declined: “Receiving gold is a matter of fate; how could I claim credit that belongs to Heaven? If you wish to settle here, a foreign general-goods shop is for sale; if you buy it for twenty thousand gold, the returns are very rich.” The old man agreed. He put everything in the inn man’s hands, and the man proved honest and dependable. Besides the two foreign grocery shops, they also did hoard-and-resell business; whatever they handled, they rarely failed to multiply their profit several times over. In less than ten years he had amassed several hundred thousand in capital and had become acquainted with all the foreign merchants in Guangdong.

Weng was by nature a man of complete sincerity and upright character. In his dealings with others he was utterly straightforward—without hidden designs, guard, or scheming—and he never put off what he had promised; his word was kept as soon as he could honor it. He was also clear-headed and decisive. Those who came to him in urgent need never found him unwilling to help, and foreign merchants trusted him as well.

That year prices of foreign goods collapsed, and merchandise piled up unsold at the foreign trading houses. One house of the Guan surname ran at a loss and owed clients gold and silver amounting to several million. Two foreign merchants in that firm had four shiploads of goods arrive in Guangdong (Yue), but for a long time they could not open the holds and sell; letters from home pressed them to return. They wished to leave the cargo with the trading house but feared it would be lost or swallowed up in the firm’s ruin. After much thought, they could rely on no one but Weng’s honesty.

Their comprador—the intermediary who dealt with the foreign merchants—was a neighbor of Weng’s shop. He had once been jailed for long-overdue official payments owed to the government, and the pursuit and dunning of creditors had thrown his household into chaos, to the point that he almost had to sell his wife and daughter to settle the debt. Someone spoke well of his daughter and recommended her to Weng. When Weng heard this, he paid off the man’s entire official debt in full. The man then drew up a written bond or contract in acknowledgment.

Someone once brought out a promissory note and even offered his daughter to the old man as a gift. The old man tore up the note and sent the girl back home, and the family was reunited. The man was deeply grateful but could find no way to repay the kindness. When he heard what a foreign merchant had in mind and was strongly urged on by others, he went to the old man’s shop and laid the proposal before him. The old man was alarmed. “Your four shiploads of goods are worth a fortune—everything my household owns would not come to a tenth of that. If anything were lost or short, how could I make it good?” The merchant said, “Take them all the same. Come back in three years for the principal—what do you say?” The old man already had a fair sum by then but had not yet married or set up a home. At the mention of a three-year term he flushed with annoyance. “I have no family here. I would not willingly wrong anyone, but life is uncertain. If something happened to me within those three years, where would you two go to collect what was owed?” Seeing that he would not budge, the merchant had to let the matter drop. A former clerk at the warehouse, whom the merchant also trusted, was pressed into acting as go-between. The goods were valued at more than a million in cash; only a hundred thousand was paid up front, with the rest due in about three years. They drew up a contract, and the deal was done.

Within two months war broke out in the West, Western ships stopped calling, and imported goods soared in price. The old man sold the stock and the profit on the trade came to three times the principal—“lì shì” means the gain from buying and selling. He and the warehouse man agreed to set the principal aside and put the rest into trade. Wealth piled upon wealth, and great merchant families in Guangdong competed to offer him marriage. He took a wife, bought property, and lived in a style that rivaled kings and nobles.

The old gentleman became all the more sincere, cautious, and generous, and many people benefited from his charity.

In the fifth year, the Western merchants finally arrived. The old man was overjoyed at their coming and laid on a festive banquet—setting out a feast for guests and putting up a stage for opera, which is why such occasions were called “colorful cups” (caishang). He invited everyone who had originally signed the business contract with him, and gave the Western merchants the seats of honor. After several rounds of wine had passed, the old man raised his cup and said: “Liu has built up a fortune of several million thanks to the goods you two brought; without your kindness, I would not be where I am today. The account books for sales, and the shipping registers for these years, are all here. Apart from the principal, please divide the remaining profit.” (The word “guafen” originally meant to divide and distribute, as when Emperor Gaozu in the Book of Han, biography of Jia Yi, divided the realm to enfeoff his meritorious followers.)

