on. We are going to beat you more than cotton is beaten in a cotton-floss shop!”
They forced Ji Gong down. One of them sat astride Ji Gong’s head and shoulders while grasping his ears, and another sat astride his legs. The third man uncovered the back of Ji Gong’s body and raised the bamboo. Prime Minister Qin called out, “Strike! Strike! Strike!”
The executioner brought the bamboo down with great force, but missed Ji Gong by more than a foot. Not only that, but the bamboo hit the executioner who was astride Ji Gong’s head and shoulders squarely in the back with a resounding thwack, and knocked him three or four paces away.
Holding his back with both hands, the fellow yelled, “Ai yah! Ai yah! You’re trying to kill me. Good, good, good! When you wanted me to lend you two hundred cash, I didn’t, and you have been holding a grudge against me ever since.”
Prime Minister Qin was extremely angry. He told the three men to stand back and ordered another three to come forward, saying, “Give this crazy priest eighty strokes for me. If I do not beat you, you crazy monk, I swear that I will no longer be an official.”
Ji Gong countered, “I swear that if you do not get this business over with, I will no longer be a monk.”
As the new executioners came up, one said, “Let me sit astride his head and shoulders, Qin Shun can hold down his legs, and you take the bamboo. But do not let the bamboo miss the mark.”
So they stretched out Ji Gong. Then the bamboo came down with a blow, but right in the middle of the back of the one holding Ji Gong’s legs and knocked him forward.
Inside the summerhouse, as the prime minister watched, he understood. The first time, the executioners had mistakenly beaten the superintendent of the monks. The second time, the man holding Ji Gong’s head and shoulders had been struck. This time, the man holding Ji Gong’s legs was hit. These surely were examples of the magical arts arising from the monk’s heretical practices. He therefore instructed some of his household servants to go and get a large hanging scroll from the great hall. He thought that the writing on the scroll, which affirmed that he was indeed the prime minister of the present reign, would overawe the monk and vanquish his magic.
The prime minister stepped down out of the summerhouse and advanced. Lying there on the ground, Ji Gong looked up and opened his eyes. The anger of Prime Minister Qin was so clearly shown on his face that it frightened nearly everyone who saw him. When he shouted, “Strike! Strike! Strike!” this time, who dared to hinder him? The next group of evil-looking executioners came forward. One of them raised the bamboo and brought it down with great force, but it flew out of his hands and hit the prime minister. The man was frightened out of his wits by his carelessness.
When the prime minister saw how things were going, he was in a towering rage. Bending his back, he picked up the bamboo stave and looked at it, intending the beat the monk himself. Suddenly he heard a clamor from the inner apartments. Prime Minister Qin was greatly surprised. It had long been the rule in his household that other than the prime minister himself, there should be no men in the inner apartments. Only the old women and maids could enter. Boys over three feet tall could go in only if they were called on urgent business.
Today as he heard the outcry, he was startled to see one of the old women come running and hear her call, “Oh, Great One, it is terrible! The Great One’s chamber is on fire!”
Hearing this, the prime minister exclaimed, “I know it is probably one more of this monk’s magic tricks.” Hurriedly he called for twenty of his men to lock the monk in an empty room, saying, “At the third watch I will examine the monk.” Pointing at Ji Gong he said, “Crazy monk, if you burn the prime minister’s residence until there is not a tile left, I will still take you through the military barracks gate. There I will give you eighty strokes—and perhaps that will relieve the hatred I feel for you in my breast.” He sent him off with the twenty men, telling them to guard the monk well.
Then, saying, “I must go to the inner apartments and see what is happening,” Prime Minister Qin took several dozen people with him. There he saw his wife standing in a courtyard frightened and trembling, while the women and maids were busily putting out the fire. He asked her where the fire had originated.
She replied, “Sparks flew out of the incense burner and set fire to the paper on the lattice windows.”
Prime Minister Qin gave orders that everyone should work to put the fire out. He himself carried out the incense burner and threw it on the ground. One of the serving women anxiously picked it up but found that it was undamaged. Made of unrefined gold, the heavy incense burner, even if it had been broken, would still have been a treasure, because according to the old saying, “Gold is gold!”
When Prime Minister Qin saw that the fire had been put out, he and his wife went inside. She asked, “Why did the Great One become so angry?”
He then told her how the mad monk had used his magic arts to beat the estate managers; how he, the prime minister, had ordered soldiers to surround the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat; and how the soldiers and headmen had brought back the monk in irons. “When I was about to punish him by beating, the inner apartments caught fire. I now have a number of monks locked up in vacant rooms, and at the third watch I intend to beat that insane monk.”
When his wife heard this, she said, “Does the great man need to contend with these ignorant people?” Just as she said these words, a serving woman announced that the evening meal was prepared, and invited the prime minister to partake of it in another room.
Prime Minister Qin said, “We will just have it in here.” A slave girl brought cups and chopsticks, but the prime minister was still too full of his pent-up anger to eat. He drank two small cups of wine and then withdrew from the table. For a while he read a book, but soon put out the light. He seemed to see several roads leading forward, but could not tell where they went. He yielded to his weariness for a while and then drifted toward sleep. Now, with his arm for a pillow, all things began to become indistinct and fade. As he was sinking into a deeper sleep, he heard footsteps.
A deep foggy draft getting colder and colder,
A sound like the wind in a forest so lonely,
A forest in autumn when leaves lose their color,
Then a hoarse, ugly cry like a stricken cow’s bellow
And something or someone was pulled through the door.
Then he saw through the mist as the fog began clearing,
Moving close there beside him a vision from hell,
With a soul still in suffering whose face was familiar
And a hideous goblin repulsive and fierce.
Qin Kuei’s only wish was to shun them and flee.
As Prime Minister Qin looked, he saw a huge, unearthly being come into the room from the courtyard. His face was like black smoke. He wore a dark blue or black satin cap like a soldier’s, divided into six sections by seams, and a short padded jacket of dark cloth. A mesh pocket or string bag was fastened at his waist. Beneath the jacket was a garment with long, dark-red sleeves. Above his large eyes were rounded eyebrows. In his hand he carried a blazing and smoking pitchfork.
Close behind him entered another tall figure clothed all in white, wearing a hat two feet in height. The skin of his face was a sickly, transparent purple, revealing black beneath. In his hand he held a knotty wooden club from which tears fell as
