A satin merchant of Jiangning traded in Wu, and was fond of leaf-cards. One day he invited guests to the hall to match wits and stakes. Word came that a certain Chen of Shengze was at the door. The merchant, loath to leave the table, and knowing Chen a friend, told a servant to show him in.
Chen, seeing the merchant, wept freely and seized his arm in grief. The merchant thought him mad, and went on playing cards.
Then Chen said: “Your death-day has come! I was far away and feared I could not attend the mourning in time, so I have brought paper and cloth and come to offer this advance obeisance.” He ordered his followers to set out incense and spirit-money at the seat, took a funeral gift from his sleeve, and asked the merchant to accept it. The merchant thought him more absurd, and kept playing.
Chen changed into white mourning clothes and, at the gaming-table, bowed to the merchant again and again, weeping as if inconsolable. The merchant flew into a rage and rose with his cards: “I took you for a friend of a hundred li; I thought you came for honest counsel — why this inauspiciousness, like a curse?” The other guests also reproached him.
Chen, grave, replied: “Am I mad? Last spring, when I was ill, I entered the underworld court. Beside one office hung a board; I saw your name already accused by someone, sentenced to be tried on the second day of the seventh month.”
“Who accuses me?”
“A certain woman.”
“Of what?”
“A matter of the nineteenth day of the ninth month last autumn. The witness, a nun, is already bound in the corridor.”
At this the merchant’s colour drained; the cards in his hand fell like autumn leaves, and he rose and seized Chen’s hand and wept too.
The guests asked the story. The merchant said: “This disgraceful matter — why repeat it!” Chen wept and took leave. The merchant hastily packed and by night hired a boat back to Baixia.
Later it was heard that the merchant indeed died on the second of the seventh month. The guests marvelled, and privately sought Chen out to ask after him. Chen laughed: “The old friend did not treasure his own vessel, and so drew the underworld’s punishment. Each of you take care; why ask?” And he sighed and withdrew.