The Western merchants smiled and said: “We agreed long ago that profit and loss would depend entirely on your own fortune and fate—what has that to do with people like us? Please return our capital; keep the rest yourself. There is no need to be so modest!” The old man firmly refused, and they went back and forth in courtesy. A mediator said: “Since Master Liu’s goodwill is so clear, it would be fitting to add one percent interest per year on the original terms—that is what he is owed, and it would not disappoint Master Liu’s intent.” (The character gu, pronounced gu, carries the sense of failing or letting someone down.) The Western merchants still would not agree. They negotiated for several days, and in the end they followed the mediator’s proposal: principal and interest were settled and returned in full. The Western merchants all praised Old Liu for his honesty and decency.

Before long, the firm under the Guan surname failed through deficits and was sued by the Western merchants in court. The authorities sealed the business and sought someone to take it over, but for a time no suitable person could be found. The Western merchants all recommended Old Liu; he declined, saying: “A foreign trade house requires enormous capital, and my money is scattered in many places—how could I take over and reopen it?” The Western merchants said: “No matter! We will insist on reporting your name to the authorities and will advance the funds on your behalf.” Old Liu had no choice but to agree. After Old Liu opened the house, the Western merchants all competed to do business with him. In less than ten years he was the wealthiest man in the province. The old man lived to more than ninety and even saw great-grandsons and great-great-grandsons. His family remains a house of great wealth to this day.

The Master of Sitting Among Flowers says: With each passing day the world grows worse; flashy tricks and deceptions multiply, while words spoken from the heart grow scarce. “Zhong” means sincerity. Those who live by scheming and shifting deceit—the sort of cunning artisan Mencius describes—can spin endless new ruses in the blink of an eye. At its worst, subjects deceive rulers, sons deceive fathers, wives deceive husbands, until the world seems to run almost entirely on fraud. The people who do this still congratulate themselves, unaware that they are provoking heaven’s anger. Now and then one or two utterly sincere gentlemen appear; the spirits will surely shield them in secret, so that even in danger they walk as if on level ground—the four-character phrase is attested as a set expression, though its exact source is unclear; “yi” here means smooth and level—and in the end they enjoy blessings rare among mortals. Examples like Old Liu are enough to urge others toward goodness.

Entry twenty: Washing the Inkstone at the Lotus Pond

To behave loosely with a maid beside the lotus pond is already repulsive; how much worse when the mother-in-law confronts you face to face and you stubbornly deny everything. After barely any days of repentance, you slip back into the old ways; in illness you still cling to life—such an end is exactly what you deserve.

A certain student was a xiucai (licentiate) from Hangzhou, Zhejiang. He studied Shen-Han techniques under Jiang Yiting—that is, the practical arts of criminal law and legal administration. He had a little cleverness but was wild and unrestrained (“fangdan” meaning reckless behavior; “buji” meaning not bound by rules).

In the bingwu year, Master Jiang went to Shanghai to serve in the yamen of Magistrate Xian Yunya. After the autumn examinations, the student visited his teacher at the daoyamen, showed his examination essays to fellow disciples, and was quite pleased with himself. Someone at the yamen was invoking a spirit by planchette; the board produced Master Xia Wanru (“ji” refers to spirit-writing divination). The student asked about his official career. The spirit wrote in large characters: “Your prospects were once distant, but they have been entirely cut down by the karma of harmful speech and lustful deeds! Reform quickly, and you may still extend your years. Otherwise the wronged ghost will come—how can you still hope for examination honors?”

The student laughed: “Why does an immortal talk like some old pedant? You say it is all cut down, yet also say reform quickly can extend my years; otherwise the wronged ghost will come—what examination honors are there to hope for?” He asked again: “Since you speak of a wronged ghost, what is the karmic cause?” The planchette wrote again: “Do you insist on being told plainly? Do you still remember washing your inkstone at the lotus pond ten years ago?” His face changed color; he kowtowed in silent prayer. It wrote again: “The underworld office has already reported to the Palace of Cassia: your name is struck from the rolls (removing examination standing) and your allotted span shortened—therefore I know. From now on, earnestly repent past wrongs, and you may still recover one chance in ten thousand; empty prayer alone will not help!” The others saw his face like ashes. After the planchette stopped, someone asked what the spirit had meant. He said sadly (“wuran” meaning dejected, lost in thought): “Light and dissolute conduct—ashamed before both the living and the dead. I tell you in earnest: let those with ambition take me as a warning.”

