Hu Huang was a man of Wen’an county in Bazhou, living at Mojinkou. His family was comfortably off; he cared about doing right and gave no thought to profit. He had a servant named Yan An who had been in his service twenty-eight years — respectful, careful and trustworthy — and who had never once simply taken his wages. When Huang offered them he would say: “Leave them stored here in the household. I will draw on them when I have need.” He was sparing with his master’s property and never wasted a fraction of a cash.
Huang treated him as a younger brother. Yan called Huang elder brother, and called Huang’s wife sister-in-law.
It was the gengchen year of the Shaoxing era — a certain year of the Zhenglong era of the Jin. In the middle of spring, Yan took Huang by the sleeve and led him into the bath-house.
“There is something I must tell you in confidence,” he said.
Huang laughed. “You’re not going to ask me for all those years of wages?”
“No.”
“My wife — is she involved with someone?”
“No.”
“Then apart from those two, what could possibly need confidence?”
Yan said: “You are going to die, brother. And not a good death. Seventy days from today you will be struck by lightning in the county market. I have a way to save you. Will you trust me?”
Huang had always thought well of the man. He told his wife and children, and they were all sick with worry and had no idea what to do.
Sixty-three days later he pressed Yan. “If what you said is so, the great date is nearly on us. What is this way of yours?”
Then Yan gave him a secret spell. “The moment you are clear of it,” he said, “I am gone, and you will not see me again.”
On the day itself the sky between earth and heaven was swept and clear, and there was no cloud in any quarter. Yan stacked tables and benches several layers high and borrowed a monk’s robe to drape over them.
At noon smoke and vapour welled up; swift thunder and driving lightning. He led Huang in, made him crouch beneath the tables, and told him to recite the spell quickly.
In a moment fire burst and split, wheeling all around them as though searching for something. And a great god in armour, gripping a battle-axe, called out to the spirits:
“Hu Huang cannot be found. The hour has lapsed. Since this man has escaped the punishment of Heaven and has had a cycle of years added to his life — what are we to do?”
With a rush they scattered. The sun had not yet begun to decline.
And Yan was nowhere to be found.
Huang did not die until the renchen year.
