9

LAME PRIEST ZUO TRICKS REN QIAN IN BUYING CAKES;

REN, WU, AND ZHANG FOLLOW HIM IN FURIOUS PURSUIT.

POEM:

Steamed cakes blackened, a fire that wouldn’t burn,

A pig’s head winking—such magic shows finesse.

Out of their desire to catch Lame Priest Zuo,

Three men come face-to-face with a demoness.

Let us tell how the Zhengzhou officials prepared a memorial and sent it to Emperor Renzong. The emperor opened and read it at his imperial desk, then declared before the assembled civil and military officials, “The prefect of Zhengzhou has been murdered by demons! You must arrest them and rid us of this menace.”

He had barely finished speaking when an officer of the Imperial Observatory stepped forward and reported, “Last night a demons’ moon appeared in the sky and shone directly in the Double Fish Constellation before setting in the area of Wei. It indicates a demons’ revolt. I entreat Your Majesty to give this your august attention so that proper precautions may be taken.”

“That other incident has only just occurred in Zhengzhou, and now you report the appearance of a demons’ moon! Both involve great danger. You must all take steps to deal with them ahead of time.”

The officials declared, “At present South Yamen, Kaifeng prefecture, has no prefect. It is important to select an upright, incorruptible man for the post, in the hope that he will serve as an example to the whole country in removing the evil the demons present.”

“Who would be best fitted to serve?” asked the emperor.

“Bao Zheng,1 style Xiren, edict attendant of the Longtu Pavilion, who is from Hefei in Luzhou. It is vital to appoint him to the position.” The emperor agreed to the suggestion and summoned Bao to the palace. Following the audience, Bao was told to take up his duties that very day.

After expressing his gratitude for the emperor’s grace, he left the palace. His subordinates in the prefecture escorted him to the yamen, where, needless to say, he was handed the seals of office. Ascending his tribunal that same day, he issued a written directive to the Eastern Capital and all its subprefectures and counties that every five families should form a unit and every twenty-five families a group, all of which were forbidden to give overnight lodging to idlers and vagrants. People from other parts of the country should have their backgrounds checked. Inns were forbidden to admit guests traveling alone, and explicit instructions to that effect were posted on all twenty-eight city gates. The populace burned incense and bowed in gratitude. “What a good man His Honor is!” they exclaimed. Bao governed in such a fashion that all the inhabitants of Kaifeng prefecture were pleased with him. Truly

The runners stood on thin ice;

The people lived in a mirror.2

Passersby stepped aside to make room for others. People were happy and well nourished. No one picked up anything that was dropped on the road or locked his door at night. The entire Eastern Capital was at peace.

In Backwater Alley there lived a vendor named Ren Qian. As the eldest male in his generation he was known as Number One, and he worked in the “five ready-to-eat foods” business. What was that business?

The vendors of noodles were known as boilers;

The vendors of wheat cakes were known as bakers;

The vendors of salt fish were known as salters;

The vendors of steamed cakes were known as steamers;

The vendors of stuffed dumplings were known as fryers.

Ren Qian was a good vendor, and he strove to be the best in terms of sales. He would cook a day’s supply of food at home and then load it onto a rack, neatly arranging the steamed cakes, wheat cakes, steamed buns, and vegetable rolls. With his carrying pole over his shoulder, he would then go to the crossroads on Horse Market Street and there lay down his pole, set up his stand, and greet the other vendors. On this occasion he had no sooner brought out a three-legged stool to sit on from behind his rack when he heard a jangling sound, and someone came rushing up beside his stand—but not to buy cakes. Ren Qian saw that the object making the jangling sound was a suisu, known in temples as a set of Daoist rings, which are used by exorcists to call attention to themselves. This exorcist was shaking his rings as he approached Ren Qian’s stand. “Riches! Profits! Good fortune! Give me cash!” he called out to Ren Qian.

Ren Qian couldn’t help laughing. “Out with the bad smell!” he retorted. He saw that the exorcist was short and slight, that his Daoist cap had lost its brim, and that the crown was torn and allowed tufts of hair to poke through, hair that looked like matted straw. Wearing a cloth gown with a tattered collar and well-worn cloth trousers, he resembled nothing so much as a lion.3 He wore torn leggings and hemp sandals with the grommets shorn off. Around his waist he had a sash without tassels. “Look down without fail,” said Ren Qian, “lest you tread on a mouse’s tail. To come out and start exorcising at this hour of the morning4—you can’t have any idea of time!”

