A scholar named Li Boyan, from Xishui, Shandong, was a straightforward, upright and brave man. Suddenly he collapsed with some kind of acute illness.
When his family members brought him medicine, he pushed it aside and said: “No medicine can cure me. The Nether World needs a manager, and I am wanted to serve in that post temporarily. After my death, don’t bury me and wait for my return.” On the very same day, Li breathed his last.
A servant put Li on a cart and soon they entered a palace, where Li was handed the crown and robe belonging to the King of Hell. All the clerks were standing by waiting for his orders. On the desk were books and documents waiting to be tended to.
One document recorded a case. The document explained that in the south, a thug had raped eighty-two women. Upon investigation, the charge against the man had proved true. According to the laws of the Nether World, the man was to be put to the most severe punishment. In the place of punishment stood a thick bronze pillar about three meters tall. The pillar was hollow inside but was now being heated red with firewood. Several ghost bailiffs beat the thug with some sort of iron instrument and then forced him to climb the heated bronze pillar. To avoid a further beating, the man quickly climbed to the top of the pillar but smoke billowed up, and with a sudden loud cracking sound, the man slid back down to the ground. Huddling there, it took him a while before he came to again. Once again, the ghosts drove him up the pillar and he was driven back down by the smoke. After the third time, he totally fell apart and lost his original shape.
There was another case. A man named Wang was charged by the father of his maid for forcibly taking away his daughter. Wang was in fact related to Li Boyan. When Wang learned that someone was selling a maiden, he bought her, though he knew that the sale was illegal and therefore the price asked was rather low. One day, Wang saw his friend Zhou. Zhou realized that Wang had long been dead and what he was seeing was Wang’s ghost. So he ran home and hid in his study. Wang went to Zhou’s study, to plead with him to please appear in the Nether World court and prove his innocence, saying: “You saw how I paid for the girl, but now I am being charged with forcibly taking her. Please tell the court I am innocent.” Zhou refused and Wang said: “Well, like it or not you will have to do it.” A few days later, Zhou died and was taken to the Nether World court to be a witness. When Li Boyan saw Wang, he decided to himself that he must try to protect his relative. Just then the court caught fire and the flames were soon burning the beams of the hall. Li was terrified. An official nearby said: “The Nether World is different from the human world. We cannot allow any selfish motives. Get rid of your selfish plan and the fire will extinguish of its own accord.” Li did so and the fire went out. During the court hearing that followed, Wang and the girl’s father each argued for themselves and Li had to ask Zhou for his opinion. Zhou told the truth and the final verdict was: Wang had done something that he had known was wrong, so he was whipped for it. After that, Li sent both Wang and Zhou back to the human world. Both men came alive again three days after their deaths.
When he finished with the cases, Li Boyan went home. On the way he saw hundreds of ghosts,either without heads or feet, kneeling by the road crying. He stopped his cart and asked them what the matter was. They had all died away from home and they wanted to go back to their original places, However, they were stopped by the check points and begged for a travel permit. Li Boyan told them: “I acted as the King of Hell for three days but have left the post. How can I help you?” They said: “Mr. Hu in the South Village was making preparations for a Buddhist worship ceremony. Just tell him and he will know how to help us out.” Li promised to pass on the word.
When Li reached home, the ghosts who accompanied him turned back. Hu Shuixin, an old friend of Li, came to visit him when he heard that Li had returned. Li asked him: “When are you going to hold the. Buddhist ceremony?” In a great surprise, Hu said: “My wife and children survived the war, so she and I recently decided we would hold a ceremony to worship the Buddha. We have not told anybody about our plan. How did you know about it?” Li told him the story. Hu sighed: “It is really extraordinary that what we said in private was public knowledge in the Nether World.”
The next day, Li went to visit Wang. who was still lying in bed, miserable. Seeing Li, he expressed his gratitude for Li’s efforts to protect him, but Li said: “The law is not something you can play with. I hope you’re recovering from your lashing.” Wang said: “It is not too serious, but the wounds on my back have festered.” Wang’s back finally healed more than twenty days later. The festered parts fell off, leaving scars clearly showing the traces of the canes that he’d been lashed with.
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