We put these three stories together for this library; no old anthology goes by this title. All three appear in the swordsmen sections of Taiping Guangji, volumes 193–195, and each can be read on its own.
Nie Yinniang is trained by a nun and sent to kill a military governor. Hongxian enters a rival commander’s bedroom and takes a golden box without killing anyone. The Curly-Bearded Stranger meets Li Jing and Hongfu, then gives up his ambitions in China after seeing the future Tang emperor.
The traditional credits are Pei Xing for Nie Yinniang, Yuan Jiao for Hongxian and Du Guangting for the Curly-Bearded Stranger. The last is disputed; Taiping Guangji names its source as Qiuran zhuan without naming an author. We give these credits as tradition gives them, not as settled authorship.
