14

To Steal Money, Yu Dajiao Does Violence to a Drunken Man

To Confront the Culprit in Court, Yang Hua Attaches Himself to a Woman’s Body

As the poem says,

The soul lives on after the body dies,

Especially if the death is unjust.

To see ghosts bear witness in the courts of the living

Is to know that in both worlds justice reigns.

Our story is about a farmer in Shandong whose name escapes my memory. One day, when he was tilling his own field, he encroached on the path leading to a neighbor’s family graveyard. When the neighbor protested, he burst into angry words, for which he was given a vicious beating until he died right there on the spot. His relatives took the case to the authorities, and the accused was sentenced to death after the coroner’s report confirmed that the death was caused by severe wounds inflicted on him.

One day, a year later, another neighbor’s baby son, who was just learning to speak, told of what had happened to him in his previous incarnation: “I was a farmer, Mr. So-and-So, beaten to death by a neighbor. Yama, King of the Underworld, felt sorry for me because I wasn’t guilty of any capital offense and ordered that I return to the mortal world. But as my body was in very bad shape, I was to be reincarnated as another neighbor’s son instead. And two yakashas were ordered to take me to that neighbor’s house, where we saw a woman about to give birth in her bed. ‘She’s to be your mother,’ said the yakashas, ‘and you’ll enter her body through the top of her head.’ Then they left, but they soon returned as they heard no sound of a crying baby. ‘He’s gone!’ they exclaimed. I was hiding under a clothes rack, but they sought me out and thrust me into her skull. The next moment, I was born.”

The boy went on to give a full account of what had happened in his previous lifetime, down to the last detail. He also went to the dead farmer’s field and repeatedly examined the boundary. His parents and everyone else present gasped in amazement, realizing full well that he was none other than the farmer reincarnated.

When the news reached the jail, the incarcerated neighbor appealed to the authorities: “I was sentenced to death because I killed the farmer. Now that he’s come back to life, my death sentence should be overturned. (MC: Preposterous!) Otherwise, if I’m going to die but he has regained life, which life will I be paying for?”

Intrigued by the bizarre story, the magistrate summoned the villagers who had served as witnesses in the case. They said, one and all, “The boy is indeed a reincarnation of the farmer.” The magistrate then sent for the boy and questioned him, only to find that everything he said about the dead farmer was true.

Still, the magistrate overruled the appeal, saying, “The death sentence still holds, to make you pay for the taking of a life. How can I let you off because of a reincarnation?” Inwardly, however, the magistrate was awestruck, realizing now that the human body, formed from the four basic material elements of earth, water, fire, and air, is just an illusory entity. It may disappear at any time, yet its spirit keeps on living. How could the spirits of those who died of injustice vanish at the time of death?

There is another extraordinary story that illustrates the same point. It takes place in the Jiajing reign period [1522–66] of this dynasty [Ming]. A native of Shandong named Ding Shu was on his way to tour Beijing when he met a stalwart man named Lu Qiang. Ding Shu was quite impressed with his expansive personality and high aspirations. They got along so well that they swore an oath of brotherhood.

But before long, Lu Qiang was arrested on a charge of robbery. When Ding Shu went to visit him in the prefectural jail, Lu Qiang said to him, “Unfortunately, I got involved in this criminal case, and now nobody can help me out. Since you’ve been kind to me, I have something strictly confidential to tell you.”

“It’s a great honor for me to be so trusted,” said Ding Shu. “I’ll make every effort to do whatever you want me to do.”

“With your promise, I shall leave this world without regrets,” said Lu Qiang. “I have more than one thousand taels of silver hidden at such and such a place. Take it and use it to buy favors and help set me free. (MC: The cause of his death.) If that doesn’t work out, I beg you to make sure only that I’m not short of food and clothes while in jail and that I’m buried properly after I die. What’s left of the money will be entirely at your disposal. This is my only request.” Having spoken these words, he broke down in a flood of tears.

“Don’t you worry!” said Ding Shu. “I’ll do my best to help you.” Then he bid Lu Qiang a solicitous farewell.

