Chen Yuesheng of Loudong built a retreat west of Lotus Bridge. The work was barely finished when the household began to clamour that there were ghosts. Chen thought it nonsense, and moved his bed in.
That night he saw four men in scholar’s blue come in together, mouthing verses, all four of them carrying a smell of rot. One was an old man of about fifty, one somewhere in his forties, and the other two were lads of eighteen or nineteen.
The old man said: “Last night the wind and rain spoiled things. Tonight the moonlight is excellent — shall we draw a topic and try our hands?”
The others agreed. The old man took several paper lots from his sleeve and had one of the boys draw. They unrolled it: See what a man does — the whole chapter.
They each produced writing things from their breasts. The old man took the seat of honour, the man in his forties sat beside him on the right, and the two boys took the desk below.
All four shut their eyes, knitted their brows, shook their heads and scratched their ears, droning away for some two hours.
The old man smiled. “The writing faculty is blocked tonight. I have managed one opening line, and that is all.”
The one beside him said: “I am exactly the same as you.”
The old man looked at it. The opening ran: See what he does, and observe the way he goes, and examine where he rests — how can a man be thin?
The old man said: “The first clause — heroes see alike. It is only the second that lacks comprehension.”
His neighbour asked to be taught, so the old man produced his own. It ran: See what he does, and observe the way he goes, and examine where he rests — and thin thin?
His neighbour sighed with admiration.
The old man said: “In essay-writing a hair’s breadth is a thousand li. The reason you sit permanently in the fifth grade while I am properly attached to the tail of the fourth is simply that I leave no meaning unused in the topic.”
And he was rather pleased with himself.
Then they looked at the two boys. Not a single word.
The old man said: “You are in your prime. Writing should have some fire in it. Why hand in a blank sheet like this?”
The boys said: “Of all the harsh punishments and cruel penalties in the world, there is none worse than composing an essay. The reason we hated life and welcomed death was that we were lucky enough to have escaped it. Why should we go looking for poison when we are not ill?”
The old man clapped his hands and roared. “I was wrong. As you put it, that is truly the first method of ease.”
Presently a small servant came with a wine hamper. One of the boys said: “Discussing principles on an empty belly — what relish is in that? On a night like this, better to drink hard.” They set out the wine and food, sat round and devoured it, and in a moment it was all gone.
The boy held his belly and laughed. “There is nothing at all in here. It is fit only to be a wine-sack and rice-bag.”
The man in his forties said: “Eat meat and eat well — that is how to get something into it.”
The old man said: “I only fear you will see it go in and not see it come out.”
They all roared. After a while the servant cleared the wine things away, the four of them fixed a date to meet again, and went off, full and drunk.
Chen now believed in ghosts. From then on they brought their friends, and there was no night without a disturbance.
Then came the season of the annual examination. The director of studies sent his door-keeper with the notice board into the country to summon candidates. He passed Lotus Bridge after dark, put up at Chen’s house, laid the notice board on the table, pulled the quilt over him and went straight to sleep.
The four scholars came in noisily and took their seats, talking loudly as though nobody else were there.
Then the old man crept close to the table, saw the notice board, and cried out in horror:
“The summons to death has come again!”
They all crowded round to look. Their faces were the colour of dead ashes.
One of the boys laughed. “In life it was this that shattered our hearts and split our gall, until we expired. Now we are half outside the game. Why should we fear the battle of Julu — the disaster only reaches those watching from the wall!”
The old man said: “Do not talk so comfortably. The courts of the dead have lately made a new rule. At the season of the annual examination in the world of the living, the City God’s office is ordered to sweep up every ghost licentiate and send them all to sit the annual examination in the Hall of Cultivated Letters. The good receive high reward. The bad are haled to the knife-mountain prison and have their stomachs and bowels cut out. It is close now. What is to be done?”
The boys changed colour too, and begged him again and again for a plan.
The old man said: “This was never a comfortable country. If you wish to escape this trouble, each of you must throw away the scholar’s cap and take off the scholar’s gown, and bury your heads in the dark places of hell for five or six hundred years, so that those who carry the warrant have nobody to seize. Then perhaps you may get clear of the bitter sea.”
They all turned from fear to joy, took off their clothes and caps, bundled them on their backs, and went staggering off after the old man. The door-keeper thought it very strange.
In the morning he told Chen about it. Chen was delighted. He had a copy of the notice board made and pasted on his wall.
From that day the scholars in blue never came again.
The Duo comment: “A licentiate who hands in a blank sheet — even the Hall of the Ten Kings is on guard against his answering. How much less dare he wait on the summons at the Golden Gate? From this we know that when Li Changgu was commissioned to write for the Jade Tower, it was only because he had vomited up his heart and liver on ordinary days that he dared accept the invitation of the man in crimson.”
