Text/Murong Zijun
Different dreams
During the Song Dynasty, the Zhejiang merchant Yan Min came from a wealthy family and was very filial. Her father had died many years ago, and her mother, Liu Shi, was also very kind, and when she was in her eighties, she died without illness.
Soon after Liu's death, he said to his son Tomeng: I am also very comfortable in hades, but after I inquired about your father's whereabouts, I learned that he had already reincarnated, so I felt very lonely.
Although I have money, I am old and frail, and I can't find anyone to serve me in this unfamiliar place. Now the hells are examining whether I am guilty in the human world, and if I don't have to reincarnate, it will take a while, hey, why didn't you send the servants in the first place?
Yan Min woke up from the dream, feeling ashamed of his mother, and early the next morning, he invited a painter to paint two women, who looked forty years old and had a good face, and thought: The two women will do their best to serve their mother, so they burned the portrait to their mother.
Who knew that night, his mother said to him in a dream: Are you fooling the ghost? These two women were weak and could not help the wind, and I had to serve them, and I did not take good care of them for a while, one was blown without a trace by the wind, and the other was dying after being wet by the rain.
Yan was very surprised, it was clear that his mother was blaming him for filial piety, so he hurriedly invited craftsmen to make a skeleton of a woman's shape out of wood, painted two beautiful beards, and then burned them to his mother.
Two days later, my mother said to him in a dream: These two little girls are very capable, no longer lonely, and the two of them have taken good care of me.
Next year's Cold Food Festival, Yan Min and his family went to the grave, and that night they dreamed of their mother, saying: The two girls you sent me are so beautiful that they even eloped with people.
Yan Min hurriedly asked: Who did you elope with?
The mother said: It was Liu Ren's little boy, he came to see me the day before yesterday, I knew that he had come here to report when he was young, and he had thought that he and my two beards had come and gone, and they had hooked people away on the same day.
It turned out that this Liu Ren was the younger son of Liu Ren's nephew, and Yan Min asked his son to go to the Liu family a hundred miles away early in the morning to inquire, and the son came back the next day and said: Liu Ren died of illness a few days before the Cold Food Festival.
This Liu Ren behaved inappropriately before he was born, and Liu Shi did not like him much before he was born, so he did not have much contact, and he did not expect that after he went, he also knew to visit his aunt and grandmother, and he also abducted his aunt's mane by the way.
Yan Min was helpless, and invited craftsmen to make two strong beards, and the appearance should not be too beautiful, and then burned to his mother.
At night, my mother said to him in a dream: This is the person I need.
Xiu En
During the Qing Dynasty, there was a farmer named Yin Rong, whose family was poor, and after his parents married him, he went to live with his brother in other places. Not long after his parents left, he was abandoned by his wife, who originally did not dislike the poverty of the family, who knew that he was still a light and wild person.
Every time he went out or went to work in the fields, as long as he saw a beautiful woman on the road, he always stared at people's homes not enough, that was very obscene, so he was scolded for spewing dog blood, and his wife felt humiliated, so she resented and left him, and later heard that his wife had remarried someone else, so he also made a big fuss.
Because Yin Rong was poor, he could not afford to remarry, and every day he was listless. On this day, he came to the field to cultivate, and suddenly saw a young woman, dressed in a red and green dress, coming toward him from the path in the field.
The woman is exquisite and petite, bright eyes and teeth, feminine and not tacky. Seeing her looking east and west, Yin Rong suspected that she was a foreigner, probably lost. Seeing that there was no one around, he went up to talk to the woman and tried to tease her with language.
Who knew that the woman was not angry, nor did she reject him, but also smiled at him, and Yin Rong went to hug the woman with confidence. The woman gently pushed him away and said: How can this be the case when the sky is blue and the sky is white? You had this vice in your last life, and you didn't expect that you would not regret it in this life.
Yin Rong was shocked to hear this, thinking that this woman must be a ghost, but then look closely at the woman's clear eyebrows, it does not look like a ghost, the woman seems to see through his thoughts, said: I am not a demon, please rest assured, after you go home, leave me the door, at night must go to find you.
Yin Rong listened to the woman's words, then relieved, and told her in detail where his family lived, and after the woman heard it clearly, she smiled and left, and after a while there was no trace.
Sure enough, at night, the woman quietly pushed open the door and came in, so the two became intimate. Yin Rong saw that the woman's skin was delicate and there was a fine layer of fluff, so he suspected her again, and repeatedly asked her if she was a fox essence.
The woman said: My name is Xiu'en, which is also the name of my past life, only because we were husband and wife in our past life, so I came to help you, although I was born as a fox in this life, you should not despise me.
Yin Rong didn't believe it and said, "Since you are a fox immortal, why do you still want to find me this poor egg?"
Xiu'en said: In your past life, you were a rich man, and you were a lustful fanatic, who saw different thoughts and thoughts, and you were also weak and widowed. Just because you have a crush on a prostitute, you marry her home as a concubine, and every day you mock my wife as a yellow-faced woman.