The truth of the matter is that human nature, however good originally, changes quickly at the sight of money. As the ancients put it so well, “White liquor reddens the face; yellow gold blackens the heart.” (MC: Words of profound truth.) When Lu Qiang trustingly asked him for that favor, Ding Shu was indeed sincere in his promise. But when he went to that hoarding place and laid his hands on so much silver, he changed his mind and thought, “So, he is a robber, with so much money hoarded at this place. Luckily, it’s all in my hands now. This little windfall can last me the rest of my life. Since it’s ill-gotten money anyway, if he can use it, why can’t I? It shouldn’t be a sin for me to take it. Now that the money is in my hands, why should I bother to get him out of jail?” On second thought, however, he hit on another idea. “If I don’t try to help him, I’ll have no excuse to offer if he sends someone to question me. If he grows desperate, he may let the cat out of the bag, and get me into trouble. Why don’t I finish him off so as to silence him for good?”

Verily, the more he thought, the more vicious he became. (MC: In most cases, it’s the second thoughts that lead to crime.) So he approached two of the jailers, bribed them with thirty taels of silver, and had Lu Qiang killed.

Thus, Ding Shu landed a windfall of more than a thousand taels of silver, with no one any the wiser. Parading his wealth, he lived high in Beijing. Three years later, when he had used up 70 or 80 percent of the money, he boarded a boat to return by the Lu River [the northern section of the Grand Canal] to his home in Shandong. While engaged in an idle conversation with fellow passengers in the cabin, he suddenly collapsed onto the floor, but he quickly rose to his feet and, his eyes popping wide open, shouted, “I’m Lu Qiang, the famous robber of Beijing! That evil man Ding Shu took one thousand taels of silver from me and had me killed. It’s payback time now!”

Surprised that these words were coming out of his mouth in a different voice, the passengers realized that Ding Shu must have betrayed someone, and the wronged person’s ghost was demanding his life. Trembling with fear, they all dropped to their knees and pleaded, “Ding Shu indeed did wrong and destroyed you, but this has nothing to do with us. If you, mighty hero, take his life right here in this boat, we’d all be implicated in an unsolvable case. Please let your anger subside and wait until we’ve all gone ashore before you do whatever you want to him.”

The ghost said through Ding Shu’s mouth, “All right. I’ll go to his home first and wait for him there.”

With that, Ding Shu fell to the floor again. When he woke up the next moment and the men asked him about what had just happened, he looked confused and was unable to recall anything. The passengers all kept their mouths shut and left the boat one by one on reaching their respective destinations.

Three days after he arrived home, Ding Shu suddenly gave a loud cry and started to repeat what he had said in the boat, much to the horror of his servants. He then went and grabbed an iron hammer, with which he began frantically hitting his teeth. The servants quickly held him and wrested the hammer from his grasp. Then he went to get a kitchen knife and began stabbing himself in the chest, but again the servants seized him and snatched the knife away. When nothing else was available with which to hurt himself, he gouged his eyes out with his own fingers, bathing his face in blood.

Passersby who heard the servants’ cries rushed into the house, and they spread the news until the street was packed with onlookers. Among them was one of Ding Shu’s traveling companions, who had come out of curiosity to find out how things stood. There, for all to see, was Ding Shu beating himself while shouting curses in Lu Qiang’s voice.

The more venturesome ones walked up and asked Ding Shu, “How many years ago did all this happen?”

“Three years ago,” replied the ghost that had taken possession of Ding Shu’s body.

“Since you want revenge, and you have such magical powers, what took you so long?”

“I was imprisoned in the underworld and was unable to seek revenge until recently when I was set free by the Imperial Amnesty.” So saying, Ding Shu continued to beat himself until he died. Only then was the ghost pacified, and nothing was heard from it again.

This happened in the first year of the Longqing reign period [1567–72] when the emperor, newly on the throne, issued a general amnesty to set prisoners free. Those in the underworld were released as well. Lu Qiang was thus able to avenge himself. This shows that the two worlds are in fact governed by the same rules.

Verily,

The mortal world is not just for humans,

Nor is the underworld only for ghosts.

Between the two realms lies

But a thin sheet of paper.

When it is time to right a wrong,

Even the paper-thin barrier disappears.

Gentle reader, you may very well ask, why does this storyteller tell you these two stories? It is because some people in this world, having done things that go against their consciences, think they can get away with it because it was done in the dark, with no one the wiser. They also believe that the dead cannot bear witness, and that once their victims are put to death, they can stay out of trouble for the rest of their lives, however atrocious their crimes. Little do they know that justice has long arms, even in the unseen world. The two stories told above—one about a reincarnated person telling about his previous life, and the other about a ghost seeking revenge in his enemy’s body—demonstrate that one’s spirit survives one’s death and can appear right in front of you. (MC: A warning to everyone.) Thoughts of this scenario can send shudders down your spine, however bold or hardened you are. In fact, reincarnation as someone else is not rare, nor is taking revenge in one’s enemy’s body unheard of. There have been more of such stories since antiquity than I can ever tell.

