Censored by Confucius (12 page)

The relieved villagers shouted with joy and then bowed their he
ads with prayers of thanks to the wisdom of heaven before heading back to their homes.

Swindled by the Earth God's Wife

At the Huju Gate area there is a famous doctor by the name of Tu Qieru who happens to be a very good friend of mine. His daughter-in-law, Madam Wu, is the younger sister of a famous personage renowned for his filial piety and honor.

In 1776 Madam Wu dreamed she met up with a Mr. Li, a local conscript who was begging for alms. Mr. Li was carrying on his person a set of Buddhist scriptures that predicted the future, and one of the events it foretold was that the Huju Gate area would soon suffer a calamitous fire.

Mr. Li claimed to be collecting alms to finance an opera in honor of the gods in the hope of preventing this fire, but Madam Wu remained only half convinced by his story. It was true that the scriptures included detailed notes on names and places, but it still seemed rather an unlikely event.

While she was hesitating, an old woman in a yellow blouse and a crimson skirt appeared and said to her: "On the third of September a blaze will occur and your family will be the first affected. My numerical calculations suggest that you will not escape.

"What you need to do to prevent this calamity is to bum spirit money and make a few animal sacrifices. That should appease the gods and with luck will ensure no one is killed in the fire."

When Madam Wu woke from her dream she inquired about Conscript Li and discovered he had died many years before. She then asked if anyone knew of the woman with the yellow blouse, but to no avail.

She grew increasingly suspicious about the information given her in the dream, so she went to the local earth god's temple. She was both astonished and fearful to find that the idol representing the earth god's wife was identical to the woman in her dream.

When she consulted her neighbors about the coincidence, they were equally fearful and hurried off to organize an extraordinary show of
devotion and respect to the temple. They put on dramatic performances, made special offerings, and raised several hundred taels of gold with which they bought supplies to continue the ritual.

When September drew near, the Tu family moved all their smaller household items to a relative's house. From the first of September they stopped cooking in the house and when the day of the third arrived there was quiet all around the neighborhood.

The day passed without a fire and in fact my good friend Mr. Tu is still quite safe today.

The Good Little Ghost

In Jinling there was a young fellow by the name of Ge who loved drinking and acting tough. He was forever harassing and bullying other people.

Early one morning he and a group of friends went to Yuhuatai Park, where they chanced upon a partly rotted coffin. A piece of a red skirt was hanging through the rotted boards.

Ge's companions baited him, saying: "You're pretty good at heckling people, but would you dare bother that thing in the coffin?"

Ge laughed. "Why not?" He strode to the coffin and beckoned to it several times, saying, "That's a good little girl, come out and have some wine with me!"

Ge's friends were most impressed with his bravado and roared with laughter before going their separate ways.

As he made his way home that evening Ge was tailed by a black shadow that chittered eerily, "Your good little girl has come for some wine."

Ge knew that this must be the ghost from the rotted coffin and decided to keep the upper hand. He boldly greeted the shadow, saying, "Come along with me, my good little ghost."

He made his way toward a wineshop, went upstairs, and ordered a jug of wine for two. He then raised his cup and toasted the black shadow.

None of the tavern's patrons could see the shadow, so they assumed Ge was an idiot and gathered around to have a bit of a laugh.

After Ge and the shadow had drunk for a while, Ge took off his hat, placed it on the table, and said, "I'm just going downstairs to relieve myself. I'll be back in a moment."

The shadow nodded in reply.

Ge went downstairs and immediately rushed home.

The bartender later noticed that one of his guests had left without
taking his hat and so he filched it. But that night he was possessed by a ghost. He spent the entire night muttering and mumbling and by daybreak he had finally hanged himself.

The wineshop keeper later said laughingly, "That ghost couldn't even distinguish between two entirely different people. She could only recognize the hat!

"That 'good little girl' was not so good after all!"

The Ghosts Who Pretended They Could Speak Mandarin

The current superintendent of transport for Hedong, Wu Yuncong, was once a secretary for the Board of Punishment. One day a festival was being held on the street outside Wu's residence, and a maid took his young son to see the fun.

While they were out, the little boy needed to empty his bladder and did so on the side of the road. Instantly he began to cry, and he kept on crying even after he had been taken home by the worried maid.

Nobody in the house could understand why he was crying until later that night, when the young boy suddenly spoke in Mandarin: "What a rude little boy! How dare he urinate on my head! I'll make sure you all pay for this insult!"

The crying then continued unabated throughout the night.

The next morning the incensed and exhausted Mr. Wu wrote a complaint against this ghost addressed to the city god. He then took the letter to the city god's temple and burned it.

The letter contained words to the effect, "I am a southerner and my young son has unintentionally offended a Mandarin-speaking ghost. This ghost is extremely wild and totally unscrupulous. Can you please investigate this case for me and bring some relief to my son?"

That night the house was peaceful, but the following night the young boy was once again tormented by the ghost.

