Today as he heard the outcry, he was startled to see one of the old women come running and hear her call, “Oh, Great One, it is terrible! The Great One’s chamber is on fire!”
Hearing this, the prime minister exclaimed, “I know it is probably one more of this monk’s magic tricks.” Hurriedly he called for twenty of his men to lock the monk in an empty room, saying, “At the third watch I will examine the monk.” Pointing at Ji Gong he said, “Crazy monk, if you burn the prime minister’s residence until there is not a tile left, I will still take you through the military barracks gate. There I will give you eighty strokes—and perhaps that will relieve the hatred I feel for you in my breast.” He sent him off with the twenty men, telling them to guard the monk well.
Then, saying, “I must go to the inner apartments and see what is happening,” Prime Minister Qin took several dozen people with him. There he saw his wife standing in a courtyard frightened and trembling, while the women and maids were busily putting out the fire. He asked her where the fire had originated.
She replied, “Sparks flew out of the incense burner and set fire to the paper on the lattice windows.”
Prime Minister Qin gave orders that everyone should work to put the fire out. He himself carried out the incense burner and threw it on the ground. One of the serving women anxiously picked it up but found that it was undamaged. Made of unrefined gold, the heavy incense burner, even if it had been broken, would still have been a treasure, because according to the old saying, “Gold is gold!”
When Prime Minister Qin saw that the fire had been put out, he and his wife went inside. She asked, “Why did the Great One become so angry?”
He then told her how the mad monk had used his magic arts to beat the estate managers; how he, the prime minister, had ordered soldiers to surround the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat; and how the soldiers and headmen had brought back the monk in irons. “When I was about to punish him by beating, the inner apartments caught fire. I now have a number of monks locked up in vacant rooms, and at the third watch I intend to beat that insane monk.”
When his wife heard this, she said, “Does the great man need to contend with these ignorant people?” Just as she said these words, a serving woman announced that the evening meal was prepared, and invited the prime minister to partake of it in another room.
Prime Minister Qin said, “We will just have it in here.” A slave girl brought cups and chopsticks, but the prime minister was still too full of his pent-up anger to eat. He drank two small cups of wine and then withdrew from the table. For a while he read a book, but soon put out the light. He seemed to see several roads leading forward, but could not tell where they went. He yielded to his weariness for a while and then drifted toward sleep. Now, with his arm for a pillow, all things began to become indistinct and fade. As he was sinking into a deeper sleep, he heard footsteps.
A deep foggy draft getting colder and colder,
A sound like the wind in a forest so lonely,
A forest in autumn when leaves lose their color,
Then a hoarse, ugly cry like a stricken cow’s bellow
And something or someone was pulled through the door.
Then he saw through the mist as the fog began clearing,
Moving close there beside him a vision from hell,
With a soul still in suffering whose face was familiar
And a hideous goblin repulsive and fierce.
Qin Kuei’s only wish was to shun them and flee.
As Prime Minister Qin looked, he saw a huge, unearthly being come into the room from the courtyard. His face was like black smoke. He wore a dark blue or black satin cap like a soldier’s, divided into six sections by seams, and a short padded jacket of dark cloth. A mesh pocket or string bag was fastened at his waist. Beneath the jacket was a garment with long, dark-red sleeves. Above his large eyes were rounded eyebrows. In his hand he carried a blazing and smoking pitchfork.
Close behind him entered another tall figure clothed all in white, wearing a hat two feet in height. The skin of his face was a sickly, transparent purple, revealing black beneath. In his hand he held a knotty wooden club from which tears fell as if the knots were eyes.
The two stood before the prime minister. Behind them another figure entered. On his head was a kerchief tied with the ends turned up and toward each other in the shape of a Chinese scepter. His robe was embroidered satin and his shoes were those of an official. His face was white and square in shape. In his hands he carried a writing brush and tablet.
One more figure appeared. On his head he wore a soft blue kerchief wound and tied into a turban, while on his body was a robe decorated with medallions of flowers in five colors against a dark-blue background. On his feet he wore soft, dark cloth slippers. His skin was a light, sickly purple in color, his eyebrows heavy and long, shading his widely spaced eyes. His hands were manacled and his ankles in fetters. With his hands he dragged the long chains with which he was bound and the heavy lock that fastened them together. He had a dry, emaciated look. His tangled hair was tied in a loose knot and his beard was like trampled grass.
Prime Minister Qin gazed at him and exclaimed, “Alas!” Yes, it was his adoptive father and patron, Qin Guai, returning home as a baleful ghost! Behind him followed a small demon with a kerchief of glazed material tied about its head. Green clay seemed to cover its face, and above its two protruding golden eyes were pointed vermilion eyebrows. Its body seemed to be painted with lacquer, and around its waist was tied an apron of tiger skin. In its hands it held a huge cudgel studded with wolves’ teeth, which he held close behind the back of Qin Guai.
“My old father!” exclaimed Prime Minister Qin. “I thought that you would have been in heaven long ago. Who would have thought that you could still be suffering in the underworld! Why don’t you go ahead and return now? Tomorrow your child will definitely invite high-ranking Daoists and Buddhists to raise you from suffering, that you may quickly ascend to heaven.”
Qin Guai answered: “Son, for your father’s sake, while you are yet in the world of light occupying your high position, return to the path of virtue before father and son-in-law both go down in the stormy sea. When men inspire hatred, heaven above is angry. Now I am punished in the black depths of hell, suffering every imaginable misery. From there I was ordered by the grand secretary of the Buddhist disciples in heaven to come home to you in this terrible form, to admonish you and to dissuade you from your evil course. You are the embodiment of the prime minister’s office. You must do good deeds, promote the prosperity of all, and be virtuous. You not only failed to do good deeds, but you wanted to destroy a Buddhist building, a monstrous sin of the deepest kind. Because you tried to destroy the Great Memorial Pagoda in the Monastery of the Soul’s Retreat and locked up the monks, I want you to listen to my wholesome advice. Release the monks quickly; then restore the Great Memorial Pagoda completely.”
Just as the ghost had spoken to this point, the huge demon with the pitchfork said, “Brothers, take him away.” There was a tremendous roar as the demon shook his flaming iron pitchfork. Qin Guai fell to the ground, was pulled to his feet, and then left with the others.
Prime Minister Qin called to him: “Father, wait! Your child has something more to say!”
But the demons paid no attention simply saying, “Lead on.”
The prime minister was starting forward to grasp him when he suddenly heard the sound of a bell and opened his eyes.
CHAPTER 11
Zhao Bin stealthily visits the estate of Prime Minister Qin; the guiltless Wang Xing is mercilessly punished
In winter, to remember spring’s not far away,
We pile the willow twigs in the roof’s frost,
But wine is given to us that we may drink,
And grieve