Now let me tell you an even more bizarre story. It is about the ghost of a murdered man that attached itself to another person’s body and served as a witness at one court after another until the accused was finally sentenced to death. This is indeed something rarely heard of.

The story takes place in Yu Clan Village, Jimo County, Shandong. Our protagonist is a man named Yu Dajiao, a man registered for military service. The Yu clan had inherited a guard’s position at the West Garrison in Xingzhou [present-day Xinghua, Hebei]. The member of the clan serving at that garrison was Yu Shouzong. The position was first established in the Hongwu reign period [1368–98]. Although, as a rule, the man who inherited it had to be of direct descent, he was supposed to be subsidized by funds from all branches of the clan and therefore was entitled to travel back to his home village once every few years to collect his due. This had been the practice for many generations.

In the twenty-first year of the Wanli reign period [1593], Shouzong began to look for someone in the garrison to travel to his home village and get the money. Among his personal guards was a Yang Hua, a native of Jizhen [the area from present-day Beijing to Shanhaiguan]. An honest and outspoken man, Yang Hua was chosen for the mission because he had been to Jimo many times. After taking leave of his wife, Yang Hua set out on a lame donkey that he had raised himself. Before many days had passed, he arrived at Jimo and went straight to Yu Dajiao’s residence for accommodations. He then went from house to house, from one branch of the clan to the next, to collect money and was able to collect several tenths of a mace of silver from some and more than a mace from others. Finally, he got a total of two taels and eight maces, which he carried carefully on his person.

On the twenty-sixth day of the first lunar month, Dajiao walked up to Yang Hua and said, “A country fair is being held near Turtle-Mount Garrison. There must be lots of excitement out there. I’d like to go. Will you join me in the fun?”

“I’m not used to sitting at home anyway. Let’s go.” So saying, Yang Hua tied the money bag to his waist, mounted his donkey, and headed for Turtle-Mount Garrison with Yu Dajiao.

As it turned out, this trip led not only to the murder that reduced a frontier hero to an aggrieved ghost but also to a lawsuit in which a poor village woman was possessed by a ghost in order to act as its mouthpiece.

Truly,

Like pigs and sheep on their way to the butcher’s,

With each step they went nearer to their deaths.

Let us get on with our story. After Yang Hua toured the fairgrounds with Yu Dajiao, he felt hungry and said, “Let’s go to a wineshop for a drink.” So Dajiao took him into the town, to a wineshop that was run by a Mr. Yin Three. Wineshops in Shandong normally served no dishes other than plates of garlic and some steamed buns to go with wine. As a poor soldier from the northern frontier, Yang Hua had a weakness for hard liquor, and much to his delight, the liquor served at Yin Three’s wineshop was called “yellow liquor,” reputed to be the strongest of its kind. With Yu Dajiao urging him to drink more, Yang Hua drained one big bowl after another until he was roaring drunk. By evening, he was in such a besotted condition that his legs refused to carry him one single step. With much effort, Yu Dajiao helped him mount his donkey and steadied him with a hand as they went along. Swaying to and fro from time to time, Yang Hua almost fell from his donkey several times. When they reached Stone Bridge Valley north of the garrison, Yang Hua dozed off and with a loud cry of “Aya!” tumbled to the ground.

“It looks like you can’t ride your donkey anymore,” said Yu Dajiao. “You might as well sleep here on the ground for a while.” Lying flat on the grassy slope after the fall, Yang Hua immediately fell asleep, snoring thunderously and totally oblivious to everything around him.

What happened was that, knowing that Yang Hua had collected many packages of silver, Yu Dajiao was aflame with desire for the money, although he was not sure how much there was. (MC: How much can there be if Yang didn’t take the trouble to hide it so as not to invite thieves? How sad!) He looked down on Yang Hua as a poor, lone soldier who was a stranger to both the locals and the routes of travel. He figured that no one would know where he was from or where he was going. In addition, Yang Hua was a nuisance to the Yu clan; his disappearance would be a good riddance as far as they were concerned. Since nobody would be asking after him, why not seize this opportunity to take his money? That’s why Yu Dajiao had deliberately plied Yang Hua with such strong liquor and got him drunk.

