Caption

They stood on their hind legs and danced.

78.

THE CLAY SCHOLAR.

In Luo Family Village, there lived a young man named Chen Dai, who was not only ugly but a coarse oaf into the bargain. He had the undeservedly good fortune to marry an attractive wife who, although she had a low opinion of Chen and was extremely unhappy with her lot, remained faithful to him nonetheless and got along well enough with her mother-in-law.

One night, she was sleeping alone when she heard the wind blow open a leaf of the door, and in came a young scholar, who took off his hat and clothes and climbed into bed with her. She was terrified and resisted with all her might, but found herself suddenly powerless to do anything but let him have his way with her. Then he departed. From then on he came to her every night.

After a month or so of this, she began to look haggard and worn. Her mother-in-law observed this and questioned her about it. At first she was too ashamed to say anything, but after persistent questioning, she finally broke down and told her the whole story.

'It must be a ghost!' exclaimed her mother-in-law in great alarm.

She did her best to conjure the spirit away with all manner of prayers and spells, but to no avail. Then they told the husband to hide in the room and lie in wait, cudgel in hand. At midnight, true to form, the young scholar appeared, placed his hat on the table, then took off his gown as usual and hung it on the rack. He was on the point of climbing into the wife's bed when suddenly he exclaimed, 'Ah! I detect the aura of a living being!'

Caption

Dai came hurtling out of the shadows.

Hurriedly he threw on his gown again, just as Dai came hurtling out of the shadows and began battering him around his midriff and ribs. Then there was a sudden cracking sound, and though Dai looked everywhere in the room, he could see no sign whatsoever of the scholar. He lit a torch and saw a fragment of a scholar's gown fashioned out of clay lying on the floor, and a clay hat on the table.

79.

FLOWERS OF ILLUSION.

In Ji'nan, there lived a certain Taoist priest, about whose name or place of origin nothing was ever known. Winter and summer he wore an unlined robe, always the same one, tied with the same yellow sash, with neither trousers nor over-jacket. He always combed his hair with a broken comb, which he then stuck in his topknot like a hat. In the daytime he strolled barefoot in the marketplace, and at night he slept in the street. In a circle several feet around him, the ice and snow would melt. When he first came to Ji'nan, he used to perform conjuring tricks, and the residents competed with each other to give him alms.

One day, a local layabout plied him with wine and begged to learn something of his magical arts. The Taoist refused to divulge any of his secrets, and later, when he went to bathe in the river, the man made off with his clothes (such as they were), planning thereby to extract what he wanted from him. The Taoist called out to him to bring them back and promised this time to share a secret with him, but the man did not believe him and refused to hand over the clothes.

'Are you quite sure you won't give them back to me?' asked the Taoist.

'Quite sure.'

The Taoist said nothing. But then all of a sudden his yellow sash (which the man still had in his hands) turned into a huge snake, several hands thick, coiled itself six or seven times around the man's body, and then rose up into the air, glaring and hissing and spitting at him. The man fell terrified to his knees, his face drained of colour, and begged the Taoist to spare his life. The Taoist took hold of the snake, which immediately became his sash again, while on the ground a snake could be seen slithering off into the city.

This episode made the Taoist more of a celebrity than ever. The local gentry, hearing of his extraordinary abilities, invited him to join them on their excursions and he became quite a society favourite. Even the highest-ranking local mandarins such as the Provincial Administration Commissioner and the Provincial Censor heard of him and took him along with them to official junkets. One day, the Taoist sent invitations to these various dignitaries to join him in the Water Pavilion on Darning Lake in the centre of Ji'nan. When the day came, they all found formal written reminders on their desks, without the slightest sign of how these had been delivered. They duly made their way to the Water Pavilion, where the Taoist came out to greet them, bowing politely. They entered the pavilion, to find it completely empty and bare. There was no sign of tables or chairs, and they thought the Taoist was trifling with them.

'I regret that I have no servants of my own,' announced the Taoist to his guests. 'I shall be obliged to ask you for the loan of some of your officers, to wait on us.'

They agreed to this, whereupon the Taoist painted a double door on the wall and proceeded to knock at it. A voice answered from within, there was the sound of a lock turning, and the doors opened. The guests hurried forward to look through the opening, and saw within a flurry of busy activity and a room filled with screens, curtains, tables and chairs. Attendants carried all these things to the door, and the Taoist instructed his guests' men to take them and set them out in the pavilion but on no account to speak to the men from the other side of the door. The exchange took place silently, with the two parties doing no more than looking at each other and smiling and laughing. In a matter of moments, the pavilion was sumptuously furnished, and the tables laid with jugs of the finest and most fragrant wines and plates of the richest and most succulent meats, all of them brought out from the room on the other side. The guests were utterly amazed.

