Censored by Confucius (14 page)

Two Corpses Make Love in the Wilderness

There once lived a brave old itinerant who spent his time wandering alone around Hunan and Guangdong. He did, however, regularly return to an old deserted temple. One bright moonlit night he decided to go for an evening stroll in the nearby forest.

In the distance he saw a figure dressed in the clothes of the Tang dynasty. Deducing he had chanced upon a ghost, our fearless itinerant followed the figure through the thick undergrowth and watched as it descended into an ancient grave.

The itinerant decided this must be one of the "rigor-mortis corpses," who forfeit all their power if they lose the lid of their coffin. Resolving to steal the lid, he resumed his place in the undergrowth the following night and waited for the corpse to leave.

Around the second watch, the corpse indeed left the grave. It appeared to be heading in the direction our brave itinerant had seen it coming from the previous night. Curiosity aroused, the man followed the ghost to a huge mansion.

The ghost stood beneath an open window inside which stood a woman dressed in red. She threw down a long, white scarf and the corpse quickly climbed up into her room. Thereafter the man could hear a lot of noise, but gradually all was quiet. He decided to return alone to the now vacant grave to hide the coffin lid. Having done so, he concealed himself in some thick bushes in the nearby pine forest.

Just before dawn the corpse came hurrying back to the grave. When he saw his coffin lid was missing he flew into a panic and ran about, searching high and low. He finally gave up and hurried back to the mansion, with the itinerant following. Once there the corpse leaped about screaming wildly, trying to attract the attention of the woman inside.

When she finally appeared, she waved at him as if to tell him to
leave. When he refused, she looked very shocked indeed. Then the cocks crowed, heralding the start of a new day. In that instant the corpse fell to the roadside in a heap.

That day a crowd of shocked people gathered to see the corpse. When they reached the mansion, it was discovered the building was actually an ancestral temple for the Zhou family. On venturing inside they discovered in an upstairs room the corpse of a woman lying next to an empty coffin. It was then everyone realized that these two corpses must have been copulating in the wilderness each night.

They then decided to cremate the corpses together.

King Buffalo Head

Zhuang Guangyu of Liyang Village dreamed one night that a monster with horns protruding from its gruesome head came knocking at his door.

The monster said to Zhuang, "I am King Buffalo Head and the Great Lord on High has instructed me to come here and receive offerings. If you build a statue in my likeness, I will ensure prosperity and good fortune."

The next morning Zhuang told his fellow villagers of the strange dream. They were extremely enthusiastic about the prospect of good fortune, as the village was currently in the midst of an epidemic.

"It would pay us to trust in this monster. Besides, we've nothing to lose." They rallied around and pooled their savings, reaching a grand total of several tens of thousands. With the proceeds they built three thatched huts and a statue in the image of King Buffalo Head. The statue was duly positioned in the middle hut and from hereon in, the villagers made regular offerings to the king.

It wasn't long before the epidemic disappeared. Even more convincing, those folk who asked to give birth to sons appeared to have their wishes granted. The temple, needless to say, became the focus for generous offerings and incense for several years to follow.

Then one day, a villager by the name of Zhou Manzi went to the temple to seek a cure for his young son's smallpox. He made generous offerings of freshly killed meat as part of his worship, and his horoscope was read while he was there so he would have some indication of his son's fate. The horoscope predicted a positive outcome for his son's future. Zhou was ecstatic, so he hired a troop of actors to perform outside the temple as an expression of his gratitude.

A few days later, however, Zhou's son was dead. This turn of events left Zhou furious.

"I was relying on my son to till the fields and feed me in my old age.
It would have been better if I had died in his place!"

In a fit of rage, he and his wife took up their garden hoes, stormed into the temple, and smashed the statue. They began with the head and continued until the temple itself was reduced to a pile of rubble.

The rest of the villagers were terrified. They were certain a great calamity would befall the village as a consequence of this vandalism. In actual fact nothing untoward happened in the village, and to this day nobody knows where the god with the buffalo head went.

