'A monster has broken into the palace!' she cried. 'The King has fled to one of the side halls. All is lost!'

Dou ran off in great alarm to find the King, who grasped his hand and spoke to him with tears in his eyes.

'You have been so kind as to accept my daughter's hand. I was looking forward to a long and happy friendship and now this calamity has befallen us, and the very fate of my kingdom hangs in the balance! I fear all is lost!'

Dou begged to know the nature of the calamity, and the King handed him a dispatch that was lying on the table.

'Read this!'

The document began: From the Grand Secretary of State, Black Wings, of the Hall of Contained Fragrance, to His Royal Majesty, announcing the arrival of a most strange monster. We advise the immediate evacuation of the Court in order to ensure the very survival of your kingdom. A report has just been received from the Eunuch Officer at the Yellow Gate, stating that ever since the sixth day of the fifth moon, a huge monster resembling a python, ten thousand feet in length, has been lying coiled up outside the entrance to the palace. It has already devoured more than 13,800 of Your Majesty's subjects and is reducing every hall in your palace to ruins. Learning of this state of affairs, I decided to brave the danger and take stock of the situation myself. I have seen the beast with my own eyes, an evil-looking monster with a head as big as a mountain and great eyes that gleam like rivers and seas. Every time it raises its head, it swallows whole halls and pavilions, and when it stretches itself, walls and houses are brought tumbling down. Never in the whole of history has there been such a scourge, such a fearful calamity! The continued existence of our ancestral temples and altars is threatened! We therefore beseech Your Royal Majesty to depart at once with the royal family and seek a safer and happier abode elsewhere...

Just as Dou finished reading the dispatch, and his face turned ashen pale, another messenger came rushing in.

'The monster is coming!' he cried.

The whole Court burst into cries of lamentation, as if their last hour was at hand. The King himself was paralysed by fear.

'I entrust my daughter to your care!' he cried, turning tearfully to Dou, who ran back breathlessly to his chamber, where he found the Princess and her maids clinging together, weeping and lamenting their fate. She clutched at his gown.

'Oh husband,' she cried, 'what will become of me now?'

Dou was himself on the very brink of despair. He took her hand. 'I am poor,' he mused aloud, 'and have no golden house fit for a princess. But my humble abode can perhaps serve as a refuge for a while...'

'In this desperate hour, we have no choice!' wept the Princess. 'I beg you, take me there at once!'

Dou gave her his arm, and in no time they were at his house.

'Why, this is a delightful home!' said the Princess. 'It is better by far than my old kingdom. But what of my father and mother? I must ask you to build a home for them, so that they can live here with all their subjects.'

Dou protested that this would be an extremely difficult undertaking.

'If you cannot help me in my hour of need,' wailed the Princess, 'what use are you as a husband?'

Dou comforted her as best he could, but she went into their chamber, threw herself down on the bed and abandoned herself to a fit of weeping from which he could not arouse her. He was still racking his brains for some course of action, when he awoke and found that the whole thing had been a dream. And yet there was a constant buzzing in his ears, which he knew did not emanate from any human being. Looking around him more carefully, he discovered that the sound was coming from two or three bees that were flying around his pillow. Dou cried out aloud in astonishment. When his friend questioned him, he told him the whole story of his latest dream and the friend was equally amazed. Together they looked more closely at the bees, which were now clustered around the sleeve of Dou's gown and would not be brushed off. The friend urged him to make a hive for them, which he saw to without delay, supervising the construction himself. As soon as the first two of its walls were completed, a swarm of bees came streaming in from outside and installed themselves within it, and before the roof was even on the hive a mass of bees had already established itself within. Dou and his friend traced them back to the old garden of an elderly neighbour, who had kept a hive for over thirty years, from which he had always obtained an abundant supply of honey.

When the old bee-keeper heard Dou's story, he went to examine his hive and discovered that there was not a single bee left inside it. He opened it up and found a large snake, ten feet long, which he caught and killed. So this was the huge python-like monster that had swallowed whole halls and pavilions... As for the bees, they remained with Dou and thrived. And nothing else of a strange nature occurred.

83.

THE GIRL IN GREEN.

In Yidu County, there lived a young man by the name of Yu Jing. He had taken his books with him to lodgings at the Temple of Sweet Springs, and one night he was sitting there chanting a text when he heard a woman's voice at his window.

'Oh Mr Yu, what a very serious student you are!'

He was still wondering what a woman could possibly be doing up there in the hills, when in she came, pushing the door open with a disarming smile.

'So very serious!'

He jumped up in alarm, and found himself standing before a young lady of the most incomparable delicacy and the most exquisite beauty, clad in a green tunic and a long skirt. He knew at once that this was no ordinary mortal and asked her, perhaps a trifle emphatically, where she was from.

'I'm hardly going to bite you!' she replied. 'Why the inquisition?'

He was instantly captivated, and they shared his bed that very night. When he came to loosen her silken tunic, it revealed a waist so slender that his hands could encircle it with ease.

The last watch sounded and she slipped away, returning to him the following, and every subsequent, night. On one such night, they were drinking together when she made a remark which betrayed an unusual understanding of music.

