The Gengs of Taiyuan were an aristocratic family of long standing who lived in an enormous manor. Eventually their fortunes declined and half of the rambling complex of storied buildings and living quarters was left desolate.
This gave rise to hauntings: the door to the main hall often opened and closed by itself, and the household members repeatedly broke the night stillness with terrified cries. Geng found this so disturbing that he moved to a country residence, leaving an old caretaker to watch the gate. From then on the place became even more negelected and overgrown. Laughter and music could sometimes be heard within.
Geng had a nephew named Sickness-Free, who was a wild, uninhibited youth. The nephew instructed the caretaker to report anything he saw or heard without delay.
One night lamplight was seen flickering in one of the storied buildings. When the caretaker rushed to inform him of this, the scholar wanted to enter the building and observe the disturbances. Attempts to dissuade him were in vain.
He had long been familiar with the layout of the buildings, but this time he had to push a circuitous way through thick mugworts and brambles. He climbed to the upper story of one building without seeing anything suspicious. Passing through the building, his ears caught the sibilance of human speech. Peeking into a room lighted in daylike brilliance by a pair of large candles, he saw a man in a scholar’s cap seated facing a woman at the south of the room. Both were in their forties. On the east side was a young man, probably in his twenties, and on his right was a young woman who had just reached the hairpin age of fifteen. They sat talking jovially around a table laden with meat and wine. The scholar barged in and cried out laughingly: “An uninvited guest had arrived.” The frightened group ran to hide. The old man alone came out and asked in rebuking tones: “Who are you that you dare to enter other people’s private chambers?”
“These are my family’s chambers,” said the scholar. “You have taken them over. You drink exquisite wine by yourselves, without so much as asking the master of the house to join you. Aren’t you pushing your stinginess too far?”
“You are not the master of the house,”said the old man, inspecting him with a sidelong glance.
“I am the wayward scholar Geng Sickness-Free, nephew of the master of this house.”
The old man uttered a respectful greeting: “I’ve long looked up to your luminosity!”
After bowing the scholar into the room, he called on his servants to replace the food on the table. The scholar stopped him, so the old man poured wine for his guest. The scholar said, “There is friendship between our families, so the guests who were just at table need not remain separate. I earnestly hope you will call them back to have a drink.”
“Xiao-er!”called the man. A young man came quickly from outside. The older man said, “This is my humble child.” The youth bowed and sat down. The conversation opened with inquiries into each other’s family backgrounds. The older man volunteered: “My foster-father is surnamed Hu.”
The scholar had always been outgoing, and his conversation sparkled with wit. Xiao-er, too, had an easy, charming manner. In the course of a forthright conversation, each felt attached to the other. The scholar, being twenty-one years old, was two years older than his friend, so he addressed Xiao-er as a younger brother.
The old man spoke up: “I’ve heard that your grandfather compiled The Legends of Tushan. Do you know about it?”
“Yes I do.”
“I am descended from the Tushan line,” said the old man. “I can remember my family tree to as far back as the Tang Dynasty (618-906), but there are no records of our lineage from the Five Dynasties period and before. I would feel fortunate if you could impart some of what you know.”
The scholar gave a brief account of the assistance which the maid of Tushan had rendered to Emperor Yu. He embellished the new story with many fine phrases, and his flow of captivating thoughts gushed forth like a spring. The old man said to his son in great delight: “This is a chance to hear what we’ve never heard before. The young gentleman is not an outsider; go ahead and ask your mother and Qingfeng to listen with us, so they too will know of my ancestor’s glory.”
Xiao-er went behind a curtain. In a moment the woman appeared with the girl. Geng took a good long look at her. Her dainty poise breathed loveliness, and her eyes rippled with brilliance like autumn pools. Nowhere in the world of men was such beauty to be seen. The old man pointed first to his wife and then to the girl: “This is my old wife, and this is my niece Qingfeng. She has quite a head on her shoulders. She always remembers everything she hears and sees, so I called her here to listen.”