Plain-Language Reading of Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Reaping Karma

Once there was a scholar who had studied at his aunt’s house. The household had a good-looking maidservant, and he wanted to seduce her but never found the right moment. In summer he took his inkstone to the lotus pond to rinse it (“di” means to wash). The maidservant happened to come to pick lotuses and followed right behind him (“zhong zhi” means she came along after him). With no one else about, the two flirted. She did not firmly refuse, and they went into a small pavilion by the pond and slept together. After that they met whenever they could, and she became pregnant.

At year’s end the tutor closed the school and the scholar went home. When he paid New Year’s respects at his aunt’s, she asked him to stay the night. After everyone was quiet, the maidservant came to him and said: “You have favored me; it has been three months since my monthly bleeding. If you still care for me and we can share bed and cover long term (‘qin chou’ means bedding and quilts; the Book of Odes has ‘embrace quilt and cover’—the usual lot of a concubine), that would be your kindness. If you cast me off, I dare not blame you—I only beg you to get medicine quickly to end the pregnancy, so the matter does not come out; I would be deeply grateful.” He comforted her: “I have told my mother the truth and will ask my aunt for you as my wife. I will not fail you; do not worry so much.” She wept her thanks; that night they were intimate again, not knowing he never meant to marry her.

Back home he put the whole affair aside and stopped visiting his aunt. The maidservant waited day and night, but no word came. Before long her belly showed; his aunt discovered it and questioned her under harsh beating (“kao lüe” means torture by beating). She confessed fully. The aunt had always doted on the scholar and at once sent for him, intending to give the maidservant to him in marriage. He flatly denied it and said: “That low, lewd slave slept with someone else and dares to slander me!” He shook off his sleeve and left. The aunt believed him and beat the maidservant even harder (“gu” refers to restraints and torture). Unable to clear herself, she hanged herself that night. The scholar thought nothing of it and did not expect that one day what he had hidden would be laid bare (“fa qi fu” comes from Lu You’s verse—exposing what was covered).

Later, when people asked him about the affair, they discussed how he might repent. Many urged him to reform his ways (“zhe jie” means to change one’s usual conduct) and to ask a eminent monk to perform memorial rites for the maidservant; he nodded agreement (“han” means to nod). For a while his arrogance eased. But within a month old habits returned: he talked nonsense at will (“ci huang” originally meant the yellow ink used to correct text, hence reckless revision and reckless speech) and still sought pleasure in brothels, setting aside entirely the warning the spirit had given (“du wai zhi zhi” means to put outside one’s concern—to forget it).

The next year he suddenly vomited blood in a frenzy and died. Those tending him all saw a woman with loose hair standing at the bed—likely the maidservant come to claim his life.

The Master of Sitting Among Flowers sighed: Alas! Indulging lust beside the lotus pond, his name was struck from the register of the Cassia Palace. (The cassia register is the roster kept in the Cassia Palace, a metaphor for the path to fame, an immortal’s name on the rolls, or success in the examinations.) A great future within reach was utterly ruined by the karma of loose talk and lewd conduct—how upside-down! (“Upside-down” here matches the “already turned upside-down” sense in the classics: acting against reason and beyond all bounds.) Once he had lost himself to beauty and broken ritual propriety, entwined in repeated visits—could there truly have been not a shred of real feeling? Yet on clear nights he still sought drugs to make amends, and from his lips came vows of faithlessness; like “an echo in an empty valley” he cut off all good news—the phrase suggests that every message between them was a cold, final break—and at last he became the worst sort of scoundrel. Worse still, when the shame was already exposed and he had even been whipped, the woman at last told the truth, and the mother-in-law mediated to settle the matter—yet he claimed he had been slandered and pushed the blame onto her. That was not merely abandonment; it was like killing with a knife! Alas! His heart was dead long ago; why wait for ghosts and spirits to punish him?

21. Bao Xuanquan

The gist of the verse: In one’s allotted fate, overturning a verdict or switching to another examination session is easy; host and guest alike speak as in a shared dream, and only then does one see that the Lord on High has his own rules for choosing talent—seeking success in the civil examinations need not always mean grinding away in bitter rivalry and polish.

