Then, one day, a fortune-teller arrived in the town, calling himself the Old Man of the Southern Mountain. He claimed to be able to see into the future with the utmost accuracy, and soon became something of a local celebrity. Li sent for him and asked him to read his Eight Astrological Signs. The old man did so, and then rose hurriedly to his feet with a gesture of reverence.

'You, sir, are a true lord, an emperor among men!'

Li was flabbergasted and thought that perhaps the old man was making it all up. But he insisted that he was telling the truth, and Li was almost tempted to believe it himself.

'But I am a nobody,' he said. 'Tell me: when did a man ever receive the Mandate of Heaven and become Emperor in this way with his own bare hands?'

'Why,' declared the old man, 'throughout history! Our Emperors have always come from the ranks of the common people. Which founder of a dynasty was ever born Son of Heaven?'

Now Li, who was beginning to get carried away, drew close to the fortune-teller and asked him for further guidance. The old man declared that he himself would be willing to serve as Li's Chief Marshal, just as the great wizard and strategist Zhuge Liang had once served the Pretender Liu Bei in the time of the Three Kingdoms. Li was to make ready large quantities of suits of armour and bows and crossbows. When Li expressed doubts that anyone would rally to his side, the old man replied, 'Allow me to work for you in the hills, sir. Let me forge links and win men over. Once word is out that you are indeed the true Son of Heaven, have no fear, the fighters of the hills will flock to you.'

Li was overjoyed, and instructed the old man to do as he proposed. He took out all the gold he had and gave orders for the necessary quantity of suits of armour to be made. Several days later, the old man was back.

'Thanks principally to Your Majesty's great aura of blessing, and in some negligible part to my own paltry abilities as an orator, on every hill the men are now thronging to join your cause and rallying to your banner.'

Sure enough, ten days later, a large body of men came in person to swear their allegiance to the new Son of Heaven and to the Old Man of the Southern Mountain whom they acknowledged as their Supreme Marshal. They set up a great standard, with a forest of brightly coloured pennants fluttering in the breeze, and from their stockade on one of the hills they lorded it over the region.

The District Magistrate led out a force to quell this rebellion, and the rebels under the command of the old fortune-teller inflicted a crushing defeat on the government troops. The Magistrate took fright and sent for urgent reinforcements from the Prefect. The Old Marshal harassed these fresh troops, ambushing and overwhelming them, killing large numbers, including several of their commanding officers. The rebels were now more widely feared than ever. They numbered ten thousand, and Li formally proclaimed himself the King of the Nine Mountains, while his Marshal was given the honorific title of Lord Marshal Protector of the Realm. The old man now reckoned his troops were short of horses, and since it so happened that the authorities in the capital were sending some horses under escort to the south, he dispatched some men to intercept the convoy and seize the horses. The success of this operation increased the prestige of the King of the Nine Mountains still further. He took his ease in his mountain lair, well satisfied with himself and considering it now merely a matter of time before he was officially installed on the Dragon Throne.

The Governor of Shandong Province now decided, mainly on account of the seizure of the horses, to launch a large-scale expedition to quell the rebellion once and for all. He received a report from the Prefect of Yanzhou, and sent large numbers of crack troops, who were to co-ordinate with detachments from the six local circuits and converge on the rebel stronghold from all sides. The King of the Nine Mountains became alarmed and summoned his Marshal for a strategic consultation, only to find that the old man had vanished. The 'King' was truly at his wits' end. He climbed to the top of one of the mountains of his 'domain' and looked down on the government forces and their standards, which stretched along every valley and on every hilltop.

'Now I see,' he declared sombrely, 'how great is the might of the Emperor's court!'

His stronghold was destroyed, the King himself was captured, his wife and entire family were executed. Only then did Li understand that the Marshal was the old fox, taking his revenge for the destruction of his own fox-family.

56.

THE FOX OF FENZHOU.

There were a large number of fox-spirits in the residence of Judge Zhu, the Assistant Magistrate of Fenzhou. One night, when he was sitting alone, he saw a young lady pacing to and fro in the lamplight. At first he took her to be the wife of one of his servants and did not pay her much attention. But when he finally looked up at her, he saw that she was a woman unknown to him, and of the rarest beauty. He knew instinctively that she must be a fox-spirit and, finding himself greatly attracted to her, he ordered her to come over to him. She ceased her pacing.

'You speak to me so harshly, sir,' she said with a smile. 'I am not your servant!'

Zhu rose smiling to his feet, drew her down gently to sit by his side and apologized for his brusqueness. They soon became lovers, and with time grew to be as devoted to one another as husband and wife.

One day, she said to the Judge out of the blue, 'You will soon be promoted to a new post. The day of our parting is at hand.'

'When will that be?' asked Zhu.

'Any day now. But even as men come to your door to congratulate you, others will arrive in the alley to offer their condolences, and you will be prevented from taking up the new post.'