Biding his time, Yu Dajiao waited beside the sleeping Yang Hua until the first watch of the night. Now if he were a softhearted person, even at this moment when he was consumed with greed for Yang’s money, he could have simply taken it from the man’s waistband while he was in this drunken stupor and quietly slipped away. By the time Yang Hua woke up and found his silver missing the next day, he might blame himself for having lost it while he was drunk. Even if Yang suspected him, he could still get away with it because there would be no evidence against him. The act of killing was quite uncalled for.

As it turned out, however, Yu Dajiao was one of those cruel and ruthless northerners who preferred to finish off the job once they have started it. They called this “strike before you talk.” Whatever the amount of money, even a small-time robber taking a hat or an article of clothing would kill the victim first. Such was the practice of those men. To their way of thinking, killing a man was like crushing a louse—something not worth a second thought.

Seeing that Yang Hua was still fast asleep and nobody was around, Yu Dajiao untied the reins from the donkey, made a noose with them, and put it around Yang Hua’s neck. He then took off Yang Hua’s hat, thrust it into his mouth, and, with one foot firmly planted on his face, tightened the noose with both hands with all the force he could muster. How sad that this poor soldier died a violent death because of the meager amount of money in his waistband!

Yu Dajiao put a hand to Yang Hua’s nostrils and found that he had stopped breathing. Then he searched for the silver, took the waistband, and tied it around his own waist. “If the body stays here,” he said to himself, “it will be seen after daybreak, and that means trouble.” So he put the body on the back of the donkey and walked it to the seashore. At a spot three li from Yu Clan Village, he tossed the corpse into the sea with a splash before turning around and leaving with the donkey. Then he thought, “But this is Yang Hua’s donkey, and some people may recognize it. If I take it home, questions will be asked, and I won’t have a good explanation. It’s better to get rid of it.” So he took it to Huangpushe and set it free on a slope there. Without the reins, the donkey rolled about happily on the ground. The next day, it was led away by someone or other. That night, Yu Dajiao sneaked back home, quite unobserved.

By the eighth day of the second month, twelve days after Yang Hua’s death, Yu Dajiao was absolutely sure that the body must have drifted tens of thousands of li away. But an uncanny thing happened: The body, after floating up and down for days, was washed ashore by the night tide to a spot right by Yu Clan Village, and there it stayed. Yu Liang, the neighborhood headman, along with others, found the body and reported the matter to the magistrate of Jimo County. Magistrate Li was unable to identify the dead man or figure out how he had gotten into the sea, but he did find rope marks around the neck that pointed to a violent death. So he instructed the local police to keep the body and carry out investigations. Meanwhile, Prefect Li himself abstained from meat in order to show his piety and prayed at the Temple of the City God for a divine revelation, and there we shall leave him.

On the thirteenth day of that month, Li-shi, wife of Yu Deshui, a member of Yu Dajiao’s clan, suddenly fell to the ground while husking rice with her husband. Yu Deshui quickly caught her and kept calling her name. After an hour or so, she sprang to her feet and, with her eyes tightly closed, shouted, “Give back my life, Yu Dajiao!”

Quite taken aback, Yu Deshui asked, “What kind of spirit are you? What are you up to?”

“I’m Yang Hua,” said Li-shi in a man’s voice. “I came to collect money for the frontier guards. Yu Dajiao got me drunk with yellow liquor at the Turtle-Mount fair, took me to Stone Bridge Valley, and strangled me with the reins of my donkey. He then dumped my body into the sea. I’m here to tell you that Yu Dajiao is the real murderer. I fear that if he gets away, innocent people will be implicated in this case. I have an older brother, Yang Da. My wife is Zhang-shi, and we have two sons and two daughters. But they’re all far away in Jizhou, and none of them can come to hunt down the murderer and demand a life for a life. How sad! So I had to come on my own to face off against Yu Dajiao in court. And I’m determined to make the authorities do right by me.” (MC: Yang Hua’s ghost is full of fight.)

“But this has nothing to do with me,” said Yu Deshui. “Why do you have to torment my wife like this?”

Li-shi replied, again in a man’s voice, “I need to borrow your virtuous wife’s body and stay in her for the confrontation at the court. I’ll leave once justice is done and will never come back to bother you again. Will you please report this to the authorities for me? If not, I’ll stay in your house until you do.”