Bao Xiquan was a relative by marriage. In his youth he held the status of a zhusheng (a licentiate in the scholar-official track, comparable to passing the lower civil examinations), but he later gave up pursuit of official rank. Carrying with him the xingming (name-and-form) techniques associated with Shen Buhai and Han Fei—making a living through adjudication and clerical/administrative arts—he wandered for more than ten years in Yuzhang (the Jiangxi region). There is a well-known line of poetry, “February apricot blossoms, August osmanthus”—referring to the seasons of the spring and autumn imperial examinations—and he had long since cast aside such hopes.

In the Daoguang xīnhài year, he served as a guest in the secretariat of a magistrate in Ganxian County. On the desk lay several cases labeled “bandits”; the previous magistrate had already sentenced them to death. After reading the dossiers, Bao Xiquan found them doubtful and urged the current magistrate to retry the cases. It turned out to be upright commoners framed by yamen runners. The magistrate intended to lighten or remit their punishment, but some gentry and officials in the local establishment plotted to obstruct him, and the magistrate was nearly persuaded. Bao Xiquan argued forcefully on principle and finally cleared the innocent parties of wrongdoing.

The next year, in the first month of the wùzǐ year, he suddenly dreamed that his name appeared on a tianbang (heavenly placard of successful candidates)—he took it merely for a spring dream and paid it no mind.

In the first month of the following year, wuzi, he suddenly dreamed that his name appeared on the celestial examination roll. He took it for a spring dream and paid it no mind. Two months later he dreamed again of the same roll, and someone beside it said, “The celestial roll is fixed—you should hurry back.” On waking he still did not believe it. Another day passed, and suddenly a “ling” came to urge him to sit for the examination.

Bao was astonished and said, “You have known Xunquan for many years; he long ago gave up the examination essays and no longer writes the eight-legged form—you know that well. Why speak such words all at once?”

The ling smiled and said, “It is not that I do not know the master has always aimed high and cared little for rank and title. But last night I dreamed as though I had entered Wenchang Palace to offer incense. A minor clerk led me into a side corridor, where a long list hung on the wall, crowded with names arranged by province. The clerk told me, ‘This is the roll for this year’s autumn provincial examination.’ I looked carefully at the spot where I stood: it read that the first place in Zhejiang was a man surnamed Ma, and the master’s name was around thirtieth or so. I wondered too: the master has never gone to the exams—how could he be on the roll? The clerk said, ‘Because of last year’s case of releasing the thief, Heaven specially rewards him with one degree.’ I woke with a start, and so I come especially to urge you to go.”

The rank the ling reported matched what Bao had seen in his own dream, and his heart wavered, yet he remained suspicious as a fox. The ling was skilled in Liuren divination; he cast again and obtained an auspicious sign, saying, “This hexagram means you will certainly pass. The master’s travel expenses and half a year’s teacher’s fee—I will bear them alone. What do you say?” Bao had no choice but to pack and return to his native place.

He had neglected his studies for so long that he could no longer write the eight-legged form. In the examination hall all three essays came out as free prose; the hall examiner was already inclined to discard them and not recommend them. Suddenly the chief examiner, finding no free-prose pieces among the recommended papers, still wished to take one to fill the quota. After searching everywhere he found Bao’s paper; the chief examiner thought its rhythm antique and elegant and in the end passed him. His rank matched the dream; the jieyuan (top provincial graduate) was Ma Yu.

Bao later ranked first class in the great selection and was appointed to a county post in Fujian.

22. Cao Zhiying

Cao Zhiying of Huizhou once served as magistrate of a county in Sichuan. During his term there was a case in which a nephew murdered his uncle. The nephew’s family was wealthy and spread bribes far and wide. He gave Cao Zhiying eight hundred taels of silver; the confession and case file were both altered by a staff adviser in the yamen to suit his wishes. While the adviser was revising the confession, eerie wailing like ghosts came from outside the window. The adviser had taken a bribe himself and changed nothing anyway. In the end the nephew walked free.

Some years later that adviser died first. On his deathbed he saw a blood-soaked ghost approach (the text here inserts a note citing from Xu Youyang Zazu the episode of Xu Jingye emerging drenched in blood). The ghost said: “You and Magistrate Cao took bribes and only let that wicked nephew slip through the net; because you exonerated him, you instead piled false charges on me so I could not clear my name. Heaven’s Emperor has now granted permission!” It then reached out and throttled him to death. Cao Zhiying died soon after. After death the family declined until only one son remained. After the son entered the county academy he suddenly died young, and the Cao line ended there.