After the scholar finished telling his tale the drinking began. He turned his eyes to the young woman and let his gaze rest upon her. Sensing his glance she did nothing but lower her head. The scholar furtively placed his foot on her lotus-like slipper. She drew her foot quickly away, but gave no sign of displeasure. The scholar’s roving thoughts robbed him of self-command. With a slap on the table he blurted: “If I had a wife like this, I would not trade places with a king facing south on his throne!”
Seeing the scholar become even more boisterous as he succumbed to the wine, the woman and the girl rose, hurriedly parted the curtain and left the room. The disappointed scholar took leave of the old man and departed, but the threads of affection tugged at his heart, and he could not rid his thought of Qingfeng.
At nightfall the next day he went back to the manor. Her orchidmusk remained in the air. He passed the night absorbed in waiting, but not so much as a cough of hers was heard.
Returning home, he broached to his wife his plan to take the family there and stay, in hopes of having an encounter. Since his wife did not assent, he went alone.
That night, as he sat reading at a desk in the lower story of the mansion, a wildhaired ghost with a lacquer-black face entered and stared wide-eyed at him. He laughingly dipped his fingers in freshly-rubbed ink, smeared it on his face and looked back at the ghost with a burning gaze. The ghost left in shame.
Late the following night he had blown out his candle and was about to retire when he heard a bolt sliding open in the rear of the mansion, followed by the thud of an opening door. He rushed to take a look. A doorleaf was standing ajar. There was a sudden pattering of slippers, and the light of a candle shone from inside. He saw that it was Qingfeng. Frightened at the unexpected sight of the scholar, she backed away and slammed the double-leaved door. The scholar knelt upright before her door and delivered his plea: “It was for your sake that I did not shrink from danger. By good fortune no one else is here. If you were to grant me just once the joy of a touch of your hand, I would face death itself without regret.”
The girl spoke through the intervening door: “Do not suppose that I know nothing of the heart-gripping longing you feel, but my uncle raised me by a stern code of womanly conduct: I dare not obey your wish.”
The scholar kept pleading, nevertheless: “I do not presume to hope for bodily intimacy: it would be enough just to see your face.”The girl seemed amenable to this. She opened the door and came out. In a paroxysm of delight the scholar took her arm and drew her into the mansion, where he sat her on his lap and embraced her.
“It is fortunate that fate has brought us together,” said the girl.”But no matter how much we yearn for each other, it will do us no good after tonight.”
“Why is that?”asked the scholar.
“Your wildness frightened my uncle, so he disguised himself as a fierce ghost to frighten you, but you were not fazed. Now he has already found another place to live. The whole family has taken our belongings and moved to our new home. They left me here to watch the place, but I have to leave tomorrow.”
Then she rose to leave, saying: “I’m afraid my uncle will come back.” The scholar, who wanted to enjoy himself with her, did his utmost to detain her. The matter was still under discussion when her uncle entered stealthily. The shamed, frightened girl would have crawled into a hole had there been one handy. She bowed her head and leaned against the bed, wordlessly fingering her sash.
“You are a disgrace to my family, you cheap chambermaid!” roared the uncle. “If you don’t get out of here now, I’ll speed you on your way with a whip.” The girl rushed from the room, her head lowered abjectly, and her uncle followed. As the scholar trailed behind them listening, the old man’s raving curses and Qingfeng’s muffled sobs pierced him to the heart.
“I am the guilty one,” he shouted after them. “This is not Qingfeng’s fault. If you’ll be lenient with her, I’ll gladly bear any punishment, be it by sword, saw, hatchet or axe.” All sounds died down into prolonged silence. The scholar went back to bed.
From this time on not a breath of noise was heard in the manor. The scholar’s uncle, amazed by the news of these events, agreed to sell the manor to his nephew without haggling over the price. The scholar was delighted: he moved into the manor with his family. They lived there quite comfortably for more than a year, but the scholar never forgot Qingfeng.
