Chinese Fairy Tales and Fantasies (Pantheon Fairy Tale and Folklore Library) by Moss Roberts

pay to bribe this official and that official—how much for the magistrate’s clerk, the constable, and last of all, the bandit. Paying off the higher-ups and the lower-downs would cost five thousand ounces of silver.
    Now, the wealth of a farmer is in his land; there is little cash. Unable to raise the entire amount, the son was forced to give all the deeds for the land and buildings to the scholar, who took possession of the property in the name of other officials. He even circulated petitions and instructions to his superiors and inferiors to milk the son from every possible angle. To meet these demands the farmer’s son was reduced to “netting sparrows and unearthing rats,” as they say—doing any odd jobs that would turn a penny. At last when the household was stripped clean, the father was set free. One year had gone by.
    While in prison, the farmer felt ever grateful to the scholar for keeping him in mind. Old Fei often remarked that he was lucky to know the young man. When he finally returned home and counted up his losses, all that was left to him in the world was his wretched family. The air shook with his great sobs. But before his tears had time to dry, a representative of the receiver of his property arrived.
    When the farmer had calmed himself, he fell to wondering why a bandit he had never met could have wreaked such vengeance upon him. So he killed a chicken and took it with some wine back to the jail to feast the bandit and ask the cause of his hatred.
    “I ruined you and your family,” the bandit said, “yet you have come to feed me. You must be an honorable man. I can no longer conceal the truth, which is that your brother the scholar instructed the constables to do everything.” Hearing this, the old farmer realized at last what had happened. He dashed to the graduate’s house but time and again was told that scholar Fei was away on business.
    Unable to vent his anger there, the old farmer went home and laid the blame on his daughter-in-law. “If it were not for you,” he said, “this disaster would never have happened.” “Your surnames happened to be the same,” she replied, “so I mentioned it to you. I didn’t ask you to get involved with the man.”
    In his anguish the old farmer cursed her, and she was so outraged that she hanged herself. The son, furious at seeing his wife dead for no reason, also hanged himself. And old Fei, having now neither home nor descendants, put the cord around his own neck too.
    —
Ching Hsing-shao

A Small Favor
     
    Ting Ch’ien-hsi of Chuch’eng in Shantung was a wealthy and chivalrous man who took pleasure in doing justice and setting wrongs to right. But when the imperial censor in residence ordered his arrest to answer certain charges, Ting disappeared. He traveled to Anch’iu county and there ran into a rainstorm, so he took refuge in an inn. By noon the rain had not stopped.
    A young man came with a generous gift of food for Ting. Soon it was dusk, and Ting stayed the night at the young man’s home. Both the traveler and his horse were well taken care of. Ting asked the young man his name. “The master of the house is Mr. Yang. I am his wife’s nephew,” he replied. “He likes to be in the company of friends and has gone out. Only his wife is at home. I fear we are too poor to provide properly for a guest; I hope you will forgive us.”
    Ting asked Mr. Yang’s occupation and learned that he eked out a living by running a gambling den. The next day the rain continued, and Ting and his horse were treated as generously as the day before. At nightfall hay was cut for the horse in bundles that were soaked and uneven. Ting was surprised, and the young man said to him, “To tell you the truth, we are too poor to feed the horse. My uncle’s wife just now pulled some thatch off the roof.”
    Puzzled, Ting thought the lad might be hinting for money and offered him some silver, but it was refused. When Ting insisted, the youth took the silver