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  Not long after, there was a huge storm during which the earth god's temple was struck by lightning. Qiu became a bit worried and decided it would be safer to stay inside for a while. After a few weeks had passed without event he relaxed his guard.

  One day, not long after this, the inspector of Jiangxi came to a nearby temple to pray. While praying he happened to be struck on the forehead by an axe. This event caused great consternation among the local officials, and they assembled at the scene to determine who should take responsibility. Scholar Qiu got wind of the spectacle and hurried over to watch.

  One of the officials, the magistrate of Xinjian, thought Qiu's behavior rather odd. Suspecting him of being the culprit, he demanded that Qiu identify himself. Poor Qiu was terrified and could only stammer incoherently. From the clothing Qiu wore, the magistrate deduced that he was unlikely to be anyone of consequence, and in a fit of fury at Qiu's insolence he ordered that Qiu receive twenty strokes.

  It was only after these strokes had been administered that Qiu regained his power of speech. "I am Scholar Qiu of the Qiu Sinong household," he said.

  Hearing that his criminal was actually a scholar, the magistrate regretted his hasty verdict. To compensate Qiu for his suffering, the magistrate employed him as head teacher at Fengcheng.

  Ghosts Have Only Three Tricks

  Mr. Cai Wei was often heard to say, "Ghosts have three tricks. Initially they will attempt to enchant. Failing that, they will venture to block, and finally they will resort to terrorizing."

  When asked to expound upon his theory he would reply, "I have a cousin by the name of Lü who is a scholarship student at Songjiang. He has a very open and direct personality, and indeed his self-styled nickname is Mr. Direct.

  "One evening he passed through a village west of Lake Liu. Dusk had just fallen when he saw a woman, her face powdered and rouged, hurrying along with a rope in her hands. When she saw Lü, she tried to avoid him by hastening to the shelter of a large tree. In doing so she dropped her rope. Lü picked it up. It proved to be a straw rope exuding the sweet, sickly smell of blood. He quickly concluded that the woman was a ghost and had died from hanging. He hid the rope under his clothing and walked on ahead.

  "The woman came out from behind the tree and tried to block Lü's path. When he walked to the left she would move to the left; when he walked to the right she would move to the right. Lü recognized this ploy as 'playing the ghostly wall.' So, he rushed directly towards her. The ghost was caught unawares, but then with one long shrill cry she transformed herself into a blood-soaked figure covered by long hair. She poked out her tongue and skipped towards Lü .

  "Lü said, 'At first you tried to enchant me with your rouge and powder. Then you ventured to block my path. Now you have adopted this gruesome form in an attempt to scare me. Your three tricks are used up, and I am still not scared. I know you have no other ploys. Didn't you realize that my name was Mr. Direct?'

  "The ghost then resumed her original form and knelt on the ground before Lü, confessing, 'I am a city woman by the name of Shi. In a fit of anger after an argument with my husband I hanged myself. I have just heard that to the east of Lake Liu there lives a woman who is also having marital problems. I was hurrying there in the hope of finding a replacement ghost. I was not expecting you, sir, to impede my progress by taking my rope. It is true that I have no more tricks left, so I beg you to have mercy. Help me escape the horrors of hell. Help me be reincarnated.'

  "Lü thereupon inquired, 'How can you achieve reincarnation?'

  "To this she replied, 'If you ask my family, the Shis who live in the city, to hire priests and monks to chant prayers, or arrange for a high priest to chant the Reincarnation Sutra for me, I will be reincarnated.'

  "Lü laughed and said, 'I am a high priest and moreover I am familiar with the Reincarnation Sutra. I will recite it for you.' And he sang aloud, 'This is a wonderful world. It has no obstacles and no hindrances. Life and death are one so why talk about replacements? When it is time to go, why not go? It is much simpler that way!'

  "The instant she heard these words the ghost achieved enlightenment. She prostrated herself before Lü and then made a hasty departure."

  According to the local people, that particular area had long been haunted, but no more supernatural events occurred there after Mr. Direct passed through.