23. Thieves of Xuancheng

(The original gives only the title here, with no main text, so no further plain-language exposition is possible.)

The Thief’s Debt

Someone once twisted an old line—“kill a man, and where can the jade disk go?”—into a neat scheme meant to grab both fame and profit at once. They did not expect the creditor to show up so soon and claim the great thief’s “debt,” hugging it to his chest like a jade bi too hot to hold.

In Xuancheng there was a notorious bandit who had robbed for many years. He was wealthy and had many followers, so the troops at the local garrison did not dare touch him. A new prefect, strict and able, found a way to arrest him within ten days of taking office. The bandit offered a huge bribe. The prefect consulted those close to him; they urged him not to accept. The prefect smiled and said, “If I kill him, where can the disk go?” (The saying comes from the Zuozhuan, Duke Ai, year 17: the ruler of Qi told Jishi he would give him a jade bi if his life was spared; Jishi replied that if you kill a man, where can the disk go?—then killed the ruler of Qi and took the bi.) The prefect took the bribe and still had the bandit executed according to law. On the night the bandit was put to death, the gate guards saw “the bandit” enter the prefectural yamen. They shouted but could not stop him; they gave chase but could not catch him. He went into the inner quarters and vanished. At daybreak the prefect’s concubine gave birth to a son. When the boy grew up he ruined the family completely. People said the great thief had come to collect his debt.

The Ghost Seizes the Remarried Widow

To have caused a husband’s death is lamentable; to pack up the household goods and remarry, ready to start anew—that too draws sighs. It is not that every remarriage must be paid for with a life; still, good and evil can hardly be hidden from the “Great Lord.”

In front of the public lodging at Caojing (a market town under Songjiang prefecture) lived a farmer’s daughter. While still young she had an affair with a man surnamed Jia, without her parents’ knowledge. A man surnamed Yi, from Jinling (that is, Jiangning), had settled in Caojing as a petty trader and married her. Jia, pretending to be a relative, came and went from their house as he pleased.

Before long, Yi fell gravely ill. His wife, eager for him to die, neglected him entirely and grudged him even medicine and food; weakened and spent, Yi passed away. She then made off with his property and remarried a man named Jia.

More than a year later she suddenly came down with malaria. When the fever seized her, she saw her dead husband come to claim her life. Terrified, she fled to her parents’ home; the ghost no longer followed, and the malaria cleared. For several more years she stayed with her parents and dared not return to her husband’s house.

On Qingming Festival she went to the City God Temple to watch the deity-worship festival and fair. After she came back, the malaria returned in full force; she muttered to herself, and no one could make out what she was saying.

Note: “Zaijiao” means a widow’s remarriage; a “saihui” is a popular temple fair where people worship gods and join in festive bustle. This passage tells how a faithless widow who remarried was pursued for her life by her dead husband; refuge at her mother’s home brought temporary peace, but once she entered the temple precincts again, the old retribution flared up—a typical karmic retribution tale in Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Fruits Planted While Seated on Flowers).

It was the Qingming Festival. The woman went to the City God Temple to watch the temple fair—a lively folk ritual of offering to the gods and competitive performances, also called “sacrificing to the spirits.” After she came home, her old illness flared up violently. She mumbled endlessly; nothing she said was clear, like delirium. Listen closely, though, and her accent sounded like someone from Jinling (the Nanjing region).

Her mother found it strange and asked, “Who are you?” The patient answered, “I am so-and-so! When I was ill she mistreated me; after I died she took all my money and lived it up with her lover. Two years ago I meant to take her life, but she slipped away in secret. I hunted for years before I found her. This time I won’t let her off!” As soon as she finished, she scratched her own skin with her fingernails until it was streaked with blood.

A neighbor named Jingxi tried to reason with the ghost: “Even if you claim her life, you won’t gain much; besides, this wasn’t deliberate murder. Why not ask a eminent monk to perform rites of salvation and memorial?” The ghost refused. They then promised ongoing offerings at every festival and holiday—the ghost still refused. By then the woman’s son was several years old. The mother said, “Will you take this child as your son?” The ghost snarled, “What would I want with that bastard!”

