'Why don't you sell me?' said the mynah. 'The Prince will pay a good price for me, and then you will not need to worry about the journey home.'

'I couldn't bear to part with you,' replied the man.

'Don't worry. Just leave as soon as you have the money. Wait for me under the big tree six miles west of the town.'

The man agreed to do this. He took the bird into the town, where they began talking to each other, gradually gathering quite a crowd. A eunuch from the Prince's court saw them and reported it to his master, who summoned them and expressed his desire to purchase the bird.

'But I have always depended on this bird for a living,' said the man. 'I do not want to part with him.'

The Prince addressed the mynah. 'Do you wish to live here?'

'Yes, I do,' replied the bird.

The Prince was delighted.

'Give him ten taels of silver,' continued the bird. 'Not an ounce more.'

The Prince was more delighted than ever, and immediately gave the man ten taels. The man took his leave, making a great show of how aggrieved he felt at the transaction.

Caption

When the Prince spoke to the bird, it replied promptly.

When the Prince spoke to the bird, it replied promptly. The Prince ordered his servants to feed it some meat, and when the bird had eaten, it announced that it wished to take a bath. So the Prince ordered a gold basin to be filled with water and set before the bird. He freed the mynah from its cage, and it bathed and then flew up into the eaves, preening its feathers with its beak and shaking off the water, chattering all the while with the Prince. In a moment its feathers were dry, and it rose fluttering into the air, saying in a Shanxi accent, 'I must be on my way!'

The Prince and his courtiers looked around, but the bird had already disappeared. The Prince gazed long up into the air and heaved a sigh. The original owner was sought at once, but he had disappeared without trace.

Some time later, a traveller in Shaanxi Province to the west saw the man with the bird in the market at Xi'an town.

This story was recorded by Bi Jiyou.

67.

LAMP DOG.

His Excellency Han Daqian had a steward, who one night lay down to sleep in the lean-to scullery and saw a lamp shining in the building up above, bright as a star. After a little while, it floated twinkling down to the ground, where it was transformed into a dog. The steward saw the creature moving towards the rear of the house, and, leaping out of bed, he discreetly trailed it as it went slinking into the garden, where it was transformed into a young woman.

The steward knew now that it must be a fox-spirit. He went back to his bed and lay down, when all of a sudden he saw the woman coming towards him from the back of the house. He feigned sleep, intending to observe whatever transformation would take place next, but the woman merely bent over him and began to shake him. He went through the motions of waking, and asked her who she was. She was silent.

'Are you not the lamp that was burning up there?' he went on.

'Since you already know, why ask?'

So they spent the night together, and from then on she came to him every night and departed at dawn.

When the master came to know of this, he set two of his men to sleep with the steward, one on either side. But when they awoke they found themselves on the ground, without knowing how or when they had fallen there. The master flew into a rage and summoned his steward.

'The next time she comes, you must capture her. If you do not, I shall have you whipped!'

The steward dared not challenge his master, and withdrew Caption

She covered her face with her sleeve.

without a word from his presence. To capture the girl would be hard, he thought to himself. But to fail to do so would mean a terrible fate! He was hesitating, unable to resolve upon any course of action, when suddenly he remembered that she always wore a tight little red blouse next to her body and never removed it. That might be her secret. If he could but lay hands on that, he might have power over her.

That night, when she came, she said to him, 'Your master has told you to capture me, has he not?'

'Indeed he has,' replied the steward. 'But how could I possibly betray you, when there is such love between us?'

As she slept that night, he surreptitiously took off her little blouse. She cried out and wrested herself away from him and was gone. She did not return thereafter.

Some time later, the steward was returning from an errand when he saw the woman in the distance, sitting by the roadside. As he approached, she covered her face with her sleeve. He dismounted.

'Why are you treating me thus?' he asked.

She rose to her feet and took his hand.

'I thought you had put all feeling for me out of your mind. If you still love me as you once did, I will forgive you. It was your master who ordered you to do what you did, after all. You are not to blame. But our affair is at an end. Fate has so decreed. Today I would like to hold a little farewell party.'

It was early autumn, and the sorghum was ripe and ready for harvesting. She led him by the hand into the field, and there in the very middle of the crop of sorghum stood a great mansion. He tethered his horse and went inside, and in the hall a feast had been spread. No sooner had he sat down than a host of maidservants appeared and began waiting on him.

Evening drew on and the steward took his leave, returning to report to his master. As he walked away he looked back. There was nothing to be seen in the field but the crop of sorghum and the raised pathways running through it.

68.

