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A little coyly, Grace began taking Kong's pulse.

'I think I may have found the right person for you, Brother Kong,' said Huangfu, perceiving his condition.

'And who is that, pray?' mumbled Kong.

'A cousin of mine.'

Kong brooded for a while, before replying, 'Do not trouble yourself for nothing.' He stared at the wall, and heaved a deep sigh: 'Speak not of lakes and streams to one Who knows the splendour of the sea; The clouds around the magic peaks of Wu Are the only clouds for me.'

Huangfu grasped his meaning at once (the cloud-wrapped peaks of Wu having once been the scene of a famous love encounter). 'My father admires your great accomplishments, and has long wanted to see you marry into our family. But Grace is my only sister, and she is still much too young to marry. My cousin Pine, on the other hand, is eighteen years old and a good-looking girl. If you don't believe me, see for yourself. She takes a walk every day in the garden; you can observe her from the front chamber.'

Kong did as his friend suggested, and watched Grace walking in the garden in the company of another young lady of great beauty, with dark, arched eyebrows and tiny feet encased in phoenix-patterned slippers. Kong observed to his great joy that she was every bit as beautiful as Grace, and he asked his friend to arrange the match at once.

The very next day, Huangfu emerged from the women's quarters and hailed his friend. 'Congratulations! Everything is settled!'

A separate courtyard was set apart for the wedding, and without further ado, that very night, the merry music of drums and pipes sounded in the house. Throughout the wedding ceremony Kong gazed blissfully at his bride, wondering if he was still on earth or had been transported to the Palace of the Moon. Once the ritual had been completed, their love was joyfully consummated.

Shortly after this, Huangfu came to Kong one evening and spoke to him in an unusually serious tone. 'I can never forget everything you have taught me. But since Lord Shan will shortly conclude his court case and urgently requires the use of his mansion, my family will be obliged to leave here and travel west. It is unlikely that you and I will meet again. It causes me great sorrow to have to say farewell.'

Kong wanted to go with them, but Huangfu urged him to return home to his own family. Kong protested that this would be hard for him to do.

'Don't worry,' said Huangfu, 'I shall take you there.'

Presently the father came with Pine and presented Kong with a gift of a hundred taels of silver. Huangfu led both Kong and his wife by the hand, ordering them to close their eyes and on no account to look, and presently they felt themselves soaring through space. They could hear nothing but the wind whistling in their ears. 'There, you are home now!' said Huangfu after a while, and they opened their eyes and beheld Kong's native village. This was the first time he knew for sure that Huangfu was no ordinary mortal.

He knocked happily on his family door, and his mother could not believe her eyes. But her happiness at seeing her son again was eclipsed by her delight at the beautiful wife he had brought home with him. As for Huangfu, when Kong turned to look for him, he had vanished.

Pine proved a devoted daughter-in-law, and her beauty and virtue became widely known in the district. In the course of time, Kong passed his third degree, qualified as a metropolitan graduate and was appointed a junior magistrate in the city of Yan'an. He proposed taking his whole family with him to his post, and although his mother thought the journey too long and resolved to stay at home, Pine went with him, having meanwhile borne him a son, whom they called Little Lord.

At his new post Kong fell foul of a visiting censor, and was relieved of his duties. He was temporarily confined to the Yan'an region and not allowed to travel home. Once, he was out hunting in the nearby fields when he saw a handsome young man ride towards him on a black horse, staring at him intently. On closer inspection, who should it turn out to be but his dear friend, young Huangfu! They halted their horses, and the two friends laughed and wept at their reunion.

Huangfu invited Kong to go with him to his new home. They came to a village set in a thicket of trees whose leaves were so dense that they shut out the sun altogether. The doors of the house were embossed with great gilt studs, indicating an establishment of considerable distinction. Huangfu told him that his sister Grace was now married, and Kong also learned to his great sorrow that Pine's mother, his mother-in-law, had died. He spent the night there, and returned the following day with Pine and their son. Grace put her arms round their little boy and began playing with him.