Three days later, he indeed received notification of his promotion; and the day after, this was followed by news of his mother's death. He was obliged to resign his post in order to observe the three-year mourning period, and planned to return to his family home in the company of the fox. But she refused to go.

Caption

'We can board the boat now.'

She saw him off as far as the river, where he begged her to board the boat with him.

'Surely you know that a fox cannot cross the river,' she said.

Zhu could not bear to part with her and lingered there on the riverbank, loth to see her go. Then somewhat abruptly she took her leave, saying that she needed to call on an old friend. She returned shortly afterwards, and presently a stranger appeared who said he wished to speak with her, and she took him aside into a little building. When the man had left, she came to Zhu and said, 'We can board the boat now. I shall accompany you across the river.'

'But only a moment ago you said you could not cross the water. What has happened to change things?'

'The man I went to call on just now is none other than the River God. I pleaded with him especially for your sake, and he has given me a dispensation for ten days. I must be back within that time. So I can stay with you a little longer.'

And so they crossed the river together. Ten days later, she made her final farewell and departed.

57.

SILKWORM.

Fu, a Cantonese gentleman in his sixties, had an only son named Lian, an extremely intelligent young man who had the misfortune to have been 'born a eunuch'. When our story commences he was seventeen years old, but his member was still tiny and shrivelled, no larger than a silkworm. This defect of his was common knowledge, and his marriage prospects were worse than poor.

The thought of the imminent extinction of his family line caused his father unremitting anguish. This, he would reflect wretchedly to himself, was his bitter but ineluctable fate.

Lian studied at home with a tutor, who one day happened to go out and leave the schoolroom unattended. During his absence, a man passed by the door with a performing monkey and Lian hurried out to watch, quite forgetting his studies. When he thought of what he might have to face on his tutor's return, he grew scared and ran away.

A few miles from home Lian caught sight of a young lady in a white dress ahead of him, accompanied by a maidservant. The lady turned to look at him and he saw at once that she was bewitchingly beautiful. She was hobbling along on her tiny bound feet, and he was soon able to catch up with her.

'I should like to ask that young man,' she said to her maid, 'if by any chance he is on his way to Hainan Island, to the port of Qiongzhou.'

The maid hailed Lian, and he asked her what she wanted.

'If you are going to Hainan Island,' replied the young lady, her mistress, 'to the port of Qiongzhou, I have a letter I would very much like you to take home for me. My mother will look after you when you get there.'

Young Lian had no particular destination in mind and was only too happy to take a trip out to sea, so he accepted the commission. The lady took out the letter and gave it to her maid, who handed it to Lian. He asked for the family name and address of her mistress.

'The family name is Hua, and they live in Qin-nu Village, a mile or so to the north of Qiongzhou.'

So the young man took a boat for Hainan and, reaching the northern outskirts of Qiongzhou when it was already dusk, asked the way to Qin-nu Village. But no one seemed to know where the place was. He continued to walk on northwards another couple of miles into the night, the moon and the stars shining brightly overhead. All around him lay open country and lush fields bathed in the luminous moonlight. There was no sign of anything resembling an inn, and he was wondering with some concern how he was going to pass the night, when he spied a tomb by the roadside and resolved to take shelter beside it and rest a while. To put himself out of reach of prowling tigers and wolves (the very thought of these creatures filled him with terror), he climbed up into a tree like a monkey and crouched there, clinging to one of the branches. He could hear the wind soughing in the pines, and the plaintive chirping of nocturnal insects, and was beginning to feel thoroughly miserable and to regret that he had ever undertaken this foolhardy errand, when suddenly he heard a voice beneath the tree and, looking down, beheld, not a tomb, but a courtyard house complete in every detail. In the courtyard, on a stone, sat a beautiful lady, waited on by two maidservants, one on each side of her, both of them holding brightly coloured lanterns. The lady turned to the maid on her left and said, 'Just look at the moon and the stars! What a beautiful sky it is tonight! We should celebrate the occasion and brew some tea from one of those special cakes of tea that Auntie Hua gave us.'

Lian sensed at once that the place was haunted and found himself trembling so badly with fear that he could hardly breathe. Suddenly one of the maids looked up.

'Look!' she cried. 'There's a man in the tree!'

'What shameless fellow thinks he can spy on us like that!' cried her mistress.

In his terror, Lian tumbled down from the tree and squatted on the ground, begging for mercy. The lady approached him, and his pleasing appearance seemed to mollify her anger. She drew him up and invited him to sit down beside her. He found himself gazing at a young lady of seventeen or eighteen, of a quite surpassing charm and beauty.

'Where would you be on your way to?' she asked him, speaking in the local Hainan brogue.

'I am delivering a letter for someone,' he replied.

'You never know what might happen out here in the wild. It is too dangerous to sleep out in the open. You are welcome to join us in our humble abode.'

She led the way into the house, where there was but one couch, on which she instructed the maids to place two quilts. Lian was very self-conscious about his physical handicap, and asked if he could sleep on the floor.