  Master Chen Qingke Blows the Ghost Away

  Before Master Chen became an official, he was friendly with an impoverished scholar from his native district by the name of Li Fu. One autumn evening while the moon was bright, Chen wandered over to Li's residence to pass some time.

  Li was rather embarrassed and said to Chen, "My wife tells me there is nothing to drink in the house, so please have a seat while I go out and buy some wine. We'll be able to appreciate the moon more fully if we drink some wine."

  Chen took out a volume of poetry to read while he waited for his friend to return.

  A moment later the gate was pushed open and a woman with matted hair and tattered clothing came into the courtyard. As soon as she saw Chen she made as if to leave. Chen, assuming the woman was a relative of Li's who was embarrassed by the presence of a guest, turned his back, enabling her to slip inside unhindered.

  Before the woman entered the house, she drew something from her sleeve and slipped it under the doorstep. Chen was puzzled by this behavior, and as soon as she had gone inside he went to find out what she had hidden.

  Beneath the step he found a length of rope that exuded the sickly sweet stench of stale blood. He quickly concluded that she must be the ghost of a woman who had hanged herself. After hiding the rope in his shoe he sat down again.

  After a while the woman with matted hair reappeared. She slipped her hand under the doorstep intending to retrieve her rope. When she found it was gone she was incensed. Rushing at Chen she screamed, "Give me back my things!"

  Chen replied, "What things?"

  Instead of answering, the woman stood stock still, opened her mouth, and blew towards Chen. Her breath was so cold that his hair stood on end and he broke into uncontrollable shivering. The flame of his candle flickered with a bluish light and was almost extinguished.

  Then Chen thought to himself, "Ghosts aren't the only ones who have breath. I have it too!"

  He inhaled deeply and blew hard towards the woman. Wherever his breath touched her form, a cavity appeared. At first there was a cavity in her abdomen, then there was a hole in her chest, and then her head vanished. Soon she had disappeared entirely, blown away like thin smoke.

  Shortly after this, Li, carrying the wine, came running in shouting that his wife had been throttled in her bed.

  Chen laughed. "Don't worry, the ghost's rope is here in my shoe." As they went inside to tend to Li's wife, Chen told Li of the strange events just past.

  They managed to revive Li's wife by forcing some ginger broth down her throat. As soon as she was able to talk they questioned her about her attempted suicide.

  She explained, "Although we are extremely poor, you insist on spending money to entertain your friends. Tonight you took my last remaining hair clasp to pawn for Chen's wine, and even though I was deeply distressed, I couldn't make a scene because Chen was just outside.

  "All of a sudden, a woman with matted hair appeared beside me and introduced herself as our neighbor to the left. She told me that you had pawned the clasp to go gambling and were not intending to entertain Master Chen at all. Hearing this I became even more distressed and angry. It grew later and later and still you hadn't returned with the wine. What's more, Master Chen was still waiting outside and I didn't have the nerve to ask him to leave.

  "Then the woman with matted hair made a circle with her hands and said, 'If you enter this circle then you will reach a Buddhist paradise of limitless joy.' But when I stepped up to her circle, she put her hands around my throat and squeezed as tightly as she could. Her grip, however, wasn't tight enough and the circle kept loosening.

  "Then the woman
said, Til have to fetch my Buddha ribbon to help you achieve nirvana.' She went outside to get this ribbon but she never returned. From then on until you revived me, I drifted in and out of consciousness—it was all like a dream."

  When the three made inquiries in the neighborhood, they discovered that a village woman had indeed hanged herself several months earlier.

  The Tall Ghost Is Captured

  When the Hanlin academician Shen Houyu of Zhudun was young, he was the classmate of a friend of mine by the name of Zhang. Once, Zhang was absent from class for several days running. On inquiring, Shen discovered that Zhang had contracted a severe case of influenza.