Resignedly, Yu Deshui went out and told Yu Liang the headman about this. Quite incredulous, Yu Liang went to Deshui’s house to see for himself, only to find Li-shi there repeating exactly the same words in Yang Hua’s voice. Yu Liang hurried away to pass on the news to Mr. Shao Qiang, a village elder, and some yamen lictors. They all rushed to Deshui’s house and heard the same story retold to the last detail.

Yu Liang and Shao Qiang, together with other villagers, trooped to Yu Dajiao’s house and called him out, saying, “A fine thing you did! Now the aggrieved ghost is at Yu Deshui’s home. Go now and meet it head-on!”

Yu Dajiao, with his guilty conscience, was shocked to hear these words, but he said, “How can there be any aggrieved ghost at Deshui’s house? Preposterous! Let me go and see for myself. What do I have to fear?” Yielding to the crowd, he followed them sheepishly to Deshui’s house.

As soon as he arrived, he heard Li-shi yelling at him, “So here you are, Yu Dajiao! What did I do to make you hate me so much? You took my money and my life and brought me all this suffering!”

Believing that no one would be able to bear witness against him, he tried to brazen it out. “Pfui! Who took your money? You must be fantasizing!”

“How can you deny it!” said the voice from Li-shi’s mouth. “You strangled me with my donkey’s reins, carried me on its back to the seashore, and threw my body into the sea. You took my two taels and eight maces of silver, to use for your own enjoyment. Give me back my silver! Or I’ll beat you and bite off your flesh to give vent to my anger.”

Hearing the exact amount of the stolen silver, Yu Dajiao knew that this was indeed Yang Hua’s ghost attached to Li-shi’s body. Not daring to hide anything anymore, he made a total confession, adding that he had never expected that a ghost could manifest its supernatural power so well in another person’s body and that he deserved nothing less than death for his crime.

After hearing these words, Yu Liang and others marched Dajiao home, where they took Yang Hua’s waistband with the two taels and eight maces of silver in it out of the kitchen chimney. “Good!” said Yu Liang. “With this as evidence, we can report the case to the authorities for a conviction. Otherwise, the only proof we’ll have for this case of a dead body from the sea will be the testimony of a ghost. And then, if the person who’s possessed wakes up and the ghost is gone, we’ll be guilty of making a false accusation.” So he hurriedly took Yu Dajiao and his loot to the county yamen.

“There’s no way I can get away with it now,” said Yu Dajiao to himself. “And when I’m in jail, nobody will bring food to me. Why don’t I implicate a couple of people from my clan, so as to spread the suffering around? And I’ll get to share their meals when their families bring food to them.” So to Yu Liang he said, “Three of my clansmen—Yu Dabao, Yu Da’ao, and Yu Dajie—did it with me. Why am I the only person to take responsibility for it?”

Yu Liang had all three men arrested without delay, but none of them pleaded guilty. Nevertheless, they were taken to the county yamen over their protests.

The county magistrate accepted the written statement of the case and wrote the following comment on it: “This sounds plausible but uncanny. Li-shi must be summoned to testify.” Thereupon, Li-shi was brought to the court to confront Yu Dajiao. Everything she said in Yang Hua’s voice pointed to Yu Dajiao as the murderer.

Seeing other names in the statement, the magistrate asked, “What did Yu Dabao and the others do?”

Li-shi replied, “Yu Dajiao is the only evildoer. The others are all innocent. I made this special trip from the underworld to tell you the truth so that innocent people don’t get implicated.”

The magistrate asked Yu Dajiao sharply, “What do you have to say now?”

Scared out of his wits by the ghost’s vivid account, Yu Dajiao saw nothing for it but to kowtow and confess. “Your Honor!” said he. “I wasn’t aware until today that you can’t deceive ghosts and spirits. The truth is that I’m the only one who strangled Yang Hua and took his money. No one else was involved. I do deserve death!”

Realizing that this major case involving a murder still lacked a coroner’s report, the magistrate personally took Yu Dajiao to the seaside where Yang Hua’s body was being kept. The coroners examined the body and concluded, from the rope marks around his neck, that the man had indeed been strangled.

After returning to the county yamen with the coroners’ report, the magistrate had everyone’s testimony recorded and sentenced Yu Dajiao to death.