From then on the ghost sometimes yanked her hair, sometimes slapped her face, sometimes pinched her flesh. As soon as medicine was brought, it would choke her throat. (She had already been tormented for half a year.) Sometimes it made her kneel naked on the ground, then suddenly sing and laugh, then rage and scream. She suffered every kind of torture and only wished to die quickly.

Someone who pitied her waited until the ghost was possessing the woman and asked, “You’ve come to claim her life—why not kill her at once?” The ghost answered, “When she tormented me before, she wouldn’t let me die even when I wanted to. So I’m making her suffer the same living agony. When the time comes I’ll go with her to King Yama to settle accounts!” Another fortnight passed like this.

One afternoon the house was unusually quiet, and everyone began to suspect the ghost had gone. At dusk, the mother suddenly saw the ghost enter the room from outside, an iron chain in its hand; in the blink of an eye the figure vanished, but the ghost had already entered the daughter’s body. It cried out loudly, “Your time is up today! I’ll chain you and take you before the magistrate!” Then it seized her by the throat with its hands and strangled her to death (“e” means to grip or squeeze the neck hard).

When the Host of Sitting Among Flowers recorded this affair, he still wrote that the ghost shouted it would “chain you and take you to see the great magistrate,” and that it killed her by strangling her neck with its hands.

Master Zuohua says: When a widow remarries, the deceased husband’s spirit may resent it in heart, yet cannot for that reason harm her. If a ghost truly seeks “revenge,” it is against those who, while still alive, already harbored intent to harm her and wished her dead.

When a husband is ravaged by long illness and the household is in disorder, the bond between husband and wife is often already worn thin. If, after death, she hastens to marry again—as the Book of Odes piece Zhun Ben mocks as an improper match—the trace is plain: turning away from the former spouse and each going alone in estrangement (“kui gu,” from the Yijing hexagram Kui, means hearts at odds and standing isolated in grief). That kind of heart-rending pain can sometimes cut deeper than personally opening her belly with one’s own hand.

In the History of Jin, Wang Dao said to Zhou Yong (style name Boren), “I did not kill Boren myself, yet Boren died because of me”—Zhou had pleaded strenuously for Dao before the emperor, while Dao three times refused to answer and Zhou was eventually executed; later, when Dao saw the memorial in which Zhou had tried to save him, he took it and wept. The analogy here: though one did not kill with one’s own hand, coldness and tacit consent can amount to bringing about death. In cases of a widow’s remarriage, a single sentence that lays bare the inner truth can settle right and wrong for ages.

25. Silver Hidden in a Plum Tree

For a dilapidated thatched hut to be replaced in short order by vermilion-lacquered gates is, by the old reckoning, not something one sees often. In the garment trade, to hold to the ancient way and treat people with steady kindness is rarer still.

When someone inscribed a poem on the picture illustrating this tale, they exclaimed in wonder again and again: who would have thought that a man risen from the lowly craft of a tailor’s shop could bear a style-name and literary air comparable to those of scholars’ descendants?

Han Shushan of Yunjian (the area around present-day Songjiang in Shanghai, ancient Huating) came from a well-off household and honored ritual propriety. When he saw what ought to be done, he did it, and people in the countryside regarded him as a good man.

It is said that the reason he rose to wealth carries a lesson sharp enough to warn the world.

Shushan’s ancestors were very poor. His father, Old Master Han, earned his living by cutting and sewing clothes and opened a shop west of Xiuye Bridge. Though the trade was a small livelihood, he set his heart on doing good and feared he might fall short. Once, as the year was nearing its end, heaven sent down torrential rain, and then heavy snow fell.

Modern Interpretation

Shu Shan’s family had been poor for generations. His father, Han Weng, made a living as a tailor and ran a shop west of Xiuye Bridge. The trade was humble, yet he devoted himself to doing good and always feared he had not done enough.

One year, as the New Year drew near, heavy snow fell. Late at night, Han Weng had just finished his work and was about to sleep when he heard the door knocker struck again and again, as if someone were leaning against it, and then a sigh. He lit a lamp and opened the door. There stood a man with a bundle on his back, seated against the doorframe.

