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The Venerable Master then said, "If we go deep into the hills, far from human habitation, we will be able to make a huge basin and become tremendously rich. Why don't you come with me to Mount Lu, over in Jiangxi Province?"

The Shi brothers were ecstatic. Pooling their finances, they followed the Venerable Master forth.

Halfway there, the Venerable Master went ashore. That night he led several dozen bandits wielding great torches and clubs to rob the brothers of their silver.

He said to the brothers, "Don't be frightened. Although I am the leader of this gang, I do have a conscience. You have treated me well, so if you hand over your silver without a fuss, I'll let you all return home unharmed."

So the Shi brothers gave him everything they had and shamefacedly returned home.

Ten years later, a messenger from the Anqing police headquarters arrived with a summons for Shi Zanchen. "We have imprisoned a great robber by the name of Xu and he has requested to see you before he is executed."

Shi had no choice but to go. Upon his arrival he found that it was indeed Master Xu.

The Venerable Master said, "I have a request to ask of you, Zanchen. My time is drawing to a close, but I have no regrets about dying, and considering the length of our friendship, I want you to be responsible for burying my body."

He took four gold bracelets from his wrist and passed them to Shi on the understanding that these would cover any funeral expenses. Then he said, "My execution is set for the afternoon of July the first. You may come and bid me farewell then."

At the appointed execution time Shi went to the central market square in Anqing, where he saw the Venerable Master with his hands tied behind his back awaiting decapitation. Suddenly, a small child dropped from Shi's crotch and said in the voice of the Venerable Master, "Watch me being killed! Watch me being killed!"

In that instant, Xu's head fell to the ground and the child disappeared as suddenly and as mysteriously as it had appeared.

The executioner at the time was Zu Tinggui, a Manchu of the blue banner.

The Hairy People of Qin

In Yunyang's Fang County, on the border between the provinces of Hunan and Guangdong, there is a mountain of enormous magnitude called House Peak. Its name is derived from the roomlike caves that flank its four sides. Its height and isolation make it treacherous to venture near.

Living in this mountain are a people whose bodies are covered with hair and who measure over ten feet. Every so often they venture from the mountain to steal the nearby villagers' livestock for food. If anyone dared to try to prevent this theft, the hairy people would retaliate while retreating with the animals they had snatched. Firearms provided no protection since the lead shot would simply bounce off the hairy people and fall to the ground, leaving them completely unharmed. Traditional wisdom maintains there is only one way of preventing their rampages, and that is to clap
your hands and shout, "Build a great wall! Build a great wall!" On hearing this, the hairy people run away in terror.

A lifelong friend of mine by the name of Zhang Qun held an official post in this region and his experience confirms the efficacy of this tactic.

The locals explained the phenomenon thus: "In the Qin dynasty during the building of the Great Wall, some of the villagers avoided conscription by hiding in the mountains. After many years they evolved into these strange hairy creatures. We noticed that whenever they came into contact with other people, they would ask whether the Great Wall was completed, thereby exposing their weak point and enabling us to frighten them away."

One can appreciate how fierce the emperor of Qin must have been if after several thousand years these people still lived in terror of Qin laws.

The Human Ape

In Keerke, Xinjiang, there lived a type of animal that looked very similar to an ape but was in fact no ape at all. The Chinese living in the region called these creatures "human apes" and the locals named them
geli.
The human apes would often poke their heads into people's tents begging for food and drink, or sometimes even asking for small household items like knives or tobacco. The usual response was to shout loudly at these creatures, sending them scampering away.

A general stationed in the region managed to domesticate one of these human apes and eventually trained it to perform simple household chores, like fetching water and grinding flour. Indeed, this creature served the general well for just on a year. The time came, however, for the general to complete his tour of duty in Xinjiang and return to China. On the day of the general's departure, the human ape stood in front of his master's horse weeping copiously. Then, as the party moved off, the creature followed along behind for over ten miles, quite clearly miserable at the idea of
being parted from the general.

The general eventually turned to the creature and said, "You can't come back to China with me, just as I can't live here forever in your country. You must stop following me now!" The human ape gave out a pitiful howl, and although he dutifully ceased his pursuit, his eyes never left the general until his mounted figure had faded into the distance.

The Human Prawn

At the beginning of the current dynasty there lived an old man who wanted to make the ultimate sacrifice—taking his own life—to display his unbounded loyalty to the previous Ming dynasty. He was, however, too scared to commit suicide. He didn't fancy the idea of using a knife, nor did he care for the idea of hanging himself. Incineration was similarly unappealing.

Eventually, he struck upon the notion of emulating a certain Minister Xinling, who had apparently committed suicide by indulging in an excess of wine and women. Thus resolved, our Ming loyalist brought in several concubines and mistresses and thereafter indulged himself in unlimited lascivious pursuits.

This went on for years, yet still he showed no signs of dying from his excesses. The only effects on his body were that his nerves were shot, his head protruded at an unusual angle, and his back developed a hump. Indeed, he was so badly hunched over that he looked for all the world like a giant cooked prawn.

His crooked gait was almost a crawl on all fours, so people in the region called him the Human Prawn. He stayed in this prawnlike state for over twenty years and died at the ripe old age of eighty-four. My friend Wang Zijian told me that he had seen this old man with his very own eyes when he was just a young boy.

The Duck's Lover

In Jiangxi's Gaoan County there was a young man by the name of Yang Gui. Now Yang Gui was a slim and extremely attractive nineteen-year-old. He was mild in manner, compliant by nature, and never known to refuse sexual advances of any sort.

One summer's day he was bathing in the village pond when a drake flew up at him from the water and bit him on the buttocks. The drake then whacked Yang with his tail and made humping movements over Yang's buttocks. Yang tried to fend off the duck, beating it repeatedly, but the duck persisted. It wasn't long before Yang had beaten it to death. When he examined the limp body floating in the water, he saw protruding from among the tail feathers a fleshy stalk. Around the stalk the water was murky with some sort of emission.

