In Liuzhou prefecture in western Guangdong there was an earth-god temple. In the corridor stood a god of mean and shabby appearance in a black robe and horned belt, which the local people called the Clay Puppet.
When the prefect was honest, both hands stayed tucked inside its robe sleeves. When a corrupt man governed the prefecture, the arms stretched out in the posture of a beggar asking for money.
Some time before, a certain lord came as prefect and took bribes without limit, and the god’s hands came a foot out of the sleeves. Wishing to conceal it, that lord sent a trusted servant by night to the temple corridor to force the arms back into the sleeves. Next morning they were five inches further out, and the fingers were clenched so hard they could not be opened.
Deeply ashamed, he brought victims and silk and sacrificed.
Within ten days the hands suddenly opened, and after a few more days they withdrew gradually into the sleeves. The lord was delighted in private, and concluded that the god too could be bribed with gifts. He did not know that a censor’s memorial against him had already been entered, and that the new prefect, Lord Pang, was on his way.
Lord Pang, whose name was Tingji and who was my wife’s cousin by marriage, had risen from the Grand Secretariat to a department headship and was now promoted out to a prefecture. He was a man of stubborn integrity, and the god had shown him in advance.
One day the arms began to come out of the sleeves again. The lord was badly frightened and examined his own household privately. It turned out that a subordinate official had sent him two tubs of lychees with three hundred ounces of gold packed in among them, and that he had accepted them without knowing it.
He returned them at once, and the arms snapped back into the sleeves. From that time to the end of his term of office, he never possessed a coin of his own.
— The author’s comment: the physiognomy manuals say that a man whose hands hang below his knees is certainly destined for great honour. So there it is: the clay puppet is a god of great honour.
