《坐花志果》Vol. 3

This passage from Zuohua Zhiguo tells a story of reward for virtue and unexpected wealth, in plain language as follows.

The biography of Dou Zhi in the History of Song says that when the household was harmonious, no one indulged in loose or wounding banter (“lan yu” means jesting talk or irresponsible chatter). The book makes a similar point, so the master first refrained from burning that volume and kept it for the time being.

Behind the house stood several rows of buildings; the stair ladder had rotted and was being torn down for replacement. The old man came from a humble, plain background and was used to manual work; he took a broom himself and swept the ground beneath the ladder. Suddenly he noticed a plum blossom painted on the wall: branches slanting across the surface, the whole image seeming almost to stir with life—matching what the booklet had said—so he guessed there might be a buried cache below (“jiao cang” means goods hidden in a pit or underground store).

After dark he went down with his family by candlelight. Under the painted plum they found a whole slab of stone; when shaken it loosened, and everyone heaved it aside (“duo” means to lift or move). Beneath it stood four large jars packed full of yellow and white metal—gold and silver—and they became a very wealthy household.

From then on the old man did even more good; Shushan inherited the family rule and undertook almost every kind of charitable act. Shushan’s son Luoqing later passed the provincial examination; other nephews and grandsons also gained reputation in the local academy (xuxu, the schools of the old system). Good is repaid with good, and it seems the feast of retribution has no visible end (“shi bao wei you ya” means the days of enjoying such reward stretch on without limit).

Note: The opening citation from the History of Song and the gloss on “lan yu” set up what follows—because the book was not burned, the painted plum was seen, and the cache was dug up. The slanting branches and sense of the blossom “floating” echo the famous plum lines associated with Lin Hejing, suggesting the booklet had hinted at this all along. The whole piece follows the usual moral pattern of strange tales: keep virtue, do not destroy books, stumble on hidden treasure, and descendants prosper—a narrative of cause and effect.

The Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: I once spent a short time traveling in the Songjiang region and knew Han Weng’s story very well. Han Weng did not read much, yet his character and conduct were exceptionally high; whatever he said came straight from the heart—the word “zhong” here means sincere—and in what he did he never put on a false front. He loved to do good and was happy to give, all from one undivided utmost sincerity, without the least coercion. He truly had the temper Mencius praised: when he saw others starving or drowning, it was as if it were happening to himself—“you ji” means “as upon oneself,” and “ni” means drowning in water. So although his craft and skills were not remarkable, Heaven suddenly granted him great wealth that seemed never to run out and did not depend on capital to maintain—the “zi” in “bu zi zhi fu” is like “zi” for assets: his riches came in an extraordinary way, not from ordinary small-scale trade. People only saw how easily wealth came to him and did not know why he could reach that point; it was by no means chance—in other words, there had to be a cause.

Twenty-six: Uprightness Becomes Divinity

When incorrupt officials die, they may become spirits—the idea is not far-fetched. In the Ganzhou and Liangzhou region people live in peace and profit, and mulberry and hemp flourish. How freely that daoist roams—yet in a dream he suddenly runs into Commissioner Xu.

Mr. Xu Yunian was my aunt’s maternal uncle. He was widely learned and accomplished in poetry and painting. In character he was direct and open, with nothing concealed or crooked in his mind; when others were in distress, he rushed to help as though a moment’s delay were unbearable. He was especially fond of talent: if he saw even a small strength in someone, he would praise it without stint.

In the xinsi year of the Daoguang reign (1841) he passed the provincial examination and was appointed magistrate of Huan County in Gansu; he was later transferred to Dunhuang, and then promoted to prefect of Anxi Prefecture. Every place he served lay on the far frontier. The people were mostly honest and plain, without the shrewd, slippery habits of the interior, and he governed them in a quiet, dignified way. When lawsuits arose, he decided them the same day and left no backlog of cases. He himself was extremely incorruptible. When he had free time, he gathered the region’s able scholars to comment on their essays and review their accomplishments. Seeing that mulberry trees were plentiful there, he specially hired women skilled in sericulture from his home region to teach the locals how to raise silkworms and reel silk. Wherever he went, praise from the people was loud. When he left office, the populace set up his portrait for worship and remembered him as they would a spirit. He was only fifty when he died of illness in the official residence at Anxi.

Previously, in the City God Temple of Dunhuang county, there lived a Daoist priest whose daily conduct was largely unlawful. When Master Xu served as county magistrate, he had the man driven out of the jurisdiction. After Master Xu left office, the priest used improper connections (yinyuan: currying favor and scheming for position) to become the temple abbot again, and his unlawful ways continued unchanged.

One morning the priest suddenly packed his bags to flee, looking deeply alarmed. When someone asked why, he said that after he had gone to sleep the night before, in a dream he heard attendants calling the way clear and the blast of ceremonial music (hedian: retainers ahead shouting for people to step aside; dian is pronounced like “diàn”; guchui: wind and percussion in procession). He went out to look and saw the new City God arriving to take up his post, his escort stern and in good order. While he was watching from the side, he suddenly heard a shout from the hall: “Seize that priest at once.” Two runners shackled him and brought him before the City God. When he looked up, it was none other than the former magistrate, Master Xu. Master Xu thundered: “You were expelled by me in those days; when you saw me leave office you sneaked back. You should have kept quiet and behaved, yet you still clung to evil and would not repent (hù è bù quān: persisting in wrongdoing and refusing to reform). By the rules your life is due today; as I have only just taken office, you get off with a lighter beating!” A flying warrant was issued, the beating was carried out, and he was ordered to leave the temple that same day and not linger inviting death (dǒuliú: hanging about and refusing to go). Ghost runners were also told to drive him out. The priest tumbled down the steps and woke with both thighs in agony; he dared not stay and went off with his baggage in a stumbling hurry (qiàngliàng: unsteady, panicked steps).

At that time everyone in Dunhuang had their own comments on the story.

At that time, people in the Dunhuang region still did not know that the master had already passed away. Later, when someone made inquiries, they learned the following: on the very day the Taoist had seen the master arrive to take up his new post, it was the same day on which the master, in Anxi, had “changed his mat” and departed this life. (The phrase “changing the mat” comes from the “Tangong” chapter of the Book of Rites: when Zengzi lay gravely ill, he felt the mat he was lying on was too fine and ordered it replaced with a plain one; he had barely lain down on the new mat when he died. Later generations therefore use “changing the mat” to refer to a person’s final moments.)

“The upright, after death, become spirits”—can such a saying really be disbelieved? The master’s eldest son, Yanzhi, was married to my elder cousin by marriage; he once served as magistrate in Guangdong. The second son, Yuanzhong, is currently an official in Taizhou, Jiangsu, with a reputation for clean and benevolent governance. The third son, Runquan, and the fifth son, Yejin, both passed the provincial examinations in succession and hold posts in the central ministries as langzhong and zhushi, and the like. From this one can see that the virtue and blessings the master left behind have indeed been handed down and endured for a long time.

Master of Sitting Among Flowers said: This gentleman served as county magistrate for eight years, always in frontier regions—poor soil, hard-pressed people. Yet he held himself to strict standards and lived plainly. His meals had few dishes; he kept no concubines. From his honest salary he still saved enough to help relatives. Every year, before the New Year, he sent money home from far away—sometimes a few taels of silver, sometimes dozens—giving more or less according to how close the kinship was. Dozens of relatives often relied on that money to get through winter and the festival. He also kept his integrity spotless; people in the Gansu region can still recount such a magistrate’s good record. After death he became a spirit; his descendants rose high and flourished—is that not as it should be?

Two Notes on Inspecting Disaster Relief

(Poetic gist)

Work harder, stay more careful—yet still fear the real benefit never reaches the people;

What is harder still is handing the work to yamen clerks and runners.

Lines like “pair by pair, urging long life” mean: do not lightly take human life, do not fuss over the wrong things—

Documents from above were never meant to be talismans that hurry people to their deaths.

Note: After “is that not as it should be?” the original repeats a passage about “ten taels, thick or thin by kinship…”—likely a copyist or typesetting error. The translation above follows one coherent reading and does not repeat that block.

A man surnamed Mou served as assistant county magistrate, waiting in Jiangsu for an appointment to fill a vacancy. (Under the Song system, waiting for appointment, reassignment, or promotion was called “xuci.”) He was assigned to act as assistant magistrate of Fengxian County and was stationed at Situan Town. The previous incumbent had died of illness, and his coffin still lay in the yamen; Mou moved his family in and lodged at the city god temple. That year the county suffered flood damage; tax remissions and relief were carried out together. The prefecture sent an order for Mou to verify disaster-affected households in his jurisdiction (“xi” means an official dispatch or order). By chance a commissioner sent by the provincial governor also arrived. The two were old acquaintances, so Mou kept the commissioner as a guest and they lived together. Day after day they drank and sang; they left the entire disaster survey to clerks, village elders, and tuanbao. These people took the opportunity to cheat—false claims, inflated reports, and profiteering—while the poor gained little real benefit. Before long Mou and his wife died suddenly without prior illness; the commissioner returned to the province to close his assignment and died within a month. Assistant Magistrate Mou was not yet forty (“At forty one is strong enough to serve,” says the Book of Rites); he had no major faults in ordinary life, yet met this sudden punishment. Some suspected that bringing his family to live in a temple had offended the spirits. But from Mou’s death it appears that punishment in the unseen realm focused on fraud in relief that harmed the people, not on lodging in the temple (“mingqian” is divine retribution).

Again, in the gengyin year of the Daoguang reign, northern Jiangsu suffered great famine. The government requested relief; reported household counts were somewhat high. The governor-general grew suspicious and ordered the Jiangsu provincial treasurer to select ten capable, honest subordinate officials from counties and departments to reinspect with local magistrates. Those involved in this work (“yu siyi zhe” means those who took part in the assignment) were at first an excellent group, but all catered to the governor-general’s intent and deliberately verified with extreme strictness (“he” means to check and confirm), so grace did not reach everyone while a huge sum was saved from the treasury (“tajin” is state silver). Only Zheng Zujing and one other man conducted a relatively lenient survey; they offended the governor-general and received no recommendation for promotion, while seven who were rewarded above for “rigorous” verification all died suddenly without illness the next year. Zheng was promoted from Nanhui assistant magistrate to magistrate of Jiangdu on merit in grain transport (“zhuo” is promotion; “xian yin” is county magistrate); one son entered the Zhongshu office as a filial and incorrupt graduate, and he himself remained safe and well.

Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Fruits While Seated Among Flowers) · Another Entry on Surveying Disaster · Plain-Language Explanation

In the gengyin year of the Daoguang reign, a great drought struck Jiangbei, and the local authorities memorialized the throne requesting relief. The reported number of affected households seemed high, and the fuxun (provincial military and civil commissioner) grew suspicious. He ordered the Jiangsu provincial treasurer’s office to select ten capable, honest clerks from among the staff of the counties and prefectures under its jurisdiction, to join local officials in re-surveying the disaster.

Those chosen were all regarded as sharp men. On closer inspection, most of them leaned into the commissioner’s suspicion and surveyed with excessive strictness. Many disaster victims never received relief in full, and the relief funds “saved” in this way amounted to more than ten thousand taels.

At the time, only Mr. Zheng Zujing and one other man, working together on the re-survey, were somewhat lenient. This angered the commissioner, and they received no recommendation for promotion. Of the ten, seven others were rewarded by their superiors for their “strict” findings; the next year, those seven died in succession without prior illness.

