The Shadow Book of Ji Yun: The Chinese Classic of Weird True Tales, Horror Stories, and Occult Knowledge by Yun Ji

Author:Yun Ji
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Publisher: Empress Wu Books
Published: 2021-07-01T18:30:00+00:00

Since ancient times, writers of conventional histories have testified to the existence of those who history would otherwise forget. While zhiguai explore the strange, there is no reason they can’t also preserve records of individuals who deserve to be remembered.

—Ji Yun, Locust Tree Notes

That Which Remains

D uring my uncle Zhonghan’s tenure as an official in the Anhui province, a local farmer was planting crops one day when his digging implement uncovered a coffin with a corpse inside.

Time had reduced it to gummy soil and splinters with one notable exception. Amidst this decay sat a fresh-looking human heart, gleaming fat and red.

Frightened by the heart’s preternatural state, the farmer dashed to the river and hurled it far out into the water. He then returned to the digging site.

Minutes later, he found a long, flat gravestone near the decayed coffin that was inscribed with writing. He brushed away the dirt to render the characters legible.

What was written there was so disturbing that he put the stone back and fled the area, vowing to never return.

Eventually, my uncle Zhonghan heard about the incident and let it be known that he wanted to see the stone.

The farmer and his neighbors panicked when they heard this. It was bad luck to mess with old graves. This was why the farmer had gotten rid of the heart.

So to avoid any more involvement with the burial site, they shattered the gravestone into pieces and tossed them into the river too.

As an added precaution, the farmer then went around telling everyone that he had invented the whole story.

A busy man, my uncle soon forgot about the case. But after he retired, he came across a rubbing someone had made of the gravestone. He learned then that not only was the farmer’s original account true but also the story behind the heart.

The rubbing read thus:

Daughter, your pale jade is blemished.

Not by you, but by others,

By wrongs done.

Near water, you died.

Afterwards, I put your body

At the bottom of this mountain.

In this life,

I failed you.

I could not even clear your name.

But I swear to you this:

I cover your tomb now

Not just with dirt.

I cover your tomb with a promise.

The centuries will not forget the injustice

Done to you.

I pray this to the spirits:

If you were at fault,

Let your heart rot.

If the only wrong was that done by others:

Let your heart never die.

Let it testify to the truth that they did not.

My nephew Zhaoxian, who told me about this incident, and I agreed that the father’s message indicated his daughter was unjustly accused of some crime and died as a result—whether through suicide or murder.

The grief-stricken father, unable to accept this, used her grave tablet to protest and accuse. Subsequently, sympathetic spiritual forces abetted his cause and allowed the daughter’s heart to remain fresh to vouch for her good character.

While the father’s efforts are praiseworthy, unfortunately the note on the tablet was undated and signed with his writing pseudonym, “A Miner of Stones and Gems,” rather than his real name. And no relatives could be traced through inquiries or historical records.

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