The Muddleheaded Ghost

In 1774, during the reign of the Qianlong emperor, a young rascal by the name of Hanliu was detained in the capital on charges of beating and injuring his father. The Board of Punishment investigated the case and it was decided that Hanliu should be executed.

One of deputies of the board, however, was of the opinion that since the attack had not been fatal, the death sentence was not appropriate. He was overruled by the chief justice, Mr. Qin, who personally wrote a memorial to the throne arguing that the relationship between father and son was sacred and Hanliu had committed a grave sin by injuring his father.

The throne upheld the death penalty and furthermore sent the Board of Punishment's secretary, Mr. Li Huaizhong, to supervise the execution.

Three days after the execution Hanliu's ghost possessed Secretary Li and said, "All the other officials were prepared to forgive me but you insisted on having me executed. I have carried this grievance to the grave and now, as a ghost, I have resolved to take your life."

Everyone who heard this ranting was shocked at the ghost's muddleheaded understanding of the debate surrounding his execution, but they were completely powerless. Li was bedridden from that day on, and it wasn't long before he had passed away.

The Ghost That Stood in Awe of the Powerful

A young man by the name of Zhang Balang had an affair with one of his maids, but as soon as he was married he abandoned her. This maid fell into a deep depression and soon died of misery.

"I will never forgive Balang for the way he has treated me!" she said with her dying breath.

Then all of a sudden her eyes popped open again and she said, "Balang carries an extremely strong karma, so it will be difficult to exact my revenge on him personally. I think I'll go for his wife instead!"

Before two years were up, Balang's wife had died from complications during childbirth.

The Lovesick Ghost

In Yuezhou there is a man from the Zhang family with the name Third Master Ghost. The name arose from the fact that he was the third son born, but also because his father was a ghost. His nominal father was a scholar at an academy, and his mother, a Madam Chen, was an incredibly sensual woman.

One day, as Scholar Zhang and his wife lay resting on their bed, a ghost who called himself Little God Yunyang appeared out of nowhere and started having intercourse with Madam Chen.

Zhang felt himself pushed aside and from then on he was unable to do anything at all. It was as if his hands and feet were bound fast.

After this episode the Zhangs bought various charms and amulets in an attempt to expurgate the demon, but none of these had any effect. The ghost continued to visit Madam Chen. She became pregnant three months later and gave birth to a boy.

On the day of the birth strange, ghostly noises filled the air. It appeared the ghosts had come to offer their congratulations, for lots of coins dropped from the sky.

Mr. Zhang was extremely angry about the whole affair and went to Mount Longhu to ask a resident Daoist priest for help.

One morning after this, Little God Yunyang came staggering into Madam Chen's bedroom dripping with sweat, saying, "I'm in deep trouble. Last night I went to your neighbor Mr. Mao's place and stole his golden vase. Unfortunately, Zhong Kui, a figure in one of the scrolls hanging on the wall, leaped out of the picture and chased me, swords and all.

"I was absolutely terrified that he would do some real damage, so I ran off and threw the vase into the pond by the West Lane. I've come here to seek your help! Please give me some alcohol to calm my nerves."

Madam Chen told her husband what had happened and Zhang went to confirm the story with the Mao family.

It turned out they really had lost their golden vase the previous night. The entire household was in turmoil and they were just about to report the incident to the police in the hope of apprehending the thief.

Zhang then interceded. "I can help you retrieve your vase, but I would like something in return."

Mr. Mao was ecstatic and said, "You can choose whatever you like, if only you find my golden vase for me."

Zhang pretended to go into a trance by chanting an incantation, and after quite some time told everyone to go to the pond by the West Lane. The good swimmers among them were ordered to dive in and search the bottom for the vase. Sure enough, the vase was found.

Mr. Mao asked Scholar Zhang to take the seat of honor at their table and asked what Zhang would like in return.