Because Mr. Zheng had earlier rendered distinguished service on grain transport by sea, he was promoted from assistant magistrate of Nanhui County to magistrate of Jiangdu County; one of his sons entered the Central Secretariat (Zhongshu Sheng) as a xiucai (Filial and Incorruptible graduate). The other man who had re-surveyed with him remained safe and unharmed throughout.

Closing lines (in the original book, framed as a warning)

“Beating one’s mother and stealing silver—the crime mounts ever higher; the vast net of Heaven, in the end, cannot be escaped. Three men at once share the same punishment; the place of execution is right before the Confucian temple gate”—that is, the old shichao (public execution ground). This rhymed warning ties to the anecdote above about the seven who were rewarded and then died: a report of karmic retribution in kind.

Note: Characters such as “erba” and “yizhensan” in the original may be layout errors or corrupted section titles; here only the narrative body is rendered in plain language. If you have a reliable edition, compare the entry title against your copy.

Passages related to Zuohua Zhiguo

In Suzhou there lived a man—his surname is not given—who was deeply unfilial toward his mother and made a habit of cursing and beating her. There was also a widow who had saved more than a hundred taels of silver and planned to deposit them with a money shop so she could live on the interest. Two other men, whom the account names only as the second and third parties, saw this, stole the silver, and split it between them (the phrase guafen, “to carve up like melons,” is glossed in another entry in the same book). The widow lost the capital she needed to survive and died of grief and rage. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the second and third men were guilty, but no one dared speak out because they were thugs. The first man’s mother, too, had been tormented to death by her son. All three—the unfilial son and the two who had divided the widow’s silver—were at that time serving as runners and attendants in the yamen of the provincial commissioner.

In the summer of the renchen year (1842 in the sexagenary cycle), foreign forces pressed the border and the crisis was acute (“yi fen e” refers to the menace of foreign troops and the grim news that followed). Imperial troops marched from Zhejiang into Suzhou; the authorities established a military supply office at Canglang Pavilion, which stood beside the prefectural school and its Confucian temple. Commissioner Li came to the office on business; the runners and servants in his train rested under the great pagoda tree in front of the temple. The day had been bright sun under a cloudless sky, when suddenly wind drove up dark clouds, thunder and lightning flared—and one bolt struck all three men dead at once.

Case Twenty-Nine: Misappropriated Silver, Struck by Thunder

(The theme: keeping another person’s money against conscience, and being punished by heaven with a thunderbolt.)

The verse runs: She toiled at needlework and spent her life’s blood; in time she had saved dozens of taels. How could she swallow such wrong and share them with wicked companions? Heaven does not betray those who suffer in good faith.

There was an old widow of a certain family who kept her chastity and raised her orphaned child by embroidery. When her son grew up he went into banking; his salary was enough to support her, yet she still sewed diligently, little by little putting something aside until she had saved several dozen taels to set aside for his marriage. The poor household was cramped, with only a thin partition wall between them and the neighbors. Whenever she went out, fearing the silver might be stolen, she wound it around her waist.

One day, Fang went to Yuanmiao Temple to burn incense. She had heard that pickpockets were common there, so she unwound the money she kept tied around her waist—savings set aside for her son’s marriage. Her family was poor; their room was cramped, separated from the neighbors by only a thin partition. Whenever she went out she feared losing her cash, so she usually wore it bound at her waist.

This time she left what she had wrapped there with a shopkeeper she knew, a man named Jia who ran a rice shop, for safekeeping. When she came out after worship and went to collect it, Jia’s manner changed completely. “Who ever took your silver?” he said. Fang was stunned; she wept and argued, but Jia swore by heaven that he was being wronged. Their quarrel drew a crowd; no one could settle it. When Fang had handed over the silver, a neighbor of the shop, a man named Yi, had clearly been there and seen it. Fang pulled him in as a witness, but Yi sneered: “If you really saw it, that would be seeing a ghost! I just came from Changmen—I’ve never even seen what you look like. How would I know which of you is telling the truth?” The onlookers erupted; everyone took Fang for the troublemaker. Unable to defend herself, she went home in despair and hanged herself.

Her son returned to lay her out. Not knowing why his mother had died, he grieved until he fell ill. In his sickness he dreamed that she came to him and said: “Tomorrow before the temple there will appear someone the account calls ‘Zhenliangren’; my wrong can be cleared, and the silver you can recover.”

Zuohua Zhiguo in Plain Language

(A Wronged Spirit Speaks, Heaven’s Thunder Strikes Greed, the Original Silver Is Returned)

When the son came home to bury his mother, he did not know how she had died. Grief overwhelmed him and he fell ill. In his sickness he dreamed that his mother said: “Tomorrow two men in front of the temple will be struck by thunder; then my grievance can be told, and the silver that was taken will come back to you. Why not drag yourself there despite your illness?” The next day the son did indeed go, leaning on others for support. It was high noon—the “tingwu” hour, the middle of the day—and the sky had been clear; suddenly clouds rose, wind roared, and a clap of thunder struck. The two men, A and B, each clutching a bundle of silver, knelt facing each other and died on the spot. Before long B revived and told the whole story in public: an old woman had entrusted them with the silver; A had wanted to keep it all for himself and suggested a three–seven split, and both had unknowingly provoked heaven’s anger. The underworld judged that A had formed the evil intent, so B’s death sentence was waived; he was ordered to explain everything openly and return the original silver to the dead woman’s son—though he did not yet know the man’s name. Someone present who knew the facts pointed at the son and said: “Isn’t this the owner?” The son took back the silver before everyone, went home, laid it before his mother’s spirit tablet, and wept bitterly; his illness lifted at once. B lay abed half a year before he could rise; one hand and one foot were broken, and he was crippled for life.

30. Sealing Silver with Lacquer (entry heading and verse)

Selling fish is a small trade, yet fishmongers are often the readiest to help in urgent need; an auspicious omen came true and treasure was indeed found; seeing the moment for what it was, they sealed the silver away with lacquer. (What follows is the body of that tale; here only the verse is given.)

The Yu family of Jiaxing ranked among the largest households in the area; they owned many shops and dwellings rented out in the city. A man surnamed Zhu made his living selling fish and rented a house from the Yus. That house stood right beside the Yu mansion and had originally been part of Mistress Yu’s—the lady of the Yu household—dowry. Each year at the close of the year she sent only an old woman or a maid to collect rent, never delegating the task to male servants, and tenants were never harassed by collectors at the door. Zhu lived there in peace for many years.

Though he was only a small fish peddler, Zhu had a bold, open nature and would lend a hand when others were in distress. Once at the market he saw a man and a woman with a child of about ten; the three were clinging to one another and weeping so loudly that passersby stopped to stare. Zhu asked what was wrong. They said they were from Huai’an: their home had been ruined by flood and they had drifted here; hearing that the harvest was good this year, they wanted to go back but had no money for the journey. The man could not bring himself to sell his wife, yet could not bear to sell his son; with no way out and hunger pressing on them, they had nothing to do but cry together. Zhu asked how much it would take for all three to return home together. They answered, “Two thousand cash would be enough.” Zhu took them to his house and gave them the full sum. Most people laughed at him, but acts of righteous help like this were not rare for him.

In the Jiaxing region there was a custom of worshipping the gods at year’s end. People would often buy “paper cash” (spirit money burned for the deities), put it in a basket, and have two people carry it into the house. Sometimes the basket would feel unusually heavy, as if the carriers could hardly lift it, and they would casually remark, “We’ve dug up hidden treasure today!”—treating the saying as an omen of wealth in the coming year and a thriving household. That was only something ordinary folk did; gentry families generally looked down on it or did not even know it existed.

That year, Mr. and Mrs. Zhu had just finished their worship when the Yu family’s rent-collecting maid arrived. The couple kept her for wine and said, “The rites are over and the God of Wealth is about to arrive—you’re sure to strike it rich next year. Drink this cup of blessing wine first, then take the rent money back. Tell the Lady truthfully when you return, and she won’t blame you.”

The maid smiled and said, “Actually I already came once! The first time I came, you were in the middle of ‘digging treasure,’ so I didn’t dare disturb you and went back. I reported to the Lady. The Lady is seventy this year; she has seen plenty of gold, pearls, and jade, but she has never seen ‘hidden treasure silver’ and wanted to borrow one ingot just to look—purely to satisfy her curiosity. So I came again. It’s only a brief loan—I’ll return it at once—please don’t be stingy.”

Mr. and Mrs. Zhu laughed. “That’s just the Jiaxing people’s lucky New Year phrase at the festival—it doesn’t mean we really dug up silver. Where would we get an ingot to present to the Lady?”

The maid’s face darkened. Angrily she said, “You two are truly petty! Would the Lady keep one ingot from you—and yet you fob her off with excuses?”

The couple explained again and again that there was no hidden silver in the house. The maid flew into a rage: “This house was the Lady’s property to begin with. If treasure was dug up here, how can you treat it as yours? I’ll go back and tell the Lady and have the steward come question you!” With that she flung her sleeves and left.

Mr. and Mrs. Zhu stared at each other, alarmed and bewildered.

Before long the maid was sent again with a message. Bearing two sycees in her hands, she handed them to Zhu and said, “The Lady knows that silver dug from a buried hoard is thought unlucky if it is spent all at once—spend it too freely and it is apt to run out. She asks you now to exchange these two pieces for one, as a sign that your future business will pile profit on profit. Please do not refuse again.” Zhu was about to speak, but his wife caught his eye and signaled him to stay silent. She told the maid, “Since the Lady has warned us so kindly, how can we go on concealing the truth? Have a cup of wine first—we will bring it out and present it to you.” She called her husband forward; Zhu produced one ingot and said, “Melt it quickly and smear it with lacquer mixed with mud.” When that was done, the silver turned dull black, mottled with an earthy cast, so anyone could see at a glance that it had come from an underground cache. Zhu gave the whole ingot to the maid and said, “Under ordinary circumstances we would never dare keep the Lady’s silver, but given this popular taboo we can only accept it for now and wait for her reply.” The maid left in high spirits. Soon she returned with word that the hoard silver the Lady would keep for her descendants to see, and that she ordered the two sycees and this year’s rent to be given to them as a gift. Zhu and his wife were beside themselves with joy.

With this unexpected fifty taels of silver, they stopped selling fish and planned to open a small general shop to make a living. They took the sycee the Lady had given them to a silver house to have it assayed. The shopkeeper happened to be a kinsman of the Yu family; seeing them, he gave a wry smile and said, “You great star of wealth—and still fussing over this petty trade?” He returned the silver but supplied goods worth ten times as much. They demurred again and again but could not refuse. Deciding the arrangement was still a good bargain, they rented another storefront and chose an auspicious day for a grand opening. Once the shop was open, people depositing silver, entrusting capital for management, and seeking partnerships for shared profit came in an endless stream—more than they could attend to. Without spending a single string of cash, everything was fully set up. Stock they held often returned several times the profit. In only a few years their household wealth matched that of the Yu family.

