When my teacher, Mr Zhang Chumen, was keeping his school at Dongting on the eastern hill, Yan Aiting and Qian Xiangling had not yet entered the Hanlin — both were studying in the same hall.
One evening, as they were talking about prose by lamplight, a ghost pushed its head in through the open lattice.
At first its face was the size of a winnowing basket. Then it was like an overturned cauldron. Then it grew as big as a carriage wheel. Its brows were brooms, its eyes were bells, its cheekbones stood high and thick with five bushels of vulgar dust heaped on them.
My teacher glanced at it and smiled. He took up a book he had written and showed it to the thing.
“Do you know this character?”
The ghost said nothing.
My teacher said: “If you cannot read, why put on this great face in front of people?”
Then he put out two fingers and tapped it on the face. It sounded like rotten leather.
He laughed aloud. “With a face-skin this thick, no wonder you understand nothing.”
The ghost was deeply ashamed, and shrank at once to the size of a bean.
My teacher turned to his students. “Here I thought it was always putting on this great manner — and it turns out to be a person with no face at all, come here to make mischief.”
He took his belt knife and struck at it. Something rang on the floor.
They picked it up. It was one small coin.
The Duo comment: “The God of Money changes shape; the man of letters expounds the law. Just so, just so. When Cangjie made characters the ghosts wept; when King Jing cast money the ghosts laughed. That a ghost cannot read and yet loves money — is that its inborn nature? But there are those who can read and still love money. I cannot fathom what kind of ferocious ghost that is.”