"Well, a scholar like me isn't really concerned about money or material possessions, but I really would like a book or a couple of scrolls from your collection. One or two pieces would be plenty," Zhang said.

So the Mao family showed Zhang their collection and he chose a painting of a hibiscus by Wen Zhengming. The Macs insisted that this alone was far too little and that unless he chose another piece they would really feel very badly.

Zhang pointed at the scroll of Zhong Kui hanging on the wall and said, "Can I take this one as my second scroll? Would that be all right?"

Mr. Mao reluctantly agreed to this request and Zhang returned home with the scroll and immediately hung it on the wall.

From that day on, Little God Yunyang never invaded their bedroom again. However, a ghost could be heard crying and wailing in the trees of the courtyard for three whole days after the scroll was hung. Everyone said that the ghost was lovesick.

Thunder Strikes the Earth God

During the reign of the Kangxi emperor, the prefect of Shidai was a man by the name of Wang Yixin. He was a very close friend of a man called Lin. After his death Lin became the earth god for Shidai, and the two friends, though separated by death, would get together every evening and chat late into the night, just as they had before.

On one of these occasions the earth god whispered secretively to Wang, "Your family faces a great calamity. I had to tell you. Though I'm pretty sure I'll be punished by the Powers That Be for leaking confidential information."

Wang begged for details of the nature of this calamity and finally he was told, "Your mother will be struck by lightning."

Wang was flabbergasted and pleaded with his friend to help prevent this misfortune. Wang received the reply:

"This is a debt of karma that your mother has accumulated during her previous lives. Besides, how can I help when my rank is so low?"

Wang begged and pleaded tearfully for any idea that might prevent this calamity.

Eventually the earth god acquiesced. "There is one possibility. You must behave in the most filial manner possible. You should also increase your mother's belongings and food ten times. That includes everything she wears, eats, and drinks as part of her normal daily life.

"If you do this, she will consume her allocation of life's luxuries in a minimum period and will thus reach the point of death more quickly. If she dies in this way, she will go peacefully. The thunder god won't be able to do anything to her," the earth god assured him.

Wang did as his friend advised, and surely enough his mother died within a few years.

Three years after her death there was a torrential downpour, and in a flash the thunder god appeared right inside Wang's house. He paced aggressively around the coffin containing the body of Wang's mother,
and suddenly the room was filled with a tremendous noise, flashes of light, and the pungent odor of sulfur.

The thunder god, unable to strike his desired target, had split the house open in revenge. Then the lightning forked out towards the earth god's temple, struck the statue, and reduced it to mud.

Zhang Guangxiong

In Zhili there was an intelligent, good-looking young man by the name of Zhang Guangxiong. When he reached the age of eighteen, he moved into the western chambers of his family home to study in quieter surroundings. In the house of a wealthy family there were always plenty of maidservants around, but Zhang's parents kept him closely supervised to ensure that nothing untoward happened between their son and the maids.

On the night of the seventh of July, when the town celebrated the festival of lovers, Zhang Guangxiong sat in his study dreaming of the legendary romance between the cowherd and the weaving maid. As he gazed at the stars be began to think that he would rather fancy it if one of the maids accompanied him while he studied.

In the midst of this fantasy, a beautiful woman suddenly appeared outside his window. He called out to her but received no reply. Only a short time later, though, she came strolling into his room and stopped directly in front of him. He looked carefully at her and soon realized she was not one of the maids employed in the house, so he asked her name.

"I am Miss Wang," she said.

He then persisted with his questioning. "Do you live around here?"

"I live to the west of your house, so we are in fact neighbors. I have long been an admirer of yours, so today I decided to come and meet you in person," she replied.

Zhang was ecstatic and it wasn't long before they were back in his bedroom making love. She came every night after this to sleep with Zhang.

Zhang had always had a houseboy sleeping in his room with him, but Miss Wang objected to his presence. "We don't need your little slave so nearby now. Why don't you send him further away? If we need him, we can always call him."