When he spoke, again in Mandarin, he said, "You are merely a low-level official. How dare you humiliate our Brother Number Four. We are all going to take our revenge unless you give us some wine."

Mr. Wu's wife was keen to avoid any further chaos, so she brought out the wine for the ghost and his companions, saying, "Please accept this wine. I don't want any more trouble! So please, just drink it and leave."

The problem was not to be resolved that simply, however. As soon
as one ghost had drunk his fill, another would demand more wine. Demands came for meat, sausages, and snacks from the Yang family shop across the road to accompany the wine. The ghosts began to make all sorts of high-pitched screeches.

The noise was unbearable, so Mr. Wu rushed forward and slapped his son about the face shouting, "You vermin! You've changed your speech to Mandarin just to imitate the officials. You'll really regret it if you're trying to pull rank on me by speaking Mandarin!"

He began to beat his son, but still the boy spoke in Mandarin.

In desperation Mr. Wu filed another complaint to the city god: "That Mandarin-speaking ghost has come back and possessed my son. I beg of you, please punish him and banish him from my home."

That evening the boy's parents heard the sound of whipping and beating from his room.

The ghosts could be heard crying out above the thuds, "Please! No more! Don't beat us any more! We'll leave, we promise!"

From then on, Wu's son had no more trouble with ghosts.

The City God Gets Drunk

A scholar by the name of Shen Fengyu from Hangzhou made his living as a secretary in the judiciary of Wukang County.

One day a memorandum demanding the capture of a pirate by the name of Shen Yufeng passed down through his office. One of the other secretaries in the office saw the opportunity for a joke and quickly reversed the characters for
Feng
and
Yu
with red pen. The message now demanded the capture of Shen Fengyu.

The mischievous secretary showed Shen Fengyu the document, saying, "They're coming to get you! They'll be here to arrest you any minute!"

Shen didn't see anything funny in this at all. He snatched the memorandum and burned it.

That night he dreamed he was arrested by the ghost police. They rushed into his room, tied him up, and locked him in the city god's temple.

The city god sat in his seat of honor and shouted down at Shen, "So you are that murderous pirate! The blood of many people is on your hands! You really are the lowest form of life!" He then instructed his officers to torture the prisoner.

Shen hastily protested that he was a scholar from Hangzhou and not a pirate, but this only made the city god more angry.

He barked back at Shen, "The Regulations of the Underworld demand that we support our fellow bureaucrats in the Human World. Whenever we receive a memorandum from above, we act on it.

"Today we received a document from Wukang County that clearly identified you as a pirate and called for your immediate arrest. How dare you deny your crimes!"

Shen continued his attempts at defense by explaining how his friend, Yuan, had played a stupid trick by reversing the names, but the city god refused to listen. The order was then given that Shen be beaten with thick cudgels as punishment.

As Shen screamed in pain from the beatings one of the officers leaned over and whispered to him, "The city god got drunk with his wife today, so if you want a fair hearing, you had better see another magistrate."

Shen glanced up at the city god. Sure enough, his face was bright red and his eyelids drooped from the effects of his drinking binge. There was no use pleading for mercy from this drunken city god, so Shen had no choice but to endure the beating.

Once this was over, the city god ordered that Shen be escorted to a nearby jail. On the way there, they passed by the temple of the god of war, Guandi.

Shen saw his chance and shouted as loudly as he could: "I have been unjustly punished!"

The god of war took up this complaint and called Shen over to explain his case.

After Shen had recounted the sequence of events, Guandi drew a piece of yellow paper from his desk and wrote out a lengthy ruling on the matter in red pen.

"It is clear from your manner of speech that you are indeed a scholar. The city god had no right to conduct a hearing and administer punishments while inebriated. I will see that he is punished for this crime.

"Moreover, your fellow secretary Mr. Yuan should not play around with other people's lives in such a flippant manner, so I will take away his own life as punishment.

"Finally, your immediate superior has been neglectful of his duties, allowing such folly to take place in his offices. But since he was away on business yesterday, I will only fine him three months' salary.

"As for you, Mr. Shen, your beating has irreparably damaged your intestines, and you'll certainly die as a result. However, I will arrange for your reincarnation. You will be reborn as the son of a Shanxi family.

"When you are only twenty years old you will pass the third level of the imperial examinations and become an official. This should recompense you for some of the grievances you have suffered in your current life."

This speech sent the ghost police scampering back to the Underworld.

When Shen woke from his dream, he felt a great pain in his stomach
and called out to his colleagues for help. He told them of the dream, and sure enough, within three days he was dead.

When Yuan heard of Shen's death he was gripped with fear. He immediately resigned from his position as secretary and headed back to his hometown. Not long after this, however, he died vomiting blood.

Around the same time, the city god's statue fell from its base for no apparent reason, and Shen's
superior, the magistrate, was fined three months' salary for misappropriation of government revenue.