Miao Yongding was a senior licentiate1 of Jiangxi. He had always been a quarrelsome drunk, and most of his relatives kept out of his way. Once he happened to call at the house of a clan uncle, where he fell to joking and bantering with the guests, and they all drank deep together. Miao got drunk, turned the drink on the company and cursed them, and gave offence to one guest. The guest grew angry, and the whole room was in an uproar. The uncle tried to make peace; Miao took him to be siding with the guest and turned his anger all the more on his uncle. At his wits’ end, the uncle ran to tell Miao’s family. They came and hauled him home between them. No sooner had they laid him on the bed than his limbs went cold and stiff. They felt him: his breath had stopped.

Miao saw a man in a black cap tie him up and lead him away. After a while they came to a government office roofed with tiles of pale blue-green, grander than anything in the world of the living. At the foot of the steps it seemed he was to wait to be seen by the official. He thought to himself that he had done nothing wrong; the guest must have sued him for brawling. He looked round at the man in the black cap, whose eyes glared like an ox’s, and dared not ask. Suddenly a clerk in the hall announced that those with suits to be heard should wait early the next morning, and the people below the hall scattered. Miao went out after the man in the black cap. He had nowhere at all to go, and stood under the eaves of a shop with his head drawn in. The man in the black cap said angrily, “Drink-crazed good-for-nothing! The day’s nearly done, and everyone’s off to find a bed and a meal. Where do you think you’re going?” Miao trembled. “I don’t even know what this is about,” he said, “and I never told my family, so I haven’t a penny for the road. Where am I to go?” “Drink-crazed thief!” said the man in the black cap. “When it’s wine for yourself, you’ve money to spend! Stammer at me again and this old fist will smash your crazy bones!” Miao hung his head and dared not make a sound. Suddenly a man came out of a doorway, saw Miao and said in surprise, “What are you doing here?” Miao looked: it was his mother’s brother, Jia, who had been dead for several years. At the sight of him Miao understood for the first time that he himself was dead, and he grew more grieved and frightened still. He wept to his uncle, “Uncle, save me!” Jia turned to the man in the black cap. “You’re no stranger, Dongling2,” he said. “Do me the honour of stepping into my humble house.” The two of them went in. Jia bowed to the man in the black cap again and again, and asked him to look kindly on his nephew. In a moment wine and food were brought out, and they sat round and drank together. Jia asked, “What has my nephew done, that you had to trouble yourself to fetch him?” “The Great King was on his way to call on Lord Fuluo3,” said the man in the black cap, “and came upon your nephew cursing in his cups. He had me arrest him.” “Has he seen the King yet?” asked Jia. “Lord Fuluo is hearing the beggars’ case with him, and the King’s carriage isn’t back.” “And what will my nephew be charged with?” “Can’t say. But the Great King is very angry with people of this sort.” Miao, at their side, heard what they said and shook with fear, the sweat running off him; he could not lift cup or chopsticks. Before long the man in the black cap rose and thanked his host. “I’ve had more than my share of your fine wine, and I’m drunk already. I’ll leave your nephew in your charge. When the King’s carriage returns, I’ll call again.” And he went. Jia said to Miao, “You had no brothers, and your parents loved you like a pearl in the palm of the hand; they could never bring themselves to scold you once. At sixteen or seventeen, after three cups you would go muttering on, finding fault with people, and at the least thing you would be beating on their doors and cursing half-naked, and still they said you were young. I never thought that after more than ten years apart you would not have grown up at all. What now!” Miao threw himself on the ground and wept, repenting too late. Jia pulled him up. “Your uncle keeps a wine shop here and has a little standing. I’ll do all I can. The man drinking with us just now is the envoy of Dongling. I often stand him wine, and we’re on good terms. The Great King has ten thousand affairs a day; he won’t necessarily remember. If I talk the envoy round and beg him to let you go as a private favour, he may agree.” Then, on second thought, he said, “This is a heavy thing for him to take on. Nothing under a hundred thousand will settle it.” Miao thanked him and agreed, and spent the night at his uncle’s. The next day the man in the black cap came early to look in. Jia asked for a word in private. They talked for a while, and then he came and said to Miao, “It’s arranged. He’ll be back shortly. I’ll first put up everything I have as a pledge on the contract; the rest can wait till you’re home and can gather it at your leisure.” Miao was glad. “How much is it in all?” “A hundred thousand.” “Where am I to get so much?” “A hundred bundles of gold and silver paper money4 will do.” Miao was glad. “That’s easily done,” he said. They waited till near noon, but the man in the black cap did not come.