RAINING MONEY.

There was a certain gentleman of Binzhou who was reading in his study one day when he heard a knock at the door. He opened the door and beheld a white-haired old man of a most antique appearance. He invited him in and asked his name.

'My name is Hu Yangzhen Fox the Taoist Adept,' answered the old man. 'In truth I am a fox-spirit. I have heard of you as a gentleman of great erudition and refinement, and would like to make your acquaintance.'

Now this Binzhou gentleman was by temperament an open-minded sort of person, and quite happy to accept the old man for what he was. He soon entered into a lengthy conversation with him about matters ancient and modern, in the course of which his guest showed himself to be extraordinarily learned and eloquent, expressing himself most gracefully and expounding the classics with unusual insight. The gentleman was hugely impressed, and from that day forward he regularly invited the old man to stay for long periods of time.

During one of these visits, he pleaded confidentially with him. 'You and I are such good friends now. Look at the poverty that surrounds me. I know it would be the easiest thing in the world for you to come by some money. Won't you help me out?'

The old man fell silent for a while, appearing reluctant to comply with this request. Then he smiled. 'It would certainly be easy enough. But I shall need a dozen coins as seed.'

The gentleman provided the requisite number of coins, and the two of them adjourned to a separate room, where the old man began pacing up and down and chanting certain magical Caption

Thousands of coins came clattering down from the ceiling.

incantations. After a short while, thousands of coins came clattering down from the ceiling in a great shower, and soon they were up to their knees in a veritable flood of money. They clambered on to the top of the pile, but the coins kept pouring down and covering their ankles, filling the entire room (which was about ten feet square) to a considerable depth.

'Satisfied yet?' asked the old man.

'Yes! That's quite enough!' cried the gentleman, whereupon the old man waved his hand and the 'rain' stopped. They both left the room and bolted the door from the outside. The gentleman was secretly delighted, thinking that he had suddenly become wealthy.

Some time later, he went back to contemplate his newly gained riches, but when he opened the door the money hill had vanished. All he could see on the ground were the dozen coins he had provided as 'seed' money. He was deeply disappointed, and accused the old man with some animosity of having cheated him.

'I was looking for a friend,' replied the old man angrily, 'someone to discuss books with, not a partner in crime! If what you want is money, then you'd better go and make friends with some petty thief! I'm afraid I cannot oblige.'

With these words, he shook his sleeves and was gone.

74.

TWIN LANTERNS.

Wei Yunwang was a native of Penquan Village in Yidu County. He came from a rich and influential family, but they had come down in the world and could no longer afford to support him in his studies. So while still a young man in his twenties, he was obliged to abandon studying and earn his living by working in his father-in-law's tavern.

One evening, he was lying alone in an upstairs room of the tavern when he heard footsteps below and sat up in alarm, listening with an increasing sense of apprehension as the sound came up the stairs, growing nearer and nearer and louder and louder. Then he saw two maidservants enter the room and walk over to his bedside, each bearing a lantern, while behind them walked a young gentleman, leading a smiling young lady in his direction. Wei grew more and more alarmed, knowing at once that these were fox-spirits. His flesh broke out in goosebumps and he lowered his head, not daring to so much as look at them.

The young gentleman laughed politely. 'Do not be afraid, sir. Allow me to present my younger sister. She has a predestined affinity with you, and has come to wait upon you.'

Wei finally looked up. Seeing that the young man was dressed in a splendid sable-lined robe, he blushed with shame at his own shabby appearance and struggled without success to find appropriate words to say in reply. Presently the young gentleman left the room, taking with him the two maidservants, who had meanwhile placed the twin lanterns on the floor.

Wei was now able to observe the young lady more closely. She had an ethereal, magical beauty, and he fell instantly in love with her, though he was still much too frightened to engage Caption

Two maidservants entered the room, each bearing a lantern.

her in any sort of conversation. She looked at him and smiled.

'I can tell at once that you are not really the bookworm type, sir. So why are you behaving like this, like some helpless, stuffy scholar?'

And with these words she sidled up next to him on the bed and snuggled her hands inside his jacket. Wei's reserve very soon melted away, and he loosened her silken trousers. The two of them were soon smiling and exchanging intimate words, and it was not long before they were making love.

Before the morning bell rang, the two maidservants returned to collect their lady, who agreed before she departed to visit him again that very night. In the evening, true to her word, she came.

'My silly friend!' she said playfully to the ever bashful Wei. 'Look what a lucky man you are! You have a pretty girl coming to you all of her own accord every night and it costs you nothing!'

Wei was delighted to have her to himself again. He gave her wine, and they drank together and played a guessing game. She won nine games out of ten.

'This time let me hold the coins in my hand,' she said with a laugh, 'and you guess. That way at least you stand a chance of winning. If you always let me do the guessing, you will never win.'

So they played happily all night and were about to go to bed, when the girl complained that the bedding had been too cold and uncomfortable the night before, and called for her maidservants to bring one of her own quilts, which they spread on the bed. It was deliciously soft and fragrant, made of silk and embroidered with flowers. In a little while, the two of them removed their clothes and went to bed together. When they made love, the heady scent of her lipstick transported him to a paradise of sensual pleasure.

Half a year passed in this way, and then Wei returned to his old family home. He was standing talking to his wife by the window one moonlit night, when suddenly he saw the girl of the twin lanterns, in a splendid dress, sitting on the wall outside and beckoning to him. He went out and walked towards her, whereupon she stretched out her hand and drew him effortlessly over the wall with her, holding his hand tightly in hers.