The pavilion looked out over Darning Lake, which in the height of summer was always covered with flowering lotuses. This banquet was taking place in the depths of winter, and all that could be seen outside was the cold, mist-covered water of the lake.

One of the mandarins exclaimed with a sigh, 'What a pity there are no lotuses to add lustre to this splendid gathering!'

The other guests all echoed his sentiment. Seconds later, one of their men came hurrying in to announce: 'Sirs, the lake is covered with lotus leaves!'

They all leaped to their feet and hurried to the window to look out. Sure enough, they beheld a great expanse of green, dotted with lotus buds. And then, in a matter of seconds, thousands upon thousands of lotus buds opened fully and their heady scent was wafted to them on the breeze. They marvelled at this extraordinary spectacle and ordered the man to row out on to the lake and pick some of the flowers. Presently they could see him in his boat disappearing into the lotuses, only to return minutes later empty-handed. When questioned, he replied, 'I rowed out towards the flowers. I could see them in the distance, but as I rowed closer to the northern shore of the lake they somehow vanished and then I saw them over by the southern shore...'

The Taoist smiled. 'These are dream-lotuses, empty flowers of illusion...'

Later, when the banquet drew to a close and they had drunk their fill, the flowers faded and a brisk northerly breeze sprung up, sweeping away the leaves and leaving the lake wintry and bare once more.

The Ji'nan Circuit Intendant was much taken with the Taoist, and invited him to take up residence in his yamen, so that he could enjoy his company on a regular basis. One day this Intendant was drinking with a number of guests. He kept a rare vintage wine in his cellar, which he occasionally shared with his friends in small quantities, and on this particular day his friends were enthusiastically appreciating this fine wine and clamouring for their cups to be refilled. The Intendant apologized but insisted that his supplies were limited and that he was unable to provide them with any more. The Taoist smiled.

'Gentlemen,' he said, addressing the guests, 'I can see that Caption

'Sirs, the lake is covered with lotus leaves!'

you are eager to drink your fill. If you will allow me to play host for a moment, I will be happy to oblige.'

They were of course delighted for him to do so, and the Taoist slipped a wine jug into his sleeve, bringing it out again seconds later and proceeding to fill everyone'ss glass from it. The wine was first-class, indeed it was identical to the Intendant's special vintage, and the guests were able to continue drinking to their hearts' content. The Intendant, greatly perplexed, went to his cellar to examine his wine vat, and found that although the seal had not been tampered with in any way, the precious vat was completely empty. He was secretly both angry and ashamed, angry with the Taoist for playing this trick on him, and ashamed at his own meanness. He gave orders for the Taoist to be arrested for sorcery and given a good caning. But no sooner had the cane touched the Taoist's flesh than the Intendant himself felt a stinging pain on his own buttocks; and as the blows continued to rain down, so the Intendant's own skin was lacerated. The Taoist made a great show of screaming with pain down below in the tribunal, but up on the dais the Intendant's buttocks were already staining his chair of office red with blood. He gave orders for the caning to cease immediately, and told the Taoist to quit the city forthwith.

The Taoist went away, no one knows where. He was subsequently sighted in Nanking, wearing the same old, unlined robe, tied with the same yellow sash. But if anyone ever spoke to him, he merely smiled.

80.

DWARF.

During the reign of the Emperor Kangxi, there was a professional magician who used to take around with him a box in which he kept a dwarf, only a little more than one foot in height. For a fee, he would open the box and tell the dwarf to come out and sing. The performance over, the dwarf would return to the box.

This magician came one day to Ye County, where the local Magistrate impounded the box and questioned the dwarf in some detail as to his place of origin and his background. At first the dwarf did not dare to speak, but when the Magistrate persisted, he gave the details of his family and home village. It transpired that as a young boy he had been kidnapped on his way home from school by the magician, who had given him certain drugs, as a result of which his limbs had shrunk permanently. Subsequently the man had taken him around with him and used him for public performances.

The Magistrate was extremely indignant and had the magician put to death. He himself kept the dwarf, with a view to curing him of his condition, but was never able to find an effective remedy.

Caption

At first the dwarf did not dare to speak.

81.

BIRD.

Wang Wen was a gentleman of Dongchang, a holder of the first degree, by nature a straightforward and honest young man. He went on a trip to the south, through the twin provinces of Hunan and Hubei, and on his way put up at an inn in the village of Six Rivers. Taking a stroll through the village, he encountered a neighbour of his from Dongchang, a wealthy merchant by the name of Zhao Donglou, who was often away from home for years on end. Zhao took Wang warmly by the hand and invited him to the house where he was staying. As they went in, Wang caught sight of a beautiful woman sitting in the room, and, greatly shocked at this breach of Confucian decorum, he made to leave. But Zhao followed him outside, took his hand and drew him back, calling through the window to the young woman, whose name was Maid, to be off. Wang agreed to go back inside, and Zhao set wine and food before him.