  Shen thereupon decided to pay Zhang a courtesy call. On arriving at the Zhang residence, Shen quietly went in through the front gate and was about to enter the main hall when he saw a tall, thin man reading the horizontal tablet in the hall.

  Shen suspected that this was no less than an intruder. Playfully, he untied his belt, crept up to the intruder and quickly bound his legs.

  With a look of complete surprise the tall man swung around to face Shen. Shen promptly interrogated him regarding the nature of his business and his place of origin.

  The tall man explained, "Mr. Zhang is about to die. As a courier of death from the underworld, it is my duty to ensure that the matter is first cleared with the gods of his ancestral hall. Only after this formality is completed can his departure from this world be ensured."

  Shen knew that Zhang's widowed mother was still alive and that Zhang himself was as yet unmarried and therefore without an heir, and so he entreated the tall man to find some way of helping Zhang escape death. The tall man was greatly moved but explained that there was nothing he could do.

  Shen continued his sincere entreaties until eventually the tall man admitted, "There is one possible option. Zhang is due to die at noon tomorrow. Before that time, five guardians of death will be sent here with me. They will enter through the willow tree just outside. Now, because ghosts in the nether world have long been starved of food and drink, once they indulge themselves they often forget their purpose.

  "Tomorrow you should prepare a banquet for six people and wait outside the house. When you feel a gust of wind blow past, that will signal their arrival. Greet them and welcome them inside to sit down and eat. At all times ensure that they are waited upon with the utmost respect. Only when the shadow of the sun signals the end of the day can you assume that the feasting is over. If you perform these deeds, then Zhang will be saved."

  Shen agreed to organize the feast as requested and immediately went off to notify Zhang's family.

  At the appointed time everything went according to the tall man's instructions. By morning Zhang had lost consciousness, and by noon he was on the point of death. Much to Shen's relief, however, Zhang's color returned when the banquet was completed.

  One night a month later, Shen dreamed that the tall man was gazing at him with a furrowed brow and a face etched with pain.

  The man said, "I devised a plan for you so that Mr. Zhang could live another dozen years. He will pass his examinations and become a candidate in the provincial college, as well as raise two sons. But as for me, I was punished with forty strokes and the loss of my job because somebody exposed my disclosure of the underworld's secrets. I am in fact not a ghost but a porter from Xiashi County by the name of Liu Xian.

  "Since the beatings I can no longer walk. I am fated, however, to live for three more years. In my crippled state I have no way of making a living and I need you to ask Mr. Zhang to provide me with an allowance that would enable me to endure the rest of my days."

  Shen relayed the message to Zhang, who immediately gathered a generous supply of gold, arranged the purchase of a boat, and went with Shen to visit the porter. Surely enough, they found the man paralyzed and bedridden. Bowing before the bed, they gave the man all the gold they had brought to show their gratitude for the risk he had taken.

  Thereafter the events foretold in the dream regarding Mr. Zhang's success did indeed occur as predicted.

  The Lady Ghost of the Western Garden

  A man by the name of Zhou who hailed from Hangzhou went traveling with his friend, a Mr. Chen. During their journey they stopped at the Han River and stayed with a local gentry family.

  Although it was nearly autumn, the summer heat lingered, making the rooms they were given feel rather stuffy and cramped. There were, however, several tidy little houses in the western garden of the residence. These faced the hills and a lake and generally looked a lot cooler and quieter than their present rooms. So the two men moved their beds into one of the little houses and slept very well indeed.

  One evening they decided to take a walk in the cool of the evening to admire the moon, and it was about the second watch by the time they returned. Before they had completed their preparations for sleep they heard footsteps in the courtyard and then the sound of someone slowly reciting a poem: "The spring flowers have gone, and the autumn moon is here. Glancing round I see distant Mount Wu, and the hair on my temple continues to gray."

  At first they thought it might be their host taking a walk. But the voice was not at all like his and so they quickly put on their clothes and peered out into the moonlight. There before them was a beautiful woman, leaning gracefully against the fence. The two men whispered their surprise, for neither had heard mention of such a woman in the household. She wore clothes that were clearly not the contemporary fashion, so they deduced that she was either a ghost or a spirit.

