At a place called Haikou within the commandery of Xinghua there had stood from old a shrine to the Lady Lin — nobody knew in what year it was raised. The building was not large, but its wonders were long known. Every merchant who put to sea would go to pray beneath it and cast the divination blocks, asking her unseen protection, and only then dare to sail. For there had been men far out in the ocean, caught by a cruel wind, who had bowed a hundred times toward her across the water and seen the goddess appear at the masthead.
Now a certain Wu, the wealthiest man of the village, owned woodland of great richness, deep and thick through the whole valley. A customer came, pointed to a certain stand, and asked to buy. Wu agreed, and asked three thousand strings. The customer offered three hundred.
Wu laughed. “You come to buy timber and offer one part in ten. You are playing with me. There is no way to settle it.” And the customer left.
That night there was a great wind and rain. At dawn the Wu household opened the gate — and three hundred strings of cash lay stacked neatly on the ground.
While they were still wondering, a man came from outside to report that most of the timber the customer had wanted was blown down and broken. They ran to look, and on the bark of every tree still standing were written three characters: Lady Lin.
Only then did they understand whose doing this was. Wu took incense and paper at once and went to the shrine to give thanks. Seeing that the timber had been hauled to the open ground beside the shrine, and understanding that the goddess wanted it, he made over to her every tree on the mountain, and carted the original price back to the shrine’s custodian besides, to help with the cost of building.
Word spread near and far, and people came in crowds. One old man, the richest in the district, was stingy alone, and gave thirty thousand. The others thought it far too little and asked him to increase it; he would not listen. Then he sent his servant out through the gate carrying the money — and it was as though a great weight pressed down on him, and he could not move a step. In his terror the old man repented on the spot and raised his gift to a million.
The new shrine was finished in no time: several hundred bays of building, its halls vast, its towers lofty and splendid. It is the foremost shrine in Fujian to this day.