'I love the sound of your voice,' he said. 'It is so fine and soft. Sing me a song. I am sure it will quite carry my soul away...'

'I'd rather not,' she replied, smiling as ever. 'I wouldn't want to carry you too far away...'

He pleaded with her all the more.

'I am not trying to be unkind,' she said. 'It is just that I do not want others to hear. Oh, if you really insist, I'll sing a song. But quietly, just for you.'

She tapped her 'Golden Lotuses', her tiny bound feet, lightly on the edge of the bed and began to sing: Jackdaw singing in the tree Tricks me away before the light; I'll gladly wet my pretty shoes, If I can stay with you tonight.

Her voice was light as silk, and barely audible. Yu Jing listened intently, and his whole being vibrated to the haunting, lilting melody.

The song ended. She opened the door and peeped outside.

'I must make sure there is no one at the window.'

She searched the whole length of the building.

'You seem so frightened. What is the matter?' asked Yu Jing, when she returned.

'There is an old saying,' replied the girl, with her ever-present smile. 'A ghost that steals life must forever live in fear. Such is my fate.'

She lay down to sleep, but she seemed restless and ill at ease.

'This idyll of ours is fated to end,' she finally said to Yu Jing. He begged her to explain.

'My heart beats strangely. I know my end is close at hand.'

'Strange movements of the heart, flutterings of the eyes, such things happen to us all from time to time,' he protested. 'You must not be so gloomy!'

She seemed a little comforted by this, and they united once more in tender passion. As the last watch of the night came to an end, she threw on her dress, descended from the bed, and walked as far as the door. There, instead of undoing the bolt, she began pacing back and forth.

'I do not know why, but something fills me with dread. Come outside with me, I beseech you.'

Yu rose and went out with her.

Caption

It was a green hornet, in the throes of death.

'Stay there and watch me,' she said. 'Do not go in again until I am beyond that wall.'

'Very well,' said Yu, and he watched her walk silently down the outer wall of the cloister and round the corner, until she was out of sight. He had already turned and was on his way back to bed, when he heard a desperate cry for help. It was her voice. He hurried out again, but though he gazed all around him he could see no trace of her. The voice was still audible and seemed to be coming from up above him, from the eaves over the door. Looking up he saw a huge spider, like a big black bolus, holding in its clutches a little creature that was making the most pitiful noise: it was a green hornet, in the throes of death. He carefully disentangled it and carried it back to his room, where he placed it on the table. Soon it recovered sufficient strength to move, crawled slowly up on to his inkstone and down into the ink. Presently it emerged again, clambered down from the inkstone and began dragging itself across the table, tracing the words thank you on the wooden surface. Then it shook its wings several times and flew out of the window. He never saw it again.

84.

DUCK JUSTICE.

A peasant living in Bai Family Village to the west of our county town stole one of his neighbour's ducks, cooked it and ate it. That night, his entire body was consumed by an intense itching, and when he looked at himself at first light he saw a fine layer of eiderdown all over his body. If he so much as touched it, it caused him considerable pain. He was appalled, but no remedy he tried was of any avail.

That night, he dreamed that a man came to him and said, 'Your illness is Heaven's punishment. Only if the duck's rightful owner shouts abuse at you will the down fall away.'

Unfortunately his neighbour was a very forgiving old man who, when he had been robbed previously, had shown not the slightest animosity. The peasant went down on his knees and begged him: 'Someone stole one of your ducks. Let's just call him Mr "X". The one thing he's really frightened of is being shouted at, so give "X" a good telling-off, shout at him, call him all sorts of names, and he will never do it again.'

The old man merely smiled. 'Why should I waste my breath on such a worthless fellow?'

And he did nothing. In the end, the peasant had no other recourse but to tell the old man the whole truth. Whereupon the old man showered him with abuse, and his affliction was cured.

Caption

He dreamed that a man came to him.

85.

BIG SNEEZE.

There was a man of Xuzhou by the name of Liang Yan, who for a long time suffered from a chronic sneezing condition.

One day, he was lying down when he felt a strange itching in his nose. He jumped up and gave a large sneeze. A creature jumped out and landed on the ground, no bigger than the tip of a finger, in appearance somewhat like a tiny clay figurine of a dog. He sneezed again, and another creature fell to the ground. Four times this happened, by which stage there were four little creatures wriggling around on the floor, sniffing at each other. Then all of a sudden the strongest of them devoured the weakest and grew at once noticeably larger. In a trice it had consumed the other two as well. It was now the sole survivor and had grown larger than a squirrel. It stuck out its tongue and licked its lips.

Liang was greatly alarmed and tried to trample on the thing. But the creature jumped on to his stocking and began making its way up his leg. Liang took hold of his gown and shook it, but it clung on and would not be moved. It edged its way up the embroidered fastenings of his gown and began digging its claws into his flesh, whereupon Liang, in sheer terror, tore off the gown altogether and threw it on the ground. But when he felt his midriff, the creature was still firmly attached, and when he tried to push it off he was unable to dislodge it. He pinched it, and when he did so, he felt the pain himself. It had become a growth, a part of him, its mouth and eyes permanently closed, like a dormouse.

Caption

It began digging its claws into his flesh.

86.

STEEL SHIRT.