When Master Yu was young, he was a chivalrous character and was fond of martial arts. He was so strong that he could hold up a huge tea kettle full of water with one hand and twirl it around.
During the reign of Chongzhen, towards the end of the Ming Dynasty, he went to the capital city to take part in the highest imperial examination. While he was there, his servant caught an illness and took to his bed. Yu became very worried. There happened to be a man in the street who practised divination by means of the Eight Diagrams and could predict a person’s life and death. Yu thought he might go on behalf of his servant to ask the man what fate awaited him.
Before he even opened his mouth, the fortune-teller asked him, “You haven’t come to inquire about your servant’s illness, have you?” Confounded, Master Yu nodded his head and said yes. The fortune-teller then said, “The patient is okay；it’s you who are in danger.” So Yu asked the man to divine his fate. The fortune-teller referred to the Eight Diagram and, with astonishment, announced, “You will die within three days!” For quite a while, Master Yu was stunned. Taking his time, the fortune-teller went on to say, “Now, I have a bit of magic. If you pay me ten taels of silver, I can definitely help you avoid that disaster.” But Yu thought to himself, “Life or death, it’s all determined by fate. How can a bit of magic change that!” Rejecting the offer, he got up to leave. The fortune-teller said, “Reluctant to part with so little money! Don’t you regret it! Don’t you regret it!” People concerned about Yu’s welfare feared for him. They urged him to ask the fortune-teller to help, no matter how much he had to pay. But Master Yu would not listen.
Before long, it was the third day. Master Yu sat in the inn, quietly alert to what might happen. The whole day went by without mishap. When night came, he closed the door of his room, lit the oil lamp, and sat upright with his sword by his side. It was already deep into the night, and still there was no sign of death coming. He was just about to go to bed when he heard a hissing sound at the window. He turned to look and saw a little man carrying a spear enter the room. As soon as his feet touched the floor, he was as tall as an ordinary man. Yu pulled out his sword and thrust it at the man who seemed to be floating about. He missed. All of a sudden, the figure shrank in size and was looking for a crack in the window through which to escape. Yu swiftly struck him down with his sword. He brought over the oil lamp and looked. It was a paper man, now cut in half at the waist! Master Yu forgot all about sleep. He continued to sit there, waiting.
After some time, Yu saw something come in through the window. It looked as ferocious and fearsome as the devil itself. Yu struck as soon as the figure landed on the floor and cut it in half. Seeing that the two segments were still wriggling on the ground, he struck repeatedly, for fear it would rise again. Every strike hit the target, only the sound was not like that made when hitting a soft, fleshy body. On closer look, he found it was a man made of mud, now smashed to pieces. Master Yu then moved his chair to the window and fixed his eyes on the crack.
A long time passed. Yu heard something like the sound of an ox breathing hard outside the window and felt that something was pushing at the window frame so hard that the walls began to shake and were in danger of collapsing. Rather than be crushed inside, he decided to go out and fight it. So he unbolted the door with a jerk and dashed out of the house. There before him stood a huge monster, its head reaching as high as the eaves. In the dim moonlight, his face was as black as coal, his eyes ejecting a yellowish light.” The upper part of the body was bare and he had no shoes on. He was holding a bow in one hand, and there were arrows at his waist. While Yu stood there staring in shock, the monster drew his bow and shot an arrow at him. With his sword, Yu swiftly blocked its course and the arrow dropped to the ground. He was just about to thrust his sword at the monster when the latter shot another arrow. He leapt aside, the arrow hit the wall with a resounding echo. Furious, the monster drew his huge knife and waved it about like whirlwind, aiming straight at Master Yu’s head. Yu leapt forward like a monkey. The knife missed. It fell instead on the stone step, splitting it in two. Yu ran through the crack in between the monsters legs and swung his sword at his ankle with a clang. This infuriated the monster even more. Roaring like thunder, he turned around to strike again. Yu bent down and crawled through the crack between the monster’s legs again so that the knife only cut off part of his robe. Then Master Yu jumped under the monster’s armpit and struck with all his might. With a clang, the monster fell headlong on the ground and lay there motionless. Yu went on slashing with his sword. The sound of the sword hitting the body reminded him of the night watchman’s beating on the wooden block. In the lamplight, Yu saw that the monster was nothing but a wooden puppet, as big as a real man. His bow and arrow were still at his waist. Its face was painted and carved like a monster’s, and where Yu’s sword had struck, blood was oozing. Master Yu left the light on and waited until daybreak. Now he knew that all the monsters of the night before had been sent by the fortune-teller to kill him, so as to prove his prediction.
The next day, Master Yu told all his friends about what had happened that night and, together with them, went to seek out the fortune-teller. When the man saw Yu coming, he disappeared from view in the twinkling of an eye. One of his friends told Yu, “That’s the invisible trick. You can break it with dog blood.” So, Yu secretly prepared some dog blood and went to look for the fortune-teller again. The man repeated the same trick, but Yu splashed the dog blood on the ground where he had stood. There was the fortune-teller, his face covered with dog blood. He stood there like a ghost, only his eyes still had some light in them. Master Yu grabbed him and took him to the authorities, whereupon he was put to death.
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