'You have mingled our two species, cousin!' she teased Pine secretly.

Kong for his part expressed his heartfelt thanks to Grace for having saved his life.

'You are such an important man now,' she replied, 'and your old wound is completely healed! But you still remember the pain!'

Her own husband, whose name was Wu, also came to pay his respects and persuaded them to stay a second night.

In the morning, Huangfu came to speak to Kong, a woeful expression on his face. 'We are facing disaster! I beseech you to save us!'

Kong asked him to explain his trouble, and eagerly assured him that he would do whatever lay within his power. Huangfu hurried out, and assembled his whole family in the main hall, where they proceeded to kneel and give thanks to a bewildered Kong.

'The truth is,' explained Huangfu at last, 'we are not of human stock. We are all foxes. And today a terrible thunderstorm is about to strike us. If you are willing to risk your own life to protect us, we may yet be saved. If not, then take your child now and go; do not let yourself be caught up in our fate.'

When Kong swore to live or die with them, Huangfu told him to stand in the doorway sword in hand.

'When the thunder and lightning strike, stand firm, do not move!'

Kong followed his instructions and took up his stand. Soon black clouds obscured the midday sky, and it grew dark as night. When he looked around him, Huangfu's mansion had vanished, and in its place he saw a solitary earthen mound projecting into the sky, while beneath it a huge, bottomless chasm had opened up in the ground. As he looked aghast at this desolate sight, a crash of thunder shattered the heavens, shaking the hills to their foundations, followed by driving rain and a fierce gale which uprooted trees in its path. Dazzled and deafened by the tempest, Kong nonetheless continued to stand his ground firmly when suddenly, through the swirling darkness, he saw a gruesome monster, with great pointed beak and long claws, rise up from the depths of the chasm, bearing in its arms a human form. As it began to soar upwards through the mist, Kong knew at a glance that the body it was carrying was that of Grace. He leaped forward and struck out with his sword, whereupon the monster let Grace fall from its arms. Another great crack of thunder burst from the heavens, and Kong himself lay dead on the ground.

In a little while the storm passed, and Grace regained consciousness, only to see Kong dead by her side.

'How can I continue to live,' she sobbed bitterly, 'when he has given his life for me?'

Pine came forward, and the two cousins carried his body into the house. Grace bade Pine lift up Kong's head, while her brother Huangfu prised open his mouth with a golden hairpin. Grace then pinched his cheeks and pressed a red bolus into his mouth with her tongue, pressing her lips to his and pushing the bolus deep into his throat with her breath. There was a gurgling sound as it descended, and a minute later he regained consciousness and to his great joy saw his family gathered around him. It was as if he had awoken from a dream.

The place was too desolate for him to be able to settle there, and he proposed instead that they should all return with him to his former home. They agreed to this, except for Grace. When Kong saw how downcast she was, he suggested that she should bring her husband with her, but that left the unresolved problem of his parents, who would be loth to be separated from their son. They had been discussing the matter all day, when suddenly a young servant came rushing in from the Wu household, breathless and drenched in perspiration, to announce that the entire Wu family had perished that very day in a natural calamity. Grace was beside herself with grief, and stamped the ground, sobbing inconsolably.

There was nothing now to prevent them from returning with Kong. He made all the necessary arrangements, while they spent several days packing their things. When they reached Kong's home, Huangfu and Grace were installed in a separate compound in the garden, where they kept their gate permanently shut, only opening it for Kong and Pine. Kong joined Huangfu and his sister for occasional games of chess, a cup of wine, a convivial conversation. They were like members of a single family. His son Little Lord grew up into a good-looking young man, always with a touch of the fox about him. Every time he went into town, folk knew he was the son of a fox.

22.

A MOST EXEMPLARY MONK.