DOCTOR FIVE HIDES.

Chang Tiyuan of Hejin, when he was an official student, dreamed that he heard a voice speaking to him and addressing him as 'Doctor Five Hides'. He rejoiced at this propitious omen (the name having first been given to a legendary figure of the Spring and Autumn era).

When the Troubles came, Chang was stripped of all his clothes and left at night shut up in an empty room. It was midwinter and bitterly cold. He searched around in the dark and found a number of sheep-hides, which he wrapped around himself, thus managing to survive the night.

At dawn he looked more closely and saw that there were in fact exactly five hides. He burst out laughing at the joke played on him by the spirit of his dream. He later became a tribute student and was appointed Magistrate of Luonan County.

Bi Jiyou recorded this.

Caption

There were in fact exactly five hides.

69.

BUTTERFLY.

Luo Zifu was born in Bin County, and lost both his parents at an early age. When he was eight or nine years old he went to live with his Uncle Daye, a high official in the Imperial College and an immensely wealthy man. Daye had no sons of his own and came to love Luo as if he were his own child.

When the boy was fourteen, he fell in with bad company and became a regular frequenter of the local pleasure-houses. A famous Nanking courtesan happened to be in Bin County at the time, and the young Luo became hopelessly infatuated with her. When she returned to Nanking, he ran away with her and lived with her there in her establishment for a good six months by which time his money was all gone and the other girls had begun to mock him mercilessly, though they still tolerated his presence.

Then he contracted syphilis and broke out in suppurating sores, which left stains on the bedding, and they finally drove him from the house. He took to begging in the streets, where the passers-by shunned him. He began to dread the thought of dying so far from home, and one day set off begging his way back to Shaanxi, covering ten or so miles a day, until eventually he came to the borders of Bin County. His filthy rags and foul, pus-covered body made him too ashamed to go any further into his old neighbourhood, and instead he hobbled about on the outskirts of town.

Towards evening, he was stumbling towards a temple in the hills, seeking shelter for the night, when he encountered a young woman of a quite unearthly beauty, who came up to him and asked him where he was going. He told her his whole story.

'I myself have renounced the world,' was her response. 'I live here in a cave in the hills. You are welcome to stay with me. Here at least you will be safe from tigers and wolves.'

Luo followed her joyfully, and together they walked deeper into the hills. Presently he found himself at the entrance to a grotto, inside which flowed a stream, with a stone bridge leading over it. A few steps further and they came to two chambers hollowed out of the rock, both of them brightly lit, but with no sign anywhere of either candle or lamp. The girl bid Luo remove his rags and bathe in the waters of the stream.

'Wash,' she said, 'and your sores will all be healed.'

She drew apart the bed-curtains and made up a bed for him, dusting off the quilt.

'Sleep now,' she said, 'and I will make you a pair of trousers.'

She brought in what looked like a large plantain leaf and began cutting it to shape. He lay there watching her, and in a very short while the trousers were made and placed folded on the bed.

'You can wear these in the morning.'

She lay down on a couch opposite.

After bathing in the stream, Luo felt all the pain go out of his sores, and when he awoke during the night and touched them, they had already dried and hardened into thick scabs. In the morning he rose, wondering if he would truly be able to wear the plantain-leaf trousers. When he took them in his hands, he found that they were wonderfully smooth, like green satin.

In a little while, breakfast was prepared. The young woman brought more leaves from the mountainside. She said that they were pancakes, and they ate them, and sure enough they were pancakes. She cut the shapes of poultry and fish from the leaves and cooked them, and they made a delicious meal. In the corner of the room stood a vat filled with fine wine, from which they drank, and when the supply ran out she merely replenished it with water from the stream.

In a few days, when all his sores and scabs were gone, he went up to her and begged her to share his bed.

'Silly boy!' she cried. 'No sooner cured than you go losing your head again!'

'I only want to repay your kindness...'

They had much pleasure together that night.

Time passed, and one day another young woman came into the grotto and greeted them with a broad grin.

'Why, my dear wicked little Butterfly!' (for such was the girl's name). 'You do seem to be having a good time! And when did this cosy little idyll of yours begin, pray?'

'It's been such an age since you last visited, dearest Sister Flower!' returned Butterfly, with a teasing smile. 'What Fair Wind of Love blows you here today? And have you had your little baby boy yet?'

'Actually I had a girl...'

'What a doll factory you are!' quipped Butterfly. 'Didn't you bring her with you?'

'She's only just this minute stopped crying and fallen asleep.'

Flower sat down with them and drank her fill of wine.