There was a medium called Zhang, in Huaijin township in Wuyuan, who was expert in bewitchments and had the power to bring calamity on people. He would demand cash and rice from rich households, and if they gave a little less than he wanted he would leap and caper about — it is called turning somersaults — and that household would at once come out in sores, and sometimes there would be a death. Everyone was in awe of him.
A scholar of the district, Wang Yanrui, admired his knack for making money without working for it, and attached himself to him as a helper. He wrote out a great placard, Gate of Audience with Heaven, and hung it on Zhang’s house.
The medium wore a tall crown, a wide-sleeved crimson gown and a great yellow sash. Every day he mounted a high seat and held forth at length on fortune and misfortune, with some thirty attendants waiting on him.
An archer of the county yamen, one Wang Zao, once passed his gate and was angry that no incense had been burned for him; he sent men to bring Zhang back and question him. Zhang said, “Allow me to wash my hands and pay my respects.” When the incense was finished, he ordered his people to bind Wang.
“This you may not do,” said Wang. “If your talismans are real, let your shadow soldiers take hold of me in mid-air and lay the stick on me. If they are not, I am going straight to tell the magistrate.”
So they let him go. And Wang went straight to the yamen, drew up a complaint, and laid it before the county.
The magistrate, Hong Yingxian, had Zhang seized and brought into court and charged him with deluding the people by sorcery.
“What I practise,” said Zhang, “is the Correct Rites of the Heavenly Heart. It is excellent for curing people’s illnesses. I have never made any sorcery.” His tone and manner were insolent.
“You can turn somersaults,” said the magistrate. “If you can somersault over the drum tower, I will release you.”
At that Zhang was terrified, and bowed again and again and pleaded. The magistrate sent him to prison.
The next day he went in person to examine him, holding in his hand the demon-subduing seal from the Zhengyi register.
“You are always saying your powers reach to the future,” he said. “Tell me, then — what is in my hand?”
Zhang was confounded and had nothing to say. He was given twenty strokes there and then and driven out of the county.
As for the several thousand strings he had collected from the people to build his court of the law, the whole sum was seized into the government treasury to make up the monthly salaries. The people of the district congratulated one another. Wang Yanrui, fearing he would be charged, moved away to another part.
