Xu Tanchang, at the time a reader in the Hanlin, before he had made his way, went to the capital for the metropolitan examination. In the privy he saw a great lump of flesh with eyes all over it, and knew it for the Year God.
Xu remembered that a certain book said, “He who whips the Year God escapes his calamity.” So he took a thick stick and had his servant and himself beat it turn by turn. And every place they struck, the eyes all over it flashed the brighter. That year he passed as a presented scholar.
When the household of Lord Jiang Wensu dug a well, they got out a piece of flesh the size of a table-top. A knife would not pierce it, fire would not scorch it; it writhed and moved, and slowly melted into water. That year Lord Wensu died.
Ren Xianggu, before he had made his way, was walking on a field ridge when he met a man with a knife in his teeth, a knife in each hand, hair hanging loose and face red, who went past him stooping. Before Ren had gone half a li he saw the red-faced man enter the house of a family in mourning, and knew it was the Malign God of the death day.
Ren later passed the examination. A man of the Tang family in Suzhou, setting up a memorial arch of filial piety, suddenly found in his clothes and cap a slip of white paper with the character sha — “malign” — written on it, the size of a walnut. That year seven people died in his household.