Master of Sitting Among Flowers says: Zhu was only a petty trader, yet in others’ peril he could hurry to their aid like this. His breadth of heart was not something small-minded people who haggle over every trifle could jianbei (match or keep pace with—“shoulders and backs” as a metaphor for falling short). Heaven deliberately used the Shi family to make him rich; hence the little maid kan hua le yan (was dazzled—“saw flowers and mistook them”), taking paper spirit money for Zhuti silver (Zhuti was an ancient place famed for silver; the name later stood for silver ingots). The old lady too forgot what belonged at home, treating her own ingots like ye huo (wild pickings found on the road—meaning she treated her household treasure as if it were someone else’s silver buried along the way). They wanted an auspicious omen and suddenly gained real wealth—the man was odd enough, but the turn of events was odder still. Compared with Old Han’s tale of silver hidden in a plum tree, is this not more yibiao (beyond expectation—what lies outside one’s reckoning)?

31. Catching Thieves, Drawing Retribution (seven items)

(What follows are the gist of warning lines visible among the seven, in rhymed form summarizing cause and effect.)

Some become great robbers and deserve beheading; crossing borders to harm lives and plot murder, they must eventually pay with their lives.

A word to those hongyun (riding a streak of “red luck”) celebrities and grand guests scheming for advancement: beware too of running into someone like Jiujin Wang (folk nickname for an executioner).

Officials rise easily by catching many thieves; among them injustice is unavoidable, yet the truth is hard to voice. Who knew that when they leave office in triumph, their son is already muddled in spirit, the lineage’s root cut off.

Father and son show off by capturing bandits to prove strength; greedy for credit they claim what is not theirs—now reversed and xiangding (fixed in detail) as robbers’ names. Who expected the fierce runner to end in a fish’s belly (drowned in water); after judgment, sudden violent death strikes again.

(Huo dao shou qian in broad terms: seizing thieves, grabbing credit, and wrongful condemnation often carry their own retribution; while promotion and pride peak, disaster has already fallen on descendants or on oneself.)

The chief clerk of Zhaowen County, Mr. Li, was capable and energetic, but impatient and eager to advance. He felt that the post of chief clerk was a idle, marginal office with little chance of distinction unless he could solve a major robbery case in a neighboring county—only then might he be recommended for promotion. He spent heavily to buy informants and send men in pursuit, and did catch several people, but none were ringleaders or principal offenders.

Later there was a man nicknamed “Nine-Jin Wang,” a notorious bandit in Zhejiang Province. Mr. Li traced his whereabouts, secretly reported to his superiors, and when official documents came down he crossed the county border, seized Nine-Jin Wang, and brought him back. On the first interrogation the man confessed, and he was dealt with according to law.

In Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Reaping Their Fruit)

Li had distinguished himself by capturing a major bandit from a neighboring province; after being escorted to the capital for an imperial audience, he went to the provincial yamen to complete formalities. He was staying at an inn (nilü, a travelers’ lodge—the term is explained in the Tang Fengweng chapter). A colleague who was likewise waiting for an appointment (xuci, awaiting a post—a usage already noted in the Kan Zai chapter) came to borrow money (dai, to lend or borrow). Li went into his room, opened his trunk (qie), and tried to take out silver, but the lock would not turn. The borrower pressed him; Li wrenched the lock hard until everything inside the chest shook. When it finally opened, a knife leaped out (yue, to jump). Li flew into a rage; as he stamped his foot his shoe flew off (lü means shoe), and barefoot (tuxian, without shoes) he trampled the floor. Then he screamed and collapsed.

At the time Wang Juruyu, county recorder (shao wei here refers to a post such as county zhubu), was also in the provincial city awaiting appointment and was on the closest terms with Li; he too lodged at that inn. He rushed in and saw that the knife that had jumped from the chest had pierced Li’s sole and come out through the top of his foot. Wang pulled the blade out at once; blood gushed like a spring. He helped Li onto the bed and sent for a surgeon to dress the wound; the pain eased immediately. Li could not yet walk, but eating, speaking, and jesting were as usual. Wang stayed until evening and then left.

Early the next morning Wang went again to Li’s lodging. A servant met him and said, “After my master fell asleep his spirit was restless; he muttered all night, and we could not make out the words.” Wang hurried inside and found Li propped on his pillow. When Wang arrived Li did not stir; when spoken to, he mostly answered incoherently. Wang feared illness and urged him to return to the yamen to recuperate for a few days before coming back to Suzhou. Li glared (chenmu, to glare in anger—as in Records of the Grand Historian, “Xiang Yu glared and shouted them down” in the Basic Annals of Xiang Yu) and said, “I am a man of Zhejiang; Zhejiang should take me, not Jiangsu. If you want me to go now, send me to Zhejiang!” Li was originally from Shandong, but his accent now sounded like Jiaxing or Huzhou in Zhejiang; everyone understood that he was possessed by “Nine-Jin Wang” (apparently a Zhejiang bandit or wronged ghost). Wang then arranged a boat and sent him back to Zhaowen. As they parted Li still told Wang, “If you mean to send me back, send me to Zhejiang.” Wang answered casually yes and had servants support him (ye, to steady by the arm) into the sedan. Wang watched the boat push off and then returned. In less than three days word of his death arrived.

In Kuaiji there lived a man surnamed Shi. At first he served in Guangdong as a xunjian (a low-ranking military officer charged with patrol and arrest). Because he repeatedly captured foreign pirates, he was promoted out of turn to county magistrate and went on to hold one demanding, lucrative post after another. Later, at the daji (the triennial review of officials’ performance, with rewards and punishments, as described in the Zhouli), he was dismissed from office.

He had a young son who had always been bright and quick-witted and was regarded as a “thousand-li colt”—a promising heir (the phrase comes from the Jin Shu: Fu Jian once called his cousin’s son Fu Lang “the thousand-li colt of our house”).

After Shi returned to his native place, the boy suddenly lost his mind. All day he kowtowed toward the wall, repeating over and over: “This case has nothing to do with me; I had no part in any official business in Guangdong.” He muttered nothing else but these two sentences. When his father pressed him, he would glare and shout in anger: “You’re the one who ruined me!” In the end he died in madness. Shi and his wife died one after another, and the household scattered.

Wang Boyang, who held the title Sima (here, a form of address for a tongzhi, or sub-prefect), once served as acting magistrate of Shanghai county (“she” meaning to hold a post in an acting or temporary capacity).

Wang Boyang served as Sima—a deputy rank comparable to that of a sub-prefect—and acted as magistrate of Shanghai County. He hired local militiamen to go to sea and capture bandits. A father and son surnamed Zhou were fierce fighters; every time they put out to sea they brought back some prize. One day they reported that they had captured twelve bandits, along with the men and the ship. Wang Boyang was delighted and at once began interrogation. The confession stated that the vessel was a private salt-smuggling boat from Fujian and Guangdong, that there were several thousand taels of silver on board—all proceeds from salt smuggling—and no other stolen goods. Wang Boyang, angry that they would not admit to being bandits, had them tortured severely; stocks, cangues, and other instruments of punishment were all brought to bear, and the men then all confessed to being bandits. Whether they were truly guilty or not can no longer be known. The Zhou son, on the day after the “capture of bandits,” had left something behind on the master ship that had gone out to sea and went to retrieve it. The master ship was too large to enter the harbor mouth; all coming and going was by lighter. The Zhou son took a lighter alongside the master ship, boldly leaped aboard, and after fetching his things leaped down again—but the lighter was suddenly driven aside by a crosswind, he lost his footing and fell into the sea. Though rescue was attempted, the tide was ebbing at just that moment; the man was carried off with the current, and not even the body could be recovered.

Wang Boyang still did not see the truth. He fixed the case as one of major bandits and sent them to the provincial capital for execution as a batch. Wang Boyang himself was promoted for his success in apprehension; a militiaman from the Zhou party was even selected and appointed as a garrison commander. Within three days of receiving the imperial order, Wang Boyang died suddenly without prior illness, as if he had seen something at the moment of death. People at the time all knew the case was unjust, yet no one dared speak out. The retribution of Heaven’s way, in the end, misses not a hair’s breadth.

Plain-Language Commentary

During the Daoguang reign, around the years yisi and bingwu, Jiangnan saw a major case in which bandits killed officials. The chief culprits remained at large for a long time, and the authorities posted a large reward. Later someone reported that the outlaws were hiding along the inner waterways north of the Yangtze. The Jiangsu governor and provincial judge sent a sima and a county magistrate, together with local officials, to pursue, arrest, and try the case with all possible rigor. In less than two months they reported that more than twenty suspects had been taken; under severe torture, all confessed, and the group was then executed at the execution ground. Public opinion at the time did not treat the case as sound or the punishments as justified (“yun” here means credible and proper). Even so, the sima and the county magistrate still received generous rewards from their superiors for “breaking” the bandit gang.

Within two years, that county magistrate was assigned to act as magistrate of a county under Changzhou. Only seven days after taking office he died suddenly, with no prior illness; at the moment of death he seemed to see something. The next year the sima was promoted to prefect of Xuzhou and ordered to take up his post; on reaching Yuanpu he likewise died suddenly without illness, and at the end he too appeared to witness something. Both were about forty (the Book of Rites says “at forty one is strong enough to serve”), in the prime of life, and both died in quick succession while taking up new posts at the height of their careers. People found it uncanny and traced the cause to that earlier major case—suspecting that too many had been wrongly or excessively killed.

Another man, a liwen surnamed Jiang (here “canjun” is the title liwen), was eager to obtain a substantive appointment as county magistrate. He was on good terms with a magistrate in Huating, who let him use his list of captured bandits and helped him petition superiors for credit. The superiors (“shangyou”: the higher yamen, the ranking officials) held that the number reported did not match what the regulations for recommendation allowed. Jiang the liwen then paid out of his own pocket to “buy” two bandit suspects to pad the count; only then was he cleared to be sent to the ministry for audience, and later he received an imperial appointment as county magistrate. As soon as he reached his lodging he suddenly collapsed to the floor; when they raised him, his speech was incoherent, as if he were quarreling and cursing someone, and he died at midnight.

Zuohua Zhiguo: A Plain-Language Account

A certain man who served as chief clerk of Yanghu County was greedy and ruthless. In his early years, when he was clerk in Lou County, he already bore nicknames such as “Blood-Spurting Shigu” (the origin and exact sense are no longer recoverable; it was almost certainly a byname for his cruel and grasping conduct). Later he was transferred to Yanghu. The imperial fugitive Zhuang Wuke had long been at large and could not be caught. He secretly learned that Zhuang was hiding in Huizhou, reported it at once to Changzhou Prefecture, and went to arrest him on orders, seizing the man in the countryside of Jing County. The magistrate of Jing County wanted the credit for the primary capture for himself and offered a bribe of two hundred taels of silver; the clerk then yielded the merit to him. Zhuang Wuke was escorted to Suzhou and was soon executed according to law.

Not long afterward, one morning as he was about to enter the yamen for the daily audience, he suddenly cursed at empty space: “Zhuang Wuke is here!” Then he cried, “He’s coming in!” and fled into the inner room, shouting to his household: “Quick—block him, don’t let him in!” Next he stamped his feet: “He’s in the room! What can I do?” He hid inside the bed curtains, gripping the bed hangings with both hands and screaming for help. Before long his breath failed and his voice gave out; he died with blood flowing from the seven orifices.

In Wujin there was a county magistrate (whose name is not recorded). While serving in Nanhui County, during the jiyou and gengzi years, the court strictly banned opium; under the law, users could be sentenced to death. The rule at the time was that if a local official uncovered fifteen opium cases within one month, he could be promoted immediately. Yu Qian, as governor of Jiangsu, supervised the campaign with great severity. This magistrate catered to his superior’s wishes and within two months reported more than a hundred cases. Yu Qian was very pleased and memorialized the throne to grant him the nominal rank of tongzhi (equivalent in grade to a deputy prefect). Although the regulations then set a six-month window during which users were not uniformly executed, so many were arrested that most of the prisoners died in jail.