A man named Zhang died suddenly and was escorted at once by devil attendants into the presence of Yama, King of the Underworld. Yama checked his registers and turned angrily to the attendants, informing them that they had brought the wrong man and were to take him back immediately.

As they left, Zhang secretly entreated his devil guards to let him have a quick look at Hell and they led him all the way through the Nine Dark Places, past the Mountain of Knives and the Forest of Swords, pointing out the various sights one by one. By and by they reached a place where a Buddhist monk was hanging upside down in the air, suspended by a rope through a hole in his leg. He was crying out in excruciating pain. As Zhang approached, he saw to his great horror and distress that the man was his own brother. He asked his guards the reason for this appalling punishment, and they informed him that the monk had been condemned to this torment for having collected alms on behalf of his order, which he had then squandered on gambling and debauchery.

'Nor,' they added, 'will his punishment cease until he repents his misdeeds.'

When Zhang regained consciousness, fearing that his brother must already be dead, he hurried off to the Xingfu Monastery, where he had been in residence. As he went in at the door, he heard a loud shrieking and, on proceeding to his brother's cell, found him upside down, just as he had seen him in Hell, with his legs tied up above him to the wall, and an abscess oozing blood and pus between his thighs. Appalled, he asked him for an explanation, and his brother told him that he was in terrible Caption

A Buddhist monk was hanging upside down in the air.

pain and that this was the only position in which the pain was at all bearable.

Zhang now described what he had seen in Hell, and the monk was so terrified that he at once gave up drinking liquor and eating meat, and devoted himself humbly to the recitation of the sutras and mantras of his religion. In a fortnight he was well again, and became known ever afterwards as a most exemplary monk.

23.

MAGICAL ARTS.

A gentleman by the name of Yu, in his youth a keen member of the sporting fraternity, delighted in boxing and feats of strength and was himself able to dance the whirligig while holding aloft a heavy metal jug in each hand.

During the Chongzhen reign of the former Ming dynasty, Yu was in the capital for the palace examinations when much to his distress his personal servant fell ill and took to his bed. At that time an expert fortune-teller frequented the marketplace, reputed to be capable of determining the span of a man's life with astonishing accuracy, and Yu decided to go and consult this man on his servant's behalf.

Before he had even spoken, the fortune-teller said to him, 'You wish to put a question concerning your servant's illness, do you not?'

'Why, yes!' exclaimed Yu in amazement.

'The servant's illness is nothing serious,' said the fortune-teller. 'But you, sir, are in grave peril.'

Yu asked to have his own fortune told, and the man proceeded to consult the hexagrams of the Book of Changes.

'Dear sir,' he exclaimed in a shocked voice, 'you are fated to die three days from now!'

Yu was dumbfounded.

'I do possess a trifling art in this connection,' the fortune-teller went on, unperturbed. 'For ten taels of silver I will undertake to intervene on your behalf.'

Yu, thinking to himself that if the time of one's death had already been determined by fate, such 'trifling' (and rather Caption

The man consulted the hexagrams of the Book of Changes.

expensive) magical arts were probably of no use, rose silently to his feet and made to leave.

'You will regret having denied yourself this petty expense,' commented the fortune-teller.

Yu's friends were anxious on his behalf and urged him to pay whatever the fortune-teller asked, but he ignored their advice. The next two days passed uneventfully, and on the third he sat calmly in his room at the inn, waiting to see what would happen and nothing did. Night fell, and he closed the door, trimmed his lamp and sat there quietly sword in hand, awaiting whatever fate held in store for him.

The first watch of the night was nearly ended, and there was still no sign of death's approach. He was about to lie down when he heard a rustling sound at the window and, hurriedly looking up, saw a tiny man with a spear on his back enter by the window and alight on the ground, where he grew to ordinary size. Grasping his own sword, Yu leaped to his feet and lunged out at the intruder, but his sword went swishing wide of the mark and meanwhile the man had shrunk in size again and headed for a crack in the window lattice, endeavouring to make good his escape. Yu hacked at him vigorously and finally brought him down. By the light of his lamp he saw the figure of a man cut out of paper, severed at the waist.