'Today I have come to bid you farewell. Please see me off a little way, as a token of the love we shared during all those months.'

Wei was taken aback and asked her what the reason was for her departure.

'In love,' she replied, 'everything is predestined. What more is there to say?'

Even as they were speaking, they had reached the outer limits of the village, and there they found the two maidservants, waiting with the twin lanterns. They all walked on together up Southern Mountain, to a high point on the mountainside, where the girl made her farewell. Wei knew that however deeply he wished her to stay, he had no choice but to let her go, and he stood there despondently, gazing at the twinkling lanterns as they gradually disappeared into the distance, before returning home in sorrow. That night, the villagers all saw lanterns shining up on the mountainside.

75.

GHOST FOILED, FOX PUT TO ROUT.

Li Zhuming, the son of Li Jinzhuo, County Magistrate of Suining, was a man of a bold and fearless nature. His elder sister was married to Wang Jiliang of Xincheng, whose house contained several haunted upper rooms. Zhuming often stayed in this house during the summer, and always liked to sleep in one of these cooler upper rooms. On his first visit he was warned about the strange creatures that haunted the rooms, but he only smiled nonchalantly and insisted that his bed be prepared upstairs. His host, feeling it only polite to agree to his brother-in-law's request, suggested that one of his own servants should keep him company during the night, an offer which Zhuming firmly declined.

'I prefer to sleep alone,' he insisted. 'Nothing has ever frightened me in my life.'

His host nonetheless ordered his servants to light some sticks of a special incense (reported to have the power to calm evil spirits) in the incense burner, and to place the bed in whichever direction Zhuming preferred. Then they extinguished the light, closed the door and went out, leaving him alone in the room.

Zhuming had been lying there in bed for a while, when, by the light of the moon, he saw a teacup start to wobble from side to side on the table. The cup continued moving around and showed no sign either of falling to the ground or of coming to a standstill. He sat up and shouted at it, whereupon it stopped, with a sudden clattering sound. After this it was as if an invisible person picked the incense sticks out of the burner and started to wave them around in the room, creating a series of luminous criss-cross patterns in the air. Zhuming stood up and cried, 'What evil spirit has the effrontery to do this?'

He had risen naked from his bed, intending to seize hold of the offender, and now with one foot he felt under the bed for his slippers. Finding only one of them, and in too much of a hurry to bother searching for the other, he set out barefoot across the room, striking out at the still-waving incense sticks. In an instant they returned to the incense burner, the room reverted to normality, and quiet prevailed once more. Zhuming now went down on all fours and began groping for his missing slipper in every dark corner of the room when an object flew at him and struck him in the face. It felt remarkably like a slipper. He searched for it on the floor, but in vain. There was nothing there. He opened the door, went downstairs and called a servant to bring a lamp up to the room. Their search revealed nothing, and eventually he went to sleep again.

At daybreak the following morning, he asked several members of the household to help him continue the search for his missing slipper, and between them they turned everything including the bed - upside down, without finding anything. In the end his host gave Zhuming a pair of his own slippers. Then, the very next day, Zhuming was gazing idly at the ceiling when he caught sight of a slipper stuck between two of the beams. He brought it down with a long stick and recognized it immediately as his.

Zhuming was originally a native of Yidu, and he had at one time taken up residence in the Sun mansion in nearby Zichuan, a very large property that had been left almost entirely uninhabited. Zhuming merely occupied half of it, the south compound, which looked out on to a tall, storeyed building, separated from it by no more than a wall. The upper-storey door of this building was often seen to open and close of its own accord, but Zhuming paid no special attention to this until one day, when he was chatting with members of his family in the courtyard, the door opened and a dwarf appeared and sat down facing towards them. He could not have been more than three feet in height, and wore a green robe and white stockings. He remained there motionless even as they watched him and Caption

He took aim at the building.

pointed at him. Zhuming said out loud that he must certainly be a fox-spirit, and, fetching his bow and arrow at once, he took aim at the building. When the dwarf noticed what he was doing, he gave a mocking laugh and disappeared. Next Zhuming took his sword and went up into the building itself, cursing aloud and searching everywhere for the dwarf but to no avail. Finally he returned to his own compound.

From then onwards, there were no further strange apparitions, and Zhuming continued to live there peacefully for several years.

Li Yousan, Zhuming's eldest son, was related to me by marriage. He witnessed these things with his own eyes.

76.

FROG CHORUS.

Wang Zisun once told me this story.

He was in the capital when he saw a man putting on a performance in the marketplace, with a wooden box divided into twelve sections, each of which contained a crouching frog. Whenever he tapped one of the frogs on the head with his little baton, it began to croak. If he was given money, he would start tapping the frogs' heads in earnest one after the other, producing an orchestral sound like a set of gong-chimes, every note perfectly pitched and clearly audible.

Caption

Whenever he tapped one of the frogs, it began to croak.

77.

PERFORMING MICE.

The same Wang Zisun once told me this story as well.

There was a man in the city of Chang'an who earned a living by exhibiting his performing mice. He kept more than a dozen of them in a bag on his back. Wherever he found a crowd gathered, he would put together a little wooden frame and mount it on his back, just like a tiny makeshift stage. Then he would strike drum and clapper, and start singing a ballad from some old play. As soon as he started singing, the mice popped their heads out of the bag, wearing masks and full costume, climbed up his back and on to the little 'stage', where they stood on their hind legs and danced. The characterizations, male and female, corresponded exactly with the story he was telling, and their performance evoked all the pathos and comedy of human drama.