Li Changming, a garrison captain in Baoding, died suddenly. After three days the body was still warm, and the family had not dared coffin it. Then the belly swelled up like a drum, he urinated, and came back.
He took the hand of the man who was preparing him for burial and said:
“When I died, the pain was extraordinary: the breath went out of me from my toes up to my shoulders and my collar, and would not be gathered back. But once dead I found my body light and agreeable — much better than being alive.
“Where I went, the sky was a deep yellow with no sun in it, and the flying sand was endless. My feet did not touch ground. I saw no houses and no people at all. My spirit drifted, and went southeast on the wind.
“After a long time the sky began to brighten and the sand thinned. I looked down to the northeast and there was a long river with three shepherds in it; the sheep were white and as big as horses. I asked them where I was. They did not answer.
“Another ten miles or so, and I saw, faint in the distance, a palace roofed in yellow glazed tile, like the dwelling of an emperor. As I came near, two men in boots and caps and official belts were standing below the hall, shaped like the Gao Lishi and Tong Guan you see on stage. Above the door was a gold tablet with three characters:
The Palace Where the Earth Ends
“I stood looking at it a long while. One of the belted men got angry and came to drive me off. ‘What kind of place do you think this is, that you stand here?’
“I have always been a stubborn man. I refused to go, and argued with him.
“A voice called from inside the hall: ‘What is that noise outside?’
“The belted man went in. He was a long time. He came out and said: ‘Do not go. Wait for the order.’
“The two of them kept me between them. The sky darkened. A cold wind rose on all sides and the frost came down in slabs like roof tiles. I had been shivering a long while when the two guards began to shiver too, and to snivel, and to point at me in resentment. ‘If you hadn’t come here making a fuss, would we be standing a cold night like this?’
“When the sky greyed, a bell rang inside the hall, and the wind and the frost stopped. Someone else came out and said, ‘The man we kept yesterday is to be sent back where he came from.’ The belted man took me by the arm and walked me off. We passed the same place; the shepherds were still there. The belted man handed me over to them. ‘By order, I give this man to you. Take him home. I’m going.’
“And one of the shepherds punched me.
“I fell into the river in fright, swallowed water, my belly swelled, and I urinated, and woke.”
He washed his hands and face and ate as usual. Ten days later he died after all.
Li’s neighbour Zhang was sleeping one night when he heard voices beside his bed at the third watch. He sat up. Four men in black, each over ten feet tall, said: “Show us the way to Captain Li’s house.” Zhang refused; they moved to strike him; he went, frightened. At Li’s gate two more were crouching on top of the gate, worse-looking still. The four did not dare look up. They went in with Zhang by a path beside the fence — and presently the sound of weeping began inside.
