You Chen of Changsha was handsome when young. Passing the wilderness by Xiangxi he saw in a temple a statue of the goddess Zi Gu, very beautiful, and loved it. He stroked her face with his hand and wrote on the wall:
A goddess drifting down through mist and sand, her balustrade of jade, her carriage of ice. If you fear the deep night wind and dew, a hedge of hibiscus and a thatched hut are this lover’s home.
That night at the third watch there was a knocking at the door. He opened it, and it was the goddess Zi Gu.
“I am the goddess Zi Gu. I was an immortal maiden of the Upper Clarity, banished to the mortal world for a time, and put in charge of the affairs of cloud and rain. You have favoured me with your love, so I have come to you. If you do not distrust me as a ghost, I am willing to share your pillow.”
You was delirious with joy. He took her hand and went in, and they became man and wife. After that she came every night, and nobody else could see her.
She gave him an object and said: “This is called the Purple Silk Purse. When I attend the Jade Emperor the Weaving Maid gave it to me. Wear it and it will help you with your literary thought.”
From the moment he wore it he entered the district school, passed the provincial examination, took his jinshi, and was selected magistrate of Chengdu in Sichuan. The woman went with him and helped him govern, exposing treachery and uncovering hidden things, and he had the name of a man of divine clarity.
Then one day she said: “Today I set out wine to say goodbye to you, my love. I am going. Though I was banished, the term would have allowed me to return to the register of immortals. But because I eloped, I have no face to climb back to the courts of Heaven; and the underworld, because I was originally an immortal of the upper realm, dares not enter me in the rolls of the dead. I have thought it over, and drifting forever is no plan. Though I have a foothold at your gate, I have no body, and cannot bear you sons and daughters. Yesterday I begged the Lord of Mount Tai about this, and he has agreed to enter my name in his register and send me through a rebirth as usual. In fifteen years our love can be renewed and we can be man and wife forever. I do not know whether you can refuse to marry and wait for me alone.”
You said yes, and wept without knowing it. The woman was wretched too, and went off in great grief.
After that You was not so clear in office as before, and through a mistake was dismissed. When people proposed marriages he firmly refused them. At forty he was still alone. And so fifteen years passed.
His examination tutor, a certain bachelor, pitied him for living as a widower and arranged a marriage for him. You refused again and told him the reason. The bachelor was astonished.
“If that is so, then it is my cousin’s daughter. She was fifteen years old and could not speak, but she could hold a brush and write. Whenever she hears anyone discuss a marriage for her, she always writes three characters: waiting for You. Could it be you?”
He pulled You to his cousin’s house and asked the daughter to come out and see him. She wrote from behind the curtain: “Is the Purple Silk Purse still there?” You took the purse out and showed it, and she nodded three times. They chose a day and were married.
On the wedding night the woman looked up at the sky and laughed, and could speak at once. But from then on she remembered nothing at all of her previous life, and was like an ordinary wife.