Then, while returning from the family graves on Tomb Sweeping Day, he happened to see two small foxes closely pursued by hounds. One of them ducked into the brush, but the other was so frightened it kept running on the road. Seeing the scholar, it clung to his side whining pathetically, ears folded back and head hanging, as if to beg for help. The scholar’s pity was aroused. He loosened his robe, picked up the fox and carried it home in his arms.
When he closed the door to his room and put it onto the bed, it turned into Qingfeng. What joy he felt! He consoled her and asked how she had come to this pass.
“Just now I was out frolicking with a maid servant, when this terrible calamity threatened us. If it had not been for you, I would be buried now in a dog’s stomach. I hope you don’t hate me for not being one of your kind.”
The scholar replied, “My constant yearning for you intrudes into the dreams of my soul. Seeing you is like discovering a precious treasure. How can you say hate?”
“This meeting was fixed by the workings of fate. If it had not been for that near calamity, how could I be able to serve you? Fortunately for us, the maidservant will surely think I am dead. Now we can hold fast to our eternal vow.”
With joy in his heart the scholar set the girl up in rooms separate from his family.
Two years passed. One night the scholar was in the middle of his reading when Xiao-er came into his room. The startled scholar put down his book and asked the reason for his coming.
Xiao-er prostrated himself and said woefully: “My father is facing an unexpected disaster. Only you can save him. He would have come to plead with you himself, but he feared you would not grant his request, so he sent me.”
“Well, what is it?””asked the scholar.
“Do you know Mo the Third Son?”
“He is the son of a man who took examinations the year I did,” said the scholar.
Xiao-er said, “He will pass by here tomorrow. If he is carrying a fox taken in the hunt, please ask him to leave it here.”
“The shame your father subjected me to in the mansion still burns in my heart. Let me hear no more of what does not concern me. If you insist on my doing what little I can, I will do only if Qingfeng comes to me first!”
“Cousin Qingfeng died in the fields three years ago!” Xiao-er sniffled as he spoke.
The scholar retorted with a sweep of his sleeve, “If so, my resentment is so much the greater!” He picked up his book and loudly intoned a poem, without lifting his gaze in the slightest. Xiao-er rose and cried himself hoarse, then walked out, hiding his face in his hands. The scholar went to Qingfeng’s room to let her know.
“Will you save him or not?”she asked, her face gone pale.
“I’ll save him all right. My refusal just now was my way of repaying his past spitefulness.”
At this the girl brightened: “I was orphaned at an early age, but my uncle took me in and raised me. Though he once offended you, that was only because of the family discipline he had demanded of me.”
“True,” said the scholar. “But one can’t help holding it against him. If you were really dead, I wouldn’t lift a finger for him.”
“You really are hard-hearted!” she said with a laugh.
Sure enough, Mo the Third Son showed up the next day sporting
engraved harness ornaments, a bowcase of tiger skin and an impressive entourage. Meeting him at the gate, the scholar saw that he had bagged a fair amount of game. Among it was a black fox, still warm to the touch, its fur matted with dark red blood. The scholar asked to have it, claiming that he needed the pelt to patch his worn fur coat. Mo parted with it magnanimously.
The scholar turned it over to Qingfeng and drank wine with his guest. When the guest had gone, the girl held the fox in her arms. After three days it came back to life. Then, through several stages, it changed back into her uncle.
Qingfeng was the first to meet his eyes when he looked up, which led him to suspect that he was no longer in the world of men. When the girl had gone through the true story, he bowed down and stammered an apology for his past offence. That done, he turned beamingly to the girl and said, “I kept saying that you weren’t dead: now it turns out that I was right!”
The girl said to the scholar: “I also beg you, if you care for me, to give us the use of a building, so that I can care for the one who has cared for me.” The scholar assented. The old man then excused himself blushingly and left. That night he returned with his whole family. From then on they lived like one big family, all ill feelings left in the past.
The scholar lived a secluded life in his studio, but Xiao-er frequently joined him for wine and conversation. As the son born to the scholar’s wife grew older, Xiao-er was asked to act as tutor, because he taught with skill and patience and conducted himself as a teacher should.
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