When all the witnesses, including Li-shi, had signed the statement, the magistrate said to Li-shi, “This case is to be submitted to higher authorities. You can’t change your testimony.”

“Your Honor, I won’t change a word of it.”

The magistrate had been afraid that she would tell a different story if Yang Hua’s spirit left her body. Little did he know that Yang Hua’s ghost was still doing all the talking. The magistrate then put the documents in a file and sent it, along with everyone involved in the case—witnesses as well as the culprit—to the prefectural yamen.

On reading the documents, the prefect found the case bizarre and somewhat incredible. Then and there, he questioned everyone but heard no deviation from the narration in the documents. So he wrote the following judgment:

Yang Hua was a poor soldier from the frontier a thousand li away. The silver he had collected was less than three taels, but it was enough to give Yu Dajiao evil ideas. He got Yang Hua drunk, strangled him with a rope, moved his body to the seaside on the back of his donkey, and dumped it into the sea. Assuming that, with the body consumed by fish, there would be no evidence against him, he thought he could enjoy the ill-gotten money with impunity. Little did he know that divine justice always prevails, and ghosts and spirits are omniscient. The body floating on the sea did not sink; its ghost found voice in a living person, exposing evil and terrifying the murderer. The line “I’ll bite off your flesh to give vent to my anger” is as frightening as a weapon; the sentence about not getting innocent people implicated demonstrates his sense of fairness. Indeed, Yang Hua after death is able to manifest his supernatural power and do it in an honest way. His spirit lives on after his body has perished. Who says one can commit a murder and get away with it? The county magistrate’s prayer to the gods for revelation was answered, which deserves honorable mention in the records as an unusual achievement of his administration. The death sentence he pronounced, based on face-to-face interrogation, is fully justified. The facts of the murder, robbery, and the ghost speaking through a living person having been established, the case is now ready for submission to higher authorities for further examination. The final decision rests with the governor of the province.

Having written the judgment, the prefect sent the file, along with the culprit and the witnesses, to Governor Sun.

The governor read the file but was not convinced. (MC: His suspicions are quite warranted.) “How can a death sentence be based solely on the words of a ghost speaking through a woman? How can I be sure that there are no tricks behind all this?” So he started to interrogate everyone who had been brought to him. When it was Li-shi’s turn, he put down his writing brush and asked, “Where are you from?”

“I’m from Jizhou,” she replied.

He summoned the local headman and asked him, “Where’s Li-shi from?”

“From Jimo,” he replied.

“Why did she say she was from Jizhou?”

“Li-shi is from Jimo, but Yang Hua, who’s attached to her body, is from Jizhou.”

Governor Sun turned to Li-shi and asked, “What’s your name?”

“My humble name is Yang Hua. I’m a soldier under Officer Yu Shouzong of West Garrison in Xingzhou.” Then she went on to relate in detail how Yang Hua had come to collect subsidies for the troops and how he had been murdered. It was every bit the voice of a man from the north, not a woman with a local Shandong accent.

Having established the facts, the governor nodded with a smile. “So this really happened! How extraordinary!” Thereupon, he wrote the following commentary on the report: “Yang Hua’s soul voiced his grievances through the mouth of a woman. During my face-to-face interrogation of the said woman, she spoke with a Jizhou accent, to my great surprise. I am therefore respectfully referring this case to the Surveillance Commission for review.” The Surveillance Commission in turn referred the case for review to Associate Prefect Liu, who was concurrently in charge of the criminal tribunal.

When the culprit and the others were taken back to the prefectural yamen, the prefect issued a receipt. At this moment, Yu Deshui, Li-shi’s husband, went up to him and said tearfully, “My wife, Li-shi, has been possessed by Yang Hua’s aggrieved ghost for so long that she’s lost her true nature. What’s more, since she first got involved in this case months ago, she has been moved around from one court to another for questioning and therefore has been unable to go home to breast-feed our baby, which is bad for both mother and baby. Your Honor! Please do right by us and save her life!”

Feeling sorry for the man, the prefect nodded and said, “It’s against nature for a woman to stay away from home for so long. But I find it difficult to deal with a ghost.” He then asked Li-shi to approach the bench. “Are you Li-shi or Yang Hua?”

“I’m Yang Hua,” replied Li-shi.

“The injustice done to you has already been redressed,” said the prefect.

“I’m deeply grateful to you for this infinite kindness, Your Honor.”

