Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) (33 page)

The astonished boatman confessed and was convicted.

—Chu Yün-ming

Early one morning, a grocer on his way to market to buy vegetables was surprised to find a sheaf of paper money on the ground. It was still dark, and the dealer tucked himself out of the way and waited for daylight so he could examine the money he had picked up. He counted fifteen notes worth five ounces of silver and five notes worth a string of one thousand copper coins each. Out of this grand sum he took a note, bought two strings’ worth of meat and three strings’ worth of hulled rice, and placed his purchases in the baskets that hung from his shoulder pole. Then he went home without buying the vegetables he had set out to buy.

When his mother asked why he had no vegetables, he replied, “I found this money early in the morning on my way to market. So I bought some meat and hulled rice and came home.”

“What are you trying to put over on me?” his mother asked angrily. “If it were lost money, it couldn’t be more than a note or two. How could anyone lose a whole sheaf? It’s not stolen, is it? If you really found it on the ground, you should take it back.”

When the son refused to follow his mother’s advice, she threatened to report the matter to the officials. At that he said, “And to whom shall I return something I found on the road?”

“Go back to the place where you found the money,” said his mother, “and see if the owner comes looking for it. Then you can return it to him.” She added, “All our lives we’ve been poor. Now you’ve bought all this meat and rice; such sudden gains are sure to lead to misfortune.”

The vegetable dealer took the notes back to where he had found them. Sure enough, someone came looking for the money.
The dealer, who was a simple country fellow, never thought to ask how much money had been lost. “Here’s your money,” he said and handed it over. Bystanders urged the owner to reward the finder, but the owner was such a miser that he refused, saying, “I lost thirty notes. Half the money is still missing.”

With such a large difference between the amounts claimed, the argument went on and on until it was brought to court for a hearing. The county magistrate, Nieh Yi-tao, grilled the vegetable dealer and saw that his answers were basically truthful. He sent secretly for the mother, questioned her closely, and found that her answers agreed with her son’s. Next he had the two disputing parties submit written statements to the court. The man who had lost money swore that he was missing thirty five-ounce bills. The vegetable dealer swore that he had found fifteen five-ounce bills.

“All right, then,” said Nieh Yi-tao, “the money found is not this man’s money. These fifteen bills are heaven’s gift to a worthy mother to sustain her in old age.” He handed the money to mother and son and told them to leave. Then he said to the man who had lost his money, “The thirty bills you lost must be in some other place. Look for them yourself.” Nieh Yi-tao dismissed him with a good scolding, to the outspoken approval of all who heard it.

—Yang Yü

In the days when Ch’en Shu-ku was a magistrate in Chienchou, there was a man who had lost an article of some value. A number of people were arrested, but no one could discover exactly who the thief was. So Shu-ku laid a trap for the suspects. “I know of a temple,” he told them, “whose bell can tell a thief from an honest man. It has great spiritual powers.”

The magistrate had the bell fetched and reverently enshrined in a rear chamber. Then he had the suspects brought before the bell to stand and testify to their guilt or innocence. He explained to them that if an innocent man touched the bell it would remain silent, but that if the man was guilty it would ring out.

Then the magistrate led his staff in solemn worship to the bell. The sacrifices concluded, he had the bell placed behind a curtain, while one of his assistants secretly smeared it with ink. After a time he took the suspects to the bell and had each one in turn extend his hands through the curtain and touch the bell. As each man withdrew his hands, Shu-ku examined them. Everyone’s hands were stained except for those of one man, who confessed to the theft under questioning. He had not dared touch the bell for fear it would ring.

—Chang Shih-nan

A man of Ch’u was carrying a pheasant in a cage over his shoulder. A traveler on the road said to him, “What kind of bird is that?”

“A phoenix,” replied the man of Ch’u to fool the traveler.

“I’ve heard of such a creature, and today I’m actually seeing one! Are you selling it?”

“Yes.”

The man of Ch’u declined a thousand pieces of silver for the bird, but finally accepted when the offer reached two thousand. The buyer was intending to present the bird to the king of Ch’u, but it died during the night. Although he was not too distressed over the wasted money, he keenly regretted the loss of the king’s gift.

The particulars of this story became known in the state of Ch’u. It was generally assumed that the bird was a real phoenix and therefore priceless. At last the king himself learned of the intended present and was so moved that he summoned the man and rewarded him with ten times the cost of the pheasant.

—Han-tan Shun

“All it takes to kill a peasant is to keep him idle.” So goes the proverb. Out early in the morning, home late at night—the peasant regards this as a normal life. Beans and leaves, he thinks, make a perfect meal. His skin and flesh are coarse and tough. His muscles and joints flex quickly. But put him down one day amid soft furs and silken curtains, give him fine meats and fragrant oranges, and you will see how his mind softens and his body grows restless as he suffers from fever. If a prince were to trade places with him, the prince would be exhausted in a couple of hours. Thus there is nothing better in the world than what contents and delights the peasant!

In olden days in the state of Sung, a peasant was wearing a hemp-padded garment that had barely gotten him through the winter. With the coming of spring and the toil of plowing, the man bared his back and let the sun warm his body. Unaware that there were such things in the world as grand mansions and heated rooms, cotton padding and fox fur, he turned to his wife and said, “I feel the warmth of the sun on my back, but no one knows about this great luxury. As tribute I’m going to take it to our lord, and he will give me a rich reward.”

—Lieh Tzu

This tale is taken from Wu Ching-tzu’s
Ju Lin Wai Shih (The Scholars),
a novel written in the second quarter of the eighteenth century. Wu’s book, of which this story is the first chapter, is a satire on the manners and morals of the scholar officials under the Manchu (Ch’ing) Dynasty, 1644-1911
.

Toward the end of the Mongol reign
^*
there came into the world a man of towering integrity, yet frank and plain. His name? Wang Mien. His home? A village in Chuchi county in the province of Chekiang. Wang Mien’s father died when he was seven, and his mother took in sewing so that the boy could study at the village school. Some three years went by this way. Then Wang Mien was ten.

Wang Mien’s mother called him to her. “My dear son,” she said, “I would never want to hold you back, but since Father died and left me a widow all alone, the money has been going out but not coming in. Times are hard, what with rice and kindling so dear. I have pawned or sold whatever I could of our old clothes and household goods. How can I keep you in school, when all we have is what I scrape together sewing for people? What can I do, then, but let you go to work grazing our neighbor’s buffalo to make a bit of money each month? You’ll get meals too, but you must go tomorrow.”

“I think you’re right, mother,” said Wang Mien. “I was getting bored sitting in school anyway. I’d rather go and tend the buffalo; it might be a little more fun. If I want to study, I can take a few books along, the way I always do.” So things were settled that very night.