Yu now gave up all thought of sleep, and sat in wait. Presently another creature bored its way through a pane of the paper casement, a fearsome-looking, monstrous thing. The instant it touched the ground, Yu struck at it with force, splitting it in two halves, each of which went wriggling away. Fearing it might rise up a second time, he attacked it again and again, each time striking home, his sword ringing loudly with every stroke. Afterwards, looking closely, he saw a clay figure lying on the ground, broken into countless shattered shards.

He now moved his seat to beneath the window and kept his gaze fixed on the crack in the casement. After a while, he heard what sounded like an ox snorting outside, then the sound of something heaving against the window frame. The next thing he knew the whole wall of the room was shaking and seemed about to collapse. Afraid of being buried alive, Yu resolved to go out and fight. He threw open the door with a great swish and rushed out into the night. By the dim light of the moon he made out the figure of a huge ghoul, high as the eaves of the house, its face pitch-black and its eyes glowing with a sinister yellow light. It was naked to the midriff and barefoot, held a bow in its hand and had a clutch of arrows attached to its waist. Yu was still reeling from the shock of seeing this apparition when the ghoul let fly a shower of arrows. Yu fended them off with his sword and they fell to the ground, but when he tried to strike the creature directly, it counter-attacked by letting loose another arrow. Yu jumped to one side, and the arrow drove itself quivering into the wall much to the fury of the ghoul, which now produced a sword and whirled it around, aiming at Yu's head. Yu ducked with monkey-like agility and the blade struck a stone, splitting it clean in two. Yu now darted between the ghoul's legs and slashed his own sword against its shins with a mighty whack. This enraged the ghoul more than ever, and it emitted a mighty thundering roar and began spinning round and chopping wildly at Yu, who ducked once more between its legs, so that when the monster's blade struck, it did no more than slice off a part of his robe. Yu now moved close up against the monster's ribs and dealt them a hefty thwack. The creature slumped to the ground and lay there. Yu continued to strike blow after blow at it, each one ringing into the night like a watchman's wooden clapper. Eventually he held high his lamp and beheld before him a man-sized wooden puppet, decorated in the most terrifying fashion, the arrows still tied at its waist. Blood was flowing from every place where his sword had struck.

Yu sat there until dawn, lamp in hand, knowing that each one of the three monsters had been sent against him by the fortune-teller, who was determined to prove his clairvoyant powers, even if it meant killing him in order to do so.

The next day, he told the story to all his friends, and some of them went with him to the fortune-teller's house. But the man had seen them coming, and had vanished into thin air.

'He is using a spell of invisibility,' said one of Yu's friends. 'But we can break it with dog's blood.'

Yu went again, armed this time with the blood of a dog, and when the fortune-teller vanished just as before, Yu acted quickly, smearing the dog's blood on the ground where the man had been standing. He saw him now, standing there, his head and face smeared with the dog's blood, his eyes blazing like those of some fearsome monster. They seized him and hauled him before the Magistrate, who had him put to death.

24.

WILD DOG.

During the rebellion led by Yu Qi, men died in countless numbers, mown down like fields of hemp. At this time, a peasant by the name of Li Hualong was trying to find his way home through the hills when he came across a detachment of government troops on a night march. Afraid of being rounded up indiscriminately as a bandit, and seeing nowhere to hide, he lay down in a heap of decapitated corpses, pretending to be dead himself and staying there until long after the troops had passed.

Then suddenly he saw the corpses, for the most part headless and armless, stand up in serried ranks like trees in a forest. One among them, his head still dangling from his shoulders, gasped, 'The wild dog is coming! We are done for!'

The others answered in a ragged chorus, 'Done for! Done for!'