The Prince of Enping married the daughter of Wang Yi, a vice-director of the Ministry of Revenue, and the family accordingly lodged in the Arhat Hall of the Dashan Temple in Yue prefecture. The second son, Wang Yuanqing, was in and out of the prince’s palace supervising the repair works, and he built as he pleased. As for what are called the taboos of quarter and corner, he asked about none of them.
In the fourth month of the thirteenth year of the Chunxi era he fell dangerously ill, and they moved him into an outer study.
On the twenty-sixth day, towards evening, in a state between sleeping and waking, he saw a man of great size — nine feet or more — in a Tang-dynasty cap, a white coat and a black sash.
“You have offended the Nine-Beam Star,” the man said. “You are to die. I have come to tell you. There is one way to avert it. At the third watch tonight two divinities will come, and they will mean you no good. Take a length of timber, cover it with your quilt, and lay it on the bed. Then spread something on the floor and sleep on that, and you will escape this.”
Wang knocked his head on the ground and undertook to do it.
Then it was the middle of the night, and the two came indeed — strange of shape, fierce of aspect, hideous and terrible. They went buzzing and blundering about as though they were searching for something. Then there was a rending noise, and the man in the Tang cap came out and said: “Congratulations. Congratulations. He is pulp.” He raised a hand and drew them away, and the two departed.
“May I know,” said Wang, “what divinity you are, that I should be shielded and saved with such trouble to you?”
“In a former life you served me most diligently,” he said. “That is why I have saved you. There is no need to ask the particulars.” And he went out at a run.
At daybreak they looked at the timber inside the quilt. It was broken into shavings.
The illness left him from that hour. He wanted to repay the kindness and could not find how — and then he recalled that when he had seen him, the coat had been old and rather shabby. So he had two bolts of silk made into a great gown, wrote a memorial, and burned it with paper money.
His elder brother Zhengqing wrote an account of this.