  Chen, a youthful sort who was easily aroused, said carelessly, "She's so incredibly beautiful I really couldn't care if she's a ghost or a demon!" He then called out, "Look here, my beauty! Come in and chat with us for a while!"

  From outside the courtyard came the reply, "Why should I come in? Why don't you come out?"

  Chen grabbed Zhou by the arm and rushed outside. Strangely enough, there was nobody there. So they called out and then followed the direction of the reply. This continued for a while and soon the two men found themselves among trees.

  Peering through the darkness, they suddenly saw a woman's head hanging from a willow tree. They screamed in horror only to see the head fall to the ground and bounce towards them. They rushed back to the courtyard with the head close on their heels, slammed the door shut, and pushed against it with all their might to prevent the head from breaking through. Undeterred, the head began to gnaw ferociously at the door, grinding and crunching.

  Just when the men thought that the head was going to catch them, a rooster crowed, signaling the new day. Instantly the gnawing ceased and the head bounded back towards the lake and disappeared. As soon as it was well and truly light, Chen and Zhou moved their bedding back into their former cramped rooms. Both men were sick for more than ten days after this episode.

  A Sentry Is Struck by Lightning

  In 1738, during the Qianlong emperor's reign, a sentry died after being struck by lightning. The event was considered rather strange by those who knew the dead man because he was generally thought of as a decent sort of fellow.

  Then an old soldier told the deceased's story. "Although he has lived a decent life these last few years, twenty years ago, after he joined the forces, there was a nasty incident involving him that I got to hear about, since we were in the same platoon. The general had arranged to do some hunting in the Gaoling Mountain region and our now-dead colleague was instructed to set up camp along the road.

  "It so happened that as night was falling a young nun came walking past the tents. The soldier, checking first that no one was around, dragged her into one of the tents and tried to rape her. She fought back and was finally able to escape, albeit without her trousers. The soldier chased the nun for quite some time, but when she took refuge in a farmhouse he had to return to the campsite unsatisfied.

  "At the time, the mistress of the farmhouse was alone with her small son, since her husband, a casual laborer, was still out working. She was not at all keen to let this strange nun into h
er house, but after the nun explained what had happened and begged for assistance the woman softened and drew her inside. The nun borrowed a pair of trousers and promised to return them within three days. By dawn the next day the nun had left the house.

  "When the laborer returned home for a fresh pair of clothes, his wife discovered that in her haste she must have given the nun her husband's trousers instead of her own, since there were no more clean trousers belonging to her husband in the chest. Annoyed by her mistake, she was just about to explain everything to her husband when their young boy said, 'A monk came last night and wore them home.'

  "The husband grew suspicious and pressed the boy for more details. The boy told him that the previous night a monk had come and asked his mother for shelter, taken the trousers, and left while it was still dark. The wife frantically explained that it was a nun, not a monk, but her husband was furious and beat her as punishment. When he checked his wife's story with the neighbors, he found that none of them had seen anything. His wife, for her part, couldn't bear the injustice of his accusations and so she hanged herself.

  "The day after her death, the man answered a knock at his door to find a young nun, carrying the trousers and bearing a basket of pastries as thanks. The little boy pointed at the nun and said, 'That's the monk who came and stayed the other night.' The man was overcome with remorse at the gravity of his mistake. He dragged his son to the foot of the wife's coffin, beat the boy to death, then hanged himself. The neighbors, unwilling to face a huge official inquiry, simply buried the bodies and let the matter rest.

  "The next winter, when the general returned to the same locality to hunt, someone mentioned the tragedy to him. I knew it was this sentry who had precipitated the unfortunate chain of events, but since the case had gone no further, I decided to let the matter rest. Later on, when we were alone, I told the sentry what had happened. Naturally, he was extremely worried. From then on he lived a life of virtue hoping to atone for his sins. Ultimately, however, heaven will exact its punishment."