Yuan Rang was sitting with his legs sprawled open, waiting casually for Confucius. The Master said, “When you were young, you showed no modesty or respect for elders; when you grew up, you achieved nothing worth mentioning; now that you are old and still refuse to die, you are nothing but a pest!” With…
The story Forty Thousand Coins from Strange Tales from Liaozhai by Pu Song ling serves as a karmic allegory, illustrating the Buddhist-Confucian principle that debts — whether material or moral — must inevitably be repaid.