“I know it’s early. I’ve only collected six cash so far.”

“Why didn’t you wait and come out a bit later?”

“You mustn’t blame me, brother! I live with my mother in a tumbledown cave, and so far today we haven’t had anything to eat. Give me just one cash. I’ll put it together with my six and buy some rice to make a gruel that will fill both of us up.”

Hearing his tale of woe, Ren Qian was going to give him a cash, but when he felt in his waist pocket, he found there was nothing there. “If I had any change on me, I wouldn’t begrudge you the one cash, but I haven’t yet done any business today.”

Realizing Ren Qian had no cash on him, Lame Priest asked, “How much are your wheat cakes, brother?”

“Seven cash apiece.”

Lame Priest took six cash from his pocket and spread them out on the dish. “Brother, sell me a wheat cake for my mother,” he said.

Ren Qian accepted five of the cash and gave the sixth back to Lame Priest. “I’ll consider this my first sale of the day,” he said. Lame Priest tucked the cash in his pocket. Ren Qian took one large and one small wheat cake from the steamer and gave them to him. As the priest reached out to receive them, Ren Qian noticed that the man’s hand was black with filth. I wonder how long it’s been since he had a wash, he thought to himself.

Lame Priest took the wheat cakes in his hand, looked at them, and began to knead them with his fingers. “Brother!” he cried. “My mother’s eighty. How can she eat wheat cakes? Exchange them for a dumpling.”

“You’ve made them all filthy,” said Ren Qian. “No one else will want them now.” He put them in the bamboo basket in front and went back to the steamer, picked up a dumpling, and gave it to him. Lame Priest took it in his hands and began kneading it as before. “Brother, what’s the filling?” he asked.

“Nothing but the finest meat.”

“But brother, my mother’s a vegetarian! She can’t eat this. Exchange it for a red-bean dumpling.”

I’ve still not made a sale, thought Ren Qian, and I have to run into this wretch! He was on the point of refusing when he noticed that a number of customers were milling around his rack, and he was forced to restrain himself and exchange the steamed dumpling for a red-bean one. Lame Priest took the latter in his hands and squeezed it. “This will never be enough to satisfy her!” he exclaimed. “Exchange it for a steamed cake.”

“No wonder you’re starving!” Ren Qian cried out in anger. “You’ve paid me only five cash, and you’ve ruined three items. This time I’m not going to exchange it!”

“Now, don’t get all upset, brother,” said Lame Priest. “Two steamed cakes will never be enough to satisfy my mother and me. I’d rather buy some rice to make gruel with.” He went up to the rack, snatched back the coins, and then blew on the rack as he left.

“You swine!” shouted Ren Qian. “You’ve ruined three orders! And now where do you think you’re going?” He rushed forward and was about to strike Lame Priest when a sudden thought made him stop: from the way he looks, I wonder how many blows and kicks he could actually stand. If something went wrong, I’d be charged with murder, so I’d better let him off. He turned around, but when he looked at his rack, he let out a cry of anguish—all his dumplings and cakes were as black as charcoal. He was furious. That swine has been plaguing me all this time, he thought, and now he’s gone and ruined my entire stock. Well, so far as I’m concerned, business is over for the day, and now I’m going to have it out with him! He told the other vendors to mind his stand while he went off after Lame Priest with his fists cocked. Full of youthful hotheadedness, he pursued his quarry for a long time without catching sight of him and was on the point of turning back when he heard a jangling sound up ahead. That must be him, he thought, and rushed off in pursuit, but still did not manage to catch sight of his quarry. After many twists and turns, his pursuit brought him to the tower of Anshang Gate, where he found a crowd of people gathered around the doorway of a butcher’s shop.

That’s my friend Butcher Zhang’s place, he thought. I wonder what brings all these people here. He stopped, pushed his way through the crowd, and found an old woman lying on the ground and a young man helping her to her feet and crying, “Mother!” over and over again. After he had been calling her for a long time, she came to her senses but still kept her eyes shut tight. “Relax, Mother!” the young man said. “Open your eyes!”

“Quick! Take me home!” she cried.

“Open your eyes!” he repeated.

“I can’t, I’m too afraid.” The young man helped her away.

I wonder why she fell down here, thought Ren Qian. At this point Butcher Zhang called out to the crowd, “Come on, break it up, everyone! There’s nothing here for you to see.”

Ren Qian knew the butcher as Zhang Qi, the first in his family line. “It’s a long time since we last met, Number One,” he said.

“Brother Ren! What are you doing here?”