The locals thought this episode absolutely hilarious, and from then on Yang Gui became known as the Duck's Lover.

The Spirit of the Turtle Stone

In Wuxi there lived a very handsome, refined young scholar by the name of Hua. He and his family lived along the banks of a river, near a Confucian temple. Directly in front of this temple was a grand bridge that had become a favorite resting place for travelers. One summer day, Hua also sought respite from the heat in the cool of the bridge.

Later in the afternoon as he strolled towards his college he noticed a young woman leaning against the side gate of a nearby lane. His interest was aroused and he wandered over to chat. The woman smiled as he drew near and they eyed each other appreciatively. Hua was just about to engage her in conversation when she suddenly went inside and closed the gate. Before going on his way, Hua made a mental note of the location of her lane.

The next day he returned to the lane and found the woman waiting. Upon inquiry, Hua found she was the daughter of a college caretaker. She then added, "My lodgings are too cramped for a private tryst, but your house is close by. So if you can arrange a secluded room, I will come and spend the nights with you. Wait for me tomorrow evening at your gate."

Our young man gleefully returned home and instructed the housekeepers to prepare the outer room, telling his wife that he would prefer to sleep outside to avoid the heat. That night, in great stealth, he waited by the gate and surely enough the young woman appeared. They walked hand in hand into the outer room and spent a night together that exceeded Hua's wildest expectations. From hereon in she paid him a visit every night.

After several months of this nightly activity Hua grew pale and thin. His parents suspected that something was amiss and they decided one night to stay up and check on him. When they discovered him making merry in the company of a young woman they pushed open the door and rushed in, but in a flash the woman had gone. They interrogated
their son, whereupon he confessed to his liaison and narrated the entire sequence of events that had led to his current state of ill health.

His parents were horrified. The next day they accompanied Hua to his college to look for the woman. But the gate he had described was nowhere to be found and none of the college caretakers was known to have a daughter fitting the woman's description. It became apparent the woman they were dealing with was some sort of spirit, so they immediately sought the advice of monks and priests.

The spirit-repelling charms and talismans that they received proved useless, however. Finally Hua's parents gave him some cinnabar and told him, "When she returns tonight, rub some of this onto her. That way we will be able to trace her movements tomorrow." That night, while the couple lay together, Hua secretly rubbed the cinnabar into her hair.

The next day, the young man and his parents went to the Confucian temple to search for traces of red dust, but not a spot could be found. Suddenly they heard a woman scolding her young boy, "I just put a clean pair of pants on you and now you've got them covered in red dirt! Where on earth have you been playing?"

Hua's father's suspicions were immediately aroused and he went to have a look at the child's trousers. They were indeed covered in cinnabar. He asked where the boy had been playing and the child pointed toward the turtle statue under the college stele. "I was just riding on the turtle's head. I didn't mean to get dirty."

On examining the turtle statue they discovered that it was covered in cinnabar, so they immediately notified the college authorities and the turtle was duly destroyed. Among the splinters of rock from the smashed statue were traces of blood, and in the rubble lay a gleaming, egg-shaped pebble. It was so dense that no one was able to smash it, so they simply threw it into Lake Tai. For a while after this the woman did not return.

Half a month later, however, she reappeared in the young man's bedroom, complaining loudly about the injustice she had suffered. "What crime have I committed to deserve the destruction of my old form? All the same I'm not angry—your parents were only acting out of concern for your health. Look, I have begged some herbs from an immortal that are certain to cure you." She produced several grassy leaves and forced Hua to take them. They were sweet and fragrant.

Then she said, "Before, when I lived nearby, it was very easy to
make my nightly visits. But my new form is much farther away and it will be impossible for me to travel to and fro, so I will have to reside here with you." And so she joined the household, although she never partook of food or drink.

Everyone in the family could see her, and Hua's wife openly abused her. But on such occasions the woman would just smile silently. Each evening, Hua's wife would sit on the bed with her arms protectively around her husband, intending to prevent the woman from sharing their bed. The woman, for her part, did not force the issue. Instead she would wait until the wife was sound asleep and oblivious to the world before joining Hua in bed. She could thus enjoy him all for herself. After Hua had taken the herbs, not only did his former good health return but he was also protected from the wasting sick
ness that had plagued him during his earlier sexual encounters with the woman. His parents could do nothing but let the woman have her way, and so it continued for over a year.

One day Hua chanced upon a scabby Daoist monk. After scrutinizing Hua the monk announced, "I can see that you are possessed. You had better tell me the truth or your end will be nigh!" The young man told him the whole story and the scabby monk then invited him to a teahouse, where he promptly swung a gourd over his shoulder and took a swig of wine. He then gave the young scholar two yellow paper charms. "Take these home and paste one onto the door of your bedroom and the other onto your bed. Don't tell the woman of this. Your fate is not yet sealed. On the fifteenth day of the eighth mont
h I will pay you a visit." It was then the middle of the sixth month.

On returning home, he pasted the charms in the designated places. When the woman returned she was shocked and cursed him. "Why have you become so coldhearted again? You can't frighten me with these!" Although her tone was harsh and defiant, she dared not enter the room.

After a long while she laughed loudly. "I have a choice of the utmost gravity for you to make. If you are interested in hearing it you must first rid the bedroom of these charms." He did as requested and she entered the room. "You are an attractive man. I love you and want you to be my husband. The Daoist monk also loves you but he wants you to be his acolyte and lover. Which one of us will you choose?" Hua was horrified to think that the monk had such an ulterior motive. Thus persuaded, he and the woman resumed their romance.