“Although you’re Yang Hua, your body belongs to Li-shi. Do you know that?”

“Yes, I do,” replied Li-shi. “However, although I’ve been avenged, I have no home to go back to. So I might as well stay on.”

The prefect was seized with rage. “Nonsense!” he roared. “Since you’ve been avenged, you should go back to your own body. Why inconvenience another man’s wife? Be gone this instant, or I’ll give you a good beating!”

As if a little frightened by these words, Li-shi kowtowed repeatedly and said, “All right, I’m off !” With that, she rose and began to exit.

The prefect had her pulled back, saying, “I was telling only Yang Hua to leave. You’re Li-shi! Where do you think you’re going?” (MC: A reminder of her identity.)

Li-shi kowtowed and said, still in Yang Hua’s voice, “Off I go now!” Again she got up to go.

The prefect slapped the table and sharply ordered her to turn back. “Are you being stupid, or devious? Yang Hua is to go, but Li-shi must remain here physically. How could you have disobeyed me time and again? Lictors! Apply the rods!”

With a loud cry, the lictors threw their bamboo rods onto the ground, making a deafening sound. Li-shi fell down unconscious. She did not respond when the lictors called her name and then Yang Hua’s name. Her eyes were tightly closed, and her face was the color of ash. A panic-stricken Deshui shouted her name again and again into her ear but got no answer. He broke into loud wails of grief, oblivious of proper etiquette in a court of law. The prefect was at a loss as to what to do.

As Deshui held her in his arms, her limbs kept shaking, and she was drenched with sweat. About two hours later, she suddenly opened her eyes. Seeing such a large room and so many strangers, some in uniforms, she exclaimed in surprise, “I’m Mr. Li’s daughter. Why am I here?” Then she quickly covered her face with her sleeves.

Knowing that she had regained her senses, the prefect asked her if she remembered what had happened to her. “I was husking rice at home,” she replied. “I have no idea what brought me here.” And she did not know how many days had elapsed since then. So the prefect wrote four big characters, “Li-shi’s True Self,” in bright red, put the strip on her back as a protective charm, and affixed his seal to it. (MC: The prefect is quite a capable man.) Then he ordered Deshui to take her home for recuperation.

The next day, Associate Prefect Liu summoned everyone involved in the case to the court, including Li-shi, since her name remained on the list. Having seen her so many times in court, Deshui thought nothing of it, but this time she was shy and refused to go to the yamen. When Deshui told her in detail what had happened before, she said tearfully, “It was as if in a dream that I made such a public show of myself. Regrets are too late, but now that I’m fully awake, how can I, a woman, make another appearance in court?”

“The final decision on the case has already been made,” said Deshui. “And the prefect granted you permission to go home yesterday. Today you need only go there for the final review, and then the case will be closed.”

“Review or no review, what does it have to do with me?”

“If you don’t go,” said Deshui, “ ‘you’ll get me in trouble.”

Reluctantly, she followed him to the court. But when questioned by Associate Prefect Liu, she just wept copiously without saying a single word. When Associate Prefect Liu asked her husband about this, the latter explained that she had been possessed by Yang Hua’s ghost and served as a witness, and that, the day before, the prefect had expelled the ghost and set her free to be her true self. He also showed him the charm the prefect had put on her back and the seal affixed to it. Marveling at these strange happenings, Associate Prefect Liu sent the file to higher authorities, along with his written judgment: “Yang Hua’s ghost having departed, Li-shi is hereby released and exempted from further interrogation. We have sufficient evidence for sentencing Yu Dajiao and are therefore in a position to dispense with indirect evidence for the case. He is scheduled to be executed after the Autumn Assizes.”

One night, Yu Deshui had a dream in which Yang Hua came to thank him. “I’ve troubled your good wife for a long time, but I have nothing with which to express my gratitude. I have only a male donkey (MC: The case of the donkey is now solved.), but it got lost after the reins were removed, and someone took it. Now I’ll bring it to your gate. Please accept it as a token of my gratitude.”

When Yu Deshui opened his gate the next day, sure enough, he saw a donkey standing there. He put a saddle on it for riding and realized that Yang Hua’s soul had not perished. It has always been said that ghosts and spirits can see through all deceptions, but no story is as real and awe-inspiring as this one.

He became a ghost after being killed;

He testified in court in a woman’s body.

The human and the ghost received measure for measure;

Enemies can be made but also reconciled.