Censored by Confucius (21 page)

The horse neighed repeatedly by way of recognition.

Eventually word of the Cool Old Man's arrival spread and soon thousands of people were lining the streets to worship this reincarnation of the Buddha.

The boy matured into a slender young man whose skin was as smooth and soft as any woman's. One day as he passed through Liuli-chang he caught sight of some erotic pictures hanging in an art dealer's window. The pictures showed men and women having sexual intercourse in a variety of positions. The young abbot was enraptured by this sight and promptly purchased the entire set. He proceeded on his way with his eyes glued to the pictures.

Making his way back to the monastery he passed through Baixiang, where he chanced upon a group of prostitutes. He then indulged himself, putting into practice his new-found skills.

Reaching Mount Wutai, he summoned to the monastery all the local prostitutes and courtesans as well as any good-looking young man from the district who was endowed with a huge member. From then on, day and night without stop, he sat and watched the group perform innumerable licentious acts. It was as if his desire would never be satiated, for he went so far as to use the money donated to the temple by worshipers to hire dancers and performers from Suzhou.

Eventually his behavior caused such a scandal that somebody organized a petition of complaint and sent it as a memorial to the emperor. Before the memorial had reached its destination the young abbot knew of its contents.

"Some people mistakenly believe that the world would be just as beautiful as it is now if the landscape were stripped of trees," he sighed.

The abbot sat down, fell into a deep meditative trance, and died. He was only twenty-four.

An acquaintance of mine, Li Zhuxi, was a friend of the Cool Old Man's previous incarnation. Li said that one day he had paid the old man a visit and found him dressed from the waist up as a woman, but from the waist down he was quite naked except for a flimsy cloth that covered his belly.

A man was instructed to have sex with him from behind while he had sex with a woman from the front. All around this trio people were engaged in similarly licentious acts.

Li cursed the old man, saying, "A living Buddha would never behave in such a way!"

The old man was unconcerned. "The unrestricted and unhindered acts of love between a man and a woman give rise to the essence of life itself. Indeed this is how the world came to exist. It is only those of ignorance and commonplace perceptions who are frightened and shocked by such things."

A Tiger Steals the God of Literature's Head

It was June and the height of the summer heat in Shanxi Province's Xing'an City. A wedding was in process and the bride, dressed in full wedding regalia, including a heavy red veil, suffered greatly as the sedan chair made its long journey to her bridegroom's house. Indeed, so great was the heat inside the chair that by the time the wedding party reached its destination the bride had died from heat exhaustion.

The bride's distraught parents paid for a coffin even though they were unable to take the body back home with them. As a married woman their daughter was, strictly speaking, a member of her husband's family. Her coffin was placed at the rear of an old temple just beyond the city walls.

Now this coffin was not particularly sturdy and it wasn't long before rainwater from the summer downpours had seeped through the walls. The water had a cooling and nourishing effect and it soon revived the body inside.

As the bride regained consciousness she began to moan and mumble, and these noises were detected by the monk and his disciple who were responsible for maintaining the temple. They quickly lifted the coffin lid and there before them lay a beautiful woman.

They helped her out of the coffin and gave her some nourishing broth and medicinal tonic. When she was sufficiently recovered, the monks helped her back to the temple.

The disciple became fixated with the idea of making this woman his own, so he contrived to rid himself of his master. He bought some wine and got his unsuspecting master completely drunk. Once the monk was in this helpless state the disciple took up an axe and killed him. He then dragged the monk's body to the back of the temple and placed it in the bride's coffin.

Picking up the woman, the disciple carried her to a neighboring village, where he took up residence in a deserted temple built in honor
of the god of literature. The disciple then grew his hair and assumed the life of a married Daoist priest.

One day after this, a tiger sprang into the temple, snapped off the head of the statue of the literature god, and carried it off into the distance. In its place the tiger left three tiny cubs. This strange event caused a huge commotion in the village, and people came from near and far to see the cubs.

Quite by chance, among the crowds that filled the temple were t
he woman's parents, and when they saw their daughter standing before
them their first thoughts were that she must be a ghost. When they discovered that she was quite alive, there was a tearful reunion.

Deciding that it was pointless to hide the truth, the woman told her parents of what had taken place, including the murder of the monk and her own abduction. The parents immediately filed an official complaint with the local magistrate, and after the investigation, complete with the exhumation of the monk's corpse, had confirmed their allegations, the disciple was punished according to due process of law. The woman was placed back in the care of her father and permitted to return home.

I was told this tale by a reader at the Hanlin Academy, Yan Dong-you, who had just returned from travels in Shanxi.

Revenge on the Warrior of the Flowers

A man named Yang who lives in the capital is renowned for his skill in the "battle of the flower pickers." This "battle" is actually a magical sexual art whereby Yang takes a lead rod, puts it deep into a woman's vagina, then moves it in and out in time with his breathing.

He calls this technique "testing the sword." He can also control the width of the rod with his breath, making it thicker so that it rubs noisily against the walls of the vagina. Moreover, he can maintain these breathing techniques while drinking half a quart of liquor.

This sadistic form of sex generated considerable horror among the prostitutes around town.

One day Yang came to the conclusion that these special skills, impressive as they were, would not grant him eternal life. So he set about the arduous task of searching for a teacher who could impart knowledge of immortality pills.

Yang had heard that each year on the nineteenth of January, the famous Daoist monastery of Baiyun, situated outside Fucheng's city gates, was visited by an immortal. This particular monastery had been built in the Yuan dynasty in honor of Qiuzhen, a priest of amazing spirituality. People came from miles around to make offerings and burn incense, and the monastery was especially crowded on the appointed day in January.