Several years later, the magistrate was transferred from Wujin to Yuanhe. In the triennial grand evaluation he was rated “outstanding” (zhuoyi)—the highest class of merit—and was summoned to the capital for an audience with the emperor.

A note in the text mentions the saying about “driving five horses and bearing the double-bear emblem”: qinqin describes horses running swiftly. By ritual, the Son of Heaven used six horses; dukes, ministers, and high officers used four. In Han times a governor on tour might add one horse, hence “five horses.” Painting twin bears on the chariot yoke was the insignia of a commandery governor (as in “bearing the bear emblem on the yoke while suppressing bandits”); here it alludes to his prospects of rising to prefect.

When the boat reached Qingjiangpu, his family in the forward cabin heard the magistrate speaking loudly—repeating just such talk of “double bear” and “five horses,” foretelling promotion to prefect.

When the boat reached Qingjiangpu, the family of this “ling” (a term used in the text for an official or young gentleman of standing) were in the forward cabin when they suddenly heard him shouting loudly from inside: “Let’s talk this through properly—don’t resort to violence!” They were traveling on a huachuan (a decorated pleasure boat from the Changzhou region, carrying singing girls and used for banquets and outings). The courtesans aboard had long been on friendly terms with the ling, so the family assumed he was merely jesting with the women. Then they heard scolding, and him cry out: “We don’t deserve to die yet—how can you bear to drive us to our deaths?” Only then did the family sense something was wrong and rush in together. They found the ling’s face deathly pale, his expression crushed, his hands and feet thrashing and kicking as if warding something off. The moment everyone entered, he came slightly to himself and said: “Thank heaven you came—otherwise I might not have survived!” When they asked what had happened, he refused to say another word. Someone urged him to take sick leave at once and turn back to Suzhou; he flatly refused. The next day they crossed the Yellow River and reached Wangjiaying. Before they had gone two more stages, his illness broke out in full force: he lost consciousness, and his delirious speech was all quarreling and bitter resentment, as if arguing with someone. His son was traveling with him, so they decided to escort him south in haste, traveling day and night. By the time they reached Benniu in Changzhou, he was at death’s door. Suddenly he clawed fiercely at his own tongue with both hands, gave a great cry, and died.

Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: To seize another’s goods by force is forbidden by the laws of the realm; to capture and put bandits and thieves to death would, in principle, leave the officers of the law without guilt. If they truly remove violence and bring peace to honest people, who could say they ought not? There is also this case: local officers who hunt thieves in the course of an investigation are, toward the state, doing their duty in public service, and toward the thieves, merely giving what their crimes deserve. When offenders are executed according to law, they ought not to resent the officers who enforce it—the Song History, “Treatises on Punishment,” likewise says that posts in law enforcement must not be handed out lightly.

Yet when one holds the office of a parent to the people and fails to teach and nurture them, so that they turn to robbery in desperation and are then killed in large numbers—if the facts of the trial are as the Analects says, one should “pity and not rejoice,” and even a humane heart will still feel regret. When the territory is not one’s assigned charge, the official is not the one in charge, and the work is not done on public business, but only because one covets promotion and advancement, crosses into another’s jurisdiction with bounty rewards and wanted notices—even if the stolen goods check out and the person truly is a thief, as soon as a single thought of private gain is present, though the thief is caught, after death he will bear a grudge. All the more when much in such cases is false or incomplete: sometimes the wrong person is named, as in the old saying about putting Zhang’s hat on Li’s head; sometimes an innocent is made to stand in another’s place, as in the old ballad where worms gnaw the peach root but the pear tree takes the harm; sometimes petty pilfering, which ought not to cost a life, is woven into a capital case through fabricated charges, as in the “Manual of Framing” attributed to Lai Junchen in the Tang History. Then the wronged bow their heads to the blade. If the dead could know, whom would they hate if not those who rose by catching thieves?

In thirty years of observation, most who were promoted by such means fit the saying: “Those who celebrate are still inside the house, while those who mourn are already at the door.” Here a few cases are chosen in which the manner of death was especially clear, recorded below to warn those in office.

32. Guang Pingsheng

(The opening couplet assesses him.) He was born with upright integrity and the strength to see things through—how could he have been the sort to stand aloof like pine and bamboo? Yet to keep body and soul together and cling to a stipend as thin as alfalfa, he bent himself and went along with others as a secretary in official households.

Guang Pingsheng (“Guangping” is a county name) was a friend of my father’s generation. The text does not give his personal name out of propriety. He was widely read and a capable writer, and also mastered the Eight Principles of brushwork—ce (side), le (press), du (lift), ti (hook), ce (horizontal), lüe (sweep), zhuo (peck), and zhe (split)—the eight ways of using the brush. Ancients often used a single stroke of the character “Yong” to stand for all eight, so one could grasp every script’s stroke logic. He had been appointed a stipend-supported student at the county school, receiving grain rations from the official academy, but he sat the provincial and local examinations many times without ever passing. Poor at home, he had no choice but to go out as a private secretary; local magistrates competed to hire him. Later he reached Piling (today’s Changzhou in Jiangsu), where the prefect took him on as chief secretary; host and guest got on very well. Within a few years he purchased an office with a contribution and obtained the post of Instructor. As soon as the purchase and travel to take up the post were settled, he was struck by a strange illness: at first like a “soft-foot” weakness, then both hands locked in contracture so they would not move (luan is the name for limbs bent and unable to straighten), then the neck stiffened so he could not look up or down, as if wearing the “three woods” (an ancient set of wooden restraints, as in the third entry on “Capturing Thieves” in this book)—like a bag pulled over the head or cangue and manacles. The prefect sent him home; less than a month after he returned, he died.

This shengyuan was ordinarily cautious and honest, with no great faults, yet he suddenly met this dreadful end. People said his fate was thin—that he was not meant to hold such a post as school officer. Though “a single piece of green felt” (in Wang Xizhi’s tale the green felt stood for a family heirloom; later writers used it as a metaphor for a teaching post or the office of school instructor) was within reach, he lacked the good fortune to enjoy it; in the end he died of a strange illness.

Yet the clerk’s salary in the school was very meager, and he had a family to support—how could he suddenly save up a thousand taels to purchase release from the post? People therefore grew suspicious of him. Several years after his death, I happened to discuss the matter with Cao Zhulou and learned that his death may indeed have been karmic retribution.

While lodging in Pichang, he had become close to a wealthy local family. That household had a clansman’s son who had long been a rascal; he repeatedly picked quarrels and extorted the rich man, leaving him no peace from one day to the next. When the matter was taken to the magistrate, the man was only lightly punished; as soon as he left the yamen he made more trouble than before, and there was no remedy. The rich man consulted this shengyuan and said that if he could remove this scourge, he would offer a thousand taels as reward (the phrase “wei shou,” originally a polite formula for giving money to wish someone long life, here means a heavy payment in thanks). At first the shengyuan firmly refused, but he faintly let slip that he wished to purchase release from teaching duty yet had no funds for the fee. The rich man at once said: “If you can rid us of this great harm on our behalf, I will pay that contribution for you.” Only then did the shengyuan agree. He reported the rascal’s unlawful conduct to the prefect; the prefect, who had always hated such bullies, investigated in person, ordered the county to arrest him, and had him thrown into prison. The shengyuan also asked the jail warden to have the man killed inside the lockup. Once the rascal was dead, the rich man indeed paid the contribution on his behalf, and he obtained the post of instructor. Within half a year his illness broke out.

Cao Zhulou was a close relative of the deceased and had probably heard something of the inside story; he could only sigh and say: This truly makes one afraid.

Zuohua Zhuren said: Yan Sheng was refined and gracious in character; because of one moment’s lapse he met a cruel death, and everyone felt sorry for him. Even so, the Way of Heaven and the clarity of the spirits do not allow a person to take killing entirely into his own hands—this saying comes from the Han shu biography of Yan Yannian: Yannian’s mother warned him that when one has put too many to death, one deserves to die oneself.

Those unruly young men were not thieves or robbers; they only made life hard for people of the same clan. Between clan members and them there was not necessarily a feud of life and death. When one side was rich and the other poor, cold and hunger pressing in, they had hoped that shared lineage might bring a little of the “river’s moistening”—what clansmen call drawing benefit from the bond of the same surname. Such things are common in human affairs and need not always end in killing or in what the law must punish. Yet they turned weapons on their own house—still only a “flaying of the skin” kind of harm, disaster biting close to the person, as the Yi jing’s Bo hexagram has it—and they spread a net that filled the sky, until in the end those who carried it out had taken bribes beyond measure (accepting illicit payment is “dirty gain”). The victims sank in wrongful imprisonment at the bottom of the jail; Yan Sheng, too, suddenly fell ill behind the curtain, his hands clenched and his neck bent as if he were a captive criminal. Is this not precisely “using that very person’s own way to turn back upon that person’s own body”?

Case 34: A Certain Chaste Widow

Anyone who treats illicit sexual liaisons as material for jokes and amusement will, under the successive judgments in cases B and C, be found guilty of offenses that are by no means light.

After her husband’s long illness and death, one woman grieved so deeply that she nearly followed him in death. From then on, morning and evening, day and night, she kept a pure vegetarian diet and worshipped the Buddha, burning incense before the Buddha and performing rites to deliver and bless her deceased husband. Some local riffraff in the marketplaces dared to make a private joke of her, fabricating rumors that even while her husband was alive she had been involved in immoral conduct. Under this stain on her name, relatives on both the husband’s and wife’s sides were ashamed to show their faces, and the woman eventually died consumed by indignation.

When her body was carried out for burial, a man suddenly ran out from among the crowd—one of those who had earlier engaged in lewd mockery. He had had an affair with the woman; now he knelt before the coffin and wept bitterly. From antiquity to the present, when a chaste widow’s reputation is suspected, nothing is more pitiable than cases like the wife of Zhang Zhijing; and to ridicule chastity and thereby bring disaster on the innocent—is there any heavier crime?

From this one may infer: perhaps the lecher had an affair with the chaste woman and, after a falling-out, deliberately invented scandal to ruin her name—such a possibility cannot be ruled out. Later the husband died; the woman mourned until she refused food and died as a chaste widow in fidelity to her husband. The lecher then felt shame and remorse and, clutching his queue, wailed before the coffin. Viewed this way, her innocence was finally vindicated and her chastity need no longer be doubted. The anonymous Tang work Yimu says: “If a man does not misbehave, his name is not tarnished; if a woman does not misbehave, why doubt her chastity?”

By law, the slanderer ought to be put to death; and one who had an illicit union with the woman, treated her as a wife in all but name, and showed no sense of shame should likewise die, so that the woman’s chastity might be clearly established. Yet in practice only the woman was made to die to wash away the stain on her name. Mencius said: “To teach without guiding is called cruelty; to kill the people without having taught them is to tyrannize the people.” To offer illicit unions up for laughter, as the opening of cases B and C shows, is in itself a crime that is not light—yet if only the slanderer is executed, or only the woman is killed to “prove” her chastity, justice is not even-handed.

A Devoted Wife was from the Chen Family Lane area of Shanghai. From childhood she was sent to a certain household as a tongyangxi—a girl raised in her future husband’s home to marry him when she came of age. She was careful in everything she did, and her parents-in-law were very fond of her.

