The rich old man Huang of Suzhou was over eighty and lived alone in an upper storey.
He suddenly saw a woman leaning on the door and looking in. In his prime he had had a beloved daughter who died in that very room, and he suspected it was her soul, and took no notice. The next evening he saw her again, and now there was a man with her. On the third day, one man and one woman, astride the roof beams, looking down at him with both eyes.
The old man deliberately took no notice, and bent his head to read.
The man then came down and stood upright beside the old man.
The old man smiled and asked: “Are you a ghost, sir? Your visit here is a great mistake. I am over eighty, and my death is a matter of morning or evening. Before long I shall be of your kind. Why trouble to call on me first? If you are an immortal, why not sit down and talk?”
The monster did not answer, but gave a long howl, and all the window-casements of the storey opened together, and a cold wind came in.
The old man called his family upstairs, and the monster was gone too.
Some months later his two daughters-in-law and a grandson all died, and only one small maid was left. The old man feared that the girl would have no one to rely on after his death, and gave her to his tutor Hua as a concubine. She bore three sons, and is now in Hua’s office at Linhai county in Zhejiang.
Hua Qiuqiu, the magistrate, told me this.