Asked who he was, the man said he was a clerk from a Shanghai firm, returning from Zha Pu after collecting accounts. It was late; he could not catch a boat or find an inn, and meant to spend the night under the eaves until dawn.

Han Weng was alarmed and said, “Sir, you are returning from collecting accounts—you must be carrying cash. How can you sleep out in the open? Even if you were safe from harm, you could not endure such bitter cold. My home is small, but it can keep out wind and rain.” He invited the guest inside. Seeing his clothes and shoes soaked through, Han Weng brought out his own new clothes prepared for the New Year and had him change; he also set out food and wine, saying, “This was prepared by day for the shop hands, only to ward off the cold—please do not take it amiss.”

The guest was by then frozen and famished, barely able to hold on. Han Weng’s warm welcome and thoughtful courtesy moved him deeply; gratitude overflowed, and he thanked him again and again. After the meal, Han Weng made up a bed with bedding for him and only then went to rest himself.

By dawn the wind and snow were fiercer still and boats could not run. Han Weng kept the guest, waiting for clear weather, and again provided meals and wine without a trace of annoyance. That evening the guest said to Han Weng, “I am moved by your noble conduct and have no way to repay you. I hear that in Yunjian (the Songjiang region) rice is very cheap, and shipping it to Shanghai yields a handsome profit. I still have spare cash from collecting accounts and would lend you three hundred taels of silver for trade.” Han Weng solemnly refused firmly. The guest nodded in agreement.

The next day the wind died down. The old man hired a boat for him and saw him aboard in person. The mooring line had already been cast off when the guest spoke again to the old man: “The three hundred taels of silver I spoke of yesterday are under your bed—go home and take them. Next Lantern Festival, wait for me at Xiaoxing.”

The old man was startled and anxious again; he wanted to chase after him and give the money back, but the boat had already hoisted sail and was gone.

There was nothing he could do. When he got home and looked, there was indeed silver under the guest’s bed, so for the moment he could only keep it.

When the first month of the new year came, he spent the whole sum on rice and shipped it to Shanghai (Hudu—the Shanghai region of today). At a certain trading house he made inquiries, and just then the same guest stepped out from within. At the sight of him he clapped his hands and laughed: “You really are a man of your word!”

The old man explained how much rice he had bought and that the cargo had arrived. The guest went in with him to see the head of the house and said, “This is Mr. Han of Yunjian (the Songjiang–Shanghai area), whom I met on the road last year—the rice has now arrived on schedule.”

The head of the house thanked him: “A clerk of our firm was carrying a large amount of cash silver and sleeping in the open; but for your help in a tight spot, he might well have come to harm. Now you have also brought the rice on time and did not seize the profit for yourself—you are truly a man of the old ways in our day!”

The old man modestly demurred. The head of the house had the main hall opened and invited the old man in, setting out a lavish banquet as for a distinguished guest. When the feast was over, he had the same guest accompany the old man on an outing. When they returned, his luggage had all been fetched, and he was asked to stay the night in the guest quarters.

Early the next morning the old man handed the rice purchase account to his former companion and told him to take the rice ashore; he himself meant to return to Yunjian. The guest smiled: “The rice is already taken care of—stay a few days; no need to be in a hurry to go home.”

So day after day he went out with him on excursions, and he was fortunate not to feel lonely or at loose ends.

A few days later the host again set out a feast and seated the old man in the place of honor. He said to him, “The rice you brought has all been sold, and the profit was no small sum. I now want to give you more gold—please do not refuse the trouble and go on trading for me; you shall keep half of what is earned.” With that he placed a large ingot of gold before the old man and said, “This is your share of the profit.” The old man demurred for a while, then accepted. He then said to the host, “Since you have entrusted this to me, I ought to do my utmost; but I have something in mind I would like to propose—might you agree?” The host said, “Please speak.” The old man said, “I have heard that those who do good receive good recompense. I wish to set aside two tenths of the profit to relieve the poor, and whenever there is a worthy good deed locally, to help as I can. Still, Han is from a poor family—this money is yours in the first place, and I dare not use any of it without your approval.” The host agreed and there and then paid out two thousand taels of gold to the old man. From then on the old man devoted himself even more to charity, and the goods he handled always returned a handsome profit.