In the autumn of the Renzi year of the Xianfeng reign (1852), she was formally married. It was the season for picking cotton. The devoted wife went with her mother-in-law to the fields to harvest cotton. By shen hour (roughly three to five in the afternoon), her mother-in-law was painfully hungry and went home first. Because the cotton in the field was not yet all picked, the devoted wife stayed behind alone in the open country.

Plain Language Reading of Zuohua Zhiguo (Sitting Among Flowers, Observing Fruit)

There was a vicious young man—we may call him A—walking along the road with two hangers-on, B and C. They saw a young widow who kept her chastity; she was very fair of face (“shao’ai” means young and lovely—the old books often say “you’ai” in the same sense).

B and C teased A: “If you can lie with her out in the open, we’ll all chip in and throw you a feast to celebrate.” (“Jujin” means everyone pooling money for something.)

A laughed. “What’s so hard about that?” He ran up at once, grabbed the woman, and spoke to her in the vilest way. She had not been on her guard; she was terrified and screamed for help.

A saw that no one answered from anywhere nearby. He forced her to the ground and tore her skirt. She clutched him with both hands and cursed him to his face, her voice rising louder and louder. Enraged and ashamed, he stuffed clods of earth into her mouth and tried to strip off her underclothes; she fought back with all her strength.

After quite a while the woman stopped moving. A felt her body—she was already stiff. B and C ran off in fear. A tried to flee too, but every time he got up he fell again: all along he had failed to notice that his queue was still gripped in the woman’s hand.

A fellow villager passed by, saw what had happened, and hurried to tell her family. Her parents-in-law and her husband came; onlookers gathered in a crowd at once (“junji” means to flock together). The men were about to tie A up with rope, but his queue was still in the woman’s hand and would not come loose no matter how they tried to pry it free. Her uncle and her husband wept as they prayed: “A has done this evil and left you to die unjustly. We are all here now; he cannot escape. Please release his braid—we will surely report to the magistrate to clear your name, and we will ask that your chaste devotion be officially honored.”

The prayer had barely ended when, before anyone touched her fingers, her hand opened by itself. Everyone present said it was the fierce chaste woman’s spirit—dead, she still would not let the wicked man go. They bound A and sent him to the authorities, seized B and C as well, and all three were punished according to the law.

Commentary by the Master Who Sits Among Flowers: Alas! In wild grass on open ground, ruffians suddenly strike and there is no one to call for help. In such a situation, to live one must submit; to keep one’s integrity may mean death—unless the heart is firm, holds fast, and does not waver, who could choose death rather than change their resolve? I have seen many worthy scholar-officials through the ages who, when sitting in discussion, could all speak of loyalty and filial piety and admire the sages, yet treated the integrity of humble folk under thatched roofs as worthless. Once gain and loss fell on their own heads, their conduct collapsed at once—then with tears they would say: “It is not that I did not want to act that way, but that my strength fell short.” How far apart are the worthy and the unworthy from the resolve of a chaste woman who, while alive, bends but does not break, and after death is said to become a vengeful spirit and slay the villain!

3535. Fei Fengweng

To suit the wishes of Censor Fang Shange,

Yet another trick was added to the path of marquis and duke for ten thousand generations.

Not merely for a good name, but also to hunt for favor and grace,

Even the little grandson was sent to wait upon the censor.

During the Qianlong reign, Jiangsu was struck by famine. The magistrate of Jiangyin County had no effective way to calm the people; they rose in revolt and raised bamboo poles as banners to gather a mob (the phrase “raising poles as flags” comes from Jia Yi’s On the Faults of Qin; here the people had no proper flags, so they used bamboo poles instead). The magistrate, however, reported the affair as “plotting rebellion.”

When a provincial governor heard of the trouble, he went in person. Passing through Changzhou, the grandfather of Fei Hedying (then still a “zhongcheng,” a high provincial official) was serving in the prefecture as a document clerk. He went with the prefect to meet the governor on his boat and paid his respects; the governor had Fei wait outside the cabin. After a long while, as the governor saw the prefect out, he noticed Fei and thought his bearing unusual. He asked the prefect, “Who is this man?” The prefect said he was the document clerk. By then the ringleaders and dozens of their followers in the disturbance had already been bound and brought to justice. Outside, however, people were saying that under the rules for treason the penalty was to “massacre the city”; the populace was terrified and in panic.

The governor then called Fei into the cabin and said, “You handle case documents—you should know the statutes well. The hungry people of Jiangyin rebelled; by precedent everyone, old and young alike, should be put to death. How can we handle this in a way that fits both law and reason?” Fei answered, “Does Your Excellency wish to enforce the law to the letter, or to act as a noble official praised for generations?” The governor said, “Explain how the two approaches differ, and I will choose.” Fei said, “If the whole city had truly turned against the throne, then of course one would have to kill on a large scale. But the Jiangyin affair erupted in haste; most were poor people driven by hunger who only wanted food to live on—they did not truly mean to rebel against the court. To treat the whole place like a city to be massacred would not match the Son of Heaven’s intent to cherish the people. Now that the chief culprits have fortunately been caught, in this humble clerk’s view it would be better to apply the statute on ‘bandits gathering in a mob to rob’: the leaders sentenced to decapitation and public display, the rest assigned to military exile or banishment according to their roles. That would satisfy both sentiment and law—this is the way to become a noble official praised for generations.” The governor was deeply convinced, had Fei draft the memorial, and in the end one man was beheaded and a dozen or more were exiled.

On Fei’s One Sentence That Spared the Multitude, and His Line’s Later Prominence

People versed in such matters said that Fei, with a single remark, had saved more than ten thousand lives, and that his descendants were bound to flourish. The provincial military governor strongly agreed, had Fei draft the memorial for submission, and in the end only one person was executed and a dozen or so were banished—the rest were spared as a result.

It is also recorded that Fei had a son who entered official service through the deputy tribute-student route and rose to Intendant of the Tongshang Circuit in Shaanxi (overseeing salt affairs and related matters around Tongguan). His grandson Kaihou was the Grand Secretary Hetting. That honored elder was promoted cumulatively to Grand Master of Splendid Happiness and General Who Pacifies Might; to this day his descendants have never lacked for men in office.

36. Fei the Good Man

Stolen goods turned up on the spot—what room was left for denial?

At the first whisper of theft, they picked apart the “Good Man’s” intentions with fine care.

Foreign goods, cakes, and the like—ten items in all, worth four strings of cash—

if you must laugh, laugh at the old woman from the next village: such petty gain, yet so impossible to hide.

The grandfather of Intendant Fei Gengting kept a general store stocking goods from north and south. He was open-handed and loyal to friends; everyone in the countryside called him the Good Man. Poor families within four li often came to his house to eat.

One year, as the old year was closing, an old woman from a neighboring village came for a meal and then sat for a long time beside the shop’s account counter without leaving. A clerk opened a cabinet for stock and found ten foreign silver dollars missing; they hunted everywhere without success, and all suspected the old woman. They seized her to search her person…

At year’s end, an elderly neighbor came to the shop for a meal and sat by the account counter for a long time without leaving. When a clerk opened the drawer for something, ten silver dollars were missing. They searched everywhere without success. Everyone suspected the old neighbor, seized him, and searched him—and indeed found the money on him.

The crowd cursed and blamed him; the old man was nearly crushed with shame. Just then the man known for doing good came out, learned what had happened, and said: “You are completely wrong. I saw that he was poor and took money to give him; I forgot to tell you. How could you suddenly abuse him like this?” He apologized to the old neighbor: “They did not know. Please do not take offense. But you were too slow—why not say plainly that I had given it to you, instead of accepting such humiliation?” He added: “The ten dollars you mentioned are not enough; you may take another four thousand cash for the New Year.” The old man took the money and silver and left with thanks.

His conduct in daily life was mostly of this kind. Later, Mr. Sun Gengting passed the metropolitan examination in the jimao year and rose to Grain Intendant of Fujian. This good man received repeated honors and enfeoffments from the court. Heaven rewards goodness—indeed, not one jot is mistaken.

The Master among Flower-sitters said: Both honorific elders of the Fei family were registered natives of Changzhou. People still speak of them with admiration to this day. Some say that Fengweng Hetin, with a single remark, saved ten thousand lives—a breadth of preservation that Fengweng Gengting could not match—and that therefore karmic retribution also comes in large and small measure; I do not see it that way. Why? What Fengweng Hetin said could occur to anyone who grasps the weight of the larger situation; what was hard was those few words to the Vice Censor: not harsh, not echoing others for effect, indirect yet able to reach the heart. As for what Fengweng Gengting did: when bandits came and stolen goods were seized on the spot, pressing the case would not have been excessive, and releasing the men would already have counted as grace—yet he went by roundabout paths, deliberately covering for them, still fearing suspicion, and even traveled ten li to ask others to put in a good word on their behalf. Such intent is truly vast compassion, leaving nothing unattended. Long ago Su Ziyou said to Fan Yaofu (Fan Chunren, posthumous name Zhongxuan): “You are one who belongs on the Buddha’s seat!” Toward good people I think the same.

37. Zhang Mingde

In courtesy there was a slight grievance, yet when the matter was pursued the penalty was oddly light;

Others laughed at Zhang Mingde, saying he fell short of the fine name “Bright Virtue” (Mingde).

He charged for tea and schemed at every turn—the dislike he drew was not, in truth, so grave;

The Way of Heaven is ever skilled at balancing; fairness comes of itself.

Zhang Mingde, a household registrar (hushu) in Huating, was cunning and deceitful by nature and skilled at manipulating official documents and legal paperwork. Through flattery and patronage he secured a minor post as a clerk in charge of liquor taxes. Once in power, he became even more reckless. Kind and weak people in the township often fell victim to his embezzlement and extortion. If anyone bore him the slightest grudge, he would weave false charges and trap them with harsh penalties. For this reason his colleagues looked askance at him, feared him, and kept their distance, not daring to stand up to him.

Chen Dazhong was a yamen runner—one of those men who fetch and carry for the magistrate’s office—and he was upright by nature, but he alone refused to defer to Mingde. Mingde nursed a grudge and long looked for a chance to ruin him, yet for a long time found none.

In the spring of the renyin year, as the grain transport season was nearing its end, Mingde handed Dazhong strings of tally slips for several hundred shi of grain and sent him into the countryside to collect under the zhese system—converting the grain due into silver instead. At the time the agreed rate was five yuan and six jiao in foreign silver per shi. As soon as Dazhong left, Mingde went to report upward and had the price raised to six yuan and three jiao. When Dazhong returned, he still collected and turned in the full amount at the rate fixed before he departed. Mingde suddenly said, “You’re still short by more than three hundred yuan—did you line your own pockets?” Dazhong’s face flushed with anger: “When I left, it was only five yuan and six jiao; the price was raised in the city without my knowing—how was I to know?” They quarreled bitterly and parted. Mingde then accused Dazhong of embezzling the grain funds. The authorities arrested Dazhong and ordered him to make up the difference; he stubbornly refused to admit guilt, was thrown into prison, convicted of misappropriating official silver, and banished to frontier garrison duty in Henan.