Yang figured that this would be a likely place to start his quest, so he made the journey to the monastery to see the immortal.

When he arrived he saw a beautiful nun in the crowd of people lined up to offer incense. Yang's sharp eyes noticed that her clothes didn't move with the breeze, as did those of the others around her, so he concluded that she must be an immortal. Yang walked over and knelt at her feet, respectfully asking for her assistance.

"Are you the Mr. Yang who has mastered Daoist sexual techniques?" the nun queried.

"Yes, I am that man," Yang replied.

Hearing this she declared, "I only teach my Dao to an extremely select group. I am not interested in passing on my knowledge to ordinary people."

Even more intrigued, Yang continued to worship respectfully at her feet, begging her to take him as a disciple.

Finally the nun agreed. She led him to a secluded part of the monastery grounds and gave him two pills, saying, "We'll meet on the full moon next month. I'll give you these two pills. The first you can take now, but the second you should take just before our next meeting. Then I will teach you the secret of my Dao." After specifying the time and location of the meeting she left.

Yang dutifully swallowed the pill and instantly felt as if his whole body was burning. What's more, his desire for sex increased to an almost unbearable level. He visited brothel after brothel, and gradually gossip of his excessive sexual appetite got around until all the prostitutes in town avoided him.

When the appointed time arrived, Yang took the second pill and made his way to meet the nun.

She was waiting quietly for him and as soon as he was inside, she removed her clothing saying cryptically, "There is no secrecy between bandits. Even if you had wings you still couldn't fly. Have you heard these ancient sayings? If you want my knowledge you must first have sex with me."

Yang was greatly excited at this opportunity, and rather proud of his prowess in the "battle of the flower pickers," so he quickly joined her in bed. However, it wasn't very long before he had spent all his sperm, and he fell to the floor, limp and exhausted.

The nun got up and shouted viciously at him, "Pass on the Dao! Pass on the Dao! Evil invites an evil revenge!" She laughed a raucous laugh and left.

Yang regained consciousness at the fifth watch. Looking around, he realized he was lying in a ramshackle shed. He could make out the calls of a bean curd vendor nearby, and in his pitiful state he crawled outside. While waiting for his family to come and carry him home Yang told his tale to the bean curd vendor.

Three days later Yang was dead.

The Wooden Guardsmen

In the capital, the Currency Board's main compound has a small temple dedicated to a local god. The temple is protected by the wooden statues of four guardsmen. The coppersmiths working at the Currency Board would regularly worship at the temple, since they all lived in the compound.

One night it happened that the younger men among the team had an identical nightmare. They dreamed that they were sodomized but despite the nausea and pain were unable to shout or move. It was as if their feet and hands had been bound. When they woke the next morning and rubbed their sore anuses, each discovered his own to be caked with a black mud.

This pattern continued for over a month and the coppersmiths were at a loss to know who or what was taking advantage of them.

Eventually, one of the victims, while making an offering at the temple, recognized the face of one of the wooden guards as that of the rapist. He promptly informed the others and they reported it to the magistrate. The feet of this wooden statue were then nailed down as a punishment and precaution. After this, the strange nightly visits ceased.

A Woman Transforms into a Man

The Xue family from Leiyang County had a daughter by the name of Xue Mei. They betrothed her to a boy from the Huang family, but just before the wedding Xue Mei was struck by a mysterious sickness that made her dangerously ill.

While delirious she was approached by a white-haired old man. He began to massage her all over, gradually working his way down to her hips and genitals. She became very embarrassed and tried to stop him, but he continued to massage the area.

Before he left, he forcefully inserted something into her genital area. Xue Mei cried out and her worried parents came running in to see what was wrong. Then they saw that although her illness had passed she had been transformed into a man in the process.

The acting magistrate was Zhang Xizu, and he and another official, Tao Huixuan, who happened to be in the prefecture on other business, came to the Xue house to examine the girl. They officially confirmed that Xue Mei had become a man. Her voice and facial features were still those of a woman, but in her groin she had a penis and all that remained of her vagina was a crack in the skin.

The Xue family changed her name from Xue Mei to Xue Lai and so the number of sons in the household increased from two to three.

The Prince of Guazhou

In Hangzhou there is a place called Da Fangbo where the Hu family lived, the two sisters-in-law sharing the same floor.

One day during the grave-sweeping festival of Qing Ming, one of the sisters-in-law noticed a small bridgelike structure on the roof. It was made from willow twigs so she assumed that the children had put it there. She used a long bamboo pole to scrape it off the roof and into the rubbish bin.

That night she dreamed that a young man dressed in the manner of a Daoist appeared before her.

"I am the Prince of Guazhou and it is my fate that I live with you and your sister-in-law," he said.

"I made a lover's bridge and placed it on your roof so that we could meet during Qing Ming. Why did you throw it away?"

From this day on, the so-called prince stayed in the women's room, taking advantage of them as he pleased.

The scandalized Hu family then called a Daoist priest to scare away the intruding demon by chanting the Jade Emperor Sutra. However, when the priest arrived the monster threw a chamber pot at him, soaking him and his sacred books in urine. The priest ran off, humiliated.

Mr. Hu then decided to hire five old women to chaperone the two younger women. Mysteriously, the old women's hair became plaited together so that they were unable to move backwards or forwards without pulling the others' hair.

This continued for over a month, until it was time for one of the women to be married to her betrothed. Mr. Hu chose an appropriate day and married her off.

The monster then confronted Mr. Hu in person, saying, "I am not fated to be with the man you have married her to, so I can't go. I could stay on here and enjoy myself with the remaining sister-in-law, but it is
rather boring to have only one beautiful woman to play around with, so I think I'll just say goodbye.