“The Willow Scholar” is a symbolic short story from Strange Tales from Liaozhai. Blending myth, fable, and social concern, it explores the relationship between humans, nature, and spirits through the resolution of a locust plague.
A scholar named Li Boyan, from Xishui, Shandong, was a straightforward, upright and brave man. Suddenly he collapsed with some kind of acute illness.
There was a man surnamed Zhang in Henan Province whose ancestors were from Shandong. During the latter part of the Ming Dynasty, when Shandong was in wide-spread turmoil, his wife was captured and taken away by Manchu soldiers. After that, as Zhang often used to travel to Henan, he decided to settle down there.