In the Kaiyuan era of the Tang, a man from Wu Commandery went to the capital to sit the classics examination. In the capital he would stroll idly through the wards and lanes. One day he met two young men in loose hemp shirts, who bowed to him as they passed, looking very humble and respectful; but he did not know them, and thought they had mistaken him for someone else. A few days later he met them again, and they said, "Since you came here we have not yet played host to you. Today we were just about to come and invite you, and now we've run into you by chance. We are truly delighted." They bowed to the candidate and led him off; though he found it very strange, he made himself go along.
After a few wards they came to a little lane in the East Market where there were several shop-fronts on the street. They went straight in together; the rooms were very neat and orderly. The two led him up into the hall, where a lavish feast was laid out. The two men and their guest settled on rope chairs. Before the table there were several more young men, all in their twenties, very correct in their manners. They kept going out the door, as if waiting for an honored guest. In the afternoon someone said, "She's coming." A carriage was heard driving straight up to the gate, with several young men following it, right up to the front of the hall: a carriage inlaid with gold. The curtain was rolled up, and a young woman stepped out, about seventeen or eighteen, and very beautiful. Her hair was full of flowered combs, and she was dressed in plain white silk. The two men bowed to her together, and she did not return the bow; when the candidate bowed to her too, she returned it. Then she bowed the guest inside.
The woman took her seat on the couch in the place of honor and bowed to the two men and the guest, and then they bowed and sat. More than ten other young men, all in light new clothes, each came forward to bow and took their seats below the guest. Dishes of every kind were set out, the food exquisitely fine and clean. After several rounds of wine it came to the woman's turn. Holding her cup, she turned to the guest and asked, "I have heard these two gentlemen speak of you, and I am glad to meet you at last. I'm told you have a marvelous skill. May we see it?" The man humbly declined: "From childhood on I have studied only the Confucian classics. Strings, pipes and singing I have never learned." She said, "That is not the kind of thing I mean. Think carefully: what is it you could do before?" The guest thought for a long time and said, "When I was at school, I once walked a few steps up a wall in my boots. As for other tricks, I've never done any." She said, "That is just what I am asking for. Please show us." So he walked a few steps on the wall. She said, "That is no easy thing either." Then she looked round at the young men present and had each of them show his skill, and they all rose and bowed. Some walked on the walls, some went hand over hand along the rafters; each performed several feats of lightness and speed, like flying birds. The man, hands clasped, was astonished and afraid and did not know what to do.
Soon the woman rose and took her leave. The candidate marveled, and went about in a daze, ill at ease. Some days later he met the two men again in the street, and they said, "We'd like to borrow your fine horse. May we?" "Certainly," said the candidate. The very next day he heard that things had been stolen from the palace park; the thieves had been hunted but got away, and all that was caught was a horse, the one that had carried off the loot.
The authorities traced the horse's owner and arrested the man. He was taken to the Palace Domestic Service for questioning and driven through a small door. An officer pushed him from behind, and he fell headlong into a pit several zhang deep. Looking up, he could see the roof seven or eight zhang above, with only one hole in it, barely a foot across. He had been put in at dawn; at mealtime he saw a container of food let down on a rope. Desperately hungry, he took it and ate. When he had finished, the rope drew it up again. Deep in the night, full of rage and grief with no one to plead to, he looked up and suddenly saw something fly down like a bird. He felt it land beside him: it was a person.
It stroked him with its hand and said, "You must have been terribly frightened. But now that I'm here, there's nothing to worry about." By the voice, it was the young woman he had met before. "I'll get you out." She bound his chest and arms tightly with silk and tied the other end of the silk to herself. Then she sprang upward and flew out over the palace walls, coming down only several dozen li from the gate. "Go home to the Yangtze and Huai country for now," she said. "Your hopes of office will have to wait for another day." Overjoyed, he slipped away on foot, begging food and lodging, until he reached Wu. After that he never again dared to go west seeking a name for himself.