Plain-language explanation

Dazhong had a few rooms and about ten mu of land. He sold all of it to settle his household and raise travel money; the deeds were already drawn up (shuqian means a written sale contract). When Mingde heard of this, he went to the buyer and said: “Dazhong embezzled and shorted the treasury. His property should be paid to the government at full value. Buying his estate in secret is forbidden and you will be punished the same as he is.” The buyer was frightened and gave Mingde a rich bribe, asking him to find a way out. Mingde pretended to hesitate and said: “Have you paid the price yet?” The buyer said: “Not yet.” Mingde said: “If it is not paid, it can still be undone. Hurry and bring the contract and the purchase money; I will report it to the authorities for you. When Dazhong comes for the money, let him collect it at the treasury—you will be safe.” The buyer did as he was told and handed over the entire purchase price to Mingde.

Before Dazhong was sent into exile as a convict soldier, he had already declared that his property was entirely gone. When he heard of this, he could only brood in anger and never dared go claim that payment. That winter, as Dazhong left for his posting, he left his wife and children with her family’s household, wept as he left the city, and passersby were moved. At that time Dazhong bore a grievous wrong, was sent a thousand li as a convict soldier, and his family was scattered. He told himself he might never return home and would carry the resentment for life. Mingde, meanwhile, had only a slight grudge against Dazhong over matters of etiquette. Having had him convicted, he also drained his assets. Arrogant and pleased with himself, he thought he was as solid as a great boulder on a mountain slope (panshi—a large stone, meaning power so great it cannot be shaken)—and that no one would dare challenge him again.

That year the Yu River (a stretch of the Yellow River) burst its banks, roads were cut off, and convicts bound for frontier garrison duty were ordered to return first to their home county jail to await departure until the waters receded. Dazhong came back to Huating on the twelfth day of the second month in the year Guimao. He had not yet been ten days in prison when Mingde brought down a great disaster on himself.

Before that, the burden of converting and delivering corvée labor fees for grain transport in the Huating area had been very heavy; when the people paid in silver, delivery was often slow. The grain-transport commissioner as a rule advanced money first to pay the transport workers; if funds fell short, ships would sail first and the laborers would stay in the county waiting for payment. This had been done year after year without mishap. Not long after the new county magistrate, Magistrate Liu, took office, Mingde wanted to use this issue to pressure the authorities. He reported in advance that the new grain boats must not sail until the gang fees were fully settled. To prove his point, he day after day incited transport workers and sailors to crowd the yamen demanding money. The magistrate was furious and questioned Mingde sharply. Mingde then swallowed raw opium in the gatehouse, intending to force the magistrate’s hand with a suicide threat so he would have to raise funds for the workers; once the grain boats had sailed, the official money could be embezzled at will. While talking with the gatekeeper, the man saw vapor rising from Mingde’s beard and was greatly alarmed; he reported to the magistrate. The magistrate, enraged, had Mingde thrown into jail at once. Before Mingde even crossed the jail threshold, his mind was already confused, his eyes could not see, and he could not speak.

Those who swallow raw opium may sometimes be saved with cold water; hot tea is what they must avoid—one drink often kills them immediately. Dazhong, locked in prison, heard that Mingde was coming in and was delighted; he prepared hot tea in advance and waited. When Mingde entered, he went up to him and said, “Mingde, you’ve come here too?” He held out the tea with both hands and urged him to drink. In his delirium Mingde drank it all in one gulp; as soon as he finished he collapsed to the ground and was dead before long.

After Mingde died, his wife wanted to lift the corpse over the prison wall to take it out. Dazhong and the other inmates refused, saying, “You must do to us what you did when you seized our family property for money—and give each of us in this cell a thousand in gold—only then will we agree.”

While Chen Mingde was still alive, he relied on cunning and intrigue to bully and crush his colleagues (the term lingli means to trample and oppress one’s peers). They all hated him; among them Chen Dazhong, who could not abide injustice, was especially bitter toward him.

After Mingde died, no one regretted it—not a single person spoke well of him. His son spent twelve hundred taels of silver before the body could be taken away for burial. From the day Dazhong’s case broke and he was punished, only ten days passed before Mingde died. Two months after Mingde’s death, Dazhong was again sent into exile on the frontier. Before he left, he had someone write up the sequence in which he and Mingde had been implicated and imprisoned, have it carved on blocks, and sent widely in all directions, to show how retribution had come both neatly and swiftly.

The Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: For cleverness and speed of retribution, nothing surpasses this case. Did Heaven intervene only for Chen Dazhong? In this affair alone, malice and treachery stand out in the sharpest relief! Schemes piled up over time until they closed in on their maker—like turning one’s own spear against one’s own shield (wengzi mao captures this: the snare one sets ends up snaring oneself).

Commentary by the Master of Sitting Among Flowers:

Karmic retribution can arrive with uncanny speed and clarity—few examples are more striking than this. Did Heaven intervene only for someone named Chen Dazhong? Not really; in his case, the malice and cruelty stand out with particular harshness. Scheming for too long, one eventually falls into the net one wove. “Please, sir, step into the jar” and “using your own spear against your own shield”—past and present, it is the same story: the trap you set for others often closes on you (you reap what you sow). What good ever comes, in the end, from plotting and playing dirty?

38. The Pan Family’s Accumulated Virtue

Wealth cannot buy worthy descendants;

Who can fabricate from nothing a life of fulfilled pure conduct?

Fortunately the family head was able to accumulate virtue,

So wealth and honor were fit to pass from generation to generation.

The Pan family of Suzhou accumulated virtue over generations; Heaven therefore blessed their line with exceptional prosperity, a steady succession of talent, and a gathering of refined spirit. From their ranks came Lord Wen Gong, Grand Tutor, who rose to the summit of the Three Ducal Ministers and enjoyed the full measure of the five human blessings. Fortune and standing such as his were unmatched in recent times and, looking back into antiquity, matched by few.

The reasons for the family’s rise have already been treated at length elsewhere; there is no need to repeat them here at length.

Gongfu, the Grand Tutor’s eldest son, held the title of xiucai (licentiate). He took pleasure in charity and generous giving and did not seek office. While the Grand Tutor held power at court for more than a decade, Gongfu traveled to the capital roughly every other year to greet his parents and inquire after their daily life, then soon returned home. At home, local officials never called on him privately; if others came to visit, he did not turn them away. When asked about local strengths and weaknesses, he answered in full detail, yet he never interceded in private matters for others, nor did he return officials’ visits.

After the age of forty, he devoted himself to Buddhist practice and to seeking the fruition of the Way. While the Grand Tutor was at court, Gongfu still went to the capital about every other year to perform dingxing for his parents—seeing to their bedding at night and in the morning asking whether they were comfortable (as prescribed in the “Basic Principles” chapter of the Record of Rites).

Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Reaping Fruit) — Plain-Language Commentary

(On Gongfu)

After he turned forty, he devoted himself entirely to cultivation and to accumulating merit in hope of spiritual fruit (“fanguo” here means Buddhist-style practice and its karmic reward—not the name of any particular school or ritual). High or low in rank, he treated everyone the same and with courtesy. Anyone who came in distress and asked for help never went away refused.

His family held several thousand mu of land: if tenants paid rent, he took it; if they did not, he did not press them. When the household had a wedding or other celebration, or when the harvest was only fair, he often waived the whole year’s rent. Other acts of kindness were too many to count.

When I traveled back and forth through Suzhou (Wumen), I knew his character and conduct well and felt that Heaven rewards such virtue—a house like his was bound to rise in time.

In the first year of the Xianfeng reign, this Grand Secretary (Gongfu) left office on account of age and returned home. The reigning emperor treated senior statesmen generously; Gongfu’s nephew (treated as a son by ritual law) enjoyed the family’s inherited privilege, and his eldest grandson was specially granted the rank of juren (provincial graduate). The next year, in the renzi year, he passed the metropolitan examination and placed third in the first class (jinshi). Grandfather and grandson both entered the examination rolls in succession and both among the top tier—a celebrated story in the Hanlin Academy. That owed partly to deep ancestral merit and partly to Gongfu carrying such good deeds forward, generation after generation. The Pan clan’s ascent may well not have reached its limit yet (“wei you ai” means it had not stopped and would go on).

39. Formula for Relieving Arsenic Poisoning

(Often a warning appears before or after the formula, along these lines:)

The physician’s art is to save people’s hearts; use sickness to squeeze money and you will not get a true response in the end. Harm that costs a life comes back on oneself; whether arsenic can be countered and poison rightly known hangs on that single turn of mind.

(The body is the antidote formula; at this point the original does not give the specific drugs or instructions—only the title and the admonition.)

1. Jiang Ziyuan of She County

In She County there lived a man named Jiang Ziyuan who possessed a secret formula to counter arsenic poisoning; it worked as soon as it was used. Yet when people came to ask for the medicine, he would only give it at a steep price. If they could not pay or did not meet his terms, he would stand by and watch them die.

Once, while practicing medicine in a neighboring county, he suddenly died in the night at the house where he was staying. He appeared in the host’s dream (“juting” means the household where one lodges overnight; the term is explained in the first piece of this book) and said: “Because I craved money, I wrongly caused nine people to die. The dead brought suit in the underworld court, and I was sentenced to die from arsenic in nine successive lives as karmic retribution; I am now about to be reborn. I bribed the ghost runners and begged them to pass the antidote formula on to you. If you save one person on my behalf, I suffer one lifetime less of this karmic debt; if you spread it widely to help the world, your merit will be beyond measure.” He wept as he left, and added: “It is too late for regret!”

The formula is: one liang of fangfeng (Saposhnikovia root), ground to powder, taken mixed with water—nothing else. Records of Strange Tales Worth Believing also records that mixing shiqing (a mineral pigment also used in medicine) with cold water is likewise extremely effective against arsenic poisoning.

40. The Prefect of Yunjian

A porter rests by the road as he should;

Whipping him for blocking the way was already excessive.

The man who died had been a hired laborer;

The karmic debt could only be paid by the prefect’s own death.

(Yunjian refers to the Songjiang region. A certain prefect had been promoted from a post in the capital ministry to magistrate of a prefecture; he was greedy and brutal. Whenever he went out, wherever his advance runners and attendants passed, anyone slow to yield the road was whipped. Later an incident occurred: the person who died had been a wage worker, and the karmic retribution required that this magistrate himself die to settle the account.)

One day, as the prefect was returning from the west of the city, a porter carrying paper for a paper shop stood by the roadside with his load. Annoyed that the man had not set down his load to make way, the prefect ordered his runners to drag him before the sedan chair and rebuke him. The man was indeed foolishly straightforward, and said indignantly, “I did not rush into the middle of the road. What crime is it not to set down my load?” The prefect flew into a rage and said, “What sort of commoner are you, to dare contradict me like this!” He shouted an order for the runners to beat him severely with rods. After the beating, he asked again, “Do you know your crime?” The man still answered, “For what offense am I being punished? I truly do not know!” The prefect was by nature fierce and perverse, and having been contradicted by a commoner in the marketplace, he felt both ashamed and furious. He had him beaten several hundred more strokes, until flesh and blood flew, and still would not stop; he ordered the runners to escort him to Huating County (present-day Songjiang area of Shanghai) to be punished for the crime of “blocking the road.” The runners demanded several tens of thousands of cash from the paper-shop owner. Fortunately, the Huating county magistrate saw that his injuries were too severe and did not punish him further; after holding him for a few days, he released him. After he returned, the shop owner blamed him for causing trouble and implicating him, and drove him away. Having suffered cruel torture for no reason and then been driven out by the shop owner, the man hanged himself.

In less than ten days, five malignant sores appeared on the prefect’s back, causing unbearable pain. The doctor said the disease was called “Bai...” (only this name survives in the original).