I was originally a proper wife, how could I bear the insults you and the concubines inflicted on me, so I hanged myself with hatred, and when I got to Hades, I regretted it again, and I felt that I was dead, so I told the king of Yama that after the officials of the palace found out the truth, they punished you for being a poor egg in this life. And I was tired of being born as a human being, so I asked to be reincarnated as a fox.
The fox is spiritual, you know, when I learned that you were poor and destitute in this life, all this was the result of me denouncing you, it was hard to marry your wife, and because of your bad deeds, my wife could not stand it and ran away, so I couldn't bear it in my heart and came to comfort you.
Yin Rong said angrily: In my past life, I sued you, and it was you who pitied me in this life, your behavior really made me incomprehensible, maybe I owed you in my past life. Since you were born as a fox fairy in this life, you should have every request, and besides, you also have the ability to give me some silver and two, you see I am so poor that my family is surrounded by four walls.
Xiu'en said that this was a small thing that could satisfy him, who knew that when she came at night, she said that she had forgotten to bring it, and when she left, Yin Rong repeatedly instructed her, but in the evening, she did not bring silver two, and smiled and said that she was waiting for a few days.
A few days later, Yin Rong asked Xiu'en for silver two, and Xiu'en smiled and took out two ingots of silver from his sleeve, which looked like five or six or so, and there were small high edges on the silver with small patterns on it. Yin Rong was very happy and quickly hid the silver two in his only broken box.
After about half a year or so, he took out the silver two to prepare to buy some daily necessities, who knew that after others took his silver two and looked at it, they said that it was fake, that it was tin instead of silver.
Yin Rong did not believe it, he bit it with his mouth, and sure enough, he was bitten off, and Yin Rong was so frightened that he quickly ran home and hid the fake silver two, afraid of being known by the government, otherwise he would be arrested and imprisoned.
At night, Xiu'en came over with a smile, and Yin Rong angrily rebuked her and said: You are really a harmful spirit, our grudge in the previous life, in this life I have already received retribution, is it difficult, do you still want me to go to jail?
Xiu'en said contemptuously: Only blame your life in this life is too thin, and you are not blessed with real silver. Yin Rong then sneered and said, "I heard that fox spirits all look like heavenly immortals, but you look bad, what is the reason?"
Xiu'en said: The appearance of our foxes changes with the contact with different people, and you are not even blessed with a piece of silver, how can you consume a beautiful person? You think I'm not pretty, but I'm better than the woman with the numb face and the hunchback.
Not long after this incident, Xiu'en suddenly gave Yin En two or three silver and said: You have asked me several times for silver two, I think you should not have gold and silver hidden in your fate, on the contrary, it will bring you disaster.
Now that the fate of the two of us is over, I will not come to you from now on, because your fateful wife will soon marry you, but you have to prepare a little silver and two, which is the purpose of my coming to help you.
Yin Rong took the silver two and said: How can the silver two, which is only so little, get a wife?
Xiu'en said: You are at ease, the silver I gave you is just right, these two days someone will come to the door to propose to the kiss, this is also the old moon is doomed, but it is not possible. Yin Rong asked how the woman looked.
Xiu'en said: Don't you want to marry a wife who looks like a heavenly immortal? That is naturally the ideal beauty in your heart, don't ask any more, I say too much, I will be condemned by heaven. As soon as he finished speaking, Xiu'en disappeared.
Two days later, sure enough, a matchmaker came to the door to propose kisses, Yin Rong hurriedly asked the matchmaker woman what she looked like, and the matchmaker said: Although this woman is not the beauty of the falling goose and sinking fish, but it is definitely more than enough to match you.
Yin Rong asked how much bride price he wanted, and the matchmaker said: You can rest assured, at most one or two pieces of silver or so, Yin Rong knew that Xiu En was right, and then said to the matchmaker that he wanted to see the woman's appearance.
The matchmaker lowered his head and thought for half a day before saying: A good family woman will not easily show her face to you, but I can think of a way for you to try to meet your requirements.
The next day, the matchmaker came to Yin Rong and said: I have a cousin, who happens to be a distant relative of this woman, and my cousin happens to be in the woman's house, and the two of us pretend to see my cousin, so that you can see the face of your future wife.
Yin Rong followed the matchmaker to the courtyard of the woman's house, saw that the woman was lying on the bed, and another woman was scratching her back, Yin Rong hurried over, and quickly took a look, the facial contours were still beautiful, but they did not see very clearly, because the woman found that a strange man came, and twisted her face to the side.
Yin Rong felt that the woman was still quite beautiful, and after returning home, he immediately asked the matchmaker to discuss the dowry with the woman's family, and the woman's parents did not want much, knowing that his family was poor, as long as one or two silver slightly dressed up for the woman. After the chores were done, the silver two that Xiu'en gave him were just used up.
Yin Rong chose an auspicious day to welcome the bride to the entrance, and when he saw that the bride turned out to be a woman with a chicken breast and a hunchback and a face full of hemp, but the hemp was very small and could not be seen without looking closely. Only then did he understand that what Xiu'en was saying was meaningful.
It seems that the blessings that this Xiu En talks about should be credible, not because he has been practicing for several lifetimes, it is impossible to get a beautiful person, and if he believes in cause and effect, he will certainly not say that this is nonsense.