Every year the people of Fengdu County in Sichuan burned some three thousand taels’ worth of paper money and paper ingots and threw them into a well in the middle of the town. It was called paying the grain tax of the underworld. Anyone who was stingy about it, they said, would bring plague on the whole district.
In the early years of the dynasty a new magistrate arrived, named Liu Gang. He heard about the well and forbade the practice. The town was in an uproar. He held firm.
“Then explain it to the ghosts and gods yourself,” they said.
“Where are these ghosts and gods?”
“At the bottom of the well. No one dares go down.”
“To plead for the lives of my people,” said Liu Gang, “what is my own death worth? I will go myself.”
He had his men fetch a long rope, tie it under his arms, and lower him. The crowd tried to hold him back; he would not be held. His secretary Li Shen — a man of some temper — said, “I want to know what ghosts and gods are actually like. Let me go with you.” Liu tried to talk him out of it. Li would not be talked out. So he too was tied and lowered.
About five fathoms down, the dark turned to light. There was sky above them, bright as day. Cities, walls, palaces, houses — exactly as in the world of the living. But the people were tiny, and cast no shadow in the sunlight, and walked on air rather than on ground; and when Liu asked them about the earth beneath, they said they had never heard of such a place.
They saw his robes and knelt in rows. “You are an officer of the living world. Why have you come?”
“I have come to ask that the people of Fengdu be excused the tax of the underworld.”
The ghosts clucked their admiration and touched their foreheads. “That will have to be discussed with Lord Bao.”
They led him to a hall of terrible scale, where a man in his seventies sat crowned and robed in the imperial manner, his face square and severe. The ghosts called out, “The magistrate of such-and-such county is here.” The old man came down the steps to meet him, bowed him into the seat of honour, and said, “The ways of the living and the dead are separate. Why have you come?”
Liu Gang stood and folded his hands.
“Fengdu has had flood and drought year after year. The strength of the people is exhausted. Already they cannot pay the taxes of the Son of Heaven — how can they also pay the underworld in paper and silk, and be tenants of two masters at once? I have come through death to plead for them.”
Lord Bao laughed.
“There are in the world wicked monks and vile Daoists who use ghosts and gods as their excuse, who talk men into fasts and rites and ruin a thousand families and more. The dead and the living are walled apart; we cannot knock on every door and explain that they are lying. You have cut out an abuse for your people. Even had you not come, who would have dared oppose you? That you came in person shows a rare courage and a rare mercy.”
He had not finished when a red light came down out of the sky. Lord Bao rose. “The Great Emperor Who Subdues Demons is coming. Withdraw a moment.”
Liu retired to a hall behind. Presently Guan Yu came down out of the air in the green robe, with the long beard, and exchanged courtesies with Lord Bao. Much of what they said could not be made out.
Then Guan Yu said: “There is a smell of living breath here. Why?”
Lord Bao explained. “In that case,” said Guan Yu, “he is a good magistrate, and I wish to meet him.”
Liu Gang and Li Shen came out trembling and knelt. Guan Yu gave them seats and spoke with great kindness, and asked detailed questions about the affairs of the living world — but never one word about the dead.
And then Li Shen, who was a blunt man, blurted out: “And where is Lord Xuande?”
Guan Yu did not answer. His face changed. His hair stood up under his cap. He took his leave at once.
Lord Bao turned to Li Shen in horror.
“You will be struck dead by lightning, and I cannot save you. How could you ask such a thing? And before a subject — to call his sovereign by his courtesy name!”
Liu Gang pleaded for him. Lord Bao said only, “Then let him die quickly, so that at least his body need not be burned.” He took from a box a jade seal about a foot across and pressed it into the back of Li Shen’s robe.
They bowed their thanks and were drawn up the rope. At the south gate of Fengdu, Li Shen fell of a stroke and died. Not long after, a great bolt of lightning came down and circled his coffin, and burned his clothing to nothing — except the place on his back where the seal had been stamped.