In less than ten days, five poisonous sores broke out on his back, and the pain was unbearable. The doctor said this condition was called “A Hundred Birds Pay Homage to the Phoenix”; if by good fortune they had not yet burst, there might still be hope of recovery. One night he dreamed that a man carrying paper on a pole was peeling at his sores; he cried out in agony and woke. He had the maid light a lamp and look—every sore had already burst, pus and blood streaming until a single mat and quilt were soaked through, and the doctors were at their wits’ end. After that, whenever he closed his eyes he saw the paper-carrier standing before him; prayers and exorcisms availed nothing. He could not lie flat and could only raise his head and lie face down on the mat; the slightest turn on the bed sent pain stabbing through heart and lungs. Those who saw him said it was like a living picture of hell. He wailed for dozens of days and then died. At the moment he breathed his last, everyone in the yamen saw the paper-carrier like a shadow in mist.

The Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: Once officials hold power in their hands, they indulge their will without restraint and at first give no thought to others’ humiliation. Alas! All people are of one kind—how can anyone flaunt cruelty for a moment’s satisfaction? When flesh and blood finally fly, the other party truly cannot touch me; yet when sores burst and pus overflows, I also cannot touch the other party. May all who hold office in this world not wait until “I too am helpless before them” before they regret too late.

411. Thunderbolt on a Hidden Plot

Long-nursed schemes and deliberate harm, taking life for gain—great violations of Heaven’s principle. When a woman is in the fields, Heaven’s punishment already descends; thunder strikes the husband so that the crime stands revealed.

Inside the north gate of Danyang there lived a household of considerable wealth; they ran a “Six Chen” shop (a general dry-goods store) at their door. Among four brothers, only the second had a son, still a few years old, raised jointly by the whole clan in four branches.

North of the city gate in Danyang there lived a household that was quite well off. They ran a sundry shop at their front door—a store that sold all kinds of everyday goods. Among four brothers, only the second had a son, still only a few years old. All four branches of the family raised him together and doted on him like a pearl in the palm of their hand. The bracelets and neck rings they put on him were gold set with pearls and jade, worth more than a hundred taels of silver.

Sometimes the wet nurse would carry the child into the shop to play. Suddenly a woman appeared, holding cakes and pastries as if for her own child, and she followed the wet nurse into the house. She said she was from Zhou, a place in the northern countryside. Her looks were ordinary, but her speech was slick and clever. The family took quite a liking to her; she would sit a little while and then leave. After that she came more and more often. Every visit she had to hold the child. Sometimes she pulled snacks from her sleeve for him; sometimes she carried him into the street to buy things for him. This went on for several months until the household thought nothing of it.

One day she took the child away again and did not come back for a long time. Everyone assumed she had taken him into town to visit relatives and let the matter rest.—(If the story continues, it is usually the moment they realize something is wrong and search for the child in vain.)

One day the woman took the child away again and was gone a long time without returning. People assumed she had probably gone into town with the child to visit relatives and thought little of it. When night came and everything was quiet, they searched everywhere and found no trace; the whole household fell into uproar.

The mother-in-law went from village to village in the northern part of the district asking after them, but still could find no one. A few days later someone said that in a deep cave at the foot of a hill more than ten li from the city, an infant was lying face down on the ground. The family hurried there and it was indeed the child, already stiff. Sand and mud had filled every opening of the body, and the clothes and gold ornaments had been stripped off entirely. Only then did everyone understand: the woman had long coveted the child’s gold ornaments and had kept coming to help hold the child only to kill for the valuables.

They reported the matter to the magistrate, who ordered a strict search for the culprit, but she was never caught. What they did not know was that the woman was actually a widow from a farming family near Qili Temple. After she was widowed she had an affair with a man surnamed Jia from a neighboring village; Jia’s household was poor and depended on her for food and clothing. When her help was not enough, they filled the gap by abduction and theft. The pair had done much harm, but never in their own neighborhood, so no one nearby recognized them.

A Plain-Language Reading of Zuohua Zhiguo (Records of Sitting Among Flowers and Observing Karmic Fruit)

First passage: Thunder strikes the adulterous pair

A man and a woman conspired in a murder. They handed all their gold, silver, and jewels to a man surnamed Jia and had him sell the goods and use the proceeds as capital to go elsewhere and go into trade. The woman stayed at home. One day she went with several village women to bring meals to the men working in the fields; they sat waiting for the meal to finish. Suddenly dark clouds piled up, thunder and lightning broke out, and flashes of lightning circled above the women’s heads. Everyone was frightened. The woman alone remained perfectly calm and said to the others: “Thunder only strikes those with a guilty conscience. Whoever has done wrong should speak up at once—you may escape heaven’s punishment.” Before she had finished speaking, a single thunderclap struck and she fell to her knees, dead.

Jia was away on business in another place, still dozens of li from home. On the same day, wind and thunder swept him to the spot where the infant had been killed. He knelt on the ground and others could not pull him up. Lightning struck his head; purple mist wrapped his body. Though his mind was already gone, his mouth could still speak, and he confessed in full his adultery and theft with the woman, their swindle, and their conspiracy to kill the infant. He died only the next day. That family’s line ended with them.

When the Master of Sitting Among Flowers heard this, he sighed and said: “The majesty of thunder is so swift and sure! Alas! Though heaven warns the world with such examples, people still plot in secret, harm others with vicious schemes, and act without restraint—as if they were beyond all counsel!”

Section 42: Ox-Head

(This section introduces the next tale, summarized in four rhymed lines:)

Killing karma from a former life must be paid in this one; one look in the Mirror of Retribution shows where the disaster began. Fortune came when, halfway on the road, he followed a Buddhist disciple, renewed practice and repentance, and so changed the fate ordained for him in the wheel of rebirth.

In eastern Zhejiang there lived a scholar surnamed Wang. One spring he went out for a stroll and met an old cow at the edge of a field. The cow lifted its horns as if to gore him, and he hurried over; when the beast turned to chase him again, a herdsman grabbed it and stopped it, yet the cow still tossed its head and stamped, glaring at him eye to eye.

That night Wang dreamed he was seized by black-clad runners and taken to a yamen, where he stood with many others to be questioned and tried. Those people, men and women alike, all had human bodies and ox heads, and each said Wang had been their killer. On the dais sat someone in a coral official’s cap and court robes with beads hanging from the collar, like an Assistant Censor-in-Chief, who asked why he had killed so many cattle. Wang pleaded that from his grandfather’s generation the family had passed down Confucian learning and for three generations had abstained from beef and dog meat—how could he have slaughtered oxen? The magistrate ordered a clerk in green to hold up a mirror and lead him to look at himself; only then did he understand: in a former life he had been a butcher, skilled with a sharp knife, often killing more than ten head of cattle in a day. In middle age he deeply regretted that trade, fearing evil retribution, shaved his head and entered Tiantai Mountain as a Buddhist monk, kept the precepts strictly, and at over eighty years of age passed away seated in meditation. Because karmic residue from that life was not cleared, he could not be reborn in the Trayastrimsa Heaven (one of the thirty-three heavens of the desire realm, often called a higher tier among the “heavens of desire”).

Wang understood his former cause, bowed his head, and admitted guilt. The one on the high seat said to him: Having already followed the Buddhist path through rebirth… (the original text ends here.)

Wang Sheng had already understood that this was karmic retribution from a past life and bowed his head in admission. The senior monk said to him: “Since you were reborn from the cycle of a monk (heshang), do you still remember Buddhist scriptures in this life?” (Buddhist scriptures are called neidian, inner canon.) Wang Sheng replied: “At age twelve I copied seven fascicles of the Jingang jing (Diamond Sutra) for my parents, seeking posthumous merit for my grandparents on both sides. After that, on the first and fifteenth of each month I always recited that sutra three times, and never stopped even when rushing to examinations or traveling by boat or cart.” (Chuo means to stop.) The senior monk’s face softened and he said: “If that is truly so, the matter can be settled!” He then said to the ox-headed demons: “Wang Sheng has laid down the butcher’s knife and sincerely seeks the Buddha. Only because killing karma was not yet cleared did he fall again into rebirth. Now he must be ordered to repent on your behalf so that you may be reborn in the human realm—what do you say?” All the ghosts agreed. Wang Sheng asked that his whole household eat vegetarian for forty-nine days and recite five hundred fascicles of the Jingang jing, praying that the plaintiffs might be reborn in the Pure Land. The senior monk reasoned with the ghosts, and they all gratefully rejoiced and were willing to drop old grudges. The senior monk also ordered the black-robed attendant to escort him back.

At the doorway he woke; as promised he recited the sutra and also copied ten fascicles of the sutra in gold ink and distributed them to temples for veneration. When that was done, he dreamed again that those men and women came to thank him: “Relying on the power of your sutras, we have all escaped the animal realm and been reborn into wealthy and noble families!” They joyfully bowed and departed.

Table of contents for the lower volume:

1. Suffering slander without defending oneself

2. Snakes crying in the belly

3. Saving lives to extend one’s own span

4. Jealousy and adultery leading to wrongful killing

5. A son dies and returns to life

6. Examination papers written in pale ink

7. Reward for honoring one’s teacher

8. The provincial governor’s clerk

9. Elder Wu the sealed

10. The incense shop

11. Three tales of usury at low prices

12. Baiyun Hermitage

13. Lady Yan the elder

Book Structure

This passage is mainly the table of contents for Zuohua Zhiguo (“Sitting Among Flowers, Reaping Fruit”), from item fourteen through item forty-six. After each number comes the title of a short tale. For example, “Two Stories Handled by Precedent” describes two minor matters dealt with according to custom; entries such as “Yang the Military Officer” and “A Certain Selection Official” are cautionary stories about karma and doing good, titled by a person’s name or rank. Later entries include “The Faithful Dog” and “The Grateful Pig,” about animals repaying kindness, and “Lightning Strikes the Thieving Clerk” and “Thunder Warns the Unfilial,” in which thunder punishes wrongdoers or the unfilial. “Hidden Virtue and Two Examination Lists” concerns secret good deeds and fulfillment in the civil service examinations. “Three Stories from the Dongyue Temple at Angang” records three strange events at that temple; “Killing a Maid and Demanding Her Life” and “The Headless Man” belong to the ghost-story and retribution genre. Partway through, a block of titles repeats (from “19. Zhou Yunxiu” through “26. The Grave-Digger,” and similar headings appear again)—likely a copyist’s duplication in manuscript or printing; the content is still a list of story titles.

Story 1: Bearing Stain Without Arguing

After the catalog comes the title of Story 1: “Bearing Stain Without Arguing”—meaning that when one is slandered or wronged, one does not quarrel or haggle over it.

The four lines below are a praise poem summarizing the good man’s character in this story:

Someone gave leftover food to the poor and was glad to feel the pulses of the needy and treat their illnesses; he paid others’ debts out of his own pocket to ease patients’ minds. With a broad mind and large forbearance, he was in effect accumulating hidden virtue (doing good without seeking recognition, hoping for reward in a future life or for one’s descendants). Where could one find another kind old man like this?

Before the poem, the narrative identifies a Wei, who served as provincial surveillance commissioner (popularly called “Integrity Investigator”) in Changzhou, Jiangsu. The tale is about his father (honorifically, the “venerable elder”). This old man delighted in charity and was skilled in medicine (“Qi and Huang” refers to the legendary Qi Bo and the Yellow Emperor and stands for traditional Chinese medicine). Story 1, “Bearing Stain Without Arguing,” tells how he was wronged and defamed yet still did not plead his case, and how he treated people through relieving poverty, practicing medicine, and paying debts on others’ behalf—hence this praise.