The lady smiled. 'It would be unpardonably rude of me to sleep alone up there and let my guest sleep on the floor!'

Lian felt obliged to sleep on the bed, but was so frightened that he curled up into a tight ball. After a little while, the lady slipped her dainty little hand under the cover and began softly fondling his body. Lian pretended to be asleep and not to notice what she was doing. A few minutes passed and she lifted the quilt and climbed in beside him, shaking him but eliciting no response. She slipped her hand further down to feel for his member. So crestfallen was she to discover the diminutive dimensions of what he had down there that she promptly withdrew her hand and crept disconsolately out from under the quilt. He heard the sound of her muffled sobbing and felt pangs of remorse, silently cursing the fate that had afflicted him so. The lady meanwhile called her maid to light a lamp. Seeing her mistress in tears, the maid became distressed herself and asked her what the trouble was.

'I am lamenting my wretched fate!' replied the lady.

The maid stood before the bed, looking into her mistress's Caption

'Look! There's a man in the tree!'

face. 'You'd best wake the gentleman and send him on his way, ma'am.'

This made Lian feel more miserable than ever. Moreover it was the middle of the night, and outside all was dark and strange and he had nowhere to go. He was wrestling with his fear when the door opened and a woman entered the room.

'Auntie Hua is here!' announced the other maid.

Lian stole a glance at the woman, who was in her fifties, well-preserved and stylishly dressed. As she came in, she observed that the young lady was still awake and inquired why, but received no reply. Then she saw that there was a man in the bed and asked who had been sleeping with her. Clever (for such was the young lady's name) was silent.

'A young man arrived during the night,' said the maid, 'and stayed here.'

The woman laughed. 'So! I had no idea this was Clever's wedding night!' Then she noticed the tears still wet on her cheeks. 'What! Crying on your wedding night? That's not right. Has he been treating you roughly?'

The young lady said nothing, but looked more unhappy than ever. Auntie Hua went over and began undressing the stranger, in order to have a good look at him. As she did so she dislodged the letter, which fell on to the frame of the bed.

'Why, this is my daughter's handwriting!' she cried.

She opened it and read it through with many a sigh and cry of surprise. The girl inquired what the letter contained.

'It's from Tertia,' replied Auntie Hua. 'She says her husband Mr Wu is dead, and she has no one to turn to and is in a dreadful plight...'

'The young man told us he was delivering a letter,' said the young lady. 'It's a good thing we didn't send him on his way.'

Auntie Hua now roused Lian and questioned him closely about the letter. He told her the whole story.

'You've gone to a great deal of trouble on our behalf,' said Auntie Hua. 'I'd like to do something for you in return.' She looked him up and down with a chuckle. 'Whatever did you do to upset Clever?'

'I really don't know,' he mumbled pathetically.

She questioned Clever, who sighed and replied, 'I feel so wretched. In my lifetime I was married to one eunuch and now, after death, I find myself in bed with another!'

Auntie Hua looked at Lian. 'So! You're more woman than man? Well, you are my guest, after all: I must treat you better than this. Let's see what we can do for you.'

She led Lian off to the eastern side of the house where she proceeded to feel around inside his trousers in order to verify Clever's verdict.

'No wonder the girl was so downcast!' she cried. 'But at least we've still got a bit of a stump to work on...'

She lit a lamp and started routing around among her boxes, eventually emerging with a large black bolus, which she instructed him to swallow at once, whispering in his ear that he must absolutely not take fright. Then she took her leave and Lian lay down alone, brooding on his strange predicament and wondering what cure it could be that the woman hoped to effect by means of the bolus. He fell asleep. It was the fifth watch of the night when he awoke, to feel a warmth travelling down towards his groin, then a stirring, followed by the beginnings of a wriggling and a tingling and a sensation of a definite something dangling in his crutch. He felt with his hand and lo! He was a real man! He was beside himself with joy, like a loyal minister presented with some rare decoration.

When dawn broke, Auntie Hua came in with some freshly baked cakes for him, telling him to be patient and wait there. She closed the door and went out again, taking Clever aside. 'That young man has done us a service. In return I want Tertia to adopt him as her brother. I've put him in the guest room and locked the door, so you won't have to see him and upset yourself again.' And with these words, Auntie Hua went on her way.

Lian, meanwhile, was growing bored and starting to fret. From time to time he went to a crack in the door and pressed himself up against it like a caged bird. Whenever he saw Clever passing by he wanted to call out to her and tell her his good news, but was always too coy to do so.

That evening Auntie Hua came back with her daughter Tertia and pushed open the door. 'I fear we have cooped you up all day!' she exclaimed. 'Come, Tertia, say thank you to this kind gentleman.'

Her daughter came sidling into the room, brought her sleeves together and curtseyed to Lian. Auntie Hua told them to address each other thenceforth as brother and sister.