Li Hua, a commoner of Changzhou, owned a great deal of land. He was over fifty and had no son. He had one daughter, Xiaohui, fair and lovely, whom he and his wife loved above all things. At fourteen she fell suddenly ill and died. The house was left cold and empty, and life held even less joy for them. Only then did Li take a maid as his concubine, and a year or so later she bore him a son. Li treasured him like a great jade disc and named him Zhu’er. The boy grew big and sturdy and lovable. But he was utterly simple: at five or six he still could not tell beans from wheat, and he spoke haltingly. Li loved him all the same and could not see his faults. It happened that a one-eyed monk was begging alms in the market. He always knew what went on in people’s inner rooms, so they told one another in alarm that he was divine; and he said he could give life or death, fortune or ruin, to anyone he chose. He would name a household and demand tens, hundreds or thousands of cash, and no one dared refuse. He came to Li and asked for a hundred strings of cash1. Li balked at it and offered ten taels of silver. The monk would not take it, and little by little Li went up to thirty. The monk’s face hardened. “It must be a hundred strings. Not one coin less!” Li grew angry too, picked up his silver and walked off. The monk rose in fury. “Mind you don’t regret it! Mind you don’t!” Before long Zhu’er was seized with a violent pain in his chest. He clawed at the bed mat, and his face turned the colour of ashes. Li in terror took eighty taels to the monk and begged him to save the boy. The monk laughed. “So much silver — that can’t have been easy to come by! But what can a poor monk from the hills do?” When Li got home the boy was dead. Li grieved bitterly and brought a complaint before the county magistrate. The magistrate had the monk arrested and questioned, but he answered glibly and nothing true could be got out of him. When he was flogged, it was like beating a drumhead. The magistrate had him searched, and on him they found two wooden figures2, a little coffin and five little flags. The magistrate was furious. He folded his fingers into a magic sign3 and held it up for the monk to see. Only then was the monk afraid, and he threw himself to the ground again and again. The magistrate would not listen and had him beaten to death. Li kowtowed his thanks and went home.

By then it was dusk, and Li was sitting on the bed with his wife. Suddenly a little boy came scurrying into the room. “Papa, why did you walk so fast? I tried as hard as I could and couldn’t catch you up.” By his size he looked seven or eight. Li was startled and was about to question him, when he saw that the boy flickered in and out of sight, hazy as smoke; with a twist he was up on the bed, sitting there. Li pushed him off. He fell to the floor without a sound. “Papa, why do that?” he said, and in a flash he was up again. Li was frightened and fled with his wife. The boy kept calling “Papa! Mama!” and babbling on and on. Li ran into his concubine’s room and quickly shut the door; when he looked round, the boy was already at his knee. Li in horror asked what he wanted. “I come from Suzhou,” said the boy. “My family name is Zhan. When I was six I lost my father and mother, and my elder brother and his wife wouldn’t keep me, so I was sent to live with my mother’s parents. One day I was playing outside the gate, and the evil monk bewitched me and killed me under a mulberry tree. He used me as his slave, like a tiger’s ghost4, and I was shut away, wronged, in the depths of the underworld, and could not get free to be reborn. Now, thanks to you, Papa, my wrong has been righted. I want to be your son.” “Men and ghosts walk different roads,” said Li. “How can we live together?” “Just clear out a tiny room and make up a bed for me,” said the boy, “and pour out a cup of cold gruel for me each day. I need nothing else.” Li agreed. The boy was delighted and slept alone in that room. In the mornings he came and went in the inner rooms as if he had been born in the house. Hearing the concubine weeping for her son, he asked, “How many days has Zhu’er been dead?” “Seven,” she said. “It’s bitterly cold,” said the boy. “The body shouldn’t have rotted. Try opening the grave and looking. If it isn’t spoiled, I can come back to life.” Li was overjoyed and went with the boy to open the grave. The body was just as it had been. While Li stood there in grief, he looked round and the boy was nowhere to be seen. Wondering at it, he had the body carried home. No sooner was it laid on the bed than the eyes flickered. In a moment the boy called for something hot to drink; after drinking it he sweated, and after sweating he got up.

Everyone rejoiced that Zhu’er had come back to life, and he was clever and quick besides, quite unlike what he had been before. But at night he lay stiff, without the least breath; when they turned him over he lay senseless as the dead. Everyone was aghast and thought he had died again. Only at daybreak did he come round, as if waking from a dream. They crowded round and asked him about it. “When I served the evil monk,” he said, “there were two of us boys. The other was called Gezi. The other day I couldn’t keep up with Papa because I had stayed behind to say goodbye to Gezi. Now he’s in the underworld, adopted as heir by Squire Jiang, and he lives very comfortably. In the night he came specially to fetch me to play, and just now he sent me home on a white-nosed horse.” Then his mother asked, “Did you see Zhu’er in the underworld?” “Zhu’er has been reborn already. He had no bond of father and son with Papa. He was only Yan Zifang of Jinling5, come to collect a debt6 of a hundred-odd strings.” Some years before, Li had traded at Jinling and owed Yan for goods he never paid for; then old Yan died, and no one knew of it. Li was aghast to hear this. His mother asked, “Did you see your sister Hui?” “I don’t know,” said the boy. “Next time I go I’ll look for her.”