The father of Wei Lianfang of Changzhou (Wei was his surname; Lianfang his given name)—addressed respectfully as “Elder Wei”—was fond of doing good and skilled in the medical arts (Qihuang: tradition holds that the Yellow Emperor questioned Qibo on medicine and compiled the Neijing; later generations use “Qihuang” to mean Chinese medicine).

Whoever came for treatment, rich or poor, he treated with full care and took no fee. When someone was utterly poor and could not afford medicine, he paid for the drugs himself. If villagers came into town for care, he would first give them congee or bing’er (bing’er: grain-based cakes or dumplings). Only after they had eaten would he take the pulse, saying: “They have come far on an empty stomach; qi, blood, and pulse signs easily go awry. I give them something to eat first and let them rest a while—then the pulse is reliable. Do you think I only love to parade my kindness? I want people to trust my art.” When he did good deeds he often used such words as a modest excuse—mostly in this vein.

Someone once invited him to treat a patient. Ten taels of silver that had lain beside the sick man’s pillow disappeared. The son, swayed by gossip, suspected that the visiting doctor had taken them, yet did not dare ask him to his face. Someone advised the son to kneel before the gentleman’s door holding incense.

When the doctor saw this, he was taken aback and asked, “What are you doing?” The other replied, “I have a doubt I wish to raise, but I fear my elder’s reproach and dare not speak openly.” The doctor said, “Say what you will; I will not blame you.” The son then told him plainly of his suspicion about the missing silver.

The doctor led him into a private room and said, “It is indeed as you think. At the time I borrowed it briefly to meet an urgent need, intending to slip it back quietly at the next visit—like Lin Xiangru returning the jade intact to Zhao.” (During the Warring States period, Zhao had obtained the He jade from Chu; Qin offered fifteen cities in exchange. Lin Xiangru presented the jade but, seeing Qin’s lack of good faith, contrived to recover it and sent it back to Zhao by a side route; later writers used “returning the Zhao jade” for restoring something to its rightful owner in good condition.) “Since you have asked, you may take it now—but please do not speak of this to others.” He counted out the silver and handed it over in full.

When the son had first come kneeling with incense, everyone said the doctor had always been careful and self-respecting and that one ought not falsely charge an elder with so shameful a thing. After the silver was taken back, people sighed instead: “How hard the human heart is to read!” Slander spread for a time. When the doctor heard of it, he remained entirely calm and paid it no heed (yiran: composed and at ease; buxie: to treat lightly, to disdain taking notice).

(Note: This passage is one entry in Zuohua Zhiguo, recording how a physician, when suspected of stealing silver, responded with composure and quietly made restitution.)

Before long, the patient recovered. While straightening the bedding, he found the silver under the mattress. Shocked and remorseful, he said: “The lost money was here all along—how could we blame a venerable elder? We must return the silver before everyone at once and not let him carry this false charge any longer.” Father and son went together to Wei’s door, again holding incense and kneeling. Wei saw them and smiled: “What brings you here again today?” Embarrassed, they answered: “The silver we lost was there after all; we wronged the elder and deserve death. We now return the silver the household gave us. Our son was foolish—beat or punish us as you see fit.” Wei smiled and helped them up: “What of it? Put it out of your mind.” The son asked calmly: “The other day we slandered you and offended a worthy man—why did you willingly bear a bad name rather than explain, leaving us ashamed beyond words? Now that you have forgiven us, may we ask why?” Wei smiled: “Your father and I are from the same neighborhood; I have long known he is frugal and tight with money. He was ill—if he heard ten taels were lost, his condition would surely worsen, perhaps fatally. So I would rather take the stain myself and let your father know the property was recovered, turning worry to joy, so the illness could heal.” Father and son knelt and kowtowed again: “We are moved by your great virtue, risking your name to save us—we would serve you as ox or horse in the next life to repay such kindness.” Wei invited them in, set out wine, and they parted on good terms. That day onlookers packed the place like a wall, all saying: “What this elder does—ordinary people truly cannot fathom it!” From then on the name “Wei the Good Person” spread far and wide.

1. Wei Fengweng’s Story (continued)

Later this surveillance commissioner rose from jinshi to serve as provincial surveillance commissioner (ancha shi) in a province. Wei lived to about eighty; he received imperial honors and enfeoffments more than once. Several of his grandsons also entered official rank and became prominent. People who understood such matters said that Heaven’s reward for the virtuous is never far off.

The Host Among the Flowers said: “In the Western Han, Bing Buyi was wrongly suspected when a roommate’s gold went missing. Buyi did not argue; he paid compensation from his own purse. When the gold turned up, the owner was ashamed and apologized; Buyi held no grudge. Reading of Wei Fengweng, are people of ancient and modern times really so different?”

2. Serpent Cries in the Belly

Among poor households in Huzhou, drowning newborn girls was once common. My mother told of a maidservant in a relative’s house who, after marriage, drowned each daughter she bore; in ten years she bore seven girls and kept none. She became pregnant again; labor would not finish, and for a day and a night they heard what sounded like serpents crying inside her belly—then she died wailing. The Book of Odes has the line Wei hui wei she, nüzi zhi xiang (“Serpents small and great—omens of daughters”). If serpents cried in her belly, was that the grudge of drowned infant girls turned to venom?

3. Saving Lives and Extending Life

Fellow travelers who pull one another through danger show deep feeling; from that one can see Wei was not a man steeped in wrongdoing. The underworld leaked heaven’s secrets and was demoted—laughable that he suffered for it, yet the cost was not light.

In Xiuning (present-day Xiuning, Anhui), there was an old gentleman surnamed Wang. At the end of the year, after finishing collecting accounts, he returned home, traveling by small boat through wind and snow. A man on the bank asked to take passage, but the boatman was unwilling; Mr. Wang pitied him and agreed. By the time the man boarded, he was so frozen and starved that he was nearly stiff. Mr. Wang warmed him with an old fur-lined jacket and gave him strong liquor to drink. Only after quite a while was he able to speak, and he kowtowed in thanks. When Mr. Wang asked where he came from, he said, “I am not a human being; I am a soul-collecting envoy from the Chenghuang (City God) office.” Asked whom he was to collect, he took out a register with thirty-three names in all, and Mr. Wang was listed first. Mr. Wang was greatly alarmed and knelt before him for a long time, pleading. The envoy said, “This collection is carried out by order of Dongyue (the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak, who governs life and death). Even the City God’s office cannot save you—how would I dare break the law?” Mr. Wang begged again and again. The envoy said, “There is no way. But in consideration of the kindness you showed me on the same boat by taking off your clothes for me and giving me food, I will put you last, which may delay it by several days. Hurry home and arrange your affairs, and wait for me on the left side of the temple gate on the third day of the first month.” Mr. Wang thanked him.

Soon the boat reached a village, and the man said farewell and went ashore. Mr. Wang moored the boat and secretly watched; he saw him go straight on his way. Mr. Wang thanked him.

The boat soon reached a village. After the man said goodbye and went ashore, the old man moored the craft and watched from a distance. He saw the man walk straight into one house; before long he came out again, and wailing rose from inside. The old man thought the stranger’s earlier words were probably true, felt a stab of fear, and rowed back in haste.

Hardly had he landed when he saw a man and woman clinging to each other and weeping. When he asked why, he learned that with the year-end near, the husband had wanted to sell his wife to pay off debts but could find no buyer, and the two had resolved to die together. The old man thought: I have only a few days left—what good is all this silver? He gave them every coin he had taken in on his debt rounds.

He reached home on New Year’s Eve. On the morning of New Year’s Day he gathered kin and neighbors. Whoever owed money and could not repay had their notes burned. Those who had sold land for too little—if they could buy it back, they might; if not, he made up the shortfall in cash, saying, “Do not leave a burden on those who come after.”

Then he called his family and set his affairs in order. When he had finished, he told the company, “Today I must leave you for good—let us make the most of it.” He spread a feast; they drank and talked at ease all day, and only at dusk did they disperse.

On the third day of the first lunar month, Old Man Weng went in person to the City God Temple to file his petition. Sure enough, at the left side of the temple gate he again met the same runner. The man looked utterly wretched and said to Weng, “You’ve ruined me! Back then, for a moment I couldn’t bear to see it and on my own changed the order in which you and your wife were to be punished. Yesterday the city god reported to the Great Emperor of the Eastern Peak both that you had brought a dead couple back to life and that you had burned the bond. The Eastern Peak said, ‘This man was clearly already dead—how could he perform such a righteous act?’ and ordered the city god to investigate on the spot. Because I had leaked heaven’s secrets and rashly altered the underworld’s fixed decree, I was exiled to Yunnan. As for you, your lifespan was extended by one ji (twelve years), and your descendants were entered on the register of those who receive official stipends. You should all the more encourage yourselves in doing good; in twelve years you will meet me again at this temple gate.” With that he vanished.

After Weng returned home, all was indeed peaceful. Before long both sons passed the county examination and entered the county school (rupian, becoming xiucai), and the household grew more prosperous day by day. Twelve years later, on New Year’s Day, he dreamed that the same runner came to tell him, “Because after your extended lifespan you refrained from killing, released captive animals, and did your utmost in good deeds, the Lord on High has appointed you city god of a certain county. Your mortal span is exhausted and you are about to take up the post; in three days an escort with mounted attendants (zoucong, the ceremonial retinue that welcomes a deity or an official) will come for you.” When he woke, he called his descendants to his bedside and calmly set his affairs in order. When the day came, he bathed, changed his clothes, and sat upright to wait. Suddenly he faintly heard drums and music. Weng said, “The escort has arrived,” and with a smile departed peacefully.

Commentary by the Master Who Sits Among Flowers

The Master Who Sits Among Flowers said: In our neighborhood and among our kin, many people can tell this story. The man had originally been fated to live only a few days, like someone whose span was measured in days; yet because he practiced goodness, his life was extended—heaven’s recompense was that generous. Later he left the ghostly path and received an office in the nether administration (“ghostly destination,” from the Surangama Sutra, denotes where beings of the ghost realm are bound; “rank” here means stipend—tao ming zhi refers to his appointment as city god). Dressed in official garb, he sat waiting to take up his post while drums and music loudly escorted him. Compared with twelve years before—almost freezing to death by the roadside in wind and snow, adrift in a small boat—the ease of one moment and the misery of the other were as far apart as heaven and earth (xi chi xiao rang means exactly that). Given this, what is there to fear that would keep a person from doing good?

IV. Jealousy and Wicked Deeds, a Fatal Mistake

A young woman lost at night on the road—who could have imagined it? One skewed thought, and a head rolled.

For one person’s sake, four lives were destroyed; “knife” plus “ba” in character composition yields “lust”—the moral in that wordplay is not empty talk.

Chen and Zhou were from the same village and township and both served as clerks in the Henan Provincial Surveillance Commission. Whenever they finished a shift and went home, they always agreed to travel together. That year, when leaving duty for home, Chen was held up on business and told Zhou to go on ahead; Zhou set out alone, riding a mare (pin denotes the female of livestock) and holding the reins at an easy pace (pei is the bridle; the usage follows the Records of the Grand Historian, biography of Zhou Yafu).

At a fork in the road (qilu, a branching path), he met a young woman riding a stallion (mu denotes the male), hooves clopping, coming from the opposite direction.