“Oh, I had some odds and ends I needed to see to.”

“Come on in. There’s something I want to tell you.”

Ren Qian went inside. “What was all that excitement about beside your door just now?” he asked.

“Never in all my life have I seen such an extraordinary thing! Just now someone wearing a tattered cap and a well-worn cloth gown and holding a set of Daoist rings in his hand came by chanting, ‘Riches! Profits! Good fortune! Give me cash!’ I said to him, ‘Lame Priest, you can’t have any idea of time! I expect you live in a house without windows.’ He replied, ‘If you don’t have any cash, that’s one thing. But why do you have to go and make fun of me?’ To my astonishment, he looked at the pig’s head hanging above my bench, felt it with his hand, moved his lips and said something that I didn’t quite catch, then went off shaking his rings. I thought nothing of it, but Zhai Erlang, who makes artificial flowers in the courtyard across from here, had ordered this pig’s head, and he sent his mother over to collect it. I took it down and gave it to her, and the pig gave a wink, then opened its mouth and bit the old woman, which caused her to collapse in fright. I at once sent my assistant over to call the son, and luckily he managed to bring her around. If anything had gone wrong, I’d have been charged with a crime. When the son picked up the pig’s head and looked at it, nothing happened, and he concluded that the old lady had been seeing things—after all, who has ever seen a dead pig wink?—and took her home.”

On hearing this account, Ren Qian told him the whole story of how Lame Priest had bought the steamed cakes. “Incredible!” exclaimed Butcher Zhang. The word was hardly out of his mouth when the two men heard rings jangling.

“That swine is still up there ahead of us!” exclaimed Ren Qian.

“Ruining your steamed cakes, that’s not so serious—it didn’t do a great deal of harm. But I came close to paying with my life for the death of that old woman. You don’t need to do a thing, but when I get my hands on that swine, I’m going to give him a good thrashing!”

“I’m going with you,” said Ren Qian. They rushed off after Lame Priest.

For a long time they pursued him without even catching sight of him. “What shall we do now?” asked Butcher Zhang. “If we’d caught him, we’d have shown him no mercy, but since we can’t catch him, we’d better turn back.” Just as they were about to do so, they heard the sound of the rings once more. They pursued the priest for a couple more miles, to a point several miles outside Anshang Gate. They continued to hear the rings but could never catch up with him. Just as they were about to turn back again, they saw someone beating a man with a stick in front of the noodle shop at the far end of the market. Butcher Zhang recognized the one doing the beating as Wu Three, owner of the noodle shop.

“Hold it, Brother Wu!” said Butcher Zhang. “Let him off, for my sake.”

Wu stopped his beating. “My shop was full of people who wanted to eat their noodles and be on their way. I told this fellow to make a fire, but no matter what he did, the fire wouldn’t start, and for a long time he couldn’t get the cauldron to heat. Meanwhile all the customers left. I’m going to flay him alive!”

“Stop, for my sake!” urged Butcher Zhang.

“This is hardly the time of day for you to be strolling around town, is it?” asked Wu Three.

Butcher Zhang then told him all the things that Lame Priest had done, and Wu Three was dumbfounded. “In that case, I was wrong to beat that fellow. Let me tell you what happened. I was at my stove when I saw a lame priest approach my door, shaking his rings and calling out, ‘Riches! Profits! Good fortune! Give me cash!’ I was busy, and I said, ‘You can’t have any idea of time, coming out in the middle of the day like this to exorcise evil spirits. Were you afraid that, if you came later, the ghosts would carry you off? I don’t have any change on me, and I’ll have to send you away empty-handed.’ He peered into my cauldron, blew a breath of air into it, and then left. As soon as he had gone, I told my assistant to light the stove, but he couldn’t get it to start. After a long time, when it still wouldn’t start, many of my customers left because they couldn’t wait any longer for their noodles. That’s why I was beating him. If you two hadn’t shown up, I’d never have known about any of this. What a vicious character that priest is! He’s ruined my entire business for the day!”

As he said this, they heard the sound of the rings once more. Wu Three peered and saw Lame Priest up ahead of them, shaking his rings as he walked along. “Let’s go after him!” chorused the three men. Seeing them coming, Lame Priest dashed off.

Because of their pursuit of Lame Priest, certain consequences followed: the three men arrived at an isolated Buddhist temple and saw an extraordinary sight

Unheard of since the world began,

Unseen in all the expanse of time.

Where did the three men pursue Lame Priest, and what did they see? Turn to the next chapter to find out.