Two or three days later he said to his mother, “Sister Hui is doing very well in the underworld. She has married a young son of the King of Chujiang7. Her hair is thick with pearls and kingfisher feathers, and whenever she goes out, a hundred men cry out to clear the way before and behind her.” “Why doesn’t she come home for a visit?” said his mother. “Once people are dead they don’t care about their own flesh and blood. Only when someone tells them about their past life in detail are they suddenly stirred. Yesterday I asked Squire Jiang to find me a way in to see her. Sister called me to sit on a coral couch, and I told her how Papa and Mama longed for her, but she was like someone asleep. I said, ‘When you were alive, Sister, you liked to embroider twin flowers on one stem. Once the scissors pricked your finger and the blood stained the silk, so you worked it into a red cloud over water. Mama still has it hanging on the wall at the head of her bed, and she can’t stop thinking of you. Have you forgotten?’ Only then was she moved to sorrow. She said, ‘I must ask my husband, and go home to see Mama.’” His mother asked when, but he said he did not know.

One day he said to his mother, “Sister will be here soon. She has a great many servants with her, so we must get plenty of drink ready.” A little later he ran into the room. “Sister’s here!” He had a couch moved into the main hall. “Sister, sit down and rest. Don’t cry so.” No one else saw anything. The boy took people outside the gate to burn paper8 and pour out drink, then came back and said, “I’ve sent her escort away for now. Sister says, ‘There was a green brocade quilt that used to cover me, and a spark from the candle once burnt a spot on it the size of a bean. Is it still here?’” “It is,” said his mother, and she opened a chest at once and took it out. “Sister wants me to lay it out in her old room,” said the boy. “She’s tired, so she’ll lie down for a while. Tomorrow she’ll talk with you, Mama.”

The daughter of the Zhao family next door to the east had been Hui’s close friend in the embroidery room. That night she dreamed that Hui came to see her in a headcloth and a purple cape, talking and laughing as in life. “I am a different kind of being now,” Hui said. “Even face to face, my parents are as far from me as if mountains and rivers lay between us. I am going to borrow you, little sister, to talk with my family. Don’t be afraid.” At daybreak, just as the Zhao girl was talking with her mother, she suddenly fell to the floor senseless. Only after a long while did she come round, and she said to her mother, “It’s been some years since Xiaohui saw you, Auntie, and look how grey your hair has gone!” Her mother cried in alarm, “Child, have you gone mad?” The girl bowed goodbye and went straight out. Her mother saw that something strange was afoot and followed. The girl went straight to the Lis’ house, threw her arms around Hui’s mother and wept. Hui’s mother was startled and did not know what to make of it. “I came home yesterday,” said the girl, “but I was so worn out I had no chance to say a word. I was an unfilial daughter: I left my parents halfway through life and caused you both such grief. How can I ever atone for it?” Then the mother understood and burst into tears. After a while she asked, “I hear you are a great lady now, and that is a comfort to me. But you live in a king’s household — how were you able to come?” “My husband and I are very happy together,” said the girl, “and his father and mother are kind to me. They don’t find me jealous or plain.” In life Hui had liked to rest her chin on her hand. As the girl talked, she kept falling into that old pose, and her air and look were Hui’s to the life. Before long Zhu’er ran in. “They’ve come to fetch Sister!” The girl rose, bowed farewell in tears and said, “I’m going now.” With that she fell down again, and only after a while came round.

Some months later Li fell gravely ill, and no doctor or medicine did any good. “I’m afraid he can’t be saved — it may be any day now,” said the boy. “Two ghosts9 are sitting at the head of his bed. One holds an iron staff, the other a hemp rope four or five feet long. I beg them day and night, but they won’t go.” His mother wept and got the grave clothes and shroud ready. At dusk the boy hurried in. “Outsiders and women, stand aside — my sister’s husband has come to see Papa.” In a moment he clapped his hands and laughed. His mother asked why. “I’m laughing at the two ghosts. When they heard my brother-in-law was coming, they both hid under the bed like turtles.” A little later he turned to the empty air and exchanged greetings, asking how his sister was. Then he clapped his hands. “Those two ghostly wretches wouldn’t go however much I begged — and now look at them! What a joy!” He went out to the gate and came back. “My brother-in-law has gone. The two ghosts are chained to his horse’s harness. Papa will be well at once. My brother-in-law says when he gets home he will speak to the Great King and ask a hundred years of life for Papa and Mama.” The whole family rejoiced. By nightfall Li was much better, and in a few days he had recovered.

Li engaged a tutor to teach the boy to read. He was very bright, and at eighteen he entered the county school10. He could still tell of things in the underworld. When he saw anyone in the village who was ill, he would point to where the ghost causing it was; fire was put to the spot, and often the sick person recovered. Later he fell suddenly ill, and his skin turned blue and purple. He said the ghosts and gods were punishing him for giving away their secrets, and after that he spoke of such things no more.