Min Maojia of Hangzhou loved chess. His teacher, a man named Sun, often played with him.
In the sixth month of the fifth year of the Yongzheng reign it was very hot. Min asked five friends over and they played a round-robin. When Sun had finished his game he said, “I’m tired. I’ll sleep a while in the east wing and come back and settle this.”
Presently there was a screaming from the east wing. Min and the other four ran. Sun was face down on the floor, slaver all over his jaw.
They got ginger juice into him and he came round, and they asked him.
“I was lying on the bed, not properly asleep, when I felt a cold spot on my back about the size of a walnut. It grew to the size of a plate. Then half the mat was cold, and the cold went into my bones. I couldn’t think what it was.
“Then there was a puffing under the bed. I looked down — and a skull was blowing at me through the matting. I fainted with fright and fell on the floor. The skull then butted me with its head. When it heard you coming it left.”
All four of them wanted to dig.
Min’s son was afraid of the consequences and would not. So the east wing was locked up.
