Shen Fengyu of Hangzhou was on the staff of a magistrate at Wukang. A superior office had sent a document ordering the arrest of a great river-and-sea pirate named Shen Yufeng, and a colleague of his named Yuan, teasing Shen, wrote the three characters Shen Fengyu upside down in red ink and said: “They are looking for you everywhere now.”
Shen was angry, snatched it, and burned it.
That night, as he lay down, he dreamed that a demon bailiff burst in, shackled him, and took him to the City God’s temple. The City God sat high and shouted: “You are a murderous pirate. Detestable!” He ordered the attendants to carry out the sentence.
Shen protested frantically that he was a scholar of Hangzhou and no pirate. The god was furious.
“The standing rule of the underworld is this: whenever a document arrives from the world of the living naming a man to be arrested, we of the underworld assist in arresting him. The Wukang county document is here before me, naming you as the pirate, and you dare to brazenly deny it?”
Shen set out the whole business of his colleague’s unpleasant joke. The god would not hear it, and ordered heavier strokes. Shen howled with pain and cried out that he was wronged.
The bailiffs said privately: “The City God has been drinking with his wife and is drunk. You had better take your complaint to another yamen.” Shen looked up and saw the City God’s face red and his eyes half closed, and knew he was deep in his cups, and had no choice but to endure the beating.
When the beating was over the god sent a demon to take him to a certain place and put him in prison. On the way they passed the temple of the Holy Emperor, and Shen shouted his grievance at the top of his voice. The Emperor summoned him in and questioned him face to face.
The Emperor took yellow paper and a red brush and judged:
From your manner of speech you are plainly a scholar. How can the City God get drunk and punish you at random? He should be impeached and punished. Yuan has been on a magistrate’s staff for years and treats human lives as a toy; his span shall be cut short. The magistrate of such-and-such county failed to look into the matter and has his deserts; but as he was absent on other public business, he is fined three months’ salary. Scholar Shen has been beaten in the underworld and his five viscera are injured, and he cannot come back to life; send him to a certain family in Shanxi to be born as their son, and at twenty he will take his jinshi degree, in repayment for the wrong done to him in this life.
When the judgement was finished the demon bailiffs knocked their heads on the ground in terror and scattered.
Shen woke from the dream and felt an unbearable pain in his belly. He called his colleague and told him, and three days later he died.
When Yuan heard of it he hurriedly resigned his post and went home, and before long vomited blood and died. The clay statue in the City God’s temple fell over for no reason. The magistrate was fined three months’ salary over a matter of improperly requisitioned post-horses.