'Tell me,' inquired Wang, as the two of them settled down to a friendly conversation, 'what sort of a place is this that you are living in?'

'It is a house of pleasure,' admitted Zhao. 'I have been away from home so long and have taken lodgings here.'

As they spoke, the girl kept coming in and out, and Wang, feeling increasingly ill at ease, stood to take his leave again. But once more Zhao pressed him to stay. Then, the next minute, another young woman passed fleetingly by the doorway and catching sight of Wang cast him a bewitching glance, full of the strangest tenderness and passion. To Wang's eyes she resembled a being from some fairy realm. He was an upright fellow, but this vision quite unmanned him.

'Who is that beautiful creature?' he asked.

'That,' replied Zhao, 'is the second daughter of the Madame of this establishment. She goes by the name of Bird and is fourteen years old. A number of clients have offered her mother huge sums of money to spend the night with her, but the girl always says no. Sometimes the old bawd even beats her, but she insists that she is too young and pleads to be let off. So to this day she is still a virgin.'

Wang sat there listening, his head hung in silence, nodding in such a dazed way that he must have seemed almost uncivil.

'If you are so struck by her,' said Zhao playfully, 'why not allow me to negotiate on your behalf?'

'I could never dare to entertain such hopes,' said Wang abstractedly. But as evening drew on and he still showed no sign of leaving, Zhao repeated his offer, in the same playful tone.

'I deeply appreciate your kindness,' said Wang, this time adding, on a more practical note, 'but, alas, I simply don't have the money!'

Zhao was familiar enough with Bird's proud and obstinate temperament. Confident that she would never agree to the proposal, he thought it safe to offer to help Wang out to the tune of ten taels of silver. Wang bowed in thanks and hurried out, returning with every penny of his own he could muster (it amounted to some five taels), which he gave to Zhao, bidding him make haste to approach the bawd on his behalf. Just as the old woman was insisting that the sum offered was far too small, to her great surprise Bird spoke up.

'Mother, you are forever complaining that I never earn you any money. Well, today I've finally decided to do what you've always wanted of me. And this will only be my first assignment, remember. Don't turn good money down just because you think it's not enough! In the end I'm sure I'll bring you in plenty!'

Her mother knew how difficult her daughter could be, and was so pleased to hear her agree to anything that in the end she gave her approval and sent one of the maids to fetch Wang. Zhao was greatly taken aback by this unexpected outcome, but he could hardly back out of the negotiations at this juncture, and handed over the money to the bawd. And so Wang and the young lady were able to enjoy the fruits of their passion.

'I am just an ordinary sing-song girl,' she said to him afterwards, 'and no fit match for a gentleman such as you! I feel so honoured that you should have wanted to give me your love. But now you have spent your last penny for this one night of bliss. How will you manage tomorrow?'

Wang sobbed inconsolably, unable to reply.

'Come, do not lose heart,' said the girl. 'I have always wanted to give up this wretched way of life. But until now I'd never met a man like you, someone I felt I could truly trust. My mind is made up. We should run away together this very night...'

Ecstatically, Wang rose to his feet, and the girl with him, as they prepared for their departure. The third watch of the night sounded from the bell-tower as she hastily changed into men's clothes and the two of them hurried out together to the inn where Wang was staying. They knocked at the door and asked to be let in. Wang had brought two mules with him on his travels. He now roused his servant and told him to make ready to leave at once, inventing some urgent business that necessitated an immediate departure. The girl tied good-luck charms to the servant's legs and to the ears of the two mules, then they untethered the animals and off they galloped, the three of them, so fast that Wang could hardly see where they were going. He only heard the wind whistling past them, and then it was morning and they had reached the city of Hankou, where they stopped and rented lodgings. Wang was lost in amazement at the speed of their journey.

'If I tell you the truth,' said Bird, 'you must promise not be frightened. I am not an ordinary human: I am a fox. That mother of mine has always wanted to squeeze every penny she can out of me. She has been horribly cruel to me and has made my life an endless misery. Now at last I have escaped from that sea of woe! We are more than thirty miles from that terrible place, and they can never find us now. I am saved!'

Wang was too much in love to have any doubts or misgivings.

'Here I am with you, my flower,' he said simply. 'But we have nothing to our name but these four bare walls. We are paupers. I only fear that one day you will forsake me...'

'How can you think such thoughts? We can open a market stall and earn enough to get by, the three of us. The first thing we should do is sell the mules to raise some money.'